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yandere-wishes · 4 years

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Yandere Charcter Encyclopedia

A list of some requested charcters and the types of yandere’s they would be. I might open requests for a part two later idk yet.

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Twisted Wonderland

Vil Schoenheit is controlling and possessive.

You need to be the BEST!

It's more so this lovesick notion that Vil seems to be "in love with" rather than you as a person. No one knows exactly why Vil chose you as his dearly significant other and Vil has never given any inkling as to why he favors you above everybody else. It's a paradox, an unsolvable mystery. But the truth is Vil fell in love with you, not for your looks, nor your personality, heck you didn't even really do some outstanding gesture that pulled at his heartstrings, no, instead you did nothing. Confusing, I know but let me explain, you were a nobody. No breathtaking looks, no fantastic personality, no influential family. There was NOTHING special about you! This means you had the potential to be something special, something extraordinary and the only person in the universe who could raise you to such levels was nonother than the head of Pomfiore, Vil Schoenheit!

Every day he spends hours making sure you look perfect, a face painted in just the right ways to make others believe you had the features of an angel sent from above. Posture so straight, shoulders pulled back to make others think you were the long lost heiress to some fallen family. Never once did you speak out of place or with a tone harboring too many emotions, every word that left your mouth was so well thought out and prepared that others could only suspect you were some sort of genius.

You were nothing, that's what made Vil notice you in the first place, that's what made him mold you into the perfect someone. Whatever you are now is only thanks to your darling, caring lover...never forget that.

Rook Hunt is delusional.

Rook's brain is an incredibly messed up place and it only gets worst the longer he's around you. You are a little rabbit, nimble and sweet and he is the hunter that wants to stick a bow right through your beating heart, a lovely pair you two make, wouldn't you agree? But the more he stalks you, following you around like a second shadow. The more he realizes that he doesn't want you simply for the thrill of a small chase...oh no, he wants to keep you. Put you in a golden cage and throw away the key. You're not some rare catch like le roi des lions or a breathtaking sight like le roi des poisons. No instead you're simple, you aren't a game of nither wit nor strength, you are simply a game of love. Because you love him already don't you? You know he's been following you and doesn't do anything about it because you want him to catch you, right? You want the greatest hunter to hit you with his cupid's arrow so you can fall into his awaiting arms, right where you belong!

Azul is manipulative (were you guys seriously expecting something else?)

Azul is all calculations and deals, all wit and talk. He's got guts to go up against just about anyone he meets and he’s smart enough to turn them into a fish out of water. So maybe it was his confidence that let’s you slip away with lax deals, bending the rules for a helpless little angelfish such as yourself. He doesn't notice that he has feelings for you, not until you stroll into the VIP room of the Mostro Lounge looking for your "dearest friend Azul", all to simply ask him for a contract to make the lousy excuse of an Ignyhide dorm leader fall in love with you. It's then and there that Azul decides it's time to toughen up the rules, tighten the noose around your pretty little neck. You don't even notice until you're rejected by Idia and some strang red string is dragging you into Azul's waiting embrace.

Kalim is delusional and obsessive.

To Kalim, this is just another heart-filled game. You belong to him and he belongs to you, it's simple! The two of you are so in love...it's just you're a little shy when it comes to admitting it! That's okay, Kalim knows a few drinks from the land of hot sands that will loosen your tongue and if that fails there's always Jamil's hypnosis magic that can make you confess! Look, no matter how you go about it, Kalim is just all so convinced that you love him that it doesn't matter what you really think!

Ruggie is manipulative (Lord have mercy on you people the day I finally muster up the courage to write Savancalw yandere headcanons)

Oh sure, male hyenas are passive when it comes to females everyone knows that! But whilst Ruggie does follow -albeit loosely- the reserved yet desperate routines of hyena courtship, he leans more towards suffocating his chosen mate with his presence rather than showing a desperate side of himself. He's always circling his chosen darling, stalking them down the halls, trailing after them all over campus, he never leaves them alone. Any confrontations from his darling will lead to an immediate sob story. Something about how he could smell food in your bag and didn't have any money to buy his own meal or maybe about how he never met a girl as cute as you in slums so he had no idea how to approach you properly. Of course, this is all a hoax, he just needs you to drop your guard, to look him in the eyes with your sad, heart-throbbing orbs, then it's game over, you're all his. "Hey, what's with the dull face? come on, laugh with me skskksks~".

Jack is a protective.

It's only natural really, wolves are overprotective when it comes to their pack members and sure maybe you aren't really a part of his pack per se. But that doesn't mean he's just going to leave you to fend for yourself. You're all so small and frail, you could never hold your own against anyone! Let alone all the mages in NRC. But Jack can, he can protect you and defend himself, it's not a problem. He's very likely torn on whether or not to actually kidnap his darling. On one hand, he doesn't want you to hate him for stealing you away from your friends, he wouldn't want to play the role of the big bad wolf in your story. But on the other hand, poor Jack just isn't lucid enough to fully understand that whisking you away is wrong. In the end, you probably just wind up in his room locked away, or better yet, protected from all the horrors of the outside world.

Deuce is an obsessive

He just wants to be around you all the time. It's mostly some deep routed paranoia that at any fleeting moment you'll somehow abandon him finding refuge with either Cater or Ace. Maybe you find their lazy stupid mannerisms amusing, is that it? If you want lazy, he can be lazy too! Or maybe you want to be with Riddle? Do you like guys who are mean spirited and quick to anger? He can yell! He can yell so much better than Riddle can! Deuce will do anything, anything at all to get you to stay with him. Even if some of his tactics are a little more painful and involve some broken bones.

Hypnosis Mic

Jakurai is possessive and protective

He's overbearing to put it simply, constantly hovering around you, ghosting his fingers over your flesh, or leaving lingering kisses on any patch of exposed skin. First and foremost Jakurai is a doctor, so it's his nature to be nurturing, sure you can accept that much. But what he does to you isn't nurturing in any way shape or form! Juakurai isn't above using sedatives and other forms of medications to keep you compliant, that's not what a good doctor should do, you're both lucid enough to know that. But to Ill-Doc you leave him no other choice, you're constantly disobeying him, trying to find some underhanded way to leave him. So what else can the poor man do! He needs to keep his only escape from the tedious loneliness he's been cursed with, safe!

kamigami no asobi

Balder is possessive and obsessive

He can't help it, there's just something so radiant and sparkling inside of you, something that he can't let get tainted by the darkness that rests within others. You're always walking on thin ice around him, chewing every single word before conversing, calculating every single step before daring to make the slightest move. One wrong look or miscalculated word could get him to spiral into a fit madness, and this time there won't be anyone to save you. But that's only if you do the wrong thing! Just keep playing the role of the loving, adoring girlfriend and there won't be any further...complications. If you simply show him how much you love him, Balder can become all so sickly sweet. A perfect doting boyfriend, constantly sharing his precious meat with you and dressing you up in prettiest lavish gowns from Asgard.

Obey me

Asmodeus is sneaky

The avatar of lust is used to swift meaningless relationships, too caught up in the passion and pleasure to really care about the other person. But with his darling things are different. Oh sure, the lust and sexual tension is still there, always hovering around the air like a thick unbreakable fog. Accept this time there's something else, a sort of jealous aroma blowing through the dense mist. It's intoxicating, making Asmoudaus crave only his little darling, he only wants to look at them, touch them, kiss only them! It's almost like he's addicted to every itty bitty detail about his newfound lover. Will Asmodeus get bored of the relationship over time? Absolutely! But will he ever actually leave his darling to their own devices? Hell no! Asmodeus may have the right to cheat on his darling but they can NEVER so much as think about another man other than him! HE.OWNS.THEM! Their body, mind, soul, it all belongs to him!

Black Butler

Snake is Jealous (I haven't written for black butler since, like, sixth grade)

Snake does love you, this is an evident fact, he never once leaves your side. It's suffocating sure, but it's only because the scaled boy is so paranoid that you might run away with someone else, someone normal. His snakes (mostly Emily) are always chaining the two of you together, constantly curling around your skin so you won't get any ideas to escape. Lord forbid you so much as look at another man, that'll make the white-haired snake charmer go into a fit of pure utter rage. normally Snake won't punish you, but when his jealousy gets too much to keep inside he'll let it out by screaming at you. Asking you if you find him repulsive if you wish to leave him for someone who looks normal. This will than lead to him crushing you in his arms, begging you not to leave him! Overall Snake is one of the tamer yandere of the Phantomhive residence, a real blessing in disguise.

mystic messenger

Saeyoung is obsessive

It's really all just a small accident, this was never really meant to happen, he wasn't meant to fall in love with you. Saeyoung probably just came across your profile whilst on the web, scrolling through some database or another. like I said, IT.WAS.AN.ACCIDENT...and yet all so many times accidents can lead to something...more. Saeyoung doesn't know what particular thing it was about you that caught his attention, maybe it was your cute face or some little odd, out of place detail in your bio. Either way, it has the red-haired hacker surfing through every site just to learn more about you. Picking the internet apart just to find out some small fragments of your personal life. It's become a sort of hobby -addiction- of his, stalking your every move through trackers and reverse cameras. One day he might even gather the courage to speak to you in person, but for now, he's content watching your pretty face from behind a screen.

Code Realize

Impey is Obessasive and clingy

It's your smile, right from the get-go, Impey was enthralled by your cheerful smile. It makes his heart skip a beat, his palms grow sweaty, and his breath hitches in his throat. He just adores that pearly white grin. He's constantly pestering you, poking your cheek, and asking you to smile for him just once more. "Just a small smile, please~". His clinginess is mostly due to the fear of losing you or more so having you stolen from him. That's why he never let's go of your hand and is constantly locking you in his room. "I'm the only one that deserves to see that smile" it's such a childish phrase, primarily when it's accompanied by his renowned pout. Of course, things start to go downhill when you outright refuse to smile. Choosing instead to cry and scream, begging someone to save you from this mad man. Impey is borderline delusional if he thinks you'll ever smile for him again, after the stunt he's pulled.

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the-cult-of-russo · 3 years

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Push and Pull (Part 15)

Pairing: Matt Murdock x OC

Warnings: cursing, smut

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It was bright and early when Daphne woke up the next morning. She had things to do and no time to waste. The sun was shining through her window, the weather finally starting to get warmer. She put on some leggings with a tank top and then her zip up hoodie over it. She groaned at her hair in the mirror as she dragged her brush through the unruly locks. So many times she considered cutting it so it wasn't so much work, but she knew she'd regret it. Instead, she settled on tossing it up into a high pony and ignoring it. Her trusty backpack was slung around her shoulder and she hopped around as she put her vans on before leaving the apartment.

She squinted slightly at the light once she got out of the building but it didn't deter her. First stop. Coffee. One large latte to go later, she was on her way to see Brett to find out what news he might have. She tossed her now empty cup in the trash can beside the station before she jogged up the steps and inside. She never checked in with the desk, she was a ghost when she was here. That's how it worked. It wasn't such a secret anymore than she was on Brett's payroll which left her to come and go as she pleased, but officially, she was never there. When she walked into the office area, Brett was sitting at his desk just like the day before. He looked like he hadn't even gone home.

"You look like shit," she mused teasingly, putting down the other coffee she'd gotten for him. His eyes lit up at the sight of it and he gave her a tired smile.

"You're an angel," he muttered with a long pull from his drink as she sat down. The coffee at the precinct was the worst and never really did its job.

"Any news yet?" She tried to hide the impatience in her voice but she wasn't sure she succeeded.

"Actually, we do have something. Not quite sure the full details yet though," he murmured. She looked at him expectantly.

"The people we rescued, their fingertips were burnt right off just like the last time. We can't identify most of 'em until they're fully coherent. But they're doing alright. I just can't believe the Chinese were at it again right under our goddamn noses," he fumed, taking another slurp of his coffee.

"I'm not surprised. They probably picked it back up when the heat turned off them again," she sighed. She hoped that once the victims were in a better state they'd be able to get names from them. Some of them might have family that were looking for them.

"Anything from the device?" She asked hopefully

"Yeah, actually. The Chinese requested the meet. They were pretty vague about a lot of shit but they kept saying something about the Italians having a weapon and they wanted to use it. Seemed to be brokering a deal about it. I got no idea what the hell this weapon is, but the Chinese really fucking want it and the Italians already have it. And that makes me nervous as shit," he frowned.

It made her nervous too. What did the Italians have that the Chinese couldn't get for themselves? And why did they want it?

"Well that's unsettling," she huffed with a shake of her head.

"Tell me about it. Good news though, that device you planted must be well hidden. It’s still live and active," he flashed her a grin and she smiled herself as she gave herself a mental pat on the back.

"Do you think it'll be useful?" She inquired.

"No telling yet. I mean mostly it'll be the kitchen staff but it might pick up something. Any other meets we might not be aware of or anyone saying something. Even something small can lead to something big, right?" He smirked, practically quoting her. It made her chuckle.

"At least that's something. If we can figure out what weapon the Italians have we can figure out how bad this all is," she said softly. It made her nervous and she had a feeling things would get messy soon in Hell's Kitchen.

"Here's hoping. There ain't much for you to do with the case right now but I'll let you know when we get any more information. It's just a waiting game now," he replied.

"Ah, my favourite," she smirked sarcastically, causing him to snort. She wasn't known for having patience. She liked answers and she liked them immediately. But in this case, playing the long game would be the only option to getting to the bottom of it all.

She bid her goodbyes to him not long after that before making her way back out into the sunshine. Now it was her next pit stop. A short cab ride later and she was at a very fancy luxurious home. It was more like a mansion and was three stories high. It looked like it was right out of a movie with one of those grand entrances and a water feature out front. She was well out of place as dressed down as she was but she knocked on the door anyway. She wasn't even surprised when a butler answered the door.

"Can I help you, miss?" The older man asked softly. His black and white uniform was crisp and clean and it put her own rumpled clothes to shame.

"I'm here to see Mrs Grimes. I'm Daphne Weaver," she replied awkwardly.

"One moment please," he shut the door and she quirked her brow at how formal all this was. This better pay well. Suddenly the door opened again and he smiled at her.

"This way please. She's been hoping you'd come," he seemed a little friendlier now. Maybe it was because his boss wanted her here so he wasn't all suspicious of what she wanted. Either way, she followed him inside. He led her up the huge ass staircase, the kind that split off at the middle. Everything looked like it cost a million dollars, from the art to all the rare looking things in cabinets. She didn't even feel worthy enough to touch the banister so she kept her hands in her hoodie pocket.

The carpet was lush and a deep purple colour and she found her eyes wandering the hallway they walked down. How many rooms does someone need? No wonder she had staff, upkeep on this place would be a ball ache. They reached a room far down the left and he knocked on the heavy looking mahogany door.

"Enter," a female voice rang out. It was slightly accented but she couldn't place it. Jeeves opened the door and gestured for her to go inside. She glanced around the room curiously as she walked in. It was a living area with a grand fire. Heavy bookcases lined the walls of the room and were filled with what looked to be antique books that Daphne found herself wanting to look at. There was a giant fur rug in front of the fireplace with velvet looking sofas set in front of it.

That's where Mrs Grimes was sitting, looking perfectly in place for where she was. She was wearing a long black dress, heels bigger than anything Daphne could ever walk in. Her greying blonde hair was neatly coiffed and pinned up and she was dripping in diamonds. Jesus.

"Pleasure to meet you Ms Weaver, please sit," she smiled warmly at her, gesturing to the other sofa. Daphne was half worried her vans would dirty the goddamn carpet as she padded over and plonked down. Despite it being completely over the top and not really her taste, she did appreciate however how clean and neat everything was kept. A place like this could easily fall into being cluttered and dusty but it was pristine. She supposed the staff were to thank for that. Mrs Grimes' nails were so long she doubted she could do much cleaning herself. Daphne wasn't sure how she didn't accidentally gauge her own eyes out.

"Would you like something to drink?" She asked politely. Jeeves was still hovering near the door no doubt waiting for his command. She was tempted to say yes to see what kind of beverages the other side drank, but she didn't want to stay long.

"Uh… no thank you. I'm fine," she replied with an awkward smile.

"Very well. Hammond, leave us," she dismissed the man at the door. He gave a dramatic nod before he left and shut the door behind him. She idly wondered if he ever wanted to punch his bosses when they commanded him to do things like that. She'd never be able to hold a job like that down.

"I'm glad you came, I was worried you wouldn't," the older woman started, elegantly crossing one leg over the other.

"A job's a job," Daphne snorted lightly, her hands still stuffed in her pockets lest she touch something and ruin it. Mrs Grimes gave her a tense smile, looking like it was difficult to be polite. Maybe she wasn't used to the lower class being in her home.

"Indeed it is. Will you take the case?" She asked hopefully.

"Yeah, I'll be able to do it. As I tell all my clients, I don't give out time frames. I never know how long it'll take me to find what I need or what roadblocks might come up. I don't appreciate impatience and it doesn't make me work any faster," she said firmly. Establishing boundaries was the first thing she liked to do. It was important. Especially with the wealthy ones as in her experience they tended to be the impatient ones with their self importance.

"Very well. I accept your terms. And please, whatever you find, do tell me," she implored. Daphne nodded, she always did no matter how shitty the information she'd gained was. Mrs Grimes stood, walking somehow with grace and ease in those monster heels as she walked over to a cupboard near the wall. She opened a drawer and came back with some paper.

"Me and my husband used to be very much in love. And I'm afraid now that I'm older he's decided to find other companions. Call me paranoid but I'm sure you understand when to look into a gut feeling," she mused as she walked back over and sat down. Daphne nodded again. Her gut was rarely wrong and it was telling her that Mrs Grimes was right.

"I want confirmation. I want to know who with and how deep it runs. If it's just physical or something more. I want to prepare myself should he try to divorce me and take what I have. I need proof," she stated seriously. Daphne's eyes subconsciously swept across the room and all the fancy things in it.

"I know what you're thinking. And I was the one with money, not him. He makes a decent amount with his job but I was born with money. This house was passed through my family for generations. Everything in it I bought. But over the years I've had my eyes opened to how greedy my husband can be. I cannot trust if we separate that he won't try to take everything from me," she sounded bitter and Daphne wasn't surprised. They definitely sounded like they had issues and once trust was gone in a relationship, everything else had no foundation to stand on. It wouldn't last. She commended the woman for thinking ahead to make sure she was protected if it came down to it. This kind of bullshit was why relationships were too much work.

"I'll find out what I can. I'll be honest, some of my methods aren't quite… legal. But it gets the job done," Daphne muttered. Things like breaking and entering were definitely illegal and then there was hacking if she ever needed to do it, which in this case might prove useful.

"Good," Mrs Grimes smirked at her. She found herself smirking back at her. The rich typically didn't care too much about how she got the information, just that she got it. Mrs Grimes reached down to her Gucci purse, setting it on her lap and she grabbed something out of it. It was her wallet and Daphne was curious what her offer would be. She hadn't spoken to her about price points yet and when it came to her wealthier clients she made a point of waiting to see what their offer would be first. Usually she’d haggle a little just because she could. They'd have the money and they wanted the information.

She watched with a keen eye as Mrs Grimes took a chunk of money out and handed it to her. A quick count told her it was $1000 and it took effort for her eyes to not bulge out as she kept a cool calm facade.

"That's the deposit. You'll get the rest when the work is complete. Another $1000. I may give you more depending on just how much you find out," she drawled. So she wouldn't need to haggle then, this price was insane and way more than what the job would entail, but like fuck she would tell her that. She also appreciated the incentive. She liked a challenge, something to work towards. The more she found out then the more she'd get paid.

"Sounds good to me. I'll get started in the next few days," she replied, keeping her calm demeanour and not acting like she was thinking of what she would spend her money on once she got it all. She carefully stuffed it in her backpack before zipping it back up. She almost jumped when the older woman dinged a bell beside the table and it took all of her willpower not to roll her eyes as the butler walked in.

"Yes, Mrs Grimes?" He enquired politely.

"Please see Ms Weaver out. Have one of our drivers drop her off to wherever she needs to go," she commanded softly. Part of her wanted to protest but the other wanted to pretend she lived the fancy life, even if just for a moment.

They both stood and Mrs Grimes took her hand in one of those fancy people hand shakes that were flimsy and light.

"It was a pleasure, Ms Weaver. I hope to hear from you soon," she smiled.

"Likewise," she replied, not really knowing what to say. No matter how many well off clients she saw she always felt weird and out of place interacting with them. She followed Jeeves out the hall and down the large stairs case. He stopped when he got by the front door and picked up a phone that was attached to the wall. She stood there looking around as the man spoke in hushed tones down the receiver before hanging up and then opening the grand front door.

"Have a lovely day, Ms Weaver," he bowed politely.

"Uh… you too," she murmured as she stepped outside.

The door shut with a clang behind her and she was suddenly on her own outside. It didn't last long though as a large black car pulled up right at the entryway.

"Ms Weaver?" A man called out after rolling the window down. She nodded and walked over. She was getting sick of being called that name. The man hopped out, jogging over to the back of the car and opening the door for her. This really was fancy service. She gave him an uncomfortable smile, not used to this level of service from anyone. It felt wrong almost. But she slipped inside and settled in the ridiculously comfy car seats.

"Where to, Miss?" The man asked once he was situated behind the wheel again.

"Um… Fogwell's gym please," she murmured in response. He punched in something on the phone he was using with the GPS and then he took off. There was a reason she was dressed the way she was after all. She didn't want to think of Matt being a weird asshole the day before. As much as part of her considered not going, she really needed to train and she knew he would be there. She was too stubborn to let Matt's weird PMSing get in the way of her learning to defend herself properly.

The drive was uncomfortably silent and she clutched her backpack on her knees. She wondered what it was like to live this life full time. She was a bitch but she didn't feel right with commanding people to do shit, even if she was paying them. It just felt off to her. Before long, the car pulled up in front of the gym. She almost felt like she should pay him or something, totally not used to this kind of exchange. As she unbuckled her seat belt, the man got out and ran around to her door. He opened it and she slipped out, swinging her bag over her shoulder. She noticed the apprehensive look on his face as he looked at the rundown gym.

"Are you sure, Miss?" He asked quietly, like he was asking her to blink twice if she needed help. She almost snorted but gave him a polite smile. She guessed his boss wasn't used to being around places like this. She appreciated his sentiments all the same though.

"I'm sure," she said softly. He nodded, still looking unhappy about it but there was nothing he could do. With a nod, he was back in the car and taking off by the time she walked through the door.

She was quiet and heard loud grunting and the hits of a punching bag. As she came into view, she saw Matt beating the holy hell out of the bag. His fists were flying, grunts and pants leaving his lips with the flurry of punches. The graceful savagery was what always intrigued her about him. But then typically he'd open his mouth and ruin it. He hadn't seemed to notice her yet once again which honestly was perturbing since anyone could come in here and sneak up on him like that. She walked over to the bench, setting her backpack down with a thud. The grunts and punches stopped instantly and the only sound that echoed in the gym was Matts heavy breathing.

"Didn't think you'd show," he said carelessly.

"I wasn't sure either honestly. But I need to train, even if I do have to put up with your bitch ass," she muttered as she started wrapping her hands. He scoffed as he came over, grabbing his water bottle and drinking a large pull from it. He tossed the bottle down again as he made his way to the ring.

"Alright, come on then," he demanded.

"What? I don't get to warm up first?" She asked skeptically with a raised brow. He snorted coldly and shook his head.

"You wanna know how to defend yourself for real, there is no warming up. When you're out there in a situation like this, you don't get that luxury," he retorted. She rolled her eyes but honestly couldn't argue with sound logic.

Instead, she bit her tongue as she put on the gloves and climbed inside of the ring. Matt cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders as they squared off with one another.

"Let's go," he smirked devilishly. He lunged at her but she moved just in time, twirling around as they practically traded places. They started trading blows, although his were very clearly intended not to hurt her, and she was pleased she got some good jabs in. She didn't slow down or stop this time when he deflected or managed a light shot to her side. She just came back twice as hard. She was proud of herself. Her heart was thumping away from the adrenaline and the exertion of the sparring after a while and she leaned against the ropes as they both caught their breath.

"You did good. You're getting better," he sounded reluctant to give her the praise and she rolled her eyes a little at him.

"I want you to teach me how to get out of the hold from last time," she said firmly. His head turned to her then, his hazel eyes not quite landing directly at her as he narrowed them.

"Daphne, I don't think-" he started, only to be promptly cut off.

"It's fine. I need to learn and I'll get over it. I think I'll be fine this time," she urged. She meant it too. She still had lingering effects of her attack but she was feeling a little better recently. And after her and Matt's partially regrettable night together, she hadn't had a nightmare for the first night since it happened. She knew the sex had helped. Whenever she needed to feel better and clear her head, she would have sex. It's why her sister was so worried it would become a crux for her. Her sex with Matt had done wonders for her stress and anxiety over the whole thing so she felt like now was the perfect time to try to learn it.

He was quiet for a moment before heaving a heavy sigh. He yanked his gloves off and tossed them out of the ring and she followed suit before he changed his mind. Climbing to the floor, she lay on her back and bent her knees just like the last time. As he knelt down between her legs, it was hard not to think of the night they shared together and how similar it was.

"Ready?" He asked reluctantly. She gave him a firm nod he couldn't see but could sense and he brought his hands to her throat. Once again, he applied very little pressure but she lay perfectly still. Her heart wasn't hammering like crazy, she wasn't seeing Keiran hovering over her. She was fine. Matt stayed still as he did his head tilt thing and it took her a moment to realise he was listening to her heartbeat to check if she was okay or not. It was kind of creepy but she let it go.

He talked her through the steps of how to get out of that kind of hold. One at a time he'd tell her what to do and correct her if she got it wrong as they did a slow mo version one part at a time to ensure she knew each step. It was more complicated than the last one but after a few step by step tries she thought she had a good idea on what to do. Now it was time to get out of it for real.

"3, 2 ,1," he counted, preparing her somewhat so she didn't lose her shit like last time. This time he applied some pressure around her throat but it was still practically nothing. She felt his weight bearing down on her and she grabbed his right forearm with her left and then used her right hand to grip his left shoulder in a cross grip. Using her left foot, she pushed off his hip, pivoting her pelvis to the right so he was no longer directly above her. She hooked her right leg high up on his back, right under his armpit and she kept a firm grip on him as her left leg moved to wrap around his shoulder too, locking it onto her other. She grabbed his wrist, the one that was in her grip that was now at her mercy on her chest. She knew if she thrust her pelvis upwards sharply she would break his arm at his elbow.

It had happened so fast but she caught herself before completing the maneuver and felt pleased with herself. She let go of his arm and rolled them over so he was now under her. They were both panting and she laughed lightly, feeling good she actually did it. She was a little sweaty and she looked down at where he lay under her. His brow had a slight sheen to his and his hair was doing that thing where it went every which way. His eyes were wandering as he caught his breath with a grin. She wasn't the only one enjoying their session it seemed.

She felt his hands glide up her thighs that were around him and she'd be a liar if she said it didn't make her tingle. His unseeing eyes were burning into her, pupils blown wide. She went to move off him but he held her in place, only now she was hovering right in front of his face. One of his hands rested on the base of her neck and he pulled her down a little. She stayed still though and resisted as her lips were a breath away from his.

"We're not on the same page, remember?" She teased him, enjoying seeing him this worked up. She squeaked when her back hit the mat when he rolled them over quickly. She hadn't expected it.

"I'm over it," he smirked devilishly at her before his lips collided with hers.

She should have really stopped to think about it. To assess the validity of his words. But sex with Matt was something else and it made her feel amazing. All her stress and worries melted away last time. And although she knew going down that rabbit hole wasn't good with her past of sometimes becoming dependant on sex for her own mental well being, she couldn't really help herself. She blamed Matt for being insufferable and ridiculously attractive. The kiss was rough and demanding and she gave into him, moaning as he pushed himself against her through the thin fabric of their pants. He knelt up, tugging at his vest and lifting it over his head. Something dawned on her then.

"We're gonna do this here? What if someone walks in?" She snorted amused. She wasn’t one to shy away from sex in weird places but she didn't want some old dude walking in and getting a free show. He tossed his vest on the floor as he chuckled, jumping to his feet and climbing out the ring. She sat up, watching him curiously as he went and locked the door from the inside. She couldn't take her eyes off him as he prowled back to her though. The predatory grace he held, the way his sculpted body moved. In her needy and horny haze she found herself impatient for him to return and she felt like he was taking his time to tease her if his smirk was anything to go by. She pulled her shirt off and then her bra, tossing them in a heap beside them as Matt toed off his shoes.

He knelt back down then, his hands curling her ankles and yanking them lightly. Her back hit the mat with a light thud and she looked up at him shocked before laughing. With a wicked grin, he pulled her leggings and panties off together but painfully slow and her desire was increasing with every second he made her wait for it. She wouldn't beg though. She sat back up, tugging at his shorts and he bent down, kissing her roughly as she yanked them down with his boxers. She fisted him tightly and he moaned into her mouth, causing her to smirk into the kiss. Letting go, she pulled the shorts and boxers all the way off him before pushing him onto his back.

It was his turn to look mildly shocked and she climbed on top of him, her slick heat trapping his cock against his belly. His eyes were darting around her face and she leant forward, catching his lower lip with her teeth. He let out a long groan, arching up at her as she tugged it before letting it go with a pop. She sat up, pushing up on her knees before she gripped him and lined herself up. Without a word she sank down onto him and the pair moaned in relief. It was instant for her, that feeling of him filling her up like that. Knowing her release would come soon. She rested her hands on his firm chest for leverage as she started moving her hips. His hands felt like they were all over her body at once. Not soft or sweet, but firm and demanding and he took in every detail of her body.

The gym was filled with moans and gasps as she rode him hard, her anger at his behaviour and the thrill of fighting with him fuelling her pleasure. She almost found it ironic that they were fucking in a boxing ring with how often they fought. He pulled her down roughly, lips smashing against hers as he ravaged her mouth. She felt that euphoric feeling getting closer, her whole body tingling in anticipation. She got faster and harder, chasing the release she was after like her life depended on it.

"Don't stop," Matt groaned against her lips, one hand gripping the back of her neck while the other was on her ass, fingers digging into her flesh. She had no plan on stopping though. Not when she was this close. She kept up the pace and then she moaned loudly, her body tensing lightly as she clamped down around him.

He let out the hottest fucking noise she’d ever heard a human make and it only heightened her own pleasure as she rode the waves of her orgasm. He was clinging onto her tightly, rutting up into her as he panted and then groaned, spilling himself inside of her. He relaxed instantly. Hands falling to his sides. She sat there on top of him as she tried to catch her breath. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair had started falling out of her ponytail. She was thoroughly fucked and in the best way. That beautiful feeling was coursing through her veins as she let the hormones and endorphins flow though her.

She climbed off him carefully before standing up and stretching.

"I'm gonna hit the shower," she hummed sounding blissful as she scooped up her clothes. She walked completely naked to the showers and got herself cleaned up and presentable. She didn't regret it, it was amazing and she felt good now. And from the sounds he made, he enjoyed himself too. She just hoped he meant it when he said they were on the same page.

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

Matt stood in his own shower in the men’s changing rooms as he let the cold water pelt him. His brain was a fried mess and he leaned against the cool tiles as he tried to just think clearly. He wasn't sure why he'd done it again, not after last time. He couldn’t really say what had bothered him about the fact she left last time. He'd gotten out of the shower and went to his room and she was just gone. No words, no note, nothing. He knew it had been purely physical, they could barely tolerate each other. He wasn't stupid enough to think too deeply into it. Yet it left him feeling strangely hollow when she’d just left him like that.

And then when he had turned up to work, Foggy had been acting weird. After some pressure he'd told Matt about his conversation with Daphne. Matt was pretty sure he hadn't gotten the whole story from him but the gist of her saying it was just sex was clear. And he'd told Foggy she was right. It was a one time thing because of all their pent up anger and the adrenaline from the night they'd had. He told his best friend to stop thinking about it. Yet he hadn't been able to do the same. He'd ended up texting her using Foggy's phone to see if she would be home and then he went to see her. No rhyme or reason or idea why he was going there. All he knew was that it bothered him.

It wasn't like he’d never had casual sex before, although he couldn't say it happened much the last few years. And his inability to understand why he was feeling the way he was led to them fighting again. Because she was right. But he hadn't been able to let it go. So when he left, he told himself it wouldn't happen again. She was trouble and being around her wore him out. It wasn't worth it. So how did he end up here again? Oh that's right, apparently he'd turned into a horny teenager again. A bit of sparring, feeling her body against his and sensing how happy she was in the ring really fucked his hormones over. And now here he was again. Only this time it was his own fault. She’d actually turned him down and he'd been the one to push. He couldn't say he regretted it either. It was the best damn sex he’d ever had and it left him feeling more chilled out than he felt in a long time. He'd keep his mouth shut this time and not act like a teenage girl about it. He dug himself into this hole and now he had to climb his own way out.

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

Daphne towel dried her hair as much as she could and it left it wavy. She scooped it up in a messy bun on top of her head, a few stands framing her face. The euphoric feeling she got after sex was easing but she still felt calm and settled. It was nice, she didn't get to experience it that much anymore. She really didn't want to have to face Matt, not knowing if he'd throw a tantrum like last time. She didn't want him to read into it again or act all weird about it. It really killed the vibe and ruined her good mood. She'd tried to stop it from happening, not wanting to deal with that again, but she hadn't been able to help herself when he'd wanted her so clearly. There was something addictive about it. But now she felt dread settle into her bones as she thought about how he would react.

She took her sweet time getting dried and dressed simply to buy herself some time. But eventually she was done and she had to leave the changing room. As she walked out into the main part of the gym, Matt was sitting on the bench tying his laces.

"Ready?" He asked softly. No awkward questions, no anger in his voice. Maybe he was on the same page now after all. She felt relief sweep through her, allowing her to enjoy the calmness that she'd been left with after their time together.

"Yeah," she replied, grabbing her backpack and putting it over her shoulder.

Matt grabbed his cane where it was leaning against the wall. He was now wearing a hoodie too and he grabbed his glasses out of the pocket as he slid them onto his face. She wondered if he ever got sick of having to act blind. He was blind but not like the average blind person. He didn't really need the stick and she'd seen him 'bumping' into things like he hadn't known they were there before. When they stepped out into the sunshine, she winced and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Jesus christ! I think I've joined the blind club," she grumbled, rubbing her poor eyes. The sun just burnt the shit out of her retinas. He let out a surprised laugh, the door shutting behind them.

"Here," he grinned. She cracked a wary eye open, seeing him holding out his glasses to her, but she didn't take them.

"It's not like I need them,” he teased. It helped. She felt a little better. She slid them onto her face and her eyeballs thanked her immediately. They started walking down the street together and she glanced into a window as they walked by, looking at her reflection. She snorted at herself. Her hair, despite being recently washed and put up, was a wavy mess. Her cheeks were still rosy pink and the glasses looked weird on her face.

"They suit you," he mused playfully. She shoved him lightly, causing him to laugh when an older woman gasped at her actions.

"Assaulting a blind man in public? It's like you want to get arrested," he smirked.

"Yeah well, Foggy will be my lawyer so I'll be good," she quipped back with a grin. Now they were on the same page they seemed to be amicable after venting their frustration on each other.

"You really think my best friend would take your side over mine?" He asked, faking being hurt as he held his hand over his heart. She stopped walking and he did the same as she looked at him.

"I hate to say it but I think he prefers me now. Not that I can blame him. You are a bit of an asshole," she grinned mischievously. He gaped at her before his hand darted out and went to grab the glasses. She squeaked, holding them in place as he tried to steal them from her face.

"You don't deserve my glasses," he snorted.

"Come on! I need my eyes, I'm not like you!" She whined pitifully.

"And what's this?! My two favourite people, getting along nicely? Is the world ending?" A dramatic voice sounded from next to them. Both she and Matt stilled completely in a comical way before they took a step away from each other. Both of them looked caught out as they looked at a very smug Foggy.

"This is great! Better than great! I love this," he beamed like a kid on Christmas. Daphne groaned and glared at him from the glasses still perched on her face.

"Foggy, I swear! You want us to not kill each other when we're in the same room? Don't make a big deal about it when it happens," she huffed.

"It is a big deal. You're both laughing and smiling together. This is huge. It's like a rare solar event or something," he defended.

She resisted the urge to throttle him as Matt rubbed his temples.

"Foggy," Matt warned lightly.

"Okay! I get it, I'm making it weird. This whole thing is new to you both and I'm just making it awkward," he soothed, holding his hands up in surrender.

"There is no 'thing'. We can't just actually have a moment where we get on with each other before you start trying to marry us off again?" She whined.

"Marry us off? What?" Matt asked quickly, his head whipping to his friend. She snorted as Foggy's cheeks went a little pink and he shot her a glare

"Oh, he didn't tell you he's the captain of ship Maphne?" She laughed loudly. She didn't care if Matt knew. It was ridiculous to her and she was getting payback on Foggy for being a little shit.

"Maphne? Do I even wanna know?" Matt asked exasperated. Foggy shot her another look before standing up straighter.

"You know what, Daph, mock me all you want but this is the hill I'm choosing to die on," he pointed at her. Matt still stood there unsure of what they were even talking about. She opened her mouth for another retort that would no doubt embarrass Foggy further and also maybe make Matt uncomfortable which was a bonus, but Foggy beat her to it.

"Anyway! I'm glad I caught you two, I have great news!" He beamed excitedly. She quirked her brows perplexed as he led them to a table outside of the cafe nearby. The three of them sat around it, Matt and Daphne watching their friend expectantly.

"I finally asked Karen on a date!" He practically squealed. A splitting grin graced Daphne's face, unable not to be happy for him. During their many talks, he'd spoken about his feelings for the blonde and Daphne had always told him to go for it.

"Aw, Foggy! You're growing up, I'm so proud!" She cooed, reaching over and pinching his cheek. He was so happy he just let her.

"That's awesome, man. I'm happy for you," Matt smiled sincerely.

"I know, it's great right? I just finally bit the bullet. I just decided I need to stop being such a baby about it," he explained. He had a weird look on his face though, the same one that usually told her something going on.

"What is it?" Both she and Matt asked at the same time, him clearly picking up on Foggy's weirdness in his own way.

Foggy raised a brow at them both being in sync and she made a point to not even look at Matt so Foggy wouldn't go off on his Maphne tirade again.

"Well… I just… I panicked, okay? I set it all up and she knew I wanted to ask her something. But then I'm like, what if she says no? I mean it's just gonna be me and Karen. Alone. On a date," he uttered looking like a deer in the headlights.

"That's kinda the point, Foggy," Matt teased.

"I know it is. And I couldn't back out because she was just watching me, waiting for what I wanted to ask. I honestly felt like I was about to have a heart attack and I may have asked her on a date but told her it was a double date with you guys," he blurted, barely taking a breath as he did.

Daphne blinked at him for a moment as her brain tried to digest his words.

"You did what?" Matt asked incredulously. Foggy made a pitiful noise and she took Matt’s glasses off and set them in the middle of the table, giving Foggy a look.

"A double date? Implying that me and Matt are actually also going to be on a date. Do you see the flaw in that plan?" She asked slowly, like she was talking to a child about why playing with matches was bad.

"I know! Like I said, I panicked and that's just the first thing that came out of my mouth!" Foggy defended with a sigh.

"And Karen actually bought that?" Matt scoffed, gesturing with his hand to him and then Daphne.

"You're kidding right? She's all aboard this ship, she was actually excited about it," Foggy smirked. She kicked him under the table and he groaned. Matt's jaw ticked as he glared in his best friend's direction.

"This isn't a joke, Fogg. All the shit you give me for keeping my secret from her and you're just lying right to her face about this?" Matt frowned.

"That's completely different. Your secret is dangerous. This one isn't. For all she knows it's your first date too and after that it just didn't work out. Besides, it's not like you're not getting it on with each other, would it really be that hard to just pretend to be on one date?" He pleaded, looking from her to Matt.

"Yes," they both answered again.

"Please? I really need this. If I tell her you're not going she might cancel too. You two are like a buffer, help set the scene and put her at ease. I really like her, guys. I don't want to mess things up," he begged.

"Foggy-" Matt started sternly, only to be cut off by Daphne.

"Fine. But you're paying for dinner," she relented.

Foggy smiled the widest grin she'd ever seen on a human and Matt turned to glare at her.

"You've got to be kidding me," he scoffed incredulously.

"What? Didn't you hear him? He's our friend, Matt. Let's just do this for him. Besides, free dinner," she shrugged. Matt looked pissed and honestly it was a reward she hadn't expected. She'd almost forgotten how nice it felt to push his buttons.

"This is ridiculous. You really think she's not gonna notice we can't stand each other once she's sat at a table with us for a while?" Matt glowered. He had a point but they could just try to be civil for Foggy's sake.

"You know what, Matt, I really hate to play this card but you left me no choice. You lied to me for the longest time and now I have to keep your secret. I already have to start a potential relationship with lies for you. Can't you just do this one thing for me? I never ask you for anything," Foggy muttered with a frown.

A sly grin spread on her face at how underhand it was of Foggy. She almost felt like a proud parent as she watched a million emotions pass over Matt's face before defeat was all that was left.

"Fine. But don't say I didn't want you when this all blows up in your face. And you're paying for my dinner too," he huffed. Foggy looked more than pleased with himself.

"Thank you! You guys are awesome. I'll even pay for your drinks if you actually try and act like you like each other and not make it awkward," he shot them both a toothy grin.

"Hey, let me drink as much as I want and I'll make it really look like we're on a date," she smirked devilishly, a wiggle of her eyebrows and Foggy burst out laughing.

"Jesus christ," Matt muttered quietly with a shake of his head.

"Deal," Foggy nodded firmly, "tonight at 8. It's the Mexican place near the firm," he instructed before he stood.

"Alright. I'm heading out, you coming with, Matt?" He asked, shooting his annoyed friend a look.

"Yeah. You go on, I'll catch up in a sec," he bit out. Foggy gave her a look and a smirk before he started walking away.

"Really?" Matt glared at her, swiping his glasses from the table and shoving them onto his face.

"What? Free food and as much booze as we want? Plus doing your best friend a solid? I know you're an asshole, Matt, but I thought you weren't that much of an asshole," she quipped dryly. He clamped his mouth shut, jaw tense as he pursed his lips.

"Fine," he stood up abruptly, gripping his cane before holding it in front of him.

"You're doing this for Foggy. Don't fuck it up for him just because you've got a stick up your ass," she huffed as she stood up too.

He shot her what she presumed was a dirty look behind his glasses before he started walking away, his cane swinging in front of him. His irritation about the situation only made her want to do it more. It was his own fault really for acting like such a bitch about the whole thing. He was asking for her to make it worse for him. She started walking home as a plan formed in her mind. She'd get nice food and decent booze and she'd get to piss Matt off in a setting he had to behave in. She was actually looking forward to it.

As soon as she got home, she called their firm, knowing Karen would be the one to answer.

"Nelson and Murdock, Karen speaking," came the voice down the phone. Daphne trapped the phone to her ear with her shoulder as she tugged off her hoodie and tossed it in the laundry basket.

"Hey Karen, it's Daphne," she said casually.

"Oh! Hi!" She sounded genuinely happy to speak to her and she wondered why she'd never bothered to speak to Karen more since she was so close to Foggy and Matt.

"I know this is weird, we haven't really spoken much. But I wanted to ask a favour since we're going on a double date," she said carefully, flopping onto her sofa.

"Sure, what is it?"

"Don't tell the guys, it's kind of weird for me. It's just… this is mine and Matt's first date too and it's been so long. I was wondering if you'd help me get ready for the date? I wanna look really good. I mean I know he can't really see, but he just somehow knows these things, right?" She grinned, cringing at how hard she was going at this. She felt a tiny bit bad at lying to her but she ignored it.

"Of course! I'd… I'd really love that. I'm nervous too and it'd be good to just have some girl time," Karen said softly.

"Thank you, I really appreciate this. We could go to the restaurant together when we're done," Daphne smiled pleased with herself. After exchanging cell numbers and goodbyes, Daphne sat back on the couch with a smirk. She wanted to turn heads. Not only just to irritate Matt, using her knowledge of him finding her physically attractive against him, but it had been a while since she went out. Usually she did so with a goal in mind, to have sex. And she would turn heads, a lot of them. Tonight was different but it didn't mean her ego wouldn't enjoy being looked at. It certainly would be interesting.

#matt murdock x oc #matt murdock fanfic #matt murdock #daredevil x oc #daredevil fanfiction #daredevil

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miss-choco-chips · 4 years

Text

From Baby to Babe~

I once wrote this https://miss-choco-chips.tumblr.com/post/190983954737/theres-a-point-in-all-the-rouges-gallerys-lives and @theturdis wanted a fic about it, so... Just remember, you asked for this hon. This ain’t my fault.

Tagging @animemangasoul who just told me to tag them the next time I wrote something.

Fair warning everyone, I somehow did this in one sitting, and, I can’t stress this enough, there’s no edit whatsoever. Like, none. Enjoy, if you can ignore the eyesore of my multiple mistakes.

----.----

Bruce despairs in the knowledge of his sons growing up hot.

---.---

When Dick came back to Gotham as the new Nightwing for the first time ever… well.

Bruce didn't like to think about the first suit, back then. All those feathers and glitter, the plunging V neck, the mullet… His son had insisted on it being the trend at the time. Bruce just couldn't grasp how was he supposed to blend into the night and take anyone by surprise. There was too much... everything, and not nearly enough stealth.

He was an innocent man, back then. He looked at a horse gift in the mouth and was completely blindsided when it raised on it’s hind legs and kicked him where it hurted.

When Selina approached him a few weeks after N had come to him with the blueprints of his new suit, he had been quiet relaxed. Or as relaxed as one can be when crouched like a gargoyle and looking over the city. He was just getting back on track after… Jason (it still hurted, and probably always would, to think about him), his new partner helping in ways he couldn’t foresee, violence tampered by Tim’s brilliant smile every time he came to Bruce with the answer to a particularly difficult riddle he had been having trouble with. He had to get his act together, because Tim was so bright, mind so beyond what Bruce could ever aspire to, and he was at such an impressionable age… If Batman allowed himself to fall deeper into despair, he would set a dangerously bad example to the kid, which could be really damaging… to the world at large. He was the kind of kid that B wanted on the side of Justice, because the opposite would be quite catastrophic.

So yes, he had been very distracted lately, merely glancing over Dick’s blueprints, noticing the lack of brilliantine and gold, and giving his wholehearted approval.

Stupid, innocent man he was. He had needed Catwoman of all people to open his eyes.

(To this day, he still wondered about Alfred’s reason for not warning him sooner. Perhaps, and this was the theory he had running, the old butler had been just so delighted at seeing the Disco suit gone, he would approve almost everything in its place, and Dick’s virtue had never been his responsibility to preserve, so to hell with it.

Betrayal always hurted the worse when it came from those closest to you)

-Hey handsome.

-Cat.

She rolled her eyes, already beyond his brood, and just walked out of the light, joining him into the shadows with a sigh at his dramatics.

-No theft today?

The woman grimaced a bit, letting herself fall at his side with as much grace as she did everything else. Diamond claws scratched at her scalp, carefully not tearing the frail skin, and Batman finally conceded and turned his head to look at her directly. She was never so hesitant.

-Look. I really, really don’t want to be the one telling you this. I would literally rather leave this to anyone else, but… it’s getting out of hand.

-What is it?

-Nightwing. Hadn’t you noticed anything about him?

That got whatever rest of his attention she hadn’t already caught. Speaking of his sons always had that effect on him.

-What happened to him?

-Nothing, just… He’s been out a lot, hasn’t he? I thought he didn’t operate in the city as much…

She was stalling, which was worryingly out of character for Selina. But since this was about Nightwing, he had to be patient and let her talk her way into whatever information she was going to lay on him.

-I’ve been… -training a new Robin, not that he could tell her that- busy, lately. He’s picking up the slack while I’m focusing on it -a.k.a helping him both patrol the streets and teach Tim.

-I noticed the changes, yes, whatever therapy you’re doing is great for you -she encouraged, more honest than he thought her capable of. He could already see her deadpan when she figured out the reason for his change, his ‘therapy’ as she put it, was an eleven year old thrusting himself at this dangerous life of his.

-Hm.

-Well… Anything noteworthy about him lately? Crime Fighting related?

Since she was stressing the words so much, he gave them deep thought.

-He has been on a streak lately. A lot more arrests… What’s your point?

He could almost see the second she internally said ‘fuck it’ and just blurted everything out.

-That’s because his new suit is, and this is coming from me, B, indecent, and every criminal out there is focusing more on his ass than his punches and flips so he’s kicking ass easier.

Bruce kicked his way to the forefront of his mind, the father in him hip checking the vigilante out of the way so he could properly freak out.

What? He knew the suit was a lot more tight than the former one, but he’d been so relieved at it being mostly black he hadn’t given more than a cursory look… and he barely saw the man in it, often training together in workout clothes and coming and going to patrol at different times. He… wasn’t prepared for this.

-Excuse me?

-I’m sorry, someone had to tell you. Normally, I’d be completely on board with a suit change from boring to daring, and you know of my good relationship with leather, but I’ve literally seen that kid grow up. If I have to listen to Harley talking about Nightwing’s ass one more time, Ivy won’t need to worry any more about the Joker killing her, because I will do it myself.

He wanted to thank her for standing up for his son, but he was still busy internally screaming.

-You want to hear Riddle’s last work? While looking directly at N, he asked ‘is buttcheeks one word? Or should I spread them?’. And then he winked. Winked, B. At your eighteen year old kid. You need to get your ass on gear and make sure Nighting changes his. I mean, I’m getting used to it, but you’ve been doing great lately, violent wise, and I’d hate for you to relapse because you heard Zsaasz asking N to tie his ropes tighter and harder.

B… needed to go back to the cave and call N back early. They had to talk.

----.----

When Jason came back, the first thing to break past the ‘holy shit my son is alive’ wall surrounding his brain was just how tall he had grown. How strong, how broad, how big. The little boy he had picked up from the street, underfeed and hurting everywhere, had turned out almost bigger than B himself and twice as brave. The wave of pride he felt was massive, but the feeling was short lived.

Jason was killing criminals, had even attempted to murder Tim. Even if the father in him could, in his desperation, try and overlook the first bit, the same side couldn’t get past the second. Tim was as much his as Jason, and he couldn't turn a blind eye to it.

The relief of him being back that overflowed from Bruce clashed horribly with Batman’s unbending morals, and the two sides warred for days for control. The attack on his youngest son had been the deciding factor in who finally won; Bruce couldn’t fight the darkness in him when he needed it to help protect Robin from his predecessor, as much as it pained him.

Theirs was a long road, a difficult path to come back together as a family after so many mistakes on both parts (more his than Jason’s, he knew, but admitting so was so hard…), but they had finally, finally came back together. All his children, sitting around the dinning table at the manor, throwing food at each other behind Alfred’s back, Dick failing to give Jason a noogie, Tim succeeding in elbowing his way past both of them to claim first picks over the brownies, Damian rolling his eyes while sneakily drawing in his notebook what B suspected was a portrait of the three of them, Cass and Steph laughing at their antics… His heart felt like it could give out.

Again, his mind was anywhere but in… that. Already used to the dirty looks aimed at Nighting, he focused his anger into strength behind every punch, taking care to kick specially hard when aiming at the criminal’s genitals as light punishment for the lust they aimed at his oldest, but not longer trying to essentially castrate them.

He had the hang of it, and it was just one child. He could do damage control with one, it wasn’t that hard. Stephanie wasn’t really his, just under his protection as a mentor, and even then, she was mostly Barbara’s; Cass could and would take care of anyone who dared look at her in a way she didn’t like, so she was also good. Seventeen year old Tim and thirteen year old Damian were babies, so they wouldn't be an issue for a long, long time.

And then. And then, Steph had opened her mouth.

-Why can’t Tim do this? -she had whined, raising the heels to eye level and studying them with profound distaste- I hate fighting on these. He’s much better than me at that anyway, and he makes a hotter chick than I when he goes full out on his undercover gig.

Red Robin, who was walking past her on his way to the training mats, high fived her.

Barbara’s voice came from the Batcomputer, Oracle’s voice filter not needed while they still were on the Cave.

-Because he and Jason can’t act like a couple for more than two hours before one of them breaks into hives or laughter, and this is an all night long gig.

-Then why can’t Tim and Dick go? You just need a girl as pretty arm candy distaction, the guy is the one who’s gonna do the work, and Nightwing can take care of a few drug dealers himself.

-While Dick is certainly pretty enough to gain permission to enter this very private party -the man, stretching with Tim, stopped mid motion to give the computer finger guns. Barbara coughed to cover a laugh and kept going-, the goal is for him to be invited into the boss’s personal office, and we can only do that if he’s interested in what he sees. From what Tim gathered for me on his last recon, he favours… Jason’s body types more than Dick’s.

Bruce, who was just getting out of the locker room, suit fully in place except from the cowl, raised an eyebrow at that, stopping to analyze his second oldest. Tilting his head, and still as confused, he asked what would undoubtedly bring him an unhealthy amount of regret in the very near future.

-What does that mean? Jason’s...body type? You mean tall? Dick is also pretty tall.

There was total silence in the cave for a few moments. Dick and Tim got up from their positions, shared a look, and made a run for the showers, claiming they were ready for patrol (they weren’t, not warmed up enough, but he had other things to focus on now). Damian, already fully suited, tutted and dragged the hood of his cape over his face, almost completely covering it. Cass looked on impassively, and Stephanie seemed to be getting a worryingly amount of glee from whatever this was.

Jason himself was… blushing? What?

-Who’s gonna tell him? -finally asked Barbara, amusement breaking her professional facade.

-Oh, me, me! Let me do this!

Apparently still a naive man, he nodded at the blonde, ready for someone to clear this up for him.

He was regaled with a half an hour long rant about biceps, pecs, and thighs that could compete against tree trunks and win. It was supported by apparent citations from different criminals that ranged from appreciative to full on scandalous.

In the end, everyone left the cave, Batgirl with a notorious spring on her step, and Bruce had to stay home instead of going out, needing the night to fully process about his second son, almost twenty one but twelve in his mind’s eye, apparently featuring in multiple Arkham calendars.

He came out of that realization a scarred man, to say the least.

-----.-----

It was barely a few months after his traumatic chat with Stephanie when it happened again. He’d like to say he was ready for this.

He wasn’t.

When Conner Kent found him, he was completely focused on his WE’s work. For once on the office, with the TV providing some white noise in the background, he was fully prepared for a day catching up. He couldn’t keep letting Tim take over most of the work, the kid deserved to have a normal (or as normal as any of them could achieve) teenage life.

He was of course notified the moment the meta breached the city’s limits, but figured he was here on Titan’s business or hanging out with Tim. The light knock on his office window was a big surprise.

-This is unexpected, Conner. What can I do for you? -he greeted after letting him in- Tim isn’t here today, he’s giving a press conference.

-Yeah, I know. I’m actually here for you. We, the team, heard from Tim you’re making the blueprints for his next suit.

This conversation was already going in a very confusing way. Why did they care about Tim’s gear?

-Yes?

-Well, you need to double check with us before you show anything to him -something akin to indignant surprise must have shown in his face, because the meta quickly raised both hands-. We don’t mean that as you needing our approval, of course you’d know better how to keep a non-meta well protected. We know jackshit about kevlar and armor. But it’s the… style, that has us worried.

He let the anger bleed out of him, replaced with puzzlement.

-What do you mean?

Conner looked down, as if gathering strength, then up and straight into Bruce’s eyes, a feat very few younger heroes could achieve. This was serious.

-Tim isn’t big like Jason, or as… stretchy as Dick, but he has… very, very attractive features. I won’t go into detail with you about how thin his waist is, how shapely his legs or cute his ass. That’s not something I need to say or you to hear.

Yes, it definitely wasn’t. Bruce was having an inkling as to where this was headed, and he didn’t like it. Tim was a baby! Barely eighteen and so damn small!

-But I do need to tell you, his ugly ass suits have been good at keeping that all on the downlow. We made fun of him for them, sure, but never encouraged him to change, because we know what will happen if he does. It would be awful. You think Nightwing and Red Hood have it rough? Tim has Ra’s Al Ghul’s undivided attention and appreciation. If we add attraction to it? Mayhem. Absolute mayhem. We can barely keep him from being kidnapped by older, nasty villains as it is. We don’t need the extra work, sir. I’m begging you on behalf of the team, don’t let him get anything that would look good on him. Like that Untranet suit he told me about, for example. That one would be so bad. Or the Red Robin one with tighter pants and a domino under the cowl so he can take it out and flash the world his luscious hair.

Bruce fell back into his desk chair. Elbows resting on the table, he buried his face into his hands.

A long silence filled the room.

-You already approved and made one of those, right?

A small, shaky nod.

-...The Ultranet one?

A firm shake.

-Fuck me. The Red Robin with tighter pants and domino?

Another nod. Conner sat abruptly on the empty chair in the other side of the desk, like a puppet with its strings cut.

-Well, fuck.

Fuck indeed.

Bruce despaired.

----.----

This time, he would be ready. He swore it on his honor, on his oath, on his parents.

So when Damian turned sixteen, growth spurt kicking in (he towed over Tim, and it wouldn’t be long until he left Dick in the dust as well), he made a thought but necessary call.

He phoned Talia.

-We need to talk. About Damian, and… sex appeal.

Her shock was evident even through the phone.

-Excuse me? My son is a child. He has no such thing.

He closed his eyes. Once, a long time ago, he’d been just as naive. Now he knew better.

It was a hard lesson to learn, but she needed to. And quickly. Damian was growing faster than his other children. Time was of essence.

-Let me tell you what I wish I knew years ago, when Dick decided to change his Nightwing suit.

She was probably going to hate him for opening her eyes like this, but Bruce just couldn't do this alone.

He could deal with Talia’s hate, but criminals lusting after his baby son? Hell no. He might actually go rouge.

#my writting #I have no excuse #no edit #bruce wayne #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #Cassandra Cain Wayne #Stephanie Brown #selina kyle #barbara gordon #Alfred Pennyworth #conner kent #kon el kent #batfamily

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busterkeatonfanfic · 3 years

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Chapter 31 Pt II

The song was winding down as she reentered the living room. She looked for Buster and saw him among a group of men, smoking a cigarette and talking. Judging by their heavy builds and ordinary looks, they were directors. Ramon Navarro bumped her and Orange Blossom went over her fingers. “Oh!” she said.

“Goodness, I am so sorry. Just a moment, miss, just a moment.”

When he’d returned with a couple cloth napkins and she’d wiped the drink from her hand, his profuse apologies gave her an idea. She threw back the remainder of the drink and said with a smile, “Give me a dance and call it even?”

The tall, dark man with the Spanish accent smiled gleamingly upon her. “Miss, I will gladly dance with you.”

She couldn’t tell if the drinks made her a better or worse dancer. In any case, she wasn’t as stiff. As the orchestra took up a cheerful rendition of “My Pet,” she shuffled her feet with energy and abandon. It was a quick dance and Mr. Navarro was smiling and gracious.

The orchestra took a break following their dance. The crush of guests seemed to double in size as the many orchestra members made their way to the foyer. Nelly located Bradford speaking to a tall, broad man with a large stomach. A thin, small pale man with dark hair and eyes stood with them. He seemed to be about Buster’s age and was about two shades, she reflected, from being terribly good-looking. Not that he was bad on the eyes as he was. Feeling quite free and happy, she introduced herself.

“Nelly Foster. I’m Bradford’s girlfriend.”

The men who shook her hands were Eddie Sedgwick and Irving Thalberg. Mr. Sedgwick, who took her hand second, smiled. “I know you. You’re the girl from Buster’s place.”

Even through the sheen of liquor, Nelly’s stomach felt like it dropped straight out of her body. She had never seen Mr. Sedgwick in her life; Buster always made sure Segdwick’s half of the bungalow was unoccupied before smuggling her over. All she could think of to say was, “Oh yes. I’ve visited once or twice.”

Mr. Sedgwick winked at her. “Say no more,” he said jovially, swishing a glass of what looked like Scotch and taking a sip.

Bradford’s arm curled around her shoulder, but it was too little too late. How many other people at the party knew about her and Buster? “Mr. Thalberg’s just telling us about this new thing called Technicolor they’ll be using in a talkie next year,” said Bradford. “It’s a musical too. Says they’ll need a lot of extras and we ought to try out.”

Nelly tried to listen as Bradford, also on another drink, carried on with enthusiasm with occasional remarks from Mr. Sedgwick and Mr. Thalberg, but all she could concentrate on was how exposed she felt. A thing like an affair never stayed quiet for long once a third person was in on it, a fourth if you didn’t count Buster’s butler. She nodded and smiled in the appropriate places. She couldn’t do anything else, knowing how it would look if she fled to Buster, which was her impulse. She wanted his reassurance that it was a case of mistaken identity with her and Mr. Sedgwick. It was a silly explanation to wish for, since that would mean the presence of another woman at Buster’s bungalow.

She did not have to wait long for Buster. “Whatever they’re saying about me’s a god damn dirty lie,” he said, strolling over to them. He took a puff from his cigarette.

Mr. Thalberg laughed and Mr. Sedgwick slapped Buster on the back. Buster pretended that the force was so great it bowled him over and not missing a beat he slipped and fell flat on his back. The whiskey in the glass in his hand rocked a little, but not a drop had spilled. He looked up at Nelly and pressed his glass into her hand to hold while he rose to his feet. She didn’t appreciate it. It was another gesture of familiarity that gave them away. She wondered if Irving Thalberg knew about them too. Mr. Thalberg and Mr. Sedgwick were too busy laughing to notice her discomfort, though. She had an awful gnawing in her gut that she didn’t think any amount of drink could assuage.

“Ready for that second dance,” Buster said to her in an undertone, once he was back on his feet.

“Mr. Sedgwick knows,” she hissed back, feeling pale.

Buster cleared his throat and took a sip of whiskey. He pretended to listen to Sedgwick’s retelling of an incident that had happened during the filming of Snap Shots, one in which Buster had convinced a number of the extras and crewmembers that he’d been run over by a car, the stunt being carefully orchestrated beforehand with the car driver. After several moments, he shrugged. “So he knows,” he said. His breath smelled like whiskey.

“If he knows then who else does?” she whispered, feeling galled. Even speaking to him in such a knowing way was a sign of a deeper acquaintance. She felt surrounded by booby traps.

“Just relax, alright? He won’t say nothing.”

Nelly wasn’t convinced. For the first time since they’d been going together, she found herself truly mad at Buster. It would seem that nothing would make him realize that they were treading on thin ice. She turned her head away from him and watched the other guests. No one was paying the slightest bit of attention to her. Gradually, she was able to settle back into a drunken indifference, although any pretense of enjoying herself had vanished. The orchestra was setting back up again. The blue-eyed singer passed by some of the guests a few feet from her and Gloria Swanson stopped him to talk. He was carrying a cocktail and laughed as she made a joke Nelly couldn’t hear. Like Irving Thalberg, he wasn’t bad-looking either despite his ears and being a bit on the stout side. His smile was nice, his eyes were nice, and most of all his voice was nice. When Miss Swanson let him go, Nelly was seized with a whim to introduce herself and ran to catch up with him.

“Sir,” she said, touching him on the shoulder.

He turned. “Why, hello.” He smiled.

“Sir, you’ve got the most wonderful voice. I’m a tremendous fan of your music. I’ve got so many of your records.”

“Oh,” he said, the white smile never faltering. “Well, thanks for that. You’re pretty kind.”

“I’ll let you get back to singing I suppose,” she said, not knowing what else to say. It would have been hard for her to further describe how his music made her feel. It was humming to herself in the prop shop during the summer of Steamboat Bill, playing bridge in Louise Brooks’ apartment, lying alongside Buster after they’d made love, and dancing a tight foxtrot on the rug in the confines of Buster’s bungalow all bound up in one.

“Oh, I can chat,” he said. “They’re giving our pipes a little rest for the next couple numbers. Gonna do a couple instrumentals.”

Almost on cue, the orchestra’s uneven murmuring cohered. The full ensemble burst into boisterous song. She recognized it as the Black Bottom Stomp after a few bars. Hardly thinking, she grabbed the singer’s hand. “C’mon, you ought to enjoy yourself too.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, his feet planted. “Slow down a little, kid.”

“I need to dance or else I’ll scream.” As soon as the words left her lips, she realized what was driving her wasn’t a desire to make Buster jealous or even sow suspicion in the minds of those who might have been looking askance at Buster and her; it was to conquer the nervous energy that had been building in her all day.

“Boy, if you insist,” the singer said. He handed the closest guest—Buster Collier—his glass and whirled her into the riotous press of bodies. They tromped up and down the length of the room several times. She let the horns and clarinet carry her away. The more her heart pounded, the better she felt. She didn’t look at any of the other guests, simply watched her dance partner who was grinning despite his professed reluctance. Like most of the men she’d encountered in Hollywood, he was a good dancer. Although sweat shone on his forehead, Nelly wasn’t aware of the answering moistness of her skin. She didn’t feel tired in the least, just full of strange energy.

When the song ended and their feet stopped moving, there was a round of clapping. Nelly looked around her. They were being applauded by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, John Barrymore, and at least one of the Talmadge girls; Nelly thought it was Norma rather than Natalie, but didn’t look long enough to confirm.

“Thank you,” she said to her audience, with a vague embarrassment mostly tempered by the liquor.

The singer grasped her hand and bowed, and Nelly followed.

“Well I simply must have the next dance with this lovely creature,” said Charlie Chaplin, winding his arm around her waist.

“Thank you for the dance!” she called after the singer, who was headed back toward the stage.

“Enchantée!” he shouted back, with a wave, smile, and befuddled shake of his head.

Rather than burn off like gasoline, the liquor head somehow soaked in more and Nelly leaned her head against Charlie’s shoulder even though a voice in the back of her head warned that he was a Dangerous Man. His shoulder was thin and slight, and he felt almost wispy compared to Buster. She began to feel like she was fading out until Paul Whiteman set the band in motion and a loud, energetic version of “Darktown Strutters’ Ball” rang out. She found energy to bounce up and down the room once more, clinging to Charlie, although her reserves had finally begun to dwindle. It was a relief to focus on each dance and each dance partner and not worry about Buster, but Buster would not stay away. At some point Charlie was no longer with her, another drink (her seventh? eighth?) was half-gone in her hand, and she was squinting with drunken brazenness at the crowd wondering why she shouldn’t ask John Barrymore to dance.

“Time to cool your heels,” said a voice. Fingers pulled the glass away from her hand. One of the fingers was shorter than the rest, missing a knuckle.

“I presume I can take care of myself,” she said, looking over her shoulder and aiming a beliquored glare at Buster.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, but it’ll be quite a tale if they find me holding your hair in the bathroom while you’re upchucking.”

Nelly thought back to the first time he’d seen her in over her head and done just that. “Hmmph.”

Buster tossed the rest of her drink back into his mouth and an obedient butler standing at the wait nearby dispensed with the glass.

At that moment, Whiteman’s voiced boomed out. “I’d like to welcome The Rhythm Boys back to the stage. Over here’s Harry Barris”—he gestured at the dark-haired singer with the center part who’d been doing most of the scat singing—“This is Al Rinker”—pointing to the brown-haired singer with thick lips who had been on piano—“And to top it off, Mr. Bing Crosby.” At this, he inclined his head toward the blue-eyed singer.

“What an odd name,” said Nelly.

“Any odder’n Buster?” said Buster.

“Nobody’s odder than Buster,” she quipped, and he pinched her.

“Ow,” she said. Her worry about being seen being too familiar with him resurfaced. She was going to chastise him, but the saxophones, trumpets, and horns had started a familiar tune, shortly joined by the strings. “Oh, it’s this one,” she uttered. She could feel her eyes shining in amazement.

“It’s this one,” said Buster with a pleased smile.

She remembered that the band was a birthday present, the most generous, thoughtful present she’d ever been given, and wasn’t sure she wouldn’t cry if she spoke further.

Buster put a hand about her waist and folded her back into the dancers with him. The foxtrot he took up had a gentle rhythm to suit the song. The saxophones played a teasing melody that all the brass instruments and violins followed with a loud, plucky answer. It was one of the songs from the first record Buster had given her and they’d danced to it regularly. Buster always teased her with the lyrics, staring into her eyes as he sang, “She’s got eyes of blue, I never cared for eyes of blue.” Every time she looked in the mirror now and noticed the color of her eyes, she was reminded that she had become a weakness for Buster, a thought that made her spirits swell.

In brief pauses, The Rhythm Boys scatted. But-duh-dut-dut-dut duh-dut duh-dut-dut. Buster looked casual and collected. She was relieved there was no strong emotion from him, still worried one of his guests might put two and two together.

Shhhhhe’s got eyes of blue, went The Rhythm Boys in a singsong, their S sibilant. I never cared for eyes of blue But she’s got eyes of blue And that’s my weakness now!

Shhhhhe’s got dimpled cheeks I never cared for dimpled cheeks But she’s got dimpled cheeks And that’s my weakness now!

Oh me, oh my …

If they had been an ordinary couple going together, she would have leaned forward to kiss him, to thank him for giving her this.

Shhhhhe likes to bill and coo I never liked to bill and coo But she likes to bill and coo And that’s my weakness now

Buster’s hold on her waist was firm. As the Rhythm Boys sang “Shhhhhe likes” and “I never liked” and the instruments filled in the blanks with suggestive retorts, he leaned in and said, “…to pet and play.” Nelly blushed and went warm. He stroked her hip with his thumb and she put her mouth to his ear and told him to stop, but on purpose grazed her lips against it. On the next refrain of “Shhhhhe likes,” he finished “…to fuck and flirt.”

“Buster,” she said, but the warmth increased.

“You wanna go outside for a breath of fresh air?” he said.

“No,” she said, even though she wanted him with a sudden desperation.

“Sure?” he said. “We can bill and coo.”

She shook her head. “You go dance a little more. Perhaps you can see me out when Bradford and I leave.” Although she’d been at the party for less than three hours, it felt much longer. With so many cocktails, her body had begun to feel leaden.

When the song had finished and Buster had let her go, she left the crowd and used the washroom again, returning to the living room in time to see a slow dance in progress. Some couples waltzed gracefully like Norma Talmadge and Gil Roland, others like John Barrymore and Bebe Daniels, who had had too much to drink, were shambling.

I’ll be loving you, always With a love that’s true, always

Nelly scanned for Bradford and Buster. Bradford was in the far corner of the room talking again to a cluster of men, one of whom might have been the director Harry Beaumont; she couldn’t quite tell. Her eyes felt heavy. Buster wasn’t dancing, but was talking with Harold Lloyd, holding another glass of whiskey and looking composed.

Days may not be fair always That’s when I’ll be there, always Not for just an hour Not for just a day Not for just a year But always

The lyrics pinched her in the chest somewhere. She was struck by the ephemerality of the whole scene. It seemed only yesterday she’d been seventeen, dead bored with high school and dreaming of what lay beyond. As the years passed, most of her friends married and found their always, and she minded the grandchildren of her mother’s friends and haunted stages by night. Here she was a blink of an eye later, her life already a third lived. Always was an illusion, one that Hollywood said it believed in and didn’t, actors dying, divorcing, and becoming forgotten by the week. Yet the pinch was for what a pretty thought it was: not for just an hour, not for just a day, not for just a year, but always. Every woman, she supposed, wanted something like that. She couldn’t bring herself to think that anything of the sort would ever be possible as long as the man she was seeing was married.

The song ended with a wistful singing of the strings, the brass providing a soft accompaniment.

“This here’s another slow number,” said the blue-eyed singer, Bing. “By a fella by the name of Jimmy McHugh. What a name, huh?” He paused. “His mama oughta have called himself something a little more traditional, something sensible, y’know? Like Bing.”

The audience roared at the joke.

He waited for the laughter to die down before finishing. “Anyway, this one’s called ‘I Can’t Give You Anything but Love’ and it’s a pretty one if I do say so myself. Grab your guy or your girl and hold ‘em close, folks.”

A clarinet warbled a sweet, jazzy introduction with the piano accompanying and Bing leaned into the microphone.

I can’t give you anything but love, baby That’s the only thing I’ve plenty of, baby Dream awhile, scheme awhile, we’re sure to find Happiness And, I guess, all those things you’ve always pined for

Nelly’s eyes flickered to the dancers and her stomach seized. Natalie and Buster were swaying close together, Buster’s hands gripping her small waist, her arms wrapped around his neck. They were a handsome couple, Natalie’s tiny frame setting off Buster’s modest brawn, both their hair dark and wavy. What gave Nelly the greatest pang, though, was the way that Buster looked at his wife. His face was all tenderness, something she was shocked to see given what she thought she knew about their marriage. She looked away, heartsick, and sought out Bradford. He put his arm around her when she approached, pausing just for a second or two to say hello before returning to his conversation with the director and the other men. She closed her eyes and nuzzled her face into the side of his chest. Tears stung behind her lids. Buster still loved Natalie. How she’d never realized this, she didn’t know.

‘Til that lucky day You know damned well, baby I can’t give you anything but love

“You okay, baby?” Bradford said, noticing that something was wrong.

She opened her filmy eyes and shook her head.

“What’s wrong?” Even in her unhappiness, she had to hand it to him. He sounded exactly as a concerned boyfriend would.

“Too much to drink, I think,” she said, quickly wiping away the tears from the corner of her eyes.

Bradford rubbed her arm. “Let’s get you home.” He dipped into the side pocket of his trousers. “Here’s my card.” He passed one to each of the three men. She watched them exchange pleasantries, and could see that Bradford was glowing with excitement and charisma. A wave of regret hit her for taking him from the party.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, I won’t hear of it,” he said, perfectly good-natured. “Wouldn’t want to wear out my welcome anyhow.”

There was no one for her to say goodbye to. Everyone but Buster was close to a stranger. Bradford’s arm through hers, they walked away from the room of partygoers and the beautiful noise of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. She tried to cheer herself up with the good parts, dancing with Bradford and Buster and Bing, hearing all her favorite songs, hobnobbing with stars. The orchestra was her birthday gift too, a dear secret only she and Buster shared. Even with these reminders, she still felt miserable. A part of that, maybe not an inconsiderable part, was the result of too much to drink. Her stomach ached dully. Her vision was dizzy. Her eyelids sagged. She thought with longing of changing into a clean nightgown, drinking several glasses of water, eating some crackers, and collapsing into bed. Bradford held the great mahogany door for her and she stepped out into the brisk May night. The air smelled like peonies and was cold against her bare face and arms. It made her feel a little better.

She and Bradford were a few paces away from the door and walking in the direction of his car when a voice from behind them cried, “Nelly, wait!” She turned to see Buster rushing toward them. “Where’re you going?” he said when he’d caught up to them.

A lump climbed into her throat. “I’m feeling ill,” she said, and it wasn’t a lie.

Buster looked confused. “Feeling ill?” He looked to Bradford. “Mind if I borrow her a minute?”

“Go right ahead Mr. Keaton.”

Buster took her by the arm and led her to a shadowy patch of topiary to the east of the front door out of hearing of Bradford. “What’s really the matter?” he said.

Nelly shook her head. “I drank too much.”

“Ah, gee. Wish you hadn’t. I was going to propose we slip off in a few minutes here.” He stroked her cheek.

She realized he was referring to amorous activities and she couldn’t help but be amazed by him. He’d just been enjoying a romantic dance with his wife and yet was scheming to seduce her at the same time. “We couldn’t even if I felt well,” she said. “It’s not safe.”

“Sure it is. I’ve done it plenty.”

With her brain sluggish with liquor, it took his words a few moments to make sense. He was saying he’d sneaked women into the Villa under his wife’s nose before. She felt horrible all over again. “No. Not tonight.”

“What about tomorrow? You gonna come to the premiere?”

Nelly had been so fixated on the party, she’d forgotten about the premiere of Steamboat Bill altogether and Buster’s offhand suggestion a few days back that she attend. She shook her head. “It isn’t safe. If Mr. Sedgwick knows about us, we can’t draw any more attention than we already have. We should be safer from now on.” She stopped short of telling him that coming to the party was a mistake too; she didn’t want him to think that she wasn’t grateful for her birthday surprise.

Buster searched her eyes and she knew he was trying to puzzle out her gloomy mood. “Okay, if you say so. Is this character gonna get you home safe?” he said at last, looking over at Bradford.

“Of course. He’s been the perfect beau.”

He narrowed his eyes. “See to it he don’t get too perfect.”

“Buster,” she chastened. She had to hand it to them, it was some damn Shakespearean plot they’d woven, Bradford in disguise as her paramour and she and Buster playing the parts of two star-crossed lovers.

Buster kissed her hand. “Can I call you tomorrow?”

She gave him a half-hearted smile. “You can always call.”

“Remind me to tune my ukulele before I sing you the birthday song,” he joked. He held her hand in his, running his thumb over her palm.

A wave of gratitude sunk her. Hiring the Paul Whiteman Orchestra had to say something about how he felt for her, no matter the doting way he looked at Natalie or his experience sneaking around with other women at the Villa. She leaned into his arms and put her hands around his neck. “Thank you for tonight and the band. I had the time of my life.”

He put a hand in the center of her back and touched her cheek with his free hand. “I’m a sentimental sap, that’s all,” he said, then in a quieter voice,“Can I kiss you?”

“Okay, but make it quick.” She glanced toward the front door. No one had come out since Buster, but she remained on her guard even though the drinks urged her to throw caution to the wind.

Buster leaned in and pressed his mouth to hers, kissing her breathless. She tasted cigarettes and whiskey on his tongue. She tried to make her answering kiss say what she couldn’t put into words, what she’d thought of during the first dance they’d shared earlier, the stars, his lips, and a Paul Whiteman phonograph record crackling softly in the background. “No funny business with that beau of yours, you hear me?” he said when he pulled back. His voice was thick in the way it got whenever he was in a carnal mood. Nelly embraced him again. The lump in her throat held sadness as well as gratitude. She never wanted to let him go.

Minutes later, Bradford’s car was bouncing over the roads out of Beverly Hills. The night was black and starless. Bradford gushed about Irving Thalberg, Edward Sedgwick, and all the other directors and production men he’d flattered and wooed. He didn’t say a word about Buster and her. Her foggy mind drifted over Twelfth Night. Although she was having no trouble learning her lines for the play, she knew now why her heart had not been in it since she’d gotten the role of Maria. It had nothing to do with her ambition of being in talking pictures or that she was too overburdened at United Artists to play such a substantial role in a play. In her head, she ran over three of Viola’s lines again and again.

She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought.

Viola had met Duke Orsino, but his love was still fixed on Olivia. Notes: Soundtrack to this chapter: “The Five Step,” Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyW73Zdqqzc

“Mary,” Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fse_J4WcAVY

“You Took Advantage of Me,” Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o01n3vVEss “My Baby Don’t Mean Maybe Now,” Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGBzOuLmaAc “My Pet,” Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9nJZlg66io There’s no version I can find of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra doing the Black Bottom Stomp, but I imagined them playing a lively version like Jelly Roll Morton’s original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcgIrAyNGGM Similarly, for the “Darktown Strutters’ Ball,” I imagined them doing this version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k22IKM3PFoQ “That’s My Weakness Now,” Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAfVQpzQB3g And for “Always,” the George Olsen version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGRWlgXqcwU “The Darktown Strutters’ Ball,” “Mississippi Mud,” and “I’m Coming Virginia,” though they were extensively covered by black artists, are racist songs. However, I felt that omitting them would be a bit of whitewashing since songs like this were heavily popular and would undoubtedly have been in regular rotation for a popular orchestra. (Buster actually danced to “Darktown Strutters’ Ball” in coordinating his dance sequence in The Playhouse.)

#Buster Keaton #Fan fiction #RPF #Actor RPF #Silent film #Golden Age Hollywood #Bing Crosby

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ericdeggans · 4 years

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How My Love for Sean Connery and Bond Led to a Serious Case of White Guy Hero Infatuation Syndrome

Like a lot of people all over the world, I have long considered myself a stone Sean Connery fan.

I often recited the juiciest dialogue bits from his Oscar-winning turn as a beat cop-turned crusader in he Untouchables (in addition to the speech everyone quotes, I loved how he told Eliot Ness he knew he was a treasury agent without seeing his badge because “who would claim to be that who was not?”) I watched the painfully clumsy 1986 B-movie Highlander mostly for his charming turn as Egyptian (!) immortal Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez.

And, of course his work as James Bond always set the ultimate example for urbane cool. Which explains why I often felt the theme song thrumming in my head whenever I wore a stylish suit or hopped off a plane in a cool city. For men from the generation before mine, he practically defined the sophisticated, stylish machismo found in the pages of Esquire and Playboy.

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For these reasons and more, I have always loved the rogueish Scotsman as an actor. And yet, when news of his death at age 90 spread across the world, I couldn’t bear to pay tribute to him on my social media pages, until now.

That’s because his passing highlighted my problem with a particular malady. I call it White Guy Hero Infatuation Syndrome. And I have suffered from it for many years.

Put simply, my fan’s brain knows that Connery’s landmark performances were the stuff of film legend – especially as Bond. Cool, authoritative, suavely menacing and mostly unflappable, his take on a secret agent who knows the best suit designers nearly as well as the best pistol manufacturers set the template for escapist espionage fantasies over the next half century and beyond.

His first line as the character – “Bond. James Bond.” – has become pop culture legend.

But as a media critic, I also have to contend with James Bond’s status as a relentless sexist and a British agent who walked the world as if it was made to be ruled by wealthy, capable white men. Watch him slap the behind of a pretty blonde who was massaging him poolside in 1964’s Goldfinger when CIA agent Felix Leiter turns up for a chat. “Man talk,” he tells her dismissively, sending her out of the scene.

Or check out how he treats Quarrel, the bug-eyed Black man who acts as a “fixer” for him in Jamaica during the first Bond film, 1962’s Dr. No. Scrambling across a beach to avoid the bad guys’ goons, Bond turns to Quarrel and tells him “fetch my shoes” -- as if he were his butler, rather than a local ally helping him avoid thugs with automatic weapons.

And there’s loads of scenes where Bond forces himself on women who quickly succumb to his charms – like Honor Blackman’s character in 1964′s Goldfinger – perpetuating a dangerous myth that a man can earn a woman’s love by pushing her into being romantic with him. (Or that a dismissive, vaguely annoyed tone with women – treating them like impertinent children or misguided simpletons – is also, somehow, irresistible to them.)

When Connery played Bond, he played a character who was the embodiment of white privilege. He made it look sexy, virtuous and necessary – the natural state of things in a 1960s-era world that, outside the comfortable confines of Bond’s make-believe spy games, seemed to be coming apart at the seams. But in the America of 2020, it’s a symbol of how media can teach you to accept a limiting legend.

And this was a fantasy I bought into eagerly. As a kid, my mom and I bonded over the heroic white guys she loved on film and TV, mostly from westerns. Just this past December, as she was fighting cancer and months before she would succumb to an infection, we sat and watched Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall save the day too many times to count.

As I got older, I’d make fun of all the misogyny, racism and white centering going on in these shows – gibes which my mother, a proud Black woman who loved her people and culture, tolerated with a weary smile. “These are my guys,” she’d say playfully, swatting aside any idea that there was a deeper impact from gorging on stories which treated these virtuous white men as the noble, natural center of every story. I wish the issue were that simple; it often isn’t.

For me, it wasn’t just a problem with Connery. As a kid, I loved Eastwood’s 1970s-era Dirty Harry movies, where the taciturn cop with a Magnum pistol cut through all the nonsense to nab the bad guy. Same with Bronson’s Death Wish films, where the solution to rampant street crime wasn’t better policing, but a taciturn, middle class white guy with a gun shooting down street criminals. It’s a potent fantasy, especially if you’ve ever had to deal with the numbing bureaucracy of real-life law enforcement or the brutal violation of being a crime victim.

It wasn’t until I got older that I realized many of those bad guys Harry Callahan was hunting were young hippies and Black people – the kind of folks who, in real life when Dirty Harry was released in 1971, were trying to get America to face how it was chewing up poor, young men in an unwinnable, unnecessary war in Vietnam. It was a prime example of “copaganda” – convincing the audience that the excesses Detective Callahan committed to nail a person the audience already knew was a serial killer, was justified.

Even now, I wonder: Can I watch these movies and appreciate why they are thrilling, while rejecting the tropes that present a white male-centered world as just and appropriate? In my work on race and media, I’m often telling audiences that people who insist they are not affected by media subtexts are often the most affected by them. Couldn’t that be true for me, when it comes to heroes like Eastwood, Bronson and Connery?

(One caveat: Sitting in an arena in Tampa, watching Eastwood give his infamously strange “empty chair” speech at the Republican National Convention in 2012, broke me of my affection for his work. I have avoided watching new Clint Eastwood films since then. Click here to read my report on the empty chair speech for the Tampa Bay Times.)

In his later years, Connery denied or walked back quotes where he seemed to approve of physically hitting women in real life. His roles in films like Highlander, The Untouchables, Hunt for Red October, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen often featured him playing the older mentor to younger white guy heroes portrayed by the likes of Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin and Kevin Costner.

And so, as the question of Connery’s legacy in show business arises, the fanboy part of me is at war with the media critic. One side of me is lost in the absolute coolness of the suave masculinity he so often symbolized, particularly as the world’s most successful secret agent.

The other is painfully aware of the inequalities and oppression such portrayals enabled, and how much they may feed our real life fantasies for a powerful white male savior to set things right, even now.

Especially now.

And saying these characters were a product of their flawed times somehow doesn’t seem enough.

This is a tough column to write, and not just because there are so many fans who want to focus on the best moments of Sean Connery’s life now that he’s gone. It’s difficult because he was a personal hero of mine for a long while – and remains one of my favorite performers – even as I acknowledge the terribly male-centric and white-superior ethos he embodied in so many roles.

This may sound like disrespectful nitpicking to hardcore fans and family. It’s never easy to sit with the more uncomfortable aspects of a great artist’s legacy. And the time after his death has been filled with heartfelt tributes to Connery, a man of great talent and no-nonsense sensibilities who was respected and loved by a great many people who worked with him.

Sometimes the media critic’s job requires being a buzzkill; insisting the public pay attention to troubling aspects of a film or TV show that we would all just rather sit back and enjoy. Because part of unwinding the effect of past portrayals is acknowledging their power in the present day.

Which means, every time I watch Connery stride to a baccarat table in Goldfinger, Dr. No, or Diamonds Are Forever, archly demanding a precisely constructed alcoholic beverage, I also have to remind myself of the damage done by too many characters like that offering too constricted a vision of what a hero looks and acts like. And I suggest you do the same.

It's the only way to balance a comforting myth with the reality of how that legend can, unwittingly, teach us to cling to ideas that ultimately hold us back.

#james bond #sean connery #race #pop culture

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years

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Michael in the Mainstream: Artemis Fowl

Since the early 2000s, Artemis Fowl has been languishing in development hell, and it really is a mystery as to why. The series has everything you could possibly want for a blockbuster young adult franchise: it’s a charming blend of science and fantasy with rich worldbuilding and mythology, it has enjoyable and even complex characters who go through great character arcs over the course of the series, it has an enjoyable major antagonist, an insufferable smug villain protagonist who goes through a stellar redemption arc over the course of the series, and tons of crazy heists that combine scheming and fairy magic. There was no reason this couldn’t have existed as a competitor to the Harry Potter series, but alas, it was not to be. The young adult fantasy franchise languished for decades in development hell, until finally Disney pulled it out and put Kenneth Branagh at the helm. Finally, we were going to get the Artemis Fowl adaptation we deserved!

Except we didn’t.

Artemis Fowl is legitimately one of the worst adaptations of any work of fiction ever. It has been held up alongside The Last Airbender and The Lightning Thief as part of the Unholy Trinity of terrible adaptations, and I’m not even going to try and pretend that this “Honor” isn’t well and truly earned. This film is an utterly abominable bastardization of the beloved franchise, to the point where this feels like an entirely different story that had familiar names slapped on it at the last second. If you want to know what horrific extents this film has butchered the story and characters, read onward, but there’s no way I’m going to pretend this film isn’t awful right off the bat.

There is literally nothing in this film that works. Nothing at all. Starting from the opening scene, the establishing shots, you can tell things are wrong – there are news people around Fowl Manor? Mulch is being interrogated? What is going on? The film from the word go is simply making one thing absolutely and abundantly clear: this is not the Artemis Fowl you know. The film goes out of its way to do the opposite of the franchise, merely using names and vague concepts in an attempt to sucker fans into watching it. Butler’s first name, an emotional reveal from the third book, is common knowledge; Opal Koboi, a cunning and threatening major villain who was the antagonist for almost every novel starting with the second, is here reduced to basically a personification of the voice on the phone from Scream; Root, once a short-tempered man who was hard on Holly as a method of tough love to push her to be the very best LEP had to offer to prove women belonged on the force, is here a woman who, while just as angry as ever, robs Holly of a major part of her arc and reduces her to plucky female sidekick. And even outside of that, as its own thing, the movie is just utterly incomprehensible. The story is rushed and confusing, with lots of exposition and action but with no context or cohesion. Things happen and things go from scene to scene, but none of it makes any sort of sense. A character will switch allegiances within a few minutes, characters will somehow find a way to survive deadly attacks offscreen… the worst offender is a character death they try to push off as emotional, despite there being no reason to care for this character, and when all hope seems lost, a deus ex machina saves the day! My wife, who is unfamiliar with the series, and I, a huge fan, both struggled to figure out what was going on at any given point; the movie is really that bad at communicating what is happening, which is even more baffling because the film is a pathetic hour and a half in length, a distressingly short amount of time to establish a new science-fantasy franchise of this scale.

The characters are almost all terrible. Artemis is the standout with how awful he is; no longer the cunning criminal masterminds of the book, Artemis here is more of a somewhat smug little brat who is overly emotional and, worst of all, NICE. He’s so nice in fact that by the end of the film he has managed to speedrun his character development and arcs with Mulch and Holly, who consider him their close friend and ally. Butler is pretty bad here as well, mostly because he is given almost nothing to do and is seemingly only there because he was in the book. In fact, his crowning moment – when he took on the troll – is instead given to Artemis and even Holly, with Butler ending up severely injured. It’s a bit nasty that they changed Butler to be black and then had his (white) master steal his greatest moment; it’s giving me flashbacks to Kazaam. Opal is hit pretty bad as well; being made the big bad of this loose adaptation of the first book’s plot – which is amusingly one of the few books she had absolutely no role in – wouldn’t be so rough if she was more of a presence and not just some vague, hooded figure who threatens Artemis over the phone and generally does nothing to warrant being an adaptation of the baddest bitch in the series. She’s rather ineffectual and they even try and give her a sort of sympathetic motivation, one where she resents humans for pushing her kind underground. It really is a disgusting waste of a character who could easily rival heavy hitters like Voldemort in the awesome and theatrically evil department.

Holly is almost okay, but her entire arc and a big chunk of her narrative purpose is robbed by making Commander Root a woman. Root, played by Judi Dench, is honestly one of the better characters since Dench has Root dropping lines like “Top o’ the morning to ya” with gravelly deadpan seriousness which makes the character unintentionally hilarious, but the cheap laughs don’t really make up for butchering the story of one of fiction’s finest ladies. As a side note, they have made Holly 100% white despite her skin being described as nut brown rather frequently in the book, and the now white Holly together with Artemis steal away Butler’s biggest moment. And that’s not even getting into how they neutered Juliet, who has also been race lifted but was turned into a child who barely appeared in the film. I’m not usually one to toss about racism accusations, but there’s a lot of red flags here that Branagh’s usual colorblind casting just doesn’t excuse.

The most consistently enjoyable performance is Josh Gad’s as Mulch. From the moment he was cast, I knew he’d do a good job and capture the spirit of the character, and he does! ...sort of. The decision to have Mulch be a giant dwarf and narrate the story in a crappy Batman impression while also violating literally the most important law of fairy culture (don’t tell the humans anything about us) by spilling the beans to M16 is unbearably stupid, and a lot of his jokes are just relentlessly unfunny. But I think that Gad does leak a bit of that Mulch charm at a few points, and it’s apparent he at least somewhat gets his character, which is not something that can be said for anyone else in this film. Sadly, much like his standout performance as Lefou in the live action Beauty and the Beast, he can’t possibly save the trainwreck of a film he’s in.

I guess I’m not entirely surprised by this film. I mean, a lot of quality young adult literature from the past two decades has been horrifically mangled in the wake of Harry Potter – Inkheart, The Golden Compass, The Lightning Thief, Ender’s Game, and Eragon – so this movie really isn’t an anomaly. But it is the culmination of a horrible trend. This is the zenith of horrible young adult adaptations, or perhaps I should say the nadir of adaptations as a whole? For all the flak I could give those other adaptations, on some fundamental level they still understood something about the source material. Ender’s Game still understood it could not erase the ending where children are revealed to be being conscripted to perform the ethnic cleansing of an alien race. Eragon couldn’t completely ruin Saphira, try as it might. The Lightning Thief… well, I mean, I guess the Medusa scene was mostly faithful. But Artemis Fowl? Artemis Fowl goes out of its way to be the opposite of its literary counterpart that there is no way to justify even saying it is based on the book by Eoin Colfer; it would be like having a movie about kids hanging out at the mall and doing mundane stuff, except they’re all named Jesus and Peter and Paul and then saying it’s based on the Bible. Just using names doesn’t mean anything, you actually have to use the themes and characterizations too, and this movie does none of that.

This movie is most comparable to The Emoji Movie. Neither of these works really deserve to be called a “Film” since they are basically whatever it is they’re trying so desperately to be stripped down to the bare essentials. The Emoji Movie is the most basic, by-the-numbers animated adventure film with a “be yourself” message you could ever hope to see, with a story so absolutely basic that just watching the trailer will allow you to predict the every motion of the plot. Artemis Fowl on the other hand is the most cliche-ridden fantasy epic franchise-starter you could imagine, and that’s if you’re able to penetrate the ridiculously dense and cluttered story and are able to make sense of what’s going on. I can think of absolutely no one this film could ever appeal to. There’s not a single redeeming thing about it. The movie is flashy, trashy junk that should never have been released, and Disney honestly did the right thing by releasing this on their streaming service because it would be outright disgusting to charge movie ticket prices for this tripe. The fact Disney has more faith in the eternally-delayed New Mutants theatrically speaks volumes about the quality of this film.

I can’t in good conscious say that this is the worst film of all time. F4ntastic is probably a much worse butchering of characters than this film; Disaster Movie is much more horrendously offensive and unfunny than this; hell, Chicken Little is probably a worse Disney movie because as awful as everyone in this film is, at least they aren’t Buck Cluck! But I don’t think there’s a single movie I hate more than this one. Lucy can finally move over and sleep easy knowing that the fact it’s not based on a pre-existing work has finally saved it from the #1 spot on my worst list; Artemis Fowl is now the reigning champ. Kenneth Branagh should be ashamed of himself for making and releasing this (and doubly ashamed for having the gall to unironically compare his slaughtering of Artemis Fowl’s character to Michael Corleone), Disney should be shamed for putting more money into this film than they did into BLM charities, and I hope that Eoin Colfer finds whatever he was paid worth it to see his greatest creation butchered and disrespected like this.

#Michael in the Mainstream #Review #movie review #Artemis Fowl #Kenneth Branagh #Eoin Colfer #fantasy film #fantasy #science-fantasy #Josh Gad #Judi Dench #Disney #Disney+#disney movie

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rwby-grimm-guardians · 3 years

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RWBY Grimm Guardians Arc 3: Separated Union Ch 2

Side White I: Family Drama

Welcome back to Separate Union! Here is Side White, which revolves around Weiss and Arktis’s experience in Atlas. The constant theme of this side is, obviously, Arktis...or rather, WILLOW becoming more frustrated and angry with Jacques. Willow will be referred as Willow and not Arktis for this arc...and maybe onward.

A specific theme of this chapter is the former heiress and Klein talking about how they can make sure Willow can prevent her children from ending up like their father. As usual, please give constructive criticism and enjoy!

Disclaimer: Still own nothing.

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(Several months after the Fall of Beacon, in Schnee Manor, Altas…)

Late at night, Willow Arktis Schnee sat in the manor’s library, reading a random book. Despite looking at the pages, she wasn't paying attention to it. She was more focused on what had happened earlier in the day… “Fuck…” The former heiress sighed, tossing the book on the table, before rubbing her eyes. These past few months have been… Well, increasingly frustrating for her. Not just because of what happened to Beacon, but also because of her husband, Jacques… Or was he her widow now?

She had no clue. Hell, for what Jacques and the rest of Atlas knew, Willow was still dead. “Maybe it’s better that I STAY that way to them.” She mumbled, laying on the couch and closing her eyes as she recalled the events leading up to now…

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(Over the past few months…)

1st Month

Willow and Weiss had returned to Atlas, where they were immediately greeted by a few individuals. Firstly was, quite predictably, General Ironwood and the Atlas Military, who had also returned quite recently. While he gave them a brief rundown of what had happened in Beacon, it was mostly information that the two already knew. That is, until he brought up what had happened to the headmaster.

At the moment and according to their current understanding, Beacon Headmaster Evergreen Ozpin Brown was dead... Needless to say, neither of them had expected that information…

The two went into the Manor afterwards, hoping to think over the events at Beacon...and comprehend them. They were soon greeted by a very worried Winter, who hugged them tightly. “Are you two okay? What happened? Are your friends alright?” She began asking, receiving a small smile from her mother. “Slow down, hun. Breathe…” Willow said. “Yes, we’re safe. Yes, our friends are safe...or as safe as they can be, at least…” “A...lot of chaos happened in Beacon.” She sighed tiredly.

The two Schnees then gave Winter a run down of the recent events. “Lieber Gott…” The Special Operative whispered. Willow nodded, “Dear god is right… Yang, Ruby, and her family are safe and healing. So are Blake and Gambol.” Winter nodded, “What of the headmaster…?” The former heiress froze, before looking at the floor with a sorrowful expression. Hesitantly, Weiss said, “He’s...gone… We don’t know...if that means he’s been captured or…” She didn’t dare finish the sentence.

“What happens now?” Weiss asked. Winter held her sister’s shoulders and looked at her in the eye, “Right now, we settle down for a while. You two need to heal as well.” She turned to her mother, saying, “I’ll be here for a while, but I won’t be staying at the Manor. You know why.” Nodding, the former heiress sighed, “Damn straight, I do.” After Winter and Weiss entered the teenager’s bedroom, Willow walked to where she knew an old friend would be waiting for her.

Entering the kitchen, Willow leaned against the door frame, saying, “We’re home.” The butler jumped, almost dropping the tea set as he rushed over and hugged the former heiress tightly. “Are you alright? Are you hurt? Would you like something? Where’s Weiss?” He began asking, panicking out of his mind as Willow gave a tried smile. “Gods, I missed you, Klein.” She said. “To answer your questions, we are...doing okay, we are safe, and we would like some tea please…”

Klein nodded, before immediately preparing some tea. “A lot has changed while you were gone…” He sighed. Willow raised an eyebrow, “Not in a good way, I assume?” The butler gave a nod, “Whitley...is not doing well...mentally.” “What the hell did that bastard do to him?” The former heiress growled, figuring that this was Jacques’s doing. “You don’t want to know the specifics…” The butler gave a sad sigh. “He’s still alive, but...Jacques is...morphing him. MOLDING him.”

Willow swore she felt her heart stop. Though, despite knowing that information, she never got to see Whitley that month… Even though she actively tried.

2nd Month

The next month, Willow actually MANAGED to see Whitley….and right away, she could tell that Klein was right. Whitley was becoming more like Jacques, even if he didn’t want to. Somehow...he was even looking up to him, despite the fact Jacques was manipulative and controlling. ‘What did you do to my baby boy, you fucker?’ Willow thought as she felt tension between her and Whitley. ‘What the fuck did you do to my children, Jacques…?’

She continued to watch over her children’s interactions with the man, even though Winter had gone back to the military...

3rd Month

The next month, Willow’s depression reared its unwanted head again. Just when she thought she was finally over it, turns out she wasn’t.

She started to blame herself for failing to protect her son, her youngest child,...from becoming like Jacques. As far as she was concerned, it was true...

She was dead for several years…and it was because she committed suicide. As far as she was concerned, she left to escape her own selfish pain...and in doing so, left her three children with a monster.

“Fuck this feeling…” The former heiress whispered, grabbing a bottle of wine and began drinking it. “Fuck it all…” She then blacked out.

She woke up the next day with a massive hangover...and Klein watching over her.

4th Month

Klein, to help Willow, hid and locked the alcohol away. If he wanted to help her overcome her depression, he needed to first help her get sober again. The next morning after he did that, the former heiress awoke with a groan and splitting headache. She groaned, “Verdammte Hölle.” She was in Weiss’s room, with said teenager playing the piano. “Good morning.” Her daughter said. Willow just grunted, her head throbbing, “How was I…?”

“Klein brought you here.” Her daughter said. The heiress then went over and sat on the edge of the bed, asking, “Would you like to tell me what’s going on?” Willow raised an eyebrow, before sighing, “What is there to say when I’m sure you already know?” “Try me.” Weiss said. The former heiress looked at her daughter for a few moments, before sighing. “So...my depression returned.” She said.

As Weiss gave the woman a cup of tea, Willow explained that it was triggered by thoughts of thinking she failed her children. “I left you three…in the most permanent and selfish way…” She sighed. “I… I committed suicide to….escape my own suffering.” She then looked at her daughter in the eye, “And yet, I made you three suffer because of it.” The heiress said nothing as her mother went on to say, “I KNOW it will NEVER change what I did...or redeem my actions, but I’m sorry….”

“I’m sorry for leaving you three… I’m sorry for not returning sooner…” Willow said, her hand shaking with the cup in her grasp. “I… I’m sorry...for being a terrible mother…” She then felt Weiss wrap her arms around her. The former heiress kept whispering apologies as tears ran down her face....while her daughter held her. Then...there was silence. Weiss looked down as Willow had passed out with the tea cup in her hand. Sighing, she put the cup on the bedside table , before laying her mother back down.

“Mom…” The teenager said, despite knowing her mother couldn’t hear her. “I won’t deny that what you did was wrong. You left us…” She then bit her lip, “But you came back. You’ve been given a chance to redeem yourself for what you did. You can STILL protect and care for us…” “To me….” Weiss started, before holding Willow’s hand. “I think you’ve been doing a good job as a mother since you came back… You just need some help getting on the right track.”

Subconsciously, the former heiress’s hand gripped her daughter’s. It wasn’t much, but it gave Weiss some hope that maybe...just maybe she heard her. “It’ll get better…” The teenager gave a small smile. “Nothing stays bad for long…” With that, she went back to the piano, continuing to play it as Willow slept peacefully.

5th Month

By the time the fifth month came around, Willow had stopped her drinking habits once more. This time, she hoped it would be for good.

6th Month

By the time the sixth month came up, the former heiress had stopped feeling depressed once more. She knew it wouldn’t stay like that….but she prayed that her depression wouldn’t be as severe as it was the next it showed up. Her anger with Jacques, however, was now nearing its boiling point with the man’s demanding behaviour towards Weiss as the Schnee Dust Company’s next heiress.

Willow couldn’t have been more disgusted and furious with Jacques.

7th Month

Finally, after three months of self-hatred and self-blaming, Willow had stopped blaming herself. She now knew that she needed to focus on the now and future. For herself. For Klein. For her children and friends.

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(Present day…)

Willow perked up when the family butler, Klein entered the room, holding two cups of tea. “Care to have a chat?” He asked with a smile. The former heiress nodded, sitting up as Klein sat next to her. Handing her a cup of tea, the butler sighed, “Winter, Weiss, and Whitley are struggling…” “I know…” Willow said. “Winter has escaped via the military. But who knows how much damage has been done?” Klein nodded, “She’s strong, old friend. But she needs help.”

The woman nodded, “Whitley seems almost beyond repair, given his reactions.” The butler sighed, “That is true… But there IS hope for him.” “Weiss needs to escape.” He said. “She needs a chance...to make things right again.” Willow sighed, “She needs to do what she thinks is right, Klein. Believe me, I want her to get to safety too, but in the end, we can NOT make the decision for her.” “We’d be no better than Jacques if we did…” She explained.

“But she’s…!” Klein started, only to be cut off by his old friend. “In danger? Yes, I know…” She sighed. “However, she’s mature enough to make her own decisions. She is more than capable...of making decisions to protect herself from Jacques. She just needs encouragement to make those decisions.” Willow put the cup on the table, “What we need to ask...is how I am going to be able to protect them… And how am I going to stop that son of a bitch who is their father…”

Klein smiled, “Well, I’m willing to help out as much as I can. You know that.” “Klein, you’re going to get into serious trouble if you do that!” The former heiress nearly shouted. The butler shrugged, “I don't mind. Besides, I’m sure Jacques is planning on letting me go sooner or later.” Willow sighed, “That fucker… We need to get the kids or Jacques out of here as soon as possible.” Klein nodded, “Agreed. The children are not safe with him around. And you WILL save them. I know you can...”

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Yeah, not the best to end it, but I couldn’t think of anything else. Oh well. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter! I tried my best to explain the reasons why Arktis is becoming more and more frustrated with Jacques and her struggle on how she’s going to protect her kids…

Next chapter will be the start of both Side Black and Yellow, as it has Blake and Yang chatting. Thought that would make sense. See ya then.

#rwby #rwby au #grimm guardians au #rwby fanfiction #willow schnee #weiss schnee #whitley schnee #klein rwby #tw alchoholism

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warmau · 5 years

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Prince!AU Jeno

requested by my giveaway winner! + find all other aus here

the most charitable prince the nation has ever seen

literally lives for helping others

does charity work whenever he can and refuses invites to fancy balls or galas

opting instead to get down in the dirt and plant new vegetables in the local gardens

or volunteering to help teach kids after school

even though he’s a shining star when it comes to community service and giving back

and the public adores him to pieces

he really,,,,,,,,,doesn’t act like a prince at all

not to say that he isn’t mannerly or that he doesn’t know the his country’s own values and laws

it’s just he’s a hyper young boy who thinks skateboarding through the palace halls is fun

doing kick flips over expensive pieces of art and scaring butler renjun half to death

he’ll be caught red handed stealing sweets from the pantry - mouth full of chocolate covered strawberries

and of course the hoarding,,,,,,,,and by hoarding i mean the hoarding of stray cats he keeps trying to hide in his room

but renjun is staring at the various bite marks and scratches on jeno and he’s like

“oh - how’d you get those?”

“uhhhhhh chenle bit me.”

“that’s almost believable, but hand over the kittens”

would live in the animal shelter if he could

just getting his gucci suit covered in cat fur

grinning from ear to ear as all the animals flock to him

and the shelter works swoon at the sight of his eye smile

but yeah, he has no sense of royal boundaries - or that he’s above anyone else simply because he’s a prince

like he’ll hop out of the carriage during parades - the queen nudging for knight jaemin to follow him

before jeno gets himself lost in the crowds

greeting shop keepers with deep bows and letting young kids cling onto him and offer him flowers and candy

there was once a newspaper headline about how a thief had managed to slip one of jeno’s rings off his fingers

when jeno had walked through the streets without his knight

but then the thief felt so bad that he approached the prince a couple of minutes later and offered it back

someone asked him later

“why did you give the ring back?”

“i didn’t want prince lee to be sad, he’s too handsome to be sad.”

renjun keeps stocking prince jeno’s closet with “princely” attire - in navys, greys, and blacks

because those colors make him look like he’s being serious

but jeno just shows up in all pink like

“i heard we’re going to be doing negotiations with prince haechan today - he likes pink, right?”

you’re actually kind of a rowdy kid yourself - ever since you were young you liked causing trouble and pulling pranks

always running around with scraps on your knuckles and bruises on your knees

you never cared about politics or the royal family,,,,,,,,,,,,or school,,,,,,,,,,,,or anything really

you just liked doing things for a rush

living on the edge and sometimes getting scolded for it by your (in your opinion) overtly tight and proper roommate doyoung

who treated you like his noisy, rough around the edges child

that always paid the share of the rent late

but somehow,,,,,,,,you’d managed to survive

doing small jobs here and there - mostly art focused as that was where your talents lay

you used to do a lot of graffiti - but on several occasions you’d been caught

and you were kind of wary that the next time the local authorities got their hands on you, you wouldn’t get away with just a slap on the wrist

so you strayed away, instead you did paid mural work and designs

it was pennies really, but it was much better than slaving away in an office

well,,,,,,,in your eyes at least,,,,,,,,

but when the royal family unveils a new painting in the town square

you can’t help but feel your palms itch at the though of spray painting a giant mustache on the prince’s face

a part of you argues that you don’t need to do this - really, this is childish and you’ll get caught and regret it

but the other part of, the one that always wins, goes absolutely bonkers

so you end up on sneaking down the fire escape, bag pack stuffed to the brim with cans in all colors

you pull up your hoodie and make the short, zig zagging walk through back alleys to the square

it’s dead quiet. not even stray cats are out at this time

and you excitedly rub your hands together as you stand in front of the large painted faces of your country’s royals

now you really don’t mean it as anything but a harmless joke

you’re not making a political statement by drawing stars on the queens white blouse or giving the king goody glasses

you just want to cause a stir - you just want to do it because you can

and as you lean up to run a red line on the side of the princes’ handsome jawline

you hear a voice

“ah. if it isn’t you again”

for a moment your body goes cold - seriously, only fifteen minutes in and the cops are here?!?!?!

you expect they’ll haul you down to the station, be given a long and boring speech about respecting property, and then let out by the time the sun rises

but that doesn’t happen

instead you find yourself spending the night in the station, no one tells you what’s happening, until finally you hear a rustle going on in the hall

and the door to the room you’re being held in opens

a knight walks in, you can tell by his uniform and the crest of the lee kingdom he wears on his chest

he gives you a once over and shakes his head

“jaemin, what’s going to happen to them?”

an officer questions and you sit up a little straighter

“that’ll be up to the royal family to decide”

you can’t believe it - actually you’re pretty sure you must be fever dreaming when you find yourself in the main ballroom of the palace

a place you’ve only seen in photos and on tv

“i- im here all over a harmless prank ?!?!?!”

the knight, named jaemin as you learned, gives you a sympathetic shrug

“it’s not harmless to deface the people who run this country.”

“deface then? all i did was doodle-“

he shushes you and stands at attention as the doors open with a loud and heavy sound

in front of your wide eyes step the queen and the prince, both dressed in golds and jewels

you're so frozen that jaemin has to cough thrice until you realize you have to bow in greeting

as you hang your head low, the queen gives an annoyed tsk

prince jeno on the other hand observes you curiously

his hands clasped behind his back as he looks at your black hoodie and jaemin drops the bag full of your supplies on the spot in front of you

“child, you really shouldn’t have drawn such crude things on a public mural.”

the queen begins and you swallow

her tone doesn’t sound all that sweet like when she’s giving speeches over the radio ,,,, i might have really messed up this time!

she continues to talk, pointing out that the mural took weeks to perfect. that the townspeople are just as disappointed as the family and authorities are. at some point there’s a comment about how you were probably just raised poorly

all of it kind of drowns in your head as you panic about your fate

“as for punishment-“

you stiffen and you think you even hear knight jaemin tense up at your side

“wait, mother may i?”

the prince speaks for the first time and your gaze shoots over to him instantly

he’s wearing his blonde hair back with golden pins, a loose fitting blouse tucked into riding jeans with a belt that looks like it’s been encrusted with rubies

“i think i have a good idea, it’ll help them both reflect on their crime against the town-“

crime? it was some harmless drawing!

“and help restore the mural.”

“oh?”

the prince smiles, but you’re hesitant - gripping the sleeves of your hoodie as he gives a slow nod

“let’s just make them re-paint it!”

you let your jaw drop, but no noises come out of your mouth

he wants me to re-paint that giant thing all by myself? it’ll take weeks - i won’t be able to do anything else - i would rather -

“it sounds better than being banished, right?”

you can’t really formulate a sentence, so knight jaemin answers for you

“that’s a splendid idea prince lee! im sure the culprit is grateful!”

you feel a sharp elbow in your side and you kind of sputter to life

give a groggy

“thank you so much my prince”

as jeno brings his hands up in a clap and his mother, seemingly bored already with you, gives her agreement

just like this whole situation - you think you have to be in a bad dream as you stand in front of the mural in broad daylight

a tiny circle of whispering locals around you

as jaemin sets up a ladder and hands you a large, clean brush

“this is going to take forever.”

“maybe you shouldn’t have messed it up in the first place.”

he grins when you give him a sideways glare

but make your way up the ladder, you come face to face with the splotches of red paint from your prank and with a frustrated sigh you begin to paint over them

after a while, people become uninterested and disperse

jaemin is supposed to be guarding you, but he disappears somewhere

saying that it’ll be obvious if you slack off - someones got to get those goofy glasses off of the kings face

so you end up tired, alone, and grumbling about how this punishment might just be worse than banishment

“what is prince lee’s problem anyway? butting his head into the conversation -”

“oh, i think you missed a spot on my face.”

you almost drop the paint can in your hand with surprise

when you hear a familiar voice from down beside the ladder

you turn, carefully and see the prince himself

jaemin is beside him, pretending as if he’s been doing his job all day as jeno takes a look at your progress so far

“hmmm looks like this project might take a while,,,,,”

he muses and you have the sudden urge to turn the bucket of paint upside down and watch it dump over onto his blonde head

but you restrain yourself at the last minute

“but still. i trust you’ll get it done nicely?”

you can’t tell if he’s being annoying on purpose, mocking you and teasing

or if he really means it

“well then, carry on. you can leave when it’s dark and return in the morning. jaemin, you’ll be here - yes?”

jaemin salutes and you roll your eyes as you turn back to your work

you don’t notice how the prince’s stare lingers a bit before he turns on his heel and is off

the next couple of days is grueling, you wake up early - get told off by doyoung for getting yourself into the mess - trudge up to the town sqaure and clamber up the ladder with your paints

you hate it at first, but after a while you kind of come to terms with it

whistling tunes to distract yourself and even sometimes holding conversations with knight jaemin

you don’t expect the prince, or anyone from the royal family to come and check on you

but by the end of the first week - you’re surprised to see jeno at the mural and without jaemin

“my prince?”

you approach with caution and he gives you a smile in response

he’s dressed more casually then you’ve ever seen before, dark jeans and leather suspenders over a button up shirt

but then you see the golden necklace and wrist watch

once a prince, always a prince

he motioned to the mural with his head and goes

“it’s coming along well, i knew your talent would show.”

“my talent?”

“do you think i don’t know about your other work?”

for a moment,,,,,,,you look at him confused

“a-are you -”

“the graffiti and the paid work you’ve done around the town. i did my research.”

again, you aren’t sure if he’s bringing it up as a compliment or not - so you just shrug in response

“well, im happy your highness is pleased so far.”

he puts a hand under his chin and steps back

“although i see you haven’t gotten to my face yet?”

you huff - ready to go on a tangent about how the king and queen need to be fixed first

when jeno bursts into laughter at the sight of your furrowed expression

“im teasing, take all the time you need.”

you step back with him - thinking nothing of it when you motion to his portrait on the wall

“the original artist didn’t do that good of a job - do you see the shade on your neck, it’s not from the right angle. and they weren’t able to capture your eyes well either.”

jeno looks impressed at your comments, but you aren’t even doing it for that

you just have been thinking about it since you started your “punishment”

“when light hits brown eyes like yours, the color becomes almost translucently brown and they made it muddy-”

“why, maybe you should become a full time artist instead of running around getting in trouble?”

you scrunch up your nose

“no, traditional art is fine and all that. but my kind of style isn’t really appreciated. im lucky enough to find small work.”

you pick up a paint can of green, making your way up the ladder - jeno comes to the side and holds it steady as you reach the top

why is he even here in the first place? don’t prince’s have better things to do?

you wonder to yourself as you pluck a brush from the front pocket of your jeans - leaning back to make sure you’re in a good spot to reach the lapel of the king’s uniform

“have you always been an artist?”

the prince’s voice wafts up to you ears and you shake your head

“no, i didn’t start until i was older.”

“what a shame, you clearly have talent.”

you push back the warm feeling that crawls up onto your cheeks

and you assume that at some point he’s going to have to leave,,,he cant stay here and chat with you forever

and he does

but then

he keeps coming back

bright and early, every morning - the prince is waiting for you beside the mural

he can never stay past an hour or so, and it really confuses you as to what he gains out of watching you paint and asking you questions about yourself, but it is something to distract you

as the work on the mural trudges on slowly

after a couple of weeks - you finish the king and queen and get started on the prince

for some reason, you approach fixing his portrait with more care

you spend a lot of time looking at it from affair, even sketching it out on scraps of paper before you bring a paintbrush up to it

one day as you’re getting ready to re-paint jeno, you notice a small cat is making rounds around your paint cans

you watch it with a tiny giggle, before you see the prince - scurrying after it like a entertained large child

the kitten hops through some nearby bushes and jeno squats down to see where it’s gone when he sees a pile of abandoned papers beside them

you’d forgotten where you’d put the sketches you did of him from some time ago

but when the prince unfolds the papers he finds them, looking over the fine pencil work and the familiar features that make up his handsome face

he lifts his hand up - waving them to get your attention

“did you draw me?”

you feel your throat go dry a bit and you shake your head

“n-no, i mean i did but for the painting reference.”

even from up on the ladder you can see stars in jeno’s eyes as he looks at the drawings

“can i keep them?”

it’s an unexpected question, so you don’t really know how to answer - it catches you off guard

so you turn your body a bit too fast

and before you can stop, gravity takes its course and your balance is thrown off

the green paint in your hand goes flying, a pretty arch splattering down over the mural and the ground below as you feel yourself falling backwards

the impact scares you - so you shut your eyes tightly and don’t hear jeno’s voice call out your name

you wait and wait to hit the ground

but instead you tumble straight into a pair of arms, your weight momentarily causing jeno to teeter backwards, but he manages to steady his grip

“are you alright?”

he asks, breathless and you refuse to open your eyes

“did i die?”

“yes.”

your eyes shoot open and jeno laughs at your panicked “what?!?!?”

“no, you didn’t die. you’re ok.”

you look at him - before reaching out and touching his face to confirm

forgetting that one of your country’s laws is that you’re not even allowed to touch royals

but you don’t care

his skin is smooth and warm to the touch and you let out a sigh of relief

“oh -ok.”

but jeno nearly drops you at the sudden contact, shaking his head to fight the oncoming blush

he sets you down and you turn to see the damage

a giant splatter of green right on the center of the queen’s face

“oh no - now i have to redo it again”

you groan and jeno just blinks before regaining his own composure

“i’ll help you.”

you step back and shake your head

“no way! you’re the prince, if people see you helping me - they’ll think -”

“i don’t care.”

jeno picks up a spare paintbrush and smiles, the pretty brown eyes turning into crescent moons as he does

“this time it wasn’t your fault, it was mine for startling you. it’s only right that i get the same punishment you did.”

you’re skeptical - and a little embarrassed

but jeno climbs up the stairs and turns to point

“im not good at painting though, so i will need your help.”

after news spreads that the prince has joined in on helping re-paint the mural

the circle around you two grows bigger and bigger each day

jaemin is called in, and even renjun at some point

which you find a little odd because at the end of the day renjun is berating you with questions about what kind of style of clothing you like - if you think the prince is handsome blonde - and other questions that you feel you really don’t need to be answering

but jeno never goes back on his word

he shows up everyday until the mural is fully fixed

the last day, as you’re working on small details - and the crowd is bustling around you as jeno mixes paints at the bottom of the ladder

you hear an uproar of cheers and see from the corner of your eye that everyone is bowing low

“mother!”

jeno calls out and you quickly make your way down - ready to greet the queen as she ignores you and takes in your work so far

“jeno, you really must stop wasting your time here. you’re a prince not a painter, come now - let’s go back to the palace.”

she says - voice prim and proper

golden crown shining against the early morning light

you don’t say anything, but you feel jeno look back at you

“the mural is almost done, when it is. ill come back.”

his mother’s lips form a straight line and she shakes her head

“it’s their punishment, no prince would ever help-”

“but i also messed up mother, i caused an accident and now i have to do my diligence too.”

renjun, whose beside the queen is shaking his head frantically - trying to tell jeno to just stop and come along

jaemin is silent on the otherside

and then you finally find your voice

“prince lee, you’ve helped me so much, but the queen is right.”

you begin and jeno straightens up his back

“no. she isn’t. i messed up all your work, im going to stay and help you fix this. then ill go back to the palace.”

you swear you see renjun plant his palm against his face

but the queen doesn’t say anything

not until jeno perks up and adds

“you’re welcome to come back with me too.”

“what?”

you blurt out and the queen gives out an even harsher “what?”

renjun nearly falls over and jaemin looks amused as jeno walks over to you, hand swung around your shoulder

the common folk watching the scene all gasp and you feel your face turn red hot

“come back to the palace with me!”

“je- prince what are you -”

jeno grins

“i’d like them to work as the official artist for the royal family, and -”

he leans in a little, tilting his head and whispering the next part into your ear

“and maybe something more than just a friend to me?”

from your expression everyone knows what he said

the queen is ready to deny the request, but she’s struck speechless

and you kind of just

“i - uh -”

everything is paused and then you hear the shout of your name

through the crowd comes your roommate doyoung, seemingly unaware of the queen or the princes presence

as he stomps up to you

“we need to discuss rent!”

he exclaims, taking your hand and hauling you out down the street

am i dreaming?

you ask as you feel yourself tugged away from the crowd

and you come to terms with the fact that this has to be some crazy dream you’re about to wake up from

but only an hour after being lectured about paying your due

the doorbell rings and you open it to see the prince there

“my dad said you can come work as the artist for the palace, he convinced my mom too. but about the other thing i asked?”

“um -”

you start and doyoung’s voice rings from the kitchen

“prince or not, you’re only allowed to go on a date with him after i get your share of the rent!”

you feel like a child just scolded by a parent in front of their crush

but jeno bursts out laughing and you want to tell him to stop

but instead he just shouts back

“i’ll cover their missing rent - but can i take them to dinner then?”

after a moment of silence you hear doyoung again

“deal!”

jeno offers his hand and you take it

dreaming, im definitely dreaming - am i going to wake up? when will i wake up?

but you don’t wake up because it’s not a dream

and you end up having a dinner picnic in front of the finished mural, sharing sandwiches with jeno

the sketches you did still sticking out of his pocket, the sound of knight jaemin (whose supposed to be standing guard over you and the prince) snoozing in the background

#nct dream scenarios #nct dream imagines #nct dream au #jeno scenarios #jeno imagines #jeno au #member: jeno #sfw #prince!au #lee jeno #nct dream

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mobius-prime · 4 years

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159. Sonic Super Special #15

Welcome to the final Sonic Super Special ever! Here's my opinion on it. Past Super Specials have ranged from okay to amazing, depending on the writer and the subject matter, and their long length has usually, if you ask me, worked in their favor, as it meant more time and space to tell a compelling story. This is not true of this one. Unfortunately, the last super special of the comic is utterly awful, with two stories that do absolutely nothing to grip my attention, one of which ends in a status quo with a net gain of absolutely nothing, and the other of which is cringeworthy and isn't even very clear on when, where or how it takes place. Let's just get this over with, shall we?

Naugus Games

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Many Hands Colors: Josh and Aimeee Ray

This first story is far, far longer than it has any right to be - it really feels like they were trying to find ways to pad it out it to take up the full 48 pages of the special. Furthermore, you might notice some oddities about the credits above. First of all, Aimee's name is misspelled with three E's for both stories for some reason, indicating some lazy copy-and-pasting as well as a lack of care from the editors. Even more frustratingly, no one is actually credited directly for the pencils (or inks), with the art instead just being credited to "many hands." Remember how I said the comic was getting annoyingly bad about properly crediting people? Now, in case you're confused, there's not just some artist out there literally named Many Hands; instead, that's the comic's way of sidestepping actually bothering to credit any individuals for their work. It just means "eh, a lot of people worked on this I guess, but we don't care enough to actually tell you who." Unfortunately, unlike a few issues ago where the art style was immediately recognizable as Steven Butler's, the art style for this story is foreign to me, suggesting they got some people who weren't their usual artists to work on this one, so I can't even take an educated guess here. All I know is that both the art style in general and the quality of the inks are very poor, and as we'll see, the art gets unforgivably lazy at times. Perhaps best of all, this story was later retconned into a much more interesting and concise version of itself at a later date, with better storytelling and artwork to boot. The only reason, then, that I'm covering it at all, is honestly as a demonstration of just how lazy the comic could get at times, as well as due to the fact that this is the first appearance of "Many Hands," who later pencilled one other issue for the comic that was of equally poor quality.

So this story takes place at an unspecified time in the recent past. It seems to be sometime after Eggman's return, judging by some of the lines of dialogue within the story, but the actual timeframe is pretty vague. Sonic has returned to the Southern Tundra to pay his respects to Eddy, recalling how Eddy sacrificed himself when he, Tails, and Nate all fought Naugus here some time ago. He's brought a single rose to lay on the site of the wreckage, but the ground isn't quite stable…

And here we have the first instance of a truly terrible art decision. Sonic falls into a pitch black cave system, but instead of representing this with maybe one page max of blackness or darker lighting, we're treated to nearly four pages straight of nothing but this:

He blindly stumbles around for a while, informing us of this fact through dialogue bubbles because everyone knows that telling is better than showing in fiction, right? He finally hits a wall and sees a glow through a crack in it, so he tunnels his way into the next room only to find it full of glowing rings - apparently, either he, Tails and Naugus somehow didn't use up all the rings when they fought, or these one have just auto-generated themselves somehow down here. Sonic recalls memories of the previous battle when Nate sealed Naugus away with a wish from a ring, and then decides to try to use one to get out of the cave system.

Wonderful! Apparently, a "wish" as defined by the magic of the rings just means that you think of someone's name while touching a ring, and so with a flash, Naugus is back from his imprisonment in the zone that Nate sealed him into! But how is this possible?

That explanation makes… basically no sense, dude. Naugus was definitely sealed away in another zone, he didn't just get turned into a pile of telepathic rings. But whatever. He and Sonic start battling it out, and somehow make it outside, where Naugus conjures up a snowstorm that consistently stays centered on Sonic no matter where he runs. Time for the second awful art choice of the issue - now instead of four pages of pure blackness, we get six whole pages of this:

I think the best thing about this is that the blizzard backgrounds are clearly not even hand drawn like the rest of the comic is - there's only two types of snowflakes up there, and they're consistently just copied and pasted in that same repetitive swirl pattern on every single page. I get that drawing for a big story in a super special like this can be long and tedious work, but this is why you don't try to find a way to artificially elongate a story like this which could easily be told in the span of a normal issue length. It just ends up making the audience feel like their time is being wasted. Anyway, the blizzard finally ends when Sonic pulls out a ring from his jacket and wishes for Naugus to be sealed away in his previous zone once more, and thus, Naugus is out of our hair again, with absolutely nothing to show for it. Man, if it's this easy to defeat people in this universe, why hasn't anyone tried this on Eggman yet?

Sonic then leaves back for home, thinking one last time of Eddy, who is shown looking down on him from the heavens above. And thank god that story is over.

Sonic Spin City

Writer/Pencils: Michael Gallagher Colors: Josh and Aimeee Ray

Michael Gallagher, over the course of the comics, has gone from one of the series' main writers to basically a guest writer who's brought on every once in a while for special occasions. In this case, he even makes his return as a penciller! Unfortunately, his goofy writing style has begun to clash with the much more serious plots of these later issues, and this story is no exception. It's entirely unclear about whether we're supposed to take this story as actual canon, as a story from an alternate zone, or as just a silly joke story that doesn’t mean anything - and while I tend to try to avoid looking at non-canon materials in this review series (I've already skipped a few stories and issues for exactly this reason), the ambiguity of this one forces me to cover it. In addition, I don't even know why Josh and "Aimeee" were credited as colorists for this story, considering the entire thing is black and white with no color to be found.

Much like the first story of StH#52, this story has the flair of an old detective serial. Sonic is wandering the streets on a rainy night when two swatbots ambush him. Of course, two swatbots are no match.

What does a swatbot need matches for? Eh, whatever. Sonic races over to Rusty's, a hangout for abandoned badniks, and orders himself a "chili dog float," which in addition to sounding absolutely disgusting doesn't even seem like something a bar for robots would serve in the first place. As he takes his seat, the lights go out, and… this abomination emerges onto the stage.

Yes. The badniks are going wild for a swatbot with tits dancing seductively on a stage for them. What is she gonna do, plug them into a wall outlet? They even start screaming out for "the stretch," and appear to get even hornier as she massively elongates her legs for them. I mean, just, what? I swear, Michael, if we get one more weird borderline-sex thing like this from you in this comic, my eyes are gonna pop out of my head like Natsuki. A bot grabs the dancer's ankle, and she's thrown off balance and crashes down, with the head popping off to reveal that underneath, it's Bunnie in disguise.

You know, after her claim all those issues back that she's a "sax cymbal," I'm not even gonna contest the idea that she'd do a sexy dance during infiltration for a mission. Hell, I get the impression she'd do one anyway just for fun back in Knothole if she got the chance. You might also notice her arm is the arm from her old design, and that coupled with Sonic's own design seems to indicate that if this took place at all in actual canon, it was before Eggman's return, though I'm immensely skeptical that this is supposed to be canon at all. Sonic and Bunnie take out the rest of Rusty's customer base, and then evacuate before the last swatbot activates its self-destruct chip, blowing the place sky high. Congratulations, nothing important was accomplished in this issue and nobody cares!

It's kinda sad that the final Sonic Super Special turned out to be so low-quality, honestly. However, this marks a bit of a turning point in the comic. For the first time in its entire run, from now on, there are no more special issues, no sister series, no miniseries, nothing. From the next issue, all the way to almost the 200th, with one exception in the form of a Free Comic Book Day issue, there are absolutely no interruptions from issue to issue. While this may not seem too notable at first, since we've just been reading everything in mostly-chronological order anyway, keep in mind that as far as the comic is concerned we're still in the year 2000, with a mere seven years having passed from the beginning of the comic all the way to now over the course of 159 issues. Over the course of the next 106 issues, we're going to blaze through nine years of comic history, meaning that the story is going to flow a lot faster, with more plot points being covered in a shorter amount of time. While this does make the order of issues a lot easier to follow, since there's no questions about which issue fits in where or anything, I am sad to see all the special issues go, as I quite enjoyed how they served to break up the flow of the comic as a whole with special stories and side content. Though we're still in the middle of our current plot era, we're entering into a new era of the comic as a whole, where we've got a straight shot through the next hundred issues. So I say - let's do it to it!

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sonic super special 15 #writer: ken penders #writer: michael gallagher #pencils: many hands #pencils: michael gallagher #colors: joshua d ray #colors: aimee r ray

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chiseler · 5 years

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McVouty!

I first heard Slim Gaillard in a cramped little new and used punk rock record store just off South Street in Philadelphia in the mid-‘80s. You wouldn’t normally be expecting the spiked and leathered clerk in a place like that to be playing ’postwar jazz, but Gaillard was a different kind of finger-popping jazzbo, as singular a groovy beatnik punk rock wildman as they come.

Bulee “Slim” Gaillard’s early life, as he describes it, was as storied, fantastical, even mythical as Salvador Dali’s or an early 20th century boy’s adventure novel. Given official records are sparse, it’s just better and somehow more fitting to simply take him at his word. It only makes sense, really, and helps explain as well as anything how he became what he did.

The motormouthed madcap hepcat bebop comedy genius behind 1938’s “Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy),” a performer whose unexpected slips into rapid-fire Spanish, Arabic and Yiddish can at first sound like skilled mimicry, a kind of scatting Sid Caesar, was born in Cuba in 1916 to an Afro-Cuban mother and a German Jewish father. His father was a steamship steward who sometimes brought the young Gaillard along on ocean voyages to show him a bit of the world. But after a stop in Crete in 1928, the ship somehow sailed on half an hour earlier than scheduled, leaving the 12-year-old Gaillard behind. Completely alone and speaking only Spanish at the time, out of simple necessity he picked up enough Greek to get by for the next couple years. He also occasionally hopped aboard passing ships to visit the Middle East, where he likewise learned some Arabic and became enamored with the people, the music and the culture. Then at 16, deciding it was about time he returned home to see his parents again, he booked passage on a ship he thought was headed for Havana.

Only problem was, the boat skipped Havana, sailing north to New York. Gaillard didn’t disembark there, instead staying aboard as the ship made it’s way through the St. Lawrence before docking in Detroit. Considering he spoke no English, Detroit seemed much more amenable, he would note years later, mostly on account of it’s large immigrant population. With so many Greeks, Arabs and Hispanics vying for work in the auto plants, he was at least able to find people with whom he could communicate, and was taken in by an Armenian family. He picked up English as quickly as he picked up the others, though, and started working odd jobs. Among the odder, there in the midst of Prohibition, was a stint with the notorious Purple Gang, for whom he made deliveries in a hearse carrying a coffin filled with bootleg whiskey. After witnessing too much violence, the preternaturally gentle Gaillard realized it wasn’t the life for him, and took the advice of a tough local beat cop (who also happened to be black) who warned him to get away from the gangs, get out of the neighborhood, and do something with himself. For a black teenager in Detroit in the 1930s, his escape routes were limited. He could go into boxing, or go into music. He tried his hand at boxing for a bit, then decided maybe music was the preferable route.

Gaillard started taking night classes, and after some backstage encouragement from Duke Ellington himself, eventually learned to play guitar, sax, vibraphone, piano and drums. In the mid-30s he moved to New York, having decided he wanted to be a professional entertainer.

Since work as a professional musician was hard to come by, he became what he called a professional amateur, making the rounds of the amateur nights at the local clubs, changing his act as he did to avoid recognition. Sometimes he’d be a dancer, others a pianist, still others a sax player. Simple fact was he could get paid $15 a night on the amateur stages, which was better than a lot of professionals were getting paid. The trick, though, was he couldn’t be too good, If he was too good, they’d never let him play amateur night. So he always had to drop in a few intentional flat notes to cover himself.

Although he was an excellent musician who could play everything from boogie woogie to bebop to Big Band to Afro-Cuban to American standards to children’s songs and classical, Gaillard will never be remembered for his playing. Despite having so many languages at his disposal (the list had since come to include Armenian, German and Yiddish), Gaillard found there were still ideas and concepts beyond what any of them could express. To rectify this he began inventing his own vocabulary, centered around the adjectival verb “vout” (and it’s variations vouty, McVoutm McVouty, etc.) and the suffixes o-reenee, o-roonee, and o-rootee. They were fluid in both usage and meaning, and could be dropped in pretty much anywhere in conversation. By the time he teamed with bassist Slam Stewart and the pair began recording as the musical comedy team Slim and Slam in the late ‘30s, Gaillard had started writing his own songs in the new language he had christened, yes, Vout-O-Reenee. Beyong that, the pair was a master of the dueling jive comic scat, playing off each other and riffing on everything from La boheme and “Jingle Bells” to chicken clucks and food references. Gotta say, Gaillard wrote an unusual number of songs about food—avocados, chili, fried chicken, ice cream, matzoh balls, bagels, peanuts, and whatever else came to mind when he was hungry. He also wrote songs about motorcycles, cement mixers, and mass communication.

Slim and Slam first came to the public’s attention when Benny Goodman performed their song “Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy) on the radio in late 1937. The song was an overnight sensation, and when Slim and Slam recorded their own bersion shortly thereafter, it reached number two on the Billboard charts. A copy of the song was even included in a time capsule buried at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The capsule is scheduled to be reopened in the year 6939, and you have to wonder what whoever or whatever finds it will make of what kind of people we were.

Other outlandishly catchy novelty hits like “Cement Mixer (Put-Ti Put-Ti)” and “McVouty” soon followed. The pair’s between-song banter, marked by non-sequiturs, bad jokes, and Gaillard’s new language made them radio favorites. In 1941 they appeared as themselves in the appropriately wild and accidentally postmodern Hellzapoppin’, and performed in a handful of other films in the early ’40s.. Gaillard’s facility for languages, accents and crazy sound effects also earned him occasional voice work on animated Warner Brothers shorts from the era.

In 1943 Gaillard was drafted into the Army Air Corps, trained as a pilot, and flew a B-25 on bombing missions over Europe, which is something worth pausing to think about for a moment. After his plane was struck by anti-aircraft fire in 1944 and Gaillard was hospitalized for months with an arm full of shrapnel, he was discharged. He resumed his musical career, solo this time, recording jams with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and releasing his majestic four-part “Groove Juice Symphony.”

Gaillard was tall and rail thin with a pencil mustache, a groovy, mellow, and utterly unpredictable hepcat’s hepcat, and was deeply respected within the jazz community. While playing a stint at a little club in San Francisco in the late ‘40s, he met Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, whom he says hun out at the club eight nights a week. They became good friends, Gaillard being impressed by their deep understanding and love of the music. Kerouac would later immortalize Gaillard by famously recounting the meeting in On the Road. (It’s also interesting to note that during a 1968 episode of William Buckley’s Firing Line, a very drunken Kerouac interrupted the discussion about the hippie movement with an impromptu rendition of “Flat Foot Floogie.”)

By the late 1950s, however, the music scene had started to change, rock’n’roll was coming to dominate the airwaves, the jazz clubs which had lined Manhattan’s 52nd Street were shutting down, and Gaillard was starting to feel like he no longer belonged. It’s unclear if the 1957 release of Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” had anything to do with this perception. The song was of course a massive hit and is today considered a fundamental, defining classic of early rock’n’roll. True to form, Little Richard refused to acknowledge the song (down to the “Tutti Frutti-o-roottee” chorus) was simply a bowdlerized version of Slim and Slam’s 1938 hit of the same name. Little Richard fans insist up and down they were two completely different and unrelated songs since the Slim and Slam version was about ice cream not girls, but when the singer himself notes his original title was “Tutti Frutti McVouty,” well, there you go.

Gaillard insisted he had nothing against the new music, but it simply wasn’t his scene, so by the end of the decade he stopped recording, stopped performing, dropped out and started looking for something else to do.

For an entertainer of his range, ability and goofy charisma, the choice seemed easy, and he picked up and moved to California. Although often cast as musicians who bore an uncanny resemblance to Slim Gaillard, over the next two decades he would appear opposite Bobby Darin and Stella Stevens in John Cassavetes 1961 feature Too Late Blues and in the 1958 Harlem Globetrotters movie Go, Man, Go! He had guest spots on Marcus Welby, M.D., Charlie’s Angels and Medical Center. He played Sam, the baseball expert in Roots: The Next Generation, and Raymond Burr’s butler in Love’s Savage Fury. Although he claims he was one of the gorillas in 1968’s Planet of the Apes, I honestly can find no verification of this, no matter how much I want to believe it.

After a dinner with Dizzy Gillespie around 1980, Gaillard decided to return to his one true calling. He signed on for a number of jazz festivals throughout Europe, and started work on a couple new albums. Also at Dizzy’s recommendation, Gaillard picked up again in 1983 and moved to London, where the atmosphere was much more welcoming for American jazz greats than it was in the States.

As if to prove a point, shortly after his arrival, Gaillard was approached by the BBC, which produced a remarkable four-part, four-hour documentary about his life and career. Slim Gaillard Civilization allowed Gaillard to tell his own story, combining archive footage with clips from recent performances, conversations between Gaillard and old friends, candid shots of a family get-together in California (his daughter Jan was married to Marvin Gaye), a few impromptu songs, and even some dramatic recreations of scenes from his childhood. Gaillard’s slow, gentle and simple poetic narration leaves his tale sounding like a children’s bedtime story, which is the overall form the documentary takes.

He was a little slower, a little more, yes, mellow, and the manic energy of half-a decade earlier had ebbed a bit. A new recording of “How High the Moon?” seemed staid and over-rehearsed, even a little bored compared with the unpredictable and mad anarchic ad-libbing of his original 1947 recording, but remains uniquely his own. More than anything, there was a new and unexpected air of melancholy about the 68-year-old, much of it focused on a scene from his childhood. As he was leaving Cuba with his father for what would be the last time, Gaillard had been instructed not to look back, because he would see his mother standing there on the dock and want to go home. He did as he was told, never once thinking he would never see her again. After being abandoned in Crete, he never saw either of his parents again.

Gaillard died in 1991 at age 75, and is mostly remembered today as a novelty act, a kind of clown prince of jazz, but he’d led a singularly American life for someone who didn’t speak English until he was 16, and remains one of the most unique, eccentric, and insanely talented musical entertainers the country’s produced.

O-Roonee.

Jim Knipfel

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atimefordragons · 4 years

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100 Intelligence, 0 Wisdom || EHS

☾♔; June 17, 2020 ☾♔; 12:26am ☾♔; sotd: Tuhje Dekha To (DDLJ) ☾♔; cotd: Dick Grayson ☾♔; Elite Highschool ☾♔; Side/NPC Profiles

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: lol, a summary of all 5 Sheremetev kids

----------->UPDATE: description abandoned. The group was shutdown and I've been kicked from the discord, so there's no point in finishing this set. I'll just make a new one when I inevitably recycle the characters.

Most of their profiles were done anyway, but whatever, I’m not putting any more effort into something I’m not involved in anymore.

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【𝕀ℕ𝕊ℙ𝕆 ℂℝ𝔼𝔻】@ maybones

As always, lolz. Soz for always using you as inspo, but you are the unrivaled Queen of Talent and Set making.

Was specifically inspired by this set: https://urstyle.fashion/styles/2523719 And as always, failed in mimicking it.

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I have made a new version of Tuhje Dekha To: Tuhje Dekha Toh ye jana sanam Main tuhje nufrat karti, kuti kamini

Loose Translation: When I saw you beloved, I knew That I despise you, you fucking bitch

(kuti kamini doesn’t literally mean fucking bitch, but that’s the emotional weight, or inflection or whatever behind it tbh - it doesn’t mean bitch though, like, from a literal translation, it kinda means bitch, bitch, since kuti and kamini both mean bitch)

Lol, ya, it doesn’t really flow with the music, but whatever. I’m fucking pissed and TDT was stuck in my head, so the lyrics went from love to rage.

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𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘

The Sheremetev’s are a unique bunch of siblings, in that not a single one is biologically related to another. All, but the youngest were adopted by Ivan Borisovich Sheremetev, his youngest, and only biological, child eventually passing into his custody. They’re a family of 7, Ivan, their father, Feodor Brezhnev, their butler/emotional grandfather, Rodya, the big brother, Adya, Emil, and Shion, the NOT triplets, and Erasyl, the brat- I mean baby. Because they’re not his biological children, they’re often labelled as charity cases, though they can pretty much brush it off at this point. Since Ivan does not make a blood distinction between his kids, Erasyl is often thought to have been adopted too. Are they just the batfam repackaged as Russian bourgeoisie? lol, yeah.

The House of Sheremetev are former Russian nobility, and in the age of the Empire, were amongst the wealthiest and most influential families in Imperial Russia. They held many high commanding ranks in the Russian military, governorships and were given title of "Count" (Граф graf), which in Russian society was the third highest, the first obviously being the rank of Tsar, followed by Prince (Князь knyaz) - a Russian prince was not necessarily royalty, but more equivalent to a western Duke. Notable Sheremetev's include Yelena Sheremeteva, who was the third and final wife of Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich (1554–1581), the son of Ivan IV (better known to history as Ivan the Terrible), and Fedor Sheremetev, cousin of Tsar Mikhail I and head of government in 1613–18 and 1642–46.

During the revolution, the line that led to the current Sheremetev's stayed in Russia. A handful were executed, but one became a party man and ardent supporter of the regime. By the time of the union’s collapse, numerous members of the Sheremetev family had served in the government, military, and KGB throughout the existence of the Union. Boris Sheremetev, father of Ivan, was a member of the Council of Ministers when it was dissolved in 1991, and Anastasia Sheremeteva, Ivan’s mother, was a high ranking member of the KGB. During the upheavel of the economic shift from communist to capitalist, and mass privatization of the Russian and post-Soviet state economies, both Sheremetev parents were killed in highly suspicious circumstances. Their murders remain unsolved, though were blamed on Bratva’s. The Sheremetev’s had already taken part in Gorbachev’s attempt to create a mixed socialist economy, and during the post-Soviet transition period, they bought numerous government contracts and assets, primarily in the arms, oil, and energy industries, quickly establishing themselves as Oligarchs in the new world order. In the modern day, all Sheremetev assets are controlled under the banner of Sheremetev Enterprises (Шереме́тевы Компании Sheremetev Kompanii), often shortened to SKomp. Due to the industries, and their closely maintained friendship with the Russian government, the Sheremetev family is amongst one of the wealthiest in Russia and the world at large.

Ivan Sheremetev, current head of the family and their business, is the only child of Boris and Anastasia. Their respective jobs already came with a level of paranoia and strict safety measures in the family, but their deaths made Ivan far more cautious and obsessive. Ivan was a teenager when his parents died (somewhere between 15-18) and he’s basically become a doomsday prepper, but instead of a Zombie invasion or whatever, he’s more concerned that some goon will invade his house. Bitch has the most insane and overkill security system in the world, plus he does all that martial arts and marvel superhero training. And then he went and had kids, and somehow managed to become even more hypervigilant, makes them all take at least one “bad bitch, kick your ass” type class (judo, krav maga, etc). He rarely drinks in public, fucking nerd even drank gingerale and pretended it was alcohol so he could keep his wits about him. He used to masquerade as a party boy to keep people disarmed around him, but after adopting children, especially once he had the non-triplets, he just acts as the truth; tired father. 100% uses them as an excuse to avoid parties and the media (lol, he’s just a brooding loner type who has maybe 12 friends, and 5 of those are his kids). Ivan is bad at expressing emotions, but genuinely loves his kids, and is simultaneously the most laid back and most helicopter parent ever. The kids are out late? It’s okay, I trust them, and they’ll call if something bad happens. One of them fell off the monkeybars on the school playground? I AM SUING THEM FOR CHILD ENDANGERMENT!

𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐂𝐇 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐕 ➤AGE: 18 ➤BIRTHPLACE: Yakutsk, Russia ➤RESIDENCE: St. Petersburg, Russia ➤BIRTHDAY: March 21 ➤FACE CLAIM: Simon Nessman

➤PERSONALITY OVERVIEW: Overall, he’s a pretty decent guy. Big, big brother energy, also has a lot of dad energy, and is a mother hen. The type of guy that says “you kids these days”, even though he’s barely a year older. Rather sarcastic, but it’s mostly playful, loves a pun. Is pretty and petty, kind of a hoe, we got a male Anto here. Somersaults and does splits and other flippy shit completely randomly while walking, just ‘cause he can. He’s extra like that. Loves to tease his younger siblings, and will purposefully embarrass them, he will yell across campus to do so, “HEY ERASYL, REMEMBER HOW YOU GOT SCARED BY THE CAT LAST WEEK AND SNUCK INTO MY ROOM!” Has also yelled relationship advice and dating tips. Also more explicit tips. Despite his embarrassing tendencies, hoe nature, and general playfulness, apart from Feodor (the butler), Rodya is the certified adult™️ of the family, when any of the other Sheremetev kids have a problem, they all go directly to him, skipping over Ivan, who also goes to Rodya when he’s got a problem (but has great difficulty owning up to the problem too). Because of their emotionally stunted father, Rodya has become the emotional support of the family, though he certainly wasn’t always good at it. By the time Ivan brought Emil into the family, Rodya (around 13 at the time) quickly grew up to help the traumatized Emil adjust to the new family (lol, they’re all traumatized), and changed his previously dismissive and rude behaviour towards Adya. Because he took over what should’ve fallen to the parent, Rodya has a lot of buried issues himself, particularly a temper, which flares up whenever any of his family or friends are being attacked in some way. Insulting one of my brat’s? Lol, let me teach you what gravel tastes like. Rodya seems like the best behaved of them all, he’s outwardly the most polite and charming Sheremetev, but he’s the most dangerous and vicious of them all.

➤LIKES: Cereal (is possibly addicted to it??? Can eat it for any meal and as a snack, it is genuinely a concern), Tequila (this wasn’t intentional, but I’ve been going through dick grayson memes for inspiration, and I vote Rodya as Anto’s best friend, the Princess can suck it), he a Gucci boy, winter, ice skating, eurovision, Frozen and disney movies in general, will belt those songs out at any time of the day or night, but Frozen has a special place in his heart ➤DISLIKES: Brooding people (got enough of that in his family), clowns, lazy fashion (black suit, white shirt again? Fucking try my dude), teen language constantly evolving (what happened to thristing? wtf is simping?), overpowering scents (like axe, that shit gross yo, have some class) ➤HOBBIES: Gymnastics and acrobatics (has no interest in joining a circus, but it helps him feel close to his parents), boxing (needs to beat up anyone that might threaten his family), karate (black belt), coding/hacking, frolicking (lol, is that a hobby? Hanging out with the friends and the “kids” - his sibs)

➤RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OTHERS: Rodion gets along best with everyone else in the family, and is pretty much the lightning rod guiding them all back together. He’s grandpa’s (Feodor) sassy lil baby boy forever, and the only other person to sometimes have a brain cell, he’s dad’s (Ivan) pride and joy, not to mention emotional rock. Rodya feels so that Ivan doesn’t have to. He keeps Adya in check, is Emil’s idol, Shion’s best bro, and Erasyl’s actual dad (not really, but he parents Erasyl more than Ivan, so). When asked who’s their favourite member of the family, every Sheremetev without hesitation will answer Rodion (for himself, he’ll refuse to answer, he’s nice like that).

➤SHORT BIO: The first, and the favourite; Rodion was born as Rodion Petyrovich Kirilov, his parents, Petyr and Masha, were members of a contemporary circus (a la cirque du soleil, but smallers, and in Russia), as a rarity in the contemporary circus, the Kirilov’s were a circus family, but that’s more of an arguable point, since Petyr and Masha were individually trained, and they were only beginning to pass on their skills, etc to Rodion when the thing™️ happened. When he was 5, Rodion’s parents were killed in what seemed to be an act gone wrong (though in truth a jealous member of the circus messed with the rigging, causing them to plummet to their deaths). Ivan Sheremetev just happened to have been attending that very show, and also just happened to witness the murderer in the act, and relayed his information to the police. As an orphan himself, though he was much older than Rodya when his parents died, Ivan empathized with the young child, and adopted him on pretty much impulse. Because he is so much dumber than he seems (he eats burgers with a knife and fork), he was able to win over young Rodya due to being “funny”, and they established their own little family, Rodya quickly picking up Feodor’s sassy remarks, and becoming a little darling by Ivan’s side at fancy Russian events.

When Adrian was brought into the family, Rodya was far from the best big brother he is now. Adya came into the family with Rodya was 11 (Adya himself was 10), so for 6 years, he was the only child in Ivan and Feodor’s care, and was certainly spoiled by the two. Adya’s arrival sparked First Child Syndrome in Rodya, who absolutely detested having to share the limelight now with another kid. He was incredibly rude to Adya, and repeatedly referred to him as a replacement, which resulted in Adya lashing out and running away a few times as well. He’s really not proud of this, not to mention, he’s definitely where Adya learned that replacement insult from, and subsequently used on Emil. He eventually got over it mostly on his own, though got a nice little pep talk from Feodor about how all three (Rodya, Adya, and Ivan) are just lost children who need to find a family, and Rodya begrudgingly began extending an olive branch to Adya and trying to get along with him, even being the one to bring him back to the manor a couple of times. He was much better prepared when Emil arrived 2 years later and smoothly transitioned into the “Best Big Brother” mantle he has now, and continued being the best bro when Shion and Erasyl arrived, though the younger ones started having issues with not being the new baby anymore (lmao, welcome to the club you dorks). The day Rodion left for EHS was hilariously emotional, they were all crying ‘cause they didn’t want him to go, which in turn made him cry too. The other kids didn’t talk to Ivan for a week ‘cause he sent big brother away (overdramatic much, they’d be joining him in a year, two for Erasyl, anyway).

𝐀𝐃𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐂𝐇 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐕 ➤AGE: 17 ➤BIRTHPLACE: Moscow, Russia ➤RESIDENCE: St. Petersburg, Russia ➤BIRTHDAY: August 16 ➤FACE CLAIM: Sean O’Pry

➤PERSONALITY OVERVIEW: (1) angry boi. He’s so petty and broken, and like, just needs love? He had a less than stellar relationship with his birth parents, and does not easily trust people. Adrian struggles the most with being called a “charity case”, it’s not really the insult that bothers him, but the implication that he isn’t loved by his dad, because he can’t fully trust that Ivan genuinely loves him as his son (plus Ivan isn’t exactly a share-my-feelings type, so that’s no help). Adya is quick to throw a punch, and has no patience, at all. If something is bothering him, he reacts immediately, usually with anger. On the flip side, he’s also really sweet and a nerd. Like that trope of “Bad boy who picks up cats in the rain”, that’s him, to a T! He loves literature and can recite Shakespeare from memory alone (lol, and has the nerve to call Emil a nerd), and is generally rather prickly, but if you can shave down those spikes, you’ve got a friend for life in him. ➤LIKES: Poetry, plays, literature, shakespeare, history, mythology, tolstoy, dostoyevsky, the beach, whiskey ➤DISLIKES: clowns, drugs (just say no), cops (acab), fire (he’s a tad pyrophobic), enclosed spaces (also claustrophobic), being told what to do (not a fan of being controlled) ➤HOBBIES: Reading, studying (he’s such a nerd), weight-lifting (does that count as a hobby?), mixed martial arts, napping, homework (lol, lil mr. bad boy here is top of the class), drama club (backstage stuff and directing, also script) ➤RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OTHERS: It's complicated. When he first arrived to the Manor, he had a very teasing, bratty relationship with Rodya (he teased his new big brother, 'cause lol, dad loves me more now, you weren't enough), which Rodya did not like, but underwent the same crisis when Ivan brought Emil home and was much worse about. He has trust issues and has run away from home numerous times, but most of the time he went back on his own, or was quickly found by Ivan (and later Rodya). He deeply loves his family, but struggles with admitting it, and is fearful that they do not love him. He gets along the least with Emil, who was adopted 2 years after him, and frequently, to this day, calls him a replacement (something he picked up from Rodya). As both are aggressive types, he technically gets along the best with Erasyl, often teaming up to pull off shenanigans and teenage rebellion, but they constantly argue, and each views the other as the “stupid” one in their duo (lol, you’re both dumb). They’re also both super scared of Shion (she beat him up for talking shit). His relationship with Ivan is the most complicated, because he wants Ivan’s love and approval, but also refuses to admit that, though he does have it (even though Ivan struggles with admitting it too - they’re all so dumb).

➤SHORT BIO: The second one and resident “bad boy” (LOL, he’s so not), Adrian was born to Andrei and Olga Petrov, a regular working class family. Olga left them when Adya was 2, and Andrei subsequently remarried to a woman named Alina. Alina was a drug addict, as well as a drug dealer (she specialized in Heroin), which is how she and Andrei met. Both were addicts and frequently abused Adrian while high, when in withdrawal, and when completely sober. He was routinely locked out of their apartment and left to sleep outside in the freezing cold. Because of his upbringing, Adrian has had to learn to fend for himself, often resorting to petty crime just to survive. It’s how he met Ivan, as he was trying to steal the wheels off of Ivan’s fancy ass car to sell, but was discovered, and instead of trying to run, idiot decided I’m just gonna attack this guy. Ivan instead, decided to take Adrian in, easily getting custody of him from his birth parents and eventually formalizing the adoption. For this, Adrian is eternally grateful, and hasn’t seen his parents since the night Ivan caught him trying to jack his wheels (or however you say it).

The young Adrian was prone to tantrums, and often ran away from home, but was calmed down and brought back each time, usually by Ivan, a few times by Rodya, and sometimes he would come back on his own. The introduction of Emil in the family was a shocker for him, and made him feel as if he wasn’t enough, ‘cause who needs 3 kids? Not to mention, Emil, unlike himself and Rodya, came from upper society, so he felt a lot of inadequacy, which he dealt with by lashing out. He still dislikes Emil the most, even with Erasyl’s shouts about being the “blood son”. On the plus side, at least he mostly gets along with Rodya now. Technically speaking, Adrian is the youngest of the not-triplets (himself, Emil, and Shion), but having been adopted second acts as the oldest, and gets away with it due to his aggressive and independent nature.

𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐋 𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐂𝐇 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐕 ➤AGE: 17 ➤BIRTHPLACE: Greiz, Germany ➤RESIDENCE: St. Petersburg, Russia ➤BIRTHDAY: July 19 ➤FACE CLAIM: Louis Hofmann

➤PERSONALITY OVERVIEW: A very good boy, he is just the fucking sweetest, he could give you diabetes. But he is a Sheremetev sibling, and thus also is PETTY AF! He fucking logs every wrong another sibling has ever committed against him in a digital diary, and has the receipts when he complains to one of the “adults” (aka Rodion mostly, sometimes Feodor or Ivan). Emil is the “smart” one (lol, he’s got an IQ of 187, but will also blindly accept anything Rodya says as fact), and so he uses his brains to psychological torture Adya and Erasyl when they get on his nerves. He’s utterly savage when it comes to a comeback or witty comment, and can be impatient when it comes to letting someone else be in charge of technology (dies inside every time someone types www into the address bar). He makes a conscious effort to model himself after Rodya (apart from Rodya’s hoe-ing), to emulate that nice, caring, dependable thing that Rodya has, and was a super adorable mini-me when they were younger. Has insomnia, from a mix of nightmares from repressed trauma, and staying up online at all hours of the day and night like a typical zillenial. Runs on caffeine and candy.

➤LIKES: Technology, he a computer geek, rococo, baroque, champagne, pastels, sunlight, summer, acrobatics, the circus, von gogh, monet ➤DISLIKES: slow wifi connections, laggy computers (like excuse you windows, but I need those 4 browsers with 50+ tabs each, you know me, figure it out), blood, erasyl ➤HOBBIES: computer engineering (is that a hobby, or just like a life goal? The latter probs), coding, tattling on adrian and erasyl, planning elaborate ways to get back at adrian and erasyl

➤RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OTHERS: In general, he gets along with his siblings, with two glaring exceptions; Adrian and Erasyl, both of whom view him as an unwelcome replacement, well, for Erasyl, he’s a placeholder (which, I mean, calm down, we all know who dad’s favourite is - Rodya). Emil gets along the best with Rodya, whose parents he saw perform live once before their deaths, upon his arrival to the Sheremetev manor, witnessed Rodya pulling off a similar stunt on the banister (which gave poor Ivan a heart attack) and immediately became obsessed. Because they both had a strong brotherly bond with Rodya from pretty much the get go, Emil and Erasyl argue over Rodya the most. Aside from Rodya, Emil and Shion are rather close, though she doesn’t open up much, the two often team up against Adya and Erasyl.

➤SHORT BIO: Born to Heinrich XXVIII, Prince Reuss of Greiz and Elsa von Hohenberg, the last scions of the Elder Line of the House of Reuss, and born as Heinrich XXIX, Emil is the heir to the Principality of Reuss-Greiz, which was technically inherited by his cousin, Prince Heinrich of the Junior Reuss line (they’ll all named Heinrich in the honour of the Emperor who enobled them - lame). His parents were killed when he was 12; his death was subsequently faked alongside theirs and he was taken in by Ivan, a friend of his parents, for his protection. Emil witnessed his parents' murders and was covered in their blood when he was found by the guards, the incident clearly left him traumatized, and for the most part has shut out the memory, though he still has nightmares about it, which contributes to his insomnia.

When he was first brought to the Sheremetev manor, Emil was very withdrawn and solitary, often staying by himself in his room (with the doors and windows locked) or sticking by Ivan’s side. He was slowly brought out of his shell by Rodya, though this immediately sparked jealousy and insecurity in Adya, beginning their “rivalry”.

𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐍𝐀 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐕𝐀 ➤AGE: 17 ➤BIRTHPLACE: Susaki, Japan ➤RESIDENCE: St. Petersburg, Russia ➤BIRTHDAY: January 26 ➤FACE CLAIM: Dilraba Dilmurat

➤PERSONALITY OVERVIEW: Seems like a brooding, silent, lowkey scary type, but really she’s just introverted. Doesn’t interact if she doesn’t know someone and/or it’s unnecessary. When she talks, she’s savage and witty (lol, despite them not being blood related, that’s a trait all the Sheremetev’s have). She’s honestly super dorky, loves shit like Naruto and One Piece and Batman cartoons (has declared she IS batman). Shion loves messing with people and will always make up shit to throw people off, she loves the whole concept of being the mysterious loner type, and there’s equal chance she’s saying a true fact about herself, or it’s another joke to fuck with you. ➤LIKES: Messing with her brothers, dark colours, ➤DISLIKES: ➤HOBBIES: ➤RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OTHERS: Quiet. Because she’s generally rather reserved, it’s not quite evident upfront how close or distant she is to her family, since she’s physically generally off doing her own thing, however, like her other brothers, she is close to Rodya, and tends to hang out with him when she has nothing else to do (she be the designated driver for the hoes - she could drive since she was like 12, yes, she had to heels and creative methods to reach the pedals, but she could drive).

➤SHORT BIO: Born as Orihara Shion, Shion is the daughter of Orihara Chinatsu, the former third generation leader of Sesshō-Kai (殺生会), a Yakuza based in Kōchi, her father is unknown, but is or was presumably a member of her family’s Yakuza. From the moment she was born, Shion was separated from her mother and raised in secrecy for her protection, as well as education, as per Chinatsu’s instructions, she was being raised to one day take over the Yakuza.

Technically speaking, she is the oldest of the “triplets”, but is treated as the youngest of the three, having been adopted last, and she’s pretty okay with it. Got to be doted on as the baby before the brat (Erasyl) arrived.

adopted when she was 13 (dick 14, and the other two 13 as well)

𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐒𝐘𝐋 𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐂𝐇 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐕 ➤AGE: 15 ➤BIRTHPLACE: Almaty, Kazakhstan ➤RESIDENCE: St. Petersburg, Russia ➤BIRTHDAY: August 9 ➤FACE CLAIM: Bright Vachirawit

➤PERSONALITY OVERVIEW: ➤LIKES: ➤DISLIKES: ➤HOBBIES: ➤RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OTHERS: Terrible. He’s very insecure about his father’s affections and always gets into fights with the others, particularly Emil and Adya. He’s scared of Shion, because the one time he managed to anger her, she threw him off a balcony (he’s fine, just traumatized - technically, Rodya once beat him too, but that was to teach him a lesson, Shion was straight up trying to kill him). Erasyl gets along the best with Rodya and is very possessive of him, especially since Rodya tends to pamper him and treat him like a child. Very quickly gets jealous when Rodya spends time with the others, especially Emil (You can have father, but Rodya is mine <- has actually said that, out loud).

➤SHORT BIO: The baby, Erasyl is the only biological child of Ivan

the only biological child (15), a brat, was a real bitch to them all, but started respecting dick when he beat him, and is now super attached to him

𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐑𝐀

➤MOODBOARD: https://urstyle.fashion/styles/2594157 ➤SCHOOL WARDROBE/AESTHETICS: https://urstyle.fashion/collections/115802 ➤PLAYLIST:

#high fashion layout #urstyle #mine #elite highschool #rodion sheremetev #adrian sheremetev #emil sheremetev #shion sheremeteva #erasyl sheremetev #chara profile #incomplete

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impracticaldemon · 7 years

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Graylu Week: Chapter 4 Too Cold to Hold, Part I

fanfiction by impracticaldemon Prompt: Fragrance (written for Graylu Day, only 20 days late) Words: ~2600 | also on FFnet and AO3 under impracticaldemon

Summary: Gray and Lucy are slowly but surely working out life as a couple. This story follows some of the prompts of Graylu Fluff Week (Feb 2017) and some of the prompts of Graylu Week (Sep 2017). In Chapter 4, a romantic dinner in a snow-bound chalet-hotel becomes fraught with both conversational pitfalls and angry snow spirits.

Author's Note: With apologies for the delay and hoping that you'll enjoy chapter 4 of this combined Graylu Fluff Week and Graylu Week story! With particular thanks to @nonochuu for all of her support and gentle nudges. Thank you also to those who have commented, reblogged, bookmarked and just generally sent encouragement my way on FFnet, AO3 and tumblr. I'm grateful to all of my readers.

Chapter 4—Too Cold to Hold, Part I Prompt: Fragrance (for Graylu Day)

Gray had eventually put on pajama bottoms and a fitted t-shirt that was either midnight blue or black (whichever it was, Lucy had approved). Not that he had wanted to "get dressed," as he'd put it, but even he had felt that boxer shorts and nothing else probably wasn't appropriate attire in which to fetch their dinner. His girlfriend had forborne to comment that his loungewear might not be exactly what the kitchen staff had in mind either.

He returned with several dishes, ranging from steaming soup to dome-covered entrées to some kind of towering cake and cream and fruit concoction that was clearly a special dessert. The warm part of the meal was carefully balanced on two large trays, but the dessert—in all of its frothy, bedizened glory—was being held aloft by ice.

"They were pretty impressed with my carrying capacity," he commented, as Lucy took one of the trays so that he could negotiate the doorway. "Plus the way I could keep the dessert chilled."

"No kidding." Lucy was laying out their dinner on the low coffee table with rapid efficiency. She nodded approvingly at the dessert, which Gray left sitting on a table of ice in the window embrasure.

"Yeah, they offered me a job waitering, if wizarding didn't work out." His mouth quirked into a smile. "Don't worry, I told them that my carrying skills were okay, but that my patience for obnoxious customers wasn't the best."

Lucy pointed him to one cushion and took the other, folding her legs under her and sniffing appreciatively at the soup. "Itadakimasu," she murmured politely, word and action somehow coming naturally in this lovely room, with a fine meal in front of her. (1)

Gray looked surprised—the guildhall wasn't exactly famous for good manners with food, and he had fallen out of the habit a long time ago. And yet… dim memories of childhood—first with his parents and then Ur—resurfaced with surprising clarity, and he automatically copied Lucy. It was strange: in almost any other setting, or with any other person, he might have resented the formality—or at least the memories evoked—but here and with Lucy it was just right. His mind skittered over the thought that this is how one might behave in one's own home with one's own family.

"This is really good!" Lucy smiled at Gray with unfeigned pleasure. "Oh, and I was about to say—I'm quite sure that your waitering skills would be just fine if you weren't forced to wear a dress." Her smile turned a little roguish, as other scenes evidently replaced the dress episode in her mind's eye. "In fact, I'll bet you'd be quite an attraction in a butler's outfit—or maybe just the pants and a bow-tie?"

"Uh-huh." Gray reddened and suddenly felt a need to concentrate on his soup. When he looked up again, he saw Lucy looking at him quizzically, her own cheeks a little pink. "It's just kind of weird," he told her, "hearing that from you instead of, you know, Mira or Cana. Or Erza, when she's gotten way too into one of our jobs."

Lucy nodded. "I know what you mean. But for what it's worth, I have thought it before. And with Mira and Cana, it's mostly impersonal. Or at least it applies to everyone—guys, girls, whoever they need to dress up at any given moment. Or just for fun." She paused, and then added darkly: "Their fun, I mean."

Gray switched to his main course, smiling when Lucy glared momentarily into space. She was obviously contemplating past injuries. To be fair, Fairy Tail's loveliest and most notorious hostesses did seem to derive a bit too much pleasure out of interfering with the lives of others. Mind you, he wasn't going to complain about having seen Lucy in a variety of bikinis, bunny suits, and gowns—but he wasn't going to comment on it either. At least, not right this minute.

Loke probably would though… He quickly tried to get his mind off that train of thought. No sense in being jealous of Lucy's bond with the guy who just happened to be the leader of the celestial spirits of the Zodiac. Well—no point in dwelling on it, anyway. He and Loke would just have to reach an understanding about grabby hands not being okay. No problem.

"Gray?"

"…Sorry Lucy!" Gray was startled to realize that there was frost crystallizing in the air above his hands. "Um…" He glanced down, relieved to see that he was still dressed. That meant he'd only been out of it for a couple of moments.

"I guess you've had to deal with the dynamic duo for even longer than I have—is that it?" Lucy's tone was completely sympathetic. She knew that Gray wasn't the best with being pushed into things, although he tended to be a team player.

Gray wavered between an easy lie and a complicated truth. "Kind of?"

Sympathy faded to concern. Lucy set down her chopsticks. She used chopsticks or metal cutlery with equal facility, and her familiarity with all sorts of food and customs periodically reminded her team-mates that her upbringing had been that of a pampered—if lonely—little girl. Gray recognized that his mind was going off on a tangent again.

"Okay, you'll have to explain 'kind of'," Lucy said firmly.

"I wasn't actually thinking about Cana and Mira just then, but it's true that I have had to deal with them for a long time. I mean… they're not much older than I am, so I've known them since we were all kids. Hard to believe now, right?"

Lucy regarded him thoughtfully. "Is this one of those 'better not to go there just now' moments? Or one those 'better get it over with' moments?"

Gray scrubbed at the back of his head as a substitute for stripping off his t-shirt. Although maybe Lucy wouldn't mind. He forced himself to talk. "You're very attractive, in a lot of ways, to a lot of people. It's one reason it took so long to tell you how I felt—feel."

"Okay…" Lucy frowned slightly at him. "So it's one of those 'figure out what I'm thinking because I'm too embarrassed to tell you' moments." She took a mouthful of food and chewed thoughtfully.

"Yeah, you're right. Pretty lame." Gray finished the rest of his entrée, barely managing to stay on the right side—that is, the polite side—of Natsu-speed.

"You always seemed much too indifferent—or too cool—to be really jealous of anyone," Lucy mused. "Except that I understand about Natsu."

Gray threw up his hands in surrender. "Fine, I was just thinking that I might want to have a chat with my buddy Loke." He shrugged. "And I have definitely had my moments of jealousy."

Lucy's face was unusually hard to read. Then she gave him an apologetic half-smile. "I guess there are just still… things… to talk about, right? Or to sort out, or something. I figured—the two of you have always been friends, you know?"

"I know. And being friends means that I know how he thinks."

"Yeah, I think most us of know that," said Lucy, a little dryly. "He's probably just as interested in you as he is in me. Not that I really know—I try not to, um, pry too much. I mean, he was seeing Aries—or so I thought—but…"

"Yeah, exactly. But…" Gray shook his head. "Honestly, it was just a stray thought. Loke's just a little too 'hands-on' for my taste."

"Or maybe it's the way he periodically makes passes at me?" Lucy inquired, appearing to relax now that she knew what was wrong. Her eyes were bright and cheerful again.

"Right, it could be that." Impulsively, Gray took Lucy's hand across the corner of the table. "And it's been such a pain, since I've been trying not to make passes at you."

"Oh? Didn't you mention something earlier about, um"—Lucy turned a little pink again, but persevered—"wanting to take me to bed? Are you saying that wasn't—"

"It was the hot chocolate talking."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Talk about lame."

"Fine, pour me another glass of wine." The proprietor had insisted on tucking a bottle of red under Gray's arm to share with 'his lovely lady' over dinner.

"I don't think you like it much," the 'lovely lady' murmured, filling his empty glass as requested. He'd gulped the first glass rather quickly.

"I prefer beer to wine, but this isn't bad." Gray took a careful sip. "Besides, I figure we can each stand to broaden our horizons."

"Okay, but what idiot makes his non-beer-drinking friend try something called 'Hobgoblin'?"

Gray winced, but chuckled. "At least they were out of Guiness. That stuff will peel paint."

"And that's a selling point?"

"Heh, no—unless you're trying to be macho, or happen to like strong, dark beer. Which, just for the record, I do."

Lucy smiled sweetly at him. "You've finished your wine. Again."

"Oh." Two glasses of wine weren't really enough for a buzz, but nerves and repressed lust seemed to duplicate the overall feeling somehow. "So… dessert? If you're done your dinner? Apparently it's a house specialty."

Lucy's smile faded. "Gray…"

"… I don't want to rush anything. When we're joking around, when you're in my arms, anything seems possible. It's easier…"

"But bring a nice dinner and a bottle of wine into the picture and it isn't?" Lucy's hand tensed slightly under his. "Isn't it usually the other way around?"

"Probably. Or maybe that's the problem. I don't—I don't—want to be just some guy." Gray heard the note of uncertainty in his voice and hated it.

"You don't trust me."

"What?"

"You don't trust me to say no. You're worried that I'll do something I'll regret later and that will mess things up."

"That's not it!"

"Really? We've known each other for over two years, and it took most of that time for you—for us—to risk even one date."

Suddenly Gray's attention was wrenched from the argument—or whatever it was—by a sharp, familiar scent. He let go of Lucy's hand and jumped up, eyes scanning the scene beyond the window.

"Gray? I'm sorry—"

"No… I mean, it's not you—there's something trying to get in, can't you smell it?"

Puzzled, but trying to believe that her boyfriend wasn't just trying to avoid a difficult conversation, Lucy walked over to stand beside Gray. She stiffened immediately, and shivered.

"It's cold here! And it smells of—of snow?"

"Yeah. I guess they managed to find—or make—a chink in the glass while we were busy earlier." Gray's fingers found Lucy's and squeezed reassuringly. "You can smell them too? The scent of snow at least? Not everyone can…"

"Sure. I've always been able to smell snow."

"Okay, ever hear of snow spirits?"

"No… not unless you mean Frosty and Sparky."

Gray shook his head. "This isn't Super Makaro and there isn't some villain trying to capture all the nice little snow spirits. Real snow spirits aren't cute and they aren't friendly. They aren't always unfriendly, according to what Ur taught me, but they, uh, really dislike ice mages. I've never seen them here before, but maybe I stirred them up when I was here last year—and then they noticed that I'd come back. I'm really sorry about this."

"Well, I told you that I wouldn't say no to fighting malevolent cold spirits," Lucy murmured.

"Yeah, but this is a vacation. Maybe you could just let me deal with them?" Gray was not overly-optimistic about what Lucy would think of this suggestion and he was right.

"Forget it. The couple that fights snow spirits together, stays together."

Her companion grinned a little crookedly. "It doesn't exactly scan well, but I'll take it." He bent down quickly and kissed her lips. It was a distinctly ardent, searching kiss for a guy who should be focussed on evil—or at least angry—supernatural beings.

"Distracted, much?" muttered Lucy.

"Oh yeah." Gray drew a deep breath. "And just so that we're clear: I do want to take you to bed, and take off those adorable pyjamas, and run my hands—and my mouth—over your whole body, and convince you that we're perfecttogether and the rest of the world can go to hell."

He could sense Lucy react to his words, could swear that he felt her temperature rise. Why was it easier to say such things at moments like this? Probably because he didn't have to face her and the danger made his words seems less real. Without even having to think about it, he used ice to create a seal on the window. Not the most effective against elemental cold beings, but as long as he got outside quickly at least he could avoid a battle—and damage—in here.

"I hate your timing, Gray. Just so that we're clear—you aren't fooling anyone." Moving with calm efficiency, Lucy picked up a leather case from a bedside table and pulled out a golden key. "Aries, I need your help." Her summoning rituals had gotten less formal over time…

There was a bright light, and then a sweet, curly-haired girl with small ram's horns appeared and bowed diffidently.

"Sumimasen," she murmured as usual; the celestial spirit connected to the Zodiac sign of the ram tended to apologize for anything and everything, or even nothing. She ducked her head and smiled shyly at Gray. She seemed to like him, for some reason—or at least he didn't alarm her as much as most.

"Aries do you notice—" Lucy suddenly looked intently at her celestial friend. "Is that snow in your fur?"

"Yes? It's very cold her. I smell elemental spirits—the freezing ones."

"Well, that saves explanations," Lucy muttered.

"See y' outside, Luce!" Gray had stepped back when Aries appeared, but now he stripped off his shirt—possibly accidentally—and hurried out of the room.

"Moron, why couldn't he just wait?" Lucy sighed. She'd given up a long time ago trying to hold any of her team-mates back from a confrontation.

"I believe that Gray-san wants to get the snow spirits away from the window so that it doesn't shatter and ruin your dessert. It's very pretty." Aries hesitated, and then added, "Are you going to get married?"

"What?! No! I mean—not right this moment! We've just started going out… Why are you asking, anyway?"

"Sumimasen! We're all curious and they—they made me promise to ask since you called me—I'm sorry!"

Lucy squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. At least they cared about her, right?

"Okay, sure. Anyway, do you think you could magic up some fluffy insulation for this window?"

"Oh yes, easily!"

Moments later, the big window was wreathed in fluffy pink clouds of… something. Whatever it was, the area near the window suddenly got much warmer and the scent of snow on a cold night vanished.

"Thank you!" Lucy called over her shoulder as she shoved her feet into boots and dragged her coat on over her pyjamas. She waved to Aries as she ran out the door to go looking for Gray. Hopefully she wouldn't get lost in the swirling snow.

[END of PART I]

(1) This is a normal good manners before a meal in Japan. The word is often accompanied by placing the palms together briefly as in prayer. The idiomatic meaning is "thank you for the meal". In more formal situations one might also bow slightly.

A/Note: Sorry for having to break this up! Chapter 5—Too Cold to Hold, Part II, will hopefully be out tomorrow evening! I'm just not very good at writing things as *short* as I intend them to be... Your comments, reviews, follows and faves are all much appreciated. :)

@shell-senji @eliz1369 @nalufever @miss-zei @sanguine-fairy @ftfanfics @fic-writer-appreciation @graylu-fanfictions @canadiangaap @gsut @sassyhazelowl @foreverfangirling74

#fairy tail #graylu #grayluweek #ft fanfiction #impracticaldemon #graylu week 2017 #chapter 4 #prompt fragrance

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wonderthor · 7 years

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In Shining Armor

A/N: So I was gonna write this for my friend a while ago and I never did but ideas for it came in my brain today so yay! Also, this is probably really bad but there’s supposed to be more action in the future so bear with me. I LOVE BATFLECK! This fic is 100% mine and written by me! I hope there aren’t too many mistakes, enjoy:)

Pairing: Bruce Wayne X Reader

Warnings: Mentions of rape, near-rape experience, swearing

Word Count: 2,075

Chapter One:

Why did you agree to work so late anyway? Sure, it could have been because you seemed to be the only one here who actually cared about working hard or didn’t want to put too much work on other people. But, either way, you should have known better. It was almost 11 o’clock at night. And you had to walk home. By yourself. Which wouldn’t have been that bad, but you had to walk through a very unsafe part of the city to get there. In the daytime it wasn’t half bad and you would never be scared to walk home, but at night it was known for its disturbing increase in crime. You hated you had to walk home this late, but you had no choice. There were no taxis dumb enough to drive through that area at night, and you definitely didn’t want to go underground to catch a subway ride. Walking was the only option you had.

Hugging your jacket as close to you as you could, you started on the dreadful journey through the streets. You made sure to constantly check your surroundings, looking and listening for anything that could be dangerous. You tried to walk as quietly as you could, which proved to be a challenge in your heels that were obnoxiously loud against the concrete sidewalk. You slowed down for a second to check your phone when you heard a strange sound that seemed to be close by. You stopped walking completely and listened to what appeared to be the sound of laughter, slowly getting louder. You assumed to noise was coming from behind you and didn’t want to turn around to check and started to run around the corner. But you didn’t realize how fast you were running and ran right into a man who was with two other men. You looked to see that they were all holding bottles in brown paper bags and stumbling in their drunkenness. So they were the source of the noise. “Well well well, look at what we’ve got here boys!”, the man you ran into started to yell. They started to come closer and closer to you until you were backed up against the wall. You were trapped, and you’d never been this scared in your life. “Please don’t hurt me!”, you screamed out to them. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say, but you were so scared that the words just fell out. “Oh, we’re not gonna fucking hurt you, pretty girl. Don’t worry. We just wanna play with you a little bit”, one of the others said with a look that told you they had nothing but bad intentions. They kept getting closer and closer and then they started to touch you, trying to get under your clothes and ripping at them and pushing you around while laughing hysterically. You tried to scream for help and push their hands away, but they were too strong. One of the men got really close to your ear and whispered, “Relax pretty girl, this will be over soon. Even sooner if you stop fucking screaming”, kissing your cheek as he pulled away. All you could do was scream and cry, but no one seemed to hear you, which made you cry even harder. You knew what was about to happen and closed your eyes in defeat when suddenly, you couldn’t feel the strange men on you anymore.

You opened your eyes to see all of the men laying down on the ground, unconscious. You walked closer to one of the men and kicked him hard, but he didn’t budge. What the hell just happened? You turned around to come face to face with a man in a strange black suit and a mask. “You don’t have to worry anymore, they’re not going to hurt you”, he said in a deep, robotic voice, clearly disguising his natural one. Who was he? You were just about to ask him that when the recent events took a toll on your body and you passed out, the man in the mask catching you before you fell.

Moments later, you regained consciousness to see that you were in the man’s arms. He was carrying you bridal style, with your arms wrapped around his neck and his arms tightly holding you. But it was the strangest thing, because even after everything that just happened, you didn’t feel scared in this man’s arms at all. You actually felt safe, and you didn’t know why. Even though you didn’t know if this man was any different than the men who tried to attack you and you didn’t know who this man was at all, in that moment, you felt like you could trust him. You wanted to find out more about him, but your body betrayed you again as you fell asleep.

When you woke up this time, you saw that you were in an unfamiliar dark room. You moved around a bit and felt the soft, silk sheets on the bed you were laying on. You sat up and looked around the beautiful, spacious bedroom. This room alone was almost bigger than your entire apartment. ‘Wow, this person must be a billionaire’, you thought to yourself. ‘But most importantly, where the hell am I?’. You heard some murmuring coming from the room next to the one you were in. You couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, so you moved closer to the wall and placed your ear against it to hear better. “But you shouldn’t have brought her here! It’s too dangerous! What if she tells someone about this, huh? Are you sure she didn’t see you without the suit on?”, a man yelled to someone else. “Yes Alfred, I’m sure. I didn’t take off the suit until I brought her here, I’m not that stupid. I had to bring her here. I couldn’t leave her out in the street and I didn’t know where she lived!”, another man yelled. You weren’t sure if this was the man in the mask, since his voice was disguised before and it wasn’t now. But what he was saying made it seem like it could have been him. “Well you could have dropped her off at a hospital! Who knows, maybe she thinks you’re one of the men who tried to rape her! That would be a hell of a lot of trouble for you, Bruce! How do you know that she trusts you?”. “Because, Alfred, I could feel it. Somehow, I could feel that she trusted me!”. Well, that was definitely him alright, his name was Bruce.

You could hear Bruce walk away and towards the room that you were in, so you quickly stepped back from the wall and lay back down on the bed so he wouldn’t know you were eavesdropping. Just then, he walked into the pitch black room, most likely keeping it that way so you couldn’t see him. He slowly walked to the bed and sat down next to you , maintaining a distance so that you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. Even though you couldn’t see his face, you could feel his eyes staring into yours. “How are you feeling?”, his normal voice way more soothing and softer than his robotic voice. “Better. Thank you for saving me tonight, I owe you”. “No need, I’m just glad that you’re safe. You can stay until the morning and I’d be happy to take you home”. “No, you’ve already done enough for me. I don’t want to inconvenience you anymore than I already have. I am perfectly capable of going home and I’ll make sure I stay out of trouble this time. Again, thank you for everything”. You tried to get up, but he reached out his hand and pushed against your hip, restraining you to the bed. He was so strong, but still, his touch didn’t bother you. “I’m sorry, but I’m not letting you leave until the morning. It’s too dangerous for you to be in the streets this late at night, and I would be angry at myself if I were to let something else happen to you”. You could feel the eagerness in his hands and how much he didn’t want you to leave. You could feel how much he was concerned and wanted to protect you. “Okay, I’ll stay. But in the morning I’m getting home by myself”. You could tell that he still didn’t agree with that, but he didn’t want to argue. “Goodnight”, he gave my hand a reassuring squeeze before getting up to leave, but my voice stopped him. “Wait! I know this may seem weird, but do you mind sleeping in here with me? I just don’t want to be alone”, which was mostly true. Although, you just really didn’t want to be away from him, he felt like your personal bodyguard and that nothing could happen when you were with him. Without a further word, he went around the room to slip into the bed beside you. The bed was big enough so you two didn’t have to be too close. ‘What a shame’, you blushed at your thoughts. The room was silent except for Bruce’s steady breathing and before you knew it, you were falling into another deep sleep.

“Well well well, look at what we’ve got here boys!”, the man you ran into started to yell. They started to come closer and closer to you until you were backed up against the wall. You were trapped, and you’d never been this scared in your life. “Please don’t hurt me!”, you screamed out to them. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say, but you were so scared that the words just fell out. “Oh, we’re not gonna fucking hurt you, pretty girl. Don’t worry. We just wanna play with you a little bit”...

You jolted awake to see Bruce sitting over you, shaking you from your bad dream. Once he saw you were awake, he started to rub his hand up and down your back, effectively calming you down. “Hey, are you okay?”, he asked you. “Yeah it was just a nightmare, sorry to wake you”, you sniffled as you wiped the tears from your face. “It’s okay, don’t worry, you’re safe”, he assured you. Without thinking, you turned to him and buried yourself in his chest. You didn’t mean to seem too attached, but you wanted to feel safe and secure. He rubbed his hands up and down your back, whispering those six words into your ear until you fell back asleep.

The next morning, you awoke to an empty bed and no sign of Bruce anywhere. You got out of the bed to walk around the house when an older man walked into the room. “Hello, I’m Alfred, the butler. Mr.- I mean the man who brought you here last night has asked me to see to it that you got home safely”, the man spoke. “Oh you don’t have to worry about it. I can get a taxi and get home myself, but thank you very much!”. You slipped on your heels and grabbed your purse before walking out of the door. You started down the long driveway when a black car pulled up beside you. You looked inside to see it was Alfred. “Please do me a favor and make this easier for the both of us by just getting in the car”. ‘Wow, he was sassy’. You decided not to be stubborn and got into the car, giving him your address.

20 minutes later, you arrived at your apartment and you made sure you gave Alfred a thank you before he left. But it wasn’t until when you got into your apartment that everything suddenly hit you. You were attacked and nearly raped, and then a man in a suit and a mask came and saved you, and then you stayed at his house and slept in the same bed as him. It was very confusing and all too much. But what was more confusing was your connection to this man. He didn’t even know your name and yet he even admitted to feeling the same connection you felt. You’ve never met or seen him before, yet you’d never felt as safe as you did when you were with him. And what was the most confusing thing was you felt that this wasn’t the last time you would meet him.

#C writes wonder-writes #bruce wayne #batman #batfleck #bruce wayne x reader #batman x reader #batfleck x reader #bruce wayne imagine #batman imagine #batfleck imagine #bruce wayne fanfiction #batman fanfiction #batfleck fanfiction #fics #fanfics #in shining armor #dc x reader #dc fanfiction #dc imagine

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msephy · 7 years

Text

Upbringing: chap 5/?

Finally chapter 5 @_@ Sorry for the long wait.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4

Cross-posted to AO3

Earth ? - Jason Todd

Jason parked his stolen Ducati next to the Batmobile, disappointed at the idea to leave it there. He removed his helmet and followed Bruce to the main platform, looking around. The Cave looked much the same as Jason remembered it from back when he’d been Robin. In his world, it had probably changed since, accumulating shinier toys and harsh memories, probably gaining in security what it lost in gloominess.

But in the Earth he was now – could he attribute a number himself, he wondered – Bruce was still relatively new to the cowl. Well. Newer, in any case. He looked terribly young to Jason’s eyes but, after a fashion, Jason had realized this Bruce was actually still a couple of years older than him. Which meant he’d been doing this for maybe half a decade already.

It was still kind of weird to see him so… green. Despise kid-Bruce being older than Jason, they had the same amount of experience in the field. Jason, after all, had started being Robin at 14, seven years earlier. Even if his year training with Talia’s teachers and the six months he’d spent brainless where not to be taken into account, that still made five years.

And, obviously, he’d had a better mentor in the person of Bruce himself.

Jason pushed those thoughts away to scan the Cave. However familiar, it wasn’t the one he remembered – and even that one he hadn’t visited in years. He didn’t know the escape routes, the available tools. Besides, observing the place could only teach him about kid-Bruce (he really had to find a way to differentiate them, if only in his thoughts, or he’d soon drive himself crazy).

The bat-computer stood in the middle of the room, clearly the heart of the operation. The penny and dinosaur stood in the background. Peculiarly, the Joker card was missing.

At the bottom of the stairs leading up to the manor were aligned several suits. Not all were Batman’s. Apparently, there were at least two sidekicks, or one who had grown older; but their technology looked close enough for Jason to bet on two different people.

The first suit was obviously Robin’s, despite the lack of scaled underwear. And it was adult-sized. A soon-to-be-former Robin, possibly.

The second costume had a darker edge. Not only it avoided yellows and reds to focus on harder tones of black and grey, but its gauntlets wore short spikes which would certainly give its bearer an edge in hand-to-hand combat, and there were straps for additional batarangs along the thighs.

Jason felt himself tense. He could take Bruce alone – more or less – and might have been able to get away if he had to face him and his Robin. But with two sidekicks around, he clearly was overmatched. He’d been a fool to come here.

On the other hand, he couldn’t have found a way to go back to his world all by himself. And while being around this Earth, he’d better learn more about the local vigilantes.

“You’ve got yourself quite a family,” he commented, pointing his thumb toward the suits. The local Jason might be kid-Bruce’s brother, the man still seemed to have the need to pick up strays.

Bruce pursed his lips, nodding reluctantly. So, of course, Jason felt the need to push.

“Robin and… what’s the demon brat called? Is it bird-themed as well?”

This time, Bruce actually flinched. Really, B-man?

“Don’t assume that our worlds are similar,” Bruce then said in his sternest tone.

Jason snorted.

“I won’t, if you tell me the eldest doesn’t call himself Robin.”

Bruce grumbled, heading for the computer without answering. Jason rolled his eyes.

“I thought so. It is Dick, then? And, what, Damian? No one else?”

Bruce frowned at this latest question, so Jason supposed Tim Drake wasn’t around. Good. Even though their relationship had calmed down since the early days, he had no wish to play friends with his replacement’s doppelganger, who wouldn’t know anything about their history and might easily trigger Jason’s anger without meaning to.

To be truthful, it was weird to interact with doppelgangers in general; and the closer they were from the originals, the weirder it got.

“We’re not here to talk about me,” Bruce growled, his voice almost as impressive as it would become ten years down the line.

“Do you even have the technology to travel through world?” Jason shot back.

Bruce tensed– and, suddenly, so did Jason, a weight settling in his stomach. Somehow, he didn’t think the people from his Earth would bother looking for him. Hell, they probably wouldn’t even notice he was gone. They certainly wouldn’t miss him.

Though they might try to find a way to send Jason Wayne back. Hopefully.

“Is there any kind of Justice League here?” Jason settled on asking. “Not a big fan, but if there’s nothing on this planet which might help me…”

“I’ll contact them.”

The tone was definitive as a door closing. Jason grit his teeth.

“I came here, didn’t I? I’ll play by the rules. But if you want to find your brother again? You’ll need my help, and I won’t be able to provide if it you shut me down.”

Bruce observed him silently through the unnerving gaze of the cowl. Then, he turned back to the computer.

“We’ll see.”

Jason clenched his fists. Were Bruces from all Earths assholes? He tried to fought back his anger– then just put back his helmet.

“You know what? Fuck you.”

He walked straight back to the Ducati, determined to go. A surprised gasp from the top of the stairs interrupted his righteous anger.

“Uncle Jason!”

Shocked by the eagerness in the familiar voice, he turned back to find a smiling 19-year-old Dick Grayson beaming at him.

###

Earth 1 - Jason Wayne

Jason’s chin slipped from his closed fist, startling him awake. It was starting to get really late, even for Bruce. Or did this one patrol even later into the night? He glanced at the bottom corner of the main screen in front of him. 5:12. You couldn’t even qualify this as night anymore.

He massaged the bridge of his nose, wishing for a cup of coffee even though he knew how bad of an idea that would be. When he’d gotten downstairs to the Cave three hours before, it had been because he couldn’t find sleep. Pushed by habit, he’d settled in front of the computer, checking Bruce’s status.

Alright, he might have had to slightly hack into the system, but it wasn’t that different from the one back home and the local Bruce’s thoughts patterns seemed close enough to his little brother’s to make the task easier.

Jason hadn’t pushed the vice to the point to actually talk into the com’. He’d just monitored Bruce’s vitals. The Robin suit was at his place in the armory; Damian must have come back early because it was a school night. At least Bruce paid attention to that.

But that meant he’d been finishing the night alone. Jason couldn’t force himself to get back to bed knowing as much. So he’d stayed there. As he always did.

An alert popped up on the main screen. Yawning, Jason checked it. It was merely an update from the surveillance laid by the GCPD on the docks. He flagged it as irrelevant and filed it in the Maroni section.

Of course, Bruce would double check everything he’d done, to make sure Jason hadn’t corrupted the information, which would possibly take him more time than if Jason had just left the work to him. But he was bored.

They’d given him some clothes - Bruce’s own, he assumed, since they mostly fit (if Alfred had bought them, he would have gotten the correct size, because he was magical) - so at least he hadn’t had to hang out in his suit for one more day. Alfred had provided him with a room, and a delicious shepherd's pie.

What they hadn’t provided was anything to keep him busy. Hence, the insomnia. He was enough prone to those without adding to it the lack of action - and the worry. He tried hard not to think of how his Bruce must be panicking over his disappearance.

Maybe he should just go back upstairs. He glanced longingly toward the mats. Or he could practice some katas? He’d shamelessly stolen a set of training clothes after an hour passed in the chill of the Cave. He should have thought it would be cold before getting downstairs in simple pajamas.

But no. Adrenaline would only make sleep more difficult to come whenever Bruce would finally show up. And he wasn’t going back to bed as long as the damn fool hadn’t made it back safely.

Who did wait for him, the rest of the time? Alfred? Jason thought he’d heard the old butler peaking at the top of the stairs about two hours ago. He shuddered while picturing his wrinkled face. Alfred was still a rock, of course, but he was getting old. Hell, he had to be at least 70 in this universe, hadn’t he? Bruce couldn’t ask him to keep going as he had a decade earlier.

And nevermind Alfred; Bruce was almost 40. He should be the one on computer duty, making sure his kids didn’t get hurt. Making sure there was someone waiting for them when they got back, with something warm to drink and a few plasters to patch them up. Someone to have their backs if they needed it.

Jason sighed. This wasn’t his world. It wasn’t his place to criticize. Not that his Bruce listened to him.

The low sound of an engine echoed in the Cave’s entrance, announcing the return of the place’s master. Finally. The car parked in its slot - Jason idly wondered if Dick had labeled it ‘the Batmobile’ in this world as well - and Bruce stepped out of it. Despite the cowl, Jason could see his surprised.

“Hey. I couldn’t sleep,” he explained. He didn’t feel the need to apologize; no one had forbidden him to come downstairs.

Bruce grunted as only answer. Of course. As he walked toward him, Jason noticed a slight stiffness in his pace. He frowned.

“The hips or the back?” he asked, getting on his feet and reaching for the first aid kit. Unsurprisingly, it was in the exact same place than in his world. Alfred’s organizational skills, he guessed.

Bruce didn’t answer, removing his cowl and putting it on the chair, glaring. Jason raised his eyebrows, unimpressed.

“If it’s the hips, I’ll leave it to you. If it’s the back, I won’t let you go to bed with an injury that will bleed all over Alfred’s sheets. But maybe you can bend your elbows backward in this universe?”

Bruce scowled while pulling away his gloves, but this time, it was resigned. Jason pointed the medical table. Bruce sat on it with an irritated sigh.

The suit was a bit different than the one Jason was used to, but not so much to make it difficult to remove the upper part, not when the protections had been deactivated. There was a nasty slash right below Bruce’s left shoulder blade. Just a flesh wound, nothing deep enough to have reached internal organs, but it still required stitches. And, of course, it had been done early in the night, which meant coagulated blood had glued it to the suit.

Jason peeled the fabric away as gently as possible. Thankfully, he managed not to reopen the wound. The he started working with the ease of habit.

The number of scars scattered on this Bruce’s skin was frightening. He felt once more relieved to have surrendered to Alfred’s ministration when he’d been 13; then accepted to stay at the manor with Bruce; then demanded to go with Bruce when he’d decided to wander around the world to shape himself into the Bat.

Jason didn’t make any comment, though. He put a bandage over the wound once done, not bothering to list recommendations Bruce certainly knew as well as he did.

He closed zipped the first aid kit shut and put it back to its place, making a note on Alfred’s supply list to buy other stitches to replace the set he’d used. Bruce observed him silently, then put on a loose t-shirt before settling in front of the computer, his back straight so his wound wouldn’t touch the seat back. He noted how the access was opened and his files in order, but didn’t comment.

Jason turned the electric kettle on while Bruce typed his report. When the water boiled, he prepared a mug of matcha tea and put it next to the keyboard. This time, Bruce flinched – then he took a sip. Looking up at Jason, he nodded, once.

Jason smiled, then left the Cave, satisfied to have seen Bruce’s shoulder relax at last.

#byme #jason todd #bruce wayne #fanfiction #batfamily #jason wayne #my fics

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