#I think wandering eye fans might like to see the two interacting anyway!

[twptwp]

#wander over yonder #woy #wander over yonder fanart #woy fanart #wander #woy wander #woy peepers #woy watchdogs #commander peepers #wandering eye #I had wandering eye in mind while working on this #however the result is not so much wandering eye just the two interacting! #I will add the tag regardless #I think wandering eye fans might like to see the two interacting anyway! #I know I do haha #it may be quite difficult to recognise Peepers without his helmet #Peepers and Wander do not interact much directly so Wander still a smidge clueless here and there regarding Peepers

[everlasting-rainfall]

Have you considered any of the other CP9 agents for the skin to fur au? I feel like Blueno or Kalifa would make such interesting yanderes

I have actually! Well except Fukurou and Spandam because I’m not the biggest fans of them like I think they’re alright but I don’t typically find myself daydreaming about them in these kinds of scenarios, you know?

Yeah, I’m sure you get it

Anyways so because I don’t think that I can write the two of them together, this might just be moreso some short imagines. Sorry!

But as an apology, I’ll throw in some imagines about Kumadori as well. Does that sound good? I certainly hope it does as Kumadori is pretty nice like I’d give him a kiss or two if I could

Anyways before I start rambling too much! Let’s get into it, shall we?

!-MINORS DO NOT INTERACT AT ALL-!

!-POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNINGS-!

Kidnapping, Stalking, Delusions, Transformation, Violence, Breaking and Entering, Manipulation, Implied Murder, Impregnation, Rainfall Probably Not Knowing How Zoo’s Work

!-POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNINGS-!

!-MINORS DO NOT INTERACT AT ALL-!

Okay so we’re gonna start off with Blueno and his animal theme in CP9 is apparently a bull which suits him quite well in all honesty considering those big bull horns on the sides of his head

But I can honestly imagine that like with the zoo where all of the CP9 agents currently live, there’s his enclosure which isn’t too popular with anyone as it’s just a bull when there’s so much more interesting things to be seen like a giraffe or a leopard or a wolf so typically Blueno doesn’t get many visitors

It doesn’t bother him much though as the zookeepers only really come in to feed him and then clean his area so it makes for good alone time and if he’s truly bored then he can always simply wander into one of the more secluded parts of his enclosure and transform into a human

Escaping their enclosures is rarely hard after all and it’s easy to slip out plus he’s memorized what times he’s fed and taken care of so he just has to be back before then

Wandering the park is how he eventually meets you like let’s say that the reason that he noticed you is because you brought in some kind of outside drink and the zoo doesn’t allow that so he points it out to you and whether or not you knew that rule. You toss it just to get him off your back

You probably expect that to be your very last interaction with Blueno and he expects it too but instead he finds himself following you around when you visit. He justifies it to himself as making sure that you don’t cause any further problems but really he wants to follow you

His more animal instincts are telling him to keep you out of trouble so you won’t wind up getting hurt as there are a lot of predatory animals in the zoo that aren’t members of CP9 so as a result, he sees you as a heifer that needs to be protected and guarded

You of course notice that this man won’t stop following you around and it is getting worrying especially as if you approach him about it then he just winds up denying it and if you talk to a staff member then he always conveniently manages to disappear

It’s getting worrying and irritating so you more than likely stop going to the zoo so much just to avoid this guy and the stalking does stop

Mostly because Blueno doesn’t want to risk losing track of time and blowing his cover by going to look for you

But trust me, Blueno is going absolutely crazy over this like he is on edge and everyone can tell like Kaku once had to tell him to calm down in giraffe before he got himself in trouble. Blueno can’t help it though as you aren’t here and he needs you otherwise you could wind up hurt or worse in his eyes

You never reappear at the zoo however and it’s starting to make him truly consider leaving to find you and drag you back so you can’t leave him ever again

However wouldn’t you know it? There you are… Coming to celebrate some kind of work related event or family birthday or something here, he’ll watch you from afar just like he’s always done but you aren’t getting away this time… He’ll make sure of it…

So when you head off on your own to the bathrooms, that’s when he gets you… Blueno snatches you and knocks you unconscious before dragging you off to his enclosure, you’ll be safe with him… He knows it…

I can’t see him forcing himself on you at first but he definitely turns you in some alternative method as now you’re a cow of some kind with him

This has happened so much at the zoo at this point that there are questions as to where you came from but no one questions it for long as hey, at least there’s something to hopefully make people more interested in Blueno’s enclosure now

Honestly I can see him being one of the more laidback members of the CP9 animal shifters like he won’t keep you stuck inside of the den like how Lucci and Jabra do to their S/O’s but he still doesn’t like people looking at you for too long so he might try to get in the direct line of sight of anyone whose looking at you for too long

And yeah, your family or your co-workers might wonder where you went but do you really think that they’ll ever find out? I mean… Magical bull man who took you and turned into a magical cow lady?

Yeah, right… You’re here forever with Blueno in the zoo and he might eventually want to put a few calves in you but that can wait for right now as he’s just enjoying the fact that he’s keeping you safe with him in the enclosure

So for Kalifa, let’s imagine something different here as her animal is apparently a sheep when I looked it up and I’m unsure if a zoo would keep a sheep in an enclosure unless it’s a petting zoo and that would not fly with Kalifa…

So let’s imagine that she chooses to be in her human form when she’s at the zoo like she works there while the others act as zoo animals that people can gawk at. She might be doing something similar to what she did with Iceberg where she was like his assistant but she could also just be a zookeeper

I like assistant better though so let’s go with that and let’s say that eventually with all the disappearances at the zoo, there’s been a rise in problems and the zoo winds up hiring you to help Kalifa with the piles of paperwork that need to be done while the owner handles everything else

Working with Kalifa isn’t too bad but it’s not the best as she’s a very serious and intimidating lady plus you once tried to give her a soda after a vending machine spit out two instead of one and she claimed it was sexual harassment

You’re fairly certain that she doesn’t like you in the slightest but although she was indifferent to you at first, she actually starts to enjoy your presence as the two of you work together

Part of her starts to feel stressed as well when you don’t show up to work one day and when she calls you, she finds out that you’re sick. Cue Kalifa showing up at your house while you’re resting having brought you some medicine and things to make you more comfortable

In your sick state, you don’t question how she got in as most of your attention is on the fact that she bought you the next book/dvd/game of your favorite series

Honestly chances are that Kalifa uses this as a chance to snoop around your house and find out more about you. She learns as much as she can while she snoops and winds up feeling a new sort of connection to you

Especially if she happens to find like a wool sweater in your closet or laundry basket as if your fate wasn’t sealed with her before then now it’s permanently sealed as she starts to imagine you as a sheep animal shifter just like her. It’s safe enough to say that she likes the visual

Maybe you’ll have a few dates as you work with Kalifa and now that you two talk more, she finds out about them and if she can’t scare them off then she’s always up for blackmail or faking some things to make your date look like a scumbag

When the day comes where Kalifa needs to shave her wool, she typically just gets rid of it but this time. She decides to make a little something and fastens a nice article of clothing for you which she offers to you

And the next day when you walk in wearing it? You might as well have just asked the girl to marry you as there is a blush across her cheeks the whole time that you both work which she refuses to explain

Eventually they can’t hide the zoo can’t recover from all of the disappearances so the animals are being transferred to a new one and likely the members of CP9 are as well so Kalifa immediately applies for a job at the new zoo

Meanwhile you don’t really intend on moving so you try to say goodbye to Kalifa, that won’t fly with her though as Goodbye? Yeah, right…

Kalifa will attempt to manipulate you into moving with her at first and if that doesn’t work then she’ll simply pack her things, get ready to leave, and make one final stop on her way out of town

Now you’re across her backseat probably having your pressure point hit so you would fall unconscious. Does she feel bad about it? Not a chance… You were being stubborn about following your mate after all…

You became her mate when you accepted her wool sweater, don’t you know? And now there’s no way out for you as you’re being forcefully moved with Kalifa to a new town

She would fuck you to turn you or bite you but those aren’t all that appealing to her as what would truly be nice is drawing a bath and stripping you down, putting a fun little mixture in the water to activate it and gently washing your body with her hands until you’re just like her

No one will take an interest in what clearly belongs to her after that and if they do then it’s simple, really… Do what everyone else does go homewrecking bastards and get rid of them as efficiently as possible…

So as for Kumadori, if I’m correct he is supposed to be a lion in his animal theming and I don’t know about you guys but at the zoo. I always wanna see the lions like they are amazing and I love them (biased as lions are favorite animal)

Anyways so I can honestly imagine that Kumadori might be one of the most popular animals at the zoo like even moreso than Lucci, Kaku, Jabra, or any of the non animal shifter animals living there

It’s not just because he’s a lion either as we’ve all seen how Kumadori can be and those traits don’t get dialed back even when he’s in his animal form and that’s what makes him so popular as he practically puts on a show for all of the guests with what he does

He brings in the most money out of all the animals and people love to see his antics and how he can be eventually seeing the popularity, the zoo owner hires you to basically do shows with him like educational ones but they’re still clearly meant to attract more visitors and make money…

You were scared at first when you heard you would be working with a lion but the worst thing that this lion did was seemingly try to commit seppuku when he thought he offended you and then got sad when his claws didn’t cut him

Kumadori has to be one of the most dramatic yet oddly obedient animals that you’ve met as he’s willing to work with you and put on these shows for visitors but you once tripped and fell during a show only for this lion to act like you had just fallen to your death

If there was a spotlight in his enclosure then it most certainly would be pointed at him… But hey, the crowd loved it and you did too as you were getting paid

What you only really saw as a job however, Kumadori saw at first as a partnership of two performers on a stage that would potentially transform into something more as the two of you kept up the shows together

He even started to let out a tearful roar of farewell whenever you would leave his enclosure for the day, he would bellow out for you to “Oh please not leave me all alone, my dear! For I would miss you so much that I will meet my dearly departed mother in heaven before you return!” and all you hear is “ROAR!! Roar, roar, roar! ROAR!!”

His heart does break whenever you leave him as well and it only gets worse if he sees you speaking to someone else outside his enclosure… Jealousy stirs heavily in his chest to the point where he would like nothing more than to rip you away from that person…

Even when he rubs his scent all over you the next day through nuzzling, others still speak to you! Can’t they understand that you’re his? The nerve of those homewreckers!!

When the zoo closes for the day and the members of CP9 are able to actively speak to one another, thanks to Kalifa turning off the cameras before she finishes her work. Kumadori airs his grieveneces about you leaving and leaving him to drown in his own heartbreak and tears

This is when the others remind him about what he can do, he can make it so that you’ll stay forever just so long as he can turn you into an animal shifter just like him. The look of amazement that comes across his face as he imagines you as his beautiful lion/lioness

It’s heavenly to the point where he might actually die and go to heaven… He needs it… He wants it…

So the next time that the two of you put on a show, he attempts to make it intimate and romantic but there’s only so much a lion can do to make things romantic when he sinks his teeth into you

It’s a deep bite that breaks the skin and he tries to act so apologetic about it, he doesn’t feel one shred of regret for it however even as you immediately leave after the show

He knows that you’ll come home to him soon so he doesn’t even bother with the farewell roar this time as he just waits

He waits and waits until the chaos of a lion on the loose can be heard and the smile stretches across his face as he starts to clean up around his enclosure and den

A few hours later, you’re dragged in as an unconscious lion recovering from the effects of a tranquilizer dart. The zookeepers are talking about how insane all of this is but they’re happy to have a new lion at the very least

They wait to see if Kumadori will have a bad reaction to you which of course he doesn’t, he drags you off to what’s now your shared den and lays you down

After which he cuddles with you and couldn’t be happier, you’ll be disorientated and confused when you wake up but he’ll tell you all about how “The stars have aligned and brought us together, my dear!! They have granted our wish to be together and now we shall never part from each other’s side!!”

Better get used to loud voices and Kumadori’s weirdness as you’ll be experiencing it for the rest of your life now… He’ll never let you go…

And if anyone would try to take you from him whether it be human, animal shifter, or anything else then it will be over his dead body especially if he winds up putting his cubs in your belly as proof of your love

(Sorry, it was the best gif I could find of him that wasn’t just a clip from the show… I have no idea who it belongs to as I found it on Google Images but IT IS NOT MINE…)

#minors dni #the rain talks back #yandere one piece #reader insert #yandere male #animal shifter au #Skin into Fur AU #read the trigger warnings #Yandere Blueno #Yandere Kalifa #Yandere Kumadori

[library-of-ohara]

“hello friends! thank you for providing us with such a fun event, can it be April already? 🤧 if anyone feels inspired by it, can i request grocery shopping headcanons with Law, Thatch, Sanji and Robin? like would they scold you for buying too many sweets or do they leave you something at the checkout to fetch something they forgot and you panic like when you did when your parents did the same? lol just thinking out loud 🤣 i’m sure i will love everything you come up with! thanks a lot!!” requested by: anon written by: lemon ( @eustasssimp )

Law, Thatch, Sanji, Robin x GN reader

SFW Prompt: Going grocery shopping wc: 1.5k

- Law wouldn’t be the biggest fan of grocery shopping, it feels mundane, shops are crowded, he has a devil fruit that would make it too easy just to Shambles everything you two needed.

- But, if you asked nicely enough, he might agree to go with you. Not before asking why can’t Penguin or Shachi go? They have two legs, make them go.

- When it comes down to the actual shopping, he’s a straight laced aisle weaver. Definitely organizes the list such that he doesn’t have to wander, he doesn’t forget something you two need, and he’s definitely the one driving the cart so that he can monitor e dry thing that goes inside.

- Doesn’t get anything that isn’t on the list, even if you give him the sweetest of puppy eyes you two do not need those crackers that were on sale. He is the “we have _____ at home” meme

- Law would be the type to either stay to one brand every time. He doesn’t grab randomly, he grabs the same version if whatever it is you ran out of. If “the usual” is ever discontinued? Law becomes that bitch who takes up the whole aisle to read the nutritional facts on every thing to pick the best option.

- He’d mumble and complain about how much random crap is thrown into prepackaged food, complain about high fructose corn syrup or sucrose levels food has but still caves and buys it because it’s on the list.

- To avoid interacting with people, he’d go to the self checkout even if he has 20 things. Law would bring reusable bags to the grocery store but forget them in the trunk of his car so he’d end up using the paper or plastic ones anyway. Oh well, they can act as trash bags.

- possible things to add: more abt sticking to list, wouldn’t go to checkout without everything, might double check nutritional facts as he is checking things out

breadybabyboyloafmanyay

- A very fun, albeit embarrassing, man to go grocery shopping with. Thatch is cheery, he has a list but it’s his heart that guides him through the store. He also keeps a pencil tucked behind his ear to cross things off his list.

- The pompadour would be lacking for something as casual as a grocery store, the hair products he uses to perfect it are far to expensive for just relaxed day at the grocery store, plus it’s healthy to just let his hair be down once in a while.

- If you ask Thatch to get something, if you could try a sauce or this new food, he would absolutely say yes if it wasn’t something he could make himself. Chances are though, he would try making it himself afterwards just to brag that his cooking is better than any simple store bought goods.

- The exception is baked goods- if the bread man sees you trying to buy any store-bought pastry, muffin, brownie, bread, cake, anything? He would put it right back, kiss your head and guide you away from the bakery section with a firm hand and say “We’ll make that soon as we get back, sugar. If you want that I’ll make sure you get something that actually tastes good” and proceeds to buy all the ingredients that are needed

- After he does bake you said baked good, expect more boasting or a little lecture about buying baked goods when you’re dating a chef such as him

- Thatch is the type of shopper to go to one side of the store, go clear to the other side, then clear back to the other, it’s not disorganized or like he forgot things, but he’s not taking the fastest shopping route either.

- He lets you push the cart, humming as he walks along side you, eyebrows raising when he sees a sale and decides to buy it. “It might work well as a [insert food talk you don’t know here]” and hey, it’s on sale so now’s the time to try, right?

- Thatch would also advise other people on their shopping. If he sees someone pondering over meats or breads, fish or dairy products, he’ll happily make his way unprompted to give them the lowdown on all the products. It makes your grocery trips longer than they already were going to be, but seeing him be so bubbly and kind to strangers is heartwarming.

- Self checkout? No, this man wants to talk to the cashier, try to make their day better with some poorly delivered dad jokes and food puns. He’d probe and ask questions in a genuinely kind way, but not necessarily be aware if his jokes are bring appreciated by the cashier.

- He might forget a thing or two, but would remember all the important things. If he remembers in time, he would leave you at the cash register with a “be back in a flash darling” before zooming off to get whatever it was he forgot, leaving you awkwardly staring at the cashier. Thatch would be back soon, putting the item on the register and planing a kiss to your hair. “Did you miss me?” yes, thatch, you left me in the most awkward situation of all time of course i missed you

- But, if he doesn’t remember in time, forgetting something doesn’t really bother him, it just means that he gets another chance to go to the store with you again soon <3

- Also knows every vendor by name at the farmers market.

-Sanji is the kind of grocery shopper that has a list, but isn't exactly married to said list. He'll ask you what you might want for dinner, and build the list as he goes based on your answers. Going grocery shopping with him gives you first say in what he cooks for dinner.

- straight laced aisle shopper, but also will let you get anything he can’t make. Would be firmer than Thatch about letting him cook for you instead, and less willing to get things he knows he can just cook.

- “I’ll make you that as soon as we get home, okay my love?” He’d be not-so-secretly butthurt that you wanted to get the store bought version of something he can make. For that exception, he would double back to an aisle he already was in.

- Sanji avoids self-check out when he can, opting to talk to the cashier in a way that is, accidentally, way above the mans pay grade. The cook will ask questions about the produce, how it was grown or what specific variety it is, questions that the poor employee would have no hope of answering.

- He doesn't mean to do it in a way that is condescending or negative, he is just genuinely curious and wants to do more. When he can he opts to go to smaller chains, more local markets, but sometimes not even Sanji can avoid going to a generic grocery store.

- He'd also ask them about themselves, what their dreams and aspirations are outside of this job, and is surprisingly encouraging and genuinely wishes them the best when the transaction is finished.

- Sanji isn't totally sucked in by sales, but if he could think of something to do with the food on sale, he'll take advantage and add a new meal to that weeks menu.

- Wouldn't easily let you push the cart, trying his best to be the utmost gentleman since you were kind enough to go with him. If you wanted to push the cart you'd have to be fairly sneaky about it, stealing it from him the moment he steps away to grab something off of the shelves.

- Robin makes a list of the most important things, but will also buy items that come to mind while she's shopping.

- Not exactly one to buy completely random things off the list, but if she has ingredients for spaghetti, she'll buy garlic to go with it.

- Let’s you take the cart if you want, but is also happy to push it if you don't want to. She really just wants you to have a good time, and is more than happy to tag along for the ride.

- She's a bit of a wanderer when it comes to shopping, but she at least tries to stick to aisles when she can.

- Her devil fruit comes in handy when she forgets to grab something, she doesn't have to go back to the other side of the store unless she wants to

- Is definitely intrigued by sales, and is good at convincing people to buy something that is on sale.

- Unless it's something completely unrelated to your list, she wouldn't be opposed to buying something just because it's on sale.

- Similarly, she could be talked into buying something if you sell it to her well enough. Robin knows what you're trying to do, and that you're trying to get something that they don't really need, but for you she'll act like you convinced her to buy whatever it was you wanted.

- Will opt to go to self check out, but if they're all full she'll go to an empty register. Robin is one to make small talk with the employee at the register, and will ask them questions about their aspirations and interests, thanking them with a smile when the transaction is finished.

#one piece #one piece headcanons #one piece imagine #one piece scenario #trafalgar d water law #one piece thatch #blackfoot sanji #vinsmoke sanji #cyborg franky #lemon writes

[definitelynotafurinasimp]

hiii simp <33

canicallyouthat?-( ;_ _)

saw your event thing going on ( congrats on 300 btw ), and i would like to request 3 for ayaka and ei/raiden shogun-

– seren

youshouldknowwhothisisalreadyjustbylookingattheformat lol-

"I-... um, can I hold your hand?"

characters: Ayaka x gn!reader

genre: fluff

a/n: Hey seren, you can call me whatever you want, as long as it's not too insulting. We already spoke about only being able to request one character at once on discord, I'm just saying this, so those who may read this aren't confused why I only wrote for Ayaka.

Thanks for requesting and for your congratulation and the crossed out, pink text was indeed enough for me to already know who you were.

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Ayaka

Ayaka was often seen as the best role model for how aristocratic people should be, but beneath her seemingly perfect behaviour she was nothing more than a lonely girl with no experience when it came to how to interact with people. She of course knew how to be polite, but everything else like how to behave in a friendship or relationship wasn’t something she was good at.

All of that meant, that when the two of you became friends and later a couple, you had to slowly teach her all about it, and even though you tried taking everything slowly, you knew that you would have to be the driving force behind every new step in your relationship.

Ayaka and you were wandering through Chinju Forest, simply talking about all kinds of things and enjoying the privacy the woods granted you both. Even though she had happily indulged in your conversation not so long ago, Ayaka had slowly grown silent, focussing so much on your hand swinging next to your body, that she slightly startled when you waved the other one in front of her face.

“Are you okay Miss Kamisato?”, you asked her, visibly being worried, but before answering your question, she started blushing and hiding her face behind her fan. It wasn’t as if you have never witnessed what she did when she was embarrassed. You could still remember how red she became when you called her by her given name for the first time and while she didn’t seem to have a problem when others close to her called her “Ayaka”, she would always become a flustered mess if you did it.

“I’m fine, I’m sorry for worrying you”, she stated while diverting her eyes, so she didn’t have to look into yours, feeling embarrassed by what she was about to ask. “But there’s something that I wanted to ask from you”, she began and even though you couldn’t see her whole face, the deepening red of her ears was enough to make it obvious that she was blushing even more furiously.

“Of course. Say whatever you need and if it’s in my power to fulfil your wish, I will”, you answered without hesitation, accidentally coming closer to her, only for Ayaka to back away by a bit. Her reaction caused you to realise your mistake and do the same, before apologising and after an awkward silence that went on for far too long, she finally spoke up.

“I-… um, can I hold your hand?”, she asked in barely more than a whisper, causing you to stare at her with a surprised reaction. Usually, you were the one initiating anything, since you knew that she was too embarrassed to do so, so her taking initiative was something completely new.

“I-It’s fine if you don’t want to- Just please forget that I said anything-”, she started back-paddling in a panicked state, having interpreted your surprised look as a horrified one, only for you to shut her up by taking her hand into yours and smiling at her, causing her face to become a shade of red, you didn’t think would be possible.

“Of course, I was already worried that it might be something much more serious. But if that’s everything you need, then I’m happy to comply.”

#genshin x y/n #genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin x you #genshin impact x reader #ayaka x you #ayaka x y/n #kamisato ayaka x reader #kamisato ayaka #ayaka x reader #300 simps for the simp throne!

[clarissalance]

A sneak peck on the corner of your lips

Pairing: Xingqiu x G/N!reader, Chongyun, mention of Xiangling and Liyue trio

Warning: a peck, hugging, reader and Xingqiu are the same age 

Word count: 3943

Summary: You are going on a ghost-hunting trip with Chongyun and Xingqiu to Mingyun village.

A/N: Last time I said I’m going to write shorter fic, well, my fingers accidentally slip and tada, here it is. I feel like this Xingqiu is a little bit too shy compare to the game but I want to make him blush (or any character in general). This one takes me quite a long time to write but I hope you all enjoy it. Maybe I should write Venti next, I totally forgot his birthday until my feed was flooded with his fanart. I’m sorry Bartobas ;-;   Anyhow, please shower Xingqiu with a lot of love!! He’s the reason why I can pass abyss floor 11. 

Picture credit: Pinterest. ( I really don’t know the author of this picture. If you find the source, please comment so I can add. Thank you (❁´◡`❁) ) 

Hanging out with the Liyuen trio has always been an adventure full of thrill and excitement. Usually, there would be someone who ends up with all troubles and mischiefs the other two sets up. Chongyun is our center, holding a strike 10 times in a row, while Xiangling sometimes gets bombed by them, but it’s nothing compared to our popsicle boy. Xingqiu, you have never heard of him getting into any troubles, but he has been the famous one in the town for plotting pranks and tricks. The victim is Chongyun, and he’s somehow still very oblivious, despite many times falling into the holes.

Maybe the boy is just too naïve and trusting for his own good. 

“ Xiangling is not coming today. ”  Xingqiu announces, successful getting your attention and Chongyun’s.  “She’s busy with the restaurant, so today, there will be only three of us.” Letting out a commital sound, you return your focus back onto the unfinished charm on your hand, fingers skillfully waving through the strings. 

“ Guess we’re off to Mingyun then.” Chongyun stands up abruptly from his seat, the sound of clothes rustling together. “I got a reliable intel this time about a ghost there.” 

Glance up from the unfinished charm, you shoot a questioning look to Xingqiu, to which he sends you a wink and a charming smile. The source of ‘reliable intel’ Chongyun is telling you here definitely comes from Xingqiu. Somehow, the boy has managed to stay away from the Chongyun’s suspicion list, even after those obvious unrealistic intel disguise as pranks. You wonder how has he manage to deceive the poor exorcist this time. 

“Chongyun, there are only hilichurls in Mingyun village. No one is there.” You state the obvious. How can he fall for this so many times? The light blue hair boy turns at you and tilts his head in confusion, waiting for you to anticipate more details. He is really dense, isn’t he? 

“ So, how did you get intel about a spirit at the place if there is no one lives there?” Letting out a huff, you fold your arm, feet tapping impatiently.  

“ Someone sends me the request this morning.” He pulls out a white envelope in his pocket and hands it to you, smiling a bit enthusiastically. The envelope has no trace that indicates sender, yet the exorcist assures you it’s a reliable source. You have no idea what his standard of ‘reliable' is anymore. 

Inside the envelope is an expensive-looking card, the curving and neat writing dances on the piece. Bringing the paper closer, you can faintly make out the scent of floral perfume mingles with the fresh wooden smell of crisp paper. “By the look, this looks more like a love letter than a request of exorcism to me. You’re sure it’s not from one of the maidens?” A little further away, you can hear the sound of someone choking on breath and a muffled laugh. Chongyun then mutters something about no one would send him a love letter anyway. Oh, so he doesn’t know then. Did this boy live under a rock or something? 

This is too well-crafted for a mere prank. Did Xingqiu handwriting improve this much over the past month? Eyeing the blue boy suspiciously, you carefully watch his interaction with the young exorcist while reading the content. 

This letter is pretty legit, but you’re still very suspicious of a certain someone over there who meticulously crafts this. If you ask, will he answer truthfully or skit around the subject again? 

Putting the card back into the envelop and return them to Chongyun, you finally raise your hand in defeat. Coming with them might be a better solution, in case the exorcist condition gets out of control, you can help Xingqiu carry him back.  

“Fine, let’s see the spirit ourselves then.” You stand up, hand dusting your clothes. “ If we’re lucky enough, we might be able to see the adepti on the mountain before catching the ghost.” Shrugging, you beam brightly at the shoulder-shaking Xingqiu and the scratching-head Chongyun. You can already guess what will happen in the village after so many times witnessing Xingqiu’s prank. Is this what we called… experiences? 

---

Mingyun village is located on a mountain and surrounded by many dried up ores mines, which result in people leaving their homes and moves to the Chasm and Harbor. As your group slowly trek to the written address, you notice an unusually high activity of hilichurls. It’s common for them to move to an abandoned village but isn’t this a little too much? From broken bridge connect the Guili Plain, there are many groups clustering, wandering among themselves. Even Chongyun tries to avoid them, not jumping on their head as usual. 

Imagine fighting this many hilichurls, you don’t think your group can make it back to the harbour in one piece. Padding quietly, you walk faster toward Xingqiu, hoping to stick close to him. At least if fighting is bounded to happen, he can protect you. The young master still keeps his unfazed face, following Chongyun while eyes glued on his book. You remember he already finished reading this book?   

“ Psstt.” You whisper. “ Are you sure we’re heading the right way? That direction is crowded with monsters.” From here, they can barely see the beast but you can sense an abundant amount over there. 

“ It’s this way. It’s marked on the map.” Chongyun answers, eyestrain on a piece of paper, which results in his misstep and tripping. Behind, Xingqiu looks up and worriedly calls out to be careful. You trust Chongyun map-reading skill, but right now, you’re very concerned about his navigation. How can he navigating if he does not even look at the road? 

As the scorching sun blazing down the heat, big droplets of sweat dripping down your forehead, and your shirt starts to stick on your skin. Ah, you forgot summer has arrived. The path is sun-drenched, not a single shade can be found. The sweltering heat in this village is almost unbearable, despite the area is borderline with Dragonspine. How can not a single breeze from Dragonspine drift to this area? 

As you lazily following the group, your mind starts going into vacation mode. You imagine staying under the shade, enjoy the cool breeze and munching ice cream. The village is quite close to Yaoguang Shoal, maybe you can convince the guys to head down there after they finish their task. In this weather, dipping your feet in the cold water while enjoying popsicles are the best. Stealing some from Chongyun might not be that bad. 

Next to you, the Chongyun and Xingqiu are not affected as much as you, maybe because they carry visions? You wonder how their visions help them to cool down? 

“ Xingqiu.”  You call, hand fanning your face. The boy looks up from his book, humming, unfazed by the boiling weather. Is he not feeling hot at all? Under all of those long sleeve shirt? 

“Can we hold hand?”

As soon as the question leaves your mouth, some things don’t feel right. Did you phrase it, a little bit weird? 

The cerulean-haired boy chokes on his saliva, eyes widen in surprise, almost drop his precious rare novel. You think you definitely phrase it wrong. 

“ Are you okay?” Chongyun turns back abruptly after noticing the coughing sound, his blue eyes filled with worries.

Xingqiu shakes his head and waves his hand, motioning the exorcist to turns back to his map. After a few second of heaving, he finally returns back to normal, shooting you stinky eyes and put his book away. It’s not your fault that he chokes on his own saliva. He chokes it by himself. 

“Why would you want… to hold my hand?” Xingqiu questions, cringing at his cracking voice. 

“Don’t you feel hot under this weather?” You point your finger at the sky, bright rays hitting your face. Xingqiu nods in confusion, still not understand how your request related to this question. 

“If we hold hand, maybe you can share with me some of your coolness.” 

Xingqiu stares owlishly at you, and you elaborate more on how the pyro transfers heat through physical touch, and maybe, hydro has a similar mechanism. 

As you explain, you notice how his shoulders shaking, while his face remains perfectly calm, except for the betraying light curve on his mouth. Is he trying to contain his smile? 

Finally, Xingqiu folds in half and blurts out in laughter, tears forming at the corner of his eyes. In between his howling, the boy breathlessly explains how you misunderstand the elements and visions aren't used for this situation.   

Potato, potato, you don’t believe the mischievous vision-holder over there has never tried using his vision for different purposes other than fighting.  

Your face burns up, you’re not sure if it’s because of the burning sun, or the embarrassment caused by the hydro user over there. Pouting, you turn away from him, stomping toward Chongyun direction instead.  

Hmph, if Xingqiu isn’t going to help you to cool down, then you’d have to ask the exorcist. Somehow, you already know the man is going to hesitate because it might disturb his congenital condition. Well, you’re just going to bribe him with two or three popsicles when you are coming back to the harbour. Nothing a little money can’t fix. And maybe a lot of persuasions too.

As soon as you make your mind, you rush toward Chongyun, calling out for the cryo user. The exorcist is a distance away from you both, and he doesn’t turn back even when you call out for him. Does this mean he didn’t hear the conversation between you and Xingqiu? 

   Casually skipping toward Chongyun, you call for him again-

“Chongyun, can I... ” before, suddenly hands from behind wrap around your neck, pull you into a wall of meat. You wince at the hard collision with the chest, sensation of callous fingers on your shoulder bring your longing desired: Coolness. Surprised by the sudden touch, you shoot your eyes wide open and crane your neck behind, immediately meet with a sly amber orb. 

What is he doing?

Followed by your call, Chongyun curiously turns back and his gentle light blue eyes unwavering. He doesn’t seem to be surprised at this scene. 

Does Xingqiu always this touchy? 

The young exorcist raises his brows at you but behind, Xingqiu waves his hand dismissive, successfully driving the young boy away, even before you can form your word. 

You see the exorcist shrugs and turns his attention back on the piece of paper, heading deeper into the abandoned village, distance between the cryo users and you two starts to grow.

You gawk shockingly into his small figure starts to get smaller, mouth gapes open slightly. 

Did Chongyun just leave you behind? What kind of cold-heart friend is he? He definitely saw you are being held back by Xingqiu, right? 

Behind, you hear Xingqiu mumbles something about Chongyun being ‘unbelievable’, ‘workaholic’ and ‘careless friend’. Shouldn’t you be the one who says that?   

All of a sudden, you realize your back touching his chest, his hands wrap around you from behind. From here, you can smell the faint vanilla and a mix of woody, musk scent. 

He reminds you of old books, the feeling of immersing yourself in a dusty library. 

Blood rushing to your face, and the first thing that comes to your mind is to escape from his hold. The hydro user somehow able to read your mind, his grip tightens, holding you close. 

In an intimate position, with you both fall in silence, your senses suddenly heighten. Even separated by layers of clothes, you can still feel the heat from Xingqiu. The rapid beat of your heart thumping in your rib cage, the coolness from his palm seeping slowly into your skin. 

Somehow his touch doesn’t cool you but heating you up more, your body slowly burns up like a furnace. “ C-can you let me go ?” You stutter, squirming helplessly inside the young hydro user, avoiding his teasing gaze.  

“ You asked me to touch you, so I comply with my liege's request.” 

“ I didn't ask you to touch me.” You quip back at the shameless hydro user, body twisting weakly inside his hold, the sound of clothes rustling. How come you both learn martial arts, yet your strength is nothing compared to him?  

“ This is not holding a hand.” You point out at his long arms wrap just under your neck, sulky. “ And stop hugging me. It’s burning in here.” 

Xingqiu gives you a grin, amber orbs shoot you a questioning gaze. Well, it’s not true. His long-sleeved are rolled up, exposing the long slender arms, now is pressing on the thin layer of fabric, resonating with coolness. It feels like hydro is running under the vein of his arm. His fingers wrap on your shoulder, constantly transferring the calming sensation of flowing water. 

 “Isn’t this position more efficient than holding hand?” The hydro lazily rests his face on your shoulder, smirking devilishly. You have to admit this is much cooler than holding a hand, but this is too intimate. Flustered by his alluring gaze, you turn your head away, feet start moving toward the exorcist direction. 

“W-we sh-ould catching up with Chongyun, he’s quite far away.” Stammering like a mess, you point your finger at the general direction where the exorcist was heading, the image of a light blue boy is getting smaller, slowly mending into the heat under the scorching furnace resting on your head. A chuckle is followed, but Xingqiu doesn’t say anything else, hands still wrap loosely around you, trailing steps after you. 

You are too naïve to think that walking fast will break his hold. The young master of Feiyun Commerce Guild has proved your effort is futile. He effortlessly adjusts to your pace even when you purposefully try to quicken your step or stop abruptly. He doesn’t faze by your antic, instead, leaning close to your ear and blow hot air into your ears teasingly, knowing well how flustered you are. 

From here, you can see Chongyun still having his eyes glued on the piece of paper, still not noticing his companions drift far behind him. Indeed he is careless, maybe you two should keep a close distance to protect him. 

“ Are you getting cooler?” Xingqiu suddenly leans close, his face just a few inches away from yours. 

You hold your breath in silence, heart almost drops at his close proximation. Can he not scare you like that? “ It's getting cooler.” As much as you tempted to elbow the hydro user away, you know how hot it will be without having his arms wrap around you, so you easily give in. 

The two of you keep a decent pace while the boy wraps his hand around you, clinging like a koala. Look around, you realize this place is mostly dry trees somehow manage to root in the barren soil, broken wagons and holed baskets lying around in this place. Luckily, this area has much fewer hilichurls compares to the entrance of the village. Look like they’re also trying to find a shade in this weather. This place is closed to Dragonspine, and you still have no idea how the land doesn’t receive a single cool breeze from the frosted city.  

“Why did you pull me back earlier?” Hesitantly, you ask him. 

Xingqiu let out a confusing sound, not registering your question. Should you elaborate some more?     

  “When I was calling out to Chongyun.” You quickly add, trying to keep your voice steady and casual.  

“ Oh, that.” He hums, his arms tighten around you. Why did he even hold you closer than before? You didn’t try to pry off his hug, why all of a sudden? 

“ Because…  you were… about to ask Chongyun to h-hold your hand right?” Freeze at his words, you twist your neck, curious at the face he is making right now. It’s rare for him to sound this uncertain about something. As a second son of the Guild Manager of one of the biggest trading guild in Liyue, the young man has been trained to speak with perfection. Every word coming from this young man is carefully formulated and spoken with utmost confidence. 

 As you face him, the young man furrows his brows, amber eyes fill with hesitant and worried. Why is he acting like this? A sudden wave of guilt washing your stomach, uneasiness slowly sinks deep into your skin. 

You… are not supposed to call out for Chongyun?

 “ B-but you laugh at me when I explain about the coolness exchange?” Tilting your head in confusion, you can’t help to not follow the hydro user thoughts. He refused you first, wasn't he? It should be normal for you to find Chongyun instead. The exorcist will probably agree to anything as long as he can help. “Wouldn’t it make more sense if I go to find Chongyun instead?” 

“And holding hand with Chongyun? Archon, no!” Your skin jumps as Xingqiu raises his voice, and you have no idea what tickles him. Why fuzzing over something so trivial like this? 

“ We always hold hands. There’s nothing wrong with it.” You can’t help to shoot back. “ You also hold his hand too.” 

“N-no, our holding hand is different.” He can weakly defend, trying to rack his brain out to think of a time when they hold hands. He gives up soon afterwards. “Besides, you shouldn’t be holding hands with anyone.” 

“ For your information, this is much more scandalous than holding hand.” You meekly point out, finger poking on his arm bares smooth skin. Twist back, you lean in closer, eyes crinkle into the shape of crescent moons. “And what’s wrong with us kids holding hand?”   

  Xingqiu can’t help but let out a defeated sigh, face drops down your shoulder and sulky buries his face in the crook of your neck.  His hot breaths tickle the sensitive skin, cerulean locks brushing your cheek. Under his breath, you can barely make out his muffle word, saying something about don’t understand. 

You slowly trek toward Chongyun’s direction, humming along with familiar tunes. Sudden changes from Chongyun and Xingqiu have no longer made you felt lonely or sadden. Boys at this age are unusual. They aren’t being closed with you as before, no longer inching close to you or hugging you from behind. They are more cautious when being close with you, more mindful when your fingers accidentally graze their.  

If you ask them directly, will they answer you why they're acting like a married woman, always jumping every time you innate skinship?   

You have a feeling they probably won't answer that. 

“ /N… Y/N! ”

Abruptly, you raise your head, forehead almost hitting with Xingqiu’s. Your face is a breath away from his, so close that you can see his long lashes fluttering like a butterfly, shying away from the captivating eyes. His porcelain skin is smooth and flawless, a sudden urge tells you to caress it. A blush slowly creeping up his cheek, and finally, the hydro user shies away, staring at the road.   

Xingqiu clears his throat. “ I was talking to you. You were spacing out again?” You can only offer him a sheepish smile. 

“ S-sorry, I was thinking about something.” 

Xingqiu looks up and stares at your face intently like he is trying to make his way into your maze-like mind. You shift away from his fierce gaze, but the hydro user is faster. His fingers easily catch your face, your cheeks fit perfectly into his cool smooth palm. Xingqiu lets out an amusing chuckle, fingers squishing your cheek playfully like a stress-reliever. 

You feel like he has you wrapped around his little finger, literally. 

“I don’t know what you were thinking, but whatever it is, it’s incorrect.” Despite the mean fingers toying your cheek, his voice is awfully soft and reassuring. Is he trying to comfort you? Carefully, you gloss your eyes over to his direction, observing the mischievous feature on his face slowly melts into a soft and mellow. 

Before you can enjoy the rare gentle side of his, the amber eyes slowly gleam with playfulness, and he leans closer, only stops when your face is just a breath away. His hot breath fanning on your cheek, tickling. He is so close to you, so close that if you tilt your head, our lips will meet. 

“ A moment ago, I said that you shouldn’t let any male hold your hand right?” His voice drops low, golden orb flickers like a torch. What is he planning again?  You carefully nod. 

He isn’t going to… bite you right? 

“ You see, holding hand...” The young man chuckles slyly, the arm was wrapped around your neck makes the way down and nudges into your hand, fingers interlocking. " can easily drifting to this." You turn back fully to face him, the other hand still glazes your cheek. 

“ They can easily slip their arm around you into a hug…” Slowly, the coolness in your palm slips away and snakes around your shoulder.  “Then, they can…” Xingqiu’s grip on your cheek slowly relaxes, fingers slowly inch down on your neck. 

Take a big gulp of saliva, you can only widen your eyes, nervously follow at the tracing fingers of his. His long digits don’t stop after wandering around your neck, they slowly creep up, follow your jaw, and then cup on your cheek. The cooling sensation you craved a moment ago now feels like frost nipping on your skin. Heart thumping loudly in the rib cage, you unconsciously hold your breath, waiting for his next move.    

In the comfortable silence, his thump delicately brushes your cheek, caressing the sensitive skin. You notice his touch is loving and delicate, it makes you want to snuggle your face into his palm, enjoying this lasting moment. 

“…then what?” You open your mouth impatiently, voice light and mushy. 

A light pinkish blush quickly dusts on his cheek, you feel the man in front of you tenses up, but he remains his eye contact with you, refuses to avoid your gaze. His lips quiver but nothing coming out. Is he… hesitating?  Finally, you hear him mumbles something quietly.   

…you

“ What ?” You cock your brows and inch closer, eyes training on his plump lip. They remain still. 

Feeling an intense gaze on your head, you feel a light squeeze on your cheek so you curiously tilt your chin up, just to see Xingqiu leans down and presses a light peck at the corner of your mouth.

His plump lips brush yours like a feather, almost non-touching. It’s soft and plush, but the moment only lasts for a few second. Abruptly, the coolness on your cheek leaves hastily, follows by his sleeveless arm around your shoulder. 

As soon as you realize what just happened, the young master of Feiyun Commerce Guild has already dashed away, leaving a burning tomato behind. You shyly lower your head, face heats up profusely.  Fingers slowly draw up to your lip, you recall the feeling of his lip touching yours. 

You feel like you can combust right here and right now.   

Unknownst to you, if you look in his direction, you might have spotted a pair of red ears and his inelegant falling on his butt.   

#xingqiu #genshin xingqiu #genshin impact #xingqiu x reader #chongyun #xiangling #kiss #clarissalance #a peck #fluff #friend to lovers #best friend to lovers #genshin impact x reader

[skelswritingcorner]

Heartslabyul + Autistic!MC

This was originally posted on my Wattpad in October 2020 (link here!), but I vowed to repost my Autistic!MC UA when I got around to making this blog. This series was written to imagine what the story would generally be like with an autistic & AFAB MC and their interactions with the cast in the main story would be like.

Please note that the fic uses femminine pronouns as I was writing it with the MC being female in mind, as I am a woman myself and find it easier to write female MCs/reader inserts (I’m posting it here as it’s written on Wattpad). However, feel free to interpret this MC as any gender you may please since this doesn’t involve things like menstruation (the next two parts do involve stuff AFAB and/or trans women have). Other than that, please enjoy this fic! Under the cut due to length.

Riddle Rosehearts At first Riddle just thought she was a shy person. He had a feeling that it wasn't the case, but couldn't be bothered to ask her. Prior to his overblot, he hardly spoke to her since she was in Ramshackle dorm. However, he noticed that she regularly avoided eye contact with everybody around her. He just found MC awfully passive.

The first time he saw her at one of the Unbirthday Parties, he noticed she often spun around or paced back and forth, occasionally fidgeting with her sleeves. After the party, he entertained the idea of asking her himself about her behavior, but decided to ask Trey if he had any idea after dealing with some rule breakers. Trey couldn't exactly pinpoint anything in particular, he knew she mentioned in passing that she finds certain textures weird or wanders into a quiet location because she says 'I'm a little overwhelmed.'

After his overblot, Cater mentioned in passing how MC had no sense of danger around him, and literally approached him like normal. Everyone, even Crowley, was baffled to her behavior. "She even squished your cheeks and giggled because your skin is soft?" Riddle vaguely remembered her doing that, and the absolute confusion running through his head at her lack of fear.

When he finally asked her about it, MC replied with, "Oh, I'm on the autism spectrum. Some of my behavior might be weird, and I don't know if there's any documentation of autism in this world." After she said that, all of her behavior made sense to Riddle. He even began documenting her behaviors when he could, actions she does to calm down (aka stims), and things like her special interests. He wants to make sure he can understand her, and maybe help her advocate for herself.

Trey Clover This man's pretty chill. He notices her behavior pretty quickly. He has a little sister, and he knows certain behaviors aren't normal. However, because his sister likely isn't as old as MC, he has to talk with Cater to see if any of her behavior could be considered "normal". When Cater confirms that he never seen similar behavior in his own sisters ("Then again," Cater chuckles, "not all women are the same.").

When he asked Ace, Deuce, Grim and MC to collect chestnuts to make mont blanc he noticed how she didn't really care, but she said she kind of wanted to stretch her legs anyways.

When the five made the mont blanc, Trey noticed that MC didn't eat much of it since she said she wasn't a big fan of the texture and wasn't really hungry, and gave the rest to Grim. He kept note of it, but didn't think of asking her.

Later, when the five of them and Crowley were in the library after the events of the Unbirthday Party the day before, Trey noticed she went missing and started to panic. A little while later MC came back with a book that caught her eye. He and Crowley had a word with her to tell them next time when she's going somewhere so they don't panic again.

Out of the five dudes of Heartslabyul, he was the last to find out that MC was on the spectrum when the six of them ate Riddle's tart. She said something along the lines of, "Oyster sauce can't change the texture, but it'll make it too salty for me. Sensory inputs, y'know?" Poor dude was so confused when Cater broke the news to him, but Trey is understanding since Cater himself doesn't like certain kinds of flavors.

He might even ask MC what her favorite desserts are and try to make them for her when he has the chance.

Cater Diamond This dude's pretty easygoing, so he might be the most understanding out of everyone in Heartslabyul. When he first met MC he noticed how she paced around behind Ace and Deuce. When he asked them, Ace replied with, "Oh, she does that a lot. Says she has too much energy and has to use it somehow." He suggested that the three help him paint the roses red. They agreed to do so before class began (since Ace was wearing the collar and MC doesn't have magic, they had to use a paintbrush).

After Cater demonstrated how to paint the roses, he noticed that MC mimicked his actions exactly, down to the smallest movement. He found this interesting, even told a few of his classmates and Trey. Cater wanted to get to know her more, so he decided to talk with MC during lunch.

When he approached her, he noticed that she was somewhat shy and hardly talked much. Then again, she was eating so she likely didn't want to talk while eating food. After asking Deuce, he found out she's not exactly a talkative person.

Sometimes he noticed that she'd go into the light music room when nobody was there to study or read in peace. Part of him wanted to say hello, but he decided to respect the fact that she likely wanted some time alone and left.

When Cater came by after Trey, Ace, Deuce, Grim and MC finished making mont blanc he noticed that she didn't eat any (or had a tiny bit before giving it to Grim) because she didn't exactly like the texture. This made something click that something might be a little different with her. He decided to do some research, but couldn't find anything concrete.

During Riddle's overblot, he was shocked at MC's lack of a sense of danger and how she casually approached him and squished his cheeks and giggled uncontrollably. After the fight, she had Riddle's head resting in her lap when he asked MC about herself.

"Oh, I'm on the autism spectrum. I don't know if there's much documentation of it in this world, I hope my answer helps explain some of my behavior." this clicked with Cater, causing everything he noticed that was unique about her to finally make sense. When he finds out her special interest (let's just say it's drawing since it's one of mine), he might ask to take pictures of her with her art and post it on his Magicam account.

Deuce Spade (I basically gave up here) This confused baby...he's trying his best. He was confused when MC would randomly start crying at first, he'll try to comfort her. Sometimes he sees her spinning around or walking in circles during PE, but doesn't think of asking her about it.

When Deuce and MC went to Sam's Shop to get ingredients for Trey, he noticed how she would often glance at random objects for a moment and then focus on another. Confused him, but didn't think of asking about it.

When he had the impromptu sleepover with Ace, Grim and MC he noticed how she could ramble on and on about drawing. When he asked how she could go on about that topic and seemingly not stop Ace broke the news to him.

Now he just has more understanding of her behavior, he didn't really change much when he found out MC was autistic (other than wondering why she wanted to draw his magical wheel).

Ace Trappola This dude was pretty much the first to figure it out. When he and Grim had a quarrel on Main Street she was getting tears in her eyes randomly trying to stop everything from escalating.

Another time was when she randomly started crying in flying class, when he and Deuce asked her what was wrong she said between sniffles that sometimes she gets this urge to cry for no reason whatsoever, sometimes the same happens but she gets laughing fits.

He was the first one to find out MC is autistic when he goes to Ramshackle Dorm after he got his head 'cut off' by Riddle when she said she admired how he found advocating for himself so easily. When he asked her why, she replied with, "As someone on the autism spectrum I struggle with social skills, one of them being self advocacy."

After that, Ace tries his best to help her speak up for herself and comfort her if she randomly starts crying during class.

#twisted wonderland fanfiction #skel writes twst #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland heartslabyul #ace trappola #riddle rosehearts #trey clover #deuce spade #cater diamond #autistic mc #twst autistic mc ua

[willwriteforhugs]

it’s not okay- hwang hyunjin

boyfriend! hyunjin x reader- one shot !

word count: 1.8k

genre: angst, a little fluffy, full of hyunjin-is-overprotective-syndrome

synopsis: when a stranger on the street makes you uncomfortable with his romantic advances, it takes everything hyunjin has not to kill him right then and there.

warnings: instance of harassment, a *brief* physical altercation, arguing, some cursing

a/n: this fic was requested by a lovely anon! sorry about the wait- i hope you and everyone else enjoy this one. i definitely got carried away with this, but hopefully it’s still what was requested lol. also, if you all have any other requests, feel free to send them in. i like to know i’m writing what you all want to see.

one last thing: a quick disclaimer- all of the events in this story are fictional, and should be taken with a grain of salt. everything that happens here is just my own interpretation of the situation i was presented with. anyways, thank you sm for reading! 

- - - 

the streets around you bustle with noise. mothers calling for their wandering children, street vendors shouting out prices... the sheer volume of it almost overwhelms you. at your side, your right hand tightens around your boyfriend’s. the last thing you want is to lose him in the crowd... he gives you a gentle squeeze back. words weren’t exchanged, but you understand what he meant: it’s okay, i’m right here.

you really are not a fan of crowds- you never have been, but hyunnie loves the market- and you do too, when it isn’t this packed. but he’s been so busy lately,  and the two of you hardly get to go on dates anymore... so when he’d proposed this as how he wanted to spend the afternoon, you couldn’t help but agree to it.

you glance up at him, thankful for the opportunity of distraction. you and hyunjin have been together for more than six months now- and god, you have never been more in love. you’d been in love before- or at least, you think you had. but being with hyunjin... it’s just not the same. the feelings you have for him are ten times the feelings you’d had for anyone back in high school. of course, maybe it’s just because he’s so damn beautiful...

today, for a simple market day, your counterpart is dressed casually. he’s in a plain hoodie and jeans, with his shoulder length hair tucked into a beanie. his face is bare, and you can’t help but smile just by looking at him. 

your boyfriend smiles back, looking slightly baffled. “is there something on my face?”

you snort and shake your head. “i can’t just look at you?”

he narrows his eyes playfully. “absolutely not. it makes me suspicious.”

you roll your eyes. “you spend too much time with the boys. i’m not gonna flick you, you know.” you pause. “or shove tissues in your mouth.”

at this, hyunjin huffs a laugh. “alright, that one’s true.”

hyunjin then leads you into a left turn, heading towards a vendor selling fresh hotteok. you follow willingly, realizing that you are indeed a bit hungry. as always, he knew exactly what you needed before even you did.

as your boyfriend places an order, you wander a few feet, wanting to glance into the stall next to you. in order to do so, you have to slip behind the first stall, into a small alleyway that borders the back part of the vendor lines. you peer over into the stall you were looking for. they’re selling handmade dishes- and from what you can see as you strain you neck over the stall, they’re absolutely gorgeous. dainty tea sets made of impossibly thin porcelain line the tables. the intricate floral designs catch your eye, and you know hyunjin would love to look at them. you turn quickly, mouth already forming his name.

“hyunjin-ah, i- oh!” you interrupt yourself with your surprise. in your rush, you’d turned around and run right into another person. your face floods with heat, and if you could, you would have shriveled up and died right there.

“i’m so sorry,” you mumble, bowing frantically. you eyes burn holes into the ground. “i wasn’t paying attention.”

“it’s fine, really.” a masculine voice replies. 

you look up, shocked to see that the person you’d run into is a man, and he looks to be around your age. “oh. okay.”

the man is tall- taller than hyunjin, even. he’s got an angry look to him, and you take a step back. but he just smirks. “i didn’t mean to scare you.”

he leans against the wall, crossing his arms together. you watch as his eyes rake over you and your body, and you shrink away.

you press your lips together, and the anxiety from before begins to claw it’s way back into your mind. “it’s fine, seriously.” your breathing is uneven, and you desperately want to get back to hyunjin. “but i kinda have to go...”

the man, who is blocking your way, doesn’t budge. “so soon? why don’t you stay and talk with me? you’re so cute, i just gotta get your number, babe.”

your body jerks in reaction to the pet name. who the hell is he calling baby?

you inhale sharply. “please- can i just get by? i’m really alright.”

the stranger takes a step towards you. “come on, why are you so shy? it’s harmless flirting, love...” he reaches out and takes a hold of your wrist. your facade crumbles, and your vision begins to close. you become hyper-aware of how alone you are back in this alleyway. you quickly jerk your hand back, and he relents, freeing your hand. “so jumpy! why? how about we go get a coffee? i know a place, it’s just ten booths-”

“who the hell are you?”

the voice is sharp and temperamental, and beautifully familiar. you hear yourself breathe a sigh of relief. hyunjin's here. thank god.

your boyfriend is now standing a few feet away, sporting an expression of anger and wariness. his eyes flit to the man, then to you. though he doesn’t say it, you can practically hear his voice, asking if you’re okay.

the strange man- who is still standing far too close- speaks up, voice brimming with cockiness. “why do you care?”

you physically cringe at those words. good luck with that one, dude. you just threw gasoline on an open flame.

“get the fuck away from my girlfriend.” hyunjn’s voice is low, but the impact of the words is louder than bombs. his face has gone from wary to furious. “don’t make me say it again.”

the creep takes a step away from you, moving towards hyunjin. “why are you so pissy, pretty boy? got that much to lose?”

you can see the clockwork in your boyfriend’s mind turning. calculating the outcomes. 

before anyone can move to stop you, you dart across the apparent no-man’s-land, coming to a stop at hyunjin’s left shoulder. you reach out and rest a hand on it, hoping the action conveys your feelings. when he doesn’t respond, you lean forward and hurriedly whisper in his ear; “please, hyunjin-ah. i’m alright. let’s just go.”

the boy brushes your hand away, and maintains his silence.

“hyunjin.” you say, louder this time. “it’s okay.”

this time, his narrowed eyes flash. “what-no! it’s not okay!” he swivels to face you. “what about that was okay?!”

your chest clenches, and your hand slips forward to clutch at his shirt. your voice comes out cracked. “please, let’s just go.”

the stranger watches the whole interaction with an amused smile on his lips, and the looks sends chills up your spine.

after a moment, hyunjin takes a deep breath and raises his chin. “you’re right, y/n-ah, i’m sorry. let’s just go, my love.”

as the two of you turn to go, the stranger shouts at hyunjin’s retreating back. “where are you going? i didn’t even get your bitch’s number!”

your skin goes cold, and you can feel your boyfriend turn to stone next to you. you inhale, reaching out to stop what you know is inevitable. 

hyunjin makes a slow turn on his heel. his gaze is icy, and his tone is even colder. “what the hell did you just say?”

the other man scoffs, and it randomly occurs to you that he might be drunk. or, you think; maybe he’s just a pervert, y/n. 

“i said, i didn’t get your bitch’s phone number.”

hyunjin is silent and frozen for a moment. then, with no preamble, he lunges forward. 

“hyunjin!” you yelp. but you know- you know there’s no stopping what’s next.

his punch hits the man square in the jaw, and his opponent goes stumbling. you lurch forward, terrified of this escalating. 

without looking, hyunjin catches you with his arm and gently shoves you back. 

he refocuses on the man on the ground, who is struggling to get up. when he gets close, hyunjin pushes him back down. you watch as he comes to a crouch in front of the fallen man. he hisses his words through his teeth: “don’t you ever say that shit. calling my girlfriend a bitch... unless you want to get your poor fucking ass handed to you, you never say shit like that again.”

your mouth hangs open in shock, and you stumble forward again, pulling your boyfriend away before he does something he regrets. you drag him back through the booths, and you emerge back at the front of the hotteok stand.

as soon as the connection breaks, hyunjin’s anger disappears, and he looks almost surprised. he reaches over and grasps your hand. “y/n- are you alright?”

you sigh, and even as your eyes sting slightly, you nod your head. the creepy man hadn’t followed the two of you, but you still feel the need to run. you release a shaky breath. 

hyunjin leans down and plants a light but lingering kiss of your forehead. when he pulls away, he sighs against your hair. “i’m sorry,” he whispers.

“for what?” you prompt, whispering back.

“for getting carried away. i...i didn’t mean to.”

“it’s okay. i know.” you lean away to meet his eyes. “besides, he was scaring me. so... thank you.”

he offers a bittersweet smile. “okay, baby...” he pauses for a second. “let’s go home?”

you allow a real smile and nod. “yeah. i’d like that.” you pause, deciding to tease him a little. “will you promise to stay and cuddle?”

at this, your lover’s moment of melancholy breaks too. “yes..” he fakes a groan. “if i have to...”

you reach down to hold his hand as the two of you begin walking, initial plans long forgotten. you begin to bicker back. “oh, please. you really act like you don’t enjoy skinship with me.”

he pauses. “how do you know it’s not just to get in your pants?”

you gasp and smack his arm. “don’t say that! i’ll never sleep with you again if you say shit like that!” 

hyunjin laughs, and his real, genuine smile warms your heart. “well then i guess i’ll stop. but only because of that threat.”

“oh, really?” you raise your eyebrows.

he gives up immediately, his forehead crinkling slightly. “no. i love you, y/n. i really do. and i promise i will give you all the snuggles when we get back.”

you nod, then lean your head on his arm, inhaling his scent. you’ve never been more grateful for him. 

the two of you continue walking, hand in hand. it isn’t for another few minutes that he finally breaks the silence. “so- what do you want for dinner?”

the two of you burst into laughter when you realize you’d never even gotten your hotteok.

#stray kids #stray kids scenarios #stray kids imagines #stray kids x reader #hwang hyunjin #hyunjin #hyunjin x reader #hyunjin imagines #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #kpop au #kpop #skz imagines #skz scenarios #skz x reader #skz au #bang chan #lee minho #seo changbin #han jisung #lee felix #kim seungmin #yang jeongin #ateez imagines #ateez fics #skz fluff #skz fanfic #skz angst #stray kids angst #willwriteforhugsfics

[vivithefolle]

Is there anyway you could share the entire livejournal essay about Hermione's reaction to Ron coming back in DH? The few paragraphs that you referred to in your recent answer sound extremely interesting.

[The “recent answer” that goes back to... last December. Oh my god I’m such an ass I left you hanging for so long I’m so sorry.]

Okay, okay, so here goes! KEEP IN MIND: I DIDN’T WRITE THIS. I FOUND THIS ON LIVEJOURNAL AND PICKED EVERYTHING THAT I LIKED ABOUT IT, AS WELL AS SOME COMMENTS THAT INTERESTED ME.

This “essay” was actually more of a “reading the books” thing with the person sharing their thoughts and ideas about it. The person was clearly a Snape fan, but they had sympathy for Ron too. I’ll try to formate it as accurately as I can remember it.

And now, here it is:

---

ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

[About Ron being made a prefect.] The essayist: It’s sad, but this probably is the first time Ron’s beaten Harry at something. And the last time.

A commenter: Ron's had a really difficult life, and this is the book that proved it for me. It made me a Ron fan. Just look at the interactions he has with Fred and George. This is commonplace. I know a lot of people don't like Ron, but just look at this book, this chapter especially. People have accused Ron of being lazy, unambitious, having no emotions, and being a big stupid boy. It's just not true. Look at how Fred and George needle him out of jealousy. Look at how they treat Percy. Imagine Ron having to grow up with two older brothers that will not hesitate to bother, torture and torment people that stand out or that get more attention than they do or that cross them. He saw it happening with Percy, so what's he going to learn? He'll learn to shut up unless he wants to have something happen to him. He'll learn that standing out positively is rewarded with cruelty. I can understand how Mrs. Weasley could not have fully protected him from those two. Not all the time, not while trying to also care for Ginny, keeping up with her other kids in school, and running the household. Worst of all, punishing F&G doesn't seem to do anything. Those two just don't care/they crave the attention, negative or positive. The best thing she could've done would be to give them no attention, but that's so against her nature that unfortunately she just fed the monsters. No emotions? Is it really difficult to understand that sensitivity wouldn't be encouraged in young Ron? He's got these two bullies that only want a reaction out of him. If he cries, it'll only encourage them. Any reaction is encouraging to them, but he has to go with anger. It's a survival thing- puff yourself up, make yourself look bigger than you are so the predator messes with you a little less. Look at the pride Ron's showing in his badge. The desire to do well is there. He likes the good feeling that comes with it, but he's been hard-wired since birth that it's better to be "middle of the pack". In later chapters, I know you'll have to point out the way the power makes Ron behave, so I just want to start on the defence now. It's all Ron knows. It's all he's been taught. It's a huge character flaw, but it's what makes him so human. Rowling did develop this in the book, but only accidentally. We're never going to get a good look at Ron's psychology except through these hints because it's, as usual, All About Harry. Ron's flawed, but I hope we remember that he has a reason why he's got those flaws. It doesn't excuse him, but it really explains him. So yeah... that's why I defend Ron.

...

“I’m not Percy,’ he finished defiantly.”

The essayist: Mmmm-hm. Ron feels nervous at the thought of his good fortune inspiring anger in someone and what's his first defence? "I'm not Percy"? Man, the evidence that the Twins' psychological torment has left lasting scars on Ron could not have been more obvious if he'd shielded himself and said "Please don't jinx me, Fred! ... I mean Harry. ... Shit, what'd I say?"

...

“Excellent,”  said  Ron,  with  a  kind  of  groan  of  longing,  and  he  seized the nearest plate of chops and began piling them onto his plate, watched wistfully by Nearly Headless Nick. “What  were  you  saying  before  the  Sorting?”  Hermione  asked  the  ghost. “About the hat giving warnings?” “Oh  yes,”  said  Nick,  who  seemed  glad  of  a  reason  to  turn  away  from  Ron,  who  was  now  eating  roast  potatoes  with  almost  indecent  enthusiasm.

The essayist: Ron’s not being very restrained with his eating, is he?

The commenter: I don't know if it's accidental or not, but this is one of those moments that I love, one of the tellings of Ron's home life via his behavior. In this scenario, he's totally a kitten who just got adopted to a house where he's the only cat. He's at a table with food, so his instinct is to eat as fast as he can or his siblings will yoink it. It doesn't help that there are many other people around, encouraging the "get the good stuff fast or you'll have to sate yourself on bread or whatever nobody wants". Ron is so much more human than Harry! How can Harry not be showing any signs of his "horrendous abuse" for eleven years? Well... I guess he sort of does when he buys all that stuff in his first year. And I guess Ron has to go back home every summer where it gets reinforced. But Harry goes back every summer, too... what the hell?

...

“What’s going on?” Ron  had  appeared  in  the  doorway.  His  wide  eyes  traveled  from  Harry,  who  was  kneeling  on  his  bed  with  his  wand  pointing  at  Seamus, to Seamus, who was standing there with his fists raised. “He’s having a go at my mother!” Seamus yelled. “What?” said Ron. “Harry wouldn’t do that — we met your mother, we liked her. . .” “That’s  before  she  started  believing  every  word  the  stinking  Daily  Prophet writes about me!” said Harry at the top of his voice. “Oh,”  said  Ron,  comprehension  dawning  across  his  freckled  face.  “Oh . . . right.” “You know what?” said Seamus heatedly, casting Harry a venomous look.  “He’s  right,  I  don’t  want  to  share  a  dormitory  with  him  anymore, he’s a madman.” “That’s out of order, Seamus,” said Ron, whose ears were starting to glow red, always a danger sign. “Out of order, am I?” shouted Seamus, who in contrast with Ron &#145;was  turning  paler.  “You  believe  all  the  rubbish  he’s  come  out  with  about You-Know-Who, do you, you reckon he’s telling the truth?” “Yeah, I do!” said Ron angrily. “Then you’re mad too,” said Seamus in disgust. “Yeah?  Well  unfortunately  for  you,  pal,  I’m  also  a  prefect!”  said  Ron,  jabbing  himself  in  the  chest  with  a  finger.  “So  unless  you  want  detention, watch your mouth!”

The essayist: Note how Ron’s first reaction is to side with Harry.

The commenter: Not surprising because of the best friends thing (some might argue) but I say it's not surprising considering how Hermione and Ron were treating Harry like a ticking time bomb. Survival!

...

“Hello, Harry!” It was Cho Chang and what was more, she was on her own again. This was most unusual: Cho was almost always surrounded by a gang of giggling girls; Harry remembered the agony of trying to get her by herself to ask her to the Yule Ball. “Hi,” said Harry, feeling his face grow hot. At least you’re not covered  in Stinksap this time, he told himself. Cho seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “You got that stuff off, then?” “Yeah,”  said  Harry,  trying  to  grin  as  though  the  memory  of  their  last meeting was funny as opposed to mortifying. “So did you . . . er . . . have a good summer?” The moment he had said this he wished he hadn’t: Cedric had been Cho’s boyfriend and the memory of his death must have affected her holiday  almost  as  badly  as  it  had  affected  Harry’s.  .  . Something  seemed  to  tauten  in  her  face,  but  she  said,  “Oh,  it  was  all  right,  you  know. . .” “Is  that  a  Tornados  badge?”  Ron  demanded  suddenly,  pointing  at  the front of Cho’s robes, to which a sky-blue badge emblazoned with a double gold T was pinned. “You don’t support them, do you?” “Yeah, I do,” said Cho. “Have  you  always  supported  them,  or  just  since  they  started  winning the league?” said Ron, in what Harry considered an unnecessarily accusatory tone of voice. “I’ve supported them since I was six,” said Cho coolly. “Anyway . . . see you, Harry.” She  walked  away.  Hermione  waited  until  Cho  was  halfway  across  the courtyard before rounding on Ron. “You are so tactless!”

The essayist: So Harry meets Cho, makes a complete faux pas and reminds her of her dead boyfriend. Ron quickly steers the conversation away onto something more happy, i.e., Quidditch, before Cho can get too upset. Nevertheless, Ron is apparently the insensitive jerk around here, not Harry.

[If this reminds you of something, then yes, I absolutely took what the essayist was saying and elaborated on it. I confess, I am a dirty thief.]

...

“Well, I suppose he could’ve played better,” Harry muttered, “but it was only the first training session, like you said. . .” Neither Harry nor Ron seemed to make much headway with their homework  that  night.  Harry  knew  Ron  was  too  preoccupied  with  how  badly  he  had  performed  at  Quidditch  practice  and  he  himself  was having difficulty in getting the chant of “Gryffindor are losers” out of his head. [...] And so they worked on while the sky outside the windows became steadily darker; slowly, the crowd in the common room began to thin again.   At   half-past   eleven,   Hermione   wandered   over   to   them,   yawning. “Nearly done?” “No,” said Ron shortly. “Jupiter’s  biggest  moon  is  Ganymede,  not  Callisto,”  she  said,  pointing over Ron’s shoulder at a line in his Astronomy essay, “and it’s Io that’s got the volcanos.” “Thanks,” snarled Ron, scratching out the offending sentences.

The essayist: So Ron’s getting basic facts wrong in his essays.

The commenter: This is going to look so contrived, but I genuinely believe it, and maybe after these reviews, your standards for contrived have dropped enough for me to pass the bar :3 But... he's not putting in any effort. His ego can't take another beating at the moment (even punching bags have limits). Imagine it- after the Quidditch humiliation with his friend the Star Athlete (when he really was trying) he tries to distract himself by doing school work 1. which he isn't very good at anyway, 2. with the Star Athlete of Academics/Slytherin Spectator Crowd best friend Hermione there 3. with Hermione there to set it right anyway (it sounds as if Hermione isn’t so much correcting their essays as writing them herself). If he tries his best at this and then fails at that, Ron probably would start to consider suicide. It's self-preservation at this point to put in zero effort. This kind of fail is literally "I'm not trying because I have given up."

...

She  wrenched  her  bag  open;  Harry  thought  she  was  about  to  put  her books away, but instead she pulled out two misshapen woolly objects,  placed  them  carefully  on  a  table  by  the  fireplace,  covered  them  with  a  few  screwed-up  bits  of  parchment  and  a  broken  quill,  and  stood back to admire the effect. “What  in  the  name  of  Merlin  are  you  doing?”  said  Ron,  watching  her as though fearful for her sanity. “They’re  hats  for  house-elves,”  she  said  briskly,  now  stuffing  her  books  back  into  her  bag.  “I  did  them  over  the  summer.  I’m  a  really  slow  knitter  without  magic,  but  now  I’m  back  at  school  I  should  be  able to make lots more.” “You’re leaving out hats for the house-elves?” said Ron slowly. “And you’re covering them up with rubbish first?” “Yes,” said Hermione defiantly, swinging her bag onto her back. “That’s not on,” said Ron angrily. “You’re trying to trick them into picking  up  the  hats.  You’re  setting  them  free  when  they  might  not  want to be free.” “Of  course  they  want  to  be  free!”  said  Hermione  at  once,  though  her face was turning pink. “Don’t you dare touch those hats, Ron!” She left. Ron waited until she had disappeared through the door to the girls’ dormitories, then cleared the rubbish off the woolly hats. They  should  at  least  see  what  they’re  picking  up,”  he  said  firmly.  “Anyway  .  .  .”  He  rolled  up  the  parchment  on  which  he  had  written  the title of Snape’s essay. “There’s no point trying to finish this now, I can’t  do  it  without  Hermione,  I  haven’t  got  a  clue  what  you’re  supposed to do with moonstones, have you?”

The essayist: This doesn’t seem like a particularly open-minded and enquiring position to take, although I suppose that Hermione’s open-mindedness has always been something of an informed attribute.

The commenter: This trope among fans has got me riled up beyond belief because they use the "Hermione's word is gospel" thing to make unfair assumptions about other characters: Ron's "emotional range of a teaspoon" thing comes to mind, and right after that, Lavender supposedly being silly about believing Trelawney about her dead pet (Hermione never considered that maybe the thing Lavender was dreading was bad news from home or bad news about her pet). Regarding house elves: This is one case where the fans ought to have seen that Hermione was being very thoughtless as far as strategy. Ron has lived all his life up until this point thinking that there was no problem with house elves and she literally expects to be able to just tell him "it's wrong" and he's supposed to change instantly? Talk about your cultural insensitivity. In this case, maybe Ron knows better than you do, Hermione? You didn't even know about house elves until you were at least twelve (but more likely, she didn't know until this year). She must understand the concept of "he doesn't know it's wrong". That was how she defended Crookshanks when he was chasing Scabbers. ... Hey, Hermione thinks Ron's smarter than her cat. That's something, I guess.

...

The commenter: Competition is seriously the worst thing in the world for Ron. He's got wa-a-ay too much baggage. Do well so they'll love you. Do well so they'll notice you. If they notice you, you'll get praised. And tormented by Fred and George. Then if you fuck up, you'll have let everyone down. My brothers never let anyone down. That's the standard. Oh God, I can't live up to that. Which do I want to chose- being ignored or scorned? I could do well. Then I'll be good enough to be called "just like them"! JFC, when's it ever going to be "Good like Ron"? Chess. Literally everyone else has one thing they shine in, even Neville with his Botany and Dean with his art (and... and I'm going to ignore the fact that Hermione and Luna are the only two I can think of with non-appearance based special stuff... someone please help me out? I guess Tonks' doesn't really count as a shallow one because it makes her a master of disguise...)

...

HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

...

Ron gagged on a large piece of kipper. Hermione spared him one look of disdain before turning back to Harry.

The essayist: “Hermione spared [Ron] one look of disdain before turning back to Harry” pretty much sums up her relationships within the trio. It’s no wonder Ron’s so insecure and keeps worrying that she really fancies Harry.

...

“And you’ve been through all that persecution from the Ministry when they were trying to make out you were unstable and a liar. You can still see the marks on the back of your hand where that evil woman made you write with your own blood, but you stuck to your story anyway...”  “You  can  still  see  where  those  brains  got  hold  of  me  in  the  Ministry,  look,”  said  Ron,  shaking  back his sleeves.  “And  it  doesn’t  hurt  that  you’ve  grown  about  a  foot  over  the  summer  either,”  Hermione  finished, ignoring Ron.  “I’m tall,” said Ron inconsequentially.

The essayist: Ron’s so adorably pathetic here, the way he’s obviously feeling inferior to Harry and being ignored by his so-called friends. *hugs Ron*

...

When they left the Gryffindor table five minutes later to head down to the Quidditch pitch, they passed  Lavender  Brown  and  Parvati  Patil.  Remembering  what  Hermione  had  said  about  the  Patil  twins’  parents  wanting  them  to  leave  Hogwarts,  Harry  was  unsurprised  to  see  that  the  two  best  friends were whispering together, looking distressed. What did surprise him was that when Ron drew level with them, Parvati suddenly nudged Lavender, who looked around and gave Ron a wide smile. Ron blinked at her, then returned the smile uncertainly. His walk instantly became something more like a strut. Harry resisted the temptation to laugh, remembering that Ron had refrained from doing so  after  Malfoy  had  broken  Harry’s  nose;  Hermione,  however,  looked  cold  and  distant  all  the  way  down  to  the  stadium  through  the  cool,  misty  drizzle,  and  departed  to  find  a  place  in  the  stands  without wishing Ron good luck. 

The essayist: Hermione keeps belittling Ron and doing him down, and reacts quite strongly when he even so much hints at losing interest in her and showing attention to another woman. Can we say “abusive relationship”, anybody?

...

“Harry! Ginny!” Hermione was hurrying toward them, very pink-faced and wearing a cloak, hat, and gloves. “I got back a couple of hours ago, I've just been down to visit Hagrid and Buck--I mean Witherwings,” she said breathlessly. “Did you have a good Christmas?” “Yeah,” said Ron at once, “pretty eventful, Rufus Scrim—” “I've got something for you, Harry,” said Hermione, neither looking at Ron nor giving any sign that she had heard him. “Oh, hang on--password. Abstinence.”

The essayist: Wow, Hermione’s just being so childish here, ignoring Ron when he’s talking directly to her. Incidentally, Ron’s speaking to her like a normal friend, it’s Hermione who’s doing the blanking. Still, I’m sure this argument is all Ron’s fault for daring to go out with another girl. Hermione is totally blameless.

[Just in case: the essayist is being sarcastic, they’re pointing out the double standard of the HP fandom blaming Hermione’s immature behaviour on Ron.]

...

DEATHLY HALLOWS

...

“I think you’re right,” she told him. “It’s just a morality tale, it’s obvious which gift is best, which one you’d choose—” The three of them spoke at the same time; Hermione said, “the Cloak,” Ron said, “the wand,” and Harry said, “the stone.” They looked at each other, half surprised, half amused. “You’re supposed to say the Cloak,” Ron told Hermione, “but you wouldn’t need to be invisible if you had the wand. An unbeatable wand, Hermione, come on!” “We’ve already got an Invisibility Cloak,” said Harry. “And it’s helped us rather a lot, in case you hadn’t noticed!” said Hermione. “Whereas the wand would be bound to attract trouble—” “Only if you shouted about it,” argued Ron. “Only if you were prat enough to go dancing around, waving it over your head, and singing, ‘I’ve got an unbeatable wand, come and have a go if you think you’re good enough.’ As long as you kept your trap shut—” “Yes, but could you keep your trap shut?” said Hermione, looking skeptical. “You know, the only true thing he said to us was that there have been stories about extra-powerful wands for hundreds of years.” “There have?” asked Harry. Hermione looked exasperated: the expression was so endearingly familiar that Harry and Ron grinned at each other.

The commenter (?): Actually, I thought that Ron was proving the errors in the story. Because he’s right. The eldest brother didn’t die because the Elder Wand had corrupted him (like the One Ring). He died because he was an idiot. He died because he randomly decided to start blabbing about his new toy.

“You talk about wands like they’ve got feelings,” said Harry, “like they canthink for themselves.” “The wand chooses the wizard,” said Ollivander. “That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wandlore.” “A person can still use a wand that hasn’t chosen them, though?” asked Harry. “Oh yes, if you are any wizard at all you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand.”

The essayist: Harry’s wand has to think for and protect him because he’s too stupid and incompetent to think for and protect himself! Ollivander’s the expert, and he just admitted it. He said any halfway decent wizard can perform magic with almost any wand. The reason Harry could only work with the holly wand is because of the phoenix feather core it shares with Voldemort’s wand. That is, it wasn’t Harry doing the magic with Harry’s wand! It was the Voldemort soul piece! Once Harry was forced to use wands that didn’t have that core, the soul piece couldn’t do the work for Harry any more. He was forced to rely on his own magical powers and competence, which are clearly minimal. This is proven by his inability to do effective magic with any other wand. It’s also proven by an incident from Philosopher’s Stone. Remember when Harry was being chased by bullies and inexplicably found himself on top of the shed roof? That was the soul piece allowing him to fly like Voldy. Lily could slow her descent from a height, as if she had an invisible parachute, but that is not the same as flying, and we have no evidence she could fly. Only Voldemort and Snape fly without assistance! The evidence is overwhelming that I am right. How many spells can Harry do effectively? Expelliarmus, Expecto Patronum, Protego--that’s it. Even as a young adult, he is incapable of doing the basic healing or cleaning spells a young child should have down pat before going to Hogwarts. Of course, we’re told the Patronus spell is difficult and advanced, but who told us that? Remus Lupin, friend of Harry’s father, sycophant, and notorious liar, particularly when it comes to flattering Harry. Recall Lupin also said Snape didn’t like James because Snape was envious of Potter Sr.’s Quidditch prowess, and we know that was a lie. Given this evidence, anything Lupin says that cannot be confirmed by an independent source, especially regarding the Potters, should be dismissed out of hand. True, Hermione has trouble with the Patronus spell, and she’s super-competent. Doesn’t that prove it’s a very difficult spell? Not at all. To take an example from a different field, Beethoven was a virtuoso organist, the greatest pianist of his day, one of the greatest pianists in history, and probably the greatest improvisational musician ever. But he was only a decent violinist. Everybody has areas of weakness, no matter how good they are overall. In addition, Hermione is very gullible where authority figures are concerned. If a teacher tells her, “The Patronus is a very difficult, advanced spell that many people can’t ever master,” she’ll believe that, which may create a self-fulfilling prophecy. A couple of years ago, another DTCL member and I facetiously suggested Harry was less intelligent than his wand. We didn’t know we were right. It rarely happens, but this is an occasion when I would have preferred to be wrong.

...

If only there was a way of getting a better wand... And desire for the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, unbeatable, invincible, swal-lowed him once more... They packed up the tent next morning and moved on through a dreary shower of rain. The downpour pursued them to the coast, where they pitched the tent that night, and persisted through the whole week, through sodden landscapes that Harry found bleak and depressing. He could think only of the Deathly Hallows. It was as though a flame had been lit inside him that nothing, not Hermione’s flat disbelief nor Ron’s persistent doubts, could extinguish. And yet the fiercer the longing for the Hallows burned inside him, the less joyful it made him. He blamed Ron and Hermione: Their determined indifference was as bad as the relentless rain for dampening his spirits, but neither could erode his certainty, which remained absolute. Harry’s belief in and longing for the Hallows consumed him so much that he felt isolated from the other two and their obsession with the Horcruxes. [...] As the weeks crept on, Harry could not help but notice, even through his new self-absorption, that Ron seemed to be taking charge. Perhaps because he was determined to make up for having walked out on them, perhaps because Harry’s descent into listlessness galvanized his dormant leadership qualities, Ron was the one now encouraging and exhorting the other two into action. [...] But not until March did luck favor Ron at last.

The essayist: MARCH! That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. The first fifteen pages of this chapter cover three months, and during that entire time, Harry Potter does nothing, nothing, but sit on his ass fantasizing about the Elder Wand and trying to connect with his Voldie-soul mate. Oh, wait. He also tries to open the snitch so he can get the stone out of it. (Nothing gay about that, either.) I wish he’d succeed in that, too. Maybe he’d swallow the stone, and it would end up in his scrotum. He sure needs something that works down there. Harry doesn’t have the right to bail out on his society like this. He can’t have it both ways. He can’t have the adulation that goes with being Mr. Boy-Who-Lived-Chosen-One-Wizarding-World-Savior and abdicate the responsibilities that go along with those titles and that adulation. Look at what happens in this chapter: Harry becomes obsessed with finding and uniting the Hallows, so much so that he withdraws from his friends, bails out on the job his idol Dumbledore gave him, and spends all his time brooding and trying to connect with the Dull Lord. In other words, he acts clinically depressed. Ron and Hermione were exposed to the same information Harry was, but they didn’t become obsessed/depressed. Ron was mildly interested in the Super-Wand, but not enough to distract him from the Horcrux hunt. Hermione dismissed the whole DH story as nonsense and continued following Dumbestbore’s orders. So why weren’t they tempted?

...

The essayist: Harry opens the locket using Parseltongue--interesting that this never occurred to him before now--and two ghostly figures emerge. They’re Voldie-versions of Harry and Hermione, and they articulate Ron’s worst fears: “Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter...Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend...Second best, always, eternally overshadowed...” I’ll say it again: When you’re right, you’re right. The evidence is overwhelming that Molly Weasley treated Ron the worst of all her children. And if Rowling doesn’t want us to ship HP/HG, she needs to quit throwing them together and making them leaders, with Ron either in the background or absent entirely. JKR obviously wants us to automatically dismiss certain statements just because they’re made by “bad guys” such as Voldemort and Rita Skeeter. There are two problems with this: (1) The “lies” make perfect sense, far more sense than what we’re supposed to believe. (2) Even pathological liars sometimes tell the truth, typically when it won’t hurt their own interests to do so. For those of us who live in what cartoonist Garry Trudeau calls “the reality-based community,” the evidence is what matters, not what we’re told by authority figures. Those of us in the higher stages of spiritual development are funny that way.

...

The essayist: Well, whose fault is that, Ms. Rowling? You’re the one who’s spent the last four books making Ron dumber and dumber, depriving him of any meaningful activity, while you shoved Harry and Hermione into increasingly dominant roles.

The commenter: Are we supposed to look down on Ron now so that we can condemn him for leaving Harry and Hermione? Because if so, then that’s just unfair. Every time Ron tries to come up with an idea, Hermione criticizes him or shoots him down. And the twins have done a fine job of intimidating Ron into remaining mediocre and modest so that he doesn’t remind them of Percy, so what is he supposed to do? How is he supposed to come up with ideas when he’s surrounded by people who basically tell him to shut up and sit down?

The essayist: Just then, Hermione comes out of the tent with cups of tea, with tears running down her face and looking terrified her “friend” is going to curse her with her own wand.

The commenter: So, Hermione will snarl at Ron all day long, but cower in fear when Harry gets mad. Is she projecting herself onto Harry and assuming that just because *she’s* quick to hex people who anger her (Ron, Marietta, etc.), Harry will do the same to her?

The essayist: The evidence is overwhelming that Molly Weasley treated Ron the worst of all her children.

The commenter: And blatantly showed favoritism to Harry while snarling at Ron in the same breath. Of course, Horcrux!Tom doesn’t bring that up, because JKR would have to admit that there might be something wrong with Molly favoring Harry the way she does. The essayist: Hermione acts so crazy Harry has to put a protection charm between her and Ron.

The commenter: Yeah…sorry, it’s not “slapstick” anymore when somebody actually has to stop her from hitting Ron. When Harry feels that the situation is dangerous enough that his intervention is necessary. That’s not funny. That’s a true-crime episode. What gets me is that Hermione's tantrum lasts for days. It goes on for several pages into the next chapter. She doesn't start acting normal again until she comes up with the idea of visiting Xeno Lovegood. The essayist: Hermione tells Ron she still hasn’t ruled out attacking him with birds again.

The commenter: *flatly* So, all of the fans who cooed about how “great” it was for Hermione to show “girl power” by sending Ron to the hospital wing in HBP or breezily dismissed the scene as just tired teenage melodrama? Can put a sock in it. Hermione has clearly learned nothing, JKR clearly feels that that scene was funny, and at no point are we supposed to think that Hermione is an abuser. Even though, if the genders were reversed, fans would be calling for Ron’s head on a platter if he dared lay a finger on Hermione. No. This isn’t funny. This isn’t charming. Hermione hurt Ron so badly in HBP that he had to go to the hospital wing. And she tried to repeat the damage she caused here. Is she going to attack him with birds again after they get married? Is she going to do it in front of their children? Will it be “cute” and “funny” then? No, if a man is an abusive monster for losing his temper and trying to hurt his girlfriend, then Hermione is an abusive monster for losing her temper and trying to hurt her boyfriend. Not only did Hermione land Ron in the infirmary with the first attack, but she wants to do it again at a time when they are on the run. She will NOT be able to take an injured Ron to Hogwarts infirmary, nor to St. Mungos. In other words - she intends for him to remain injured and stick with them while camping, or else he must apparate away while injured, risking another splinching so he could be healed.

...

The essayist: Ron and Harry go back to the tent, and Harry fades into the background so as not to interfere with the lovers’ reunion. That’s a mistake. After Harry wakes Hermione, she shows her delight at Ron’s return by--attacking him? She punches him over a dozen times while yelling at him and screaming for her wand from Harry. Remember last chapter, when I talked about how immature Hermione is? Here’s your proof.

[The essayist quotes an article that I haven’t been able to find, but paraphrased: it speaks of a father who came to pick up his 4 y/o daughter from daycare, a little later than usual, and the daughter reacted by punching and hitting her father, upset at his being late. Additional read:  “The parents must know that physical aggression is a common yet natural problem faced by toddlers.”]

The essayist: So there you have it: Hermione Granger, know-it-all supergirl, is so immature she acts like a preschool child when the boyfriend she’s been missing finally returns. I’m not suggesting she has a father-daughter relationship with Ron; this kind of anger is found in other relationships, too. What I am saying is that her way of expressing her anger is appropriate for a very young child. While adults may certainly feel this kind of anger and desire to hit when reunited with a loved one under similar circumstances, they don’t act it out. That restraint is what separates adults from children. Hermione acts so crazy Harry has to put a protection charm between her and Ron. I frankly found her behavior so out of control as to suggest mental instability. She engages in two full pages of histrionics before throwing herself into a chair, sitting so tensely I’m surprised the circulation isn’t cut off to her arms and legs. She remains in a bratty snit until the end of the chapter, which is another six pages.  Hermione is still pouting the next morning. I’m wondering if her real problem is not that Ron left, but that she didn’t. Is she angry at him because he had the guts to admit they were blowing it and take a time out, while she just kept trailing along after Harry like a lost house elf? I think she’s definitely mad because she’s always controlled Ron and their relationship. How dare he assert his independence of her! Who does he think he is? Her equal? In an AU, maybe. This is called the Potterverse after all, not the Ronverse.  Hermione’s having a bad month. First Ron runs out on them; then she saves Harry’s life, but he’s an ungrateful jerk about it; then Harry asserts his independence; then Ron comes back but doesn’t grovel sufficiently for her taste. All this mistreatment is going to give her the idea she’s just a normal character and not an Author’s Darling.   While Ron was gone, he was captured by bad guys called Snatchers, who are bounty hunters for Voldemort. In getting away, he got a spare wand, which he gives to Harry. Of course, it doesn’t work as well as Harry’s “real” wand, so Harry’s still in a snit about that, and with Hermione in a snit, too, they’re a cheerful bunch. Honestly, I don’t know why Ron puts up with these two. The Hs are so spoiled and self-centered, they deserve each other, but I don’t think this is what HP/HG shippers mean when they proclaim the two as an OTP. Sane, normal Ron doesn’t deserve either one of them. Run, Ron! Run while you still can!

...

The essayist: As an interesting aside, ròn is the Celtic word for seal. In Druid lore, seals represent love, longing, and dilemma. No more appropriate totem animal could be imagined for this boy whose sense of selfhood is undermined by his longing for love from a rejecting mother and inadequate father, and who, like the selchie wives of folklore, is faced with the impossible choice of being who he truly is and being rejected, or denying the best part of himself to gain love. Ron’s intelligence and independence threaten his insecure wife (and best friend), just as the selchie’s identity as a seal-woman threatens her human husband; Ron imprisons himself by hiding who he is so the Hs can feel smart and in charge, just as the selchie’s human husband imprisons his wife by hiding her sealskin in a trunk.

#vivi answers #ask #ron weasley #hermione granger #hermione critical #hermione granger critical #harry potter #harry potter series #harry potter critical

[rovelae]

Behind the Scenes of “Hologram”

           Today marks exactly one year since I posted arguably my most popular fic. “Hologram” is a postgame Saiouma one-shot about escapism, loneliness, and running away from the past. I put a lot of myself into this fic and I’m blown away by all the love it’s received, not only on AO3 but in Discord servers and other social media. All that excitement made me keep thinking about it, so I thought I’d share a (very self-indulgent) behind-the-scenes of sorts about how I wrote it, as well as what I think of the story.

           This essay will contain spoilers for the whole fic, so if you’d like to read it first, you can find it here. Of course, if the tags scare you off, that’s valid, but you might want to skip this post too since I’ll be quoting it throughout (so, just to be safe, expect the warnings I’ve posted on AO3 to apply here too).

           If you’re a Lorde fan you’ll recognize the lyrics in the fic summary – “Nothing’s wrong when nothing’s true,” from “Buzzcut Season.” The inspiration for this fic came to me while I was on my way to an early shift at work, and I needed a good song in my head to give me the will to live for the next eight hours. Not sure why I chose that song in particular, but maybe part of it is because I like imagining stories to go along with the songs I listen to, like AMVs playing in my head, and I’d never been able to pin down exactly what this song reminded me of.

           The mood of the music is really what compelled me – there’s something lonely about it, and the lyrics sound like the singer’s trying to convince herself that everything’s okay even when all evidence points otherwise. There are “explosions on TV”, and “The men up on the news / They try to tell us all that we will lose,” but “we live beside the pool / Where everything is good.” Despite everything going wrong, despite the notes of fear creeping into the pre-chorus, the character will “play along… in a hologram with you” and “never go home again.”

           From there, it was an easy jump to “postgame Saiou” and that was that.

             There’s a cloud of seagulls hovering in the air around him, and a dozen or so more standing just out of reach, staring him down with beady black eyes. Kokichi takes a slice of bread from the loaf he’s holding and tosses it to one of the birds, watches it catch it and stumble under the weight, watches its head bob as it tries to swallow the whole thing at once. It gets remarkably far before four other birds descend on it, shrieking wildly.

           “Mine, mine, mine,” he mumbles into his folded arms, wondering if Shuichi would get the reference.

           He really wishes Shuichi was here.

           Kokichi upends the rest of the loaf of bread onto the sidewalk and laughs at the resulting chaos until his chest aches.

             To start off, I wanted to create the same lonely mood from “Buzzcut Season” in Kokichi’s simulation. He’s not exactly trapped there, but he’s refusing to leave, because as long as he’s on the fake Jabberwock Island, he can pretend the killing game never happened. The trade-off to that escapism is that the only people he can talk to are the NPCs, who aren’t complex enough to be remotely interesting to him, and Usami, who… well, tries her best, but is more of an informational / moderation program and can’t offer him what a therapist could.

           The only thing Kokichi has to look forward to is Shuichi, who he’s convinced is an extremely lifelike computer program rather than the real thing, because the real Shuichi would definitely hate him for everything that happened during the killing game. He’s so locked into this line of logic that he doesn’t let himself consider that Shuichi has forgiven him – he doesn’t even have a good answer for why the Future Foundation wouldn’t just keep the supposed Shuichi AI on indefinitely, believing it’s their way of baiting him into leaving the simulation.

           It’s not a healthy or sustainable lifestyle in the slightest, but Kokichi stubbornly refuses to do anything but wander the islands aimlessly, passing the time with ice cream and feeding seagulls until the next time he can see Shuichi.

             He dreams that DICE is here in the simulation with him, smiling and carefree as they explore the weird music venue. One of them has gotten the karaoke machine working, and another found a box of kazoos and maracas in the back room. Kokichi already pities anyone unfortunate enough to walk by the building tonight.

           “Not going to sing, Joker?” one of his DICE asks (over the sound of their youngest member shrieking through seven kazoos at once), sitting on the bench next to him.

           “Some games are more fun to watch than play,” he answers, leaning back on his hands and sighing.

           “Like a killing game.”

           The warm dream-atmosphere turns cold then, and Kokichi’s head snaps over to look at him—but his brother is gone and Kaito’s looking back at him instead, blood in his teeth and face ashen pale.

           “You... we don’t have to do this, man,” Kaito says, but it’s a lie and they both know it, and he doesn’t want to look behind him because he knows the machine’s looming over him with its unyielding steel and slow slow slow descent—

           “You’re not real,” he snaps at dream-Kaito, who doesn’t respond except to lift him up again. “Nothing’s real, none of—PUT ME DOWN! LET GO OF ME! DON’T PUT ME BACK IN THERE!”

           “Death is more mercy than you deserve,” Kaito says, and Kokichi claws and bites and kicks his way out of Kaito’s grasp like a wild animal, only to end up in front of a prison cell full of—

           DICE, his beloved DICE, trapped and hurt and afraid, bloodied and beaten and helpless.

           “Why didn’t you save us, boss?” says his second-in-command, clutching the bars with bleeding hands. “Why didn’t you do more? Now we’re all dead and it’s because of you.”

             Moments like this are my reference to Buzzcut Season’s pre-chorus, where the not-okay starts to creep into the illusion. Despite Kokichi’s valiant efforts to forget, he’s still dealing with the aftermath of seeing his family hurt and in danger, watching his friends die, orchestrating the deaths of two of them, being killed himself— and then being told every bit of it was made up to entertain an audience who sees nothing wrong with that picture. Running away is not the way to heal from trauma, and one day soon it’s all bound to come crashing down around him.

             “Do you know what this … island paradise represents, Kokichi?” [Hinata] asks, and Kokichi’s really not in the mood for a lecture but he continues anyway. “Jabberwock Island … was the setting for the fiftieth season of Danganronpa. The golden anniversary, they called it. It was my season.”

           Kokichi hunches over, hugging his arms over his torso and stifiling a scream. He does not want to think about this right now—

           “They wanted it to be the best season of all, which, unfortunately for us, meant it was also the bloodiest,” Hinata says. “Twice as many participants, deadly traps hidden across each of the islands— they even changed the way the motives worked, like when they told Fuyuhiko to cut out his own eye so Peko could have a quick death instead of suffering for days.”

           “Do I look like your therapist, porcupine-head?” Kokichi hisses. A sharp pain is pounding into his skull, and there’s a bitter, metallic taste at the back of his throat. A taste like poison and blood.

           “There was so much going on that the simulation malfunctioned,” Hinata says. “When people died, their Ultimate talents downloaded themselves into me. I’m told that the stress of so many personality grafts came close to liquefying my frontal lobe. I’m lucky I woke up at all… especially considering more than half of the others didn’t.”

           “Why are you telling me this?” Kokichi grates out through the static building in his head. If he opens his eyes, will he see the beach or the dull chrome of the machine closing in on him?

           “Because I know how much you want to forget about what happened,” Hinata says. “Believe me, I get it.”

           ….

           “These things that happened to us… we can’t erase them, no matter how much we want to. Some things have to be remembered.”

             I’d mostly like to leave Hajime’s season up to interpretation, but there are a couple things I wanted to say about it. I imagine Danganronpa is like the Hunger Games in that it’d go all out for big anniversaries. So, there were twice as many participants for the Jabberwock Island beatdown that was probably subtitled “Bloodbath Bay” or something equally appealing. The game’s formula changed from a focus on the mystery and the trials to “look at all these kids massacring each other a la Lord of the Flies,” and since the VR system wasn’t equipped to handle that many people and their deaths, it malfunctioned, giving Hajime way too many Ultimate talents and putting half the cast into comas from which they never woke up.

           Viewers either absolutely loved or absolutely hated this season, depending on whether they were DR fans because of the “blood n’ guts” factor or the “mystery and psychological thriller” aspect. Team Danganronpa faced quite a bit of backlash for actually causing the real-life deaths of half its participants, but were able to weasel their way out of serious legal repercussions because of the waivers the participants had signed beforehand (plus a lot of bribery and falling back on their longstanding popularity). So, the cast of Season 50 failed to end the killing game, but helped provide great evidence for the “Danganronpa is morally wrong” argument.

           Hajime works as a victim liaison for the Future Foundation and has been trying to take down Danganronpa since he got out of it. He’s like that in a few of my fics, actually; I like the idea of Hajime acting as a big brother of sorts to the V3 cast. It’s especially entertaining to imagine his interactions with Kokichi— though maybe not so much in Hologram, since to Kokichi he’s a representation of the past he’s trying so desperately to forget and the future he refuses to acknowledge.

             “SHUT UP!” He launches himself at Hinata, his hands wrapping around the other man’s throat as he uses his momentum to slam him to the ground. “SHUT! UP!”

           “Ko— ghk—” Hinata coughs, eyes wide with surprise, but aside from moving his hands up to grip Kokichi’s wrists, he doesn’t seem all that worried about fighting back.

           The thought only fuels Kokichi’s rage until he’s choking Hinata so hard his knuckles are white. “If you want me out of this simulation so badly, you can kill me,” he snarls. “I’m never waking up! I’m never leaving, do you UNDERSTAND ME?”

           Hinata grimaces, the outline of his avatar flickering, but he still doesn’t struggle, and Kokichi hates him all the more for it, despises him with a seething malice that festers low in his stomach. He wonders distantly if he’d actually kill this man in real life. Or if he’d be able to stop himself, feeling like this.

             Kokichi’s breakdown here is more out of fear than anger. Like I mentioned, Kokichi sees Hajime as another piece of what’s hurt him, and no matter how Hajime tries to help, Kokichi will always remember Danganronpa whenever he sees him.

             Warm yellow-orange light casts a relaxed, cozy glow over the dining hall. It’s an ambience compounded by the flickering candles on the table, which seems overly idyllic, but Kokichi will let it slide because of the adorable way Shuichi flushed when he noticed them as they sat down. Well, if he’s being honest, everything about Shuichi right now is adorable, from the way his hair keeps falling into his eyes to the way he’s nervously fiddling wth his chopsticks. Kokichi wishes he could keep staring at him forever.

           Ah, not… not in a weird way, though, just… because Shuichi’s beautiful, and when Kokichi looks at him he can forget everything bad that’s ever happened, can create some new and brighter world to exist in.

             This is an idea I wish I’d had room to explore a bit more in the story— that is, just how far Kokichi will go to pretend everything’s fine. I thought about making him border on delusional, like having him talk to people who aren’t there or forget what’s actually happening around him because he’s so lost in his fiction-within-a-fiction. It would have creeped Shuichi out a whole lot.

           Unfortunately, there wasn’t much room for that past the plot I’d already nailed down, so I focused on his loneliness and escapism instead. I do touch on it later in this scene, though— the couple paragraphs where he slips into fantasizing about being a phantom thief having a surreptitious meeting with his detective under the not-so-subtle supervision of his DICE. There would have been a lot more of that if I’d gone with the ‘delusion’ stylistic choice, to the point where even the readers would be confused about what’s real. Maybe I’ll look into writing something similar in a future story.

             Eventually, Shuichi sets down his bowl and looks away with a little sigh, and Kokichi clenches his teeth because that’s the sigh he does when it’s time for that conversation.

           “Um… Kokichi?”

           Kokichi’s only response is to exhale the breath he’d been holding in a quiet hiss.

           “I-I know you don’t want to, but… but I really need to talk to you about something,” Shuichi says. “Please?”

           “My Mr. Detective can talk about whatever he’d like!” Kokichi says with a lilt to his tone that makes it sound more sarcastic than he wants it to. He takes the last bite of curry and wishes that it burns hot enough to hurt.

           “It’s about Kaito.”

             This more serious part of the date scene is meant to reflect the little bridge in “Buzzcut Season”:

“Cola with the burnt-out taste

I’m the one you tell your fears to

There’ll never be enough of us.”

           It’s a part of the song that sounds especially bittersweet to me, a bit of self-awareness between the insistence that everything’s okay.

           Really all I think I managed was to reference it when Kokichi’s internal dialogue comments on his drink being “so sweet it tastes burnt” and then later not tasting like anything. But hopefully the mood’s still there.

             “Tell him… that I have nothing against him,” he says.

           “That’s … not a lie?” Shuichi presses.

           Kokichi shakes his head idly, still not raising his gaze. “I wanted to wreck the killing game and he wanted to save his friend. We both got what we wanted. I’d say the end more than justifies the means.”

           Was that a lie?

           (I don’t want to die Shuichi I’m sorry I’m sorry save me Shuichi please I’m sorry ithurtsmakeitstop—)

           His fingers tighten into clawlike shapes, nails digging sharply into his forearms.

             I really don’t think Kokichi would have anything against Kaito, even if here he’s not being completely honest with how much he’s affected by what happened. It wouldn’t make sense to him to hate Kaito for something he himself proposed, but I think there’d still be a subconscious barrier between them. Too much history.

             “Don’t go, Shuichi, I’m so sorry, I— that was so dumb, what I said, please don’t be sad anymore.” He’s not sure if he can’t breathe because of the exertion of running or because of the hysteria boiling over in his head. “Please don’t go, I didn’t mean to hurt you— please don’t leave, Shuichi, I’m so sorry.”

           “Oh, Kokichi….” Shuichi’s tone is strange, soft and pitying, like he sees something Kokichi doesn’t, and he shakes his head slowly as more tears follow the paths of the others.

           Kokichi goes to his knees, ready to grovel if that’s what it takes, but Shuichi follows him down, closing his other hand over Kokichi’s, and then they’re both crying and he doesn’t know why, and all he can do is repeat a mantra of I’m sorry and hold on as tight as he can.

           It’s horrible. Shuichi’s horrible. Shuichi’s wonderful, and kind and lovely and perfect and Kokichi hates him, Kokichi adores him, and it doesn’t matter because Shuichi’s not actually here but Kokichi doesn’t want to be alone, just let me pretend some more, please, please let me have this—

           “I’ll… I’ll stay,” Shuichi says at last. “I can stay a while longer.”

           You shouldn’t, Kokichi wants to say, but his mouth won’t obey him. You shouldn’t stay if you don’t want to. I don’t deserve having you here. I’m not worth your mercy.

           But there on the bridge, crying tears of relief, he soaks up as much mercy as he can get and hopes it’s enough to drown him.

             I wanted to create a contrast between them that highlights just how the isolation and trauma Kokichi’s experiencing has affected him. He has an almost unhealthy reliance on Shuichi as “the only thing that makes this world bearable,” and panics when faced with the prospect of being alone again so soon. Part of why Shuichi’s crying is because he’s realized the extent of Kokichi’s desperation. It’s not that he thinks Kokichi’s apology is insincere, but that he’s hardly heard him apologize for anything before, so Kokichi going this far has him realizing how bad things really are.

             The door rumbles and slides open when they approach, revealing the bright light of the log-out point that took Shuichi away every time, that would wake Kokichi up in his real body if he walked into it. Shuichi stops just a step away from it, biting his lip as if searching for something to say, but before he can find it, Kokichi reaches out to tug at his sleeve.

           “Shuichi?” he says, distant as the waves on the beach that he can still hear if he listens closely enough. Shuichi turns back toward him. “Before you go, can I be selfish one more time?”

           “Huh…?”

           Shuichi doesn’t move when Kokichi steps closer, reaches up to ghost his fingertips over Shuichi’s jaw and around the back of his neck. He lets Kokichi tilt his head downward, lets him hover inches away, close enough to feel their breath mingle in the night air. Kokichi pauses there to give him the chance to pull away. He doesn’t.

           So Kokichi closes his eyes and the distance between them.

             That last line is a ZEUGMA! It’s a literary device where one word refers to two more in a different way. A popular example is the hyenas’ line “Our teeth and ambitions are bared” from The Lion King. It’s my favorite grammatical trick and I’d love to see more of it in fanfic.

             Slowly, he slides his hand down to Shuichi’s shoulder, using it as leverage to push himself away. That hurts even more. He can’t seem to open his eyes, and he feels so weakened, breathless, fragile. Cracked open, hollowed out.

           When he finally does open his eyes, Shuichi’s are wide with some mix of astonishment and a dozen other emotions. Kokichi bows his head, taking a deep breath to ground himself. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I just wanted to know.”

           “Kokichi,” Shuichi breathes, like a bullet through his heart.

           “Goodbye, Shuichi,” Kokichi says, and shoves him into the light.

           Shuichi’s little yelp of surprise cuts off abruptly as he falls through the door, vanishing into the glow, and all too soon, Kokichi’s alone again in a dream that suddenly seems far too vast. Alone, with the faintest taste of Shuichi’s lips still lingering on his own.

           And he thinks, It was enough just to know you.

           It’s a lie.

             Nothing to say here except that this is my favorite scene and I’m so happy with how it turned out.

             Fake sun rises over fake ocean, fake seagulls glide through fake sky while fake wind tousles fake palm fronds. Kokichi lies on his stomach in the fake grass and talks to his fake family in the fake notebook. Gives them fake names and runs through everything he remembers about them. Apologizes, over and over, wishes he could hug each of them goodbye one last time. Wonders if it would be more painful to die or to never have existed at all.

           He leaves the notebook of his memories on the seat of one of the Ferris wheel cars on the fourth island, because one time he promised them they’d steal the London Eye together.

           He buys a can of fake soda from the fake convenience store on the first island and sits on the fake beach watching the fake waves. Wonders when he’d hit the end of the simulation if he started swimming, or if he’d drown first.

           White sand, blue sea, bluer sky. Washed out, like an amateur watercolor painting.

           He opens the soda can and raises it to his mouth, but … even the thought of drinking it makes him sick to his stomach. He sets it down in the sand and flicks it over, watching the bubbly liquid run down and sink into the sand. The color’s all wrong, like blood streaked against a metal floor.

           He walks the fake streets of the fifth island, passing fake skyscrapers and fake commuters and their fake conversations, until he finally stops outside the factory he’s never been able to bring himself to go into. Smells like oil, and metal and machines and he can hear the sounds and he’s immediately back in the hangar, dizzy on adrenaline and desperation and leaning heavily on Kaito so he doesn’t keel over and die then and there. Kaito says something about how maybe he should sit down for a minute, and Kokichi didn’t agree back then but he does now, goes down on all fours and dry heaves.

           When his vision solidifies and he can stop gasping for breath, he sits up and presses his back against the factory wall, covering his ears and hiding his face in his knees. Tries to convince himself not to imagine Shuichi’s there with him, holding his hand again, promising everything’s going to be okay.

           “I’ve got you. No one’s going to hurt you anymore,” or maybe, “Breathe with me, it’ll be over soon. You’re safe now.”

           I love you.

           He laughs until there’s nothing left in his lungs. He called these little daydreams obsession, before, but now they just seem sick and insane.

             I wanted to indicate throughout this scene that Kokichi’s gotten substantially worse. Instead of halfheartedly interacting with the NPCs or finding something to spend time doing, he’s aimlessly wandering the islands, focused on how fake all of it is. Not even talking to his sketches of DICE can make him feel better. The suicidal ideation starts to slip in even if he doesn’t realize it— a fixation on wondering what death is like, purposefully triggering himself by walking by the factory….

           The thing I want to talk about most though is the italicized I love you. I left it outside of quotation marks and dialogue tags on purpose because I wanted it to be ambiguous as to who’s saying it. If it’s Kokichi’s line, it’s sudden and almost out of place, like he couldn’t hold back from thinking it anymore. But it could be Shuichi saying it, too. Since it’s outside quotation marks, unlike the previous dream-Shuichi lines, it’s more vague, almost a whisper in Kokichi’s thoughts— like he can barely bring himself to imagine it and even feels guilty doing so, because there’s no way it could possibly be real.

           Which do you think?

           Eh, I don’t have an answer. When I hear it in my head, they say it at the same time.

             “How did you know?” he finally croaks.

           Shuichi’s breathing still sounds shaky, too. “Because you said ‘goodbye,’” he says.

           Kokichi finally looks up at him in a silent question.

           “You never say goodbye,” Shuichi says, rubbing his sleeve over his eyes. “It’s always….”

           “‘See you later,’” Kokichi finishes for him. Despite himself, a tiny huff of astonished laughter escapes him. “I didn’t even know, not until a couple of hours ago. And you figured it all out from one word?”

           Shuichi bites his lip at that. “You kissed me,” he says.

           Kokichi’s stomach twists and he looks away. “I said I was sorry—”

           “No.” Shuichi squeezes his hand into a fist and lets it fall to thump against Kokichi’s chest, like he’s trying to knock some sense into him. “It was so honest, and vulnerable, and… and I know how much you hate showing how you really feel.” Another tiny sob catches in his throat. “And so it felt like … like something you’d do if you weren’t going to s-see me again.”

           “Shuichi….” Kokichi trails off as Shuichi muffles his cries in his hand again. He’s so breathtakingly smart. There’s no one else in the world who thinks that way, no one else who could possibly be that attentive and that clever. Not a programmer, not a team of shrinks… how can an AI manage it? How is it that Shuichi always manages to take him by surprise? How can he see straight through him when he least expects it?

           Kokichi’s hand reaches up to Shuichi’s cheek. Reverently traces the path of the tears falling down it.

           “I wish you were real,” he confesses in a whisper.

             Kokichi’s stubborn. So, so stubborn. And he’s not used to being cared about, if the way he does everything by himself is any indication. So it makes sense to me that he’ll refuse to believe anything good can happen to him even in the face of convincing evidence. He’s pretty self-hating for someone so arrogant.

             Kokichi’s weak, deep down to his core, weak for this man. Already knows he’d do anything for him, and the thought is terrifying—that one person could have that much power over him, even if he doesn’t realize it.

           But what if he has realized it? Couldn’t this all be an elaborate ruse, a lie he knew Kokichi would be so desperate to believe that he wouldn’t bother questioning it?

           …Shuichi’s never hurt him, though. Only that one time, when he really deserved it. Shuichi wouldn’t … betray him, even for what he thinks is Kokichi’s own good. They’re… different from each other, that way.

           But still….

           “I’m so scared, Shuichi.” It’s barely a whisper. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

           “You won’t be.” It’s so hard to be skeptical, lost in his eyes. “I’ll be right there with you, for as long as you want. I won’t let you feel like this anymore.”

           Promise me, he wants to blurt out. Promise you’ll stay. Promise me you’ll never leave me, Shuichi, he wants to demand, but that’s wrong, that’s manipulative and selfish and everything he doesn’t want to be for Shuichi anymore.

           Shuichi, of course, says it anyway.

           “I promise, Kokichi.”

…        

           “Kiss me again,” he says. “Please?”

           Shuichi leans in close, then pauses, his brow furrowing the way it does when he catches him in a lie.

           “I’ll kiss you again in the real world,” Shuichi says. “Okay?”

           Kokichi shakes his head. “Shuichi, please.” Please, I don’t think I can do this. Please, I don’t want to wake up to a lie. Please, one last kiss for me to remember in case it was all fake.

           Shuichi reaches out to tilt his chin up and Kokichi closes his eyes, savoring every second, burning it into his memory.

           Shuichi’s soft breath ghosts over his lips.

           “Trust me,” he murmurs.        

           Kokichi’s eyes flutter back open, searching his face. Shifting him around on the white board in his head, seeing what categories he fits into this time. Weird, of course. Suspicious, maybe not. Trustworthy?

           Trustworthy….

           “I do trust you,” he realizes.

             Kokichi’s still hesitant to accept all of this— Shuichi kissing him didn’t magically fix everything. He’ll still doubt all the way to the log-out point, but at least now he realizes that this simulation is only hurting him— that if things are to get better they’re going to have to change, too. He’s got a long way to go before he’s all right, but he’s not going to have to face it alone anymore.

             And that’s a wrap!

           Once again, I’m really proud of this story, and I feel like I grew as a writer because of it. There are a few things I would change if I wrote it again, but for all its flaws it’s still my baby and I like how it turned out.

           Thanks again for all your support for “Hologram,” and thanks even more if you actually waded through all this nonsense of a director’s cut. It’s a huge confidence-boost to think that people liked what I wrote, and even wanted to hear what I had to say about it. If there’s any interest, I’d love to review some of my other fics here, or theorize or brainstorm or whatever else  you’re into. (Ask me what Byakuya’s Thing is in my superhero AU, I dare you 😉)

           I do have a WIP in my folder of bits and pieces currently titled “boy finally gets that kiss”, and it’s a post-Hologram scene from Shuichi’s point of view to just sorta… tie it all together, have them talk things over again… and kiss, of course. We’ll see if anything comes out of that.

           Until next time!

#Rov talks #Hologram #Saiouma #Oumasai #Behind the scenes #Director's cut #Fanfic review

[fukurodaze]

dump shot

pairing: third year!shirabu kenjirou x first year manager!reader (female) genre/s: PURE FLUFF, meet cute type beat! word count: 2.9k taken from this request by anonymous <3: “Shirabu x Manager! reader where reader is Karasuno's manager and she's seen pining over him and later the two end up in an accident outside the gym (before or after the games) where they find themselves locked somewhere”

for reference, this is set when hinata and the first years are in their second year, so ennoshita is karasuno’s captain. shirabu’s also the captain of the shiratorizawa vbc!

lowercase intended!

when shirabu kenjirou throws a dump shot, he is the coolest person in the room. it’s two words that come out of your mouth, groans of frustration coming from your team, and a faint smirk on the almond haired boy. 

“so cool...” you mutter under your breath, watching the practice match between your team and shiratorizawa at their gym. you get goosebumps.

it’s not your first time seeing the third year. you had watched shiratorizawa’s match with karasuno in the prefectural spring high finals, and though your eyes were glued onto the then first-year setter, kageyama, you would, at times, find your eyes stopping at the magenta number 10 jersey. you would later find out his name was shirabu kenjirou, and that you would come to develop an almost baseless crush on him, hopeless at best.

another rally starts, this time with shiratorizawa on match point, an already dragged out 32-31 on the scoreboard. it’s the third set on a friday night, yet the match is already scraping past seven pm and you don’t know if your body can take any more of the anticipation. 

and when the magenta jerseys spike a mean straight shot, your hands ball up with whitened knuckles at the bitter taste of a lost game. you run up to the boys with yachi, handing them drinks and towels, telling the second years “you did well” and the third years “that was a good one.” you glance at the first years, some of your friends, and give them a soft smile, as if telling them that you’re going to have to get used to this feeling, because it will happen. lots.

but loss is as temporary as victory when you see the boys mingle with each other, friendliness growing as the new first years dissolve tensions between teams. you even see kageyama bump into hinata and goshiki’s conversation, the sight of it new and endearing. 

yachi taps you on the shoulder, “i’m going to be picking up the bibs, can you collect the balls and put them in storage?”

shiratorizawa’s storage room looks more like a shed. it’s also much further than you think, and even darker than you knew storage rooms to be. it looks like an entire sports supply factory outlet rather than a high school unit. 

the large basket of volleyballs rolls weirdly on its wheels, knocking left and right as you try to drive it through the doorway. it makes a bit of a fussy sound when you bump into the basket of footballs, and as the footballs begin to fall out of their containers, you close the door in an attempt to keep them inside. 

"here they are,” you hear from the corner of the room, behind shelves upon shelves of equipment. your body freezes up dramatically, as if dreading the awkward interaction with the unknown person. hurriedly, you pick up the scattered soccer balls, attempting to take up to five at once to no avail, only causing more sounds of balls hitting wooden floors. 

“hello?”

you hesitate to answer. you only continue to put back all the footballs in their place and park the basket of volleyballs in some random corner of the shed before reaching for the door, only to find it doesn’t budge.

“aren’t you karasuno’s manager?”

you turn around to find the one person you wouldn’t want to see you like this. like every high school cliché, shirabu kenjirou is standing right behind you when you turn back, a pair of training shoes hanging off of his left hand. you nod and bow slightly, unsure what to do.

“i, uh, wanted to put the balls back here.”

“but why are you here in the shed?” his voice is softer, you notice, probably because he realises he’s talking to a girl, but his words remind you of how he’d talk to his team during the match.

“i just wanted to help clean up and stuff, like, uh, a token... of appreciation for this practice match?” god, your palms sure are getting sweaty. 

“this shed isn’t the place we put our frequently used equipment. we usually put our volleyballs in the room in the gym. it’s the one with the double doors. how come you came so far here?”

you shrug slowly, feeling nice and stupid for not noticing the actual storage room’s large double doors and instead wandering off to carry a basket of volleyballs past three other gyms and a few questioning looks from the shiratorizawa basketball team to this single-doored, large building. 

“i’ll just bring them back to the gym now-” you come back to the basket of volleyballs you had just left against a random wall as shirabu pushes on the door’s nonexistent handle. you think it’s all about to end until a muttered curse falls out of the third year’s lips. you look to him in confusion.

then he curses again, this time stopping himself midway as your gaze meets his, voice getting softer again. “did you close the door?”

“yes...?” 

“it’s not supposed to be closed,” shirabu sighs, “there’s a little metal rod that falls into a hole in the ground on the other side, and it falls in pretty easily if we close the door, so we can’t really get out right now.”

oh shit.

“i’ll just call- oh my god, i forgot my phone.” your tone is fast and apologetic, considering you had closed the door in the first place. “i’m sorry-”

“don’t be, you didn’t know before.” shirabu sits on a pile of thick and colourful gym mats, elbows on knees. the shoes he was holding are now behind him. “this school might be big, but it’s also damn old.”

shirabu has no idea what situation he’s in right now. frankly, he’s kind of panicking. but he tells himself not to panic, especially when karasuno’s new manager is right there (and she’s pretty cute, not gonna lie - is she a second year?). shirabu would probably be shouting and pushing the door by now until his voice ran hoarse, but surely, there is no use for that. 

“so, uh, how are we going to get out?” you shove your hands into your tracksuit jacket, stepping in front of the boy. you’re guessing it’s going to be a bit before you two can get out, so you might as well try to talk to him without a three meter gap in between him and you.

shirabu shrugs, and a look at you tells you that you can sit next to him on the pile of gym mats. “i think we’re just going to have to hope someone notices we’re gone.”

“i think they have to,” you chuckle, “you’re captain. would be kinda crazy if they didn’t notice you were gone.”

the conversation dissolves into awkward silence as the stranger you once pined over is literally right next to you, dried sweat and all, a light laugh leaving his lips.

“what’s your name?” the question is simple, obligatory, even, for introductions, but you swear you feel your heart skip a beat.

“l/n f/n,” you reply, and he says his name in return. you want to say you know, as you’ve already referred to him as captain of the volleyball club, but you settle with silence and a smile. he seems to like it.

“you’re karasuno’s manager, right?” 

“yeah. i’m a first year, but i have a brother in karasuno.”

“oh really? is he in the volleyball team?”

you shake your head, “no. he’s in the basketball team, actually, but he’s friends with some of the third years in the team. he’s the reason i got dragged to the spring high prefectural finals last year, actually.”

you hold your hands together, clasping them to evaporate your nervousness. shit, this is shirabu kenjirou you’re talking to, don’t mess it up!

shirabu leans back on his arms, looking up in reminiscence. he sighs, “spring high, huh? you probably saw my tosses back then.”

you can’t seem to wipe the smile off your face, the excitement of getting to talk to the third year getting to you, “i remember you from that game the most.”

“damn, then you’d probably also remember how my toss was bad enough for even ushijima-san to get blocked-”

“i think you were really cool, actually.”

shirabu stops in his vocal tracks. there’s no way she means that, he thinks.

“you’re just saying that.”

“well, of course i’m saying it. you wouldn’t hear it otherwise.” your feet kick themselves against the soft pile of gym mats, “but trust me, coming from a karasuno student, you were really cool. your entire team was, too, but, you know.”

at this point, you think you’re just embarrassing yourself. what if he thinks you’re some kind of weird fan? a naive first year? some wannabe manager who didn’t quite understand volleyball to its core? it seems like the conversation loves to come back to silence, and you don’t know how to break the ice.

“thanks,” shirabu mentions, tone higher, as he stands up and off of the gym mats. you feel a weight lift beside you, and in your floor-focused eyes, you see his shoes walk to the basket of volleyballs. 

shirabu bounces the ball once, and then once again, before you see his shoes in front of yours. you look up. 

“we have time. wanna toss?”

“i’m not that good at overhead passes...” you resist, knowing all too well from pe classes that your fingers don’t have the same kind of magic shirabu’s or kageyama’s have - or anyone in the men’s volleyball club, really.

shirabu only shrugs, “it’s fine, y/n-san. it’s just me. i don’t think you can even be that bad anyways.”

okay, maybe hearing him say your name was enough to persuade you. but still, the possibility of losing your pride in front of shirabu keeps you glued onto the gym mats. 

you purse your lips, trying to hide the overwhelming grin spreading on your face. you try to say a word, but you can’t seem to make anything out when teeth and raised cheeks do nothing but make you feel like this hopeless crush isn’t so hopeless after all. and so you nod.

he stands a few feet away from you, tossing the ball at what seemed like the perfect angle for your height only for you to miss it every two good tries.

“see? you’re not bad.” you think he’s lying through his teeth at best.

“i drop, like, every toss you give. this is not not bad.” you slouch, catching the ball this time instead of attempting to toss it. 

“well, that’s because you’re just doing it wrong. you hit the ball with the top of your palm every time. of course it’s going to come flying down.”

“okay, captain of the shiratorizawa volleyball club...” you tease, and you think it’s all fun and games until he comes to stand right in front of you, taking the ball. 

“put your hands up.”

you do as he asks.

“they should be about this far from your head,” he puts down the ball to adjust your arms, and then your hands, “it’s supposed to feel like there’s a nice place for the ball to rest in your hands.”

his hands are cold and rough when they lightly press on yours, shaping your hands and your elbows the way he does it on court, “your elbows and hands should make a triangle.”

he lets go of your arms, and you keep your arms the way he left them. he tosses the ball to you, and the only thing you feel is the sturdy feeling of fingertips on fabric.

shirabu catches the ball when you toss it back, “see? not bad.”

he doesn’t miss it when your eyes light up at his praise, and he makes a mental note to himself to not get distracted next time shiratorizawa has a game with karasuno. or maybe he will; who knows - maybe seeing you might make him look at his job with more vigour and passion.

“how do you do it?” you stare, “i mean, not that i haven’t seen, but-”

your words are cut off when he sets the ball onto the wall and back in one quick motion, his hands like cradling the ball with care on every push and touch. maybe it isn’t backed by an ace spiker or a team of five, but there’s a quiet power in what he does.

volleyball might be a team sport, but you’ve only been focused on this one setter all afternoon. even worse, he’s from the opposite team. 

he holds the ball and bounces it as he looks back at you, “when i got into shiratorizawa, you have no idea how much time i spent doing this.”

he exhales, like a weight has been pulled off his chest, feeling quite nice at your visible reactions. he throws the ball at you, exclaiming “toss!” only for you to catch it square above your head. you whine. then he laughs, and you laugh too, because you've never seen him laugh. 

“it paid off, then,” you say, coming to sit back down on the pile of mattresses. he sits next to you again, but closer this time. it’s like your stomach performs a somersault, and you absolutely love it.

"i guess,” he mutters, “maybe next time i’ll show you the dump shot you seemed to like so much.”

you can only bury your face in your hands, remembering the way you exclaimed ‘so cool...’ at his actions about an hour ago. you mumble, “was i too loud?”

he laughs again. you like the sound of it. “no, it was good.”

“it was nice to know one of karasuno’s managers looked at me more than kageyama,” his tone is stagnant, but you can hear him grinning, “that wouldn’t be considered betrayal, would it?”

you take it upon yourself to look him in the eye, and you tell him, with a small voice, “maybe it’s just something about you.”

you hide your face in your hands again, and you hear the setter laugh once more. you wonder if he laughs this much with his teammates. 

just as your embarrassment starts to settle, there’s a knock on the wooden door, “y/n? are you here?”

you recognise it as the second year, yamaguchi’s, voice, and you call back out, “yeah?”

“alright, wait up, i’ll just unlock the door...” his voice turns from muffled to surprise after the door opens, seeing you sitting so close to none other than shiratorizawa’s setter.

“i’m so sorry it took this long for us to realise you were, uh, gone,” yamaguchi scratches the back of his head, “but at least you had some company.”

yamaguchi gives the setter a prompt bow, and shirabu does the same.

“anyways, y/n, the bus is waiting,” the boy motions, and you nod, looking at shirabu. 

you wave at shirabu and start to leave the shed when he grips the sleeve of your tracksuit jacket. 

“are you free on sunday?”

you stop in your tracks, “yeah, i am.”

“i can show you my dump shot then. and there’s also a cute café nearby campus, i heard, so, we can go there after?”

you swear your heart melts at his words, “that sounds good.”

you can feel yamaguchi’s curious stare at both of you, but you don’t mind. “i’ll give you my number, then?”

you search through your pockets for something to take note with, “i don’t have a pen and paper... or my phone...”

shirabu sighs, “me neither, uhm...”

“oh, well. just tell me your number and i’ll memorise it.”

“are you sure?”

“yeah,” you smile, knowing that you’re not that good at memorising things but you know you’d keep his number dialed in your head. as he says out his string of numbers, you make sure to remember it all by the time you get to your bag. 

“see you sunday, then.” he waves once more.

“i’ll text you!” you’re left to ponder what the hell you’re going to wear in two days to your date with shirabu kenjirou. 

first date with shirabu kenjirou. is it a date? maybe you’ll know it on sunday. 

when you step out of the shed, yamaguchi only grins as he walks you back to the bus, amused at witnessing one of his underclassmen set up a date with shiratorizawa’s third year setter and captain. 

“on monday, tell us some of shiratorizawa’s secrets,” yamaguchi jokes as you two walk across campus. you glare at your upperclassman, and he only follows it up with a shake of the head and “no, no, just kidding! just have fun on sunday.”

“thank you,” you say quietly as you two approach the bus, “and thank you for unlocking that door at the shed back there.”

“no problem,” yamaguchi replies.

after announcing a small apology to the rest of the team when you enter the bus, you almost run to yachi when she shouts from the back that she’s already got your bag, with you practically grabbing it to take out your phone.

“woah, y/n! are you alright? do you have your stuff?”

you don’t answer, only putting down the numbers you drilled into your head five minutes ago, naming the contact “dump shot” and sending him a quick hello in text.

yachi asks again, “y/n?”

now you snap out of it, and nod before thanking her for bringing your bag. you can’t stop the uncontrollable smile on your face.

yachi stretches her arms out and smiles back, glad that her underclassman seems enthusiastic about this volleyball thing too. “i’m so ready for the weekend. i’m just going to sleep in and rest all day.”

you nod, slouching lazily into the bus yet with unknown excitement in your veins at the thought of spending a day with the boy you’ve only ever seen from afar until tonight. 

“i’m so ready for this weekend too.”

#hq x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu scenarios #shirabu x reader #shirabu kenjirou #shirabu kenjirō x reader #hq shirabu #shirabu fluff #shirabu imagines #shiratorizawa x reader #shiratorizawa fluff #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu!! fluff #hq fluff #hq imagines #haikyuu imagines #shirabu scenarios #shirabu fic #haikyuu fic #shiratorizawa #shiratorizawa fic

[dream-a-little-bigger-x]

An Unforgettable Halloween | Luke Patterson

Requested by anon:  hiiiii! can i do a jatp luke x reader imagine where it’s halloween and reader runs into Luke and they spend the whole day making Luke forget he’s dead? thanks! <3 love your writing by the way

A/N: Thank you for this request, anon! I really enjoyed writing it! I hope you like it!! Idk why I always need to have the reader and Luke/Charlie singing together, but here ya go anyway. The song used is Favorite Place by All Time Low. :) 

Pairing: Luke x fem!reader

Warnings: fluff

Words: 4,447

Halloween. It’s never been my favorite holiday. My poor, feeble heart can’t handle all the scares and creepy stuff. And besides, it’s over commercialized, in my opinion. Capitalism just needed another reason to exploit a holiday. My best friend, Ava,  tells me I hate the holiday because it reminds me of two years ago when a Halloween party traumatized me for the rest of my life. “Just because Brent made that day terrible, doesn’t mean the day will forever be terrible, Y/N,” she’d always say. Though that might be true, I still like to believe that’s not the only reason why I  hate the holiday. “Just come with me to the party tonight, and you’ll see it’s not as bad as you think it is!” We’re on FaceTime while I’m doing homework and she’s trying to figure out what to wear to the annual Halloween party at Charlotte the popular girl’s house. Another reason to hate the holiday. Charlotte Parks is the typical popular girl trope in this story. Pretty, popular with the guys, a cheerleader. The cliché. “I don’t think I’m gonna do that, Av,” I say whilst tucking my pencil behind my ear and staring down the phone in front of me, balancing against my backpack on the end of my bed. “You know Charlotte and I don’t mix well together.” That’s true. Charlotte has always despised me, God knows why. For some reason unknown to me, she always has to find a way to ruin my life. “Her house is so big, you won’t even see her!” Ava reasons from her walk-in closet before walking back onto the screen, another dress in her hand. This one is a black bodycon number with a white collar at the top and fringes at the sleeves. “How about this one?” “That’s very Wednesday Adams!” I exclaim with a wide smile on my face, to which I receive a very impressed nod from my best friend. “You know Bobbi’s coming tonight, Av. Can’t cancel on her!” Roberta’s my cousin of 13, and she’s one of my best friends, no matter how lame that sounds. We’ve always been pretty good pals, since we’re the only girls in the family. We kind of had to stick together against the testosterone of our other cousins. She’s not actually coming tonight, but I needed a good excuse to get out of this party. “Take her with you!” she yells both excited and kind of desperate at the same  time. “Ooh! How about I wear my pleather pants with, like, a black body and cat ears?!” She disappears into the wardrobe again. “She’s 13, Av! I’m not going to take her to a high school party!” I yell back whilst shaking my head in disappointment. “Wear whatever you want, Ava. I’m sure you’ll look amazing.” She appears into the picture again, her pleather pants halfway her butt and her bra on show. “Hey, is that my bra?!” I recognize that black lace with the gold detailing down the bust anywhere and I’ve lost that bra three weeks ago. “What? No! This is mine!” she says, but I can tell she’s lying. “You are unbelievable, Av!” I shake my head, grinning at my best friend. “I’m gonna have to go though. Send me a snap of  your outfit once you’ve chosen!” She nods her head in response, walking up closer to her phone, which she had balanced somewhere on her drawers. “I really can’t convince you to come?” Her expression has suddenly turned serious. She really is bummed I don’t want to come out, but I don’t care. I can’t care. This is for my own good. At least then, I don’t have to see Charlotte. Or Brent. “I’m really sorry, Ava.... Maybe next year, yeah?” She sighs mournfully before nodding her head. “Have fun, okay? And be careful!” A smile appears on her face again. “I will, babes. Have fun with Bobbi!” She offers me a wave, which I return before yelling ‘bye’ and pressing the red button on my phone screen. Lying to my best friend is not my favorite thing to do, but she wouldn’t shut up when she found out what I’m actually gonna be doing. With a sharp exhale, I crawl off my bed and head downstairs where my parents are getting ready for their little get-together with their friends. Dad’s dressed in a pin-stripe suit, a fake mustache stuck on his upper lip and his hair gelled back tightly whilst mom’s wearing a black dress with a deeply cut V-neck and a large slit down the side. Gomez and Morticia Addams. Very spooky. “Don’t you two look dashing,” I compliment, watching them from the middle of the stairs, sitting down. Mom shoots me a kind smile as she fixes her slick hair. “What are you gonna do tonight, sweetie?” Dad asks, tightening his tie. “Probably gonna go get some food and watch some movies,” I shrug, placing my head in my hand, my elbow resting on my knee. “You know, the use.” Dad exhales sharply, smiling sympathetically. “Don’t give me that look, dad.” “I’m sorry, sweets. But I just wish you would act like a seventeen-year-old instead of an eighty  year old.” I scoff at his statement. We had this discussion last year too. Both of them know what happened and why it’s so hard for me to enjoy this day. But they still give me shit for it. “I’m gonna have plenty of fun by myself. Even more so than if I did go to the stupid party,” I reason with him. He raises his hands in defeat before turning to his wife. “Just make sure the kids get their candies, yeah?” mom says instead, climbing a couple of stairs to press a kiss to my head. “I love you,” she whispers and heads down again. “Love you too. Have fun, guys.” Dad comes up to kiss me too before heading to the door with mom. With his hand on the doorknob, he looks back at me. “You know we only want you to be happy, right?” he says. I nod my head, offering him a smile. “I love you, sweets.” He walks out and shuts the door behind him, leaving me alone in the empty house. I sigh deeply before heading down and grabbing my Vans. Once they’re on my feet, I grab my wallet and exit the house. The cool October air hits my sweater-clad arms, sending a chill down my spine. As my feet tread down the pavement, my mind wanders to this day two years ago. Around this time, everything seemed normal. I was happy and excited to get to the Charlotte Parks Halloween extravaganza with my boyfriend Brent. We’d picked out a great couples’ costume. He was a wolf, and I was dressed as Red Riding Hood. I’d even taken the liberty to go all out with makeup and put a slash near my eye as though I’d been attacked by the wolf. Ava was a fan of that costume, more than Brent was. But when we neared the end of the night, everything crumbled down into shreds of sadness and anger. The residue of that anger wells up again until it’s knocked out of me when I bump into someone, making me stumble backwards. I would’ve fallen on my ass if it wasn’t for the hands capturing my arms to keep me from doing so. “I am so sorry, I--” I stop in my tracks as I look up into the gorgeous green eyes that belong to the attractive brunette that saved me from landing on the cold pavement. “A-are you okay?” he asks, letting go of me. “I--wait…” He furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “You can see me? And you can touch me?” That’s the weirdest question I’d ever gotten. My eyebrows knit together now too, trying to figure out what’s happening and why this boy is so confused about our entire interaction. “Uhm, yeah? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with people?” “No. I mean -- yeah, but I’m not a person, technically,” he replies in a mumble. He cautiously looks up at me again. “I’m a ghost, actually.” I let the words sizzle through my brain until it decides to send me into a fit of laughter. “Right, yeah, it’s Halloween. Ghosts. I get it. Good one,” I say between laughs, patting the boy’s shoulder, which only sends him to more confusion. To be fair, he doesn’t feel like a normal person. His arms don’t feel like they’re made of flesh and blood, but rather something light and airy. He gapes at me with this inquisitive look on his face, which calms down the laughter abruptly. “You’re not really a ghost, are you?” I ask, just to be certain. “I am, actually…” he mutters and jams his hands into the pockets of his black jeans. “Me and my bandmates died in 1995 and this girl, Julie, brought us back as ghosts… She’s the only one who could see us… Until now,” he looks up at me with hope and confusion written all over his face. “But she can’t touch us… Are you sure you’re not dead either?” I snort at his last question. “Kinda wish I was today,” I blurt out. My eyes widen after the words left my mouth. “That sounds way too dark…” I chuckle, and the boy does too, but I think it’s more out of awkwardness than finding it funny. “Are you okay?” he asks. At first, I think about answering it superficially, but there’s this look on his face that makes me want to spill all the beans. He, too, seems lonely and distraught on this Halloween night. “I’m not actually,” I glance down at my feet, finding his feet are clad in the same shoes. I then let my eyes glide from his shoes all the way up to his face. He’s urging me to continue by tilting his head a little, shooting me a questioning glance. “Halloween isn’t my favorite holiday…” I clarify. The boy nods his head understandingly. “That explains the lack of costume,” he says, which makes me glance down at my doodled-on mom jeans and oversized sweater before chuckling. “You don’t do the dressing up either? Or is that not something ghosts do?” I query, pointing at his ensemble. He’s wearing black jeans with a shirt and long-lined jean jacket. “I mean, it’s not like anyone would see,” he jokingly says, which lets a giggle escape from my mouth. His smile widens upon hearing this ridiculous sound coming from me. “Where were you going so determinedly before I smashed into you?” he asks after a few beats of silence. “Oh, I was getting some food from the place on the end of our street. They got pretty decent sushi, and since I’m home alone tonight, I thought, why the heck not treat myself, right?” I curse at myself for sharing this much with a complete stranger, who is a ghost, nonetheless, but the chuckle that reaches my ears comforts me a little. “No parties to go to? Back in my day, Halloween parties were always the best.” I feel the smile on my face fade away at the reminder of the Halloween party I’m not attending tonight. “Yeah, no… I haven’t gone to any Halloween party in two years… Like I said, Halloween isn’t my favorite holiday.” He offers me a sympathetic smile. A silence then falls over us as we stand in the middle of the street, looking at each other, debating what to say. “So… I’m gonna go and get my sushi. Uhm… Sorry for bumping into you,” I apologize and lift a foot to start walking away, but his voice stops me. “Would you mind if I tagged along?” he asks, which renders me surprised. “I don’t eat, so you don’t have to buy me sushi, but I think I could use some company tonight… If you don’t mind, of course.” His eyes are filled with hope, and some sort of desire to hang out with someone other than those bandmates he was talking about. “Uhm, no… Yeah, sure. You can tag along. It might be a nice change from that lonely Halloween I always have,” I chuckle, and he does too. “I’m Y/N, by the way,” I say as he turns and falls into step with me. “Luke,” he introduces himself with a smile. “Why don’t you go to Halloween parties, Y/N?” I inhale sharply at this question. I was hoping he wouldn’t ask too much about it. But I guess I can never get out of that question anymore. Halloween is a big holiday around here. “Two years ago, I went to one with my boyfriend. It’s the party where I found out he was cheating on me with the one girl who always had it out for me.” It rolls off my lips with ease. Normally, I’d choke or start bawling my eyes out. But Luke’s aura is so calming and reassuring that I can’t help but feel okay telling the story. “I haven’t been able to go back since, much to my best friend’s dismay.” I roll my eyes amusedly thinking about Ava and her desperate attempts to get me to go each year. “That sucks, I’m sorry,” he says as we enter the sushi place. “You better grab your phone now if you wanna talk to me. People tend to give weird looks at people talking to themselves.” I get my phone from my back pocket and pretend to dial a number before pressing it to my ear, glancing up at Luke with a smile on my face. “Hey, how you doing?” I say into the phone, which makes Luke giggle. “Just know that your ex-boyfriend’s stupid for ever cheating on you,” he tells me before looking down at his feet. “I would never wanna hurt someone as pretty as you.”  I can feel a blush creeping its way onto my cheeks, but decide to conceal it by jokingly saying, “Aw, you think I’m pretty.” He rolls his eyes, an amused smile on his face. “Next!” the guy from the sushi place yells. “Oh, hold on,” I say into my phone before placing it on the counter and facing the employer. “Uhm, the Halloween surprise box, please,” I order politely. The man nods curtly before getting into action. I grab my phone again and press it to my ear to continue talking to Luke while we make our way to a couple of chairs and tables set up for waiting customers. I let my eyes wander around the room. It’s decorated to the max with spiders in spiderwebs, pumpkins, skeletons, ghosts,... The lot. Then, my eyes fall onto Luke. He’s glancing around the place, letting his eyes wander until they find their way back to me. A shimmer appears in them when he finds me already looking at him. “So, you said you were in a band?” I ask, pretending to talk to the person on the other side of the line. “Oh, yeah! Me and three of my best friends were in this band called Sunset Curve. Three of us died on the night we were supposed to play the Orpheum,” he explains, and my eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets upon hearing the name of the venue. “The Orpheum?! You’re kidding, right?” He shakes his head, smirking. “You would’ve been legends.” The words come out in a whisper, hoping it wouldn’t upset him too much. “Yea, we would’ve been,” he sighs, then suddenly perks up again like an excited puppy, “But the girl I told you about, Julie? She can make us visible whenever we play with her! We’re now a band with her called Julie and The Phantoms!” I giggle at his endearing enthusiasm. “We would’ve had a gig at this really cool party in the Bel Air, but Julie got sick and had to cancel.” My eyes widen upon the words ‘party’ and ‘Bel Air’. Charlotte Parks lives in Bel Air. “That would be the party I’m not going to tonight,” I tell him, chuckling. “So, we would’ve met tonight either way.” He adds with a cheeky smile, “Some would say it’s fate.”  I shake my head at him, but can’t help the smile on my face either. I want to add something to debunk his theory, but my name is called out by the sushi guy. I get up and take the box of sushi from him, shooting him a quick thank you before leaving the joint with Luke in tow. “Where do you wanna go?” he asks, bouncing up and down. “Oh, I was planning on watching some movies at home, but if you have a better idea to spend tonight? Anything is better than going to that Halloween party.” He purses his lips in ponder, his eyes darting up to the night sky. “Ooh! There’s this park I like to hang out at sometimes?” I raise my eyebrows at his suggestion, popping a piece of sushi in my mouth. I’m way too hungry to wait until we sit down to eat. “You haunt children’s playgrounds?” I ask after having swallowed the seafood. His eyebrows knit together at this as he narrows his eyes at me. “I don’t haunt children’s playgrounds. I hang out at them,” he corrects me. “You’re a ghost, sweetie. That’s haunting.” “It’s not!” he shouts. “It is so!” I laugh loudly, throwing my head back. “You’re lucky the kids are all trick or treating tonight, so we can go there. Might be a little more secluded for me to talk freely to you without worrying people will think I’m crazy.” He nods his head agreeingly. Once at the park, we take a seat in the grass. I have my legs crossed whilst Luke’s are spread out, his hands supporting the rest of his body behind him. “So, what do you do in life, Y/N? You know, besides avoiding parties,” he asks with a little smile plastered on his face. I look at him for a moment, chewing my sushi. This gives me the time to really look at him. He has really great bone structure. Sharp jawline, chiseled cheekbones, fine nose, deep-set, dreamy eyes. “Eating sushi,” I reply jokingly after I’d swallowed the piece of deliciousness. Luke lets out a laugh too. “I’m still in school, so I’m spending most of my time studying. And I like to think I’m a pretty decent writer.” He stares at me, giving me his undivided attention with the cutest smile plastered on his face. “What do you write?” he asks curiously as I pop another sushi in my mouth. I lift my hand to my mouth, and reply, “Poems,” before continuing to chew quickly. “Kinda like songs, then?” I shrug my shoulders. “They could be, but I don’t play any  instrument, so I haven’t tried,” I reply and place the half-eaten box of sushi to the side, pulling my legs up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. “Do you write your own music?” He nods his head. “I wrote most of the songs in our band and now, I write with Julie for the new band,” he answers. As I’m thinking how much I’d like to hear him and his band play, he cuts those thoughts in two by asking, “Can I see your work?” I open my mouth, then close it. Then open again. I must look like a goldfish breathing. “I’ve never really shown anyone my work…” I trail off, debating whether or not I should show him. “Besides, my notebook is at home.” Luke suddenly gets up from the grass and reaches out his hand for me to take. I hesitate. Am  I really going to take a complete stranger, a ghost, to my house to show my poetry, only to find out he hates it because it’s nothing like his songwriting? The answer is yes. I place my hand in his and let him pull me to my feet. Without letting go of my hand, he grabs the box of sushi and then guides me out of the park and lets me lead us towards my house. “Wait here,” I tell him as we’re in the foyer. He simply jams his hands into his pockets and nods his head curtly. I run up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and then go to grab my notebook from my room, quickly storming back downstairs where Luke’s still waiting. I make my way to the living room and sit down on the couch. The boy cautiously trails behind me, and only comes to sit down after I pat the spot beside me. “It’s not that great, but… You know, it’s fun to do and a great outlet for anything I may be feeling.” I hand him the notebook and let him flip through all the pages. He stops on a few, reading it a little more thoroughly. It’s building some suspense in me. What if he doesn’t even like them? What if he, a songwriter, hates them? “Ah! This one!” he exclaims, and suddenly, with a whoosh, there’s an acoustic guitar on his lap. “One of the perks of being a musician spirit,” he tells me with a grin before strumming the instrument a little. He abruptly stops, looks at the page in my notebook again, and then softly tickles the strings. A beautiful melody pours out of the instrument before his melodic voice joins in too with the words I wrote. “I saw your face in the fire again I touched the flames and burned down everything I hear the sirens west of 8th now” He looks at me with a questioning glance as if asking for encouragement of some sorts. I offer him a smile, unsure of anything else I could be doing right now. His voice has rendered me silent. I think I could listen to him sing for hours.  “Wonder if you're hearin' them too And I know you don't belong  Know you don't belong to anyone” He focuses on the instrument again, making sure he’s still playing the right chords.  “No you can't be tamed love Maybe I was wrong  Maybe I was wrong for this But you feel like the perfect escape now Just like the sun on my face” His voice grows a little stronger, almost sounding raspier and more like a growl as he looks up again. I always thought it’d be cliché to melt when an attractive boy sings to me, but it’s actually happening to me right now.  “So can we close the space between us now It's the distance we don't need  Yeah, you're everything I love about The things I hate in me  So come on, come on, come over now and Fix me with your grace 'Cause I'm not too far and you're my favorite place” “You sing this last part,” he tells me, pushing the notebook towards me before going back to playing his guitar.  “I can’t sing, Luke,” I tell him, slightly panicking.  “Sure you can. I’ll sing along, don’t worry,” he offers me a reassuring smile before putting more power behind his strumming while also leaning closer toward me to read the words.  “So come on, come on, come over now and Fix me with your grace 'Cause I'm not too far and you're my favorite place” He now quits playing, placing his hands flat on the strings, and for a while we just stare at each other in disbelief. Disbelief about the song we just made together. Disbelief about how beautiful a voice he has. Disbelief about how attractive he is.  I cough, breaking the eye contact, “That’s a great song, Luke… You can have it if you want,” I offer with a smile to try and hide the blush from heating up my cheeks.  “No, Y/N, I couldn’t. That’s yours. Those are your words. Your words made this a great song.”  “They’re just words without a melody,” I mutter, folding the edges of the paper nervously.  “A song is quite boring without words though, isn’t it?”  For some reason, I’m starting to think all of this could be a metaphor for us. Him being the melody and me being the words. I would be a plain and simple poem without him, and his life -- though I doubt it -- would be boring without me.  “It would still be a song though,” I add, looking up at him again. One corner of his mouth curls up into a smirk, which makes me think he caught onto that metaphor I was thinking about. He suddenly grabs my hand and laces our fingers together. Before I can even register what’s happening, the front door suddenly opens, revealing a distraught-looking Ava. I let go of Luke’s hand and get up to help my best friend.  “What’s wrong?” I ask her as she stumbles inside. I grab her just in time before she can hurt herself. She looks up at me, her makeup run out all the way to her chin and blood trickling down her nose, though I’m not sure if it’s real blood or part of her cat costume.  “I punched Brent in the face and Charlotte punched me back,” she get out through sobs and hiccups. My eyes dart over to Luke, who’s watching this from the sofa. I almost forgot she can’t even see him. He offers me a small smile.  “Why?” I ask and guide her to the couch. She nearly sits down on top of Luke, but I’m quick enough to guide her next to him while he vanishes. He pops back behind the couch, looking down at the drunk girl lying down on the sofa.  “Because he was boasting about how he even managed to wrap the prude around his finger two years ago and got her to anything he wanted,” I swallow, remember those times people called me a prude because I covered up unlike girls like Charlotte who wore short skirts and plunging necklines. “I really don’t get what you saw in him, Y/N,” she mumbles while cuddling up to the pillow and letting her eyes flutter shut. “I hope you find someone that looks at you like I look at pizza.” I giggle at her drunken words before looking up at Luke to find him already looking at me. Kind of the same way Ava looks at pizza. A smile then finds its way to my face. Maybe Halloween isn’t as bad as I always thought it was. 

Taglist: @hannahhistorian92 @marinettepotterandplagg @thequirkybookaholic @bookdealer5 @tenaciousperfectionunknown @hemmingsness @iainttakingshitfromnobody @ifilwtmfc @angryknightstatesmantrash @kiss-themoongoodbye @rudysbay @thedarkqueenofavalon @caitsymichelle13 @calamitykaty @parkeret @lukeys-giggle @gingerxarmy @lovesanimals @lolychu @perfectlywrongformend3s @luckylouiebug @camiladelrio98 @myfriendscallmebeans

#julie and the phantoms #julie and the himbos #jatp #luke patterson #luke patterson x reader #luke jatp #luke patterson fic #luke patterson au #charlie gillespie #reggie jatp #jeremy shada #alex jatp #owen joyner #julie molina #madison reyes #savannah lee may #carrie wilson #nick jatp #sacha carlson #flynn jatp #jadah marie #halloween fic #halloween #favorite place

[blitzturtles]

Title: It Starts Like This, Ch. 1/?

Rating: Teen and Up

Fandom: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind

Pairing(s): BruAbba, Platonic Bucci Gang

Summary: Then shit hits the fan.

Or, more accurately, Bucciarati hits the floor.

Giorno bolts forward, but there’s an entire, solid oak desk blocking his path. Gold Experience doesn’t even reach Bucciarati in time. His head hits the ground with a sickening crack, and he’s disturbingly limp.

Notes: Turns out being dead has a bit of a long term effect. Who would have thought?

This fic got away from me, so I'm breaking it down by character interaction (sort of). This is Giorno's part of this very Bucci-centric fic.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

Disclaimer: I don't have a diagnosis of epilepsy, but I do have auras/various symptoms and am being tested. Also, I used 'grand mal' here, but it's an outdated term I only picked for the timing of the fic. They're now known as tonic-clonic seizures.

Unrelated: My dog typed the number ‘4’ on the google doc I was writing this on. Obviously it’s cursed. Sorry Bucci.

-

Giorno is midsentence when he notices Bucciarati’s attention beginning to wander. He watches a moment, letting his own words trail off into silence, as Bruno seems to fixate on something in his own head.

It's not entirely out of character, really. Bucciarati’s often juggling too many thoughts at once, and there are times that his mind will latch on to one in particular and get carried away. He doesn't mean it to be insulting, and Giorno doesn't take it that way.

Only a handful of seconds more pass before Bucciarati’s attention is turned back toward him. He blinks his eyes, clearing his mind, before speaking,

"Apologies, what was it you were saying?"

Giorno gives a slight smile and picks up as though nothing had happened at all.

-

The next time it happens, something feels off. Giorno doesn't know what. Bucciarati’s eyes drift off, almost upward. Then, rather abruptly, Sticky Fingers is there, reaching out to their user. Their movements freeze abruptly. The stillness is disturbing. Unnatural. Something tells Giorno that Bucciarati isn't lost in his thoughts.

He opens his mouth to try and say something, to right the wrongness of the air around them, but the door to his office creaks open.

Abbacchio looks between the two, from Bucciarati to Giorno. His eyes linger on Sticky Fingers a moment. The stand doesn’t so much as glance at their new companion. They don't move at all.

All Giorno can think is /wrong, wrong, wrong/. He feels sick. Without his realizing, Gold Experience has manifested behind him, fingers reaching forward.

All at once he can see the moment when Bucciarati begins to /exist/ again. His eyes still don't focus on Giorno. In fact, he looks right past him, but so does Abbacchio.

It's then that Giorno sees something settle in Abbacchio's eyes. Recognition of the problem. Or what he thinks is the problem. He nods to Gold Experience, and Giorno looks behind himself to see his stand.

Realization kicks in. Abbacchio thinks Bucciarati’s stillness-- the presence of his stand-- were justified things. Normal reactions to their boss’ stand being present.

Both are thinking: there’s a threat, and Giorno can’t help thinking that they aren’t wrong.

The conversation steers out of his control too quickly for him to keep up with. They’re both concerned about him and why his stand is out and not with what is truly wrong.

-

The next time it happens, Narancia is there. Bucciarati’s own words trail off. His fingers twitch in the air, a meaningless gesture that screams wrong, bad, wrong in Giorno’s mind.

He remembers, once, hearing Bucciarati explain that things can be unzipped and rezipped in a way that isn’t quite right. That sometimes, Bucciarati is in a rush or under too much pressure to be as precise as he would like.

He also remembers hearing of stands being incompatible with their users, but Bucciarati and Sticky Fingers work seamlessly. They move as one. Why now?

It makes him sick to think about, and he can see that same queasiness on Narancia’s features.

There’s something wrong, and Giorno doesn’t know if he can fix this with Gold Experience. He doesn’t know if he won’t just make it worse. Maybe Bucciarati needs time. Maybe his body will sort this out on its own.

Or maybe it won’t, some dark part of him whispers.

“You see it too?” Narancia asks in a whisper.

Giorno nods. Before he can speak, Narancia continues, “It’s happening more often.”

Those words feel like a knife slipped between his ribs. Before he can ask Narancia more, Bucciarati is rubbing at his eyes and making a confused sound in the back of his throat. All of Giorno’s attention is on him then, but he doesn’t know what to do.

Bucciarati more or less dismisses himself from the room after a few, confusing minutes of conversation.

“I must be tired,” Bucciarati had said.

Narancia and Giorno can only look at the door he leaves through in a helpless sort of uncertainty.

-

Giorno wants to berate himself the next time it happens, because the next time it happens is in the middle of a fight with two enemy stands, and Bucciarati is standing there, eyes drawn to the sky, and vulnerable. Sticky Fingers is no better. Giorno suspects that, if they had eyes, they would be looking in the same direction.

He doesn’t have time to panic or let the sensation of wrongness flood through him. The enemy stand sees the opening for what it is and rushes right for Sticky Fingers with an aim of demolishing stand and user alike.

Bucciarati turns his head with unfocused eyes, blinks at the thing rushing nearly right at him-- only inches off really, Sticky Fingers is too close. The enemy stand hesitates a moment, suddenly anticipating an attack, but Bucciarati only makes an odd sound in the back of his throat. His eyes draw unnaturally toward his right, where absolutely nothing of concern is waiting for him.

Giorno can only be grateful for the enemy’s hesitation. He takes advantage of it with a ruthlessness that is driven by fear more than anything.

Bucciarati doesn’t even turn his head when the enemy screams out with his last breath.

Everyone else chooses that moment to catch up to them, and the fussing is natural for the situation: the one where the two of them had been ambushed, and not the one where Bucciarati had stopped responding to his surroundings entirely.

-

Giorno tries to explain it to Abbacchio, but the man waves a hand, reminds him that Bucciarati has a lot on his plate at any given time. Lapses and distractions were bound to happen. Besides, they couldn’t ever be sure where Bucciarati’s attention was. With Sticky Fingers, he could reach beyond what they were used to.

Giorno finds no comfort in the reassurances, but he nods anyways.

-

Then shit hits the fan.

Or, more accurately, Bucciarati hits the floor.

Giorno bolts forward, but there’s an entire, solid oak desk blocking his path. Gold Experience doesn’t even reach Bucciarati in time. His head hits the ground with a sickening crack, and he’s disturbingly limp for a solid second or two before his whole body goes rigid.

Not one of their little group knows how to respond, all looking on in horror when Bucciarati begins to shake.

It’s Abbacchio that regains his composure first. He’s also the only one that has a clue on what to do, it seems, considering he’s rolling Bucciarati on his side before anyone else has managed to put their jaw back into its proper place.

“They’re seizures,” Abbacchio says once Giorno regains enough of his composure to crouch in front of them. Abbacchio keeps one hand on Bucciarati’s bicep, keeping him on his side without holding him down. He motions for Giorno to take over so he can shrug out of his coat.

“I know,” Giorno doesn’t think that could be any more obvious right now. He frets, for a moment, over how much pressure to put on Bucciarati, but Abbacchio doesn’t correct him.

“No, they’re seizures, Giorno. All of them. I should have realized,” Abbacchio balls his coat up and tucks it under Bucciarati’s head.

Oh.

Oh.

And, just like that, it all clicks into place. Giorno feels sick, but Abbacchio takes over holding Bucciarati on his side.

There’s a gargling sound that makes Mista reach forward, but Abbacchio stops him.

“He’s choking!”

Giorno glances back at Mista and realizes, not for the first time, that he isn’t the only one terrified by all of this.

“That’s why I have him like this, just- wait. Fuck, how long has it been?” Abbacchio has to push down his own irritation at himself for not thinking about that before, but he’s barely managing to keep his own composure.

“Thirty seconds, I think,” Trish speaks up.

“Okay, that’s good. That’s fine,” Abbacchio answers with what is meant to be a reassuring nod, but no one looks all that reassured.

There’s something horribly unsettling about the most put together of them being on the floor, with blood and spit mixing together on the ground. Giorno doesn’t actually know how much of the blood is from Bruno’s mouth versus his head, but it all looks like too much. He wants to fix it. He can fix it, but he doesn’t know if that’s a good idea while Bucciarati’s actively seizing. Hell, he doesn’t know if it’s a good idea afterwards either. It’ll hurt, and what if that just makes it worse?

An eternity seems to pass, with Giorno going back and forth with himself, and everyone else being equally tense until Bucciarati slows into what almost looks more like an occasional kick of his feet. Even that stops after another ten seconds.

All together the whole thing takes two minutes and thirteen seconds according to Trish. Abbacchio reassures them that it’s fine. That’s not too long in the grand scheme of things. When he was still a cop, he was trained to call for medical services after five minutes.

Still, Bucciarati is quiet and motionless outside of what Giorno thinks might be his attempts to swallow what’s in his mouth. Abbacchio uses part of his coat to wipe the spittle away while he speaks softly to the man.

“Oh, he…” Trish trails off, quickly removing the outer layer of her skirt. She drapes it over Bruno’s middle.

Abbacchio glances over at the same time as Giorno does, “It’s okay. That’s normal.”

Giorno takes a second to register the same thing that Abbacchio had and instantly knows that Bucciarati would be grateful for Trish’s consideration. Fugo and Narancia process a moment later and both frown. It’s not that they’re judging Bruno for something he can’t help. It’s that he couldn’t help himself in the first place. It’s another thing that makes it all so much more real. If Mista processes it at all, he doesn’t say anything.

Fugo moves to reach out, to touch Bucciarati, but Abbacchio catches his hand. Gentle. “Give him another minute. If we work him up too much…” He doesn’t want to continue that thought. Doesn’t want to accidentally infer that they might be responsible for the next seizure or this one. Or any of those previous. But the reality is that Bucciarati’s brain is dealing with enough. Overstimulating him is too much of a risk.

“Should we…?” Mista asks, already backing up a bit.

“No, we just don’t want to crowd him,” Abbacchio rubs along Bucciarati’s arm in the meantime. He continues his quiet reassurances until Narancia startles.

“His eyes!”

Abbacchio glances up at Bucciarati’s face, half expecting to see another seizure beginning to take hold, but he’s relieved to find Bucciarati looking around sluggishly instead. “Welcome back,” he says gently, “You’re okay now- woah, you need to stay put. Good, yeah, like that. You’re alright. We have you. No one is attacking us.”

“W-where?”

“Giorno’s office,” Abbacchio answers easily. He wipes at Bucciarati’s mouth again. There’s definitely blood coming from either his cheek or his tongue. “You owe me a new coat.”

Bucciarati hums and closes his eyes.

“You really had no clue, did you?” Abbacchio keeps rubbing along Bucciarati’s arm. Something comforting but not all together overwhelming. “That’s fine. We can take care of this.” He catches Bucciarati’s hand when it darts out. He checks Bucciarati’s eyes again and sees there’s a muted alarm to them. “You’re alright. You’re just coming back to us from a seizure, but you’re doing good-- great.” He looks to the rest of their little crew when Bucciarati’s eyes slide shut again, “He’s probably going to cycle through this a couple of times, and he’s going to be very tired. He needs to rest. Those other seizures-- they tire you out, but this…” He lets them infer the level of exhaustion they should be anticipating. Abbacchio certainly wouldn’t expect anything from Bucciarati after what was possibly his first grand mal.

It takes time, but they get Bucciarati into bed. Abbacchio is gentle with removing Bucciarati’s clips and taking apart his braid. He doesn’t think the added tension will help. He waits until the kids scatter to start undressing him.

Sticky Fingers appears midway through, and they look like they’ve been through the ringer.

“He’s going to be okay,” Abbacchio tells them. He calls to Moody Blues, thinks maybe her presence will be reassuring. He isn’t surprised when stand leans upon stand. He hopes the comforting gesture translates to Bucciarati without adding unnecessary strain.

He has Bucciarati tucked in by the time the kids get back. He leaves Bucciarati in a new pair of briefs rather than attempting to fully redress him. His knowledge on seizures isn’t the best, but he knows to expect soreness. Getting Bucciarati dressed again simply doesn’t seemed to be worth it in Abbacchio’s mind. The kids aren’t going to go looking under the blankets anyways.

He doesn’t notice Sticky Fingers getting a hold of Bucciarati’s head until there’s already a zipper in place. It doesn’t seem to bother him, so Abbacchio shrugs and let’s the stand take care of their user. Everyone had heard the sound of Bucciarati’s head hitting the floor; no doubt there’s a nasty cut under there. Stick Fingers’ zipper will keep the bleeding to a minimum until they all feel a little more comfortable poking at Bucciarati again.

“Is there anything else we can do?” Giorno asks, when they all stand there practically wringing their hands from anxiety. Each undoubtedly preferring that it was themselves in Bucciarati’s position.

“Not right now,” Abbacchio says, in that same gentle tone from earlier. His own nerves are shot, but he knows they’re scared. They want to help. He gets that, and being snappish and potentially starting an argument isn’t going to do anything for Bucciarati’s overworked system.

Giorno hesitates, but he nods. He wants to heal the problem away, but there’s more to this than he understands. He thinks it might be a mistake to try and intervene now, so he gently tugs Mista toward the door. Mista tugs on Narancia, and Narancia tries to pull Fugo along.

“Narancia,” Giorno calls when the other opens his mouth. “Let’s go.” He puts as much authority into his tone as he can manage. Truthfully, he feels too helpless to feel like their leader.

Narancia grumbles something under his breath but allows himself to be tugged along. Giorno closes the door behind them.

#bruabba #bruno bucciarati #leone abbacchio #bruno buccellati #giorno giovanna #jjba #jojo's bizzare adventure #jjba part 5 #everyone lives au #bucci gang #blitzwrites #blitz #fic: islt

[backdraft-bimbo]

rule number two

After years of avoiding his trauma, Bucky finally confides in Sam. 

Words: 2893; Chapters: 1/1

James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson; Episode: s01e02 The Star-Spangled Man Coda

ao3 link

“Why don’t you get some shut eye, Buck? It’s gonna be a long ride home.” 

Bucky glances at Sam from his makeshift cargo perch across the fuselage. The bags under his eyes must be getting bad. Leah gave Bucky the impression last week that he needs concealer for his skin or something. But he’s a 106-year-old ex-assassin; who the hell is he trying to impress at this point?

After a few seconds pass, Bucky notes that he should probably respond instead of just staring blankly, because that’s what people do, right? They talk to each other, they share, and they trust so easily. It’s such a simple question, but Bucky’s urge to deflect any possible social interaction has decided to rear its ugly head tonight. Sam can’t be a fan of it either, since he’s the charismatic one of the two of them. He’s not the guy with the staring problem.

It’s just… Bucky doesn’t have normal conversations without being reminded of the restored freedom to speak his mind. The habits HYDRA drilled into his brain incite an unpleasant knee-jerk reaction– don’t speak or they’ll beat you –but Bucky has gotten better at managing the vestiges of his trauma. At least now he’ll be able to defend himself if his careless mouth puts him in hot water. And maybe he could just be honest with Sam; it wouldn’t hurt anything. But that almost kindles a burst of laughter in Bucky: the concept of himself not hurting somebody. What a world that would be.

Don’t get him wrong–Bucky used to like talking to people. He used to be good at it. But that was a long time ago; far longer than anyone should be able to recall. Even now, Bucky’s early 20th century days as a staff sergeant feel like a distant dream. He almost misses the wartime; when everything was simpler. Sure, it was bloody and violent and horrible, but at least Bucky knew how to fucking talk to people he considered friends. When it comes to his loose tongue nowadays, there’s an ugly history waiting to make an unwanted appearance; bared teeth and all.

“I don’t,” Bucky answers finally, his voice trembling a fraction more than he’s comfortable with. He doesn’t think he can do more than two syllables right now. If Bucky somehow musters up the courage to tell Sam about his nightmares, he won’t make it through a single sentence without bursting into tears like a twelve-year-old.

The fact that Sam could somehow see Bucky’s eye bags across the shadowy fuselage does not convince Bucky that Sam didn’t hear that slight embarrassing waver in his voice. But even if he did, the guy doesn’t comment on it. Sam has been laying in a supine position on the flight seats for the past hour, drifting in and out of sub-consciousness, and really, he’s the one who looks damn tired. It’s been a long day for both of them; they’re bruised and achy after their loss against the Flag-Smashers–more proof that Bucky shouldn’t bother Sam.

But this is here and now. The sky is starless as a humming inky black abyss, the RS-834 cruising about 40,000 feet above sea level, far beyond the stratus clouds, and everything feels tranquil in that seldom gentle way it does sometimes. It’s as if the world consists only of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes, and that illusion is a tremendous comfort to the ex-assassin. When it’s clear that Bucky isn’t going to elaborate, Sam lets his neck muscles relax, drooping his head back to face the opposite wall that reflects the drowsy slur of his voice.

“C’mon, man...I know at least three percent of your body is metal, but that don’t mean you never sleep.”

Bucky pauses. Tries not to glance at his left arm. He has to be careful; guys like him have a tendency to overshare when it’s late. It’s just that something about the night brings a facade of protection, as if anything he says can be written off as a dream, so he can bare himself to the bone in front of anyone he wants. It doesn’t matter since it will be forgotten in the morning. The night is unreliable, thus Bucky uses that to his defense.

“Aren’t you worried I’m gonna like...”

“Kill me?” Sam snorts, a bit of energy returning to his voice. “I think if either of us really wanted to kill the other, one of us would be lying in a heap by now. Just saying.”

Bucky can’t argue with that. Like Dr. Raynor so elegantly puts it, it is so sad, but Sam is probably Bucky’s only real friend at this point. Add that with the fact that he doesn’t really want to kill anyone anyway, and someone who doesn’t know better might call what Sam and Bucky have a “healthy relationship.” Bucky swings a hand around Sam’s vicinity, willing his voice to level out this time.

“Are you tired? You should go to sleep.”

A deep sigh resonates out from Sam’s dark corner. “Man, I forget sometimes how good you are at that.”

“What?”

“Changing the subject.”

Oh.  

Bucky wonders which part of him that came from: James “Bucky” Barnes, or his HYDRA-conditioned brain. Perhaps it was just a defense against people trying to crowbar their way into his thoughts. As long as he can distract them, he’s safe. Bucky exhales a heavy breath, combing a hand through his greasy hair.

“Look, I just... I’m not the most pleasant person to sleep with.”

A moment of unwonted silence passes. Bucky’s gaze wanders away from his hands and toward Sam. By the time his eyes have adjusted, the guy has propped himself up on his elbows, teeth shining through the dimness in a quiet grin. The suggestive phrasing of Bucky’s words finally catches up to him. His cheeks redden. Well, if Sam decides to take it that way… Bucky technically hasn’t gotten laid since the 1940s. From what he remembers, it hadn’t even been very good. But hell no–that’s the kind of mental rabbit hole Bucky isn’t in the mood for. He coughs and slaps his thighs.

“We have like three more hours. Go to sleep, Sam. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Now you gon’ make me feel bad about it,” Sam smirks. “Shame on you, Barnes.”

Bucky ducks his head in exasperation. “You’re an idiot. What, you want me to sing you a lullaby?”

Sam visibly brightens at that. “Ooh, for real? You know any?”

Great , so now Sam is standing up, walking toward him, the grin on his annoying face widening. And because Bucky is a fucking mess, his tongue gets tied up in about fifteen knots before he gets the chance to open his mouth, and he’s already forgetting what he was going to say. Hell, if Sam smiled any brighter than that, he’d be the fucking sun.

“Uh, well, y’know,” Bucky says eloquently. “HYDRA was kinda lacking in that department.”

Sam laughs again, making himself at home on the red seats adjacent to Bucky’s perch, and Bucky feels a miserable sort of swell in his chest. Why is Sam purposefully gravitating toward him? Who the hell wants an ex-HYDRA assassin in close proximity?

“You gettin’ shy on me, Buck?” Sam tilts his head slightly downward, gazing up at Bucky with his big brown eyes and thick eyelashes, and what the fuck. “You ain’t gotta look so shook up; I don’t bite.”

“That’s a surprise,” Buck replies weakly, trying to force his face to cool down. There’s so much spit caught up in his throat right now, and Bucky knows it’ll look weird if he swallows in front of this guy, like he’s some nervous teenager with a school crush. Sam just laughs softly, the corners of his cheeks tightening, his lips curling up in a way that is too fucking charming to be on the face of a man sitting right across from a mass murderer. But honestly, Bucky can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed anymore; any time Sam laughs because of him is a win.

God, maybe I am good for something.

An overlay of silence reigns over the two men, and the white noise hum of the plane almost makes Bucky want to doze off. When he blinks himself awake for the fifth time, Sam’s familiar cadence cuts through the air like a knife to warm butter. He sounds wide awake.

“Nightmares, huh. So that’s why you don’t sleep.”

Bucky pales a shade, shifting atop his crate in discomfort. He supposes he wasn’t as subtle as he thought he was being. Sam lifts his hands in a placating gesture, his voice much more benign now. “I used to get ‘em sometimes too. Hell, even nowadays I do; service will do that to you. Not tryna say I completely understand what’s going on in that big cyborg brain of yours, but…I get it, to a degree.”

Bucky wonders if Sam behaves like this whenever he’s talking to veterans in his therapy group, or if he’s reserved this for Bucky alone. He finds himself craving the latter to a degree that is both confusing and hopeless. “I…” he mutters, pointedly not looking at the other man. The miserable swell from before is morphing into something much more sad, and Bucky doesn’t know what to do with it.

You’re alone. You have no friends, no family.

The harsh words bounce around Bucky’s head like a game of Pong, contrasting starkly against Sam’s kind and gentle tone. A spark of indignation thaws the insides of his chest. It’s not fair, it’s not true; Bucky’s got proof right here. Fuck you, Dr. Raynor. Despite all you think, at least I’ve got this dumbass with me.

Sam speaks again, leaning back in his seat. “Look, you ain’t gotta tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m just lettin’ you know that you ain’t gotta fight this alone.”

Bucky hates tip-toeing around his trauma like it’s some massive landmine. Part of him just wants to lay it all out; explode with everything he’s never willingly told another soul; reopen his wounds and expel all the ugliness in the hopes that maybe he’ll heal up properly this time. He wants to scream to Sam that he never got a fucking break; it was abuse upon abuse. HYDRA buried him alive just to water his grave in guilt and horror and self-hatred. There had never been the option of peace for the Winter Soldier. He was the asset, the weapon, the tool, the plaything, taken out of a dusty closet any time somebody wanted a turn with him.

“It was never a fight,” Bucky whispers. “They never gave me a chance.”

Sam looks slightly taken aback, as if he wasn’t expecting the ex-assassin to actually respond. Bucky would be surprised too if he didn’t feel so utterly lost right now. Instead, he settles for staring past Sam’s shoulder into the back of the fuselage, trying to find answers in the dim blue lights blanketing them. Despite how hard Bucky tries not to see it, Sam is shifting, his face crumpling into...something. He can’t put his finger on it but hopes to God it’s not pity. Steve used to give him that look, always catching himself doing it, and then getting all guilty about it afterward. So before Bucky can stop himself there, let his words fester in comfortable ambiguity, he’s taking off and nothing is going to stop him.

“So yeah, Sam,” Bucky continues, gritting out the words, “I get nightmares. I remember every single human being I murdered with this stupid fucking metal arm, and now I have to deal with it for the rest of my ‘overextended life.’ Is that selfish? Is it selfish of me to say that I wish I died in that fucking ravine when I was supposed to? I don’t belong here, Sam. Just the fact that I’m alive in this era is unnatural. But I’ve gotta make amends with my laundry list of everyone I hurt, because dying just isn’t going to cut it. ”

Bucky still isn’t looking at Sam by the time he finishes, snapping his mouth shut like an animal being muzzled before he can bite anyone else. Even though Bucky can’t tell what Sam is thinking, can’t see how his expression has undoubtedly contorted from pity to hurt, Bucky is overwhelmed by instinct. He doesn't know which side is currently winning over: the Soldier’s desperation to submit before his handlers put him through “corrective treatment,” or Bucky’s longing to apologize to Sam for hurting him. Make amends, make amends, don’t hurt anyone. Rule number two.

The latter ends up taking the tug of war, and Bucky whispers out a choked, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Sam, I–”

“Hey.”

Sam is standing close beside him, their shoulders almost level while Bucky is slouching. He can’t suppress the shiver that shoots through his body like lightning as a hand carefully grips his flesh arm. “Hey, man, look at me,” Sam says–somehow firm and gentle at the same time. His thumb brushes over the fabric of Bucky’s sweater, and Bucky wants to let his hand come up to clench Sam’s, but hell if he doesn’t know how that’ll end. It’s been so long since he’s been touched in a way that doesn’t end in bruises.

“Hey, hey… Listen to me, man. I hear you,” Sam says warmly, burnishing the chasm where Bucky thinks his heart used to be. “And it’s gonna be all right. You may not think it yet, and I should’ve said something earlier, but…” Sam trails off, pauses, then nods to himself. “You’re a good man, Bucky.”

A tight, burning ember of anguish flares up in Bucky’s throat.

A good man.

The Winter Soldier seldom got oral approval from his handlers, and even when he did, it was for chaos and carnage disguised as HYDRA’s regurgitated “gift to mankind” bullshit. To James “Bucky” Barnes, praise was a concept he never considered, since he’d have to be deserving in order to get any. Goodness is reserved for people , and Bucky crossed the line of humanity a long time ago. He isn’t a person anymore–just a monster.

People who fall under the category of “good” are the ones like Steve. Like his sister Becca. And like Sam Wilson specifically, standing here next to him with the true mantle of Captain America; a man so much damn worthier of that title than Bucky is, and he thinks Bucky is good . The same guy who has killed more innocent people than he has fingers and toes. And that’s not counting the unnameable ones–the collateral damage–caught in the crossfire.

Just the thought of all he’s done makes Bucky want to fervently deny Sam; to prove him wrong; to show Sam his track record with big red letters at the bottom of the page emphasizing that Bucky isn’t good . In the memories of hundreds, maybe thousands of people, he’s the cruel, terrifying mercenary with a history uglier than most want to comprehend. If Sam saw all that Bucky had done, would he change his mind? Would Sam look at Bucky the way he looks at himself in the mirror?

Sam is saying something now–maybe his name. But Bucky can’t hear him. He doesn’t know when the tears began, so he quickly ducks his chin so Sam can’t see them streaming down his face. God, it’s so fucking cold. Sam lets out a soft hum–not sad, but caring–and Bucky knows he’s failed at hiding again. Sam’s hand brushes up his arm and around his shoulder, pulling him gently against Sam’s warm body. Eventually Bucky leans into it, shutting his eyes tight.

“Been a while,” Bucky mutters, almost a whisper; it might just be a vivid thought.

“Yeah, I know, Tin Man. I mean it, you’re a great guy. And before you start, I know you don’t believe me, but I’m gonna keep reminding you till you do.”

“Yeah,” Bucky sniffles, voice muffled as he buries his face into Sam’s shoulder. “Thank you, Sam.”  

The words, the touching–it’s all too good to be true. It has to be too good to be true, because if it’s real, then Bucky might just have a bit of hope left. And if he has hope, then he can’t jump into battle without care for his own life anymore. He’s going to have to exist correctly this time around. So if Sam means what he says, if he really thinks Bucky is a good person, then Bucky is going to live up to that image or die trying.  

Once they pull away, it’s felt like hours. The plane is still going steady through the early morning, the lights still that calming shade of blue, but something has shifted in the air, something neither Sam nor Bucky can seem to put their finger on. It’s a certain kind of rawness; an ache Bucky is thoroughly familiar with; a feeling that always comes with the moon and foolish amounts of trust. Bucky mumbles a flustered apology for the wet spot now stained into Sam’s sweater, but the guy just shakes his head and grins in a way that makes Bucky fall in love with him.

“Anytime.”

#sambucky #tfatws #sam wilson #bucky barnes #fanfiction #angst #hurt comfort #winter soldier #ptsd #ao3

[s-and-n-writes]

another long day

crimson and bluebell: part two

summary:

Marinette Rossi is tired of everything: from Lila’s constant berating and Madame Rossi’s preferential care of her ‘angel-like’ daughter, to how everyone at school (even Alya) seems to believe her evil stepsister over her.

It’s like she’s Cinderella, except without the fairy godmother and the happy ending. She doesn’t even have a prince.

Or so she thinks.

Between the appearance of a new boy who seems to have captured her heart, and a gala run by her fashion idol Gabriel Agreste, Marinette hopes for an escape the constant ignorance, workload, and bullying she endures, and get a blissful life of her own.

With the help of one tiny god and a meow-velous partner, she might finally get a chance, but not everything is that simple.

They say ladybugs are lucky, so will being the elusive Ladybug bring Marinette the luck she oh-so-desperately needs?

quick links:

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| miraculous masterlist | series masterlist |

a/n: so hi again, it’s me, n! im so so so sorry that i didn’t post for a long time, school caught up with me and everything’s getting v stressful these days. regardless, my new year’s resolution is to post more of these, and i’ll actively make an effort to do that hehe, in the meantime, enjoy!

also i’m appalled at the fact that this was 15 pages long and took more than a month to write how are you doing

Marinette had thought that the whole coffee spill, glass breaking fiasco would be relatively easy to clean.

She was wrong.

It takes her all of 10 minutes to clean up the glass, and another 20 minutes to try and clean up the coffee.

Key word: try.

Marinette ends up at school 30 minutes late, the coffee-stained carpet rolled off to the side at home, effectively ruined. She hasn’t even thought about the cracked glass table yet, which she hid by placing a tissue over top of it after Lila left.

Needless to say, all of this puts a little bit of a damper on her day.

As Marinette walks up the staircase of Francois Dupont, the school she goes to, she spots Alya Cesaire inside. Alya is Marinette’s closest friend, and despite having moved to Paris only a year ago, it feels like Marinette has known her for their entire lives.

“Girl, girl, girl…” Alya sighs as Marinette walks through the doors. It’s a free period, and students litter the area. Marinette spots Lila walking with one of her friends on the other side of the school, and luckily, Lila doesn’t see her.

There’s one good thing about school that Marinette adores: she doesn’t have to see Lila. Lila’s always had Madame Mendeleev for homeroom, and Marinette’s had Madame Bustier. Because of this, their schedules never interact, which allows Marinette to avoid Lila for the duration of the school day.

“I’m so sorry!” Marinette pleads, running up to Alya and shrugging her backpack off her shoulder. “There was a coffee spill, and glass broke, and-OH GOD I MISSED THE MATH TEST!!!”

“Marinette, chill,” Alya laughs. “The math test got rescheduled, but Ms.Bustier is pretty mad about you being late,”

Marinette sighs. “That’s a relief,”

“But you still missed a lot of news~,” Alya says, singing the last word.

Alya aspires to be a journalist, so on the occasions that Marinette wasn’t late, Alya would give her anything and everything interesting she’d dug up that week.

"I know, I know," Marinette sighs, fingers loosely picking at her shirt again. The seams stay intact, but Marinette's mind doesn't. The coffee spill and the glass breaking is constantly on her mind; she's not sure what to do. 

"Nice shirt, girl," Alya smiles, breaking Marinette away from her thoughts. Alya's good at that, and she notices when Marinette lets her mind wander, something that happens a little too often for her tastes. "Did you make it?" 

Marinette bursts into a grin. "Yes! I used that gorgeous thread that Sabine bought last week for my birthday, you know, the one I kept talking about, and it was absolutely amazing! I had to make this! What do you think? Do you like it?" 

The shirt is simple; a white base with flowers of varying sizes lining the edge. Marinette pairs it with her old, pink jeans (the fabric for the flowers on her shirt came from some leftover ones she had when making the jeans) and a dark-gray blazer that Lila used to own. 

"It's beautiful," Alya smiles, "But hey, I’m more excited for you-know-who’s reaction," 

Marinette rolls her eyes, hiding her face as an involuntary blush rises to her face. "Alya! You know I don't like him like that!," 

Alya grins. "Just teasing," 

“Well, anyways, tell me what I missed during lunch, I’m off to the classroom, before Ms. Bustier comes looking for me,” Marinette smiles, turning and running up the stairs. 

“Good luck, girl!” Alya says, waving goodbye and pulling out her phone. 

“Good luck, girl!” Alya says, waving goodbye and pulling out her phone.

The day passes quickly, and lunch comes sooner than Marinette expects.

She meets Alya outside of Francois Dupont, and they both head to Ville de Soirée, a cafe which isn’t nearly as expensive as the others in the area. They both order their usuals, and sit in one of the booths as they wait for their drinks.

Marinette sighs and leans back. “Ok, ok, tell me,”

Alya, who is most probably on the verge of exploding from her excitement, gears up. “Ok, so you know Nino, right?”

“You mean the boy you’ve been obsessing over since we met him?” Marinette teases. “Oh hey, I might have an inkling,”

Alya blushes, her cheeks tinting rouge. “Shut up,”

Marinette giggles. “Ok, go on,”

“Anyway, Nino texted me yesterday that his parents finally agreed, and he’ll be starting school starting Monday next week!”

“Ah! That’s so exciting! I’m so happy for you!” Marinette laughs. “Now you can actually make a move!”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, I’ll let you play matchmaker when the time comes,” Alya laughs, “there’s also something else, and this one I know you’ll be even happier about,”

The barista interrupts Alya, placing two steaming drinks in front of them. They both reach for their drinks, with Marinette holding the cup in her hand and Alya taking a sip. She grins.

“Nino’s friend, you know, Adrien Agreste, is also coming too,”

She pulls back, looking smug as she tries to read Marinette’s face.

The girl in question sighs, shaking her head. “Who even is Adrien, and why does everyone keep mentioning him to me?”

Alya facepalms, groaning.

“Girl, sometimes I swear you live under a rock,” Alya sighs, shaking her head. “How do you not know who Adrien Agreste is? His ads are literally everywhere!”

Marinette pouts. “Well maybe I just haven’t seen him,”

Alya rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Ohh no, there’s no way you’ve missed him ,”

She pulls up her phone and momentarily scrolls as Marinette waits.

“Here,” she says, “That’s him,”

The photo on Alya’s screen is from last February, Marinette recognizes. She remembers how Lila bought a copy of the magazine it came in, although she wasn’t allowed to see it.

But the boy is familiar. His face is similar to someone’s, but Marinette can’t pinpoint who it—

Oh.

Oh.

He’s Gabriel Agreste’s son.

Marinette leans back.

“That’s Monsieur Agreste’s son! I should’ve known, how could I have missed it when Madame Rossi told us about him?”

Alya squints her eyes. “Wait what?”

“There’s a fashion show that Adrien’s dad is hosting, and the embassy’s holding a huge event to greet all the fashion officials that are coming. Madame Rossi got us all passes to go,” Marinette says.

“That’s the one my mom’s cooking for! It’s next weekend right? She would not stop talking about it all weekend. I can try and score a pass, to you know, keep you company?”

Marinette gasps suddenly, burying her face in her hands, “Ah! I forgot! I won’t be able to go, since Li— I mean I, spilled coffee all over our new carpet,”

Alya raises an eyebrow.

“Fine, fine, I cracked some glass too,” Marinette sighs, face growing redder. “Madame Rossi’s gonna ground me for sure!”

Alya shakes her head. “Somehow I can believe it. You are the clumsiest person I know,”

She nods thoughtfully, fingers closing around the fox necklace on her neck. “Well I can’t deal with the whole glass situation, but maybe I can help with the coffee stuff? Happens to my mom all the time,”

Marinette perks up. “Really? Would you? Oh thank you Alya!”

Alya laughs. “No problem girl, I’ll come by after your shift at the bakery,”

Marinette pauses. After work would be...when Lila comes home.

Alya has always been a fan of Lila, but despite knowing Marinette, she’s only admired Marinette’s less-than-wonderful sister from afar. This means that so far, Marinette has managed to keep Alya and Lila separate.

Does she really want to risk that?

Weighing in the situation, she sighs. Would she rather have a shot at attending a potentially life-changing event, or safely escape Alya meeting Lila?

Knowing the both of them, Marinette remembers, they’d be a deadly combo.

But Marinette really wants to go to the event so, maybe this time, she might just give in.

“Great!” Marinette says, happiness laced with fear. “That’s...great!

Alya nods, smiling, watching as Marinette giggles.

“Now about setting you up with Nino…”

Alya turns away, blushing, “Marinette!”

Today

Lie-la 😒: sup loser

Lie-la 😒: im going to the mall with my friends after school

Lie-la 😒: if my mom comes in early

Lie-la 😒: you know what to say

Lie-la 😒: type, maribrat. use those lousy fingers.

You: yea, sure lila.

Lie-la 😒: good.

Marinette sighs and pockets her phone. For today, she is safe.

And that’s all she has ever wanted.

Marinette’s day ends with her feeling happier than when it began. Alya’s coming over to wash out the coffee stain, Lila won’t be there when she gets home, and she’s heading to her shift at the bakery!

It’s normal for work to not be exciting to most people, but for Marinette, it always is. Heading to the Dupain-Cheng bakery is always the highlight of her day, and working there is even better. The owners, Sabine and Tom, are like the parents she never had, what with them spoiling her with all the food they give and teaching her how to bake. Customers even tell Marinette all the time that she looks strikingly similar to Sabine, but she doesn’t see it.

In truth, she’s only ever even thought about becoming a designer because of the Dupain-Chengs, and if it weren’t for their motivation, she’s sure that she would be in a much different place right now.

But that’s not what Marinette worries about right now. Despite school ending early and the bakery being right across the street from where she is, she still manages to be late.

She exchanges a quick goodbye with Alya, who chuckles at her frazzled state, and dashes off towards work.

“I’m here!” she shouts, running into the bakery, the familiar jingle of the store’s door’s bell ringing in her ears. “Sorry!

Sabine laughs as she hands a box of pastries to a customer, waving as they leave. “Just on time. Hello Marinette,”  

Marinette winces as Sabine holds out her apron. “Sorry again, Sabine!”

Tom laughs from the kitchen behind the store, the sound booming through the bakery. “Marinette!”

“Tom!” Marinette says back, her lips curving into a smile.

Sabine eyes Marinette as she ties the apron behind her, quickly joining the older woman behind the counter.

“So?” she asks. “What’s new with you?”

Marinette sighs. “Not much, not much...oh! Madame Rossi has an embassy gathering to welcome a couple of famous people into France. And not just any people, people who work in the fashion industry!”

Sabine nods, smiling at Marinette’s delight. “And why exactly are these people coming?”

“It’s for the Gabriel event. I don’t know when it is, but apparently Gabriel Agreste is holding a huge gala, something about searching for a fashion assistant?,”

Sabine perks up at fashion assistant. “Marinette, you should enter!”

Marinette gasps. “I couldn’t! There’s no way! I mean, my designs are barely adequate, let alone Agreste worthy!”

Sabine shakes her head. “Everyone knows that isn’t true. Don’t put yourself down like that!”

Marinette blushes. “Thanks Sabine,”

The woman smiles. “Well, anyways, are you allowed to go to the embassy event? It’s a great opportunity, you wouldn’t want to miss it,”

“I mean, Madame Rossi did invite me and Lila, but Lila spilled a bunch of coffee on the carpet, and cracked the dining table this morning. It’s all a stunt, she did it on purpose. She’s blaming it on me, which means I’ll get grounded, and I won’t be able to go, and you know there’s nothing I can do about that,”

Sabine sighs, placing a hand on Marinette’s shoulder. “Oh dear. The next time I see Lila, I’ll tell Tom to get that girl and her mother arrested!”

Marinette laughs. “As much as I’d like that, where would I live?”

The rumble of the oven from behind the store dies down, and Tom walks into the main room. The room seems friendlier all at once, his large personality filling the space.

“Here, with us,” he declares proudly. “You’re like a daughter already,”

Marinette giggles, her cheeks growing red. “Alright guys, we’ll see,”

Sabine and Tom laugh as Marinette runs away to help a customer. Their afternoons with Marinette pass by quickly, and while they wish it was longer, you know what they say: time flies when you're having fun.

By the time Marinette gets off her shift, it’s 5:30 in the evening. Paris’s sky starts to fade from its normal cotton-candy blue to a marmalade orange. The hustle and bustle of the busy streets start to die down, and once she texts her address to Alya, Marinette makes her way to the bus stop.

While her time in the bakery is her favorite time of day, her time on the bus doesn’t prove to be too bad either. She likes the quiet silence, and enjoys her time away from the world around her.

The bus is probably her favorite mode of transportation (but her only one as well). When she volunteered to work at the bakery after school, Madame Rossi decided that ‘the streets were too dark at night for Marinette to walk alone’, and she was given a bus pass.

It was a small and random act of kindness that Marinette wouldn’t ever get again. It was also the only gift she ever got from her adopted mother, and despite not being too fond of Madame Rossi, she did treasure the gift.

Madame Rossi paid for her bus rides until Marinette was actually hired at the bakery. It was then that she decided to have Marinette pay her own bills, an action that most certainly helped Marinette for the future.

The sound of tires skidding against the pathway jolts Marinette out of her thoughts. She turns to see her normal bus waiting in front of her, and grabbing her bus pas, waits in line behind a couple others to get on.

That is, until she sees what’s about to happen.

Marinette watches as a man across the street tries to cross. He’s old, as his grayed hair and aged face tells, but his most identifiable quality is the red Hawaiian shirt he wears, embossed with a white hibiscus floral pattern.

Besides that, there’s also a car coming straight for him, and though it’s a little while away, there’s no doubt that he’ll get hit.

Marinette does the only thing she can think of. She runs.

The street is narrow, and Marinette manages to pull the man across the pathway before the car comes. She huffs, turning to the man to smile.

He has an odd look in his eyes, lips curved into a mysterious smile as Marinette quirks her eyebrow.

“Thank you, young lady,” he nods.

“You’re welcome!” she smiles, turning to look at the bus, which has started leaving. “Goodbye and stay safe, sir!”

The old man watches as Marinette just manages to catch the bus, stopping it and shouldering her backpack as she climbs on.

Marinette seats herself as the bus starts once more, and turns to her window to look for the old man.

But by the time she does, he’s gone.

Alya gets to Marinette's house at just the right time. When she reaches, Marinette has done a couple of her chores, cleaned up the living room, and put out the carpet in the first floor bathroom. Against the white rug, the coffee stain is obvious, and Marinette sighs as she inspects it.

How were they ever going to get it out?

There’s a knock at the front door, and Marinette knows it’s Alya. Smiling, the girl heads to the living room to open it.

Alya gasps as she sees the house. From the marble kitchen to the hickory-brown wood flooring, everything is pristine and clean, as if the Rossis live in a mansion.

(They don’t, but the house is still fairly big. Marinette sometimes has to clean it all as part of her chores, but luckily that hasn’t happened in a while.)

“Dang girl,” Alya sighs, “you rich or what?”

Marinette nervously laughs, cracking her knuckles. “Uh, I don’t know,”

“I’m joking,” Alya smiles. “But, random thing, where’s Lila?”

“She’s out. Doctor’s appointment for her, um, wrist,”

“Aw, that’s too bad. Tell her I said get better soon!”

Marinette sighs. She doesn’t like lying, but it’s far better than what would happen if she told the truth.

“Yea. Anyway, how are you getting the stain out? I tried all morning, but it was stuck,”

“Just watch me, girl,” Alya smirks. “Before we start though, you already blotted the stain,right?”

Marinette furrows her eyebrows. “Blotted? What do you mean?”

Alya demonstrates with her hands. “Like, did you take a paper towel and try to get as much of the stain out as you could?”

Marinette nods. “Yeah, that’s why I was late this morning,”

Alya nods. “Ok, so now we just have to make the cleaner,”

Marinette raises an eyebrow. “Make? This is getting a little crazy,”

“It’s really not,” Alya laughs, “I’ve done this a thousand times before. My sisters knock over my dad’s coffee way too much,”

Marinette laughs. “Alright then, show me what to do,”

Alya makes her way to the kitchen, filing through multiple cabinets. “Where’s your dish soap?”

“Bottom-left drawer next to the sink,” Marinette points.

“And your white vinegar?”

“Fridge. Anything else you need?”

“Just water,” Alya replies. “Warm, that is. And two cups of it,”

Marinette nods. “Got it,”

Alya takes out a steel bowl from one of the cabinets. “And can I use this?”

Marinette nods again. “Go ahead,”

“Great,” Alya says, pouring a spoon of dish soap followed by a spoon of vinegar. She waits for Marinette to get the water before adding that in as well, and then mixing. “That should do,”

“Work your magic then,” Marinette laughs.

“Just watch and see girl, I totally will,”

Alya finds a cleaning rag from a drawer in the island, and she runs over to the carpet. “Grab yourself a rag, Marinette, and let’s get started!”

Marinette laughs, and runs over to help. The time passes quickly, and by the time the coffee stain is gone and the carpet is dry, two hours have gone by. Their hands are sore and their legs are tired, but both can say that they had fun.

In the midst of it, Marinette almost doesn’t notice when Lila texts her.

Today

— 2 New Messages —

Lie-La 😒: open the back door

Lie-la 😒: im right by my house

Almost.

“Alya!” Marinette gasps, both sitting on the couch after the carpet was rolled back underneath the dining table. “It’s so late, don’t you have to go at 7?”

Alya tilts her head, confused. “No?”

“Oh well then I must have said it,” Marinette laughs nervously. “Yes that’s right! I’ve got work, haha. Bye!”

Marinette practically pushes Alya to the front door, while Alya looks lost and puzzled.

“Didn’t you already have work?” Alya asks.

“Yep, but gotta save up for uni right? Haha. Haha,”

Alya nods, squinting her eyes as she walks out the door.

“Um, bye? See you at school, girl,” Alya nods, quietly laughing.

“Bye!” Marinette smiles. Once Alya is farther away and out of sight, Marinette runs to open the back door. She can faintly hear the sounds of Lila’s friend’s car pulling into the driveway, so she dashes back upstairs as fast as she can. The last thing she wants to do is talk to Lila, much less be alone in a room with her.

She hopes that Lila won’t try anything while she’s in her room.

Sighing, she smiles when she stops at the attic door, and heads inside.

Before Madame Rossi found her and decided to take her in (how she came to that conclusion, Marinette would never know), the attic was all set to be Lila’s playroom. The entire room was painted pink from head to toe (even the carpet was a light shade of pink). There was a wooden wardrobe for all of Lila’s toys, and a desk with markers, painting supplies, and coloring pencils galore.

But then Marinette came along.

For one reason or another, she was given the attic as her own room. Out went the ideas of toys and tents in the room, and in came Marinette.

Madame Rossi didn’t give her anything. From the age of 2 till the age of 4, she slept on the ground, the lack of a bed present to her each night.

Until Lila outgrew her bed of course, which was then given to Marinette.

It was simple. Since Marinette was smaller than Lila, and slower at growing, she was often given Lila’s old things. All the clothes that Lila didn’t want, Marinette had. From her bed to the old beanbag in her room (one of the only things Lila gave her as decoration) everything was a hand me down from Lila herself.

Marinette sighs, and then flops into the bed. She’s lucky that Lila doesn’t bother if Marinette doesn’t get on her nerves.

Hopefully, until she can get out of this place, she’ll manage without angering Lila too much.

Standing up, Marinette locks herself in the attic, a faint click of the door behind her, and gets out her phone. Opening up Spotify, she starts her playlist, and goes over to the desk.

For the next hour, she does homework and finishes a project, all while sketching out designs for new dresses.

And hey, if she’s lucky, she might just be able to make one for the gala.

Marinette shuffles through her desk drawers, pop music playing through her earbuds. It’s nearly 8 PM and she’s searching for the special gold thread she had bought a couple weeks ago. It cost nearly a month's pay, and she’s been saving it for a special occasion.

With the dress she was sketching, she wanted to know if it was now.

She’s still searching through the drawers on the left side of the desk when she finds a box.

One that she feels might not have been there before.

(Then again, she rarely looks through all her drawers, so there’s always a chance that it could’ve been.)

Marinette feels confused. The box is made of a dark brown wood, and shaped like an octagon. The top of the box is embossed with a red design. Glimmering red circles meet wavy, thin lines, but Marinette is preoccupied with figuring out what the box is for.

In the end, she decides to open it. There can’t be much inside, can there?

Turns out, Marinette is wrong.

The moment she opens it is a frightful one. In that second, there’s a bright flash of light. It swirls around her as Marinette gasps, dropping the box onto the carpet as two solid-black earrings fall out.

That’s not the amazing part of it all though. After a second, Marinette comes face to face with a spotted red creature.

Needless to say, she screams.

“Hi Marinette!” the spotted creature says. “My name is Tikki! It’s nice to meet you!”

“Mouse!” Marinette hollers, “Bug! Bug-mouse! Talking bug mouse!”

Marinette scooches back, her hand grabbing books and papers off her desk as she throws them at Tikki.

“I’m here to help!” Tikki says, dodging the objects. “I’m here to help you!”

“Liar!” Marinette calls, searching for more things to throw. “This must be Lila’s version of a joke ! I can’t believe her!”

She takes her water-bottle from her backpack, and quickly moves to trap Tikki in it.

“It’s ok Marinette, I won’t hurt you,” Tikki smiles. “But if this makes you feel better, then this is ok!”

There’s a pause, and then Marinette sighs and chooses not to answer, leaning back, and quickly grabbing her school tablet off her desk. She points it at Tikki, trying her best to look intimidating.

“Who are you?” Marinette asks, “and what do you want?”

“Like I said, my name’s Tikki! I’m a kwami!” the tiny bug says, (still trapped in the bottle but floating in midair, Marinette notes) “And I want to help you!”

Marinette sighs, lowering her weapon tablet. “Did Lila send you somehow?”

Tikki furrows her forehead in place of her eyebrows. “No? Who’s Lila?”

Marinette bitterly chuckles, standing and throwing her arms into the air. “This. This. This is why you can’t help me. No one can. Anyone who meets Lila thinks she’s an ‘absolute angel’, and no one else knows her. How is someone supposed to help me if no one knows that my problem exists?!”

“Marinette,” Tikki sighs, “I promise you, I can help, if you’ll listen to me. Please let me explain, and then you can decide if you want to trust me or not, ok?”

Marinette pauses, considering the situation, and sits a fair distance away from Tikki, keeping her tablet in her hands.

“Ok,” she responds, facing the little bug. “But you have 5 minutes,”

Tikki smiles again. "And that's all I need,"

quick links: < previous chapter | first chapter | next chapter >

a/n: i resolve to post the next chapter soon lmaoo, thanks for reading! have an absolutely amazing day, you deserve it! 

taglist:

i’ll be tagging the people that i had tagged before, along with a couple others who liked the previous chapter for this series. if you don’t want to get tagged, i’m very sorry! just shoot me a private message, and i’ll take you off the tags. if you do want to get tagged, just tell me with a private message or an ask and i’ll add you to the taglist. thank you!

@reddragonofemeraldflame  @nomiegnome  @18markers @katbab @emmathedestroyer @bluesesameseed @cyborgcandy @karukofox21 @aestheticnpoetic c @magnificentcrapposts @miraculouslylee @lonestarfangirl2014 @lambdaarietis @miraculous-twilight @miraculous-twilight @silver-twilight @emmarosemary11​ @whiterosequeen23 @whatschooldoesntteachyou @shaykaleen @itswelphereiamuniverse​ @seraphichana​ @ladynoirotphell​ @tinynuggetofterror​ @tinkabella256​ @coopermaggie​

#ml #mlb #fanfic #marinette-dupain cheng #miraculous ladybug #miraculous #adrien agreste #adrienette #adrinette #nino lahiffe #alya cesaire #lila rossi #lila rossi bashing #lila #lila exposed #lila rossi tag #marinette tag #crimson and bluebell

[amor-immortalem]

My Adoring Fan Chapter 6

Chapter 5

Before he knew it, a week had passed. It was the start of a new school term. As Aurelius rolled out of bed, he shut off the alarm so it wouldn’t go off at its normal time. He didn’t sleep well the night before, not because he was excited to return to his studies but more like he was debating if he should really betray his parents’ trust when it came to meeting with this girl who’d sent him the letter. If he was being honest, the half demon was hoping that the letter was forged.

Ever since he’d met her that night, Aurelius often found his thoughts wandering back to her. He wasn’t lying when he told his sister that he thought she was pretty. No one had ever had this effect on the sixteen-year-old before so why was she so different?

“I don’t have time to think on this any longer.” He sighed. “Maybe some tea will take my mind off things?” The half-demon makes his way out to the kitchen and is only slightly surprised to see his mother in the kitchen already making herself some tea. He doesn’t know why, but he still figured she’d be asleep at four a.m. like a normal person.

“Aurelius, good morning. Why’re you up so early?” Arella asks as she sets the kettle on the stove. “You should go back to sleep for a bit.”

“No, I’m good, Mum. I can’t really sleep all that well anyway. Can I have some tea?”

“Sure. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Yeah, I guess that couldn’t hurt...” He lays his arms on the counter as he’s leaning against it, chin resting on top of his arms. “Or maybe this is something I should talk to Dad about? I don’t know...”

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was one of those things...”

“No, no, no,” He waves his hands about as a blush covers his cheeks, reaching down to his neck and up to his ears, “It’s not about that kind of thing. More like... relationship advice? Girls in general? I don’t know.” Arella only laughed softly as her son let out a groan. “Please don’t laugh, Mum.”

“I’m sorry, Sweetheart.” Arella sighed as she pulled the kettle off the stove and got two cups down for them, “I wasn’t laughing at you, more like the misunderstanding. If you feel more comfortable talking to Dad about this then that’s fine, but you know you can talk to me about relationships or girls too as well, right? I’ve had more than my fair share of relationships with women as well so I think I can provide some helpful insight too.”

“Yeah... It’s about that girl I met the other day. You know, the one who I can’t be sure sent me that letter?”

“Yes. She hasn’t tried to contact you again, has she?”

“No, but it’s just.... I can’t stop thinking about that little bit of time we interacted. I’ve never really given much thought to anyone I’ve ever met before but she still sticks in my mind for some reason. Is there something wrong with me?”

“No, not at all. It’s perfectly normal to have someone on your mind at this age.”

“So... there was something wrong with me before then?”

“No, that’s not true either. You’re perfectly normal, Son. Some people just aren’t interested in things like that and that’s okay too. What worries me is who this girl is. You don’t know all that much about her and the fact that she may have sent you that letter doesn’t bode very well. It makes me worried for you.”

“If we have classes together at RAD, I’ll have to talk to her since she’ll likely take a seat next to me at some point and I have a reputation to uphold- well more like I don’t want to be rude. And I kind of want to talk to her too. If she was a fan, she pretended not to be and it makes me wonder if she was being considerate since I nearly trampled her trying to get away from ‘Zalea. She was... normal. I’ve never gotten that from someone outside of our family.”

“Well,” Arella slid the teacup toward Aurelius. “I can’t stop you from talking to this girl. You seem rather dead set on it too. But please, for the love of your grandfather, don’t go off with her alone.

“’for the love of my grandfather,’ why do you guys always say that? It’s not just you and dad but my uncles too. What’s with that? I’ve always thought it was a weird saying. And Max says something similar. Are they related?”

“Yeah, they are. You see, your Father and Uncles- save for Uncle Satan- were once angels a long, long time ago. All angels are “created” by God so technically he would be considered your grandfather as everyone in our family still refers to him as ‘Father’.”

Aurelius nods, “Oh, Alright. I always just thought Dad had always been a demon... but wait don’t you have distant heritage from the Celestial Realm too? That’s where you and I get our magic from, right?”

“It’s… messy. Technically, the angel I’m descended from was reincarnated into a human and Angels aren’t actually related by blood to begin with in the way you’re related to your siblings so really, it was anything goes when it came to me- genetically speaking that is.” Arella was skirting around her connection to Lilith as much as she could as they hadn’t yet told any of the kids in the family about this kind of thing. “I really wouldn’t think too hard on it if I were you. It’ll give you a headache.” The boy only nodded as he sipped on his tea. He had never seen his mother trying so hard to skirt around something she didn’t want him to know. “Anywho, are you hungry? I can start on breakfast.

“Yeah, thanks. I can help if you want.”

“Thank you, that sounds lovely.”

“Also... Can I have that letter back...”

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

Getting up and dressed for school was difficult for Persephone. Ever since she’d overheard her dormmates snickering about the letter they’d forged and sent to Aurelius, she’d been dreading the idea of seeing him at school. She wanted to get to know him but now he was probably going to avoid her at all costs. As she looked herself over in the mirror, she hoped he hadn’t put two and two together yet or that the impression she made on him that day would be enough to tip him off that something was wrong.

Instead of having breakfast with her dormmates, the succubus just headed out for school. She was too nervous to actually keep anything down. She kept looking around, Persephone was hoping to spot the object of her affections. And then she saw them, the three girls that he lived with at the House of Lamentation: his sister, cousin, and a sorcerer-in-training that had come to stay with them. But Aurelius was nowhere to be seen.

Persephone moved to trail just behind them, just far enough away to not look like she was eavesdropping but close enough to be able to hear their conversation.

“A new term, a new start!” Zulima smiles as she stretches. “It sucks that I’m grounded. What I wouldn’t kill to go out shopping after school for skin care products. There’s a new line I’ve been interested in trying that comes out today.”

“Hey, that’s all on you, Missy!” Azalea grumbled. “And what’s worse ya got my brother booted out of the dorm and grounded too for doin’ your dirty work.”

Zulima squawked at that as she threw her arms around her cousin. “That wasn’t my intention though! I said I was sowwy.”

“Hey, hey, hey none of that cutesy shit, got it? Cut it out.”

Zulima pouted at that as Max laughed softly.

“Come on, Zulima, you have to admit that you were in the wrong even though it all panned out in the end.” The human smiles.

“MAX!”

“Huh? Oh shit- Sorry, Sunshine, it slipped.”

“Wait... Wait did my plan actually work?” The silver-haired girl’s eyes lit up. “It did, didn’t it?! Stars, I have to tell Daddy.” The sixteen-year-old dashed off.

“Zulima stop! Don’t- aaaaand she’s gone...” The half-demon only sighs,” Damn, what are we gonna do with her...? You know we’ve just unleashed a monster, right? She’s gonna tell everyone.”

“Yeah, I mean we could just go public with it ourselves. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”

“Well, no, under normal circumstances it wouldn’t, but I still have enemies at school. Sure, it's no secret that you’re important ta me but if our classmates knew we were datin’, they’d go after you ta get ta me. I know you’ve been workin’ on improvin’ your magic and Solomon even gave ya that charm that’ll mostly protect ya from most attacks from demons but it still makes me nervous since I take advanced courses while the rest of y’all take regular classes and I can’t be with ya ‘cept for homeroom and lunch. I mean my family can know, that’s all well ‘n good. They all like ya anyway but the reason I didn’t want Zulima knowin’ is that when it comes to secrets, she’s got the loosest set of lips this side of the human world...”

“Aww thanks for being worried about me,” She slung an arm around Azalea as they walked.

The white and black-haired girl stiffened slightly. Even after a year, she still wasn’t really used to someone outside of the family showing her any kind of public displays of affection, platonic or otherwise.

“Sorry, are you uncomfortable?”

“N-no. I like it. Don’t stop. Anyway, love, we should go. Aurelius is waitin’ for us.” The half-demon’s voice was quiet as they kept going.

Watching from a safe distance, Persephone laughed softly. Azalea had a reputation for being an unapproachable tough girl so to see her being so soft with a human was interesting. She wondered if she could manage to get close to his older sister and her girlfriend, she might be able to get close to Aurelius. Was it wrong to use Azalea for her own purposes? Yes, and Persephone knew that but if the letter was still a factor, she had to prove that she didn't mean him any harm.

Hurrying to school, she thought of a way to introduce herself to the girls ahead of her. What she wasn’t expecting was to bump into Azalea and fall on her face.

“Hey, watch where yer goin’!” Azalea growled as she puffed out her chest, that tough girl front making its first appearance for the day. “Ya almost knocked me over.”

“Azalea, be nice. Are you okay, Miss?”

“Sorry, I thought I had more room. I didn’t mean to bump into you and yeah, I’m alright. Thanks for asking.”

“Whatever, just make sure it don’t happen again, got it?” Azalea's blue to gold gradient eyes studied her appearance. “You go to RAD? I ain’t never seen ya around before. You new here?”

“Ah, yes. I just transferred here. Today’s my first day.” Persephone smiled as she held out her hand.

Max reached out to shake her hand and Azalea thought about stopping her but that might not be a good idea. As she regarded Persephone, an eyebrow raised slowly, remembering what her brother told her about the girl he was unsure had sent that letter.

“What’s yer name, girly? I heard about a transfer student from my brother. That you?”

Persephone’s eyes widened. He talked about her? How does she answer? Does she tell the truth or does she lie? Ultimately, the succubus nodded deciding the truth was best.

“Stay away from my brother, got it? Yer gonna regret it if I find out about ya harassin’ him. He already gets enough of that and you don’t need to addin’ to that. He’s already thinkin’ about quittin’ the one thing he loves ‘cuz of crazy fans like you.”

Max could sense that Azalea was getting more and more worked up. Before the situation could get out of hand, she grabbed her girlfriend’s hand and drug her off so she didn’t do something she’d regret later.

Well that option was out. As they walked off, Azalea turned her head back toward Persephone with a warning glare. The former idol knew now she had to set things straight. She knew what it was like to have crazy fans too.

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

Homeroom was the first class of the day, having been dropped off by his mother, Aurelius was able to get prime seating at the back of the class where the teacher could hardly see him and therefore wouldn’t call on him if they thought he wasn’t paying attention. He pulled out that letter, waiting for Persephone to show up. They were all in the same year and there was only one homeroom teacher for their year so every student in their year- advance courses included- had the same homeroom hour.

The teen watches the door with baited breath.

“I hope this is the right room.” She mumbled. When her eyes met his she looked away. They were the only two in the class room.

“Hey again.” He smiled, using his charm to his advantage. “Come here, I’d like to speak with you.” She was a little hesitant to begin with but ultimately, she decided to sit with him. “So...” Aurelius slides the letter over to her. “I want you to tell me the truth. Did you actually lie to me when we met last week? Did you really know who I was all along and still chose to lie to me?”

Persephone stared at the letter with horror. “Y-Yeah. I just didn’t want you to feel bad about knocking over a fan of yours...”

“Thought so, well thanks for thinking of my feelings. That was considerate of you. And by the look on your face, I take it you recognize what on the table.”

“I didn’t send this letter. It was forged by a dormmate of mine.” The former idol panicked about losing her one chance at getting closer to him.

“Mhm... Well, I’d believe it. And I think I know who sent it. Would you like to read it and tell me if anything in it is actually true?”

“Your sister told me you’re getting harassed.... I’m sorry you have to go through that.” she said as she nodded.

“You’ve already run in to ‘Zalea, huh? She didn’t say anything or threaten you, did she?”

“She told me to stay away from you or I’d regret it. Should I move before she gets here?”

“No don’t. I called you over here because I wanted you to sit with me. You’re going to end up with a few of my self-proclaimed ‘super fans’ nipping at your heels though. Just ignore them, alright? And if my sister tries to start anything, let me handle her.”

“Okay, also... this letter is really creepy but a couple things are true... I do have all of your issues of DevilStyle Teen and I am a big fan. But I want to get to know you. I know there’s more to a person than what you see in a magazine. Would that be alright?”

He’s surprised at this, but it was a welcome surprise. “Yeah sure. I’m kind of grounded at the moment, but we can hang out here in the morning and talk. The teacher unlocks it at 6 a.m. so meet me then. After I’m out of punishment, we can hang out outside of school too. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in getting to know you as well. Also, stop trying to charm me. It’s not going to work. Like my mother, charms don’t work on me.”

The succubus blushed as she sputtered apologies and a deep embarrassed blush covered her cheeks. She hadn’t even realized she was using her powers on him- the same powers that skyrocketed her to fame as an idol.

He only chuckled at that. “If you really want to earn my affections, you’re going to have to put in the hard work.” He teased.

“G-Good to know.” She squeaked as other students began to enter and she and Aurelius began to chat casually.

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Sink Or Swim

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The following clip contains mentions of mental illness and suicide attempt (near the end — when Lucas starts talking about his mother). Feel free to skip that section and message me for a brief description.

~^~

Friday, 19:41

Songs: Haux - Something To Remember; SG Lewis - Warm

Jens’s hands shake as he unlocks the door, nudging it open quietly with Lucas close at his back. He steps into the dark hallway and flicks on the light, dropping his keys on the small table as Lucas shuts the door behind them. Jens wills himself to relax, reminds himself that they’re alone as he shrugs off his coat and hangs it on the hook and allows Lucas to do the same.

“What did you say your parents are doing?”

“They’re having a date night for their anniversary, booked a hotel room. Lotte’s staying at her friend’s house.”

Lucas hums, tugs Jens around to face him and slides his arms around his waist. “So we’re alone, and you can chill.”

Jens drops his head onto his shoulder and nods, pressing a kiss to the crook of Lucas’s neck. He reaches behind himself to take Lucas’s hands and then leads him into the house. Jens plans to take him on a short tour, but they get interrupted at the first stop. Ace slinks out through the doorway to the sitting room and immediately winds himself through Jens’s legs, gazing up at Lucas warily.

“You have a cat?” Lucas asks, grinning down at the furball.

“Yeah, and he can be kinda bitchy, so I’d hold off on becoming a fan.”

As Jens says it, Ace butts his head against Lucas’s leg. Lucas raises his brows, grinning widely as Ace wraps around his feet. He leans down to scratch behind the cat’s ears and earns himself a purr as Ace rubs his head against his palm.

Jens watches the interaction with a glowing heart. It had been a spur of the moment decision, when Jens had asked him to come over. He hadn’t allowed himself to overthink, but had just jumped at the opportunity. He can’t remember the last time he has had the house to himself, but it certainly wasn’t within the space of time in which he’s known Lucas. Jens had only managed to spend the two nights so far with Lucas due to pure luck. Lucas had snuck him in the first time, and then his father had been working an evening and morning shift the second. They have never got to spend a full night truly alone, just to themselves, and that’s what Jens wants. His body thrums with the need for it even now, having ratcheted up a few notches since last Friday.

It’s almost unbearable, how much he just wants Lucas’s hands on him. It’s definitely embarrassing.

He may also be hoping to coax Lucas into opening up a little. Lucas has been a little quiet the past few days, thoughtful. He keeps turning to Jens as if he wants to say something and then stopping with a smile, offering him a kiss instead. Jens doesn’t mind the added affection in the slightest, even while being teased by his friends, even while wondering why it doesn’t freak him out. Lucas touches him and everything else seems to go still. That doesn’t worry him.

But there are other questions that still cause him concern, and he’s waiting and waiting for Lucas to provide the answers. He’s desperately reminding himself to be patient, to be trusting, but it’s difficult. It’s harder when he fears the faith isn’t being returned.

It’s familiar.

“You were so cute,” Lucas marvels, snapping Jens out of his daze. He’d wandered into the sitting room on his own and now stands admiring the photo frames on the mantle. His mouth stretches into a grin, taking in various images of Jens at different ages, none of them all that flattering.

“Come on, I didn’t bring you here so you could tease me,” Jens protests.

Lucas turns to him and raises a brow, smirking. “I thought that’s exactly why you brought me here.”

Jens flushes, but doesn’t deny it.

Lucas walks back to him, laughing quietly. “I’m not teasing, though. I mean it. You’re adorable.” He presses up onto his toes and kisses Jens’s nose.

Jens resists the urge to roll his eyes at him or drag him into a proper kiss and leads him to the kitchen instead. Lucas traipses after him leisurely, taking everything in, trailing his fingers along the wall. Jens opens the fridge. “Do you want anything else to eat? Or drink?”

“Uhm, just water, maybe?”

Jens pours him a glass of water and hands it over, filling one for himself and leaning back against the counter before taking a sip. He considers Lucas for a moment and then holds up a finger before slipping out to the back door. He cracks it open and immediately catches sight of Nugget on the step, waiting patiently.

Jens huffs and steps back, opening the door wider and allowing him to scuttle in and run straight to the kitchen. Jens returns just in time to see Lucas drop into a crouch, face lighting up with excitement as Nugget barges right into his hands, tongue hanging and tail wagging as Lucas sets his hands in his fur.

“Hi,” Lucas coos, voice taking on the tone Jens has only ever heard people use with babies. “You’re so cute. What’s your name? Huh?”

Jens bites his lip as he makes his way over to him, shaking his head at the display. By now Nugget is scrabbling at Lucas’s hoodie, having raised onto his back paws to get closer. “This is Nugget,” Jens introduces. “Nugget, this is Lucas. I was gonna warn you not to be jealous that I might like him more, but obviously he’s not gonna let that be a problem.”

Lucas grins up at him, entirely amused by his sigh and his pout. “You’re still my favourite,” he soothes. “Even more so now that I’ve met your dog.”

Jens laughs, but he is soothed. He relaxes even further as Lucas raises back to full height and draws him into a kiss. They enjoy the few seconds before Nugget barks, and then Jens is huffing and pulling away, looking down at him with a scowl. “Why did I let you in?”

Lucas smacks the back of his head for the comment, but kisses him again immediately after his whine of pain. Jens goes about getting Nugget his food and water as Lucas sits down on the floor and plays with him, looking entirely at home in Jens’s kitchen. It has an effect Jens can’t quite describe beyond the race of his heart and the flutter in his stomach. They spend a little while in this space, talking quietly about nothing. They discuss their studying, exams, assignments, for a few minutes before shutting it down in the agreement to take the night off. Nugget comes to settle himself in Lucas’s lap after filling his stomach, having already taken ownership of the boy. Jens might actually be a little annoyed if he didn’t feel so fond.

After a while, he lets Nugget back out into the garden and takes Lucas upstairs.

He has a brief moment of panic in which he wonders over the state of his room, not entirely comforted by the reminder that he has seen Lucas’s space in utter disarray multiple times. He’s glad when he opens the door and can’t inmediately see a mess or any laundry lying around. He turns to look at Lucas hesitantly, biting his lip as he watches the boy look around, taking in the space with delicate attention.

He moves around, examining the books on Jens’s shelves, his small collection of old CDs. He roves his eyes over the walls, where football posters are still tacked up alongside some of his drawings. Lucas zones in on these, lips twitching up at the corners as he gets closer.

“I didn’t know you drew.”

Jens shrugs. “I don’t, really. At least not like you. Not seriously. Just those kind of doodles.”

Lucas smiles fully, nodding. “They’re cool. Maybe you have a knack for art after all and aren’t just a secret makeup nerd.”

“Oh, Robbe already sent me some of the edited version of that. Do you want to see?”

“Really, already? That was quick.”

“It’s Robbe,” Jens laughs. “He’s always working.”

Lucas nods and Jens nods back, crawling onto his bed and patting the space beside him as he takes out his phone. Lucas settles down against his side, making himself comfortable on Jens’s shoulder the second he’s given permission. Jens pulls up the video and hits play. He relaxes into his pillows, focused more on Lucas pressed against him than the video. Lucas’s quiet laughter is enough of an indicator, and Jens only looks at the phone when he groans, covering his face with a hand.

“I can’t believe I let you rope me into this. Kes and Jayden are gonna see this and they’ll never let me forget about it.”

Jens huffs, pressing a kiss to the top of his head as he watches the footage. It’s one of the close-ups of Lucas, showing off the smoky eye Jens had managed to give him as he looks up at the camera, shaking his head before Jens stills him, laughing. “You look really pretty, though. I mean it,” Jens adds, before Lucas can roll his eyes or laugh it off.

The boy blushes instead, glancing up at him under his lashes, smiling widely. “You think so?”

Jens hums, tilting his head down to kiss him, relaxing further. “You always do, though. My handiwork just helped a little.”

“Oh, is that it?” Lucas laughs, leading Jens to hum again. “Okay, I see.”

Jens goes in for another kiss, but something has distracted Lucas. He leans up and away from Jens as he looks at his shelves again. “Is that a keyboard?”

Jens follows his line of sight before nodding.

“Moyo said you were more of a musician. Why have I never heard you play?”

It’s a simple enough question, and yet it makes Jens nervous. “I don’t know, I don’t really do it as much anymore.”

Lucas looks at him, soft and curious. “Would you play something for me anyway?”

Jens only hesitates for a moment before getting to his feet and fetching the instrument. He settles on the bottom of the bed, facing Lucas, who had leaned back to lie against the headboard as he watches him. Jens balances the keyboard on his lap and takes a moment to turn it on and adjust the volume, pressing a few keys to test it out and give him time to think of a song.

Eventually he settles on a score he’d learned recently, devoid of lyrics and focusing entirely on the notes. It starts off slow and allows him to get into a rhythm, fingers shaking, fluttering through the first few sections before gaining a little confidence as the rhythm becomes familiar.

It’s nerve-wracking, being able to feel Lucas’s eyes on him. Having anyone’s eyes on him. But he focuses on the music, and doesn’t falter.

He floats his hands naturally over the keys, having settled entirely by the time the rhythm picks up. It’s still not the hardest speed, and has a few repetitions, and it doesn’t take quite enough of his attention to make him forget about Lucas. He chances a glance at him when it slows down again, fingers lingering on the keys. Lucas is watching him with rapt attention, lips slightly parted, entirely focused. He looks much too enticing to just be lying here, in Jens’s bed, watching him, not doing anything to distract or attract attention and managing it anyway. Jens quickly averts his gaze down again and falls back into the quicker notes.

By the time he reaches the high section, his heart is at ease. It flows out of him in the stillness of the room, his pulse matching the ebb and flow of the music as it tapers out. It fills him with a light only music can, a familiarity now long ingrained in him. It’s in his nature, to pour himself out through his hands into the keys.

He holds the last note for an extra second, then looks up at Lucas. The boy is already watching him with a smile, eyes alight with that familiar wonder and misty with something Jens can’t identify. He crawls down the bed towards Jens and draws him into a kiss, deep and slow, careful of the keyboard in Jens’s lap as he tangles a hand in his hair. Jens kisses back reflexively, heart thudding.

“You’re amazing,” Lucas murmurs, after a few minutes that may just be seconds, expression still achingly soft.

Jens shakes his head, incidentally brushing their noses together. “It’s nothing special.”

“It is,” Lucas argues. “You are.”

Jens shuts his eyes and presses closer to him, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat. They remain there for a moment before Lucas quietly says, “I want to talk to you, if that’s okay.”

It’s exactly what Jens had been hoping for, but it surprises him. His chest feels tight as he sets the keyboard aside and devotes his full attention to the other boy, who now avoids his gaze, nervously playing with his hands.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Jens reminds him. “But I’m listening. Nothing’s gonna scare me away.”

Lucas nods slightly, licking his lips. He lets out a shaky breath before straightening his shoulders and looking at Jens, resolute. “I know you don’t really understand why I stayed in Utrecht, or why I felt like it was my fault when my mom…” he trails off. Takes another breath. Starts again. “I didn’t tell you, but I fucked up before. After my dad left, everything was a little shitty. I couldn’t do it on my own, couldn’t even understand how to begin. I just needed to get away from it. I spent as much time as I could out of the house. With Kes and Jayden, at their houses or at parties, drinking and smoking. It wasn’t a big deal then, because it’s what we were all doing. I wasn’t just some rebellious, angry kid or something.”

He seems to falter, so Jens nods. Reminding him that he’s listening and also attempting to encourage him on. Jens presses closer, letting their knees bump before he takes Lucas’s hands in his own, rubbing his thumbs over the backs soothingly.

“I didn’t even think about how I was barely seeing her. I was always home late and she was always asleep early. Everything was fine, so I could keep ignoring it. I got home one night as usual and didn’t pay attention to the fact that the door was locked, or that it was unusually quiet. I was shitfaced, so I just went straight to bed. Imagine the fucking shock I had when my dad woke me up shouting the next morning.”

Lucas huffs, self-deprecating, and Jens resist the urge to pull him into his arms. Not yet.

“She was in the hospital,” he says quietly. “She’d downed half a bottle of pills and the neighbours found her. They’d had to call an ambulance. My dad was still her emergency contact. And I had no fucking idea about any of it.”

He looks up, eyes watery, and Jens pulls him in and holds onto him tightly. Lucas folds against his chest, tucking his head easily under his chin as he clings to Jens’s red hoodie. Jens strokes a hand down his face and presses a kiss to the top of his head, breaking down what he’d been told and trying to figure out how he’s supposed to respond.

“Fuck,” is what he eventually settles on. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Luc.”

Lucas shakes his head, gripping him tighter. “If I’d just been there, it wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t even know she wasn’t doing well. She was supposed to have someone who could watch out for the signs. She was supposed to be safe with me.”

Jens shakes his head, squeezing him, trying to convey comfort and reprimand all at once. “That’s not fair. None of that is on you. You don’t even know that you could have stopped it.”

“But I could have tried. I could have gotten to her sooner. I could have done something.”

It’s so adamant that Jens doesn’t feel like he can argue. He tries to put logic to it, but it doesn’t feel like something that can be broken down in such a way. He doesn’t think that’s what Lucas wants. He isn’t looking for pity or for Jens to excuse him.

Instead, Jens says, “I understand, Luc.”

Lucas presses closer to his chest, but finally glances up at him. Jens notes that though it had seemed like he would, Lucas hasn’t shed a tear.

Jens strokes his fingers down his cheek and presses a kiss to his forehead, watches him shut his eyes. “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.”

Lucas nods, swallowing slightly, tilting his head against Jens’s cheek. “I just—it was too hard to explain right away. It isn’t something I talk about often. I mean, it’s been over a year since it happened and she’s past it, but I’m not. It’s dumb. Getting rid of the guilt...it’s something I’ve worked at and failed on for so long. Going back to her now, and messing up the same way just reminded me of what happened then and I couldn’t let it happen again. I’ve tried so hard, Jens.”

Jens cups his neck and tilts his head back enough to press their foreheads together, sending only comfort now as he gives another nod. “I get it. I’m not mad, Luc. I never was.” He sighs, letting his own eyes close as he attempts to gather his thoughts. “It just scared me. I know that I fuck up easily. I say or do stupid things and I don’t always pay enough attention. I’ve made it hard for people before. I was worried I’d done the same to you.”

Lucas shakes his head against his. “Hey,” he coaxes, touching Jens’s cheek. “I didn’t leave because you made it hard and I didn’t ignore you because I don’t trust you. I went home to tell my friends how much I care about you and I fucked up while I was there. I didn’t want to be the reason anyone got hurt, and I thought the best way to protect you was to let you go. But I fucked up and I’m so, so sorry Jens.”

“Don’t be,” Jens murmurs. “Just promise me you’ll stay.”

He has a feeling that they aren’t done. He’s aware that even if there is truly no more to het out of Lucas, Jens has his own demons lingering between them. But right now, Lucas is in front of him. He can’t bring himself to care about anything else.

“I’m staying,” Lucas swears instantly. “My life is easiest with you in it.”

“I know I’m shit at this, too,” Jens whispers. “At talking about things, and just being honest. I know I can make it hard to trust me. But it—it’s been hard for me to trust anyone, too.”

Lucas strokes his cheek, nodding, expression pinched.

“But I trust you,” Jens admits.

Lucas swallows. “Nothing is hard with you. You’re the only thing I’ve ever been sure of,” he replies.

Jens kisses him, hard and unrelenting, and Lucas gives as good as he gets as he slides his hands under Jens’s hoodie.

#van der stoffels #vds #wtfock #skam nl #sink or swim #vds season fic #sos clip