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#THIS is the damn post that vanished on me the other day! It suddenly popped back up as I was trying to retype it today
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As promised, an update now that both Bug and Bunny are safely back home from the vet. Turns out there's honestly not much to tell you. Bunny thankfully didn't end up having any more episodes or showing any worrying behaviours, and after checking everything over a second time, they're almost certain that the lizard or snake that she ate part of, was what caused the seizure in the first place. Something I honestly didn't know was possible, despite being aware that some reptiles are toxic for cats, but I guess you learn something new everyday.
Bug was his usual menace self while at the vet, and even attempted to make a move on an elderly cat that they were watching for the night, despite no longer possessing the necessary parts to actually do anything about his infatuation. Apparently she proceeded to give him a thorough enough verbal dressing down, with a few additional educational swats just for his sheer audacity, that he ended up sulking the rest of her stay. He went right back to being his usual dramatic yelling self soon after, and made sure to inform everyone of his ill fated would be romance on the train ride back home.
They've both since settled down for a well earned nap after the stress of the strip and the tiring ordeal of removing the scent of the vet from each other.
As an apology for my being such an insufferable stress head throughout this whole thing, please enjoy four straight minutes of the fluffballs noisily grooming each other after arriving home. Once again I apologise for the irritating screaming of my aircon, there's nothing I can do to fix it.
Enjoy 🖤
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catgirl13131 · 2 years
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So, I can't talk about this on other media because I'm not sure if all of the family knows and frankly, I don't want the usual "I'm so sorry" comments or inspirational quotes that I have to fake a thank you to. It's not that I don't appreciate the kindness and empathy, I do, I love that people care it's just that I don't feel thankful right now. My heart is broken and I'm confused, freaked out and not really grasping the fact that one of my friends killed themselves and it was discovered today. Nobody knows me here and nobody follows me so Im going to get this out, right here, right now. So sorry in advance to anyone who stumbles upon it. It's gonna be wordy. It doesn't really have a point except I need to set it down. It's too heavy
I keep thinking that it can't really be true, it's a mistake. I don't believe he would do that. I know he did, obviously, but still I cannot accept that he would do that. He loves his kids. He's adored by everyone. He's had a hard life and had been through some serious shit. Even prison. He's a survivor. A. Survivor. He worked 2 jobs. He did it because he had mouths to feed. He worked so damn hard. I have no idea how he got any sleep at all. He is so spiritual. Truly, someone strong in his Faith and beliefs. Life dealt him some bad hands but he was so faithful in a higher power, he just played those bad cards as best he could. He was pretty graceful about it. It was impressive and admirable. He loved people. I mean if you were in his circle, he loved you. He was protective and caring. And funny. And so very sweet. His soul is beautiful. He's never said a bitter word about life to me and he has reason to. He was a talented poet. He is my friend. Like, really, a friend. I adore him. I trust him. I count on him to be there. In the world. With me. Every day.
"Hello my love" was his daily greeting. It's always my first smile of my day. "Hi my sweet Ty Guy" my daily response. We called each other "My Buddy". He cannot be gone. We need him. A lot of us depend on him to just be in our lives because he's that important. Just be here. Alive. I want to know that he knew that. I cant stop hoping that he knew that. That he mattered. That he was important and loved. He just disappeared about 5 days ago. Didn't come to work, no contact with anyone. He posted about fixing dinner then he just vanished. He was responding on that post, then he just stopped. My last words to him were "Yum". I would have wanted them to be "Hey, love ya My Buddy" or even "Please dont fucking do that. Don't fucking leave us like that". He did leave us though. So "Yum" it is. I feel like if I was having this conversation with him, we would stupid laugh about that "Yum". We aren't going to stupid laugh anymore My Buddy. They found his body today. What the fuck happened? My mind keeps searching and searching. My first thought when my phone rang and a mutual friend told me was " No way, he wouldnt do that" then the horror of it washed over me and I actually felt chest pain as my heart broke. I cried. For the next 2 hours until I couldnt cry any more. Why couldn't he reach out like he's done before? He never worried about expressing his feelings. Happy, sad, mad, he said what he needed to say. He had lived that kind of life that made you understand that nobody could really stop you from doing just that and life is way too short to not be real. As I'm writing this, I'm not unaware of the irony and synchronicity of that. He understood consequences and owning it. He was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. Rare.
I'm just lost. My heart is completely shattered but it's aching so badly. It hurts me that he was in that much pain. That's the part that I can't get out of my head. I cried it out already but suddenly it just pops in my head, that he must have been in so much pain and my soul dies a little. I feel like I just better prepare for that to keep happening for quite some time. Again, that's why we are all so stunned. He wouldn't do that to his people. When he just vanished, everyone thought someone had done something to him or he was in trouble but not one person thought of this. He was sad about relationship stuff. He was down but not like that. A bad break up. Prison, the streets, that didn't break him but this did? I don't understand but then again I do because under that hard-core exterior, his heart was just too loving. I know I'll learn to accept this. Time gives you the tools to learn to live with pain. I know from experience. I'm just so fucking angry and hurt. I hurt for those of us left behind to grieve. Those little ones that need him. How will they ever understand why he's gone. I hurt for him because this shouldn't have been the only option that he could choose to find peace. I think that's why I feel angry. It didn't have to be that way. So, the world has an empty spot that will never be filled and the world is a lesser place without him.
Tomorrow, there will be no greeting from My Buddy and there will be no smile. I'm not ready for this My Ty Guy, I just can't. You would say "Naw. You're good. You got this" so for now, see ya tomorrow friend. Then You say " I'll be here" and I'll say "You know that's the only reason I keep coming back to this place. Miss you already!" I'll see that sunshine grin of yours. And it's still true. I miss you already.
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dreamingofaizawa · 3 years
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Potent
Alpha! Hanta Sero x Fem! Omega! Reader
***18+ Fic***
If you are under the age of 18 please vacate the premises.
Warnings: A/B/O, smut, knotting, marking, breeding kink (sorta? idk it comes with the A/B/O territory), a hint of pregnancy kink, a bit of blood
Word Count: 3.6 k
Author's Note: Ohhhhkaayyy so this has been sitting in my google doc for AGES. I think I started this in...October of last year? It's been sitting there for months and I've lacked the motivation to finish and post it but then I sent in an anon ask to @reinawritesbnha and, being the absolute queen she is, she became the little push I needed to do it. I DID IT FOR REINA!!
Also, this is some of my earliest writing and I only skimmed and edited a little bit of it so if there's a little bit of weird pacing or a strange cutoff where the writing styles clash it's because I haven't touched this piece in months.
Anywho, enjoy~
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It had to happen when you were surrounded by alphas.
Your suppressants flaked out, again, and your scent wafted through the air on the street. Normally It’d be fine for an omega to let their scent float freely around them. But your scent is particularly...potent, even when you weren’t in heat. Not only that, but you weren’t mated yet, your scent glands still bare, and you still didn’t have a pack. To make matters worse, you’re quirkless.
You hadn’t realised what was happening until your path was blocked by an especially large male alpha. You turned around, and there were two more behind you. Fuck. This isn’t good. You took in your surroundings and searched for an exit, but you couldn’t find a way out. There's no way you’d be able to outrun the three very large male alphas.
Probably the worst part is that more alphas are turning their head toward you, taking notice of your lavender honey and rain scent that slowly began turning to a sour swamp. You dared to hope that change would ward off the three cornering you, but they’d already got a whiff of you. Several distressed chirps sounded from your chest, voicing your discomfort, and you glared pointedly at the three alphas as they edged closer to you.
You hate when this happened. Why’d you have to be cursed like this? Your growls only grew, baring your little omega fangs. There’s no way in hell you’d let some stranger scent you, let alone one of these creeps. They wouldn’t take the damn hint and just crept closer to you, calling out to the ‘pretty little omega’ to ‘come have some fun’.
You’re scared now, the involuntary chirps in your chest coming more frequently. None of the other alphas or betas on the street were big enough to face the three, making you a sitting duck and a ragdoll if they wanted you to be. Your claws are small, nowhere near ideal for this situation, but you’d use them if you needed to. With a final low defiant growl you dropped your bag against the wall behind you and readied yourself for a fight.
Suddenly a large body dropped in front of you, his back to you. His scent alone hit you like a freight train, orange zest, mint, tree bark and something earthy. It had your head spinning, nearly sending you into an early heat. He growled, low and powerful, the sound rattling in your chest and making you sink further into the wall behind you. The other three alpha’s scents together were still overpowered by the new alpha before you, and they vanished faster than they appeared.
He turned around and stepped away from you, giving you space to breathe. He kneeled down enough so he was eye level with you, his hands reaching out clearly in an attempt to comfort you, but kept from touching you.
“Are you okay?” The question barely registered, still delirious from his scent, and you’re having a hard time recovering. Large hands grip your shoulders and shake you lightly, your mind beginning to clear with the soothing pheromones he’s releasing.
“Omega.” The command snapped you to attention, your gaze fixated on his own dark irises.
“Are you okay, omega?” You blink, swallow down the lump in your throat, take a deep breath.
“Yeah...I’m okay. Thank you, alpha.” But you’re not quite okay. You need to get home. Fast. The alpha seemed to catch on, probably by your scent that still hadn’t returned to normal. He stands and slips off his jacket, draping it over your shoulders and wrapping you in his scent. It’s a comforting gesture.
“Let’s get you home.” With a nod you set off, the man walking next to you with a strong, warm hand on the middle of your back.
“What’s your name?” You introduce yourself, and he does the same. His name is Sero Hanta, and now that you’re calm again, you take in just how handsome he is.
Raven hair is pulled back into a small bun, showing off his undercut and strong, sharp jawline. Onyx eyes shine with kindness and playful mischief, and a beaming grin reveals pearly white teeth. He’s incredibly toned, his muscles calmly rippling under the t-shirt that stretched over his chest. You vaguely noticed the strange shape of his elbows, but disregarded it as his quirk. The omega in you is howling, begging for this alpha, his scent invading your senses. But you suppress it quickly, reminding yourself you’d only just met this man.
As you reach your apartment you exchange phone numbers, and he tells you to keep the jacket and use it when you go out to ward off any unwanted attention. You thank him again for helping you earlier, and he waves to you as he walks down the hall and enters the elevator, the doors closing in front of his handsome smiling face.
Despite meeting him only ten minutes earlier your instincts trust the alpha, and you hold the jacket close to your face, breathing in his scent. It’s wonderful, and your inner omega is in love. You find yourself wondering when you’d see him again.
The next few days are riddled with work and calls to your doctor about the strength of your suppressants. You work from home as a secretary for a small company. It’s a miracle you’d found it, too. Nobody wants an omega, let alone a potent one. It’s an alpha’s world, you guess. When this job opening popped up you were ecstatic, so you took it and have been working from home with decent pay for the last five years.
The calls to your doctor were not going as smoothly as your job, though. You leave a message every four hours until she finally calls you back. She was concerned since the suppressants she’d prescribed are the strongest out there, and if your scent was overpowering them they were either defective or your scent glands were overproducing. It wasn’t an immediate threat to your health, it only meant you’d be drawing more attention than you wanted to. Still, it’s annoying and makes life so much harder than it needs to be.
After she prescribed twice the amount, she said she’d look over your tests from the latest visit before she hung up the phone. You groaned once the call ended. You seriously needed a break from your second gender. Taking the prescribed double dose of suppressants, you got ready to go out to the corner cafe to read and drink coffee. Hopefully the new amount will keep steady. You really don’t want to deal with any more aggressive alphas this week. For good measure you pull on Sero’s jacket, allowing his scent to cover you, then grab your keys, phone, wallet and a book and begin the walk.
When you arrive at the cafe you order a hot mocha, curl into the small corner booth and crack open the book. You got lost in the ink and your mind floated along the adventure, putting yourself in the shoes of the main character and leading the mission to take down the corrupt queen who’d framed you for killing the prince of a neighboring kingdom. You were ripped from the fantasy world when a bright, enthusiastic blonde came up and tapped you on the shoulder, making you jump. His smile was as bright as his hair.
“Sorry to scare you cutie, but I couldn’t help but notice that jacket of yours smells an awful lot like my friend Sero!” You smile softly at the blonde.
“Well if we’re talking about the same Sero Hanta, then your nose would be correct. This is his jacket.” His eyes widen as he nods.
“Oh my gosh you must be the omega he keeps talk-” The blonde’s words became muffled by a large hand. A hand that belonged to the very man you were talking about. Sero smiles apologetically down at you as he shoves the blonde back to where you assume they’re sitting.
“Sorry about Kami, he’s… extroverted.” You smile back at him, mostly because you’re happy to see him again.
“It’s no problem at all. He recognized your scent on me.” He looked down and only then realized you’re wearing his jacket, and he beams at you. Then he takes a glance at the booth you’re sitting all alone at, his smile falling just a bit.
“Do you wanna come sit with us?” You take a moment to think about the offer, then agree with a nod. Your omega couldn’t pass up more time with him.
As you approach the booth you notice there are more people with Sero than you anticipated. There were four other people sitting there. Sero introduced all of them from left to right. Bakugo Katsuki, Kirishima Eijiro, Ashido Mina, and the happy blonde from earlier is Kaminari Denki. You introduce yourself and when Sero slid into the booth, you followed after him.
These five are a tight pack, and you learn they all met in high school. Bakugo’s brash personality made you wary at first, but it didn’t take long to realize he’s just like that with everyone. He makes a bit of a snippy remark, which you easily counter, and he smirks while the rest smile or snicker. It would seem they like you.
You can’t tell what their second genders are, and you mentally kick yourself for even wondering in the first place. Their genders are none of your concern, but you can’t blame yourself when you’re constantly alert because of your own stupid second gender. As it turns out, you don’t need to wait very long to find out.
This time you smell your own scent as it permeates the air around you. You swear under your breath at the stupid suppressants that obviously can’t so their job, and the others snap their gazes to you. You sigh.
“Yeah, that scent is me. My suppressants flaked again. Sorry about that.” They all nodded, seemingly understanding. Sero must have told them about the other day. Of course, it would soon repeat. It didn’t take long for an alpha to take notice of your scent. The man -- why is it always the largest males??? -- strides up to the booth with a cocksure grin and leans down to inhale your scent. You duck away from him, into Sero, and let out an albeit small warning growl that was drowned in Sero and Kirishima’s. He ignored them all the same.
“Hey there little omega, you smell real nice. You wanna come hang with me instead? We can have some fun together with my buddies, what do you say?” The others stayed quiet. They’re going to let you defend yourself before they do anything in case they end up escalating the situation. You turn your head and lift your shoulder, hiding your scent gland.
“I’m not interested, thank you. Please leave me alone.” You hoped to whatever deity watched over you that the man would leave. Before anyone could react the alpha grabbed your wrist in a vice grip, yanking you roughly from your seat. You chirp, your scent turning sour and the entire pack abruptly stands, baring their fangs at the man. It barely registered in your head that Kirishima and Bakugo are alphas, Mina is a beta, and Kaminari is an omega, their fangs giving them away.
The man tightens his grip on your wrist and you cry out, your bones creaking under the pressure. With no other options you did the one thing that would get him to let go, and sank your fangs into his wrist. You jump back into Sero, who wraps an arm around you protectively.
“You bit me, you bitch!” He raises an arm, clearly about to try and hit you, but a large hand grabs his wrist. Surprisingly enough it’s Bakugo, and his growl is laced into his words.
“Leave now, or you lose a hand.” Sero speaks up from above you.
“You might wanna listen, amigo. That’s Dynamight.” The alpha rips his arm from Bakugo’s hold and looks down at you, and you growl at him as he scoffs and walks away, apparently not ready to fight the #2 pro hero over an omega.
You all sit back down and you pull up the sleeve of the jacket to inspect the already forming bruise on your wrist. Your nose wrinkles with a half-angry half-pained snarl. Tenderly, Sero takes your wrist and lightly squeezes the sides of your forearm, against your bones, and your lack of reaction tells him nothing’s broken. Still, he growls at the offending bruise.
“I’m gonna kill him.” You shake your head and put a hand over his.
“It’s not worth it Sero. He’s probably long gone.” You turn to the rest of the pack.
“Thank you for protecting me.” Kirishima is the first to speak.
“Of course! That dude was a jerk. I just hope he doesn’t go around doing that to other omegas.” Bakugo, surprisingly, spoke next.
“Obviously we’d protect you. You’re a potent omega and quirkless, so you attract unwanted attention without even knowing or wanting to. Besides, if you’re gonna be Sero’s omega there’s no way in hell we’d let some extra handle you like that.” The implications make your face burn, and Kirishima smacks the blonde’s arm with a ‘Don’t just say that kind of thing, Katsuki.’
After an hour or two of talking, and shockingly no other aggressive alphas, they all walk you home to your apartment. Sero wanted to check on your wrist again, so you invited them all in, but they all had something else to do, so you were left alone with Sero. The fact that the one alpha you desperately wanted to be around is alone with you in your apartment is both great and terrible. Thankfully, you have self-control and his own suppressants are working perfectly fine.
He inspected the darkening bruise on your wrist, his large hands gripping your arm tenderly and turning it gently as he prods at the skin. It doesn’t hurt too bad, so you assure him you’ll be perfectly fine. Eventually he leaves with a hug and you sigh once the door is closed, relieved that you were able to keep your omega at bay and your hands to yourself.
A couple days later you get a text from him and the two of you text often, asking how each other’s day went, if anything interesting had happened. You didn’t leave your apartment unless you needed to, since your suppressants clearly weren’t working, so you made sure to cut grocery trips short and keep away from any alphas that seemed a bit aggressive. Sero invited you to hang out with the pack at their house, and you obliged.
They lived in a huge house all together. Most of the rooms were sealed so no scents or sounds could go in or out for ruts and heats, and there were several spare rooms that were empty and waiting for more pack members. It was a fun hangout, filled with video games and good conversation, and even better food which Bakugo cooked. Sero had an arm around you whenever he was close, and you definitely didn’t mind. Your suppressants flaked in the middle, again, and Sero insisted he walk you home. With him walking you home there weren’t any alphas trying to get you this time. You ended up going over to hang out with them a lot when you weren’t working, and eventually Sero began to court you.
Obviously, you accepted, and after a few months of dating and scenting, your overactive scent glands seemed to mellow out, Sero’s scent mixing with it. Your suppressants are lasting much longer now, which is a good sign. Now that you’re Sero’s omega, he often helped you with your heats and you’d help him with his ruts, and he was strong-willed enough that he hadn’t marked or knotted you in the middle of things.
About a year and a half into the relationship you realize you really love him. Sure you had arguments, but everything was settled through calmed discussions over coffee or tea, and you came to understand each other well enough that arguments became few and far between.
You’re happy with Sero, so when your heat came around early and he was there to help, you were going to let him know just how much you loved him.
You texted him once you felt it starting. He was there within half an hour, and you pounced on him once the font door closed, smothering him in hot, wet kisses, eager to feel him inside you. He carries you to the bedroom, and you two are quick in shedding all of your clothes. He lays you on your back with a hand on your throat as he growls into your ear, making a hot shudder roll down your spine.
“Are you ready for me omega?” You whine and nod, your slick already dripping down your folds. You want him so bad it hurts.
“Please alpha, I need your cock.” He growls again, satisfied with your answer, and he presses into you, bottoming out with one firm thrust. You chant his name like a mantra as he set a bruising pace, rutting into you recklessly, wet skin slapping on skin the only other sound beside your whimpers and his growls. His teeth nip at your shoulder, sharp fangs testing your skin and claws digging into the fat of your hips. His cock is so deep, hot swollen tip kissing your cervix with every full-bodied thrust and sending you into a euphoric haze. Your own claws are sinking into his back, leaving little trails of red and blood beading down the lines. It drives him wild every time.
“That’s right, little omega. Mark me up, I’m all yours. Fuck you’re so pretty underneath me like this.” His hands grip behind your knees and press them into your chest, folding you nearly in half as he plows into you further. The angle knocks the breath from your lungs and your eyes roll back. You can feel his knot beginning to swell, feel how his thrusts are getting more controlled and his grip on your thighs tighten from the sheer concentration it’s taking for him not to breed you. You have other plans. Between wheezed breaths you squeak out.
“H-hantaaa~” He slows to a near snail’s pace, grinding his slowly growing cock into your sweet spot, a smirk stretching across his face as you splutter from the sudden change. He’s enjoying making you squirm.
“What is it, sweetness? Tell your alpha what you need.” You pant, chest heaving as much as the position will allow.
“Want your mark, want your knot~ Wanna be bred Hanta! I want your pups!” He stills completely, claws digging into the fat of your thighs with enough force to have drops of blood falling to the sheets beneath you. You’d never said anything like that in the heat of the moment. He can’t have heard you correctly...right?
“Princesa, do you know what you just said?” The seriousness in his tone has you sobering, but even before you knew exactly what you were saying. You nod frantically, wiggling your hips to get him to move again.
“Yes! I know alpha! Please, give me your knot~” His growl makes your bones shake, and with no warning he drops your legs around his waist and leans down so his face is buried in your neck.
“Fuck, I’m gonna trust you with this baby girl. I’ll give you exactly what you want.” His fangs sink into your scent gland just as he picks up his brutal pace, and the euphoria makes you cum hard, your whole body locking up and mouth falling open in a silent scream. He plows into you as you regain your breath, and you bite down on his own scent gland as hard as you can, tearing into his skin with every intention of leaving a pretty scar for the world to see.
His knot swells more, and he’s pushing it into you with every ounce of power he can generate with that gorgeous body of his. With one final snap of his hips he locks his body to yours and cums hard, ropes of hot seed filling you to the brim. He collapses on top of you and laps at the wound on your neck and you do the same. After a few minutes he leans back and cups your face in his hand, gazing down at you like you hung the moon and the stars.
“Are you alright?” You nod, nuzzling into his palm.
“I’m sorry. I was gonna talk to you about it, but my heat came early.” He kisses your forehead gently, brushing the strands of hair from your face.
“It’s okay, pretty thing. I trust you know what you’re getting yourself into.” You giggle and wrap your arms around him.
“Of course I do. I love you, Hanta.”
“I love you too.” You lay there, tangled in each other’s arms until his knot goes down. You whine at the loss when his cock slips out of you, clawing at him to come back because you’re still in heat. His hand gently wraps around your neck, a low chuckle on his lips.
“Relax, we’re far from done.” His already hard erection rubs up and down your glistening folds, barely stimulating your clit, teasing you until tears prick your eyes and you’re beggin him to fuck you again.
“When I’m done you won’t be able to walk for days. I’m gonna breed you so well, You’re gonna look so pretty all big and round with my pups.” He groans at the image he’d conjured in his head and you squeal as he slams his hips into you.
You’re in for a wonderfully long night.
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Theirs, In Every Way Possible
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。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆   。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆      。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆   。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
Pairing: Jemily x Fem! Reader, JJ x Reader x Emily
Summary: JJ and Emily thought that their life couldn’t get any better, until they met you. However, what happens when you aren’t completely truthful to them and the team who was already a family to you? 
Warnings: Canon Violence, Reader came from a serial killer family, Reader has so many traumas, Homophobia, Reader has trust issues and is very indecisive. Y/N might frustrate you. Major Character Injuries.
Word Count: 3816 words
GIF isn’t mine
This case is completely made up from the top of my head, so if there are any similarities in the episodes in CM, they were probably just carved in my brain. Also, this might be a little ooc because I can’t just seem to tap into their personalities just yet
I’m sorry, I tried making this as angsty as I possibly could, I’m still working on my angst.
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆   。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆      。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆   。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
You were fairly new to the BAU, only working there for about 6 months, and yet you fit in really easily. It definitely helped that you were the sunshine- Penelope Garcia’s bestfriend and that Erin Strauss couldn’t bring herself to dislike you. But what matters the most to them is that fact that you were a genius. No, not like Dr. Reid genius. You understood the serial killers in a personal level, and you would often coax the weapon out of their hand and get them to submit and surrender. Of course, when they confronted you about it, you easily lied and they somehow accepted that. So much for being profilers.
You never really did know when you first started seeing the couple in a new light. Yes you liked them both. It never really mattered since you just knew that it would just fade away. It was already embedded in your brain that everyone eventually leaves and that being too close to anyone would only get them killed. You learned that the hard way. But that didn’t stop you from admiring them from the shadows. It didn’t stop you from smiling whenever they talk, it didn’t stop you from memorizing their features like they were about to vanish into thin air, it didn’t stop you from admiring how JJ controlled the media, or how Emily used that voice when she’s speaking to the unsub and it didn’t stop you from admiring how well they fit each other, how their hands fit like puzzle pieces, and how your heart clenches in awe when you see them cuddled up with each other. You didn’t know what you would do with yourself, you desperately needed to get away from them, but you also wanted and needed to be around them. God, you knew you sounded like a hormonal teenager. 
“This is Daryln Garcia, Ahron Balydyn, Abbey Banagher and Jehoushua Castiel. Their names are on top of the list of the recent chain of murders all over each state.” Garcia winced at the pictures that she had to present to the whole team, she never did seem to get used to it
“Some of these are from waaaaay long before, why only now?” Emily asks from her seat , which was coincidentally next to yours
 “The M.O’s are all over the place, which is why they didn’t connect the murders until now. The only thing connecting them are black sticky notes that are posted on the wall and on their body.” Rossi reads out.
“Where’s the latest one?” You ask, sipping your coffee
“...Los Angeles, California.” 
“Wheels up in Five.” Hotch concludes, as everyone gets up to gather themselves. 
After talking and discussing the case a bit more, You all decide to calm down for a few hours, and each and everyone of you set off to do your own things.
“Uh-huh, you’re staring at them again huh.” Garcia teased you through the screen.
Spencer was memorizing and rereading the case files,
Hotch was talking with Rossi, probably discussing the case,
Morgan has his headphones clogging his ears,
JJ and Emily were cuddling with each other as JJ munched on her cheetos.
You were currently seated away from the team, just out of earshot because you knew that Garcia would begin spouting non-sense. 
“Shut up...” You blushed bright red. “...I told you this once, while I was drunk and now you bring it up in every conversation that we have. It’s just a silly little crush, sunshine. It’ll pass.” You told her, playfully glaring at the screen, to which she laughed
“Sure, Gummy Bear. Keep telling yourself that.” She grinned.
When you were about to land, you hung up on your bestfriend before steeling yourself, You didn’t need to acknowledge the gut feeling in the pit of your stomach, and you most certainly ignored the growing headache that you have. 
 JJ and Emily certainly noticed you right from the start. The woman who had no experience in the field whatsoever is suddenly the finest one they ever seen. (or maybe that’s just because they were so attracted to you that they happen to pay too much attention) That wasn’t the only thing they noticed though: They also noticed the tiny change in tone when you talk to either or both of them at the same time, or the way that your head would be the first to turn when they walk in the bullpen, or the way that your eyes would quickly scan them from head to toe before you bury your face into the paperwork that Hotch gave you, just a slight hint of embarrassment in your eyes peeking out from the cover or maybe it was the way that you would breathe a little heavier and talk a little faster when you discussed the case with them. You weren’t painfully obvious, but they were profilers for God’s sake, they notice everything, especially if it’s about you. There was just something so painfully attractive about you that interests them so much. The way your hair flowed as it dances with the wind, The way you licked your lips since they were dry (They tried to get you to use a lip gloss or a lip balm but you fought them, real hard.), The way your body tackled unsubs who got into your nerves (They always had to change clothes after that...), The way your eyes shined when you successfully return and reunite families, The way your mind worked: How you analyze quick, How you look at things in all angles, How you tried to put yourself in the very scene, How you work so well with Spencer and How you always seem to know what to say, every damn time. Maybe it was the way you broke social construct just by wearing a suit everytime you go to work, or it’s probably the smirks you give them when you’re right about something and they were in the wrong. (It makes them want to pounce on you, but they restrain themselves, taking their frustrations out on each other in the privacy of their own home.) But what they hate the most, it how dense you are. At this point, JJ could send you a love letter and you would think that it’s a recent case evidence. 
"...This is Dr. Reid, SSA Prentiss, Y/LN, Morgan, Jareau, and Rossi."
“Right this way, we have arrested a prime suspect this morning.” 
“How?” You ask, lifting two duffle bags and setting them down to your designated table
“She was found lurking around the crime scene and a bloody shirt matching one of the latest victims in his backpack.” 
“Can we have her bag?” Emily asks, approaching the officer
“Yeah sure. Right this way Agent.” He leads her to somewhere while you trail Hotch to the interrogation room, only to freeze in your tracks.
“What the hell” you whispered under your breath, feeling the same suffocating aura when you felt like your past is catching up to you. 
“Y/N? Are you okay?” You hear Derek ask you.
“I can’t do this. I need to call Garcia. Excuse me.” You replied with a look in your eyes. Derek recognized that same look with Emily when she ran away, pursuing Doyle to protect the team, and he’ll be damned if he let’s history repeat itself.
“Nuh-uh sweetcheeks. I know that look. Tell me.” Derek grips your forearm gently.
“Derek. I promise I won’t run away. And if I’m not back within an hour, track my phone and my ring.” you assured him, pulling your phone out and hurrying outside.
“Garcia. Please tell me that my identity is still concealed.” You begged Penelope while you were stress smoking at the back of the precinct. 
“It is! I promise! There’s no way they would find you! through technology at least.” she ranted. You see, Penelope Garcia doesn’t do well with secrets, but you really needed her, and she understood that. Which is why your secret is the best kept secret she has, she hid your secret for a year now.
“Then tell me why my aunt, who might I add is an absolute psychopath, is in our major suspect list right now?” you panicked, knowing that your “family” has somehow tracked you
“It might be a coincidence, Gummy Bear. But I will look into it! I promise.” 
“Garcia. One more favor. Back up all my files, all of it. From my work laptop, my FBI files, my personal devices, all of it. Then delete them all. I’m going to use a disposable starting now. Pull up the GPS service for my ring, keep an eye on me at all times. I’ll be damned if I see more of my family.” You spat out, stomping out the light of your cigarette, before popping a mint.
“Consider it done. Don’t you think it’s time to tell them?” she carefully asks, knowing how sensitive you are.
“Thank you Garcia, And I will. Once the time is right.” You grumbled, knowing that it’ll be sooner than later.
“Y/N. Tell them before it’s too late. Please, for your sake and for ours too.” 
“I will short stuff. I will.” 
For days you successfully evaded interrogating your aunt, subtly helping them as much as you can without raising suspicion. You knew that this secrecy is going to be revealed soon
“Y/N. We picked up coffee for you.” You suddenly hear JJ behind you, Emily’s hand gently placing the coffee in front of you, her eyes filled with concern
“You didn’t go to your hotel room did you?” Emily accused
“...No” You dropped your head onto the files in front of you
“You need your sleep Y/N. You’re no use when your brain can’t even function.” JJ retorted, taking a seat beside you, with Emily by her side.
“...Fine. A nap on that sofa. That’s it.” You bargained, determination shines in your eyes
“Okay. Go.”
And then, the moment your head hits the arm rest, you blacked out. Only waking up to Derek’s frantic shaking of your body
“Y/N! Get up!” It was rare for Derek to be this panicked and scared, and that gave you anxiety
“What? What is it?!” You stood up, feeling yourself get dizzy my how fast you got up.
“JJ and Emily are gone.”
What?
“Wait- What do you mean- How long was I asleep?” You blinked
“Precisely 4 hours, 36 minutes and 56 seconds.” Reid blurts out from infront the whiteboard.
“What happened for fuck’s sake?” You sat back down, rubbling your head
“Hotch was about to send you in on a lead, but they both volunteered instead.” Rossi explained
“And no one sent backup?” You were angry, barely keeping it in, you were slowly regretting keeping your secret now
“No one knew until now, when JJ and Emily didn’t come back after an hour, Derek went after them, only to find this.” Rossi lifts up the black sticky note.
“Family for Family, Blood for Blood”
“Is it possible that Rayna Torres, is their relative?”
“ Call and Tell Penelope I said Yes.” You point to Derek, knowing that Garcia will know what to do. You’ll let your bestfriend explain, she’ll explain it better since your mind is fogged
You couldn’t take it anymore. Your face hardened, clenching your jaw. You rarely showed anger, or annoyance for that matter, so they didn’t know what to do when you stormed off in pursuit of Hotch.
You found Hotch in the interrogation room, silently observing your Aunt
“Let me talk to her.” You say, earning a nod from him
You stormed in, slamming the door behind you.
“Listen here, you little psychopath. Where are they.” His eyes widened slightly, Hotch didn’t expect you to be so hostile
“There you are. I was beginning to think that we got the wrong team.” She grinned, intertwining her fingers, her wrists still bound to the table by a handcuff.
“I am not in the mood for your games.” You deadpanned, gripping the table to conceal your anger
“Hmmn. You always did have your father’s temper.”
“WHERE. ARE. THEY.” You slammed your palms on the metal table, making a slight dent on it. Ignoring the pain, you glared at her hard
“You know where they are child. I know that you know where they are.” The devilish grin once again appeared on her face.
“If I step foot inside that warehouse, and they are not there, I can’t guarantee your head will still be attached to your shoulders when they prepare you for your casket. Auntie.” At that statement, you walked away with a surprised Hotch on your trail.
He treated you like his very own ever since you knocked on his door, crying your eyes out, ranting about your family. Of course he noticed the small slip-ups you accidentally let out especially when you’re drunk. But it was never enough to completely put the picture together. He knows that you treat him as a father figure. Which is why he can’t let you go in there alone.
“No. Absolutely not. You might die Y/N!” You raised your brow at him, the bulletproof vest never felt as heavy as it is now
“You’ve known me for 6 months, you’ve known them for years. Why are you picking me over them? You know that I’m what they want. You or any other person steps in though that door, they’re all going to be dead before they see JJ and Emily. Not to mention they might kill JJ and Emily too. Please Hotch. This is my battle. If I die, I die. I don’t want to live knowing I could’ve done something.” Those were your last words before you slowly walked to the warehouse door after getting wired.
“This really isn’t the best first impressions you could make on your future daughters-in-law. Father.” You spoke as you saw him pointing a revolver at her, at your Emily.
You almost collapse at their state. JJ’s beautiful blonde hair caked with dirt and blood, she was staring at you, shaking her head, tears welling up in her eyes. Her lip is swollen and you could see multiple bruises forming. 
However, Emily’s state was much worse. Her eyebrow was bleeding, her knuckles are bruised, she has small cuts everywhere and you could see that she was struggling to stand up despite being tied by her hands to the ceiling
“This one has a sharp tongue daughter. i don’t appreciate it.” He snarled, now pointing his gun at you
“Last one who said that exact words to had his dick cut in half. Where’s my jerkwad of a brother anyways? How’s his dick? Still has my bite marks? Scars maybe?” You smirked, hearing your “mother” load her gun
“Disrespectful Bitch. Don’t talk to your brother like that, he’s better than you ever will be” She snarled, firing at your feet, slashing through your pants, making you bleed slightly, making JJ scream through her gag.
“Your aim’s getting rusty.” You pulled out both your guns, pointing them at you biological “parents” 
“And you’re wearing a bulletproof vest. Take it off and kick your guns to us. You know what’ll happen if you don’t” you gritted your teeth, taking off the vest despite the protests of Hotch and the rest of the team
“Happy?”  “Very.”
“Now let them go.” You frowned
“No. You see, since you do love them right?” Your father smirked, making you frown
“Yes. I do. I’m in the same team as them for fuck’s sake!” 
“No. No. That’s not just it. You love them in a different way as well. Say it.”
“...” Your mother rolled her eyes at your silence and fired two bullets to Emily and JJ, scraping Emily’s cheek and JJ’s shoulder.
You flinched, you knew not to show emotion, but it’s painful to see the women you love get hurt. 
“Okay! Fine! You want me to say that I love them? I will.” You gritted out
“Go on then, you know how I love my drama shows.” You glared at them, taking a deep breath in, watching them walk out of the room, a bright spotlight aligns itself on the three of you, It really is a sick TV show that your parents would love to watch.
“What they say is true. I don’t know if you noticed it yet. But I do love you, both of you. I really hoped that I could tell you over dinner, or a cup of coffee, but I guess life has other plans. Loving the both of you seems so weird, and unconventional, but who wants to be normal and boring am I right?” You chuckled, trying to lighten the mood, which they didn’t appreciate.
You moved your hand to their gags slowly, listening for complains from your parents, hearing none, your grabbed their gags and pull them down.
“Y/N-” They both started
“Shhh. Let me speak, you know I don’t have much time.” You smiled, implying that you wouldn’t get out of this alive.
“I notice everything. I do. I’m not as dense as you think I am. I just... I didn’t like the thought of you both getting attached to me. I love you both so much that I knew that if they catch up to me, I could die, or you could get hurt. And now this happened.” JJ shook her head as if to say it isn’t your fault.
“I love you both so much, I love the way you look at each other, often wished I could look at you both like that. I love the way you both force me to sleep then give me coffee in the morning. I love the way your brow furrows when you see a detail in the reports that displeases you, and then you’ll playfully glare at JJ and I when you notice that we’re laughing at you. There’s a lot more that I want to say to you, but I don’t have enough time.” you say, moving closer to them, tears staining their bruised cheek.
“I’ll see you in our usual spot in the coffee shop across the street?” You whisper to JJ, kissing her cheek
“I’ll be copying your move now.” You chuckle lightly, kissing her cheek
A slow clap rang throughout the room.
“Now that is a perfect drama and revenge.” You whipped your head around, only seeing your father. Pulling out your knife from your thigh, you run towards him recklessly, the screams of JJ and Emily’s pleads piercing your ears.
And then three gunshots rang throughout the warehouse, Derek kicked the door down, chasing after your laughing family. Your ears were ringing, you didn’t even notice that you collapsed from the impact. You couldn’t believe it actually worked. You could feel the sticky, red colored cornstarch mixture on your abdomen. However the growing pain on your shoulders prevented you from celebrating.
“Fuck.” You whimpered out, the impact of the bullets on your abdomen radiating throughout your body, yet you can also feel the bullet that’s still in your shoulder.
“Y/N. Stay with us come on” Emily whispered, despite her being in a worse condition that you, She still has your hand in a death grip.
“I’ll be fine Em.” You reassure her through jagged breaths, JJ’s crying face invading your view made you smile too. 
The moment that Emily and JJ were free from their binds, they immediately limped towards you as fast as they can, both of them on each of your side, silently wishing that they had more time
“They only managed to shoot me on my shoulder okay? I’ll be fine.” You could see the confusion in their faces, which faded when the paramedics unbuttoned your stained white shirts, only to find another bulletproof vest and an empty plastic bag, previously filled with what they can assume was fake blood. 
Emily’s eyes widen, what you did was dangerous, and extremely risky. You gambled on a unpredictable mess and she wondered how you got Hotch to approve of what you did, only to find out later that Hotch didn’t know either.
You could only smile at them, feeling the drugs the paramedics injected take effect, slowly drowsing off. You were happy they were somewhat safe. You were also happy that you managed to stab your father in his arm. Even if your brother did shoot your shoulder from behind, you were still happy with how things turned out.
Almost regretting what you did when you woke up to a staring Emily, JJ quietly handing you water, before they both scolded you like there’s no tomorrow. 
However, after what seemed like ages of reprimanding from the older women, they both pecked your lips before asking you out on a date.
I guess it all worked out in the end.
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bangtanbetchfics · 3 years
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friction | knj (m)
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genre: office au, romance, smut rating: explicit // 18+ pairing: kim namjoon x reader word count: 7.0k suggested listening: 1 billion views - exo-sc | creme brulee - gfriend | underwater - baekhyun | playlist warnings: m/f, m/m, explicit language, explicit/casual sex, masturbation, enemies to lovers, light bondage, light dom/sub, sex toys summary: your pesky and overworked assistants meddle in your relationship with your sexy rival -- kim namjoon -- and find themselves caught in the crosshairs of love and all-out war. notes: enjoy enjoy enjoy! a true labor of love. navigation: ch. i | ch. ii | ch. iii | masterlist | ao3
FRIC·TION | conflict or animosity caused by a clash of wills, temperaments, or opinions.
Taehyung yawns, interlacing his fingers and pulling his arms above his head in a stretch. He moves his neck side-to-side until he hears a satisfying crack, indicating the adequate stretch of the muscle. He waits for his computer to finish powering down before clicking the lamp on his desk off.
Taehyung’s hand reaches for his coat, but he hesitates as he looks over at your office.
The blue glare seems to amplify your stressed expression and the mildly dark crescents under your eyes.
“Ma’am?”
Taehyung quietly raps at the glass door to your office and it startles you from your concentration.
“Hmm...yes, Tae?”
You respond, mildly annoyed, as you pull a neon post-it note from its pad to stick to the desk.
Taehyung looks at you, his eyes forming wide circles as if he's ready to convince you of something. You can immediately sense his question before you exhale through your nose.
“It’s just that it’s getting late and I-” Taehyung starts, wrapping a hand around the glass doorframe.
You shake yourself out of your funk and look at him fondly, your brows coming together in compassion.
Before your mouth can form a response, the phone at Taehyung’s desk rings. 
He gives you a small bow to pardon him before he jogs to his desk to pick up the phone.
“Yes, Sir. Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Of course, Mr. Min,” Taehyung looks at you a few times, pointing at the phone. “I’ll send her right up.”
Taehyung's eyes widen at you before hanging up the phone.
You come to the threshold of your office, leaning your head on the frame.
“Was it Min?” You ask, and Taehyung nods in response. 
“He wants to see you immediately. Didn’t specify what it was for.” 
You chew at your lip and then dig in your pocket, tossing him your corporate card.
“I’m so sorry, Tae. Do you mind staying until I come back? There’s just a lot going on this week with the product launch, and I’m sure he’ll add more to my plate,” Taehyung puts his hand up and shakes it.
“Of course. Anything you need.” He responds, slipping the plastic card in his pocket.
“Thank you.” You whisper, your hands in a prayer. He bows as his eyes watch you walk off.
Taehyung rolls his chair up to his desk, and he hits a few digits on the dialpad.
“Gonna be another long one,” Taehyung sighs out into the receiver.
“Same here Tete,” The singsong voice responds, equally as disappointed.
“I should have your cock in my mouth right now, but I’m here ordering takeout for the third time this week,” The voice whines.
“Jimin!” Taehyung growls into the phone, but the sound quickly dissolves into a laugh.
“What’s so funny? It’s not good for my figure,” Taehyung can tell there’s a pout in Jimin’s voice.
“Especially my ass.” Jimin continues, the pout growing deeper.
“I love your ass. Shutup.” Taehyung chuckles. “You said you’re stuck here late too?”
“Yeah. I know the product launch is coming, but Joon never stops working.” Jimin whines. “He got called upstairs by Min a few seconds ago.” Taehyung gasps and sits up in his chair, rolling it closer to his desk.
“Hmm…” Taehyung hums. He places his elbows on the surface, using his free hand to ruffle his silver locks.
“What? You sound interested.” Jimin inquires, and Taehyung drums the desk with his fingers.
“My boss did too.”
✹✹✹
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
The slow ticking of the clock snips through your veins. You press the nail of your index finger into the flesh of your thumb, creating a small crescent-shaped indent in your skin. 
You feel your heart picking up pace in your chest; steady thumps beating at your ribcage. You turn your hand around to stare at the indentation on your skin, waiting for it to vanish. It does, slowly.
You look at your boss through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of his office, his mouth busy moving in response to someone on the other end of the phone’s receiver. His hair is a textured bowl of platinum blonde, and his long, bony fingers move through a mass of papers on his desk.
You’re unsure of why you’ve been summoned; Yoongi never summoned anyone to his office unless it was serious. Being two days out from a product launch with you at the marketing helm...well, that was never a good sign.
After a moment, heavy, confident footsteps echo through the hall.
You see a man -- all legs in his dark, smartly tailored pants -- and he immediately diverts attention from your buzzing thoughts. His aura fills the entire space, and you sit up straight in your chair.
The man’s long wool trench coat brushes at his ankles, the black fabric stiff at the tips of his shoulders. He shrugs the coat off and carefully folds it in half, placing it on the chair behind him.
He suddenly feels your eyes on him from across the room, and his sharp gaze snaps over to meet yours. His eyes crinkle at the edges, and he extends his hand across the coffee table between the two of you.
“Kim Namjoon. I’m guessing you don’t know why you’re here either?” His voice comes out in a dark, velvety tone, catching you off guard. Your eyes can't help but fix on his as you shake his hand.
“Not a clue,” You respond coolly, and the dimples in his cheeks make themselves known.
You clear your throat as his eyes hang onto yours in return, and you feel your lips subtly part. Snapping yourself from his aura, you quickly release his hand and look around the room to find something else to concentrate on.
“Guess we’ll find out...” Namjoon shrugs, sliding back in his seat. You offer him a nod in response, nervously swallowing the exchange down your throat.
You then cross your legs, pretending to be busy on your phone. 
After processing the interaction, Namjoon licks the inside of his cheek -- his head hanging down in a mild defeat for a second. He reaches into his pocket to pull out a tattered copy of The Art of Loving.
As he reads, your eyes peel from your phone and notice the way his turtleneck hugs his form, the dark fabric dipping in at the valley between his firm chest. A few lavender-tinted hairs slide from Namjoon’s slicked back style into his dark brown eyes, and his smokey gaze suddenly rises up to meet yours.
Fuck. He’s caught you.
Your eyes widen in a few seconds of brief panic and dart back down to your phone. You move your thumb around through the pages of apps; it’s all you can manage so suddenly.
Namjoon smiles to himself as he looks back down, quietly dipping a finger to his tongue to stick to a page of his book. 
Before he’s able to turn the page, Yoongi pops his head from the office.
“You ready?” Yoongi asks, turning his head in your direction.
You nod and watch Yoongi shuffle back to his desk.
You inhale and smooth your skirt as you stand, noticing Namjoon’s eyes following your fingers as they glide over the red fabric adorning your curves. He calmly looks back down and blushes as you catch him; his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously as he pretends to continue on with his book.
“Wish me luck,” You notice the way his gaze lit something sexual afire in you, but you couldn’t pay any attention to that right now. “Nice meeting you.” 
Namjoon looks up at you again, his fingers tense on the pages of the book.
“Likewise.” Namjoon’s smouldering eyes are fixed on you as he responds, and his gaze continues to follow you into Yoongi’s office.
You reach a chair across from Yoongi’s desk, sneaking a glance at Namjoon one last time over your shoulder.
Namjoon exhales the tension from his body as he watches you take a seat.
✹✹✹
You sit in the chair across from Yoongi’s desk, admiring the glittering cityscape behind him.
“I love being in here. It’s so refreshing.” You sigh, your eyes floating back to Yoongi.
“Yeah, kid? Well, it could be yours soon,” He chuckles. “I’m actually sick of looking at it. I’m ready to move onto my next venture.” Yoongi says this as if he’s in his forties, but he’s the youngest CEO in the vicinity. It's indicated by a giant, framed magazine cover of himself on a wall in his office: Top 30 Under 30 in Technology.
“C-Come again?” You murmur as you’re taken by surprise, and you sit up in your seat.
“You heard me. I want either you -- the CMO -- or Kim, the CTO running things," Yoongi says, standing up. He calls you over with his finger, motioning for you to sit in his chair. "Either of you are my best shot.”
You plop down in the cushy leather fabric, and your eyes meet Namjoon’s again. You purse your lips together and swirl the chair around to face the cityscape.
“How’s that feel?” Yoongi asks as he adjusts his cream turtleneck.
“Damn good.” You growl, your nails digging into the armrests.
“Well, there’s no reward without risk,” He says, and you raise your head in interest. 
“Try me, Min.” You demand as you cross your legs, leaning back in the chair.
“I want you to launch the product in my place at TechX this week.” He mentions casually, and you shriek in response as you shoot up from your seat.
“You can’t be serious, Min!” You throw your hands on your hips. “Isn’t that in two days? In Vegas? And like, the largest product launch ever for this company? ” You inquire, looking over at Yoongi.
“See! You understand the gravity of this launch. And yeah, and I haven’t even finished the keynote yet,” Yoongi cackles, slapping his thigh. “Partner with Kim on the presentation. It’s in front of twenty-thousand too, so make it good.” He sits down, racking away at the keys on his laptop. 
“You and Kim are both equally matched in terms of qualifications, so whoever can secure the biggest investors to ensure the longevity of the company will get a leg up in interviewing for the position.” Yoongi continues nonchalantly.
“Got it?” He taps one last key, stopping only to look up at you.
“Yes, Sir.” You nod, feeling a tightness creep into your chest.
✹✹✹
“Jimin, can you book my accommodations, please?” 
Jimin hands Namjoon a bag of takeout before he rolls his chair up to his desk. 
“Vegas, leaving tomorrow. Business class. King bed. That hotel that’s hosting the conference. You know the deal.” He rattles out, taking the bag of food. 
“Of course, Sir.” Jimin nods, watching Namjoon walk into his office.
Jimin navigates through a few windows on his screen before settling on a corporate travel portal. He’s able to book the flight without a problem, but the hotel is where he’s running into issues. He quickly dials up Taehyung, waiting for the other side of the call to pick up.
“Are you seeing the same thing?” Jimin asks, and Taehyung clicks his tongue.
“No rooms, right-” Jimin starts. “Just one left…” Taehyung cuts in to finish his sentence.
“But shit, there’s your boss and my boss.” Jimin twirls his finger around the coiled cord, pondering what to do next.
Jimin hears a eureka snap on the other end of the line.
“Crazy ass idea here, Jiminie,” Taehyung chuckles. 
"What is it Taehyungie?" Jimin purrs out, the curiosity rising in his voice at the end of the question.
“What if...they just stayed in the same room together? There’s only one King room available, and it’s the last room in the hotel. They’re both so...particular.” Taehyung continues, pressing his mouth into the receiver to keep his voice low.
Jimin throws his head back so far in laughter that his chair tips over. Taehyung hears a crash on the other end of the line, and hears shuffling noises as Jimin gets back up.
“Fell off your chair again?”
“Y-Yeah. God you're a genius! An evil one,” Jimin gathers his breaths. 
“I mean...she’s fucking hot. And she’s single as fuck because she’s holed up here every night.” Taehyung whispers into the receiver, making sure to glance over to check that you’re immersed in work.
“And Joon’s smoking hot, too. He’d melt her icy panties right off,” Jimin clicks his tongue before he slaps his desk.
“Dammit, we’re doing it. Think about it. Off work by five? What a world.” Jimin chirps, clicking away at his screen. “To add an extra layer of fun, I’m checking the romance option.”
“Jimin! Jimin. They’re gonna kill each other.” Taehyung giggles, gasping to catch his breath.
“Either they share a room and let romance bloom, or its whack-a-roach at the Motel 6.” Jimin’s tone is confident, but it makes Taehyung erupt into another fit of laughter.
“What? What’s the worst that could happen?” Jimin commands a response, but Taehyung continues to laugh.
“Mmm...we lose our fucking jobs?” Taehyung responds darkly.
The two pause for a second, but continue laughing into their phones.
✹✹✹
“What’re the topline details for the trip, Tae?” You ask, sliding on your sunglasses and pulling a handle up on your hardside luggage.
“Your flight...as you know is in three hours, and your car’s outside right now.” Taehyung walks up to you, handing you an iPad with a copy of your itinerary. “You’ll be staying at the Palazzo where the conference is held, and check-in should be getting started as soon as you arrive.”
“Mwah. You’re the fucking best,” You chef’s kiss your fingers. “This is exactly why I hired you.”
You pull your luggage behind you, but Taehyung puts his hand up. 
“Try not to get too excited. Please note that the room I was able to secure for you was the last room at the hotel two days before a conference of this size,” Taehyung says, pulling his hands behind his back.
“Okay...your point being?” You ask, pulling your sunglasses down to look into Taehyung’s eyes.
“Uhm, so, how do I put this?” Taehyung asks himself rhetorically, drawing his foot across the floor nervously.
“Tae...” You growl, your gaze slowly turning into a glare.
“Erm, you’ll have to share the room,” He starts. 
“With Kim Namjoon.” He winces as he gets the words out.
Your mouth drops open in shock, and your iPad crashes to the floor.
✹✹✹
You peruse through a luxurious spread of food in the airport lounge: crabsticks with melted butter drizzling from them, exotic finger sandwiches, spreads and dips and the like. You grab tongs, dropping a few items onto a small plate. You quickly look through the drinks on display and decide on sparkling water. 
Suddenly, you spot Namjoon arriving in the lounge and you quickly tuck the bottle of sparkling water into your armpit. You grab your plates, quickly followed by your luggage and make a mad dash for a secluded cubby in the back area.
You quickly throw on your headphones and prop up your iPad as you swipe through a few documents. 
Just as you stuff a crabstick in your mouth, you feel a tap on your shoulder. You look at the fingers, then up the veined arm wrapped with white cotton fabric, and you see Namjoon.
He licks his lips, letting out a shy chuckle just before he speaks.
“Did you really just try to avoid me?”
“Mm-maybh, ‘nd wh-r about it?” You blink at him, your words unintelligible as you slowly chew a mouthful of seafood. You furrow your brows, slightly irked by Namjoon seeing you in this state.
“I’m sure those two jokesters told you,” He continues, and you shrug as you delicately bite a small cucumber and cream cheese sandwich. “That you’ll be my roommate for the next two days.”
“I didn’t hear it, and I won’t acknowledge it,” You retort, dropping the last bite of the sandwich in your mouth. “I’m going to find another room if it’s the last thing I do.” You dust crumbs from your hands but stop as Namjoon lets out another light chuckle.
“There aren’t anymore in the whole of Vegas. I checked myself. The only other hotel left in town is the Trump Tower,” He crosses his arms and then shakes his head. “And no one wants to be caught dead there.”
“Fuck!” You can’t help but scream out, and a few people turn to look in your direction. You bury your head in your hands, and comb your hands through your hair in frustration.
Namjoon taps your shoulder again and you look up.
“Finger sandwich?” He asks, licking a finger as you glare up at him.
✹✹✹
A flight attendant walks by the two of you to do a visual safety check, and you’re in the middle seat -- Namjoon in the aisle. 
“Champagne? Champagne? Water?” Another attendant walks by with a tray full of alcoholic beverages. You spot her, reaching over Namjoon to grab a drink off the tray. She lets out a gasp, shock entangling her features. 
The beverage quickly makes its way down your throat, and you slam the plastic cup back on the tray. 
“Sorry. She’s not having the best of days,” Namjoon whispers to her and finishes his off as well, handing it to the attendant. She scoffs, continuing on down the aisle.
You shuffle your hand in your bag to locate your iPad, slipping it from its sleeve. As you look at the screen you sigh, your eyes roving over the deep cracks.
“Please turn all devices to airplane mode as we prepare for departure…”
The plane starts to rattle over the tarmac, turning to face a new direction every so often.
“What the heck happened to that thing?” Namjoon asks, leaning over to look at the fractured device.
“Don’t wanna talk about it,” You respond without looking at him. You swipe through a screen of apps before clicking into Keynote. “I scanned through the presentation, and Yoongi was nowhere near done. We’ll need to wrap up by tomorrow evening.”
“We’ll also need to submit some requests to the photographer and Design team so that the remaining graphics and specs will be ready by the time we land in six hours…”
Namjoon nods, watching as you swipe through the slides, breezing through improvements for each. Your words seem to fade out, and he finds himself enamored by your gung-ho nature as he watches you speak.
“Got it?” You ask and notice Namjoon is silent, causing you to turn your head in his direction.
You search his eyes for a response, noticing his pupils are blown as he looks at you. He covers his throat so as to not give away the unexpected heat rising up his skin.
“Sure thing. I’ll have the Product team get right on all of that,” Namjoon responds before he looks down to type an email into his phone.
You look back down at your iPad, nibbling at the inside of your lip as you tuck your hair behind your ear.
You take a second to press your head back to the seat as the plane takes off.
Namjoon reaches below the seat in front of him and pulls out his iPad to begin typing information into the slides. He glances over at you furiously typing and swiping before you grimace.
“Ow, fff-” You growl, looking at your index finger. 
Blood starts to pool in a small cut, and Namjoon takes notice. You look over at him and watch him reach into his bag to pull out a travel-sized first aid kit. He takes out a small alcohol wipe and grabs your finger, pinching the towelette to it. You wince, sucking air in through your teeth.
“You should really get that fixed.” He says as he takes a small bandaid and covers the cut.
“Uhm, I will. Thank you.” You say quietly as you search his eyes, and then tuck your hair behind your ear again. 
You break eye contact with him as your heart starts to patter in your chest...and fuck. You know you're in trouble from here on out.
Namjoon chuckles to himself through his nose as he takes a world newspaper from an attendant.
The newspaper covers his face and you sneak to observe your finger -- trying to not let a smile curl up on the edges of your lips.
✹✹✹
“Checking in?”
A woman asks you in a singsong voice and you nod, motioning for Namjoon to give you his identification card. 
You're tired, hungry and irritable from the flight and certainly not willing to engage with this ultra-chipper woman right now.
“Ugh, beautiful! How long have you two been together?” She asks, smiling as she looks at the two of you.
“We’re not a couple and we’ve only just met, why do you ask?” You inquire, swiping through a few things on a digital screen anchored to the desk in front of you.
“Oh...you’re not?” You stop what you’re doing and look up at her. “No. We’re here for the TechX conference.”
The woman releases a nervous breath from her throat and readjusts her blouse.
“Well...oh my, the room I have booked for the two of you is one of our most romantic rooms.” She giggles out nervously, not sure what to do as she hands you a sleeve of keycards.
“I’m gonna fucking kill Taehyung when I get back,” You grumble, taking your credit card and the sleeve before you march off toward the elevator.
The elevator lobby is packed, and both you and Namjoon slip into a crowded elevator.
You find yourself suddenly sandwiched between the back of a woman and the front of Namjoon, and you tighten your muscles so you don’t make bodily contact with either of them.
The elevator jerks as it reaches the floor before yours, and Namjoon collapses over you. He looks down at you as his hands land to press on the wall on either side of your head as he holds himself up.
“God, sorry,” He groans as he waits for other people to exit before he can steadily stand on his own two feet. Your eyes grow wide as you look up at him, a prickly heat creeping up your throat. His face is so close to yours from the fall that you can feel his breaths on your skin. 
“Are you okay?” He asks, looking over at you as he’s able to stand up straight.
Namjoon thinks nothing of the brief moment, but you gulp and give him a silent nod.
“This is us.” He says before he clears the way, watching you walk out in front of him.
✹✹✹
As you enter the room, you hear smooth jazz floating from a digital radio.
You drop to your knees: you see rose petals on the bed, a bucket with ice and champagne, a towel swan and a bouquet of additional roses wrapped with packages of chocolate. You drop your head into your hands and laugh out loud, and Namjoon looks down at you. His eyes quickly scan the room and he lets out a screech before he covers his stomach to laugh.
“I-I s-swear we were set up,” You gasp for air through your laughs. “God.”
“The wall between the shower and our room is frosted. Frosted!” Namjoon yells as he waves his hand through it to show you as you approach. 
You both can’t help but giggle.
“God. I haven’t laughed that hard in so long,” You mention, swiping a tear hanging on at the edge of your eye. Namjoon smiles, his dimples lighting up his face.
There’s a sudden silence as your eyes meet, and you try to find something to busy yourself with -- deciding on unraveling the towel swan.
“Anyway, I’m gonna shower. We can just relax for now as we wait for everything to come in.” You quickly open your luggage and pull out a swimsuit and a cover up before heading into the bathroom.
“And oh. Please be an adult...no peeking?” You raise your brows as you pop your head from the bathroom. 
Namjoon nods in agreement, beginning to unpack his luggage. He grabs his clothes nonchalantly to head to a nearby drawer, but he unintentionally catches your silhouette in the shower.
Namjoon gulps as he feels a tightness growing in his jeans. He clears his throat, continuing on with placing his clothes into the drawer.
✹✹✹
“Okay, okay, yes. I’m so sorry. It was the best we could do under the circumstances, and yes-” Taehyung nods his head as Jimin takes another bite of a sushi roll.
“Oof, was that her?” Jimin asks, swiping his mouth with a napkin. 
“God, yeah. She’s pissed. And she yelled. She never yells at me, Jiminie.” Taehyung pouts.
Jimin laughs as he throws his head back, rubbing Taehyung’s back.
“Don’t worry Taehyungie,” He giggles. “I’m sure they’ll thank us soon enough.”
Taheyung smiles at him and opens his mouth to receive one of the rolls on his tongue.
The two giggle as they look at each other, mouths full.
✹✹✹
You swim in the Olympic-sized pool at the hotel before you pop up from underneath. 
A hand runs through your hair to smooth it on your head before you start to float on your back. The intense rays of the sun start to heat up your skin, but you nearly moan at how good it feels.
Namjoon settles down in a lounge chair before he sees you with your eyes closed on the water. 
You only have on a swimsuit, but in a man’s mind it was the near-equivalent of seeing you in your underwear. 
Namjoon attempts to sneak away before you can spot him, but your eyes open just as he does.
“Hey! Kim Namjoon! Is that you?” You shout, paddling up to the edge of the pool. He grimaces and meets you at the edge, looking down at you.
“Did you really just try to avoid me?” You throw his question from earlier back at him, smirking.
“What? No.” Namjoon scoffs and clenches his jaw -- a bit delighted, a bit turned on.
You tilt your head and raise your eyebrows, still awaiting a real answer. His thoughts are still racing for a clever response and you can tell he’s caught off-guard.
You emerge from the water, toweling your hair and body. His eyes widen as he tries to keep them focused on your face, and you smirk at him again. 
"Cat got your tongue?" You tease, wringing out your hair.
The devilish look in your eyes shoots straight to his water trunks and he presses his legs together. He quickly wraps the towel in his hand around his waist to cover himself before you detect anything, and your eyes follow his movements.
“Uhm, you know what...I don’t feel too well,” His voice trembles. “I’m gonna go back to the room.”
Namjoon takes off in a hurry, and you scoff as your brows come together in confusion.
✹✹✹
Namjoon lets out a few strained moans as he tugs at cock -- now rock hard and bulging with thick veins. His eyes squeeze shut as you come into memory, and he attempts to regulate his arousal through deep, frantic exhales. 
The way the sun was kissing your body, the movement of the water as it drizzled down into the valley between your breasts, the smirk and banter that lit his desire alight. He gasps as he strokes his cock faster, his grip growing firmer by the second. He feels his balls tighten, his cock growing stiffer with lust. 
He growls as he nears cumming, taking a moment to spit on in his hand and spread it generously over his shaft. He jerks his cock as fast as he can, his wrist snapping in different directions to switch up the sensation of his movements. He bucks into his hand at the last few moments, wondering what it’d be like to have you atop his cock instead. 
Namjoon cries out before his cock hardens, his thick load pulsing in random patterns across his chest. 
"Fuck," He suddenly hears footsteps floating down the hall and he swiftly pulls his trunks up.
He grabs a few tissues from the night table to quickly wipe himself off.
“Namjoon? I’m back,” You announce as you open the door. “The pool’s great, you can’t miss it.”
You enter and he tosses the tissues to the ground.
You observe that Namjoon’s form is rigid and that he’s sitting up on the bed as he scrolls through his phone. Something’s weird and quiet about the energy in the room, but you just shrug it off.
“Hey.” His tone is stoic, but you can sense his voice is caught in his throat before he clears it.
“Should we close out the final pieces of the presentation tonight?” Namjoon continues, his eyes now following you as you walk around the room.
“Sure thing, eight sound good?” You ask, smiling in his direction.
All he can do is look at you with his eyes wide and nod.
✹✹✹
“How’d you find this place?” You ask, picking up one of the books stacked on the table for display.
The rest of the bar is almost like a library -- straight from Beauty and the Beast. You look up and around as bookshelves from every angle are filled with books.
"Your drinks." A waiter arrives, carefully placing each drink on the table.
"I like to wander and I stumbled upon it. I frequent here when I come to Vegas," Namjoon smiles at you, satisfied with himself. "It's a nice place to unwind and get work done outside of the hotel." You nod, impressed with his response.
"I love all of the giant KAWS figurines here, too," You mention, and he turns his head to look at you. "The valuation on those in a few years is gonna be insane."
"Oh, you like art, too?" He tries to hide the gush in his voice, but you chuckle to yourself.
"Sure do." You reply, taking a few small sips from your cup as you look at him.
As Namjoon sips at his Jameson whiskey on the rocks, you can't help but absorb his carefully slicked back hair and the leather jacket on his frame.
Namjoon notices from his peripheral and bites his lip as subtly as he can, drawing his iPad from his briefcase.
After a few minutes, he looks up from what he's typing to see you've already downed half of your drink. You drop the cup from your lips and your eyes grow wide with embarrassment.
"God, sorry, please don't judge me," You chuckle as you peel the drink from your mouth and lick your lips. "They only have good French Martinis in two places in the world. Vegas, and Europe."
Namjoon chuckles back at you, and you notice his eyes float down to your lips. 
Your breath quickens for a second, but he breaks eye contact by looking down. He purses his lips and his dimples pop out before he looks at you through his lashes.
"You've got a little something..." He motions at the foam on your upper lip, and you attempt to swipe it with your tongue. He shakes his head a few times as you continue licking your lips to no avail.
"May I?" He asks warmly. With a nod from you, he takes a miniature napkin to wipe your top lip. He's so close that you can smell the spice of his cologne, and you look into his eyes. 
A slight panic forms in his gaze before he pulls back.
“There.” He says without looking at you, placing the napkin on the table.
Both of you shake the interaction off, and you reach into your bag to pull out your iPad.
"I had Taehyung drop in the graphics. All we have to do is finish up the text," You say as you start to type, and Namjoon brings his focus back to his slides.
"Got it. I had Jimin drop in the brief outline he retrieved from the Product Lead, so we can just work from that as we go along." Namjoon chimes in, and you nod.
"I'll activate the full social strategy and content team back at the office," You continue as you type. "I'll let them know that we're almost locked so they can get ready to fire up the site and social promotions."
Namjoon smiles to himself again, absorbing the incredible synergy between the two of you. It only pushes him harder...and makes him harder. He clenches his jaw as he feels the sensation filling his lower half, but he shakes his leg to stay focused.
"Is there something wrong?" You ask, looking down at his leg.
"Hmm?" He asks, not even noticing his leg still moving. 
"Oh!" He says looking down and stretching his foot out, but it bumps yours instead.
"Fuck. Sorry!" He yelps. You chortle, continuing on with writing. 
You look at him for a bit through your peripheral, admiring his absolute focus on the task at hand. He picks up a pen to draw it around his plump lips, and you can't help but feel a twinge between your thighs. You inhale and let out a breath to take your focus off the sensation.
Just as you do, a crackle of thunder rips through the air and a few customers gasp and break into a din. 
You and Namjoon look at each other, and a few flashes of lightning light up each of your features in the dim bar.
"We should get going before it rains," Namjoon says as he starts to pack his bag. "We can finish this up at the hotel." 
You follow suit.
✹✹✹
As the two of you walk outside, the rain begins to trickle. Despite the warm Vegas air from earlier, the temperature significantly dropped in the evening and it made you shiver.
Namjoon notices, and despite him being cold -- he drops his coat on your shoulders.
"Oh. Please don't do that on my behalf." You say as you look up at him, but he keeps walking.
You couldn't worry long, noticing as raindrops begin to soak Namjoon's white tee.
"Just up here," He looks down at you and points at the hotel, but it suddenly starts to pour. He grabs your hand to quickly pull you across the street before the light changes, and you pull his jacket over your head.
Namjoon doesn't stop running until the two of you land in an empty elevator. He sighs, slicking his wet hair back with a hand. You notice that his shirt is soaked, seeping into the grooves of his firm chest and abdomen.
You arrive at the door to your room, nervously shuffling in your bag for your keycard. You can feel Namjoon's warm breath at the back of your neck, and you feel goosebumps form on your skin.
"Here." He says, reaching around you to insert his key. You feel as his body heat radiates around you as you walk through the door.
As you enter the room you shiver at the blast of air conditioning -- pulling Namjoon's coat further over your shoulders.
Namjoon returns from the bathroom with a towel, and removes his jacket from your frame. 
“Sorry, it’s totally my fault for suggesting a place so far away,” He wraps the warm fluffy towel over your shoulders, and you close your eyes in comfort.
"No, it was really fun," You open your eyes after a few seconds, shaking your head as you look up at him.
Namjoon almost looks away as you open your eyes, but his gaze fixates on yours -- causing you to lose the breath in your throat as you quickly look down.
"Thank you." Your voice only manages to come out in a whisper. You somehow get the courage to let your eyes scan his body, and then look back up to meet him still looking down at you.
Namjoon’s chest lightly rises and falls as neither of you break eye contact -- his eyes floating to your lips. He tucks your hair behind your ear, and your breath catches in your throat. His thumb moves to trace over your jawline and your bottom lip as he moves in to hover his lips over yours.
The air buzzes with a sparkling heat as your lips brush together -- neither of you wanting to be the first to make a move.
“We shouldn’t do this, right?” He whispers, the tip of his nose grazing over yours.
"No..." You whisper back, a bated desire in your voice. 
“Can I tell you a secret?” You give him a slow nod, drawing your bottom lip in-between your teeth.
You lick your lips and he tilts your head to the side, his own lips inside the shell of your ear before he speaks.
“That red dress...from yesterday? It was all I could think about for the rest of the night.” The deep vibrations from his voice causes you to let out a satisfied moan as you tilt your head back.
“Does that turn you on?” He asks, his hands sliding down your body to grip your hips.
A heated lust overcomes you, and you let your lips feverishly embrace his. Your hands roam up his wet body and land over his shoulders before you pull him closer to you by the back of his neck. The momentum dizzies you both and your back slams into the wall.
His hands move to your waist as he covers you, pulling you flush against his hard, wet body. It causes your lips to part, and he slips his searing tongue into your mouth. You easily lose the upper hand as he grips your ass, causing you to let out a whine into his mouth. His plush lips kiss at your neck, and you run your hands through his damp hair as his kisses reach your collarbones.
Namjoon moves to wipe all of the items off a cabinet near you, and the chocolate and roses crash to the floor. He throws you on top of the surface, his lips eagerly gliding over yours.
Namjoon's hands roam up your dress and on the outside of your thighs as his fingers tuck under the top of the fabric of your underwear. He tugs at the fabric as if he's going to remove it, but he jerks it up hard instead -- soothing the growing ache between your thighs. He twists the fabric in a bunch so he can keep pulling at it in intervals to soothe your clit.
Your head falls back in desperation and he takes the opportunity to suck a hickey into the exposed skin. He nibbles at the skin harder and you gasp, gripping the back of his mullet.
Namjoon growls into your ear as you pull his hair, and yanks your underwear down each of your thighs.
Just as he does, he feels his wrist buzz. He pulls from your lips to look at his watch.
[Assistant: Park Jimin.]
Namjoon lets out a long exhale through his nose. He rests his forehead on yours, both of your lips still swollen and vibrating from the session.
"I have to take this," He lets out in a deep exhale before touching a green icon on his watch to receive the call.
"Are you alright, Sir?" Jimin asks, hearing Namjoon’s intense breaths cooling on his end.
"Just came from the gym, don't worry about me. What’s on fire?" He breathes out, and the edges of your lips curl upward at the lie.
"Nothing at all, Sir. I've just called to give your daily rundown as requested." Namjoon sighs, forgetting it’s something he did in fact ask for.
“Can I call you back in five?” Namjoon asks, and you shake your head.
After Jimin hangs up, Namjoon immediately dives back into your lips. You savor it for a few seconds, but you tease him a few times as you pull away.
"I think we should finish up in the morning and get to bed," You whisper, your hand floating down his cheek. "Long day tomorrow." You bite your lip as you look into his eyes.
Namjoon lightly growls in disappointment as he pulls you down from the top of the cabinet.
You lift your hair up into a ponytail, and you turn around and look over your shoulder.
“Mind helping me with the zip?” You ask, and you feel the heat from his breath at the back of your neck drawing goosebumps from your skin. His breaths shallow out with every inch of the zip, and he lets out a light groan as it ends at the curve of your back -- just before your ass.
“Thanks.” You whisper as you head toward the bathroom, looking over your shoulder once more with a grin before you disappear around the corner.
Namjoon waits to make sure you’re gone before he screams into his fist out of frustration.
✹✹✹
“Seeya, I’m gonna head over to the conference hall to start getting prepped,” Namjoon mentions, stuffing a croissant in his mouth as he picks up his briefcase. “You said you’ll be a few minutes behind me, right?” He asks, using his free hand to push his glasses up his nose.
“Uhm, sure! Yes! Yesyesyesyes. Have a nice day!” You nod eagerly, your eyes wide as you watch him head toward the door. He furrows his brows, finding you a bit too enthusiastic.
As the door shuts, you hear his footfalls disappear down the hall and you toss your robe to the ground.
You take in a deep inhale. You knew you needed to be focused for this presentation, and you definitely couldn't have what happened last night top of mind.
Where to start? Him eyeing you in the office? The wet t-shirt? Oh, yes. There.
You sink down in the bed and slowly spread your legs, your fingers gliding over your already wet lips. You gasp in pleasure as you recall his plump lips dragging on your neck -- his teeth embedded in the sensitive flesh. It’s enough for you to dip a finger inside of yourself -- make it two -- before you let out a moan.
The thing that really made you wet, though, was his mind. The fucking book bar? Kudos. His knowledge of the product? Points. A tattered copy of a book about love? You were practically dripping down your thighs at the thought. Those nerdy glasses he wore before he left this morning? Fuck me.
It’s all enough to make you cum until-
Bzz. Beep.
You quickly draw the covers up on your frame and you can feel your cheeks burning as Namjoon enters the room.
“I...left my coffee...” He says cautiously, seeing your robe on the floor before his eyes meet yours. “Uhm, sorry?” His voice comes out in a high, questioning pitch -- and he grabs his coffee before he hurries himself out the door.
As the door shuts, you kick your feet around in the bed and then slap your forehead.
Fuck. He caught you.
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ddullahan · 3 years
Text
hadestown au 1
HI SO My anxiety has been through the fuckin roof for the past few weeks and in a fit of stress I deleted the first look of the bees hadestown au that I posted a few weeks ago. I’m feeling much better now and I wanted to repost it because I really am super excited about it >< Anyway, second verse, maybe same as the first, here we go! ---------------- it’s an old song As all tales begin, there comes a moment of question. The precipice we all stand at, toes hanging over the edge, eager to take the plunge. The question, different for every eye and ear turned to the story, starts as a feeling. It buoys us through the long swathes of paragraphs ahead. It seeps into our minds, and pushes us off the edge. We have that moment of freefall. Of realisation. We have to trust in something to catch us. Like most fairy tales, it begins with once upon a time. There laid a railroad track.   If you've ever heard the rails sing on a good, windy day, you'd know the sound sticks to the back of your mind. There to stay until the dark of night, when it creeps up to whisper wanderlust into your bones. The song of the rails is a low and resonant thing, humming into the willows scattered along the railroad sides. They used to say the rails were the Fates groaning in your ears. Urging you along. Waiting in anticipation for the train to come to call. Waiting for the story to start its freefall. The metal likes to wail beneath blackened wheels on hot, summer days. Days much like the one in which our story begins. Once upon a time - Metal chatters under the weight of an ancient, scorch-marked train. Decorated with blacked out windows. Panes of glass soot-stained, like they’d been brushed with fire one too many times. Coal smoke bursts from its chimney with a grudge, flooding the gray skies in the type of black smog that you can taste in the back of your mouth, long after the train’s disappeared. It was painted white once, a long, long time ago. A gift from the boss man down below for his flowering wife; but it’s one of those gifts you shove in the back of your drawer. One of those things that you spend your nights lying awake in bed, thinking in guilty chords. The train still runs, but the old white sides are now black and cold. Like the panting of dogs on the skin of your heels, the wind still blows hot behind it. The only thing it tows are souls to their final destination, but it won't take you if you ain't got the gold to board. It’s a fact almost everyone knows. ‘Cause the old legends say the road to hell could lead you out of poverty, but you gotta pay the toll to get that good money. The wind cracks and snaps after the train; sends the short ribbons of inky black hair whipping. Snapping into the brown-skinned face of a hungry young woman.   Blake Belladonna’s eyes glint like knives with a debt to pay, and her steps are sure footed against the rolling rocks under her boots. She wears a weathered bag slung over her shoulder, and a once-warm leather duster now worn to shit and hole-y. She seems small among the billowing willows and smoggy skies. She doesn't know where she's going or how she got to the railroad at all - but she knows how to turn her collar against the wind. And she knows how to run.   Metal shrieks, pulling her eyes up like a hand to the chin. She’s left to watch as the ruined, black omen of a train screams past a small, dilapidated station. It’s the only structure for miles. The cicadas are screaming along to the wailing of the tracks in a symphony, until the locomotive vanishes over the curve of a distant hill. The station's dry, mud-caked windows send silt drifting to cracked, rotting floorboards. The coke-bottle thick panes rattle angrily in their fragile frames, and then come to find their peace once more. Damn this is a dump, the young woman thinks, approaching the station. But it'll have to do. The sun's rays sink into her skull and turn her warm brown skin hot to the touch. It's far too hot for April. Stepping into the shade is an immediate relief, until the hot wind kicks up again. It blasts in her face as if to remind her it's there. As if she could ever forget. She's used to the way it whispers starvation in her ears. She throws the door open and escapes from the wind; stumbles her way into the empty station. Small and dusty like it’d been forgotten, filled with only two benches facing each other and a single door hiding behind them in the gloom. There's a sign on the door that reads "End o  th  line Caf ". Faintly, she can hear music behind it. Blake doesn't hesitate, and heads for the door. The knob breaks off in her hand, but it feels familiar and solid so she pockets it and heads inside. Follows the hallway and the pull of her feet to the music. The walls grow darker and thicker with polished wood. Her steps don't seem to echo and the music has since paused. The quiet starts to make her anxious. She doesn't like dark hallways. She's dreamt of them enough for a lifetime. The further she goes, the more her unease starts to grow and the more she starts to wonder if she's been here before. It's ridiculous, really. This is the farthest south she'd ever gone. Or was she in the east? Her anxious heart speeds up for a reason she can't see, and it's like her feet already know where to go. The hallway turns suddenly and she finds herself standing at the rim of an amphitheater of sorts. The music fades back in. There's a band jamming to soft jazz in the stands, people crowded and conversing at tiny tables scattered about the flat floor at the bottom. There's a man at a piano playing a diddy, there's a flicker of gold in the kitchen beyond. It's alive in a way that she hadn't seen in a long time, and she finds her feet eager to join the dancing 'round the tables below. She takes a step and nearly runs into another woman, decked out in a crisp white and red suit. She’s older, maybe late thirties or mid forties - has this eternally kind, yet melancholy smile. Her features are fair, but tired. Her black hair is pulled back like Blake’s, but tipped with red like the ends had been dipped in paint. Blake apologises immediately - "E-excuse me, sorry," and starts picking her way down to the tables. "No worries dear," She hears faintly behind her, the older woman's face already blurred from her memory. She blinks and suddenly she’s on the bottom floor, with the movers and shakers rattling cups with their stomping jive. She wants to move with them, but she's already reaching for an empty chair, like her hand was following its own storyline. The flash of gold catches her attention again. Her feet slip into a shallow groove in the floor, and she is rooted. Something crashes, and her eyes follow the clattering sharp shards of porcelain. One piece with purple trim bounces off a brown boot. She notices a hole near the big toe. Blake looks up, and her heart decides to freefall.   All the way across the floor stands a young woman in an apron. A bucket of newly broken dishes lay at her feet.   Her eyes are so pale and pretty they have their own orbit amidst the aging lights above. Her blonde hair ripples into liquid gold, twisted messily into a bun. Broad shoulders are cinched into position with suspenders and there's an off-white shirt rolled up to her elbows, the hem tucked into a pair of trousers. The skin of her strong forearms are tanned and riddled with freckles, spreading constellations all the way up her neck and across the gradual slope of her nose.   Oh, there's something familiar about all of this. Blake feels it in her bones. There’s something familiar in the ‘o’ of her startled mouth. Something about the empty hands she hovers, still holding an imaginary bucket of plates. She's got those sharp lilac eyes pinned on something in front of her.   It's a jolt to realise she's staring right at Blake. Though suddenly, that older woman in the white and red suit sweeps by that freckled face, and it's with a smile and a wave that their staring contest ends. No one claims the victory as the spell breaks. The older woman asks something that Blake can't hear, but she knows her voice is soft and sweet. Her feet move like she’s skating on air, and Blake decides to focus on that. She focuses on that instead of the heartbeat in her chest. She doesn’t think about how her pulse no longer feels like it belongs to herself. The golden woman nods stiffly and turns. Follows the gliding woman to the back of the house, and Blake is left with a heart migrating into her throat. The hungry young woman quickly tears her gaze away, uproots her feet from the grooves in the floor, and sits at the table she'd claimed. Her skin feels clammy. Her body is buzzing. She shrugs off her bag and coat, then pulls her bag into her lap. As if there was anything in there worth protecting. It could be minutes, it could be hours. She's really not sure, when a shadow falls over her table, and the sight aches like an old friend. A bottle of some fizzy drink is set gently before her, the bottle cap rattling towards her side of the table. Sunflower Pop, it reads. She looks up. The poor young woman, with her liquid gold locks wrapped in a messy topknot, stares right back. They're both struck speechless.   If there was ever a moment where destiny fills the lungs, it was then. Anticipation strings itself between their ribs, the cords like telephone wires humming their universal tune. I found you. I found you. I found you. But neither of them say a word to each other. The anticipation feels closer to a noose than a cup-and-string, the longer they spend breathing in the other's presence. The hungry young woman with hair black as night, just couldn't look away. Couldn't make her voice work right. The gold haired woman's jaw seems to work, but there was still no sound to be heard. Eventually the woman just turns around and walks away, toddling and tripping like her knees were unsteady. Blake sits where she left her, feeling much more than sympathy. She feels like her chair would collapse with her if she tried to follow. And again, there are voices whispering in the back of her mind. The wind already found her inside this place, its voices groaning and hollow. It always finds her, and she knows. She knows it always will. But as her slender fingers wrap around the neck of the bottle left on her table, Blake tastes the fizz and hums. Feels the crackle of carbonation all across her skin as she tracks the tall blonde with her eyes. The wind doesn’t feel like a whip in this vibrant, lively place. That has to count for something. Maybe she should stick around, just for one day. Maybe she would stick around and wait for the band to play.
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70s Jimercury
I know this was completed brilliantly by another anon, but I wanted to give it a try myself because it’s such a funny prompt. Credit goes to the anon who came up with this.
Warning for some outdated language regarding gay people (e.g., queer, homosexual, etc.)
‘In my defence,’ said Roger, as the car went over a speed bump and he temporarily lost his balance, almost ending up on Brian’s lap, ‘it was John who dared me to put chewing gum in your hair, so technically this is all his fault.’
‘Don’t even talk to me.’ Brian growled, his expression so dark it made Roger feel like a ghost had passed through him. ‘You’re lucky Miami was able to get me this appointment at such short notice. If he hadn’t, you and Deacy would be arriving to that photoshoot tonight in a hearse.’
‘You’re breaking my heart, Bri.’ Roger yawned, leaning back in his seat. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist; the nice barber man will trim your bush and you’ll be good as new for your close up.’
‘Oh yeah, with a whopping great bald patch!’
‘Such a pessimist. Trust me; one day we’ll be sitting on my front lawn, sipping tea, and laughing about this.’
Brian’s face remained bland as a stone.
‘Oh, cheer up, would you?’ The drummer threw up his arms in defeat. ‘We already have one miserable bastard in this band, we don’t need another one.’
Brian sighed, staring out of the darkened window as his mind turned to their ailing frontman. Freddie hadn’t been the same since his breakup with David Minns. David was, after all, his first proper love; he had given Freddie the courage to finally come to terms with who he really was and end his fraudulent relationship with Mary. There was something about David that brought Freddie to life in a way that Brian had never seen before. When David was around, he glowed with an energy that didn’t seem humanly possible.
But all relationships have their ups and downs. Freddie never went into detail about the rows that occurred between he and David, but Brian had heard through the grapevine that there were several contributing factors to the breakup, ranging from Freddie's strained relationship with his parents to arguments becoming physical. But the real catalyst came in the form of a blond American man named Joe Fanelli; and Freddie being Freddie, he just couldn’t resist temptation when it was offered up to him on a silver platter.
The aftermath of the separation had been…devastating to say the least. The spark in Freddie had almost vanished entirely, replaced with an emotionless husk. He had no motivation, not even to perform; his days were spent hidden away in his hotel room, refusing to emerge, even for the most basic necessities like food and water. And the others had no choice but to sit and watch his self-destruction.
‘We need to do something about him.’ Brian announced, as the car pulled up to the curb where security was already waiting for them. ‘It’s been two weeks and he’s barely shifted from that bed. We’ll need to stage a fucking intervention at this point.’
‘One problem at a time, Bri.’ Roger replied as the car door was pulled open. ‘Now hop it, Miami will eat us alive if we’re late.’
They made it into the Savoy without being detected by any lurking members of the public; Brian sighed in relief as he was led into the salon and all but collapsed in the barber chair. He just wanted to get his hair sorted and then leave as soon as possible. He was tired, he was hungry, and he felt fucking awful for making some poor underpaid hairdresser stay behind after hours to battle with his curly mop. He just hoped he’d be able to keep up with the endless questions that would undoubtedly be coming his way; after all, it wasn’t every day you got to trim a celebrity’s noggin, was it?
‘Alright lads?’ A thick, friendly Irish accent suddenly filled the room, and the two of them turned to see an average sized man with a dark, thick beard pop out from behind the counter, a large black gown draped on his arm and a toolbag under the other. ‘What can I do for you today?’
Brian motioned to the wad of gum stuck in his curls. ‘Going to need to take a chunk out of my head, I’m afraid. This one over hear thought it would be funny to use my skull as a school desk.’
‘It was a dare.’ Roger grumbled.
The man chuckled humorously. ‘Let’s have a look at it before we do anything rash.’ He draped the gown around Brian’s front, before opening up the toolbag and setting out the various instruments on the counter. ‘I’m Jim by the way.’
‘Brian. The smug twat sitting over there is Roger.’
Said twat pulled a face. ‘Oi!’
The first thing that struck Brian was that this fellow didn’t appear to recognise them at all. They chatted about nearly everything except music; and when the conversation turned to work and Jim asked what Brian did for a living, the guitarist was certain that someone was pulling his leg. Had Miami really managed to find the one barber in London who had no idea who Queen was?
‘We’re musicians.’ He replied, glancing in the mirror for any sign of recognition in Jim’s eyes. ‘We actually have our own band. Ever heard of Queen?’
The barber frowned slightly in thought. ‘Queen? Sorry, doesn’t ring any bells. I’m not really up to date with today’s music. Does your band perform locally?’
‘On occasion.’
‘Had any success?’
‘We do alright for ourselves.’ Brian glared at Roger as the drummer sniggered in the background.
‘Good news.’ Declared Jim, after ten minutes of fiddling about with Brian’s forest of curls. ‘I should be able to shift this with a bit of conditioner. No cutting needed.’
‘Are you serious?’ Brian could have kissed the man if he was that way inclined. ‘Mate, that’s fantastic.’
Jim excused himself to go into the back room, oblivious to the pair of narrowed blue eyes that followed him, studying every step. Roger, who had been silent throughout the exchange between the other two men, suddenly twiddled his fingers together like a Bond villain and quietly muttered, ‘queer.’
Brian stopped fussing with his hair long enough to turn towards him. ‘You what?’
‘Him.’ Roger pointed towards the door that Jim had just disappeared through. ‘Queer. I’d bet the Red Special on it.’
‘Roger, you can’t just go around calling people queer.’ Brian could feel his face heating up, praying the Irishman didn’t have sharp hearing. ‘Besides, how the bloody hell would you know if he’s queer or not? It’s not like he has it written on his forehead.’
‘Trust me, I know these things. Call it a sixth sense. Saw it coming from a mile away with Freddie.’
‘Did not.’
‘Did so, Brian. Unlike you, this sort of thing doesn’t fly over my head.’
Brian rolled his eyes. ‘Alright, let’s say he is queer. What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Isn’t it obvious? He’d be perfect for Freddie.’
‘Seriously, Roger? You want to play matchmaker now? How exactly is he “perfect” for Freddie?’
‘He looks like Burt Reynolds, he spent ages gushing about his pet cat, and it’s pretty obvious he has no fucking idea who Queen are. Freddie’s always been a sucker for the average Joe.’
Brian opened his mouth to argue. Then he closed it again, immediately. Roger was…pretty damn spot on.
‘I say we get Freddie in here to meet him.’ Roger murmured, as Jim returned from the back room, bottle of conditioner in hand.
‘Sorry for the wait.’ The Irishman poured a dollop onto his palm, before carefully working it into the gum-infested locks. ‘Let’s see if we can get this bugger out.’
No less than five minutes later, the gum had been safely removed and Brian was a free man again. Miami had already covered the cost for the cut, but Brian insisted on leaving Jim a tip, eternally grateful that his pride and joy was still neatly intact. Maybe Roger had a point; Jim seemed like a decent bloke. Calm, friendly, ordinary in an endearing way. Broad and muscular like Freddie preferred, though not overly tall (though everyone was dwarfed in Brian’s presence.) And now that he thought about it, he did look a bit like Burt Reynolds…
‘You wouldn’t be able to do us a favour, would you Jim?’
‘Just name it.’ Jim replied, still staring gormlessly at the fifty-pound note in his hand.
‘We have a friend who’s in desperate need of a trim.’ The lie fell off Brian’s tongue so easily, it almost made him uncomfortable. ‘Would I be able to arrange an appointment for him with you next week? It would have to be after hours again, but-’
‘No problem.’ Jim quickly came to his sense and shoved the money in his pocket. ‘I can put him down for Friday if that works?’
‘Perfect! See you then.’
He all but dragged Roger out of the salon, wading through the small crowd of fans who had congregated outside the building after being tipped off about their presence, and quickly diving into the car waiting on the curb.
‘Not one word.’ He said between his teeth, as Roger flashed him a smirk that said, “I told you so.” (1/2)
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First of all, I am so sorry for posting this so late! I had a really busy day, and haven't had a moment to myself until now.
And now...
I FUCKING LOVE THIS! The earlier drabble by another anon was wonderful, and this one is equally good!
Lmao, I loved this line:
Brian motioned to the wad of gum stuck in his curls. ‘Going to need to take a chunk out of my head, I’m afraid. This one over hear thought it would be funny to use my skull as a school desk.’
Hahaha this was so damn funny, and sweet and oh god simply amazing!
(More drabbles by writer anon)
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razorblade180 · 4 years
Text
The NaruSaku post
@perfectkidalienpatrol asked me a two questions a couple weeks ago one about restructuring Kingdom Hearts DDD and 3 to be more emotional which you find right here < [it took time, please read. Also leave a reply on this one because it also took way too much time. Thank you 😅]
The second question is about how I would write NaruSaku, which is this post. [I rewatched 60 percent of Naruto Shippuden for this. I’m not playing games here.]
I’m gonna follow the same rules I did for KH more or less. I’m not changing 90% of any major events just certain people surrounding it and I’ll add stuff that’s not unreasonable. Most of the things I’m about to say is gonna be from Sakura’s perspective since Naruto is already in love with her and have a good of his feelings towards her. I’d also like to take a moment and say I’m a person who doesn’t believe Sakura is weak or useless, but she’s sorely underused. What makes this bad is her screen time is almost always to make others around her have more of an effect or her doing something stupid because plot. Okay, let’s get the big stuff out of the way first that lays the ground work.
Part 1 of Naruto is unchanged. (Rip Sakura, she’s still of no use here.)
The start of Shippuden, all the way up to Pain is basically the same. The thing about NaruSaku is there’s plenty of ground work in the show. The series definitely shows Sakura warming up and caring about Naruto in a variety of ways. The entire blueprint is there, Kishimoto just decided to go with Hinata.
During the Rasenshuriken training, Kakashi grabs the food pill basket from Sakura and tells her stay. Since Naruto’s training is more trial by fire and repetition, Kakashi uses his free time to train Sakura. Combat, a little ninjitsu, even tricks about genjutsu and things he’s learned about sharingan. (You know, sensei stuff)
Neji will live for obvious reasons.
Okay, so my whole thought process really starts at the point in the show where Sakura falsely tells Naruto that she loves him. At this point, the show has given tons of scenes of Sakura healing Naruto, defending the way he is, acknowledged his growth, and has him as a strong motivator do whatever she can whenever she can. All while being emotionally torn because of her love for Saskue and being faced with the reality that Naruto has been in love with her forever. The scene plays out the same with Naruto not believing her and the Saskue murder team leaving. Sakura doesn’t let it show she is deeply conflicted about telling that lie. Was it a lie? It certainly wasn’t completely truthfully. Her thoughts and feelings on Naruto had been rapidly changing and confusing her little by little since he returned to the village. All she was certain of was that Naruto was a person that had become very important to her and she didn’t want to cause him any more suffering.
Fast forwarding to Sakura encountering Saskue, the encounter is only different by Sakura confessing her honest feelings to him right on the iron bridge, telling him how she’ll join his side if he can’t find it in himself to stop being a criminal. She’s unknowingly under a genjutsu that’s letting Sakura see him in front of her, pretending to care about this conversation while he’s actually about to chidori her from behind. Sakura catches on to the trick a bit too late but was fortunately saved by Kakashi. Naruto eventually shows up, the fight happens, and we get the scene where Naruto tells Saskue that they well both die the next time they fight. Two very important things come out of this entire event. The first is Sakura’s feelings for Saskue are now shattered after he tried to kill her twice, while the other thing is Sakura’s fear of Naruto’s prediction coming true.
We get back to the village and everyone starts going their separate ways except for Naruto and Sakura, because she tells him to stay back for a moment. She takes this moment to apologize to him for what she said. The guilt about the entire thing builds more and more as she continues her apology until Sakura gets so frustrated with her own actions, or lack of action. Naruto interrupts her apology before she got too far gone into self loathing and sorrow and tells her that it’s okay. Yes, his promise is a big reason for motivating him but Naruto is also in it for himself and tries to lift some of the guilt Sakura has for all of this. In the process he ends up mentioning just how much she actually does for everyone, especially him; which only makes her feel more conflicted about everything since all of his feelings are on the table clearly for her. Sakura mentally decides she having such a kind person like him always supporting her was something she wasn’t close to being worthy of, so she would strive to be that person. Sakura decides to do one more selfish act though, she asks Naruto to stay alive through all of this. Naruto simply looks at the girl that is clearly concerned about all of this and says yes, despite not knowing just how sure he can keep this promise.
At this point in the anime there’s a lot of war preparations. In one scene there’s Sakura looking at photos of the gruesome tragedies that she should expect to see as a medical ninja. A head nurse also explains how sometimes you have to prioritize who to save. Sakura then thinks to herself in a crazy circumstance where both Naruto and Saskue are fatally wounded, who would she rush to? I’m keeping this scene but giving it new context. This thought plagues her mind not because of love, but because desire. Sakura hates to admit it but she still very much hates the idea of Saskue dying. Like Naruto, she very much wants him to come back, regardless of the heartache she feels whenever she thinks about the boy who barely gave a damn. But Sakura also has made the goal to do all she can to support Naruto the right way and the thought of leaving him to die is ludicrous. Sakura shakes off the crazy thought and focuses on the task at hand. None of those ideas matter if she can’t get stronger. I like the idea of her hitting a rut someone like Ino or Shizune coming to her aid since Tsunade is busy. One of the women reinvigorates her drive by telling Sakura how Naruto is probably pushing himself to the limit as they speak. [Nine tails is beating him up] Not just for his friends, but for the world. Sakura takes that to heart, protecting everyone is the bar, not just Naruto and her friends. Sakura decides now would be a good time and take a step back, going off to train by herself until it was actually time to head into war. Kakashi would personally be the one to get her when that time came, surprised to see a very specific part of their previous training had gotten much better along with her chakra control.
On the Naruto side of things, all the same events happen. The only thing I would add for my own personal amusement would be Naruto mentioning Sakura to his mom and how they’re similar, but Sakura has no interest in him. Kushina laughs and tells him if Sakura really is anything like herself then Naruto can’t be too sure of anything until it happens. He doesn’t understand that all but nods anyways.
War starts! All the cool fights happen and the filler. All of this is same obviously because so much is going on, including injuries. Naruto eventually joins the war and sends his clones to help everywhere. The location where Sakura is stationed is under severe condition, to the point it’s about to fall apart. Injured ninja and attacks have relentlessly assaulted the place in one form or another and the medics are running on fumes. Sakura herself is barely hanging on as another wave of injured people are in desperate need of healing. Supplies are diminished to almost nothing, staff has gotten hurt, and more white zetsu were said to be headed their way. Sakura took a moment to look at the chaos of war. The overwhelming feeling of it, the pain, how everything just kept going until something gave out. She was about to give out. Her body exhausted from being up for days treating people was finally catching up with her mind in thinking about shutting down, until she thought about Naruto. She wasn’t sure why she did, but he popped into her head, as well as the numerous times he’s pushed passed the breaking point to the finish line. Then she remembered his praise about her and her vow to catch up with him. Not yet, she couldn’t be done yet. Not while there was still everyone to protect. Sakura rallied the people she could to both attack and defend what they had left. Somehow, through all the madness, the injured had been treated and another wave was taken out. More had to be done and all who were able to move were more than willing to help the ninja that had saved their life. Unfortunately, a zetsu had snuck into the ranks and was heading right for Sakura who was far to tired to defend herself from the attack she saw coming. If she got hurt then it was game over for this unit and her, now that they had basically nothing. Sakura should’ve died on the spot but a Naruto clone had finally arrived in the nick of time, beating the zetsu in an instant. Sakura couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her body gives out and Naruto catches her in a similar way Minato catches Kushina. Naruto tells everyone how awesome it was that they held out so long and they rightfully give Sakura a majority of the credit. Naruto starts to tell her how amazing that is but she passes out. He simply chuckles and tells all of them to follow her lead. He’ll step in now and let them rest. It’s his turn to protect everyone.
The next time the show cuts back to this location is when reports of Naruto clones suddenly vanishing after many tremors and explosions have happened, giving Sakura an uneasy feeling. Minutes later word reaches them that the real Naruto is fighting the masked man and Madara. Many ninja from everywhere go ready to race off to this final battle. Sakura’s had the chance to rest and is ready to give her all in any way she can, along with so many others.
[Cool shit happens! The allied shinobi force appears!]
Neji gets injured protecting Hinata and Naruto, bringing him right to deaths door and nobody is around to help him. Naruto looks around to see all the death and destruction that leads to Obito into giving his speech. So basically I just changed this scene from Neji being dead, to Neji dying and having to be left there; causing everyone to simply accept that they have to press on and that Neji isn’t going to make it. We still get the moment of Hinata snapping Naruto out of despair and Kakashi’s elaboratetion on his meaning behind the statement “I will not allow my comrades to die.” That way we still get Kurama motivating Naruto, causing Naruto to snap Lee out of his despair and then outcome plays out like it usually does; the people rallying to attack the ten tails again with the Nine Tails Power given to them. Naruto spends up all his chakra protecting everyone and gets badly injured. I had forgotten Sakura literally gave a speech to motivate ninja to do their best protecting him while she healed him, so that was nice to see.
The Hokage show up. People are hyped. Minato asks Naruto if that’s his girlfriend, to which Naruto says yes like the goofy fool he is. Sakura still hits him for it, but blushes. Minato clearly sees a lot of Kushina in Sakura, but says vocally, instead of in his head. Naruto thinks about his conversation with his mom. Sakura just tries to stay focus.
Tiny Rant-I can’t wrap my head around why this scene actually exists. This happens after Neji’s death, a cornerstone event that pushes NaruHina greatly. Why would Kishimoto almost immediately swing back in the exact opposite direction! It paints the picture that while Naruto is extremely grateful for Hinata’s actions, Sakura is still the only girl he is interested in! Neji died for NaruHina like five minutes ago!
Saskue shows up like a cool guy. We get the moment of Naruto telling Sakura to stay back after he’s fully healed; to which Sakura tells both of them how that’s not gonna happen. Team 7 is back! Another moment I don’t have to change because the show flat out shows how happy Sakura is to be standing next to the two most important men her life. She’s by their side and fighting, they don’t feel out of reach. Sakura has her team back for once and is protecting everyone thanks to Tsunade’s training. Finally, things feet right. Until they don’t.
The battle progresses naturally. Eventually the Kagoshima show up, Obito becomes a Jinjuriki, Madara is being terrible, etc. Things are spiraling out of hand pretty quickly but everyone keeps pushing as hard as they can. Then the worst happens, the crazy scenario Sakura didn’t think was possible has suddenly became reality. She feels both Naruto and Saskue’s chakra fade away, they’re down. Madara has taken both of them down. However, now isn’t time to despair on that fact. Every second matters. Two people, fatally injured, only enough time save one. The one she promised to protect to protect, or the one she desired to come back home. Time feels like it’s come to a stand still. Sakura didn’t want to imagine a world without either of them, then it hits her instantly. Sakura has been living in a world without Saskue for years now, but Naruto, the agony of a world without him gives her an immense sorrow in her heart she refused to ever feel again. It was the same sorrow she felt when Saskue left that night years ago. The sorrow of the one you love leaving you. Sakura realizes that she does in fact love Naruto, and she isn’t about to let it fade. She will keep her promise. Sakura rushes to go save him, fearing she’s wasted enough time as it is. In actually, Sakura had made that decision in less than second. She had been running his way the moment his chakra stopped.
With the help of Gaara and Minato, Sakura is managed to save Naruto. Minato has been watching the worry the girl tried to hide and stared again how much she was like Kushina. He then thanks her for looking after his son. Sakura corrects him, giving Minato thanks for bringing someone who cares so much about her and support her into this world, despite the many slip ups and pain she has inflicted on Naruto. Minato tells her that he didn’t have to be around long to know his son must feel same sentiment towards her, if not greater. They get informed that Saskue has been recovered and receiving medical aid. Sakura feels a weight lift from her shoulders. Both of them, she still in a world with both of them.
[More craziness happens! Night Guy!!!!!! All the hype stuff!]
Naruto and Saskue are back in action! Naruto save Guy, then he gives Kakashi an eye. Everyone is impressed, but not as impressed as the moment he senses that Neji isn’t dead yet and heals him to the point he’ll live; Neji is still completely out of commission though, but it’ll be quite the surprise for Hinata, her father, and Team Guy.
More of the same stuff happens all the way up and through Kaguya. Sakura gets a little bit of emotional whiplash by Saskues actions. One minute he’s looking out for himself, the next he’s actually saves her from a threat. It’s a very confusing couple of minutes. It’s welcomed though, it’s like old times. Things just might get back to some since of it in Sakura’s eyes.
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[He is so rude! Still love him though.]
Now we’re gonna skip to after Kaguya is beaten. Team 7 has saved the world. Now they just have to release the people, except Saskue is still on his nonsense. Naruto confronts Saskue about his plan to kill the Kage. Sakura could feel her heart sink. They were going to fight again. If that happened then Naruto’s prediction might come true, they would die. Naruto would die. Sakura couldn’t stand still and ran in between the two unexpectedly. Sakura pleaded to Saskue to just stop for once in his life. That if he ever cared about her and Naruto in any form, then the fighting would stop here; reminding him of what Naruto said about dying. Saskue takes a step closer and Sakura’s tearfully eyes hardened. This wasn’t going to be like last time. Sakura wasn’t going to hesitate to use force and Saskue could tell. “You really are annoying.” He says before activating a genjutsu, but it doesn’t work on her. This was it, the exact thing her training with Kakashi and by herself had been about. Constant days of intense chakra control and being trapped in various visual genjutsu that Sakura had to learn resist/breakout of. Saskue had made his answer clear, but Sakura refused to let him dismiss her like that and charged at him. She knew she was outmatched. She knew that there was only so much she could actually do against him, but that wasn’t going to stop her from trying. Sakura was going to stand up properly to Saskue and give everything she had to prevent an unavoidable fight. The fire in her was immense, but the fight was over in no time, ending with Saskue knocking her out from behind like when he first left her behind. Naruto was pissed and Kakashi rushed to her. All that effort and pleading from someone who wanted nothing more than to be by her comrades, tossed to the side like a leaf in the wind. The final confrontation had begun. Naruto vs Saskue.
[One exceptional fight 10/10 fight later]
Sakura has woken up and is racing to the Final Valley in absolute terror, along with Kakashi behind her. He didn’t show it but he was fearing the worst as well. He could see tears fly off of Sakura as she took off. Her mind was flooding and rejecting thoughts all at once the whole way there. All she wanted was the reality of the outcome. Whatever it was, she’d have to face it. What she faced was a miracle. The ability to save both of her friends who were definitely battered and broken, but alive. The fighting was finally over. Saskue apologized to her, noticing just how angry she stil was through her tearfully relieved expression. Sakura told him to shut up. The emotional rollercoaster she was dealing with was crazy enough as it is.
Fast forward to Team 7 at the Hidden Leaf Gate to see Saskue leave. Instead of Sakura asking to join, she walks up to him with confidence, giving both a playful and serious attitude. She holds her fist out and taps his chest. “Get into trouble and I’ll stand in your way again to knock the sense back into you.” Naruto’s jaw drops hearing that. Saskue smile then flicks her forehead. “Still annoying, thank you.” Sakura can’t help but smile back. Naruto gives Saskue his old headband and then the man sets off.
Naruto lets out a huge sigh as he walks back into the village with Sakura. He feels exhausted from the whole legal experience but there was more things to be done, but first, he was starving. He started waving goodbye to Sakura until she asks to go too, offering to pay. Naruto was shocked. His ears had to be playing tricks. He turned back around to see Sakura not directly looking at his face but she clearly talking to him. He could tell her face was a little pink too. “You know, like a date...” Sakura said, walking past him. Naruto stood motionless for a couple of seconds before catching up with her. “How about we go halfies?” Naruto asked. He had asked this same question when he asked her on a ramen date so long ago. Sakura remembers this and can’t help but giggle. The fact that she had rejected such a gesture before was embarrassing to say the least, now it was too her benefit and it was still dumb. The more things change, the more they stay the same. “It’s a date.”
The the tail end of the show where time skips gives us how they continued to grow closer and do these little dates until the moment Sakura tells Naruto that she loves him one moonlit night by the training field or academy swing. This time those words are real, and Naruto gets emotional because he finally gets to say those words back, their promises fulfilled. The final episode is their marriage. The start of their new and strongest promise to each other.
There, I’m done. In summary, what if Sakura stopped liking a person because they tried killing her and everyone she cared about. You know, sane people stuff. She’s a smart girl with critical thinking skills and able to blossom in many areas in her life, and yet the series didn’t let her fully exlpore or evolve it in the one area that arguably mattered the most. How her relationships with Naruto and Saskue. They left it one note even though many scenes and articles point into the direction of her affection towards Naruto was growing. They even paralleled her with Kushina. It’s so weird to lay all that ground if that isn’t the route. Those moments of romantic growth could’ve gone to Hinata, the one with nearly zero interaction throughout the series. I can only think of four scenes, two of them being in part 1 of Naruto. It’s weird.
Side note:If anyone is having a hard time believing Sakura could learn a way to resist genjutsu, Deidara did it with one of his eyes to deal with Itachi, and also didn’t fall of Saskue’s. You can not convince me Sakura wouldn’t learn a way, someone with far more control and an affinity for that kind of thing. Especially with the help of Kakashi. Also it’s just very thematic that the two people Saskue wanted to push away the most, could see right through him and render one of his major things useless.
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missinghan · 4 years
Text
「 what am I // stray kids 」
❖ genre : sci-fi; superpower au; platonic relationship au
❖ word count : 3,9k (bullet points only)
❖ warning : explicit language, most likely ain’t scientifically true at all
❖ summary : superpowers manifest in certain individuals once they hit puberty and naturally, those odd abilities will vanish as soon as adulthood occurs; but how will those teenagers protect themselves from the curiosity of science?
❖ a/n : this isn’t a proper fic since I don’t think I’ll actually write smth decent out of this but I don’t want the idea to rot inside my dungeon either- so yea, bear with me through this character intro post(?)
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— bang chan ↠ locating ability-wielders & teleportation
· sometimes when he’s running errands for his parents, chan can feel a distinct ‘zing’ ins his bones if someone else with unusual abilities is nearby and can describe their power perfectly to the t; he ignores it at first but learns to make do with it eventually; can teleport another person with him and also needs to calculate carefully before teleporting because he once ends up in the middle of a freeway instead of school resulting from lack of sleep.
· looks intimidating but is the first to talk to a new kid in class and show them around as he’s president of the school’s student council; smiles and laughs a lot once you get to know him, and is also very caring, reliable.
· he wishes to apply for a music production company after his college graduation but his family turned the idea down almost immediately and sent him to a boarding school in Europe.
· chan starts taking notice in strange things at his new school after the first few weeks; for example: how they unreasonably force students to have a daily health checkup, how their food taste like medicine most of the times, teachers don’t really seem to care about what they’re teaching and some of his classmates mysteriously ‘move away’ whenever security shows up at their dorm in the middle of the night.
· after finding out where they actually are via photos of students being locked up inside cells, arms and legs chained up like domestic animals, injected with odd substances on a daily basis which were taken by an anonymous individual, chan secretly packs his stuff and decides to ditch this so-called boarding school for good.
· he works hard to hide his identity ensuing flying back to his hometown for a solid three weeks and the fact that there are more people cursed with supernatural abilities begins dawning onto him; cutting off contact with his family completely, moving from one crusty apartment to another every month, chan tackles this crazy idea of assembling a group consisted of extraordinary people to give him a hand with creating a safe environment for the ‘gifted’ youths.
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— lee minho ↠ collapse
· law major, quite the loner, raised by a single mother; didn’t have much since little but his mother’s love and affection make up for everything.
· looks intimidating, is actually intimidating; the only person he talks to in college is his dance coach, doesn’t like school nor has many friends; his slightest glare is as cold as a wife trying to win custody of her children in court.
· minho can make his surroundings crumble and fall apart with his mind, which shouldn’t be confused with telekinesis since he can’t physically move objects to his will; this deadly power is triggered whenever he’s experiencing extremely negative emotions like fear or anguish and he’s not (still isn’t) very good at getting a hold of it.
· a group of suspicious men shows up at his house one day as he returns home from dance practice; they claim to be an agency looking for up and coming talents but by the way that his mother is staring at the ground nervously with her legs trembling, his institution tells him that something’s off.
· he firmly declines their offer with a stiff “I’m uncertain that I’m the talent you gentlemen are looking for, but you should know that when the cops are here to fill out their reports, I’m gonna be very helpful, as helpful as possible.”
· “what other random merry of fucking misdemeanors are going to pop up once they go through your records? domestic violence? illegal substances and weapons possession? human trafficking?”
· with a gun to her head, his mom scrambles to her knees and begs him to go with them, admitting that she’s already signed the contract; if he follows their orders and agrees to become an experimental subject, she won’t have to worry about any financial problems for the rest of her life.
· in the heat of the moment, they ultimately force him to activate his power for the very first time; as a result, his house collapses, the death of his only family and the group of men following suit.
· “I’m too late.”
· chan manages to find minho under the aftermath, severely injured and is hanging by a string of life so fragile that can only be saved after undergoing a twelve-hour operation at the hospital.
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— seo changbin ↠ sound waves manipulation
· a good student, reputable within his social sphere at school, and comes from a pretty well-off family.
· changbin is able to bend and control sound waves to his advantage; whether it’s simply for his musical instruments or moving objects around, he can also use something as minor as his own heartbeat when he’s emotionally unstable; using the ability continuously for too long can give him severe migraines and potentially damage his brain to a degree if he’s not mindful of it.
· he stays up late at night to write and produce his own songs, keeping it a secret from his parents; posts his own songs on a SoundCloud account, or performs even live at a random underground club under the alias SpearB if he has the chance to.
· an organization full of outlaw scientists comes across a video of his performance on the web, analyzing how he can enhance the beat, his vocal cords without the help of any form of technology, and just like that, he easily tops the list of their targets.
· having no choice but to do what they want when those men hold his parents hostage inside his family’s mansion, changbin gets sent to the same boarding school as chan but they’re being observed in different buildings for his power is on the more useful and dangerous side; hence, his classes consist of a smaller amount of students and they are put through checkups more constantly.
· he doesn’t really pay attention to the skepticisms that reek off all over the place as he’s too busy being homesick and studying because he fully believes that the harder he works, the more obediently he acts, the sooner they’ll let him go; all hell breaks loose when those photos are scattered everywhere, from the hallways to the bathrooms; changbin takes advantage in the riot to get himself out of there as quickly as he can possibly run to the airport.
· changbin swears to never trust anyone again until chan and minho find him sleeping inside an abandoned grocery store with a pistol inside his sleeping bag, two daggers concealed in his sleeves at all times.
· “are we seriously going to contain some headass who was this close to blowing my brain out of my head?”
· “huh, funny, last time I checked, you almost smothered me to death under a gigantic block of cement when I was trying to save your life.”
· “who are you guys and how the hell did you get in here? I don’t recall not locking the door.”
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— hwang hyunjin ↠ permeation & memory manipulation
· a true theater kid, meaning he knows almost everyone but every single student at school knows him; naturally, becomes the Prince after playing one too many male lead roles because of his godly features; rather well-mannered and diligent though he doesn’t look like it.
· mistaken to be a player by every new batch of freshmen that only ever gets to watch him practicing his lines from afar, swooning tremendously whenever he ties up his hair; always carries a camera around, doesn’t like to have too many friends but if you get close enough, he’s probably the most fun to be around, won’t ever judge your questionable life choices.
· hyunjin’s ability allows him to walk right through walls as well as any other solid matters but it will drain his stamina painstakingly, causing him to run short on breaths after using his power to change his costumes faster between scenes; the thicker the wall is, the more strength it takes for him to pass through completely.
· he can also erase a certain chunk of memory from someone’s mind but he needs to physically touch them; has only used this ability one time to wipe his existence out of a childhood best friend’s mind before moving away from his hometown. 
· his interest in photography sparks the moment his uncle comes back from a business trip and gives him a toy camera, it’s nowhere near the real ones but the ten-year-old hwang hyunjin sure takes it very, very seriously; after a decade or so, he has replaced it with cameras that actually work and developed quite the talent for taking photos of sceneries and people (jisung is his number one victim but he can’t care less as long as he looks decent and that hyunjin won’t save any crack ones to blackmail him).
· suddenly gets a sketchy summer scholarship to a boarding school in London (the same so-called school that Chan and Changbin went to), his mom encourages him to go after looking it up on the internet without knowing the chances of her own son being exploited for twisted science is shockingly high.
· and the culprit who takes those photos during a wandering around school after curfew is none other than hyunjin himself; he knows damn well posting those photos means getting himself into trouble but heck, his conscience forbids him to leave this hell-on-earth place without alerting these innocent people.
· so the night before those photos are spread everywhere, in every corner, every edge of the building, hyunjin smashes his camera completely with a baseball bat and burns the broken bits in the school backyard; he tries getting through those sleep-deprived men in their fifties who aren’t likely paid enough with his ability and flees.
· surprisingly, he comes rushing into his best friend’s house right after his horrendous flights only to find him being surrounded by three mysterious men.
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— han jisung ↠ plunder
· the jokester of the class, takes great joy in stressing the living daylights out of his professors with irrational questions that aren’t necessarily relevant to the lesson, procrastinates, and sleeps through lessons like there’s no tomorrow but still keeps that shiny ‘A’ on his report card nonetheless.
· being friends with hyunjin results in occasional admirers here and there for him but he does kinda have his own fandom base after being pulled upstage out of the blue in the middle of last year’s spring music festival, musing him an opportunity to show off his rapping skills; because of that event, he takes writing music more seriously with the stage name J.One.
· if jisung is being honest, he hardly uses his power since it’s basically taking over anyone’s body and mind for a maximum of five seconds meanwhile his own body is immobile; and if any physical effects occur (for example, a basketball hits him on the head spontaneously), he’s obligated to endure that pain for that person until they become conscious of their own body again.
· he’s not a creep, he swears.
· and who knows? what if his body gets kidnapped within those five seconds?
· hyunjin and jisung know about each other’s ability but don’t really discuss nor talk about them because they don’t find walking through walls or temporarily possessing someone’s body cool.
· well, that’s that until chan, minho and changbin show up at his house the same day when hyunjin returns from his summer exchange program with a cut lip and bruised knuckles. 
· “han jisung, you’re going to have to come with us unless you want to live inside a cage for the rest of your life.”
· “I’m sorry, are you threatening me?”
· “we’re trying to protect you, smartass, you’re far too dangerous to be roaming the streets so freely.”
· “....me? I’m dangerous?”
· jisung not knowing the slightest bit about his own ability downright baffles chan—he’s only scratched the surface of it at this point; his true potential is if he’s taking over another ability-wielder’s body, he will then take their power for himself; and jisung can’t remember the last time he properly uses it either.
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— lee felix ↠ imperfect invisibility
· initially lives in Australia but after finding out about his ability, he moves to Seoul with his parents to live a quieter, more covered-up life without being surrounded by too many relatives.
· an absolute sweetheart, smart, kind, honest, a little slow to read in between the lines at times; can concentrate relatively well on an empty stomach, but gets drowsy quickly after eating, especially big meals. 
· lix is also homeschooled up until high school in order to avoid any unwanted situation; later on, applies for a course that can be taken online for the most parts at an average-ish university to not draw so much attention. 
· since he stays at home most of the time, he spends lots of time playing different video games, experiences random cooking recipes without burning the house down, and teaches himself how to dance through online tutorials, getting awfully good at it fast partially thanks to his natural flexibility.
· he can disappear from a single person’s field of vision for as long as he wants to but it’s still limited and considered flawed since felix can only disappear from the sight one person of his choice at a time; although it can come in quite handy whenever he gets shoved into a dark alleyway by random people varying from cheap pickpockets with a box-cutting knife to muscular men dressed in black.
· learns boxing during middle school so he can still kick asses to preserve his own life.
· felix once punches jisung in the gut and slaps hyunjin in the face with a cabbage after seeing them follow each and every one of his movements the moment he steps out of the supermarket—he’s got used to listening to people’s footsteps over time. 
· “okay, first of all, ow, and second of all, why did I get the punch and he got the cabbage?!”
· “oh, don’t be such a baby.”
· “you two don’t look like those balding dudes in money-dripping black suits...what are you on? crack? what do you want from me? money? food?”
· “of course we’re not balding men in their forties! I take personal offense to that! and please, who do you take me as? a total creep who only ever knows how to follow people with his stupid sidekick tagging along for background noises?”
· “HEY! I NEVER AGREED TO BE YOUR SIDEKICK!”
· “well, it’s time you fucking did then, han.”
· “you know, I suppose this is the part where you two put me to sleep with some kind of drug and bring me back to your excuse of a headquarter.”
· “oh, did you bring the anesthetic pills?”
· “I thought Changbin gave it to you, no?”
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— kim seungmin ↠ time-leap
· born in a middle-class family, very studious but also enjoys playing baseball during retreats, takes time to open up to people so he has more acquaintances than close friends but he doesn’t mind, that way he has more time for himself. 
· definitely and never will be the kid who lets his classmates take advantage of his wit, he does do a good chunk of every group project but makes sure everyone has at least one decent thing to do (low-key loves bossing people around); can be pretty distant at first, but he just weirds people out after getting closer and doesn’t hold grudges.
· seungmin is capable of bringing himself back to a specific past event to alter the future outcome though it won’t work most of the time unless he really, really has to for safety purposes or the situation gets out of hands; time-leaping won’t activate if he wants to retake a test but works like a charm when he tries to save a kid on the street from a car accident.
· actually does deep, proper research into other ability-wielders and often stays in school during nighttime to read the news, articles or anything that he can find on the web to learn about how that one cryptic boarding school in Europe that’s accused of abusing their students got shut down all of a sudden, the students never return and family members never bother to look for them. 
· hence, he adapts to hiding his ability and himself fairly well—never takes the late-night buses, doesn’t try to become close and bond with other people, asks his parents to change the door lock every month, burns bills each time he purchases something but he tries not to go out as much as possible. 
· seungmin has seen hyunjin use his power once by accident but decided to say nothing about it; eventually finds chan’s headquarter (which is just his crusty apartment) by following jisung and hyunjin after their practice hour, baffles them all a little but joins in no time. 
· after asking hyunjin to erase his parents’ memory about himself, seungmin gives everyone a hand for their plan of building a school and campus, completely safe and under the radar for other ability welders until their adolescence is over; he time-leaps back to back in order to collect as much information about lottery tickets as he can.
· another flaw occurs when he travels to the past for the third time: his eyesight gets weaker and weaker every time he time-leaps so he starts wearing glasses as a temporary resolution but chan stops him when he tries to do it for the fifth time, saying that they would rather work hard for a little longer than have seungmin lose his vision forever. 
· after over a year or so, they successfully repurchase an education organization and officially establish an exclusive academy for ability-wielders, reaching out to those individuals before scientists can get a hold of them. 
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— yang jeongin ↠ superhuman speed
· the quiet kid who most likely won’t talk unless the teacher asks him to answer a question or someone tells him to let them copy his homework; has his earbuds in most of the time to pretend he can’t hear what people are saying so he won’t have to interact with them. 
· joins after you when chan finds him hitting a wall head-on at an abnormal speed while trying to save a kitten in the middle of the streets. 
· jeongin has extremely enhanced agility and reflexes but he still lacks accuracy for he is naturally a clumsy person; therefore, changbin tells him to wear a protective layer under his uniform so even in the worst-case scenario, he can jump off a building and make it out with minor scratches. 
· reluctantly buys lunch for every member of the student council (aka 00 liners + you) on a daily basis although he can’t really see which kind of sandwiches he’s grabbing at and they end up being mushy most of the time. 
· and for those people who say his resting face is scary, he’s mainly just frustrated because of his friends. 
· also usually is the one who returns with the most injuries because of his own ability—he always flees like his life depends on it to save jisung’s ass from being hit by a truck and hyunjin’s camera from being crushed (the sole purpose of the student council will be explained more thoroughly later).
· has single-handedly saved everyone inside a bookstore when a sudden fire breaks out. 
· minho scolds him and felix a lot for spending too much time at the arcade after school instead of doing their required tasks. 
· acts all tough and mature since he’s the youngest of the squad, loves to make fun of jisung for his height but still is and probably will always be a complete child who hates eating vegetables with a passion; gets yelled at a lot whenever there’s a BBQ party since he only ever eats meat. 
· “corn? why are we raiding the Asian market for corn at one AM?”
· “an outdoor, wholesome BBQ isn’t complete without corn, duh.”
· “do you want to get us caught?!”
· “oh please, they’re going to show up either way.”
· “YOU’RE NOT MAKING ANY SENSE!”
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— y/n (reader) ↠ telepathic manipulation
· president of the student council, stubborn, slightly less bossy than seungmin, appears to be apathetic and cranky mainly because you can’t sleep that well; with that being said, you don’t feel too tired during ungodly hours when people are tossing around in the comfort of their bed but snap at irritating people a lot in the morning if they’re making too much noise. 
· your ability allows you to control people to your will, from something as meaningless as slamming their head through a wall to life-threatening actions like forcing them to point a knife at their own throat; it’s somewhat similar to jisung’s power though you don’t have to physically feel what your target is going through and you don’t need to worry about taking over their body.
· the only downside to it is that you easily fall asleep the moment you set your target free.
· minho is the one who gets you out of the laboratory where your parents were working on a huge, secret project about individuals with supernatural abilities for an unknown organization; you’re unfortunate enough to become their first-ever experimental subject which only nourishes resentment slowly, gnawing at your sanity while you’re dreading each day behind those cold metal bars. 
· perhaps joining the student council is what makes your life less depressing, perhaps; you’re far too busy facepalming at the beautiful monstrosity of their friendship and feeding them ensuing returning to the dorm after school since those boys only know how to eat, cooking is too much for them to comprehend (albeit felix).
· when your family was still… normal, your parents sent you to martial art classes every weekend so like felix, you don’t actually need your power to save yourself from some random mobsters on the streets.
· you’re also the only person who eats vegetables properly and even tries to incorporate more fiber into their diets but as always, they never listen, especially hyunjin when it comes to green onions.
· don’t have the best reputation in the academy because the idea of letting the new girl with a seemingly useless ability become president of the student council isn’t very appealing to many people, and it doesn’t help when every member of the council is exclusively allowed to drop out in the middle of a class to ‘collect’ any ability-wielders that chan manages to locate that day since he’s always worn out with changbin and minho from boring paperwork as well as other businessy stuff.
· even when your ability is considered almost perfect, you’ve only used it once when you thought minho was going to sell you off to another place and almost made him put a bullet through his own brain; you’ve refrained yourself from using it since that day.
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nny11writes · 3 years
Note
I didn't know you were taking prompts!!! But if you still are — “I’ll always be here for you.” for Obi-Wan and Ahsoka?
My dear, my inbox is ALWAYS open for prompts, I swear half my fics are prompt fics lol!
For anyone confused or wanting to play you can send in a Fluff Prompt or a Cuddling Prompt an Angst Prompt (I swear I reblogged a list of those and I know I posted fic for it, but now I can’t find the list????) or just something you’d like me to write! Sentence starters, fic titles, etc etc etc. :D
Also, forgive me, there’s a tiny bit of angst in this because suddenly it became canon to the Twilight Sith!Soka AU but it’s still mostly fluff!
Ahsoka cursed softly as she stared at the unmarked tea box. It wasn’t like her day hadn’t already been frustrating enough but to get so close to her daily allotted dose of poison only to cruelly have it ripped away from her...it was nearly the last straw. She tilted it to pour a few leaves out and hummed thoughtfully as she sniffed and poked at them, as if she was versed enough to know just from that what kind of tea it was. Brilliant, she’d just have to waste some to find out.
“Rooibos I’m afraid,” Obi-Wan chuckled lightly from behind her, a small wash of blue light poked around Ahsoka’s arms before he moved to her side. “This is not the tea you’re looking for.”
She slowly, carefully, put the lid back on and then proceeded to tap it against her forehead in a satisfying thwaping sound.
“Mmm, quite.” He chuckled.
It turned out that Anakin was not the only Force ghost alive. Alive? Ahsoka squinted at the tin again, frowning at her bony fingers as she took a deep breath. Existing maybe, arguably alive. But where Anakin had only had the bravery to face her that first time on his own terms, always deferring to her after she’d left Dagobah, Obi-Wan had no such compunction. 
Which was wildly hilarious if she thought about it too long. Anakin Skywalker being polite and overly formal while Obi-Wan Kenobi often just waltzed into her life without a care before vanishing again.
“This one here,” one of his incorporeal hands poked at another unmarked tin, “Strong enough to keep me up a whole day, and bitter enough that I wouldn’t waste it.” Somehow his eyes managed to twinkle through the glowing. “So it should suit you just perfectly.”
She snorted, one hand covering her eyes as she tried to not smile. Damn him. “I am not that bitter.”
His eyebrows shot towards his receding hairline as he stared her down.
Bastard. “...anymore,” she grumbled while switching to the other tin.
Inside of this one is a much smaller leaf with the occasional spot of gray among the brown. Like the whole hut, the tin was covered in dust but the inside is pristine. Obi-Wan may have given up many comforts while living on Tatooine, but apparently suffering stale tea was not one of them. A small sniff almost makes her gag, it’s overwhelming. Smoke and funk and stinky feet.
“You drank this?” Ahsoka asked, aghast on his behalf.
Obi-Wan smiled benevolently as he sat on the counter, shifting slowly as the memories came to him until there was no longer an old man but a young one instead. She will never say it, but Ahsoka likes when he changes to look like this. Like her best memories of him.
“I got tired of Cody stealing my kaf, so I got creative.”
The faintest smile tugged at her lips. “I see, and now decades later you’re trying to kill me.”
He tilted his head back to look at her literally down his nose. “You are the one who calls caffeine poison. I’m merely assisting.”
“Too much of it kills you and it developed so animals wouldn’t eat it,” Ahsoka shrugged but still went about preparing the pot, “therefore, poison.”
The spoon she was using to measure the leaves out passed through his armor covered hand before she dropped the remaining leaves back into the tin and sealed it. Apparently the limit for three cups of tea was pitiful.
“Oh don’t pout, you’ll thank me later.”
“I do not pout.” Ahsoka grumbled as she waited for the water to boil.
As they lapsed into a comfortable silence Obi-Wan slowly changed back to the age he was when he died. Slain by Vader she’d learned, almost backsliding as the rage and horror and pain washed over her. Her fury nearly boiled over at her grandmaster’s flippant, “Well I did tell Anakin not to do it, but he never did like listening to me.” She’d yelled and he’d left, and then a few weeks later he returned to point out an error in her paperwork.
And then a few days after that to mock her pitiful attempt at cooking. A few weeks after that he popped by to chat. Months later he scared the kriff out of her while she’d been on the fresher and he simply vanished into a mortified mist.
But more and more he came all the same. Usually to chatter idly with her, but sometimes to assist her.
Like now. 
Ahsoka had come back to Tatooine to gather whatever might be left of Obi-Wan’s corporeal life. It had mostly been as a distraction while Barriss was meeting with the boy. She carefully put the tin back down and made sure to not lose control of her grip and dent it. Barriss was off meeting with Skywalker and Ahsoka had known that trying to stay home would be foolish. So she came here instead to pack and clean and sell the place if possible. She wasn’t surprised that he would show himself here, it was his home after all.
All the same.
“Why are you here?” She finally asked, making sure to keep her eyes trained onto the pathetically slow burner.
There was a pause before he asked, voice soft and small. “Do you want me to leave?”
She snorted again and glared at him, “What did I just ask you?”
Obi-Wan shifted a bit. Hair growing and thinning, wrinkles coming and going, but his eyes always sharp and bright. “...two reasons. The first, well, simply put I had a promise to keep with you that I failed at rather spectacularly.”
At her confused look he paused again, before smiling warmly, “I did say I’d always be there for you.”
It was kind of funny that her first thought was about how she thought she’d lost the ability to blush, all the burst capillaries in her face over the years and training should’ve stopped something so obvious. But the way he said it, the genuineness she felt in the Force, she was flushed from head to toe. The wiggling feeling in her chest wasn’t discomfort though, no it was...goodness, it was warmth. She didn’t know how to explain it. The soft edges of the feeling and the energy behind it.
She returned his smile with as much of the strange gooey feeling as she could before looking back at the burner, of course since she’d been distracted the water was now boiling. She pulled it off the heat and waited until the bubbling settled to pour. “And the second reason?”
“Yes, the more pressing one.” He didn’t even give her a half second to tense up. “I missed you.”
“...you missed me?”
Obi-Wan frowned at her, befuddled before answering. “Of course.”
Like it was just that simple.
Ahsoka counted down the seconds until she could take the leaves out, reaching through the Force to him. Cradling the feeling of his presence as best she could with her own.
Maybe it was.
She poured her first cup and without allowing herself too much time to smell took a sip. It was as awful as it smelled. The second sip was no better. The third was somehow worse. But with the stimulant hitting her system Ahsoka found she didn’t care that much.
She still tilted her cup towards him. “I understand you want to spend more time with me, but killing me isn’t the way to do it old man.”
Obi-Wan laughed, fingers lacing together over his stomach.
The rest of her time there, he hovered by her side with a bland smile to cover his vicious barbs, and occasionally commented on her stimulant addiction with too much glee.
She was going to miss him when she left.
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coffee-mugz · 4 years
Text
Inspired by: This post!
Warning: cursing, mention of alcohol and murder (dont worry, nothing serious at all.)
Pairing: Remus x Virgil
Note: Firstly, this is unedited, secondly, I do not own these characters! They belong to Thomas.
Today was December 19th at around 8 PM.
For others, it was a normal day. A fine winter day with a faint dust of snow and chilly weather. Christmas ornaments and decorations were set up everywhere in the suburban neighborhood, lighting up the otherwise gloomy streets. Families were getting prepared for the holidays and children were excitingly nearing their winter breaks. A normal day.
But for Virgil, it was in fact a very important day. It was the day he'd turn 18, the day he'd first meet his soulmate. Well, "meet" was a bit of an exaggeration. Okay, maybe a lot, but switching emotions with their fated other for an hour was as interesting as it is useless.
And, as the time ticked nearer to 8:12, Virgil felt a rise of guilt and fear bubble up in his chest. And suddenly, everything was too much for him to bear.
The brightly flashing Christmas lights seemed to absolutely tear through his vision, too bright for him to completely register.
The laughter and cheers from the party- his birthday party- were too loud. They flooded his brain and his head pounded.
And he's reminded of those awful thoughts of doubt, his mind spiraling downwards into a dark pit he couldn't avoid.
What would they think of me?
Should I eat?
Would they think I'm eating too much?
Do I look bad?
Do I look fat?
Am I talking too much?
What if they dont like my smile?
My smile is ugly.
My makeup doesn't fit in.
My clothes look strange.
I don't fit in.
I'm strange.
Why would they want to talk to me?
My soulmate-
My soulmate will feel this.
What do I do?!
I dont want them to feel miserable.
They're going to hate me.
They're going to blame me.
What if they're doing something important right now?
What if I ruined their life by giving them a panic attack?
Virgil flinched, feeling a hand suddenly land on his shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts. A faint whisper of alcohol could be smelled behind him, and judging the fact he hadn't brought any alcohol here since he (and almost everybody else) was underage, he already knew who it was.
"Virgin?" A deep voice called his "nickname"- if it even could be called one.
"R-Re-" Virgil stuttered, his breath still rather rapid and his heartbeat nearly exploding.
It was Remus. His best friend since middle school... and his not-so-secret teeny tiny crush.
Sure enough, Remus popped in front of him, one hand holding a bottle of beer while the other seemed to have dropped his deodorant.
"How you doing, birthday boy~? I brought the other little shits some alcohol so they could finally- woah there. You good, Virgin?" Remus ranted to him, before abruptly stopping, seeing Virgil's teary eyes and smudges makeup.
Remus took a glance at Virgil's chest, noticing it rising and falling rather rapidly despite it being mostly coveted up with Virgil's oversized hoodie.
Remus put down his bottle on a nearby coffee table, stretching his arms out as a sign that the shaking boy could hug him.
"You need some time- upstairs- away from all this shit? I get it. Roman can be such a dick-face sometimes, I want to toss him out of a ten story building too." Virgil laughed, graciously taking Remus's offer and hugging him.
Remus was warm- really warm. All of Virgil wanted to do at the moment was keep snuggling into his arms, confess even, but he knew he couldn't do that to Remus, who was waiting for nearly 2 years for his soulmate to pop up. He was a rare case, having an age gap with his soulmate. Virgil couldn't take away Remus' fated other, especially when he had been waiting for so long. That would be robbing Remus's future partner.
"Let's go to Mr. Virgin's super dark lair to see what kind of toys he has hidden away-" Remus said, quiet so that nobody else heard it, but loud enough for Virgil to punch him in the chest.
"Oof! So it looks like be got a naughty one here!" Remus let go, much to Virgil's disappointment, to dramatically clutch his chest, as if he'd been stabbed.
Virgil grabbed him by the sleeve, too afraid to make direct skin contact again in fear of Remus thinking he was strange, and dragged both of them up to his room.
Although Virgil's breathing had become more stable, his heart was still racing and his adrenaline rush has yet to fully wear off. A faint thump of guilt emerged in his chest, though he didn't know why.
Soon enough, they were by themselves, locked in a room where the only colors you could see are purple, black, or grey, accompanied by a rather Halloween type of astethic despite it being Christmas.
Virgil sat himself down on the bed, making enough space for Remus to sit tight next to him. He tossed his purple spiderweb blanket on top of the two of them and took the opportunity to lean on Remus's shoulder, panicking as he felt his ear brush against bear skin.
Virgil jolted upwards, staring at Remus, who was somehow wearing a tank top now. Virgil's eyes dashed across the room, spotting Remus's unruly leather jacket on the ground, long discarded.
"What? Emo boy can't handle my hots?" Remus asked, and Virgil could only roll his eyes and pull a bit of blanket up, so that he could lean on Remus without physically touching him.
Who knows how much farther his emotions would spike if he were to have skin-to-skin contact like before? It's already too late to stop, seeing as it was already his birthday.
Man, does time fly by fast.
"So, wanna talk about it?" Remus asked, sticking a piece of deodorant he got from who knows where into his mouth. Though, Virgil knows it's mostly marshmallow fluff. They made it together a few years ago, and it was still a long running joke.
"...Probably. But no." Virgil replied, sneaking a look at his digital clock.
8:10, 3 minutes before he'd switch.
"Mmm, why not? Y'know, you love rambling."
Virgil could only avert his gaze, his throat closing up on him.
"Virgin?" Remus asked; shaking his shoulder a bit, causing Virgil's bright purple hair to become staticky.
Fuck, Virgil thought. He really hated this- hated having to watch Remus get snagged away because he knew he wasn't destined to him. Why in the world would Remus be paired dup with him? His luck had always been bad, so this just sounded absurd to him.
"I'm sorry." Virgil meekly replied, nuzzling his head further into Remus's arm as he watched the clock flash to 8:11. 2 minutes left.
Remus looked down on him, confusion evident on his face. "Sorry for what? Sorry for making me leave my beer?"
Virgil paused, forcing down his emotions as tears welled up in his eyes. He hated this, so do much. He should have tried harder, to be good enough to stand by Remus's side. He should've been more confident, better suitable for Remus's own cocky, rash attitude. Hr should've tried to end this years ago, but what a coward he was, leaning on him to the last second.
The clock flashed to 8:12, and Virgil felt his previous regret and guilt become replaced with self hatred. If only he had been better suitable for him...
"Virgin?" Remus asked again, not getting a reply from the boy. He want used to being left in the silent. He was used to being instantly retaliated by Virgil's snarky comments, right after his own. He wasn't acting at all like the normal.
"I'm sorry for loving y-" Virgil stopped, feeling all his prior emotions immediately flush down the drain as he was suddenly filled with something else. His confession was stopped, and hid apology that followed right after escaped his mind.
Confidence, pride, arrogance, confusion, an urge to explore his entire neighborhood (and maybe even the world)- he felt all these foreign emotions suddenly overwhelm him. He stared at the clock, which now proudly blinked 8:13.
What? Dude, at least give a man his time!
Virgil was suddenly given the urge to punch it, and act...irrational.
A beam of hope sprung up in his heart, only for it to vanish seconds after it.
There are plenty of people who are irrational, brash, and arrogant like this. But Virgil, surprisingly, couldn't accept that, as his hope was reignited, as stubborn as a mule.
Because Remus was fine-
"Hick-" A small noise came from beside him, the hope in his heart glowing brighter, fiercer than it ever had before.
"Remus?" Virgil asked, his voice loud and clearm. It even shocked him, who knew he always kept his voice down in fear of being too annoying.
"D-Damn." Remus cursed, furiously wiping away at his eyes.
"R-Remus?" Virgil felt a searing pain erupt in his body, but it wasn't painful. He...enjoyed it. His body felt as if he were on fire, tears once again threatening to fall, but was held back just in time. For some reason, he couldn't accept the fact that he almost cried in front of Remus. It mad him feel...weak.
"Wow, holy shit." Remus tried to laugh it off, but Virgil noticed the glistening tears running down his arms, each one giving striking Virgil in the chest with his own sadness.
"A-Are you ok?" Virgil asked, taking his head off of Remus's shoulder, questioning whether to wrap his arms around the other. He didn't, because a small part of him doubted that this was real, but a big part of him believe it was.
"Virgil," Virgil flinched, unexpectedly hearing his own, correct name coming from Remus's mouth.
"You really hate yourself this much?" The moment he heard this, his heart shattered, finally realizing what he had done.
His soulmate- Remus, as much as he couldn't believe it- was just given...possibly the worst thoughts he had ever encountered. Self deprivations, self hatred, regret and guilt, anxiety, everything that Virgil usually burdened himself to carry was now placed onto Remus's chest.
Virgil knew how it felt, and he knew how horrible the aftermath was.
Without a second thought, Virgil tossed his arms around Remus's large stature, and although his arms weren't quite long enough to fully encase him in an embrace like Remus would usually do to him, it was better than nothing.
"I'm sorry." Remus muttered, giving a strained laugh, so unlike his unrestrained, boisterous one.
"There's nothing to be sorry about." Virgil quickly shut it down, knowing himself well enough that the moment he apologizes is when everything starts getting worse and worse. He then starts thinking about what he wished he could hear from the other during these times, and although hesitant, he said it anyways.
"I love you." Virgil confessed, seeing Remus tense up his entire body.
"I love you so much." Virgil repeats, watching as Remus started to shake this time. Virgil started to worry, thinking he had done something wrong, or in the worse case, messed up their relationship.
Soon after, a chuckle could be heard, and Remus looks up, smiling happily as tears continued to stream down his face.
"Good news for you, so do I, you dick."
Virgil looked offended, an expression Remus thought he would never have seen, and watched as Virgil proudly proclaimed:
"Since when have I been a dick when you're acting like one! I even told you first- all three times- that I love you! Say it, say it. C'mon!" Virgil hissed, but relaxed after hearing a laugh that sounded more like Remus. It wasn't him entirely, but it was a lot better than before.
"Asshole." Remus fixed, grinning once again at Virgil's unsupporting gaze.
"Its true! Look at me- I radiate top energy. You're definitely a bottom." Remus said, snapping his mouth shut as he realized what he said, green eyes wide open in shock.
But he was eased out of that state with Virgil's calm, sarcastic laughter, and was once again bombarded with the fact that Virgil could definitely top somebody else, and that he wasn't entirely a bottom.
But they both knew that Remus was right in the end, neither of them want to admit it, though.
They spent the rest of their little break in Virgil's room, Virgil taking the initiative to thank everybody for coming to the party and seeing them out the door when the time had come. On the way out, everybody gave him a knowing glance as he rolled his eyes, slamming the door in their faces, leaving them in the midst of a blizzard.
Truth be told, the party wasn't really a party. At least, not to Remus who had gone to so many parties with over 30 people attending each. But to Virgil, it was enough, especially when Declyn and Roman were in the same room.
The test of their hour was spent with the two of them questioning each other's emotions, Remus asking more of them than Virgil.
"How do you even think like this?"
"I have a strange urge to eat chocolate."
"Is this why you never talk?"
"Wow, I look horrible. Did I always smell like this?"
"How the fuck did you deal with my chaotic dumbass energy? Like- Everything looks dangerous! Even that stupid broom you never use! What if it falls and trips an unlucky bitch?"
"That ceiling fan of yours is giving me major creep vibes- you never know when it's gonna fall! It's plotting against us!"
"How do you manage to sleep like this?"
Remus would continue to endlessly spill out questions after questions, cherishing this hour of his life to see everything his soulmate looked through his own eyes. And this is when he truly learned about different perspectives.
Like he said: the ceiling fan he never played attention to is always on his mind now, he never thought to use actual deodorant until now, when he thought about what Virgil would think despite him knowing very well that he doesn't give a damn. That lamp in the corner of the room? Remus had seen it before, but now he could only think about what would happen if it were to tip over.
Minor things he never noticed became so apparent in his life, and he feels horrible remembering all the times he forced Virgil to do something absolutely crazy with him (like the shopping cart incident). He couldn't imagine what it would feel like to have to do that when he feels this horrible just lying down.
It was the same with Virgil. He never knew Remus experienced such a pull to the outside world until now. In fact, a 'pull' would be an understatement. He desperately wants to go outside and maybe even conquer the woods just outside of his house, but it takes every ounce of his will to stay put and stay shut inside.
It helps knowing Remus appreciated it.
Virgil hasn't had a single thought about everything that would have been in his mind. He felt...giddy, and he wasn't sure what to think of it. He hadn't felt this way for a good few years now, so it certainly came as a shock to his unprepared mind.
As the minutes passed by, the digital clock finally beeped "9:13" and the two of them felt the exact same sensation as they did an hour prior.
A drain sucked out their personality -or emotions-, and their original one filled the void, leaving the two of them in silence as they grew accustomed to their original feelings.
Virgil, as he really couldn't focus on anything for too long for the entire hour, had just processed the fact that Remus was and is indeed his soulmate. A dream come true, if not a miracle. And Remus had just processed his own train of thought, grinning wildly as he dived towards Virgil, who let out an "oof!" at the sudden force and pressure.
Soon enough, Virgil and Remus were in their usual cuddling position once again, with Virgil sitting on Remus's lap, facing him, wrapping his arms around his neck as he settles his head into the crook of it. Remus wrapped the both of them in a blanket, playing a crappy version of a scene from a recently released movie which was obviously taken in the movie theaters.
"Boyfriends?" Virgil suddenly asked, somehow growing enough confidence to ask such a question. To his delight, Remus grinned, picking up Virgil's thin body and swinging the both of them all around the room.
"Why don't we just get married? Right here!" Remus exclaimed, only to get his face pushed away and his mouth shut up.
"Married? Yeah right! You haven't even told me "I love you" yet! Now that I think of it, I'm the only one who said it, you ass! Say it!" Virgil tossed around Remus's head in all directions, only to end up on the ground, Remus's eyes spinning from the dizziness.
"I-I love you." Remus weakly muttered out, before grabbing a nearby bag of onion rings and smashing them open, picking one of the few intact rings.
He grabbed Virgil's hand and stuck the onion ring onto his ring finger. "Now, marry me?" Remus asked once again, tossing Virgil another onion ring and stretched this hand out, waiting for the other to slip it on.
Virgil blushed, hiding his red ears as he hit Remus's head rather ruthlessly and putting on the ring.
"Dammit, what'll Dee say if he finds out you proposed to me with a fucking onion ring." Virgil said, falling onto Remus's chest, staring at his new edible ring. A smile stretched out on his face, and although Remus may not have directly seen it, he knew exactly what he'd look like.
"Well, he'd be jealous! What better than to be able to eat your ring, so you can give your lover another one the next day. Y'know, Ro said it would be his "dream come true" if he could propose to his lover every day and relive the moment. So, me being me, I had to steal the number one place from that piece of shit again." Remus boasted, before proudly exclaiming, "And as you can see, it worked. You accepted it. Now I can rub it into his nasty face."
Virgil burst out laughing.
"Is that the only reason you proposed to me after being boyfriends for not even half an hour?" Remus paused for a moment, then making a gesture as if he were in deep thought. Virgil rolled his eyes at it.
"Well, I've considered you my boyfriend for the past few years already-"
"What?" Virgil sat up abruptly, shocked to hear such a thing. He didn't even remember Remus saying or acting weird at all.
"Yeah, that one time I got the both of us drunk by accident I ended up blurting something along the lines of "You're really cute" and you said that only your boyfriend can call you cute. I asked if I could be one, and you said yeah, so I called you cute again. It's really foggy since it was so long ago, but you probably forgot. You were hit by the alcohol cloud the hardest and you were younger than me, so it was obviously expected." Remus explained, then grinned at Virgil's shocked expression.
"Remember? The time I decided to burn my dad's vodka because I was pissed at him for some shitty reason. We didn't know that the alcohol would evaporate the moment we lit it on fire, and the wind pushed it to your direction first. Funny as hell looking back on it now, but it scared the shit out of me when you nearly fainted."
"No no, not that. You didnt take me out on dates and you never said you liked me."
"Uh, I did?"
"You didn't."
"I did! That time I took you to the treehouse- that was one! Then when the both of us ditched my own party to explore the woods and nearly broke my arm was another. After our shitty swimming lessons, when I took you to the cafe, that was another! Also that one time we climbed a tree and got stuck for 3 hours- that was another! All the sleepovers, dumpster diving, stealing from the old bastard and cuddle sessions were dates! And the "I love you" stuff... I'm not really good with it. I never know when the right time to say it is, so I ended up skipping that part. But still!" Remus ranted, counting all their "dates" using his fingers, while Virgil stayed silent in utter shock.
"Wait-" Virgil laughed again, "What is your definition of dates?" Remus looked at him, as if he asked the most stupid question on earth.
"No, really, what do you think a date is?"
Remus paused again, "well... it's when you're only with your lover, right? When it's only the two of us- Roman told me that. Roman... Ah, fuck! Don't tell me it's completely different!"
Remus banged his fist on the ground, spewing out more curses at his brother as Virgil's laughter only continued to rise.
"It's- HAHA- It's not completely different. It's right in a way, but you'd usually tell your partner if it's a date or if it's just hanging out. No wonder I had no idea- all those happened when I was so young! Haha, sorry."
Remus grumbled to himself, crossing his arms, but nevertheless managed to smile at Virgil's rare fits of laughter.
Remus: "Alright then- to fix everything my shitty bro did, how about a date tomorrow? In the woods." Remus smiled, and Virgil wiped away some of his tears.
"Yeah, sure. That's great."
121 notes · View notes
inktrailing · 3 years
Text
SPN: purgatorio (snippet)
Still haven’t settled on a replacement title lol.
This is... currently in the teens for chapters. Still too early for a chapter count and I won’t know my timeline until I actually rewatch s8 and decide when they’re getting thrown back in.
Last time I posted a snippet I wasn’t sure where pairings where fully landing. It’s definitely slowburn poly Dean/Lucifer and Dean/Cas, with Benny continuing to be a wildcard lmfao.
There’s some rando probably inaccurate field medicine in this chunk that will be replaced at some point after I finish researching for it.
(As a refresh this is my s7/8 AU wherein Lucifer was trying to use the hallucinations as a way to manifest through someone and ended up helping Cas out a bit but popped out in Purgatory when Cas got there).
Previous Snippet.
Warning for explicit language, canon-typical violence.
CHAPTER
“You act like you have any idea where you're going,” Lucifer tells Dean.
“I do,” Dean says. “It's called moving. Getting a lay of the land.” He spins in a circle, arms spread wide, then points at a particular rock that had an odd blue-tinted moss covering one of its sides. “I know that rock,” he says with a grin. “I know this area. Do you?”
“It's all the same,” Lucifer drawls.
“Uh huh. That's what I thought. Cas?”
“Um.” Cas glances between them. “There's a vampire nest that roams here.”
“Exactly. We hopped territories. I thought it was all a free-for-all chaos. But nah, it's organized chaos. That's your jam, ain't it, Lucifer?”
“Don't dare to presume anything about me, Winchester.”
“So that's a yes, then.”
Lucifer moves for him and Cas steps between the two of them, hands out.
Dean smirks. Lucifer scowls.
“You don't start learning the ways of the land, Lucifer, you're gonna be our weak link.”
*****
“Monster 101,” Dean pants, “please have an answer, right the fuck now.” He presses into the packed dirt wall. He turns his attention to Lucifer. “What the hell is that?”
“Well,” Lucifer says casually. Way too casually. “If someone tells you God made the 'first' beasts don't you think there might be a... oh, second, third. You know. More than one?”
“So which one is that?!” Dean hisses, swiveling his head in the direction of the open-air marshlands.
“Behemoth, if I remember correctly,” Lucifer answers. He reaches out and pulls Cas closer into their hiding spot.
“They don't look as though they have a lot for their maneuverability,” Cas says. “We might be able to lose them in the woods?”
“Can't either of you just fly us out of here?”
Cas shakes his head. “Like the Leviathans... they're grounding me. Unless...” He glances at Lucifer.
“No dice,” Lucifer answers.
“Seriously? What's the point of being an archangel anyway, then?”
Lucifer huffs. “Dear old Dad liked his toys. Also,” Lucifer risks a glance around the wall. The beasts were scouting. “I think they might be after me. So, really, sure lacking on those Archangel Benefits right now...”
“Then they can fucking have you,” Dean snarls.
“Dean,” Cas warns.
“What? How much else is gonna want to snack on him? He's a liability.”
“So am I,” Cas argues.
“No, it's not the same—”
“Yes, yes,” Lucifer interrupts, “we all have something nasty on our heels. You have the sheer numbers after you, Winchester, I think that makes things minutely more difficult, thank you. Castiel is right: if we make it into the woods, we should be able to lose them. I'll draw them off if I must.”
“Lucifer,” Cas starts, stricken.
“Please, I'll be fine.”
“I don't think—”
“See, he wants to play bait, Cas. So we should let him.” He pats the back of his hand against Cas's arm. “Let's go.”
When he moves, keeping low, Cas follows. Good. He wasn't sure what else he could say to convince Cas to come with him. Lucifer darts out in the other direction, making himself blatant, juicy archangel bait. Dean knows the moment the beasts catch onto the scent and it's the first direct look Dean gets of them as the three whirl around to stare at Lucifer.
One of the giants, already free from the marsh, charges. The two behind are slower, rising up from the water, dragging muck and grasses over smooth, short-haired skins. Dean sees the jaws open, rows of flat teeth big enough to crush his head if they get close enough.
Their bellows shake the lands, one call after the other, a chorus of unearthly groans all vibrating the air and when they move it's as though that same land moves for them, quickening their gait.
Dean tries to ignore the fact that Lucifer flinches. He pulls Cas after him and doesn't look back after he sees Lucifer peel around the other bank, leading them away.
“Dean,” Cas pleads.
“We can't do anything for him!” Dean hurriedly says. It's not a lie. “We'll only distract him. We'll find him again, okay?” Dammit. “I promise. We'll look for him.” Cas stares at him earnestly and he must be able to tell that Dean's being honest with him because he stops protesting and follows.
Dean's suddenly going to be real pissed if Lucifer gets himself eaten because he's not sure he'll be able to pick up the pieces of Cas if he finds his brother torn to shreds.
How's this become his life?
*****
“Everyone else under the sun can find the bastard and yet it's been over a day and here we are still trudging around, like damn, did the dude finally fly or is he just doing this to screw with us...”
Dean's been muttering to himself for the last twenty minutes. He knows it's not safe but he's tired and he needs sleep and he's going on being awake for twenty-five hours which outside of Purgatory he could do, but inside... Fuck. He needs sleep. This constantly-being-hunted thing weighs on a guy. Exhausts him faster than he can cope with. Cas needs sleep, too. Dean's held up by the Hunt. Cas is held up by Stress.
It's not a good combination!
Fucking Lucifer. This is all his fault.
He rubs sweat and grime off his face. They need to go back to a river. He'd like to get this film off of him.
He stops walking and turns to Cas.
“Just power nap, Cas. An hour.”
“I'm fine, Dean. I can keep moving.”
Dean rolls his eyes skyward. “Cas, if he needs healing when we find him you're gonna need to be more on your game. Sleep. I'll stay on guard.”
Cas sets his jaw but sinks down to the forest floor and coils himself against a tree, tucking into his trench coat, nearly black from their travels. It makes a good camouflage, but Dean still kind of wants to wash that, too. Seeing Cas like this throws him back into an unkind future Zachariah zapped him to.
Dean shakes his head and walks away. He makes sure Cas is in sight, raising a hand to block out the sunlight streaking through the canopy. They have several hours til nightfall. Dean's not sure he wants to go another night of being on the move. He'd prefer taking shelter somewhere and wait til dawn, but if night's bad for them, it's just as dangerous for Lucifer.
Dammit, Cas. Why'd you have to get attached to the devil?
“You fucker,” he mumbles when he knows he's out of earshot, “if you're doing this on purpose then you can go right back to Hell. Cas needs you and every hour we can't find you is gnawing at him.”
He drops his head. “I can't believe I have to do this,” he says more to himself. “You'd better be hurt. You'd better...” He glances back towards the small shape that is Cas, trembling in his fitful sleep. Dean sucks in a harsh breath, curses, and spits out the last words of his prayer, “I can't track angels. I need a fucking sign, man.”
He sighs and heads back for Cas, walking a perimeter around his tree.
*****
“Dean.”
Dean pauses and turns to look at Cas, awareness flagging. The sun's going down. All he has for dinner is some leftover scraps of meat from days ago and some weird leafy green tufts that Cas said were full of nutrients and good for him and when Dean asked how Cas knew that, Cas said the plants told him with a weird little smile.
Dean hates salad but he'd eat them if it meant Cas would feel comfortable smiling again.
“Yeah, Cas?” Dean asks. Cas is staring off to their west, head tilted, eyes concentrating. “What is it?”
“It's...” Cas opens his mouth, closes it. Frowns. Tilts his head the other way. “Holy.”
“What?”
Cas looks to Dean. “It's... familiar. But off. Home, but not.”
“Home like Heaven?”
Cas nods.
Dean wonders if it's coincidental.
“How far?”
“I think we could get there before sundown on foot. Flying may be... dangerous.”
“Yeah, no, and I'd rather not wear you out. Of the two of us, you're the one lighter on his feet right now. Let's go. Lemme know when we get close so I can prepare in case it's an ambush or something.”
Cas nods again, and then he takes the lead.
In the end it's not a trap. They find a deep tear in the ground like a meteor plowed into Purgatory. There's a ring of felled trees at the top of the pit and at the very bottom is a strange white-flamed flickering fire and a hunched-over devil.
Cas's relief latches onto Dean.
“Cas, blink us down there,” Dean asks, and then fumbles for his footing an instant later after they're relocated. Cas is already kneeling by his brother, hand on his shoulder to push him up. Lucifer twitches to the touch and Dean can see lacerations down his side that must be taking too long to heal.
“Lucifer,” Cas says, trying to rouse him.
Dean flops down across them with the makeshift fire in the middle, looking more closely at it. It has the makings of a normal fire, wood and kindling, but Dean thinks he understands why Cas picked up on holy. It's grace-fueled. Actual, honest-to-God, holy fire.
“Lucifer,” Cas says again.
“Castiel,” Lucifer finally responds.
“Cas, can you fix him so we can go?”
“I...”
Cas slowly looks over to Dean and Dean has a real bad feeling real fast.
“I can't,” Cas says.
“Why not?”
“I-I don't...”
“Beast trumps angel,” Lucifer groans. He reaches up a hand and closes his fist. The holy fire vanishes. Well, Dean had been concerned about it drawing any other attention.
“Fine,” Dean says. “You gonna stay alive til morning?”
“Mmm,” Lucifer responds. Barely.
“Okay. Morning, then. We'll do this the human bullshit way. Cas, you talk to your plants or whatever and try to find something we can use as a salve and bandages and shit.”
Dean's really not sure if Cas can actually talk to plants or if it's just something getting him through his daily life to think he can, but either way he thinks Cas can suss out something to use. Trial and error, anyway. If Lucifer's gonna die it's because his Dad made something bigger and badder, not because of some plant goo Cas will slap on him.
“I think we're sitting ducks down here but the fire's out,” Dean continues, “Cas, you good enough to take watch?”
Cas looks from Lucifer to him and nods, a little off balance, but determined.
“Good, because I'm exhausted. Can I borrow your coat?”
Cas strips out of it and hands it over to Dean. Dean balls it up, caked Purgatory and all, and uses it as a pillow and lays besides the dead fire wishing that grace left any coals and heat. He meets Lucifer's glassy expression, glares at the devil, and then rolls over, putting his back to both the angels.
CHAPTER
In some world-turned-upside-down bullshit, Dean is keeping watch while Lucifer rests. Not that Lucifer's moved much since they found him the night before. Cas is gone. Has been gone all morning to do his plant thing that hopefully also involves bringing Dean back something to eat.
He should be the one out there but Dean can't tell one plant from another and keeping an eye around the top of their pit is the best use for him.
The company's shit though.
“You prayed to me,” Lucifer says two hours into the boring morning.
Boring is good. Boring means no monster attacks. Boring means no getting separated and having to try and find another angel.
“Desperate times,” Dean mutters. “You saw Cas. He barely holds it together on days he doesn't think you're dead. You must've done a real good job convincing him you're not an asshole.”
“I'm the only reason my brother is a functional person.”
“Sure, whatever.”
Lucifer scoffs. “Believe what you want.”
“I'll do just that.”
The sun's beating down on them from above when Cas returns with arms full like he just came from a Farmer's Market. There's some dried blood that trickled a path down his forehead. He found a canvas bag somewhere, or maybe he made it. Dean's not entirely going to judge him right now, even if he left Dean alone with Lucifer for hours on end.
“You find what you need?” Dean asks.
“I think so,” Cas answers. He sits down between the two of them and sets his bag in front of him, slowly pulling out small bundles wrapped in twine. He tosses one to Dean and Dean curiously loosens the twine and unfolds the large fronds. “Don't eat the outside,” Cas tells him, “that's just the vessel.”
Dean thanks a God he doesn't believe in that the fronds contain a plethora of small berries.
“You're the best, Cas,” Dean tells him.
Cas's smile is brief, but worth it.
Dean eats and watches curiously as Cas continues to pull things out, including a few rocks of varying sizes that make sense to Dean as he takes a cylindrical one and starts grinding various plants and other matter on a flat one.
“Purgatory's first doctor,” Dean jokes.
“I imagine there had been others in the past.”
“Yeah, slapped-together medicine before they get their heads chopped off. Not a lot of long-term teamwork going on here that I've seen.”
“Or there is,” Lucifer says, “but they only pick off stragglers.”
“Outnumber people. Cowards.”
Lucifer shakes his head.
Dean's finished his berries and the rest of his meats that he didn't eat last night by the time Cas has some concoction of paste gathered on one of the fronds and is looking at Lucifer with some hesitance.
“Get it over with, Castiel,” Lucifer says in way of permission.
Cas nods and lifts Lucifer's shirt and Dean looks away when Lucifer winces, but it isn't quick enough to miss the mottled blacks and purples marring Lucifer's side around the slashed skin, and he looks back just as fast.
“Shit,” Dean says, ignoring Lucifer's glare. “Cas, you got any water or anything we can clean that out with first?”
“I don't, unfortunately,” Cas says.
“It'll be fine,” Lucifer mutters.
“It looks infected,” Dean growls.
“I just need enough healing so that my body's natural response can kick in.”
“Oh, and it can naturally heal beast infections, right? Because it's doing so well with whatever that was.”
“Dean,” Cas says.
Dean gestures at the injury like it makes his entire argument.
Cas frowns.
“Put it on, Castiel,” Lucifer instructs. “If it gets me mobile, we can... worry about the rest when we've moved away from here.”
Dean makes a face in mockery but stays quiet as Cas seals the frond over Lucifer's side.
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Note
Your blog is fantastic and my inspiration in pursuing this fandom :D As a request, how would the Horsemen and others of your choosing react to some of the rarer human disorders/diseases, like the inability to feel pain, produce adrenaline, or feel fear? Humans are weak, but under the right circumstances, I imagine being physically unable to feel fear or pain would be rather terrifying if that human chooses to fight... ;>>
I’m really sorry for the embarrassingly long wait and thank you again for your understanding when we messaged! I’ve only focussed on the HM, and may write a separate post for the others (sorry again for using the scenario format instead of a reaction!). Also, thank you so much for your kind words
(sorry that I got a bit carried away with the violence)
-
War
The fuse to the keg comes in the form of stupid words. ‘If you want it dog, then come and fetch it.’
Predictably, War does not react to the timeless insult and keeps walking away. You do not walk away.
Your anger ignites courage and in a blur of movement, as though time itself has bent to your will, you are onto the Watcher. You can hear Samael’s howl of delight somewhere nearby as the second fist blow to the face causes black blood to spray.
‘How dare you?’ you roar as the next blow elicits a satisfying crack. The plating of the Watcher’s accursed face is as tough as clayware, breaking your knuckles upon the fourth impact.
‘Tis but a scratch’, you had joked in the past before laughing at War’s dumbfounded shock.
No one is laughing now as the Watcher recovers from his initial shock, spluttering curses, and his clawed fingers trap your arms in a tight, locked grip, digging hard and bursting your veins. You can hear brutish snarls and they come from your own throat. In the time it takes to blink, you rear your head back, fleetingly glimpsing something red, and crash your head against the Watcher’s face.
All six of his wretched eyes are screwed shut. Three of them are bulging swollen in bleeding sockets, oozing repulsive dark gore. Not enough. Not enough. Your own eyes are smeared in a thick sheet of blood. One eye open yet unseeing. Blind. What inconvenience. You can only imagine the state of your own face, a delightful canvas of mashed nose and swollen lips.
‘How dare you!’ your head crashes into his face again, thrice more, unyielding, giving no ground.
Fresh curses choke out of him. ‘What in the nine hells are you?’ the Watcher manages through depleting strength as he struggles to hold you back.
You respond by striking him again and again and again. Absence of pain forces more powerful blows than its predecessors. And you strike and strike and strike and there is nothing el-
Metal gauntlets drag you back, separating you from the Watcher. Through your near-ruined vision, you see the Watcher floating behind one of the statues before collapsing on the hard ground, cradling his bleeding head, screaming his hatred and promising death at you though the shake in his voice dampens the effect. Your fingers twitch. The unremorseful bastard-  
The gauntlets squeeze your shoulders. You do not realise you are shaking. You wipe your eyes, resulting in more smeared blood. You see your friend. You see War supporting you, his panicked eyes roaming the ruination of your face.  
You grin through bleeding gums and missing teeth. ‘That bad, eh?’  
Death
It comes without warning. Death yells at you to stay back, to flee, to hide damn you. You are not ready for this kind of fight. Then he vanishes from the Crystal Spire with a sonic boom, blasting into the rushing air, colliding against floating rock debris and crashing onto a distant platform, where he still clashes with the Archon in battle.  
That was ten minutes ago. Now you are being strangled by the merciless fingers of the Corrupted Archon after teleporting you to the platform, clutching you high in the air, the Rod of Arafel in the other hand. He turns to a raging Death who is pinned down by decayed-festered tentacles trapping his limbs against the rubble.
‘Witness Pale Rider, the prize of yet another failure on your damnable soul.’
The metres-long rod punches through your stomach, thrusting from your back. You heave grunts of exertion against the savage intrusion, forcing fractured breaths out of your ruined lungs.
Pain is nothing to you. This is true, even now on the brink of exsanguination. But the scream that is wrenched out of Death’s throat, raw anguish never heard before, as you are lifted several feet in the air, perhaps comes closest to it that day.
Nerveless legs swing wildly like heavy sacks against the gravity, useless from the waist down. With shivering fingers, you grip the rod that impaled you with one hand, the other long amputated to halt the spread of disease. ‘It is futile to try to escape,’ the Archon whispers, mocking in its gentleness. You clench your teeth and exhale a growl. The Archon raises his brows.
You pull, hearing a few pops and cracks. You slide closer to the Archon, gasping against the barrier that is your shattered ribcage. Behind the Archon, you see Death frantically tearing the tentacles, ripping and clawing at them in desperation.
You cough. Blood hisses as it evaporates on the energy-fielded staff. Strength is fleeing you, along with your mortality. The Archon’s attention is pinned on you. That is… good… very good.
You clutch and pull a second time, feeling more cracks inside you. Finally, your strength gives and you drop your head against the haft of the rod, feeling the ethereal thrum through your forehead. You do not know if you passed out until you hear the Archon whisper in breathless awe. 'What are you, child?’  
With a last grunt, you force your head up, meeting the sick reverence in his eyes.
You use your last breath as your reply. 'A hindrance.’  
Deathgrip wraps around the Archon’s waist, causing him to release the Rod of Arafel as he is pulled back. You fall.
You never see the outcome of the fight.
Fury
'Pain… pain is nothing to me,’ you sneer through sliced lips, raising your head at last. 'Do you hear me? Nothing.’
'Everyone breaks. It’s just a matter of adapting to your needs.’ Your captor smiles and you hear chuckles joining in.
And then the knife drives through your remaining eye.
*
She should have known.
The signs were there in the quiver of your fingers, the wildness in your eyes, the hyper stiffness of your spine - the silent plea that was louder than the storm. But she stepped through the portal leading to her 'homerealm’ anyway. Humanity was restored to its vitality. She was no longer needed as a 'protector’. You did not need her anymore.  
She should have known the peace would be a myth. She should have known you would be an easy mark for mercenaries and assassins with your connection with one of the Four. The greed and hunt for superficial glory and false promises repulse her.
'It’s been a while, has it not?’ Fury greets your captor amiably.
They stiffen. 'Y-You.’
Fury chuckles. 'Amazing how the past reaches the present with such clarity.’
Their face flushes. 'I- You don’t understand.’
'What I understand,’ Fury says patiently, 'is that you are in possession of someone who you have no claim to.’
'We…’ their eyes dart around as though looking for something, expecting something, or someone. 'We… we can talk about this.’
'We are talking now, are we not?’
Sweat trails down their face like rivulets as they stumble for the right words, attempting to stall time, constantly looking around for whatever they’re expecting, now panicking when they realise the futility of it. The stink of fear almost makes Fury’s lip curl.
At last they break. 'I’ll show you where they are. Take them and leave!’
Fury bows her head. 'What an intelligent human you are, you’ve come a long way from the pitiful toad I found in the gutters of the catacombs. Please accept this as a token of my gratitude.’
She tosses something from behind her back and it rolls to your captor’s feet. The severed head of their comrade looks at your captor in eyeless accusation.
Realisation dawns on their idiotic features. Fury smiles, and it is by far the most unnerving sight your captor has ever seen.
*
Little remains of the friend she loves. You are nothing more than a battered husk, laying slack against your restraints. She kneels before you. Your eyes were taken during the torture.  
Fury calls softly, 'Y/N? Can you hear me? It’s Fury.’  
You stir weakly, head swiveling in her direction. You open your mouth as though to speak but no sounds emerge from your tongueless mouth. Fury’s heart clenches painfully when you lean on her slightly, as though comforted by her presence.
'I shall take you to the shamans,’ Fury croaks, not concealing the emotion from her voice. Your shoulders shake in silent laughter, and tensing when the Horseman tries to free you as though you… as though you…
Fury stops, stares at your mutilated body, and then asks the heaviest question that ever left her tongue. 'Do you wish to live?’
Your head stirs again, and you give her your answer.
Strife
It happens during a Council mission. The 'ally’ that you have been assigned reveals their true colours at last, catching both of you off guard. The last moment has Strife shove you out of the way before the energy blast hit you, taking the full brunt of the damage himself. Now he lies paralysed on his front, muscles bunched as he fights to regain control of his limbs.
The dark mage points the staff at the prone figure, the tip crackling with generating energy. Too slow to reach them, you tear the helmet from your head and hurl it at the traitor, causing the staff to slip from their fist upon impact. You always hated the blasted thing.  
Distracted, the traitor decides to 'toy’ with you, deciding to indulge you as you decide to indulge them in turn. Besides Strife and his siblings, no one else is aware of your rare autosomal recessive disorder. The mage chants something and the air suddenly ripples in a heat haze. Without your helmet, your flesh is vulnerable to the intolerable temperature rise.
Without your helmet, the heat never bothered you.
You race through the chamber, steeling your heart against Strife’s broken screams for you to flee, crash through the fire barrier and launch yourself at the traitor. The minute shocked confusion registers on their face before your fist shatters their nose. You manage to bite off their ear, hearing the crunch of their dislocated bone before you are hurled viciously onto the melting floor.
The distraction throws the mage’s concentration off, allowing Strife to regain some control over his body and he is already clawing his way to you. But he is too slow.
Strengthless arms would not move. Nerveless legs would not jerk. Blinding light steals your sight forever and thunderclap shakes your hearing. Blinded and deafened, you never know whether Strife is still screaming and you never see the sight of his tears. You are helpless when you are levitated in the air, never hearing the shrill chime of the spear that lances through the air before piercing your chest.  
And then blissful nothingness.
*
You never know the fate of your murderer, the hammering of Strife’s pistols in vengeful hatred as he chases your murderer and rips them to shreds.
His siblings never find Strife.
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unrestedjade · 4 years
Text
Mermay Kuwameshi nonsense
Damn, the month’s half over already! I’m rereading Pet Shop of Horrors, rewatching Yu Yu Hakusho, and coincidentally obsessed with Kuwabara/Urameshi. So! Half-assed crossover time. Maybe Count D has a second location in Japan?
 Kazuma wasn't sure how long the pet shop had been there on the edge of Chinatown. It looked like it had been in that storefront for years, but he couldn't remember seeing it until a few months ago. Maybe he'd just missed it, but he didn't think so. He liked animals. If the place had been there the whole time, he'd have gone inside at least once, just to check it out.
He also wasn't sure why he hadn't checked it out. He tended to pick up his pace when he passed by, trying to put space between himself and the shop for no reason his rational mind could come up with. It was just a pet shop. Yet for some reason it hit him the wrong way, sending a cold shiver up his spine whenever he neared it.
Today he was feeling it again, the unpleasant tickle crawling through his nervous system urging him to go, walk faster, get away. It was getting irritating, to tell the truth. Was it haunted, or something? A haunted pet shop? That could be a thing, right?
Regardless, Kazuma wasn't about to have his rep endangered by a place that sold goldfish and bunnies. Today he was gonna go in there. He'd settle these creepy-crawlies once and for all, and get his walk home from school back to normal.
Yep. He was gonna walk inside in just a minute. Just a few seconds. Gonna walk right in!
Boy, it was darker in there than a pet shop really should be, wasn't it?
Growling at himself in annoyance, Kazuma forced himself to step forward. It was just a pet shop, for god's sake.
It was dark inside, for sure. Heavy curtains draped over the windows and walls cut not just the light from outside, but the noise, too. Kazuma could hear the sounds of traffic and activity outside, but it seemed so far away, like the inside of the shop was in its own little world. Weak lamplight played across the deep red drapery, the corners of the room vanishing into shadow.
The shop had all the expected stuff. Bird cages with canaries and parakeets. Cages for the rabbits and puppies and...ferrets? Did pet shops have ferrets? This one did, apparently. What was weird was the rest of the furnishings. Aside from the animal cages, there was a kind of seating area-- a sofa, a couple chairs, a fancy coffee table. The place looked more like a fortune teller's place, or a brothel out of one of his sister's romance novels that he definitely didn't sneak to read and then skip over half the pages because he got too embarrassed. Covering the smell of animals was the heavy scent of incense.
There was no sign of the shopkeeper that Kazuma could see. Was this place actually open?
A hallway led farther back. Way farther back, with fancy, painted doors leading off to the left and right every few meters. The place was a lot bigger than it looked from the front. Kazuma called out a tentative hello, in case someone mistook him for a thief, or something. God, he hoped this place wasn't actually a front for a brothel, or he'd be so mortified he might die on the spot.
Someone answered him. "Hello?"
Kazuma jumped at the sound of a male voice, and felt immediately foolish. Of course someone else was in here! The door was open, wasn't it? Following the voice, Kazuma found himself in a side room filled with fish tanks on heavy iron racks. Though he'd sworn he heard someone speak, there didn't appear to be anyone in here. Just the tanks.
There was no lighting in the room other than the lamps on the fish tank hoods. They cast greenish, shifting light across the floor, the ceiling, and Kazuma himself. The light flickered, making the whole room look as though it were submerged underwater. Most of the tanks were occupied. A few contained what looked like koi, others held angelfish, guppies, or fighting fish. A few others held fish Kazuma couldn't identify other than they were ugly and off-putting, with mouths crammed too full of teeth and oily black scales. Some fish seemed to change somehow when he looked away from them, shifting and melting at the corner of his eye.
There was one enormous tank running the length of one wall. The glass was overgrown with algae, shading the water emerald green. Something moved inside. Something big, pacing the length of the tank back and forth. Was it a shark? It seemed large enough-- a little longer than Kazuma was tall.
"Who are you?"
There was the voice again! Kazuma looked for the speaker, and nearly leaped out of his skin when a guy popped his head over the side of the enormous tank.
"Wh-what are you doing in there?" It was a stupid question, maybe. But what else were you supposed to say to a guy who suddenly yelled at you from a fish tank?
The guy pushed a mess of dark, wet hair from his eyes. He looked about Kazuma's age. A part-timer? "What are you doing in here, stupid?"
Kazuma's temper flared, but the question was a fair one. He was the one who'd decided to poke around. "No one was out front, so I thought I'd look around." Maybe this was a back room only employees were supposed to be in, but it wasn't Kazuma's fault that this shop was run so sloppy. There wasn't even a sign posted. If the place was open, then the shopkeeper should be where customers could see them!
"Heh." The guy leaned his bare arms on the rim of the tank. Scum from the tank stuck to his forearm. It looked like it was a real mess in there. "Not much to see, is there? This place sucks."
"It kinda does," Kazuma agreed. He ventured a little closer, looking for the shape of the huge fish through the murky glass and not finding it. Wasn't this guy worried about it biting him? "What are you doing in there, cleaning? It looks like shit."
The guy laughed. "Tell me about it! Nah," he said, grinning. His teeth looked weird, like they were sharper than they ought to be. Or probably they were just crooked. "If the owner wants it clean, he can do it himself. Not like I'm getting paid to be a maid."
Okay, now Kazuma was really confused. Did the guy work here or not? If not, what the hell was he doing splashing around in a fish tank?
"You here to buy something?" The guy's smile wilted, like it wasn't an expression he was real used to making and he couldn't keep it up long.
Kazuma shook his head. "Just curious," he said. He didn't mention the creepy feeling he got every time he walked by this place. Or the fact that the tickle up his spine hadn't gone away yet. If anything, it was getting stronger, harder to brush aside.
The guy seemed to perk up a little at that, which was weird if he was an employee after all. Shouldn't he want Kazuma to buy something?
"What's the weather like today?"
Kazuma blinked. That was a weird question. "Uh...sunny? Why don't you go outside and look?"
"Can't," the guy said simply, leaning his chin on his arms.
"Your boss that much of a slave driver?" Kazuma asked, frowning. "Won't let you walk outside for a minute? There aren't even any customers in here right now."
The guy smiled again, briefly, and his teeth definitely weren't normal. Kazuma stared without meaning to. Had he filed them down? Why were they...pointy?
"Hey," the guy said. "What's your name?"
"Kazuma Kuwabara," Kazuma said. "Do you go to school here? I haven't seen you around before."
"Nope," the guy said, shaking his head. His wet hair sloshed along the surface of the water. It was really long, for a guy. Or a girl, for that matter. "Name's Yusuke. You got somewhere to be, Kazuma Kuwabara, or can you stick around for a few? I'm bored as shit in here."
Kazuma had homework to do, in fact, but it wasn't like that had ever been a pressing concern. It wasn't every day he met someone new, much less someone who seemed kinda cool. Sarayashiki wasn't a school people wanted to transfer their kids into. "I guess," he said, still looking out for any sign of that big fish. Had it hidden somewhere in the tank?
"You scared of water, or something? You don't gotta stand all the way over there," Yusuke said, chuckling. There was a swishing sound, like he was kicking his legs under the water.
Kazuma wasn't scared of water. He just had a weird feeling about the fish in that tank, that was all. Still, it wasn't like it was gonna launch itself over the side at him, right? This wasn't a Jaws movie. If Yusuke was safe where he was, Kazuma could get closer. So he did, moving to lean on the glass. The tank came up to his chest, and the glass was seriously thick, almost the width of his palm. It must have weighed a ton. He peered into the water, but it was just more murky green. He could make out what he thought might be sea grass or something, and a few chunks of driftwood for decoration, but no fish.
"What are you looking for?"
"There's a big fish in here, so..." Kazuma trailed off, finally taking a look at Yusuke up close. His teeth really were sharp, it wasn't a trick of the light. Serrated, like steak knives. The dim, shifting light from the tank lamps glinted too well off slimy skin, and with his arms raised Kazuma could see three long gashes following the curve of his ribs. They weren't bleeding, just flexing in time with his breaths. His long hair fanned out behind him in the water. Beneath the surface, where Yusuke's body was shrouded in murky green, a massive tail swayed lazily back and forth.
Yusuke watched Kazuma's eyes widen, smirking. "Find that fish yet?" A tail fin as wide as Yusuke's shoulders gently broke the surface of the water, gray and sleek. Softly, it slapped back down, splashing some water on Kazuma's uniform jacket.
Kazuma could give a shit about the jacket right now. "Um," he said, blinking while his brain tried frantically to catch up with his eyes. "Are you...a mermaid?" It felt stupid to say it out loud.
He felt even stupider when Yusuke burst into loud laughter. "What? I'm not a mermaid, you idiot!"
Kazuma could feel his face redden. Great. He'd met this guy all of five minutes ago and he was never gonna live this down. He knew he'd never let it go if someone said something off-the-wall crazy like that to him. Mermaid? If he was lucky, Yusuke would just assume he was drunk and not terminally stupid.
After a minute, Yusuke got a hold of himself, reaching up to dab tears from the corners of his eyes. "I'm a merman. Genius."
"Whatever, I was just joking anyw- wait, what?"
Yusuke pushed back a little from the glass, pointing one clawed finger at his own chest. "You see any boobs? I'm a guy."
Kazuma sputtered. "I know you're a guy, stupid!" Alright, he was gonna wake up in the middle of math class any second now. This shit had officially gotten too weird to be real. 
"Seemed pretty confused to me," Yusuke said, with a smirk and a shrug.
"Are you really half fish under there?" Kazuma didn't have space in his brain to get too mad about accusations of being dumb right now. He was too transfixed by the dark shape of Yusuke's tail moving under the water. Was it a trick? A...a costume, or something? They had to do that for mermaids in movies, right? There was no way it was real. Even if Kazuma's Bizarre Crap Warning Tickle was now a full-body shiver.
"I'm all me, not half fish. But whatever." Yusuke shifted his grip on the rim of the tank, pulling himself closer to Kazuma. "You want a better look?"
Kazuma nodded brainlessly, and had a half second of utter confusion as Yusuke gripped his shoulders. Then he was pulled forward, down into the water, a cold shock slapping him in the face and a moment of vertigo as his feet left the floor.
It didn't occur to him to hold his breath. In unconscious panic, he tried to take a breath, choking on cold water instead. Yusuke floated just below him, his laugh ringing through the tank, surrounding Kazuma in mocking sound. Sure enough, tan skin gave way to two-tone gray just below his waist, a large tail bumping against Kazuma's thrashing legs. It looked pretty damn real from here.
Yusuke's grip on Kazuma kept him from reaching the surface, only a few inches overhead but still too far. Panicked from lack of air, Kazuma lashed out, landing an awkward punch square on Yusuke's nose. The merman's head snapped back, his hair tracing the arc of his movement, but he didn't let go.
"Aw, quit freaking out, will ya?" Yusuke's voice filled the tank as he shook his head to clear it. A trickle of blood drifted from his nostril to dissipate in the water. "Thought you said you weren't scared?" He pulled Kazuma closer, like he was gonna take a chomp out of him. Kazuma froze, bracing for teeth, but Yusuke only pressed their lips together.
Kazuma knew he wasn't getting any air, but at once the water stopped burning in his lungs. He could breathe, somehow. Which was a lot to process on top of his first kiss and also maybe drowning, and also this guy was a goddamn mermaid. Too close to focus on properly, Yusuke's eyes glittered with mischief.
A hand grabbed the back of Kazuma's collar. He was hauled from the water, coughing and sputtering. He dragged air back into his lungs, though it almost felt too harsh. Too dry. The man who'd saved him helped him clamber over the rim of the tank to collapse to his hands and knees on the floor.
"I'm sorry," the man said, voice smooth and lilting as Kazuma heaved up more tank water. "You'll need to stay well back from the displays. Some of the animals are dangerous."
Water streaming from his hair and every stitch of his clothing, Kazuma blinked up at his rescuer. The shop owner was a tall Chinese guy, dressed in fancy silk robes and wearing...was that red lipstick?
"Did you have an appointment?" the owner said, polite and distant, like he hadn't just saved Kazuma from drowning or getting eaten or whatever had been going on. Casually, he flicked water from the sleeve of his robe and pushed a lock of his straight, black hair behind one ear with manicured nails. "I'm afraid you'll have to come back another time if not. I'm quite busy at the moment."
"It's your own fault for leaving me stuck in here with nothing to do," Yusuke chimed in, looking at Kazuma over the edge of the tank once more. He smiled like he'd just gotten away with something, or like he'd just told a real groaner of a joke. Kazuma stared back at him, unsure how to feel. 
The owner shot Yusuke an exasperated look that seemed to say 'I'll deal with you later.' His eyes were different colors, one dark and one light. Kazuma had been too surprised by the lipstick to notice at first. The guy was like a creepy, pet-shop-owning David Bowie. His presence filled the room. With slight surprise (because most of his sense of surprise had already been taken up by Yusuke) Kazuma realized he was kinda scared of this guy.
"How come," Kazuma rasped, throat aching. "How come you got a mermaid in a damn pet shop?"
The owner turned his attention back to Kazuma, frowning down at him. "That's a very rare and very aggressive species of shark from the Japan Sea. You shouldn't have approached the tank so carelessly."
Knees shaking, Kazuma pushed himself to his feet. "Bullshit," he said, wringing out his jacket. "I may not be the smartest guy around, but I know that's not a fish. Fish ain't people. That's a damn mermaid."
"It's merman," Yusuke grumbled. "Dumbass. Get it right." He was still staring at Kazuma as if he were the only thing worth worrying about in the whole room. It was a little intense, but Kazuma found himself staring right back. Now that he wasn't under the water, he wasn't scared anymore. Not that he'd been that scared! It was surprising, that was all! Anyone would have been just as put off as he was!
The owner took a small step back, putting distance between the spreading puddle of dirty water and what looked like very expensive shoes. "I see." He studied Yusuke for a moment, thoughtful. "Have you ever kept saltwater species before, young man?" he said, addressing Kazuma. "The initial setup can be somewhat onerous, but it's quite rewarding. Many people find that watching fish swim helps alleviate stress."
True enough, Kazuma hadn't been stressed about school or anything else when he'd been pulled into the tank, except for getting eaten or drowned. Real soothing. More importantly... "You're trying to sell him?"
"This is a pet shop," the man said, as though Kazuma were five years old and also incredibly slow. "The shark seems to have taken a liking to you, or there wouldn't have been much left of you for me to pull from the water. What do you say?" He stroked his chin, completely at ease with this insane situation. "We can discuss a fair price, along with a care guide and contract you'll need to abide by, of course."
For some reason, the idea of someone buying Yusuke outright was even more unbelievable than the whole being-a-mermaid thing. "You can't just sell him! He's a person!"
Yusuke leaned out over the edge of the tank, a curtain of black hair dripping onto the floor. "Aw, c'mon! Don't be a cheapskate! Just get me outta here before I go outta my mind. It's boring!" He was leaning so far out, one hand clutching the edge of the tank while the other reached to tug on Kazuma's sleeve. His gills were already starting to wheeze awkwardly in the dry air.
"And what am I supposed to do?" Kazuma shot back. "Carry you home and hide you in the bathtub? You're huge, man!" It was stupid anyway. Even if Kazuma had a whole swimming pool at home, it wasn't right to keep Yusuke locked up like that. If mermaids were real-- which apparently they were, and Kazuma wasn't going to be over that for a long time-- then they should be in the ocean, right? Of course Yusuke was miserable in this stupid little tank in a room with no windows, and no one to talk to! He wasn't some goldfish, or something!
The man smiled, small but genuine. He turned to Yusuke, gently shoving him back to the water when it looked like he was about to overbalance and fall from the tank. "It seems your mind is set on this one?"
"Yeah, this guy's an idiot, but he's alright." Sulking, Yusuke lowered himself in the water, wetting his gills. "Anybody else you shove at me is getting eaten, got that?"
"And just like that," the man said, with a helpless gesture, "the decision is made for me. As you can see, this particular specimen is something of a liability, so I'm willing to offer you a favorable deal to take it off my hands."
Kazuma had just about enough money in his wallet for a sandwich from the convenience store. He knew he wasn't gonna be able to cough up the cash to get Yusuke out of here. Still, he couldn't walk away. Yusuke's eyes were burning a hole through him.
"It's gonna have to be a hell of a deal, mister," Kazuma said, finally dragging his eyes from Yusuke to look at the shop owner. "I don't even have a job, and I'm pretty broke."
The shop owner only smiled. "I'm sure we can reach an agreement."
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They’re Funny That Way, Chapter 2
A/N: Hey, guys!  I’m pretty happy with the feedback I received on Chapter 1, and I’m so so thankful to everyone who took the time to read it (especially those of you who offered me kind and encouraging words, ily!)  So, the story continues!
I’ve found over the years that dialogue is my biggest strength, and scenes with little to no dialogue stretch and challenge me a bit.  So this chapter was a touch longer in development than the last. But I hope to get a consistent update schedule going pretty soon here because I have a very fleshed-out plan for this fic.
That said, I hope you enjoy!  Please like, reblog, and comment if you do!
(cross-posted to my AO3 https://archiveofourown.org/users/marie_deneuve)
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Arthur Fleck has seen an angel. There is no other way to describe it.
Things are especially tedious since he returned from his latest stint at the psychiatric ward. The same things, day in and day out, until each day begins to blur together like a watercolor painting. No clear lines separating one grueling day from the next, every shape hazy and undefined beyond the smoke of his cigarettes. He himself disappears into the smog and goes about his life unseen. Unknown. Not to mention, he's now on thin ice at work – Hoyt, his boss, made that much clear to him right off the bat. "You've missed a lot of days, Arthur," he had said the morning he came in to pick up his belongings. "Just try not to be a pain in the ass. No fucking up, you got that?" Arthur can't remember how he responded, if he responded. Only that the voice in his head (it's his mother's voice that time) told him to Smile. At least you got your job back. It's so much easier to smile when he's Carnival, and not just because the expression is painted on for him. He loves his job, honestly, he does. Every once in a while, when he's working gigs at birthday parties or at the children's hospital, when he's able to make the kids laugh, it seems worth it. For just a minute, it seems as though he's good for something after all. As though maybe when his mother used to tell him his purpose was to spread joy and laughter in the world, she was right. And maybe he could actually do it. Then he takes off the wig, the brightly-colored clothes, the greasepaint...and the illusion is broken. Sometimes it's easy to forget the husk of a man that lies underneath the makeup. Arthur Fleck. Who is Arthur Fleck? Hard to say. Carnival is easier. And so Carnival stays that evening as he walks home. Also because he's just so fucking exhausted. Not changing out of his clown costume at work means a little less dealing with his coworkers and a little more getting home to sequester himself from the rest of the world for the remainder of the evening. The woman on the elevator is not part of the plan. She holds the door open for him and retreats silently into a corner. The air between them is still as death as they ascend, her eyes burning holes in the back of his coat all the while. Arthur initially avoids looking back at her, afraid that if he does, she'll vanish into thin air. He's becoming too used to his lonely, damaged psyche playing such tricks on him. She never even pushes any of the buttons for a specific floor – if she's a hallucination, she's not even a convincing one. The trip is not smooth by any means – surprise, surprise – and the woman seems more than a little perturbed. "Does...that happen often?" Her voice, gentle and feathery, suddenly drifts over him, covering him like a weighted blanket. He turns to face her fully, intending to respond, but pauses when he feels his heart stop. She is undoubtedly the most beautiful creature he has ever laid eyes on. She instantly evokes images of those actresses in the black and white films of his youth. The same powerful air of sophistication as Grace Kelly. The same allure as Rita Hayworth. Only she's in vivid color, and they're not separated by a screen, and she's so close. Even in the elevator's dingy lighting, her blonde curls glow like a halo. Her full lips are pulled into a concerned frown, and her icy blue eyes are trained quizzically on him. Right, that's because she asked him a question. And he's so far done nothing but stare at her like a depraved creep. Carnival, his work persona, doesn't generally speak - and thank fuck for that. Arthur doesn't think he could power out a single word if he wanted to, his mouth has gone so dry. In the end, all he manages is a shrug. Idiot. She must not think he's a total loser because she keeps talking to him anyway, even pays him a compliment – a compliment! When's the last time that happened? He's definitely glad he kept the clown costume on now; interacting with her this way is safer, gives him less of a chance to screw it up. Less of a chance for her to see how pathetic he really is underneath it all. All good things must come to an end, however, and they do eventually reach the eighth floor. And when they do, she surprises him yet again. "I'm new to the building, by the way – my name's Emma. It's a pleasure." Emma. Emma. Emma. She extends a perfectly-manicured hand, and for a moment, Arthur just stares. This is most likely when he finds out that this woman, this magnificent vision in his hallway, this Emma, is nothing more than a fantastic dream. And if she is, in fact, a dream, he's not so sure he's ready to wake up. Nevertheless, he gingerly returns the gesture. Their hands connect. Soft and tentative, but tangible. Warm. Light. So light that Arthur feels as though he's floating, hovering just above the tiled floor, and he could continue to float forever, as long as he just holds on. To his disappointment, she is the one to let go. Arthur crashes back down to the floor, a chill running through him at the sudden loss of contact, simple though it was. She bids him good night and takes off down the hall, the click of her heels in perfect sync with the thrumming of his heart against his ribcage. Emma. Emma. Emma. He gets the feeling he won't forget that name for as long as he lives. Arthur Fleck has seen an angel. And she is so, so beautiful. _____________________________________ "Hey, you look like shit." "Thanks, motherfucker." On her way to the kitchen, Emma totters past the open bathroom door, where Eddie is busy shaving his face. Apparently not too busy to comment on her fresh-out-of-bed appearance, though. She will admit, she's not surprised if she doesn't look her best at the moment. Almost a week of sleeping on a rapidly-deflating air mattress on Eddie's living room floor has not done her back any favors. The bags forming under her eyes make her look like she hasn't slept since the seventies, and her hair has become stringy and unkempt since the last time it was washed. To top it off, she still has none of her clothes or other belongings. So she's currently sporting an oversized Creedence Clearwater Revival t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, both borrowed from Eddie. They hang off of her smaller frame, giving her the appearance of a sickly child who will be hard-pressed to survive the coming winter. "You making breakfast?" her brother asks, poking his head into the foyer. A glob of shaving cream drips onto the tile below him, and Emma grimaces. She returns her focus to her previous mission of rifling through the freezer, pushing past an assortment of cheap vodka and TV dinners until she finds his deposit of frozen waffles. "Eggos!" she calls out. "Cool! Pop an extra one in the toaster for me, yeah?" Emma complies, setting an extra plate out for him as well. As the toaster whirs quietly atop the kitchen counter, she begins her morning ritual of planting herself on the sofa and burying her face in the job listings section of the local newspaper. The job hunt so far has yielded results that are...less than stellar. So many applications, so many interviews, and so far...nothing. "We'll call you if something else opens up" here and "we'll keep you on file" there. Even a "your educational background is good, but we're looking for a little more experience". It's starting to take a toll on her self-esteem. The only real offer she's gotten is from a dive bar across town called The Harlequin. She's familiar with the bartending world – it's how she put herself through college. And she likes to think she's damn good at it, too – hell, she had mastered the Bloody Mary with only a couple weeks' practice! Run-of-the-mill margaritas and martinis? Piece of cake. Not to mention, studying psychology at the same time has granted her an uncanny ability to manipulate a conversation, bend it to her will. Sniff out how to get the biggest possible tips from each kind of patron. Yes, she's a master, all right. But she's really hoping to move on to something with a more...prestigious title. "Any new prospects today?" Eddie emerges from the bathroom just as the toaster lets out a soft 'ding!' He quickly joins Emma on the sofa, a plate of waffles in either hand and bottle of syrup under his arm, completely bypassing the dining room table as per usual. She hasn't seen him eat a single meal at that table yet, instead opting to bring his food into the living room and spill his goddamn crumbs all over the furniture. "Nothing yet, besides The Harlequin thing," Emma grumbles, taking the fork he offers and muttering a quick "thank you" as he sets a plate down on the coffee table for her. "I'm tempted to accept it, just so I can end the madness." "Didn't Sophie recommend you at the bank?" Eddie goes to town with the syrup, drowning his breakfast until the golden-brown liquid threatens to spill off of his plate and onto the coffee table. "She tried. Nothing was open." Emma puts down the newspaper for the time being, feeling the beginnings of a migraine creeping along her scalp. She instead grabs the remote and flips on the TV across the living room, the background noise helping her to relax her mind. Eddie shovels in a forkful of his syrupy concoction. "Sorry we couldn't get you on at the record store. We had a spot last week, but Ron's back from rehab now..." he says with his mouth full. "That reminds me, you still thinking about medical school?" That gives her pause. Honestly, she hasn't thought about medical school in quite a while. More pressing matters to attend to. Besides, it's been years since she last studied. Who's to say that she could pick up where she left off now, even if she were to apply? In the end, after a moment's hesitation, she shrugs. "Maybe. I'm a little rusty, you know?" She takes a meager bite of her own breakfast, chewing carefully. "Aw, come on, that's a cop-out!" Eddie abruptly stands and rushes to the kitchen, leaving his plate behind. As he begins to rummage through the fridge, he continues. "You gotta at least try! You're smart and talented, you work your ass off – where the fuck? – oh, there it is..." He returns with a can of whipped cream and unleashes about half of it onto his plate, and the other half directly into his mouth. "Plus!" He grins. "You look like me, so you know you've got it goin' on." The fraternal twins did bear a striking resemblance to one another as children, but age has individualized them greatly. Where Emma remains on the shorter side, Eddie is now a solid six feet tall. Eddie has also experienced a little more horizontal growth; although Emma suspects his rampant drinking (more so than his atrocious diet) is the cause. "I'm not sure what looks have to do with anything..." Emma scans her brother's plate for the waffle. She can't see it - it's forever lost to the sugary onslaught. Maybe it is his diet after all. "Looks have to do with everything, Em. Not fair, but true." His eyebrows furrow, and he scrutinizes her face. "Speaking of which, you really do look terrible." "You mentioned." "No, like...have you been sleeping at all?" His eyes narrow with concern, meeting her own sunken ones. "I know that air mattress is a piece of shit - you can get yourself something nicer if you want." Emma sometimes forgets how observant Eddie can be when he focuses. She really hasn't been able to sleep a wink since she arrived in Gotham several days ago. He's right, the air mattress is an awkward and lumpy piece of shit, but that's not the real reason sleep evades her. The walls of the tiny apartment seem to cry in anguish at night. Sirens blare outside the window near constantly; they're sometimes accompanied by flashing red and blue lights, the colors piercing through the curtains and waltzing unsettlingly across the floor. People wander the streets until the wee hours, shouting at each other, their combined voices drifting toward the sky in an unpleasant cacophony. Emma can easily understand why folks here on the East Side are so exhausted. The only person who sleeps less than she does is the man who lives next door. She's never seen him, but she's definitely heard him. At least once every night, when she least expects it, he bursts into sudden uproarious laughter. Normally, Emma would march right over and ask the man what could possibly be so fucking funny at three in the morning (only a bit more tactfully, she's not an animal), but she never brings herself to do it. Truthfully, she's scared to. Something is not right about that laugh. It's discordant and jarring, as if clawing its way into the apartment like a demon prying frantically through the drywall. It lacks joy, and in fact, actually sounds pretty damn miserable. A part of her wonders if the man is all right. Regardless, a better mattress couldn't hurt. "Yeah, I might do that," she says. "I probably should prioritize getting some clothes of my own first." Satisfied, Eddie returns to demolishing his waffle creation. "Get whatever you want, as long as you can make the space for it. Want you to be comfortable while you're here, however long that is." He chuckles. "With your money, I'm sure you can spoil yourself much better than I can." Emma snorts, gesturing wildly at herself and at her surroundings. "Money? What money?" "You kidding?" He looks genuinely surprised for a moment. "Your ex is a millionaire! You mean to tell me you haven't hopped on that alimony pony?" "Oh, don't be ridiculous, I don't give a shit about Daniel's money." Emma rolls her eyes. "Not to mention, we only separated a week ago. We have to set a court date, fill out the paperwork-" "Yeah, yeah," Eddie drawls, waving her off. "When that check comes, you remember who took your ass in, no questions asked. Got it?" It's nice to know his sense of humor hasn't changed. Emma nods once. "You got it." They eat in peaceful silence for a while, the distant voice of the news anchor on TV the only sound in the room. Something that doesn't happen often for the siblings. After a few minutes, Eddie speaks up again. "Hey, Em?" "Yeah?" "...Glad you're back. Missed you." "Hm." A faint smile plays along her lips. "Missed you too." 
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in-tua-deep · 5 years
Text
 Masterlist of AUs
okay i’m never putting anything under a read more ever again bc i deleted this whole ass thing and now i’m redoing it so forget me worrying about it being long af it’s what it is my friends
me, scrolling back through my blog: where tf are all my aus smh
(this is why i need them all in one place)
so without further ago, here we go (the title brings you to the tag on my blog, the numbers bring you the posts for that au): 
short stay au - Five jumps forward into the apocalypse and gets stuck, but not for forty-five years. No, in fact, Five is only stuck for one year before he figures out how to get home. Which means the Hargreeves get a lap full of traumatized teenage boy with no idea who the Commission agents trying to kill them are (one)
dolores is the universe au - Dolores isn’t just a mannequin, she’s actually the concept of the universe. The only reason Five can hear her is because overuse of his powers has given him enough exposure to the rift between world that she can reach him. But how to explain this to the siblings who think he’s just traumatized? (one, two, three)
immortal au - The first time Five died, he didn’t know it. The second time was harder to explain. The third and the fourth... well. In the apocalypse, Five figures out that he can’t die, which would be fine except every time he dies he resets himself to thirteen. Puberty? Again? Everyone is more than a little concerned about Five’s lack of concern over his welfare, but hey he’ll start caring again when he’s got further to fall okay? (one)
imaginary friend au - When Five was little, he had an imaginary friend named Dolores. He had that imaginary friend for far longer than he should have, to the point where Reginald intervened. And so they all remember this when Five pops back up toting around a mannequin and calling her Dolores, the only difference is Five has stopped giving a single fuck what old Reggie had to say and he isn’t giving up his friend again so easily (one)
instant arrival au - When Five jumps forward, he doesn’t jump into the apocalypse. Instead, he jumps straight into his father’s funeral. He sort of treats it as a weird vacation until he finds out Ben is dead and tries to return, and finds out he can’t. Now his siblings have to deal with a thirteen-year-old brother who saves the day by just being himself (one, two, three)
barking mad au - Vanya’s apocalypse was more targeted and only killed the humans. Five jumps into the apocalypse and instead of being alone, he’s adopted by the feral packs and colonies that have cropped up. He learns to bark and purr and growl and hiss to communicate, finding friends and family where humanity is gone. Of course, this makes returning to said humanity more than a little bit tricky. It’s not his fault his siblings are dense and don’t understand body language, ugh. (one, two, three)
pushed au - Instead of forbidding time travel, Reginald encourages it. He pushes Five to try it, and so when Five vanishes it’s Reginald’s fault. Written off as no great loss, the siblings realize how disposable they are. Who of them will be the next Five? Trust broken, they don’t stick around to find out and run away. When Five returns, it’s to a very different family who has learned how to depend on one another and protect each other. Together, they figure out how to stop the apocalypse (one)
memory mishap au - The siblings take Five’s hands and jump back in time, and it works! They’re thirteen again! Except for the fact that Five had managed to forget everything that happened since the day he decided to jump forward in time the first time. It’s the others turn to protect him as they run away. Five tries to get his memories back, but is that really what’s best? (one, two)
ghost five au - Five doesn’t leave. He stays, and when that one fateful day happens where one of them is slated to die, Five decides to bite the bullet and take Ben’s place. Even knowing Klaus’s powers, he wasn’t really expecting to wake up as a ghost. He somehow unites the family through the power of being irritating and getting Klaus involved. (one) 
broken five au - Reginald puts his foot down once and for all about time travel, by threatening Vanya’s life if Five puts another toe out of line. Five, fully believing his father capable of getting rid of the ‘useless’ child, shuts down. When his siblings find out what broke Five, they all decide to run away for their own safety as much as Vanya’s. They end up adopted by a woman happily living in the woods in her cabin who wasn’t expecting to adopt seven children but here she is and she certainly isn’t returning them to Reginald so. Seven kids it is. (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven)
run nanny run au - Look the nannies aren’t blind. They know Reginald doesn’t care about the kids and is looking at them like they’re weapons and not people, so it really shouldn’t be as surprising as it is that they decide to just take the kids and run one day. They are going to give these seven toddlers normal childhoods if it kills them, even if they have to dodge Reginald and the law as they do so. And no one forces Vanya to eat oatmeal like damn (one)
travel forward au - Instead of taking them back, Five miscalculates. It shouldn’t be unexpected, seeing as Five has never taken passengers before. But he manages to slingshot them directly into the future - into the apocalypse. The family gets a first hand look at how Five lived for forty years and gain a better understanding of their brother as he frantically works to get them all out again before they starve to death. (one, two)
daemon au - a crossover with the His Dark Materials universe by Philip Pullman, the Umbrella Academy live in a world where their souls walk beside them in the form of animals made of a material called dust. Of course, with these guys it can never be that simple. Ben’s daemon didn’t vanish upon his death and hangs out with Klaus, Luther and Diego’s daemons are always fighting, Allison’s is lazy and disagrees with her constantly, there’s something off about Vanya’s, and Five’s hasn’t settled yet. It’s certainly a bit of a mad house. (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, art)
plush companion au - Dolores wasn’t the only friend Five made in the apocalypse. A terrified and grieving child, he built himself a city out of statues and mannequins and stuffed animals. He built himself an entire world in his own imagination to keep himself from crumbling to insanity. Of course, his siblings have a few question after their brother turns back up and suddenly there’s toys turning up in the manor? (one)
atla au - a crossover with Avatar: The Last Airbender, aka all the kids are benders. In a universe where the Xth avatar is foretold to bring about the end of the world, Reginald manages to get his hands on seven children born whose mother’s hadn’t been pregnant when the day began. Apparently he’s training them to defeat this eventual evil avatar, but little do they know that said avatar is among them and tricked into believing she’s a nonbender (one, two)
suppression au - Reginald doesn’t just use his power suppression drugs on Vanya, he uses them as punishment on the others. They learn that their powers can be taken away on a whim and as punishment, and they’re forced to adapt. Five teaches Vanya the skills he learns to cope without powers, because without them they’re on the same level of competency. Vanya realizes just because she’s ordinary she isn’t useless. A more confident and competent Vanya results, and it changes the future for the better (one)
pianist five au - Vanya isn’t the only child who picks up an instrument. Five learns how to play the decorative piano in the mansion so that he can accompany Vanya’s practice. It becomes more than a hobby. In the end, when words can’t get through to the White Violin, it’s perhaps only music that can soothe the savage beast. (one)
artist klaus au - Klaus was a good artist as a child before Reginald deemed art as being ‘childish’ and forbid it. He forgets until he does some art therapy in rehab, and reignites his passion. He steals notebooks and art supplies and does drawings and caricatures for a quick buck on the streets. When the apocalypse is stopped, he also introduces art therapy to his siblings. It’s just soft tbh (one, two)
out of time au - Five doesn’t jump to eight days before the apocalypse, he jumps to the day of. He has to figure things out and figure them FAST. As such, he’s much more open to delegation and includes Vanya in this because lord knows he’s aware she’s more sensible than half his siblings. And if Vanya and Leonard argue when she wants to look after her brother that she only just got back well, if the apocalypse was prevented by this rift then it’s probably for the best (one) 
how i met your mother au - The Hargreeves jump back in time, but way back to before they were even born. They find their birth mothers, and get to learn exactly who they were, and it’s a little alarming to find out that they’re all people. The kids built them up in their heads as the monsters who gave them up, but they’re just people with hopes and dreams and fears, capable of mistakes and who had to make a choice on the worst day of their lives. (one)
responsible luther au - Five only spends a year in the apocalypse before jumping back and is relieved to find he has four years to stop the apocalypse. Except, Reginald decides that Five isn’t getting out of his hands again and restrains him. The last child left in the house, Luther, has a choice to make. And he makes it. He chooses Five, and absconds with him from the house. Luther tries to help a deeply traumatized Five recover, while also dealing with his reunited family and Reginald teaming up with the Commission to kidnap Five back. To be honest he should have only expected a mess when all the Hargreeves come together (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve)
in the trenches au - Just because Vanya is ‘powerless’ doesn’t mean useless. After all, Klaus doesn’t exactly have a combat based power. So Vanya was included, she was part of the Umbrella Academy, she went on the missions and killed and got hurt and risked her life alongside everyone else. Which means that she isn’t dismissed, she isn’t excluded. She’s as much a part of this as they all are, and that changes everything (one)
post apocalypse au - Just things I think the Hagreeves should get up to in a world where they have to deal with the fact that the world isn’t going to end and they actually have to inhabit it. They decide to try and live instead of whatever they’ve been doing for twenty-nine years, figuring out what they like and don’t like as they go where they were never really allowed to before (one)
late addition au - on one fateful day, forty-three women gave birth despite not beginning the day pregnant. Forty-three women produced forty-four children, and that one extra wasn’t exactly supposed to be there. Indeed, unhappy with the apocalypse plans, the Universe slipped her own child next to another as an almost sleeper agent of sorts. Five grew up with his mother’s voice in his ear, the knowledge that he wasn’t like the others, and a mission to take out the true cause of the apocalypse: the Commission. (one, two)
double trouble au - They stop the apocalypse, but that’s not the end of it because a few days after it all ends Five shows up. Except Five is already there. This is a younger Five who time traveled, except there’s no apocalypse to meet him now. Baby Five manages to convince his elder counterpart to see how long it takes the rest of the siblings to cotton onto the fact that there are two of them, and it’s downright alarming how long it actually takes (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight)
pride and prejudice au - The Hargreeves have returned to Netherfield to figure out the estate after their father’s death. Airheaded Klaus falls head over heels for local soldier Dave Katz, much to the chagrin of over-protective and pig-headed brother Diego. Fortunately, Dave has the fearsome and wonderful Eudora Patch at his side as his best friend. And his little sister, Dolores, is best friends with Five Hargreeves? And for reasons unknown, the Handler is back and sniffing around. (one, two, three, four, five, six)
poster child au - Klaus is a little bit more accurate with that fire extinguisher and Five drops through into the courtyard with a bloody nose and the beginning of a frankly impressive black eye. It’s looking like the poster child for child abuse that Five goes to griddy’s, and Agnes isn’t leaving this abused child alone out front, right? So she witnesses everything and ends up taking Five under her wing and rolling with the whole ‘stop the apocalypse’ train. Along the way she adopts six more children adults, falls in love with an assassin, and saves the world (one)
mechanical boy au - Five and Grace have always been close, in their own way. Away from prying eyes, with careful sentences and unsaid words. Allies in survival against a man who doesn’t care if they live or die. An exploration of a Five who takes more of an interest in his mother, and more in subterfuge. (one, two, three)
ben saves the day au - Instead of Ben dying, it was Klaus. Without his two favorite brothers, Ben drifts away from the family. He leaves when he hits 18 and doesn’t look back. He builds himself a life, gets a job, learns to live. And then of course he’s tossed back into drama central when Reggie kicks the bucket. On the bright side, Ben got one of his favorite brothers back. On the other hand, it appears that Ben got the entire family’s brain cells in the divorce. (one, two, three)
robot five au - Five is just like any of the other Hargreeves, except of course for the fact that he shares more in common with their mother than the other squishier members of the family. It’s a difficult existence, trying to be yourself when even just having free will is too much to ask. But a little trip to the apocalypse and back and Five is done with all this human bullshit and would like very much for people to stop trying to kill his family, thank you. If the others can accept Grace as their mother then on god they will accept Five as their brother. (one, two)
the commission boy au - The Boy was the only success in a series of failures regarding experiments with Number Five’s DNA, or at least the samples left behind after his rather explosive exit. Growing up trained to be the perfect assassin, the Boy eventually discovers the Commission’s dirty laundry. Mainly, the existence of Five. Assuming that Five is another successful experiment and his ‘brother’, the Boy betrays the Commission and embarks on a journey to discover who his family are, and more importantly, who he is. (one, two, three, four, five, six)
hogwarts au - When Five is ten, a woman comes to the house and talks about magic. Reginald tosses her out, but Five follows her and tells her with wide innocent eyes that their father bought them and is planning to expose their ‘powers’ to the world. The magical community can’t have that, and all seven children are bundled up and placed at Hogwarts. They still have their powers, which don’t seem to be linked to their magic in any way, but they’re not about to tell any of the adults that. (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven)
changeling au - When 43 children were born around the world, they became a curiosity that got the attention of a powerful member of the fae, The Handler. Changelings are traditional, so she sent off a minion to swap one of the children with her own - except something goes wrong. The switch isn’t made. One woman assumes she had twins, and gives both of them to Reginald Hargreeves. Five grows up with rules. Lies burn like coal on his tongue, he is bound to his word, and he knows the true power of names. The Handler isn’t willing to let sleeping dogs lie. (one, two, three)
timeboy au - When Five is young, he finds a blue box in an alley that feels like home. He finds a friend, the TARDIS finds family. She finds him again, over and over through the years. Five grows up with the TARDIS’s voice humming in his head, blue glowing on his hands. He asks her to teach him to time travel, and she does. But when he jumps - time screams. It’s wrong. It’s time for a team up between Five and Team TARDIS to fix the timeline, prevent the apocalypse, and learn some important life lessons along the way. (one, two, ao3)
supernatural au - In another world, 43 children appeared out of thin air. In this world, Reginald is a collector. Of what, you might ask? Well just look in his library. Reginald Hargreeves is one of the world’s foremost expects on supernatural and mythical creatures. Why, just look at his children. (one)
pokemon au - Blessed by legendaries, the Umbrella Academy aren’t entirely human. They look human enough, but humans can’t learn pokemon moves. Humans don’t have a type. Reginald wriggles through a loophole, and gets custody of seven legendary children, though of course there are only six on a traditional team. Sorry Vanya. (one)
gym leader au - the Hargreeves are certainly a power family since they were trained from infancy to be the best trainers they can be. Of course, being gym leaders means they’re in the middle of all the weird and wacky shit that happens. Don’t mention the celebi incident that resulted in the dragon gym leader looking like a teenager, for the love of god. (one)
unviable au - Time travel doesn’t work. It needs a conduit. Taking all of time into something as fallible as a human heart... Five gets to the apocalypse, and he doesn’t immediately realize that he can’t touch things any more. He can’t interact with the world. He figures he got stuck in a pocket dimension of some sort, and eventually manages to travel back in time - except the only people who can see him are Klaus and Ben. They tell him that he’s dead, a ghost, but that’s not going to stop him from saving his family and, maybe, the world. (one, two, three)
prophet five au - Five’s time powers are a little different than canon. When he dreams, he sees the future. A possible future. He spends most of his childhood tweaking and prodding at the world to make sure his family is safe, terrified of being discovered. And then he starts dreaming of the apocalypse, of a life he hasn’t lived, and he decides to change the world. But he needs a little help. That’s where Vanya comes in. (one)
delayed au - when forty-three children were born, one mother looked Reginald Hargreeves in the eyes and said, no thank you. She would raise her child herself, thanks. Except her son turns five-years-old, and he’s not safe. He teleports, and he gets lost, and - she turns to the academy in desperation. Five knows about the outside world. Knows that he was loved. Reginald is full of shit, and Five tries his best to save the world. (one)
tog/tua crossover - Five dies in the apocalypse and starts dreaming of other people. Andy has been confused about the immortal child she’s dreamed about on and off for eons. Nile joins the team and with the power of google search, they set off to find the mystery child immortal. Five, on the other hand, would just like to stop the apocalypse and maybe take down the commission thank-you-very-much. (one, two, three)
rebel vanya au - Vanya’s meds suppressed her powers, but her emotions were fine. Vanya grew up loud, grew up sneaking out and acting out because the only attention she could wrench from Reginald was negative attention. With anger in her heart, a friendship with her favorite two brothers based on bashing their father, and girlfriend Helen Cho that was maybe an enemies to lovers orchestra au. When Five pops back up, Vanya isn’t going to let anything get in the way or her and her girlfriend’s concert, so obviously they have to stop the apocalypse. Right? (one)
the red book au - Five finds several things in the apocalypse. He finds an eye, he finds Vanya’s book, and he finds Reginald’s notebook. Five finds out about his sister’s powers when he’s just a teenager, and grows up knowing about them. This... changes some things, when he hops back in time to save everyone. (one, two)
five meets susan au - Susan Pevensie is an old woman now, but that’s okay, because Five is old as well where it matters. They’ve both lived through loss and love and heartache, both know what it’s like to be too old to be so young and too young to be so old. They both know what it’s like to be lost in a world so different from the one they knew before. They both know what it’s like to be left alone. But that’s okay, because Five needed someone who understands him and Susan is the closest thing he’s got. (one, two, three)
oneshots - Just little oneshots, usually within the scope of vague canon or post-stopping the apocalypse times where I write about just family bonding and conversation I would like to see happen in canon. Usually about the siblings bonding and occur on a whim. (one)
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