#alright time for the tags where I attempt to maybe give some context | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

blainesebastian · 1 year

Text

i don’t get sick (ccg universe)

words: 2,439 ship: austin butler x reader summary: (anon request): austin tending to sick reader notes: part of the coffee cart girl universe but can be read alone :) warnings: none tag list: @killerqueenfan, @karamelcoveredolicity, @elizabethrosecresswell, @gigisworldsstuff

How you’ve gone from delivering coffees on set to watching on the sidelines as people actually act out the lines you’ve written in a script sometimes just goes right over your head. Like you’re aware that this was obviously the end goal, this creational transfer, to see your words actually brought to life in a scene. It’s surreal and incredible and you’re also attempting not to look a gift-horse in the mouth because you’re aware that it could all go downhill at any moment. You’re not asking for the film to be some sort of blockbuster box-office success but…you’d like your parents to see it, Austin too? You’re going to be proud of it no matter how well it does because you’ve earned that.

But at the same time? You also want it to have every opportunity to be perfect…which is why you’re not sure if the lead actor is going to work for you.

You literally cannot believe you’re thinking about this again.

You’ve already run Austin down the very long conversational road on how when you were there with the casting director during auditions, everyone felt like they had found the perfect cast for the roles. But…the longer you watch this lead work with your script, the more you feel as if they’ve made some sort of mistake. You’re trying to give a little grace; Austin suggests you speak more with the actor and director on how to hone the character in your script but…something just doesn’t feel right.

Are you overreacting? Are you being too much of a perfectionist? There’s this headache pinching its way to your temples, a pounding in your ears as you pace slowly in front of your couch where Austin is. He’s sprawled out on the cushions, your cat on his lap, watching you walk back and forth as he pets between the feline’s ears,

“I mean, I feel like I’m losing my mind,” You continue, running a hand over your face. “I dunno what to do—it’s too late to get another lead, I mean, we’ve been shooting scenes Austin. So I’m just supposed to what,” You stop pacing and look down at him, gesturing with your hand, “grit my teeth and bare it?”

Austin takes a short breath in through his nose, “Look, first I just want you to stop puttin’ a hole in the floor.”

You look down at your feet and roll your eyes but there’s a hint of a smile tugging your lips. Fine, you’ll stop pacing.

“Second—trust the casting director and yourself. You obviously saw somethin’ in this actor when you saw him audition right? That’s how he got the part. Maybe there’s some sorta disconnect goin’ on now. He’ll get it.”

Sighing you nod your head a little—you know Austin is right. Maybe you’re just overdoing it? Once again so concerned with something to be perfect, no mistakes, that you can’t even enjoy the process. Just because things don’t feel right yet doesn’t mean they won’t ever be. You know that this lead role isn’t as consuming as what Austin had to do for Elvis but, in context, that was two years of his life that he had to settle in. Maybe this actor for your script just needs a little time to find where he fits.

“Y/N,” Austin waits until your eyes meet his gaze, “You know how much grace to give him, alright? If it keeps feelin’ wrong, put your foot down until it’s right.”

You nod softly—right, okay, right. Gonna take it one day at a time, see where they’re at by the end of the week. That headache that was settling on your temples suddenly takes a sudden and jagged poke behind your eyes, making your draw in a sharp breath. One hand goes to your temples, rubbing at them with your thumb and middle finger.

“You gettin’ a migraine?” Austin asks, concern mapping along his voice. You can hear him stand from the couch, approaching you before putting a gentle hand on your arm.

“No,” You clear your throat, pulling your hand away, “No, I’ve had a headache for the past few days. Just comes and goes.”

He hums lightly, pushing your hair over your shoulder. His hand settles on your neck, tipping your chin back with his thumb so that you’re looking up at him. His eyebrows draw together a little as he looks you over,

“You look flushed baby.”

Opening and closing your mouth, you shake your head because you are…he is not going there. “M’all worked up.”

Austin smirks a little, thumb running along your jawline, “I’ve seen you worked up before, it’s not this.” You’re about to say something else when his hand moves to touch your forehead and you attempt to bat him away because—

“I’m not sick.” You’re just not. You have no time at all to be sick, the headache is from stress probably, not getting enough sleep or eating enough. That’s it.

“Oh so we’re gonna be stubborn?” He asks, “Shocking—that’s cute.”

You huff dramatically, pushing him away a bit with a hand on his chest even though you don’t really want him to go anywhere. Austin knows exactly what to do with his proximity and regardless that he’s annoying it works every single time. He tears down your defenses, your walls, makes you completely comfortable…which you suppose in general is never a bad thing.

But in this case? You are trying to prove a point and you are definitely not sick because you’re too busy to be. Just ain’t happening.

“I’m not being stubborn, I’m just tellin’ you like it is—you’re wrong. I don’t get sick; I have an impeccable immune system.”

Austin laughs a little, “Oh I’m wrong?” He shakes his head, planting a quick kiss to your hairline. “Alright, whatever you say.”

“That’s right whatever I say,” You mumble to yourself as he pulls back, possibly a bit petulantly. Should have just lied and said it was a migraine to have Austin help you into bed and make a cup of a tea.

Crossing your arms over your chest, you let out a long breath.

You are definitely not getting sick.

You wake up about an hour before your alarm and roll over in a fitful attempt to fall back asleep. The sheets are sticking to you, your body is hot, and the heat from Austin which is usually comforting is making you feel like you want to peel your skin off. Throwing the comforter back, you pull yourself from bed. The minute your feet hit the floor, you’re overwhelmed with nausea and quickly walk to the bathroom, not closing the door completely behind you. Once your feet are on the cold tile, you feel a little bit better, wiping sweat from your forehead as you glance at your very pale face in the mirror.

Oh no.

Your cheekbones are splotched pink, you’ve got chills, skin heated, slightly congested, and a ringing in your ears from the headache.

You’re sick—you cannot fucking believe this.

Groaning in miserableness, frustration and fatigue, you turn the water on to wet a washcloth to at least wash your face. You run the fabric along your hairline, cheeks and then finally wipe along the back of your neck. The door creaks open slightly and you pray it’s your cat but of course it’s Austin, leaning against the doorframe to look in on you.

“You alright?” He asks softly, tone concerned as he gives you a once over. His voice is caked with sleep, slightly gruffer in some places, dirty blonde hair mussed in a bunch of directions. You’d love nothing more than to tell him you were fine and to go back to sleep, but you already know you won’t be able to fake anything.

Sighing, you shake your head as the room starts to spin and you slowly take a seat on the closed toilet seat, “Please don’t say ‘I told you so’ when I’m dyin’.”

There’s a soft laugh from Austin as he comes into the bathroom, crouching in front of you. “I wouldn’t do that—I’ll at least wait until you’re feelin’ better.”

You smile despite how terrible you feel, shaking your head as Austin pushes your hair away from your face so he can get a better look at you. He smooths some back from your forehead, leaning up to press a long kiss to your hairline.

“I think you have a fever.” He whispers, gently kissing your cheek.

You want to tell him not to bother or fuss, the last thing you want to do is to get him sick too but he doesn’t seem like he cares or that he’s going anywhere. Ironically he can be quite stubborn too…but in this case? You’re grateful.

“Let’s change your clothes, get you back into bed.” He stands up.

Sniffling, you move to take off the shirt you wore to sleep in, “I gotta go to set.”

Austin scoffs, “You are not goin’ anywhere.” His voice is firm, shaking his head as he puts the shirt in the hamper before disappearing into the bedroom. He brings back one of his sweatshirts, the black waffle-knit one that’s super soft and helps you pull it on over your head.

Crinkling your nose, “Austin, you know what I’m dealin’ with there, I have to go.”

“Yeah, all this stressing you’re doin’ is probably why you’re sick.”

You squeeze your eyes shut for a moment, feeling a wave of emotion crash right into you that you do your best to swallow down. You know he’s right but…at the same time? You can’t help but feel like some sort of failure—which you know makes no sense but…this is your first big thing, your first step into a world that you thought was closed off to you. Missing a day just feels like you’re already letting yourself down.

“Look at me,” Austin murmurs and you can tell he’s crouched down again, your eyes opening to see him eyelevel with you. “There is no shame in takin’ care of yourself, okay? You’ve worked so hard for this, staying home to get better does not somehow translate into you bein’ less.” He holds your gaze for a long moment, making you swallow over a lump in your throat,

“You understand me?”

You nod softly, sniffling, running a hand over your cheek. “You’re pretty good at 6am bathroom pep talks.”

Austin smirks, moving to wrap his arms around you, “Grab onto my neck.”

Once you do that, he hooks an arm underneath your legs and scoops you up bridal style to take you back into the bedroom. Setting you down on your side of the bed, he pulls the sheets back to help tuck you right back in.

You sigh softly, running a hand through your hair—maybe with some extra sleep you’ll bounce back in a few hours (or at least that’s the hope). Regardless, Austin promises to call in sick for you, brushing some of your hair out of your face.

“Are you leaving?” You ask, your eyes already closing.

“I’ll be here—just gonna run out and get some groceries.” But you’re asleep before you can reply.

The next time you wake up, you have no idea what time it is. Completely disoriented, you reach out for the bed beside you but the sheets are cold. Your head is pounding and you run a hand over your face to try and figure out which way is up. Groaning a little, you push yourself up in bed and pull the sheets back. Your head is clouded and that’s putting it kindly…you feel like your brain might actually resemble a shrink-wrapped piece of ham at this point. Blindly pushing the bedroom door open, you frown as you attempt to get your bearings and look for Austin.

You wander through the apartment, eventually finding your boyfriend in the kitchen where he’s…

“Are you making soup?”

He turns a little to look at you, a soft laugh leaving his lips. “Yeah, I told you I can cook you know.”

Pulling the sleeves down over your hands, you walk in, sniffling, looking around at the various ingredients. He really went to the store to buy things to make chicken soup from scratch—no one has ever done that for you before, other than your mom. It’s just…really thoughtful and sweet and while you know Austin is those things, somehow this is surprising to you.

“You didn’t have to do all this.” You offer him a small smile.

“I wanted to—looked like you were in on your deathbed in there.” He teases, using a large wooden spoon to stir the pot before approaching you.

You put your hand up quickly, turning away to sneeze not once but twice. Ugh. You move to grab a napkin to blow your nose, tossing it away and washing your hands. That does nothing to help the pressure in your sinuses—you thought you’d feel better with some sleep but clearly it’s going to take a few days. So annoying.

Austin reaches for you to attempt to pull you into his chest, “No, I don’t want to get you sick.” You state, even though you’re not strong enough to push him away. You fold way too easily against him, closing your eyes. The heat of his skin is comforting and you find yourself melting on the spot when he brings his hand up to massage one of your temples.

“I’ll risk it.” He presses a long kiss to your hairline, “Don’t be fallin’ apart on me, alright? If the roles were reversed you’d be tellin’ me I need to take care of myself. Same goes for you.”

He’s right—especially if something like this would have happened to him on the set of Elvis, you’d be the first person to tell him he’d need to slow down, get enough sleep, eat enough, try not to stress into making himself sick. Taking care of himself was a priority…though you have to admit it’s a lot easier to say than advice to give yourself. You tip your chin up to look at him, nodding softly,

“Seems like it might be a dealbreaker if you’re gonna make soup every time.” You tease a little and he leans down to press a kiss to the bridge of your nose.

“Stubborn,” Austin repeats, smiling a little at you, “But I love you.”

You hum, wrapping your arms around his waist to squeeze him as you utter the phrase back. You’re feeling better already.

Forgot I had this request on my desktop lskdfj i also somehow lost the ask it was paired with but ANYWAYS thanks for the request and thanks for reading!

#austin butler #austin butler x reader #austin butler imagine #austin butler drabble #austin butler fic #elvis 2022 #mccall writes things #ccg

296 notes · View notes

my-hyperfixation-trash-can · 1 year

Text

Alright, I don’t see anyone talking about this and it’s going go bother me, so I’m posting it here and on my hoyolab account. Maybe twitter idk.

So, I kin Albedo, I like to think I understand what he’s doing and thinking. As this is a game, we might never have confirmation of anything, but I would still like this perspective of events discussed.

Now, Albedo has shown to me a pattern of behavior that I cannot ignore, this being a trend since the Irridori Festival, he finds the smartest twink in the room and proceeds to form a relationship with them that almost transcends words. Often finding excuses to take them aside privately as well. The twink in question here is Kazuha, whom he would share silent conversations with as they would simply just look at one another for quite some time before someone would speak.

Now I didn’t think too much of this behavior until the recent Windblume event. And not to worry, this is tagged for Spoilers. I noticed Albedo portrayed these same behaviors with Tighnari, another smart twink. However the dynamic and context was different. This was, after all, during the Windblume festival (which is a Valentine’s Day like event for lovers and friends to show gratitude) and Cyno was very much a factor. His actions alone showed me a narrative that was easy to miss without reading into the subtext and subtleties implied. Now, let me walk you through what I mean.

The first thing I noticed when Cyno, Tighnari and Collei were meeting with Sucrose and traveler will seem unrelated, but isn’t. Tighnari and Sucrose appear to be bonding over shared interests in biology, and Cyno immediately tried to shut it down with closed off body language. I teased him, calling him jealous, but I did not know what was to come once Albedo was involved.

Albedo was quick to notice Tighnari’s intelligence when he correctly deduced that lamp grass was the special ingredient of his dish. This caught Albedo’s attention. He compliments his knowledge and engages in a talk about regional specialties, given Tighnari has a vast knowledge

The next thing Albedo does catches my attention, he asks everyone why they came to Mondtadt, especially noting the time being Windblume. My partner jokingly paraphrased it as “not to assume your marital status, but why are you here?” To which, they give their individual reasons, which seem to have nothing to do with being with each other. This, at least to Albedo, confirms they are not here as a couple. Albedo proceeds to make moves.

He begins to use Cyno’s bad puns as a means to tease Tighnari. He is enjoying seeing him be riled up. He thinks it’s fun watching the reactions of the group. Seems Albedo has a mean streak that Scaramouche would approve of. Anyways, I see behavior like this as teasing and playful and vaguely mischievous. He cares to see the reactions of those involved and play with them.

Then, to top it off, when Tighnari mentions wanting to collect herbs alone, Albedo immediately asks to join him. He could have spent time with Cyno his new client, Sucrose who has her projects, Klee, or anyone, but he determined that spending private time with Tighnari in a secluded place all day was of interest. And thus, Albedo completes his pattern from Inazuma.

That isn’t even when things get spicy. Albedo, Cyno and Tighnari are caught in the library together a few days later, and I noticed Albedo physically wedged himself between Cyno and Tighnari. They begin to have a conversation, just the three of them, in which Academic families are discussed. Albedo makes a comment that could be interpreted as flirting to Tighnari, and this is where Cyno takes action. Cyno begins to exhibit Jealous behaviors, like with Sucrose (assuming he now sees Albedo as a threat to his relationship with Tighnari), including attempting to make Tighnari Sibling zone Albedo. Tighnari seems exasperated by this, but does so in a way that seemed non committal or like it wasn’t the full truth. However, Albedo turns this back on Cyno to observe Tighnari and Cyno’s response to the Sibling accusations to which they demonstrate typical sibling behavior. Albedo also offers some comfort to Cyno in understanding his protectiveness as a brother figure himself.

Tighnari has not completely turned Albedo down in this situation, only Cyno. A huge bummer in my opinion.

So the TLDR,

Albedo is subtly flirting with Tighnari during the event and Cyno is late to realize “oh shit women aren’t all that needs to be fended off my man, it’s this Alchemist twink too!” But it’s a little late and Albedo has him.

#windblume spoilers #genshin albedo #tighnari #cyno #genshin impact #windblume

18 notes · View notes

a-littlebitof-nonsense · 3 years

Text

The batfam as random unhinged things my friend has said, pt 2:

Bruce, disturbed: i just saw a playlist called kpop songs to touch the stove to

Jason: I don’t kiss anyone *peace signs* (jason todd is aspec fight me)

Steph: You have to sell your soul to the devil, who is the manager of Walmart...

Dick: Emotionally the year is 2016. I am the real clown.

Babs (back in 2019): Emotionally the year is 2020. Charles Entertainment Cheese is running for president

Tim: Emotionally the year is 2022. Charles Entertainment Cheese has been impeached for war crimes

Duke: What if vampires used bones like cups... and they could stick a straw in them and like... drink the blood... yeah like a coconut! It’d be like a smoothie!

Damian: Sir, my legs are short and my patience is thin

Cass, in the middle of a conversation, unprompted: I have lip skin on my teeth and I- :(

part 1

#alright time for the tags where I attempt to maybe give some context #bruce is often disturbed by anything related to technology or gen z #JASON TODD IS ASPEC FIGHT ME ON THIS #IM THINKING DEMIROMANTIC ASEXUAL BUT IDK HE JUST IS BECAUSE I SAID SO #ALSO I SAW A POST ABOUT IT SOMEWHERE #idk why that one has steph energy but it just does #also we love dick babs and tim just saying random things in brilliant moments of sleep deprived word association #duke: says this #also duke: I am nowhere near as weird or unhinged as these other feral children idk what you’re talking about #duke babe i’m sorry to tell you this but... yeah you crazy and we love you #this is just #the perfect description of damian #again idk why this is cass energy but we’re rolling with it #incorrect batfamily quotes #batfamily #batfam #bruce wayne #batman #jason todd #red hood #stephanie brown #spoiler #dick grayson #nightwing #barbara gordon #batgirl #oracle #tim drake #red robin #duke thomas

110 notes · View notes

indecisive-behaviors · 3 years

Text

Originally I was just going to add this as a reblog to my previous post about the parking lot scene in KK2 but it’s almost 2k words so now it’s getting it’s own post. Be forewarned- this is fucking long.

TW for discussion of PTSD, child abuse, neglect, injury, and death, in relation to topics surrounding the show, under the cut-

Obviously, Cobra Kai is a show based around the premise of “what happened to that Lawrence kid after he got kicked in the face?”, which is honestly a pretty cool idea for a show. Johnny’s story is never explained past sitting on the sidewalk with his head in his hands at the tournament, and there are no real context clue’s to figure out what may or may not have happened.

In the show we get to learn early on that Johnny’s life spiraled after the tournament, going from bad to worse to “holy shit how are you still alive”-dropping out/never going to college, working jobs he seems to hate, becoming an alcoholic, presumably many dead end relationships, and not being there for his kid. And yeah, obviously, this would be a hard pill to swallow for anyone watching the show if Johnny had just lost the tournament. If we never got the scene in KK2, he would have just been some kid who lost a tournament- we see at the end of the first movie that(through tears holy shit Billy) that Johnny is the one who gives the trophy to Daniel with his famous line, “You’re alright, LaRusso.” There’s a level of grudging respect in that moment that isn’t lost on anyone who sees that movie- that Johnny, who throughout the movie only sees Daniel as some whimpy kid, gets proven wrong and respects that. If we didn’t have that scene, there’s reason to believe Johnny would have apologized, tried to make amends, Something, even if it was just being less of a dick at school.

But then, we get the parking lot. We get a far off shot, intended to distance you from the scene, framed over Daniel’s shoulder. This makes sense, Daniel is the main character, the protagonist, the underdog hero- why wouldn’t it be framed in his perspective? But the scene is about Johnny. We get the shouting match, the back and forth- “No, you’re the loser man.”- and again it’s fairly obvious how Johnny sees this situation. This is a man who we assume(and is later confirmed) to be a surrogate father figure, who set his friend up for failure, and then basically forced him to do the same by targeting an injured opponent, and forcing him to fight without honor. This same man presumably follows a teenager out to the parking lot, to harass him, to tell him he’s off the team, to tell him he’s a loser, that he’s nothing.

But at that point, Johnny knows the truth, even if subconsciously. At the end of the day Johnny knows that Daniel LaRusso was a worthy opponent, and that regardless of the cheating and manipulation, Daniel could have won anyway, and did win, despite of it.

And then Kreese grabs him, too fast to react to, Johnny too surprised even knowing that Kreese is the bad guy here, not believing that he would ever willingly hurt him- and Johnny isn’t strong enough to fight him off, none of the boys are, so Johnny is forced to suffocate for almost a full 30 seconds(which I double checked for the record- also as a reference, 30 seconds is about the average time it takes for a person voluntarily holding their breath to pass out- this does not account for the oxygen lost during a struggle, and the lack of preparation from both surprise and panic. The only silver lining here is the fact that Kreese was most likely compressing his windpipe, not his jugular, which would have made him pass out in about 5-10 seconds, and would have caused permanent brain damage or death in about 15).

Now, PTSD is a complex thing. I’m not a psychiatrist, and what small amount of information we have is all we have to work off of, but I feel fairly comfortable in saying Johnny mostly likely developed it after the incident. This not an uncommon take in the fandom as far as I’m aware either. But, if we assume this, we also have to assume that after the fact nothing would have been done about this. Not just in the sense that we still don’t really know everything that happened right after the tournament, but that in the early 80s, PTSD wasn’t really a thing yet.

Sure it was absolutely a condition that existed, but Post Traumatic Stress Disorder wasn’t even added to the DSM-III until 1980- and for a long time afterward, was only seen as a condition that affected primarily war vets. Even after an event as traumatic as having a man you considered a father trying to kill you, in public, without remorse, would not have been seen as something to warrant the diagnoses, let alone treatment.

Johnny Lawrence was 17 when Kreese tried to kill him, and this boy would have been offered no resources beyond filing charges with the police. And as we see in KK3, either this didn’t happen either, or someone(presumably Silver) got the charges dropped. So on top of almost being murdered, Johnny had to live with the fact that the man who did that to him was still out there, and to top it off, still ran a dojo at least for a few months after the event. The only relief he could have gotten is after Kreese faked his death.

And sure, Mr Miyagi may have gotten Kreese to let go eventually, but as several people have pointed out in comments and tags, left him and the other boys alone with Kreese still standing there in the parking lot and just... drove off. Kreese has already been established to be a psycho with no problem hurting children, a little bit of glass might not have prevented him from trying again.

So why did I talk about all of that? Because it all contributes to why Daniel LaRusso works as a credible antagonist in season 1 of Cobra Kai.

Think about this- Johnny blames losing everything on Daniel in season 1, but we specifically get a shot in KK1 and later KK2(”You’re alright, LaRusso” and “I did my best” come to mind) where he seems to be at least mostly accepting of the fact that he lost(with what was actually an illegal kick but that’s a rant for another time). So why does he blame him for everything 30 years later?

Because 30 years later, Johnny is forced to go outside, go to work, and pretend like he doesn’t see what feels like every street corner(including right outside his apartment mind you), a literal billboard sized reminder of what happened to him.

The rest of this is mostly speculation but it makes sense in my head so bear with me.

When we get introduced to Robby, it’s made pretty clear that Johnny has not been in his life for a bit. In season 2 we get Johnny’s heart to heart with Miguel, where he divulges that he missed the birth, because he spiraled after his mom’s death. This however doesn’t suggest that he stayed gone, especially knowing that it wasn’t long enough for Robby to not consider seeking out his dad. Because tacked up to the fridge, is a picture of Robby in his soccer uniform as a kid. It’s an early detail you can see in previous episodes, and says a lot about how Robby grew up. To be fair, this could have been given to him by Shannon, and not taken himself, but it’s the sport Robby’s playing that makes me question this. KK1 dedicates an entire scene to Johnny being on the soccer team in high school. Soccer, while maybe not as important to him as karate, is still part of his character. Robby does not know karate in season 1, Johnny obviously didn’t share it with him, but that doesn’t mean Johnny didn’t share anything with him.

So Johnny’s back in his kids life, maybe doing better for himself, maybe cutting back on the drinking. LaRusso Auto is already established to exist at this point but it’s in Encino, a place Johnny has no reason to go to, and probably doesn’t want to. He’s trying again and things are okay. But Robby knows enough about Daniel to know that going to him will piss off his dad. So Johnny had to have talked about him at some point. The billboards here are what’s important- they’re in the first episode, the first scene montage, Johnny draws a dick on one of them as some petty revenge.

The first billboard goes up in the late 2000s to mid 2010s. Johnny sees it, maybe he has Robby with him at the time, maybe he goes home and says something there, but he says something in a way that sticks with even a child as being important. More billboards go up. Dealerships starting popping up more and more. Daniel’s face, and by extension, the memories, the flashbacks, become inescapable. Johnny, for a third time, spirals again. Before he even knows what’s happening, he’s lost his relationship with his son. And it’s all Daniel’s fault. Of course Daniel doesn’t do it deliberately, but the constant reminders are enough to send him back into a tailspin and Johnny blames him for it.

Because it’s Daniel who is a constant reminder of his failures- it’s Daniel who caused him to lose the tournament and almost get killed, Daniel who put up the billboards that trigger his flashbacks, it’s always Daniel Daniel Daniel.

And then Johnny gets it in his head that he wants to be better. He opens a dojo, teaches Miguel and the other kids, wants to try again- and he almost succeeds.

Johnny up to this point has not deliberately antagonized Daniel in any way. Sure he named the dojo Cobra Kai, but Cobra Kai is all he knows. Besides Johnny doesn’t blame karate for his failures, his best memories are Cobra Kai and he’s trying to be better than Kreese. So what’s the harm in this really? His building is in Reseda, there’s no reason for Daniel to ever be there, he doesn’t do it out of spite, it’s because he lives there and rent is cheap. He doesn’t know about KK3, doesn’t know about Daniel’s own trauma. This isn’t an attack. Johnny sincerely just doesn’t know.

Enter Daniel, stage left. Daniel makes no attempt to talk to him- he simply makes demands and accusations, before he starts making active attempts to put him out of business.

Sure, we as the audience know Daniel has good reasons to not want Cobra Kai back. But Johnny doesn’t. All Johnny knows is that the kid he picked on in high school- who won, who got everything Johnny wanted, who grew up to be successful, has a wonderful wife, two kids who love him, a thriving business- is doing everything he can to make his life hell 30 years after the fact.

And this could only have happened because in 1986 John G. Avildsen decided to add in a scene meant for the original movie into the sequel, for absolutely no fucking reason.

#meta analysis #ranting about cobra kai cuz I can #johnny lawrence #daniel larusso #cobra kai #karate kid #I will never get over the fact that that was an actual scene that they filmed #and then got no resolution #FOR 30 YEARS #I apologize to everyone for this post #obviously I have a lot of feelings about this

77 notes · View notes

mccoymccoymccoy · 3 years

Text

Kirk - Go to your quarters or I’ll pick you up and carry you there.

A/N: I KNOW. I KNOW THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE OPPOSITE CONTEXT FROM WHEN HE SAID THAT. BUT WHEN HE SAID IT WE ALL GOT A TINGLE, NO? oh well. silly little brain.

Word count: 1,531

God, you were tired. Finally a calm day on the bridge- no engine repairs needed, no hostile encounters, no pointless orders from Starfleet- and yet it felt like the longest day since your shore leave on a planet with twenty hours of sun. Your nose was red and sore from patting at it with your sleeve, and you had a headache like what you imagined being struck by an ice pick would feel like.

“All in order, cap-” you paused, face contorting into the classic pre-sneeze expression. Oh, go away, go away, go away! Miraculously, it did. “-tain,” you finished, rubbing the side of your finger against your nose. He turned around and raised an eyebrow at you. “Lieutenant, it seems like you’ve still got a bit of that cold left. Didn’t Bones order you to take three days off? As long as I can still count, it’s only been two days.” Spock, who was walking past, nodded. “You can indeed still count, captain.” You sighed.

“Sir, with all due respect, a little almost-sneeze isn’t anything to worry about. I believe I’m perfectly able to perform my duties,” you lied.

He put one hand on his hip while the other pinched his forehead, and sighed right back at you. “Y/N, we don’t know how this cold- this virus, works. You heard what Bones said, it’s not like the old common Earth cold. You got hit the worst out of the landing party.” He may be a walking bullshit detector, but his reasoning was a void attempt to you.

You saw your duties as more important than anything, which he normally had incredible respect for, but you’d already lost out on two days. Two days, just kicking around your quarters and sneaking around your deck trying to find something to do. Somehow, every time, Bones or an ensign found you and had to bring you back. Mimicking him, you placed your hands on your hips and shifted your weight to one foot. You were starting to feel a bit light-headed, but you weren’t sure if it was because of the cold or him.

“Come on, Y/N.”

You looked down. His insisting this was really starting to make you nervous- not just because of the prospect of missing out on work. You were so fond of him that surely the rate of your heart and the anxious sweating would just make him more firm in his decision that you were unfit to work! Thinking about him made your headache worse than it already was, too. “Captain, please. I’m alright.” Your nose twitched another sneeze away.

“No more arguing, lieutenant. You’re off for the rest of today and tomorrow. That’s an order. Go.”

“Sir, please-”

“Go to your quarters or I’ll pick you up and carry you there.”

You froze. Your face flushed at the thought, and the pressure you’d been adding to your one leg became too much, causing a little stumble. Jim grabbed onto your arms quickly, steadying you. You started to explain about the pressure, but he shook his head. “Spock, you’ve got the bridge. Come on, Y/N. Let’s get you outta here,” he said before sweeping you off your feet into a bridal carry.

Captain Kirk, Captain James T. Kirk, was carrying you back to your own goddamn quarters. You pressed the hand that wasn’t wrapped around his neck against your face to cover your blush- What was his deal! “Captain, if you’re that concerned about my health, perhaps you wouldn’t want to be, well, this close to me? Please, put me down.” He looked down at you, brows furrowed. “It’s not a cold transmitted by contact, Lieutenant,” you sighed a little at him using your official title while carrying you like this. “Doctor McCoy explained that to you already. You’re tired, you almost collapsed on the Bridge, you need to get some sleep and rest. I won’t say it again.”

“But-” He softly stroked your shoulder with his thumb, and it shut you up immediately.

“That’s all I gotta do to quiet you down?” It had clicked for him just a few seconds prior that you weren’t acting strangely just because you were sick. He smiled down at you- something you’d usually expect to be snarky from anyone else after the last comment, but not from him. You knew your face must be redder than your shirt by now, and without thinking, you pressed into his chest to try to hide it. You felt his next chuckle more than you heard it.

You stayed like that for a few moments more until he made it to your door, inside, and to your bed, where he put you down gently. You sat up immediately, and he smiled again.

“Give it up, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t want to have to confine you to your quarters.” You frowned. “Captain, nothing is more important to me than my work. I’ve just got a headache and a tickly nose, at least clear me for tomorrow!” Your head pounded at the effort of raising your voice and you cringed in pain. Jim frowned now too, reaching out and then sitting down beside you. He thought for a moment, while you looked down with your hands in your lap.

“You know, Lieut- Y/N, you know, you’d be no good at your tasks right now anyway.” You laughed quietly. “Gee, thanks, Cap.” You watched as his hand found its way into your lap and between your clammy ones, fingers lacing with yours. He was looking at you, but your own eyes were glued to your lap. His next words were spoken so softly, you could hardly believe this was the same man who’d yelled at you earlier to take a rest.

“That didn’t quite come out how I meant. I meant, you’re an incredible officer who does incredible work here, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to dampen that record because you don’t know how to relax when you need to.”

“This isn’t relaxing,” you sighed. His other hand reached up to cup your cheek, turning your face so you’d look at him. And you did- oh, how you did. How lovely it was to look at him up close, to look so deeply into his eyes you thought you’d never be able to escape. You always tried to avoid eye contact with him, and contact in general- which had always proved difficult. He was always asking you to join the landing party, and then dinner after, and a game in the rec room, and a gym session- you always tagged along, feeling like a pity case and wondering why he’d have you there. It had never once occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, he felt the same way about you as you did him.

“I know. Maybe I could help that?” His eyes flickered to your lips for a moment, then back up. You looked down, leaning into his hand on your cheek and finally beginning to grasp the one in your lap rather than just letting it be there. “Maybe,” you said, barely above a whisper. He closed in, slowly at first, then quickly- he kissed you sweetly, and to say you melted inside would be an understatement. You moved one hand to touch the edge of his jaw ever so gently and felt him smile. He pulled away from you a bit, but stayed close, resting his forehead against yours.

“You sure you won’t catch this cold, Jim?” You smiled, and kept your eyes closed. You felt his breath against your cheek as he chuckled before responding: “So now we’re on a first name basis, I see?” You sat up abruptly, the brain fog hadn’t allowed you to interpret that as a joke. “If we aren’t sir, my sincerest apologies, I just-”

He gently grabbed your shoulders and kissed you again. Shorter this time, but not exactly a peck. You blinked at him, and he grinned.

“I was teasing.”

“Ah. Of course. Maybe I really do need some rest.” His eyes suddenly lit up, almost in a comical lightbulb-moment way. “Why don’t I stay with you a bit longer? You know, make sure you actually stay put and all.” You smiled and looked at the floor once again, but not before picking up on a slight blush from him. He truly was a sweetheart. You nodded, humming. “That would be nice, I think. What about the bridge though?”

“Spock will have it under control for as long as needed,” he responded while laying the two of you down. You wrapped an arm around his waist and cuddled into his shoulder, despite still thinking it’s completely inappropriate for you to do this with the captain- but he doesn’t seem concerned at all. Your tiredness had caught up with you once you finally allowed yourself to relax- you let out a loud yawn, and couldn’t keep your eyes open anymore. “Try to sleep now, Y/N. I’ll be here.”

“Thanks, Jim,” you mumbled as you started to drift off. He pressed a kiss onto the top of your head, and you could feel him smiling again before your mind finally went quiet.

#star trek #star trek x reader #star trek imagine #captain kirk #captain kirk x reader #captain kirk imagine #jim kirk #james t kirk #kirk x reader

178 notes · View notes

ilcaeryx · 3 years

Text

Cascade [Gojo Satoru/Reader]

Summary: Satoru picks you up after a wild night in Tokyo’s party districts. While he’s dying to be more than your close friend, he won’t act until he’s certain you want him, too.

Tags: Gojo Satoru/Reader, Cute, Fluff, Humor, Slight angst, Nightlife, Pining, Pre-relationship

Word Count: Almost 2k

Author’s Note: Feels good to complete something. I listened to The Rose’s cover of ILYSB while writing this.

---

Gojo Satoru’s 1AM drive to one of Tokyo’s nightlife district was strictly for serious business. While he would fit into the crowd of youthful people enjoying the neon stinging their eyes and body contact with at least four strangers at all times, he had zero intentions on partying. Indeed, his sole mission was to retrieve a package – that package being you.

Lulled into rumination by the car engines constant humming, Satoru pondered about your occupation of his mind. Even though his days were busy, he would associate the concept of you with quite literally anything. Bickering with the higher ups? He could envision himself cranking up the drama as he told you the story, smiling smugly inwards at you cooking him comfort food to soothe ‘his stressful day’. Whenever something hilarious or crazy happened, he would automatically think ‘I’ll tell Y/N this later’. One would expect it would annoy him but it was not the case; Satoru was entertained by his daily fantasies, very much enthralled by the walking-on-clouds-feeling his body would produce during his mental escapades. If one Y/N thought equalled one endorphin molecule, he was experiencing a cascade.

His first thought after awakening every morning was your face between his palms, his fingers frigid against your temples. If things between you two ever developed, one day your face would be his first experience that day, every day for the rest of his life. Right now, Satoru would pin your relationship as close friends. As much as he would overinterpret your behaviour towards him, he was quite certain you were not interested in discovering whatever else could unfold between the two of you. Not yet, his positive inner self protested. Maybe never, his negative inner self retorted.

Despite his conflicting emotions, he gathered himself up into a presentable version of himself while he walked to the nightclub your friend had mentioned. Your safety was his number one priority right now, regardless if you were into him romantically or not.

~~~

“Text me when you’re home!” you yelled over the pulsating music, bidding your friend farewell by blowing her a kiss. In a dramatic motion, she caught the invisible kiss in her palm and clutched it against her chest.

“I will! Stay safe, bitch!” she screeched back before submerging into the human current outside the club, her cursed energy swashing to and fro like a solar flare.

Even though his evening had been a cozy movie-night in his bedroom, Satoru’s limbs felt heavy from looking at you. With your shoulders drooping and hands massaging your left thigh, you were finally punished from dancing non-stop all evening. Indeed, your hair clung to your forehead, neck and upper arms, intermingling with the shining perspiration on your skin. Nevertheless, you seemed to relish in whatever banger was playing inside as you were gently swaying side to side.

“I know what you’re thinking,” you said, pre-emptively shushing him with your index finger in the air. “But I’ll take a shower once I’m home.”

“I was actually thinking that I should’ve brought a towel, considering that your sweat’ll soak the car seat,” he said and tucked some slick strands away from your face. Your mortified look cracked him up. “It’s fine, I’ll lend you my jacket.”

“Your expensive-ass jacket? Thanks, I’d rather freeze to death.”

He rolled back his shoulders as he slid his jacked halfway down his back, hands still in his pockets. A little disappointment tinged his tongue. “Are you sure? I warmed it up just for you.”

“Yeah, stop stripping and let’s get the hell out of here.” You smacked his back with an open hand, pushing him onwards. “God, I can’t wait until we get home. I’m so tired. Are we going to your place?”

Let’s not read into anything, Satoru thought. ‘Anything’ meant both your off-hand comment about his place and the fact that your hand remained steady on his back even after you two joined the crowd. Physical closeness wasn’t anything new between you but the context provided another layer of complexity to read into. Suddenly, being the completely sober adult in charge seemed like too heavy a responsibility for him...

Without meaning to, his back tensed up. “No, you weirdo. You can sleep off the alcohol in your own bed.”

You either weren’t bothered by his tenseness or you didn’t notice, as you shifted your hand around his waist. You carefully leaned against his arm. “Sounds boring. Don’t you want to talk all night?”

Like always, your presence burned his arm, enough that he was unable to feel the strangers he bumped into on his other side. This was a sign, right? Or were you flirting as a friend? In the past, he had people confess their ‘love’ for him and apparently they thought his teasing and touching meant he fancied them. Being extremely lovable wasn’t easy, especially not when any platonic affection could be re-constructed as romantic by the other part. You, too, were extremely lovable and affectionate… Had he been in your shoes, this proximity wouldn’t have had any romantic subtext. But unlike him, you had a good personality… This could be the night you two finally spoke about whatever was between you two.

Or the night where you lose a friend because of your stupidity, his negativity brought up.

It had a point. Yeah, you were a good person and a terrific friend – he’d be an idiot if he lost you. Compared to his co-workers and allies, you were awfully soft; he liked how you doted on him, even when he was a pain in the ass. If you rejected him now, your dynamic wouldn’t be the same and his life would be much harder for it.

“We can talk later today,” he said, his arm automatically shooting out to stop an accidental elbow-right-into-your-chest-accident. He settled his arm around your shoulder after giving the guy the evil guy through his glasses. Watch your limbs, man.!

“That was close,” you said, sighing. “Thank you, Satoru! I’m sorry about having to call you out this late, by the way. Did I wake up you?”

He both cursed and rejoiced on the inside now that you changed subject. “Couldn’t be helped that your friend had an emergency. Next time, try to wake me up later for an early breakfast instead.”

“Next time, you’re coming with us.”

His lips faltered slightly, smile not feeling as genuine. He adjusted the collar on his jacket to hide it. “To the nightclub?”

Your index finger jabbed into his side accusingly. “Anywhere! Last time we hung out was… uh…”

This was the first time in a few weeks you two had spoken in person by yourselves. As you both mostly met together with your friends, you tended to invite him whenever the gang planned something. He admitted to himself that he often declined because he only wanted your company, but you never offered to join him instead. Whenever he invited you out, you’d be perfectly alright with hanging out just the two of you, though.

“Two weeks ago?” He squinted into the lights of an incoming car. “It’s because of work but-“

“I’m not a hikikomori, you bastard – I’ve got a job too, but I’ll make time for you, you know?”

You’d make time for anyone, Satoru thought, somewhat discouraged.

The crowd thinned out as you entered the parking lot, though the place was jam-packed with cars. Both of you remained quiet as you passed by couples on the way to Satoru’s car. When you detached yourself from his side, he rustled your hair. You stood on your tippy-toes to return the favour, messing up his hair worse than he did yours. He liked seeing you struggle to reach his head, so he didn’t mind.

“I missed you, scarecrow,” you said, pinching his cheek. He elongated his smile to feel one knuckle touch his lips. “What is the gremlin and scarecrow duo without the scarecrow?”

~~~

Slumped against the window, you were peaceful the entire ride home. Every so often, Satoru would catch a glimpse of your sleepy face and his heart would clam up. He made the right decision in picking you up, even though he aged weeks in those twenty minutes you two had spoken. Your interactions followed a pattern: he’d look forward to meeting you, creating fantasies and expectations of what could be; when you were with him, he would attempt not to ruin your current friendship to the point where he’d feel sick; and whenever you two parted, he’d overindulge in his memories. In two days, he’d be prepared to undergo this rollercoaster once again.

He drove into your street and called your name.

You immediately woke up and looked outside. “What time is it?”

“Almost 2AM…” he exhaled deeply, hands falling into his lap. He still had to drive home, so he’d be in bed in 30 minutes.

“Everything hurts,” you said, bending forward to readjust your high heels. “My legs are killing me… I won’t be able to walk tomorrow. I’m not sure I can walk now.”

He understood what the lilting tone at the end of your sentence meant and with great effort he stepped out of the car. Your giddiness as he opened the car-door on your side was intoxicating, as was the feeling of seeing you stretch your arms towards his neck. He cradled one arm below your thighs and one behind your back.

“Watch your head,” you chided softly into his ear, covering the top of his head as he carried you out of the car.

“Gimme keys.” Satoru leaned slightly backwards to account for your weight as you handed him the key to your apartment. With your bare arms against his neck, he would be surprised if you didn’t notice how his pulse rose.

Your apartment door opened and he stepped into darkness, shutting it behind his back.

“Excuse me,” he mumbled, heading for your bedroom with his shoes on. Your teeny apartment had a teeny bedroom with a single sized bed.

“Say, Satoru,” you said, your cheek pressed below his ear, “are you sure you don’t want to stay and talk?”

“Just go to sleep, Y/N.” Satoru leaned over your bed to carefully lay you down. Your grip on his neck loosened and he thought you’d comply until you kissed his neck, his soul almost as soft as your lips.

“What about now?” you asked and released your arms, falling onto your bed. Your hair spilled around you, a gloria around your tired face. “I’ll let you sleep in my bed, if you want to.”

Honestly, he wanted this. Everything he’d thought of earlier this night could become true if he gave in, which was insane enough to send his head swimming. He’d endure this cramped bed for you, even with his feet being colder than hell and his back aching from sleeping on his side. Gojo Satoru was more than ready.

However, he did not want this to backfire. What if you were simply too horny, lonely, exhausted or intoxicated to consider the consequences right now?

You rolled towards the wall, leaning on your side. Your eyelids fluttered weakly, your exhaustion almost overtaking your body and yet you found enough strength to pat the empty space beside you. “See, there’s space. I’ll always leave space for you.”

Ah, fuck it.

Satoru’s personality was bad; his attitude was self-indulgent; his morality was concrete grey; and his discipline when it came to you near non-existent. If you awoke tomorrow and found that you had fallen asleep with the love of your life – then great, you were both on the same page. If he had completely misunderstood your intentions, he would absolutely bullshit his way out of trouble, like he always did. Whatever, everything’d be alright someday.

---

If you enjoyed this, give me a like/follow/reblog/comment/scream into the void. I hope everyone had a good New Year and let’s hope that 2021 is kind.

Started this 22/11/2020, finished 10/01/2021.

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk x reader #gojo x reader #gojo satoru #jjk #gojo satoru x reader #jjk reader inserts

217 notes · View notes

flowerwrites06 · 3 years

Text

ring lover — pjm

Plot: Violence and grace come together in harmony.

Pairing(s): Boxer!Jimin x Ballerina!OC (Name: Gaia)

Rating: G | PG | M | R 18+

Type: Drabble | Oneshot | Two Parter | Series

Word Count: 7k+

Genre: Boxer | Ballerina | Fluff/Smut/Angst

Tags & Warnings: mentions of blood, boxer-related violence, explicit smut.

Authors Note: we love boxer jimin so I didn’t a whole lot of convincing to repost this lmao enjoy!

Red oozed across the glistening floor as the medics dragged the body away to let him relish in his victory. If he had not done this damage then he would be the one being scraped off. At least that was how Jimin reassured himself after the lack of news on his opponents’ health. Or when a parent and wife would scream at him for being harsh in the ring. It was a battle of who could knock someone down the hardest. Jimin never faltered when he needed to get something done.

Cheers everywhere with no remorse because they knew no judgement would come for being happy with murder within these walls. Jimin let himself be washed away by the production.

Eyes scanned across the crowds, seeing painted faces and lit banners with statements that could never be repeated in a more humble setting. He drank them each of them in filling his ego to the brim until it overflowed out through his smile.

However his gaze stopped at one person he really looked forward to see. Curly locks with a pink bow peeking out from the back of her head while her lips shone even from a distance. Inside the heart of the city situated a dance studio full of the most elegant dolls he had ever seen.

One in particular Jimin seemed to gain a stubbornness in impressing.

On a day full of meetings with new sponsors, Jimin had the opportunity to see one of her shows and much like the rest of the crowd he grew enamored. Grace seemed to ooze through her veins letting her limbs flow into the most complicated of moves but she did them like she was born to do it.

Soft face ever so sweetly gracing her features when the show ended and Jimin swore he almost fainted from the overwhelming feeling pulsing through him.

His sponsor had been kind enough to get him backstage for even one conversation with the faery on stage. Jimin prided in his luck for seeing her in person, to find out her demeanor was a little shy with one person compared to the thousands she saw just a minute ago. Somehow that tingled excitement in his belly even more.

Except his luck fizzled out when Gaia recognized exactly who he was and her smile faded away.

“I know exactly who you are.” Her throat bobbed up and down as she held her shoes in her hand tightly. “You’re that boxer who killed the nineteen year old boy in the ring.”

Jimin was used to fear in people’s eyes when he met them but now more than ever, he wished anything else. He wanted the sparkle on stage but came to the painful realization that the reason it disappeared was because he stood in front of her. “In the ring, we just call each other opponents.” The man attempted to smile.

Gaia took a deep breath. “Well...I hope we never meet in a ring.” She turned away, hair moved over her shoulder while she carefully placed her shoes inside a pale pink box.

He pursed his lips not entirely used to someone being against his ruthless behavior. Usually it would gain a lot of positive feedback and respect. Right now Jimin felt like a simple minded murderer who just referred to it as a sport. “We could meet outside the ring.”

“Pardon?” She looked back at the male, brows furrowed.

A gentle smile tugged at the corners of his lips silently admiring how she could keep such an elegant composure even when she clearly looked a little upset. “I have a match coming up soon. Maybe you could drop by…” Jimin shrugged attempting to keep the conversation as casual as possible. He hated to admit that it never took this long for a girl to just get on board and it had only been ten minutes.

“I don’t like watching fights.” She replied simply holding the box to her chest as form of a shield between them.

“You don’t have to watch the fight.” Jimin shook his head. “You can come afterwards and—and I’ll be nice to the guy this time, I promise.”

“Why do you want me to attend?” Her eyes flickered up and down his body.

“Apparently faeries are good luck…I’m told.” He smirked.

Gaia had the strongest urge to scoff but unfortunately this was not the place to be showing off any casual behavior of the sort. Sighing, the woman nodded. “I’ll be there towards the end.”

Smirk stretched into a proud grin before giving her an almost bow and some motivation to impress the hell out of his new lady friend.

The rush of adrenaline lasted around two seconds before his stomach dropped down to a pit watching the fear on Gaia’s face, her gaze fixated on the limp body of his opponent. It didn’t take any type of effort to notice the way she hugged her jacket tighter around her body as if someone was going to attack her in any second. Someone like him.

For the first time Jimin could not feel like floating as he was patted on the back and cheered on. Everything seemed muffle and fade away to the imagined sound of her heart pounding out of her ribcages from how she struggled to avert her eyes away. Smile disappeared watching her pad away behind to the lockers with Kiku leading her to the right place.

He wanted to somehow communicate to her why he did his matches like this but it just seemed like such a silly reasons in his mind. So all he could do was mentally apologize for bringing a peaceful faery into a murderous war zone.

“You alright? You need some water?” Kiku, one of the Jimins’ trainers, asked in a gentle almost motherly like tone as they walked into the dull looking locker room.

Greenish lights, blue lockers with suspicious red and brown stains, wet benches and the stench of too many bodily fluids swirling in the air. The loud incessant cheering now finally faded into something Gaia could tolerate without feeling her lungs trying to escape from her throat.

The only thing somewhat pleasing to look at was the beautiful head of curly pink hair on Kiku contrasting pleasantly with her all black get up. From afar people couldn’t tell but Gaia noticed the little crevices of her toned body peeking through the top and pants. She was not much older than Jimin but apparently had been fighting in less professional rings than this which led to a bubble of fear with the people around her.

As much Gaia admired the strength of fighters and boxers, it still did not help her anxiety seeing violence happen in front of her. Every punch always seemed like it was directed at her no matter how far away she was. The dancer understood pain and blood more than people really saw. Her feet were permanently ruined so watchers could admire her shoes, grace and movements. Even still to harm other people never settled with her.

Doors burst open as the cheering and shouting ripped through the thin cloth of safety, sweaty bodies rushing inside with smiles on their faces while Jimin was constantly patted on the back. Damp orange hair matted against golden skin riddled with blood splatters that did not belong to him. Except the grin he had tugged at his lips was so sweet and kind.

Gaia almost couldn’t believe that this man was the same person in the ring battering his opponent.

Kiku pulled her over closer as the fans were escorted away from the rooms by security. Soon the multiple bodies scattered down to just Jimin and his coach.

Jimin slumped onto the bench wiping off the back of his neck while his coach talked about booking the next match. When the huge faded away, the boxer became highly aware of the aching on his shoulder blades and stinging on his forehead.

“Let him breathe for a minute, will you?” Kiku retorted with a smile, gesturing for him to walk with her. “Ice and first aid kit.” She whispered to Gaia tapping on the boxes rested on the table behind them where the water tank was.

Jimin chuckled lightly, quietly telling the coach that he will think about it before he moved off leaving him alone with Gaia standing on the side. Smile drowned back into softened expression seeing the woman looking unsure as she shifted in her position. “If it helps I’m too tired.”

Gaia rolled her eyes turning to grab an ice bag and the first aid kit. Padding over, she knelt down on the bench just behind the male carefully placing the ice bag on the bruising.

The male hissed before groaning lightly as his body squirmed a little from the frosty touch. “I probably shouldn’t ask how you liked the match, yeah?”

“No you shouldn’t.” Her lips twitched, eyes following the little orange tinted trails of sweat flowing down his neck. “But you fight well within context I suppose.”

Jimin nodded even though it hurt to do so from the injury. “I can take that, thank you.”

“Keep your hand here.” Gaia requested. When Jimin obliged, she walked over to stand in front of him now with the first aid kit shifted towards them. Placing an antiseptic on the cotton pad the woman carefully tapped it onto the wound making the man wince. “You’ve taken punches but this bothers you?”

“I can’t show that it hurts in the ring.” He smiled watching her continue on with the work.

Gaia hated that she could relate to the idea so much. She could never start wincing and crying whenever everything hurt during a performance or her cramps would get so terrible that her vision blurred. It had be sucked in and used as strength to carry on. Always keep a smile on your face and perfect posture even if your feet bleed across the stage, one of her instructors used to say.

“You’re very good at this.” Jimin gestured with his one free hand.

“Ballerinas get bad injuries too. We have to know how to fix things up when needed.” Gaia spoke but her focus was on placing a gauze on the wound.

“Really? You get punched in the gut?”

She glared at the male before shaking her head. “It’s mostly on the feet.” Gaia took off her shoes immediately causing Jimin to look down and see the bandages wrapped around the balls of her feet, little red spots and healing bruises with a simple band aid on her second toe. “Still want me to come to your matches?” She teased gauging Jimins’ speechlessness.

Jimin flickered his gaze back to the girl and let out a chuckle. “Does it hurt right now?”

Gaia shook her head, light hum under her breath. “I get used to it after a while.”

“Would you ever get used to me then? What I do?” Eyes searched her expression as his words made the woman pause her actions for a moment. It was a shot in the dark asking such a question considering they only knew each other for little time.

She sighed gently placing bandage over the gauze while her fingers kept his hair out of the way.

Silence plunged into the room between the two of them as Gaia finished the dressing before moving her hand to the ice bag so she could hold it instead.

“Are you scared I’m going to hurt you?” Jimin’s tone rung so much more meek than Gaia prepared for. His eyes softened and droopy, bitten lips relaxed into a natural pout. How was it that someone so dangerous could look so gentle this up close?

“A little.” She whispered, wanting to speak honestly. Despite sensing a side of him that those people in the arena would never see right now. “I always think if you can knock people twice your size in the ring in a matter of seconds…” Gaia chose her words carefully. “I don’t exactly want to live my life terrified of making you angry.”

It took a lot out of his whole entire being not to protest heavily on her words but that kind of behavior would really just prove her point. Jimin never knew anything but fighting for what he got. Nobody ever gave him what he needed when he was kind especially not on the streets or even in his own home. A long trail of just fighting, scraping and surviving to get to this point and people loved him for it. They loved the story and journey.

“Fighting is your passion, I could tell when I saw you out there tonight.” Gaia’s fingers drenched at the layer of water droplets around the ice-bag. “It isn’t mine.”

He tilted his head. “Do you want me to give it up?”

Gaia furrowed her brows, stammering a little. “Of course I don’t. Why would you even do that for me?” She chuckled nervously.

Jimin shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ve never had a girlfriend before…not the kind that I liked anyway.”

“There’s a kind you don’t like?”

“Yes, unfortunately.” Ever since he rose up to fame, there were a lot of publicity projects to have him parading around with different models and actresses. Thankfully this year Jimin was able to keep himself busy enough for that to be non-existent.

Gaia smiled lightly. A small jolt of courage allowed her to reach out and brush away his hair from his face, warmth radiating between their close bodies. “I like you, Jimin.”

Jimin couldn’t help mimic her smile as his eyes glanced momentarily at her lips. “I like you too.”

She pulled the ice bag when there was nothing but sloshing heard from the inside and walked over to the table. As she placed it back in the mini fridge for it cool up again, she heard shifting from behind her.

He stood from the bench with a light groan when he tried to stretch his back a little. “I’m gonna go shower, you want to join me?”

Gaia glared at him over her shoulders, brows furrowed and mouth agape.

Jimin laughed as he backed away towards the lockers. “Just kidding.” He winked before disappeared down the little hallway that led to the showers.

God the excitement that momentarily rushed through infuriated her. She trained her whole life to keep a strong composure, head held high with a integrity that reached out for miles on end. Of course this was not talk of integrity. This was temptation. That little ache touching her lower belly whenever he smirked her way. Jimin made it so easy to just forget about elegance for a moment and jump into the ring to take what she wanted. The woman was trained to do jumps and leaps all the time.

Zipping down her coat, Gaia shrugged it off to reveal her plain black dress before padding over until the sounds of the shower grew louder.

Hot water trailed down his slightly bruised back, hair sleeked back already fading into a more pale orange and his new bandage already dampening. The shower was mostly opened with a tiny wall just at his waist covering the sides to hold things.

But from Gaia stood just behind him, the girl could see his entire silhouette. She tried to look away but something in her brain seemed to switch off. Steam emitted from the shower adding more warmth aside from the heat on her cheeks.

Jimin looked over his shoulder as he shifted and paused for a moment, the corner of his lips lifting a little. “Did you need something?”

The dancer stammered before swallowing down a small satisfied hum. “Your— your bandage…” She struggled a little as she gestured to her own forehead. A crude excuse to somehow validate her blatant staring at his naked body but Gaia’s proper words were lodged in her throat. Instead her eyes absentmindedly tracing across each toned line of his torso, glistening in the light, arms veiny from the match and his muscular thighs framing something that made her whole body burn like a furnace.

His faint smirk widened looking at how flustered the usually composed girl looked. Turning fully around to face her, he padded closer not really caring about the water droplets gathering around his feet onto the floor.

Gaia backed away as he came closer until her back halted against the wall leaving her to wait until Jimin stood right over her. Water dropped down from the strands of his hairs and some settling on his skin as the heat in the room made her break a slight sweat.

“You wanna fix it?” He muttered, their faces seconds apart to a point where he could see the tiniest little mole on her nose.

Chest rose and fell as Jimin inched even closer until the droplets touched the sides of her face, warmth clouding all judgement and replacing it with this magnet. Just a constant pull tempting her to take the leap.

Gaia closed the tiny space they had left and pressed her lips against his. A burst of curiosity and courage. But she pulled away to let out a shaky breath. “Sorry…”

Jimin grew speechless once again for a moment expecting her to push him away at any moment. His heart pounded right up to his throat, the small memory of her soft lips still lingering so strongly on his own.

Shit he needed more.

Breathing heavily, he cupped her cheeks to have her face him and kissed her, with the same gentle current but a personal intensity. Jimin wanted Gaia to feel the heat rush through his veins making them pulsate and yearn until his head spun. He forced himself to stay at this tantalizing pace, silently reassuring her that it was possible for him to be gentle. Even in the midst of immense desire tightening around his crotch.

Tongue brushed across her bottom lip making her part them just enough to invite him in so he could explore any inch of her that he could.

She traced her hands up his damp arms to his shoulders, the sounds of the shower running creating an ambience amongst the shared pleasure.

Tingles shot up her spine feeling Jimin’s hands trailed down her waist to her hips before wrapping both arms around her and diminishing even the slightest space left between them in a tight embrace. Steam flowed around the couple almost making them look a little hazy like they were lovers in a fog.

Gaia felt her clothes sticking to her dampening skin, lips still in a soul-catching lock that shortened her breath. Whining lightly at the heat she broke the kiss seeing Jimin’s lips so bitten it was to a near bruise.

Her hair felt almost just as damp as his, running his fingers through while succumbing to pressing a few soft kisses on her cheeks and jawline.

“Jimin!”

The ballerina jumped at the voice trying to keep her breath in check while Jimin backed away reluctantly and turned the shower off.

Quickly grabbing a towel to put around his waist, Jimin saw Kiku stomping over to where they were and waving away the fog.

“You trying to start a fire or something?” She chuckled before looking over at Gaia who attempt to look as nonchalant as possible despite standing here while Jimin was supposed to be showering. “Ah—sort of.” She teased.

Jimin smiled nervously, scratching the back of his head as he glanced at Gaia feeling the little nag that they were interrupted too early. “Is it an interview?” He asked.

Kiku nodded. “No it’s…about the opponent.”

Gaia’s heart jumped out of her chest almost predicting the news that was going to fall from her lips. The usual softened expression now contorted into one of concern.

“What is it?” Worry gripped his feature more so because Gaia stood in the room rather than his own. Jimin grew used to bad news at this point.

Kiku maintained her usual serious note for a few moments before a smile quickly stretched across her lips. “He’s okay. It was a broken nose and a few bruises…quite happy with being beaten up by you really. Your fans are fucking weird.”

“So were yours.” Jimin retorted with a smirk, gaze trailing over to Gaia who visibly let out a sigh of relief. It could have been just as easily turned the way around where the girl ran away from him if the news were of a different light.

“Speaking of fans, you two should probably get out of here, they’re getting more crowded out there.” Kiku glanced at the both of them before turning on her heel to leave.

Once Kiku walked away, the couple were left in an awkward silence very much aware of what they did a few minutes ago. Now that woozy heat from the steam faded away into the cool air it felt like they woke up from kind of dream. Gaia was almost not sure if it even happened but the light ache on her lips and the loss of consistent breathing spoke otherwise.

Jimin padded back closer with a towel covering his lower body now. “You alright?” He smiled faintly.

Gaia met his gaze, smile shyly twitching out but she hung her head to hide out. “Yeah I’m fine.” A slight chuckle passed through without her realizing.

“You’ll have to come in the car with me if the crowd’s already happened.” He explained padding over to the lockers where a bag rested on the bench.

She merely shifted a little to see him pulling out a few pieces of clothing.

“Will I have to come to your apartment too because of this inconvenience?” Gaia mused.

Jimin looked over his shoulder as he pulled a T-shirt down his toned torso, tiny laugh passing his lips. “If that’s not too much trouble, butterfly.”

Thankfully the man had pulled his boxers on already so her body could cool down a little more and she focused on his face. Not that it was much help with that stupidly beautiful smirk. “I can live with it for now.”

As Kiku said, the crowd was horrendous. Once the doors opened yelling and screaming similar to the kind inside the ring ensued, bodies pressed up against each other trying to get close to Jimin but the security guards easily pushed them back. Jimin pulled one of his hands out of his coat and held onto her hand, guiding her safely to the door.

Gaia could not really make out anything the people were saying which made her scooch close to the male. The only crowd she was used to were the quiet ones during her shows who merely ended it off with a round of applause. Jimin had to deal with near violent people attempting to touch him but he continued to smile through the whole thing.

Finally she saw a car door open and Jimin pressed a hand on her back to lead her inside first. Gaia quickly climbed, shifting to the side where someone tried to open the door but the security guards pressed his back against it.

The door finally slammed shut with the orange haired male letting out a sigh as the sounds of their screaming now muffled against all the doors.

“You deal with this every match?” She asked in a careful tone as the car drove away.

Jimin leaned back into the seat feeling all his limbs a lot cleaner but still exhausted and almost melting through the surface. He met Gaia’s gaze when her question posed, smile stretching on his lips. “When I win, yeah.”

“So every match then?” Gaia smirked, shifting closer to the middle seat so her shoulder pressed against his. “You must have a lot of people who’d love to date you. Especially who condones violence a little more.”

“I could.” He nodded, jutting his bottom lip out. “But then I’d have nothing to work for.”

“Do I make you work?” One of her brows raised up.

Jimin shrugged. “A lot of them just want me to be the same fighting machine as I am in the ring. It takes a lot more work for me to be a person.”

“That’s very deep, Mr. Park.” Gaia muttered, finger tracing down his cheek. “Do you think about stuff like that a lot?”

“Not a lot. Sometimes.”

Eyes searched his expression as her own softened into one of fondness. That was the side of him she could see peeking through. “Well if it helps…a fighting machine would never be so good at kissing.” Gaia gave him a bright grin as the male chuckled.

Jimin smiled down at his fingers before meeting her gaze, tongue darting out to lick his lips while glancing at hers. “That’s good to know.”

Car parked at his apartment building in the heart of the city. The couple were led to his penthouse with a crowd of security around them not a gap left between them. Guards dispersed to their different corners of the building to ensure that no one snuck through any door. Two more walked with them on the elevator before they were left alone at the room entrance.

Jimin unlocked the door, glancing back at the security guards before opening and letting Gaia walk in first.

Once the door clicked to a lock and they were both alone, Jimin dropped his keys on the kitchen counter just a few steps ahead. Padding closer to the girl his arms immediately wrapped around her waist and he buried his face into her shoulder.

Gaia couldn’t control the small giggle when she felt his warm embrace from behind as they waddled forward to where the sitting was. The apartment had an open plan, with the kitchen on their left facing the living room area while their right had a space for the gym, punching bag still intact and a clear view of the night city taking most of the wall in front of them. Slowly they moved to the living room still connected by Jimins arms.

“Aren’t you going to show me around the apartment?” She mused pulling away from his embrace and turning around to face him once they reached the couches. Every step he took the girl moved back as if playing a little game. It was strange acting this way in front of someone because Gaia always kept a veil over her, presenting herself as the perfect doll to admire.

“Where did you want to go?” Jimin asked shrugging off his coat and placing it on one of the chairs. “Shower again?” He smirked. “Maybe this time I won’t be the only one naked.”

“Is that what this is?” She smiled unzipping her coat once again as it dropped on the couch behind her. “Have you been trying to get me naked?”

“It’s one of the things.” He scrunched his nose finally halting as he stood over her. “Am I succeeding so far?”

Gaia leaned in a little letting their noses tap one another before giggling. “Aren’t you exhausted?” Hands rubbed up and down his arms, her voice dripping with every inch of mischief in her body.

“Not anymore.” Jimin whispered, hand reaching out to place a loose curl back. “Now I asked you a question, butterfly.”

“All my clothes are still on my body…” She placed her hands behind her back now shifting to the side, away from the couch. “So you’re going to have to work a little harder.” Gaia mused padding towards the kitchen counter with her hair bouncing in the process.

Jimin smirked feeling a fire in his lower belly at her teasing. “Well you seemed to be interested in something last time.” Fingers hooked at the hem of his T-shirt, pulling it over his head and throwing it on the couch before walking over to Gaia as she leaned against the counter.

The girl couldn’t help but bite down her bottom lip, golden torso still glowing a little in the light.

Bare arms now rested on either side of her gripping at the edge of the counter with every intention of preventing her escape. Light scent of water still lingering on both their bodies mixed into a fading remanence of Gaia’s perfume. “It’s your turn now.”

Gaia shook his head. “No, I have a dress on. If I take it off I’ll be in my knickers and you still have your pants on.” Her chin raised in confidence.

Jimin merely licked his lips wanting to desperately to just take them right there and then but she lured him into this play. The one match he could never win. “Fair enough.” His hands on his belt now, pulling at the leather strap while keeping his gaze on Gaia the whole time.

Gaia’s chest began to rise and fall watching the belt being thrown onto the floor then his veiny hands proceeded to unzip his pants before pushing it down to his ankles. Kicking it fabric away she was caged once again by Jimin’s arms.

“I believe it’s officially your turn now.”

Cheeks burning a little, Gaias’ fingers hooked at the hem of her dress before pulling it over her head. Curls covered most of the girls face once the clothing got discarded onto one of the stools.

Jimin couldn’t help but chuckle as he brushed away all the wild hair from Gaias face, a few strands sticking to her glowing cheeks. Lips practically magnetized together in another heated dance previous interrupted. He almost forgot the game being played once his mind drowned into the feeling of her warm kiss calming down every tightened nerve knotted inside him. Except on in particular only grew stronger in his lower belly, blood rushing to his crotch as his hands explored her bare crevices.

Gaia pulled away from the lip lock, letting out a deep shaky breaths as she reached behind and unclasped her bra letting it to the ground between them. Within seconds the male ducked down to press his tongue against the tender skin sliding to her nipple and suckling hungrily.

Arms pushed her up to sit on the counter making the girl gasp as his teeth accidentally sunk into the sensitive area.

Bottom pressed harshly just at the edge of the counter, she spread her legs apart for their distance to be closed completely. Jimin embraced her waist as his lips trailed from the valley of her breasts, to her torso before hovering over the clothed core.

Gaia could already feel pooling between her legs, arousal soaking through the thin fabric. It only ruined more when Jimin pressed his thumb against her clothed clit. Head threw back as her hips leaned into his touch trying to get as much friction as possible but he only lightened the pressure to torture her.

A whine uttered in Gaia’s throat before she grabbed him by the neck and locked their lips together once more, wrapping her legs around his waist. Jimins’ hardening clothed cock pressed her soaking pussy as their tongues danced in a slight battle to somehow express the built up tension.

Jimin grabbed her ass to keep her secure around his waist before carrying her to the bedroom situated on his right.

Sloppily kicking the door open, the man almost stumbled until he finally threw her onto the bed.

Gaia chuckled as she landed on the soft surface, silk sheets gracing her skin while having a gorgeous view of a bothered Jimin pushing his boxers off and kicking them to the side. Her own fingers hooked at her destroyed panties and stripped them down, the thin clothing hung at her ankle.

Jimin hovered over her figure kissing Gaias knees and thighs before brushing his lips towards her puffy pussy. A smirk played on his features as he moved back up watching the girl squirm at the teasing. “Still want to play the game?”

She smiled pushing against Jimin so he could shift onto his back.

Jimin was a little taken aback by the action, breathe hitched in his throat but it quickly dissipated when the gorgeous woman climbed on top.

Both legs on either side of him, wetness rubbed against his hardened member with the same amount of grace as she would in any dance but doused in a little mischief and thousand times stronger dose of passion. Jimin clasped onto her hips almost like his life depended on it. Each rub causing an aching twitch that awakened the warm pool in his lower belly.

Gaia rested her hands on his torso to keep herself balanced. Knees weakened when his cock rubbed against a sensitive spot, her entire body melting more into his touch. Staring down, she watched his tip redden and leak the closer she got to it, pre-cum glistening in the light while dripping onto his torso.

Breathing grew shaky as Gaia kept her movements tantalizingly slow. Nails dug into her thighs, a more impatient side of him wanting to move her body faster but he forced himself to keep control. Instead Jimin filled his mind up to the brim at all surges of pleasure trembling through his veins the moment she rubbed against her tip.

Her slick entrance spewed more and more arousal at every torturous rub. Moving one of her hands behind her body, she kneaded his balls, heavy from his awaiting release making Jimin throw his head back into the pillow.

Gaia pressed her core right against his tip creating a little more friction. She rubbed it on her clit, the heat in her belly tightening but she raised herself up and halted her actions. Both their light whines mixed in with one another in deprivation of their edge.

Slowly she rubbed against the base of his cock and moved her hands back on his torso.

Jimin scoffed out a light moan, digging holes into the skin of her hips from the way he gripped onto them. “Fuck baby I can’t—” He whispered.

“What do you say?” Gaia spoke in such a delicate tone but it exuded so much power, Jimin felt tingles down his entire body.

His rising chest glistened a little from the overwhelming heat huddled around their growing bubble of sin. Eyes lazy and drooping as he watched the faery continue to torture his cock with a brush of her core. “Please—please, please baby…”

“Please what?” She leaned in, a small smirk tugging at her lips. Gaze fixated on the lightly heaving male as her lips pressed wet kisses on his chest.

Jimin growled under his breath. God he could never remember feeling this helpless in the best way possible. The pressure a little heavier when she leaned in but pressed hard enough to make it utterly difficult to come undone. “Please, baby—fuck me…I wanna be inside you, please…”

Accomplishment rushed through Gaia as she moved to her original position, slightly dampened curls falling gracefully over her shoulder and face. Lifting herself up again, one of her hands wrapped around the heavy, hard shaft before positioning it at her entrance. Her soaking core easily swallowed every inch as Gaia slid down.

All his breathing caught in his throat in the few intense moments where he felt his aching cock finally being warmed up by her snug walls. Forehead knitted, pouty lips parted as Jimin’s whole focus fixated on his member disappearing completely inside her.

Gaia had to let out a sigh, almost grabbing at his torso as she tried to adjust to the long awaited feeling. Dull ache quickly faded into a dizzying hot pleasure making her instinctively grind her hips against his. She moved torturously slow allowing him to take every tiny spark and tug at all the right nerves in their writhing bodies.

Jimin bent his knees and carefully met her thrusts, trembling moan mixing in with her whimpering breaths.

Sloshing sounds resonated louder as Gaia increased her pace rubbing at that beautiful spot causing every limb to shake in the new tickles of ecstasy. Jimin’s thrusts grew a little more harsh, balls hitting her ass every time their sweaty skin slapped against each other.

She followed his tingling rhythm, practically bouncing on his cock in a steady heated pattern. Gaia’s head threw back as her moans echoed through the room almost drowned out by the sounds of their sinful pounding.

Jimin almost felt hypnotized by her gorgeous breasts bouncing up and down almost jiggling as their pace into a fast and brutal race. Reddened member drilling into her burning entrance as it clenched around him.

“Oh god—” Gaia whimpered gripping onto Jimin’s shoulders as the warm spot inside her got ravaged by his pulsating cock.

Growling like an animal, he grabbed her by the waist and flipped them around. Legs spread wide Jimin stroked his drenched and glistening shaft before sliding back into her.

Gaia’s wild curls hovered over her eyebrows, wanting to squirm at the sudden empty feeling before her walls were stretched once again with ease. His arms jabbed on either side of her.

Fingers curled around them for a grip as Jimin wasted no time before continuing his thrusts at a brutal pace. “You want me to go slower?” He asked in an extremely shaky tone.

She shook her head frantically, the desperate rolling to the edge coming closer at every burning drill into her core. “Keep going.” Gaia whispered. “Please keep going—” Her free hand slid down to rub at her clit even through his lower belly slapped into it at a beautifully maddening pattern.

Jimin groaned unable to maintain his own fucking sanity watching her take his cock so well and only ask for more. He buried his cock deep inside and paused for a moment, grinding into the back of her hand to give more pressure on her clit. “God you’re so fucking beautiful.” He breathed out.

Toes curled in a little, light aches beating from her healing bruises while he stuffed himself inside her completely. Gaias’ eyes almost rolled to the back of her head but she was allured by his voice. A small chuckle leaving her lips at his words. “So are you.”

The man smiled leaning in to kiss her slightly drying lips from heaving in the heavy midst of pleasure. Hips began a steady pattern once again welcoming back the tumble towards the edge.

In a matter of seconds Jimins’ thrusts turned into an onslaught, mind-numbing pace that caused even the bed to tremble under his movements.

Gaia’s nails raked down his forearm feeling the warmth in her lower belly tighten until the only thought rushing through her mind was reaching that edge. “I’m cumming…” She almost cried out.

“I know, baby…” He could feel her walls clenching around his cock dragging his orgasm to the point of no return.

Whimpering moans flooded out of the woman as the coil in her belly sprung free, warm explosions bursting through and pumping into every veins until she momentarily could only see a flash of white.

Pulling out Jimin immediately spurted out his release onto her stomach, fingers wrapping around the tip making his hips jerk. Eyes flickered down to see Gaia slowly rubbing her sensitive clit to drag out her orgasm. The sight alone caused an extra tingle down his spine. “You should get stuck in the locker rooms with me more often.” He spoke through heavy breaths.

Gaia giggled playfully tapping his chest. “I’ll try to drag my time out in the next match.”

A smirk stretched across Jimin’s lips. “Does that mean you’re coming to the next match?”

“Towards the end.” Her bottom lip pouted out a little. “And less injuries.”

He nodded reaching into a tissue box just to gently wipe off the excess on her stomach. “Less injuries…” Jimin leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Promise.”

As the gentle light of the morning flowed in, Gaia wrapped her freshly moisturized body in a thick white robe before she walked out of the bedroom.

Bare feet pattered across the penthouse apartment adorned in nothing but her robe, curls still a little messy and a subtle pink tinge on her lips. Gaia paused in her tracks as the sound of chain clanging and leathery thuds pulsed in the air.

Now on her tiptoes, the woman attempted to be a little quieter as she observes Jimin.

Exposed upper half, back glistening in sweat illuminating all the little crevices that tensed out at every punch and the fading bruise on his shoulder blade. Despite the cool air Jimin still was able to create his own personal radiator around his skin from the constant training.

Painful to admit but Gaia grew a little uncomfortable seeing the quick, hard punches he swung onto the punching bag. Of course she understood why he did it and he was simply hitting an object but it still created an unsettling feeling in her stomach.

Each impact onto the leather made her jump more and more until the girl succumbed to rushing over to the kitchen. Taking a deep breath, Gaia turned on the coffee grinder machine to maybe help drown some of the noises from the other side. This was his job. This was his job. You can’t stop him from training just like he can’t stop you.

Jimin paused mid-swing hearing the grinder turn on, looking over his shoulder but only saw a glimpse of something white peeking out of the corner. He waved out his maroon shirt to cool himself off through thankfully the AC helped him from overheating.

Carefully he walked over to the kitchen corner to see a long waterfall of a curls and an unforgettable figure wrapped in a white robe. Leaning against the kitchen counter, Jimin unwrapped the cloth around his hands. “Morning.”

Gaia jumped with a gasp almost dropping the empty espresso cup in her hand but she quickly hugged it to her chest. She chuckled breathlessly. “Morning.” Gaze stayed focused on the coffee machine even though she could feel his eyes burning through her.

“You okay? Not usually that jumpy.” Jimin squinted placing the cloth on one of the stools before moving closer until he stood right behind the girl. “More than usual anyway aside from the ballerina stuff.”

“I just—” She glanced over her shoulder before facing in front of her. “I don’t usually wake up to…punching. Takes a bit of getting used to.”

Jimin parted his lips as the realization brushed through his mind. “Did my soft butterfly get frightened?” Arms carefully snaked around her waist, face buried into her shoulder.

Gaia whined lightly trying to pull away from his grasp. “Ah don’t, you’re sweaty.”

“You didn’t mind that last night.” His brows furrowed.

“That’s because we were both being dirty, I’ve just showered.” She couldn’t control the smile that ghosted over her lips at the thought of last night’s activities.

Despite her protests, Jimin pressed her closer against his body relishing in her warmth. “That’s too bad now you have to shower again with me.” He chuckled under his breath as his hand snuck into the opening of her robe, feeling the under curve of her breast. “I’ll just do other workouts in the morning. No more punching at this time.”

Gaias’ smile widened seeing Jimin already making compromises without her even asking to do so. “Thank you.”

It was an unlikely match, the elegant dancer and the ruthless fighter but once they cuddled up in their own private bubble, all the hinderance disappeared. It was just wholeheartedly and lovingly them in their rawest forms.

#jimin #thebtswritersclub #jimin imagines #bts fanfic #bts imagines #bts fanfiction #jimin fanfiction #jimin boxer au #bts boxer au #tw; smut

157 notes · View notes

hanijunk · 3 years

Text

Alright boys, girls, and nonbinary folks of the world. It’s 5:36am (1/30 when I first started) as I decide to give up on my attempt to continue to focus on learning statistics, avoid studying for my two upcoming midterms, and put off my two actual essays for two different classes.

Instead we’re going into a dive about ✨ KazuFuuma ✨ . Is this me telling you you gotta ship it? No of course not, you’re entitled to your own ships! You don’t really gotta care about it as a ship. But I do want people to recognize it’s THERE canonically, and how disregarding it is extremely unfair to Kazuki as a character particularly. Also, I’m working on the assumption anyone clicking this at least knows the bare bones about what KazuFuuma (ex. You know they are a ship of Kazuki/Fuuma from Dolce, you know they are childhood friends, you know who Dolce is, you know about Honeyworks, etc.) I’ll be making references to specific things, but I won’t always go into heavy detail. Might just hope you know it or take my word for what it is, and go into analyzing it. Some I’ll put direct references to find, but some I’ll trust you can find it yourself. If you somehow read this MAMMOTH and want reference to a specific thing mentioned, hmu I can help you find it!!

Also I hate tumblr formatting sm if you legit wanna read this 7 page essay but hate tumblr format lmk I'll add it as a google doc link instead too. anYWHO

Before actually getting into the meat of things lemme preface some stuff.

Again it’s like almost 6am so this will be disorganized and very train of thought (and likely long due to the fact when I fly by the seat of my pants I’m known to get unnecessarily extensive). It’s definitely gonna be in large part why it’s important to recognize as a romantic relationship foundation and what about it shapes Kazuki’s character in particular. Maybe a bit of how it’s been built up and its general focus and implications. Dunno yet. We’ll see LMAOO

I say f*ck. Not a lot, just a handful of times. This ain’t something scholarly this is for my own enjoyment so if you don’t like that might not wanna read. And it’s not like spitefully I just curse a lot if you haven’t...read my tags before lol

Again this is through the lens of a Kazuki stan. Of COURSE I’m going to have some level of bias, but if anything that bias may help more than hurt because that means I become FIXATED and think a lot about Kazuki. Which plays into establishing just how important it is that Kazufuuma’s relationship is recognized, especially in a romantic light at this point. Lmfao.

I’ll have a few more prefaces about the actual content below but to keep this from getting too long if you wanna read come below the cut owo

I have extremely limited knowledge of Japanese just taking a few classes in highschool (so like 3 yrs ago) and live in America. This means a lot of my knowledge is gathered through the english translations of the super duper incredible and lovely people in the Honeyworks fandom who provide translations (delaix and takanenene esp have provided so much for me being able to understand Dolce) and my own limited Japanese paired with Google Translate for things that remain untranslated.

This only will be drawing on information I have come in contact with and have access to and making assumptions based on that, most (if not all) of which is in the public domain. So things like the Dolce Manga Volumes released via Animate, exclusive 4komas, and Light Novels are out of my area for the most part (apart from again snippets of translations thanks to this fandom’s godlike and generous translators).

I will not be drawing on anything from the first Dolce album with the exception of Nade Nade. From a meta standpoint, I consider those songs as songs made as performance media as opposed to character explorations. Nade Nade is the exception because (1) it was released a whole year before the album and (2) you can tell it’s explicitly an exploration of Fuuma and Kazuki’s interpersonal relationship even if it’s in a slightly more performance based context than the songs that came out with the Dolce LNs. Easiest parallel I can make to show this is if you held Non-Fantasy, Yume Fanfare, and Samishigariya up against each other, you could tell the difference in intended audience and intended purpose the same way the Dolce 1st album, Nade Nade, and the songs of the LNs do respectively. Even if there is some basis to ground Kazufuuma, for the purposes of this essay I’ll be acting under the assumption the 1st album falls under the Non-Fantasy equivalent category.

THAT WAS A LOT OF PREFACING CONSIDERING LIKE 2 PPL WILL PROBABLY READ IT I just have a tendency to anytime I do anything analytical lay down ground acknowledgements for myself to work on just...cuz it makes me feel less guilty for any accidental misinformation even if I’m writing towards my future self to read lolll IM SORRY WITHOUT FURTHER TO DO HERE’S THE BRAIN DUMP

First let’s go ahead and establish why it needs to be recognized as an important relationship. Again, I’m a Kazuki stan. He’s my favorite character not only of Dolce but also of the entire Honeyworks series, and as much as I love him for reasons outside the ship, whether you like it or not Kazufuuma is an essential aspect of his character and narrative. Of course there’s the fact that him and Fuuma are childhood friends, so that’s going to in part define their characters and interactions with each other and those around them. They’re both going to be relevant to one another and important to one another’s stories to an even greater extent than the rest of the members of Dolce. But on Kazuki’s side at least, it’s an EXTREME amount. A running plotpoint in Dolce Diary is the sheer amount of dedication Kazuki has to Fuuma and how much his thoughts and decisions are influenced by Fuuma, whether it be how he feels happiest spending time with Fuuma, how he decided to get his piercing to represent he wanted to protect Fuuma, how he doesn’t want to dislike food so he can eat what Fuuma dislikes, etc. Not to mention running jokes about his borderline overprotectiveness and downright possessiveness of Fuuma, how proud he is when Fuuma gets praised, or that one 4koma that literally explicitly states he can read Fuuma’s mind when he thinks motherfucking ‘dirty thoughts’ about his childhood friend (Fuuma). I still don’t know what the fuck to make of that last bit. Genuinely. Or the fact it’s a fucking running joke. As in it’s not a one off. It’s been brought up multiple times. Kazuki what the fuck.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t have character outside of Fuuma or he doesn’t interact with people other than Fuuma. He’s great friends with Sara, Girisha, and Kippei and is shown time and time again to have fun interactions with all of them, generally acting as the best support friend for every member of the group, not Fuuma alone. For instance how he helps Kippei with his self confidence issues or stays over at Sara’s to protect him from a cockroach (which he fails at lol). Nor is that to say all his interactions involving Fuuma focus solely on his devotion to Fuuma, especially in instances where the manga focuses on Dolce as a group dynamic (though even in that setting there are times where jokes about his devotion are thrown in). He’s kind, he’s stupid, he’s friendly, he’s an amazing character in his own right, and I love him for all those reasons. But that doesn’t change the fact a major part of his character and his character interactions are rooted in Fuuma, and arguably some of his most interesting, eccentric, and notable behaviors and traits revolve around Fuuma (again the mind reading for example).

Hell let’s take it one step further. If you look at the character bios of the Dolce members, you get everyone’s motives for being an idol and interests. Of them, Kazuki is the only one to have another character mentioned directly, not to mention that supporting Fuuma is explicitly stated to be his primary motive as to why he became an idol. Not even Fuuma’s sister is mentioned, though two arguments can be made for this. The first would be that Fuuma’s backstory about wanting to fulfill his dream for himself and his sister was decided later to explain Fuuma’s choice to crossdress though it can be argued it was intentionally done to leave it as a reveal at a later date, to which I would argue I don’t think this backstory was a choice in post. While Fuuma’s dedicated Dolce Diary extra exploring that backstory was released a little less than a year after Dolce was revealed, the preview to set up Fuuma’s backstory was actually the first thing released after the character bios on the Dolce Official Twitter page if you exclude a drawing of Dolce from Yamako. The second argument could be that information about his sister was intentionally withheld to set up the reveal when Fuuma’s extra released to explore it. However, going by that logic (which I do agree with), that would also mean that Fuuma’s inclusion and importance in Kazuki’s character bio also set up his dedicated extra, which I don’t think would be incorrect to assume considering what his actual extra turned out being.

Which brings me to the thing that makes it inexplicable to write off the romantic implications behind Kazufuuma: Kazuki’s dedicated Dolce Diary extra, Suki. I shipped Kazufuuma before even knowing of Suki, sure. But the fact that Suki even exists is a shock to me and drove into me the fact that Kazufuuma wasn’t just my own projection. Again, it’s not a surprise that Fuuma shapes Kazuki’s life. They’re childhood friends, of course they’re going to be important to each other. But this extra explicitly brought Kazuki’s feelings towards Fuuma under a direct spotlight. At first I was thinking oh, this extra was just to acknowledge the fact that Kazuki and Fuuma’s relationship can have romantic implications, but the end of it the conclusion that we got was that it didn’t matter what type of “like” he felt for Fuuma. Originally, I thought it wasn’t anything more than saying there are all types of like, and it doesn’t always need to be explicitly defined, but I appreciated the fact they were aware that they were writing Kazuki in a way that conveyed romantic implications.

Then I thought about it because, again, I love Kazuki of course I’m going to think about his character extra, and realized...that’s not how these character extras have worked. There are only three character extras out as far as I know and have read: Fuuma, Kippei, and Kazuki. If we look at Fuuma and Kippei’s, each extra had a conclusion, sure, but they didn’t have a resolution. Rather, they were simply setting up explicitly what each character’s primary character arc and conflict were. Fuuma’s extra brought attention to the fact that he’s particularly a crossdressing idol by exploring the motives behind it. His choice to be a crossdressing idol is constantly under fire both by himself and the world around him. He’s not immune to those who consider his crossdressing strange, and a part of his story is both finding people who accept his decision to crossdress and to succeed for himself as a crossdressing idol. It’s an essential part of how we understand and define him as a character and it’s a central part of how he interacts with the world around him. For Kippei, it lays the severity of his insecurity under the spotlight and his journey and motives for improving himself. Again, this isn’t something isolated and resolved in the extra; his extreme insecurity and negativity is constantly affecting how he interacts with practically everyone from his fellow Dolce members to his fans despite the fact in all honesty? He’s fucking insanely talented in his own right, his own brother mentioning how smart he is and how he has amazing reflexes. For Kippei, his negativity is an essential part of how we understand and define him and central to how he interacts with the world as much as Fuuma’s decision to crossdress is to him.

Which brings us back to Kazuki, of course. In his dedicated extra, in the chapter that’s supposed to explore and establish and bring attention to an essential part of his character, the aspect of himself under investigation is how he feels about Fuuma. It’s not just how he behaves around Fuuma, it’s explicitly an exploration of his feelings, on top of the fact it’s explicitly an exploration about whether or not he likes Fuuma r o m a n t i c a l l y. Literally the conflict is spurred on by someone outright asking “Do you like him?” and having to clarify “I mean romantically.” What they decided to focus on for Kazuki’s character and emphasize and establish is that Kazuki’s like towards Fuuma toes the line between friendship and romance. His ambiguous feelings towards Fuuma (if we leave them inconclusive as Suki did) are just like Fuuma’s crossdressing and Kippei’s insecurity in the sense the weight of whatever those feelings may be are seen in how he interacts with the world around him and influences his behaviors. It would be another story if they introduced the potential and shut it down all within the extra, because then his central conflict would to me be less directly open to romantic potential and more simply about how his arc was meant to explore the dynamic of the behavior of an extremely dedicated best friend. The fact that he may be romantically attracted to Fuuma or may be only platonically dedicated to Fuuma is instead something that looms over Kazuki in the same way Fuuma’s decision to crossdress constantly looms over him. It’s what Dolce wanted to point to and say this is Kazuki’s central character conflict and central arc: exploring what type of feelings he has towards Fuuma.

Sure, it can be argued that there’s only three Dolce Diary character extras, there’s not enough to be sure about that being the purpose of the extras unless we get the other two’s extras. First, at this point I honestly don’t know if or when they’re going to release an extra revolving around Sara and Girisha just because not only has it been over a year and a half since the latest Dolce Diary Character Extra (Kazuki’s) was released despite the gap between the first and latest Dolce Diary Character Extra (Fuuma’s and Kazuki’s) were within a year of release but also because the Dolce 4komas and comics they’ve been posting to Twitter have decreased (last one being over half a year ago) potentially due to them deciding to focus on releasing Dolce manga content through the purchasable volumes instead. (This is not particularly related to the Kazufuuma argument, just wanted to put out there my two cents on what Sara and Girisha’s extra/focal arc would be. Based on a large part of the Dolce Diary in conjuncture with Can’t an Idol Fall in Love, I’d argue Sara’s would be his journey to regain his passion for performing, and if it’s not that I’d say it’d be coming out of his self-imposed isolation and opening up to people again. As for Girisha, I have less of a concrete idea but I’m assuming it’d be something pertaining to how people often misconceive him whether it be in tandem with his determination, his optimism and sociability, or his stupidity/ability to ignore those misconceptions and work past them. But Girisha is treated like the comedic relief 90% of the time so I’m not entirely sure, but his primary conflict is definitely rooted in misconceptions of him being his roadblock imo. #MoreGirishaContentPlz) That being said, I personally feel like the three are already enough evidence, especially considering it would be honestly even more cruel for Kazuki’s character-centric extra to be focusing on something that wasn’t essential to his character and character arc, anyway. And though it’s not explicitly stated that these chapters are extras exploring a central character, you can kind of tell based on how they are (to my knowledge) the only Dolce Diary updates with cover/title cards each which include their focal character front and center. So working off that fact, the Kazuki-centric chapter established that a pillar to his narrative was his feelings towards Fuuma and that those feelings are still open to romantic potential.

But if you follow me, this is why up until Can’t an Idol Fall in Love With Another Idol’s release, I was terrified of them writing that off. I would have been ok if it was just an arc that was given attention then continued to actively work in the background, as all the character arcs have been over all of Dolce’s content. The fact that they might be giving Fuuma a love interest and giving Fuuma a love arc while Kazuki’s feelings were still up in the air and were still the primary highlighted narrative for him would have been fucking scuffed. To me, it would be like… why would they make him so Fuuma-centric to the point that even his dedicated chapter was not just focused on Fuuma but focused on the ambiguity and potential of him having romantic feelings for Fuuma, yet reduce him to being Fuuma's designated right-hand man. Don’t get me wrong, friendships are just as important as romantic relationships. But again, rather than conclude Kazuki’s answer in Suki to be that his feelings were of friendship, they left it open ended and allow audience members to be actively aware that Kazuki’s feelings towards Fuuma still had potential to be romantically coded. It would just be so weird to quickly close off that narrative by giving Fuuma a love interest as opposed to letting Kazuki conclude it himself. It would be fucking beyond frustrating for me, at least Eventually, I kept trying to drive my hopes that they would explore Kazuki’s narrative at all down to the ground because it was a Fuuma-centric novel; maybe if anything they’d explore those feelings in his own novel after the fact. But then they kept having little drops here and there of Kazuki being even the slightest bit relevant and I’d go back to questioning “Are??? They??? Is this on purpose??? Do they know what they’re doing or are they just doing this because Kazuki’s just so important to Fuuma as his best friend that he’s there as his right-hand I genuinely can’t tell???” And um. Welp.

Safe to say Can’t An Idol Fall in Love sold me on the fact that they know what they’re doing LOL. And to anyone who thinks that Kazuki’s feelings can still be read as ambiguous in CAIFILWAI as opposed to explicitly romantic - whether it be due to a fear they may pull the “I like him as a friend” card or due to the disbelief that they have an explicit mlm main character in the Honeyworks series - I’d like to cover any bases that may make you think this way. If you think it’s just Kazuki acting like a protective friend, why do you think he calls Yui a rival? If you’ve only seen the MV and think it’s ambiguous or can be taken as the "likfe" for friend, then does that mean you think Yui’s feelings toward Fuuma are also ambiguous or as a friend? With the way Yui responds, she is trying to rival Kazuki’s feelings towards Fuuma. She and Kazuki recognize whatever feeling it is that they hold towards Fuuma, both of their feelings are the same type. I don’t think most people would argue that Yui’s confession about Fuuma was one of pure respect and friendship. Plus, if anything I’d argue of the three characters in the MV, Fuuma is the one whose feelings are left the most ambiguous despite him being the central character. It’s heavily implied that he may be forming feelings for Yui, but nowhere is it established either in the song or in the MV, especially if you compare it to Kazuki and Yui’s declarations or if you compare it to Sara’s feelings for Uru in Can’t An Idol Fall in Love. Fuuma’s romantic narrative here is trying to figure out how he feels for Yui, while for Kazuki and Yui they’ve established a rivalry because they both have mutually established they like Fuuma romantically.

If the MV isn’t enough for you and Suki isn’t enough for you for...some reason…??? You can check out the snippets of the light novel which the wonderful takanenene translated: one which revisits the conflict set up in Suki and one that covers the confession scene in the MV in more detail. If the fact that the conflict set up in Suki (aka the lurking feeling of not knowing if all he felt for Fuuma was only platonic or more than platonic) was specifically reestablished in the LN for anyone who didn’t keep up with Dolce Diary didn’t tip you off that it was something important, his behavior in the confession scene as depicted by the LN definitely should have. He’s possessive about his spot by Fuuma’s side. He doesn’t want that spot to be taken by anyone else. Even if he knows that they can help Fuuma, he wants it to be him. And this line: “Kazuki then trails off his words, quietly saying ‘That’s why…’ and then gave Yui a slightly painful smile, his cheeks turning red,” before he declares Yui a rival and states he likes Fuuma. If you can tell me you read that line and are still on the fence about Kazuki’s “like” towards Fuuma being romantic, please message me and I will see how I can get through to you. Like it wasn’t even just a romantically coded confession. It’s just a romantic confession. That “like” is romantic. And I’m so proud that he’s not only come to understand for himself how he feels, but that he’s confident enough to ask the person he sees as a romantic rival to speak in private and not only clarify her feelings for Fuuma but before she can even do that firmly establishes that he loves Fuuma with conviction. Kazuki my boy I’m so proud of you. *sniffs*

And that’s it for establishing Kazufuuma as at least canonically one-sidedly canon and why there’s not only no reason to deny it but also why denying it is a fucking disrespectful move towards Kazuki. He’s a character, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact you shouldn’t write off his struggle to come to be convicted enough to say it out loud. This has been something weighing on him at least a year, if not more (all I know is it started when both he and Fuuma were in some year in middle school). And as a character in a piece of media, I’ve been saying this the entire time, but brushing it off as non-romantic is literally chucking a fucking pillar of his character’s story into the gutter. And to those who may be saying Kazuki’s confession came out of nowhere and is pandering reread this entire fucking essay again I dare you to do it and tell me to my face it’s pandering. Again. Writing off the buildup as pandering is disrespectful to him, disrespectful to his character and narrative, and disrespectful to the wonderful people who have been creating Dolce so diligently and have crafted this narrative for us. Saying his “supposed feelings” and “ambiguous confession” is pandering is like saying Fuuma’s crossdressing is pandering which. If you say either of those I will find you and I will shank you in the fucking gut. Even if you’re not fully into Dolce, recognize these characters are actually very well developed and executed amazingly, as per every Honeyworks character that has come to exist. I don’t blame you if you weren’t aware of the weight of Kazufuuma, but now that you read this I hope you are. That’s mainly what I needed to get out there, but as follows will be me more exploring how Kazufuuma has been built up and generally waving my hand off at where it may be going. If you want you can dip, thanks for reading up to here because I know I repeated a lot because it’s just. So important to drill into your head and has been something I’ve been hung up about constantly. LOL

As for where exactly they’re taking it from this point on, I honestly don’t know. In all honesty, I didn’t even expect them to take it the direction they did. But honestly, I think the direction they went with it is really interesting and better than I could have imagined, in my opinion at least. Honeyworks never ceases to amaze me with their storytelling and narrative choices, and I don’t think there’s any that stand out to me as being severely questionable that they haven’t reapproached at some point down the line. And, again, I think they’re treating this with a lot of care and deserved respect. So I’m just gonna be gushing about how smart they set it up and how smart they’ve been executing it and maybe my own hopes on the direction it could go.

Whether they make Kazufuuma reciprocated I have no real clue or bearings, but to me my gut reaction is they will. Of course, I’m biased, but again if you trace things all the way back to 2018 and step through Dolce’s content and growth from there, I’d say even if they didn’t know if they could execute it like this and see it to fruition, I’d argue that Kazufuuma has been at least heavily implied since the beginning as a relationship they wanted to explore from both sides of the relationship. Obviously I brought up Kazuki’s character bio already, but if you look at the *goes to count* 5th Dolce Diary update already has a joke jabbing at the fact that Kazuki is technically Fuuma’s type (and the way Kippei and Kazuki excitedly react is so cute). The fifth update. And as stated before there are tons of Kazufuuma moments in Dolce Diary, whether it’s played for comedic effect or played straight (and this is post Suki but oh my god I’ve said it before I’ll say it again get yourself someone who looks at you the way Kazuki looks at Fuuma oh my jesus). But song-wise, I mentioned the one Dolce album song I would bring up is Nade Nade and this is where it comes!

Not only is Nade Nade specifically focused on Kazuki and Fuuma’s relationship as opposed to the whole of Dolce despite being the first song, it included the setup/preview of the Fuuma-centric extra prior to the full release of the Fuuma-centric extra itself and was released early as fuck. Literally between the 6th and 7th update to Dolce Diary. Sure, it could be to isolate them as a duo for marketing purposes (they’re very often the two promoted idols together if the whole of the group aren’t included), but the way it’s established as a perspective song as opposed to a general idol duet is what fascinates me. Anyone who didn’t know about Dolce prior and only followed Honeyworks for music would be first introduced to these characters through this song alone, and maybe this is where my Kazufuuma bias comes from but I was one of those people LOL. I thought it was just a cute one-off relationship that they had set up for the purpose of a song and that it was an implied friends-to-lovers story that would never get a conclusion. Also I mistakenly thought Fuuma was a girl oop-. In the full context of Dolce, this song in part helped establish Fuuma and Kazuki more solidly as a unique duo out of all of Dolce, but it also specifically explored through Fuuma’s eyes just how much Fuuma recognizes and appreciates the unwavering support Kazuki gives him to follow his dreams as he wishes. For Fuuma, he loves Kazuki too, though whether it holds any romantic potential in the same way Kazuki loves him has never been explored to nearly the same extent. But Fuuma appreciates how Kazuki’s remained by his side and does everything he can to support him, so Nade Nade explores how his way of expressing his love and thankfulness to Kazuki is by never saying that he needs Kazuki by his side. He’s glad Kazuki’s always been there for him, and his reciprocation takes on the form of being ready to unwaveringly support Kazuki and not ask for more than he already has, even if it meant Kazuki would be leaving his side, despite the fact that he really does wish they could remain together forever just as Kazuki does. The one point he lets himself say something vaguely close to always wanting to stay together, he gets a surprised expression out of Kazuki and says an ambiguous “suki dayo.” Of course, this it much less romantically coded than what we get from Kazuki in Suki and CAIFILWAI, but there is an interesting emphasis put on it nonetheless. Keep in mind, this is all established through the song, which released long before not only Fuuma’s character-centric extra released but also Kazuki’s character-centric extra released, so there is at least a substantial setup for Fuuma’s feelings towards Kazuki’s being strong as well and possibly grow to be reciprocated one day.

I think for me the most fascinating part about Nade Nade is how they tied it back around to Can’t An Idol Fall In Love with Another Idol. Again, without remembering Nade Nade, I still thought CAIFILWAI was brilliantly explored and executed, even if some people would have preferred no love triangle. But honestly, revisiting Nade Nade makes me trust even more the direction they’re taking with this. Whether or not they make Kazufuuma canon mutually (which. Even if they for some inexplicable reason didn’t I’m going down with this ship.), I’m sure they’re putting a lot of thought into the story, because the last bit of Nade Nade directly parallels the misunderstanding that arose from Fuuma mishearing the Kazuki and Yui. Fuuma is resolved to support Kazuki in any area he’s given the chance, and that explicitly includes if Kazuki had some girl he liked, which is what he assumes is going on. The fact that they tied this back around in the form of a misunderstanding was really really smart and Honeyworks is always so good at parallels and references back to their older songs, but for some reason I didn’t expect this. I don’t know how to say why, but the fact that the song that started it all, kicked off both Dolce and Kazufuuma, was directly referenced both visually in the MV with a cameo at the start and narratively despite the central dynamic being predominantly explored in this story in particular was that of Fuuma and another potential love interest and involves said potential love interest for some reason makes me think that (sorry Yui) this is all planned out for Kazufuuma in the grand scheme of things. That being said, I don’t know if me thinking it was planned all along is just me with shipper goggles, but the idea it’s come full circle nearly 3 years later is not shipper goggles and a very very well done parallel in my opinion, whether this trajectory was their plan for Kazufuuma from the beginning or not. Just wanted to gush about that some more.

There’s more I could go into especially if I went into specific details about interactions or specific implications established in Honeyworks' Dolce content about different characters that would be fascinating to explore in relation to and under the lens of Kazufuuma, but I think this is uh...plenty long enough. Plus, I doubt you'll stop seeing Kazufuuma posts from me so those ideas will probably just be miniposts or somethin.

Back to the overarching point of this segment, idk what they’ll do with this story in the end, but do I think Kazufuuma will canon? I’m used to looking at ships that aren’t explicitly apparent with a sliver of skepticism, but all things considered (as I stated before) yeah. I don’t see reason why they wouldn’t now that they’ve explicitly identified there is a romantic dimension to it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Like to me, the setup isn’t something that would be written off as unrequited? And this doesn’t have to play into why I don’t think it will canon, my personal opinion on the Fuuyui relationship (again albeit through the lens of a hard Kazufuuma shipper lmao) has it’s own merits and is really cute, I find it cute in the way I found Koyuhina cute. I personally never really shipped Koyuhina, and especially since they slipped Kotarou into Ima Suki Ni Naru I was more curious about who this kid was and how he played into things I didn’t really see Koyuhina as something that would come to fruition. Similarly, there’s more importance in the overall sense on Kazuki than there is Yui (considering he’s one of the 5 original and focal members of this generation of idols, this would be natural), as well as the fact there’s just way more foundation and exploration in Fuuma and Kazuki’s relationship than there is Fuuma and Yui. As for how much of a balance there is inside the LN itself, the fact that they seem to have spent a substantial amount relaying the foundation of Fuuma and Kazuki’s relationship and re-exploring it (at least in Kazuki’s perspective) at all on top of how much content there is covering their relationship prior to the LN ever since Dolce’s origin just feels like that relationship holds more weight. Pretty much Kazufuuma feels more established as a priority in general. The way I personally hope Fuuyui plays out is whether they wind up holding mutual feelings or not or whether Fuuma doesn’t feel that way towards Yui is they get a relationship akin to Kotarou and Arisa. Albeit, Kotarou and Arisa never viewed each other in a romantic light, but they had mutual respect and solidarity. That’s the type of friendship I hope comes out of Fuyui. And considering there hasn’t been a break-up in any Honeyworks’ canon relationships (nor do I expect there to be… they’re all perfect for each other LMAO) it would actually be interesting if Fuuyui get together but don’t endgame and Kazufuuma is established as the inseparable endgame after some realization or another, though I don’t expect them to go that route nor do I know if that’d be the best way to go about it anyway. Also final point, Honeyworks seems to have a thing for childhood friends trope anyway soooooo owo All in all, don’t know where they’re taking it, just excited to see where it goes.

TL;DR of this *counts* 7 page essay, stan Kazufuuma. Not gonna proof this. Maybe I’ll edit and repost but yall are getting a confusing clusterfuck of ramblings over 2-3 hr periods of me writing across 3 different days at around 5am each day. Uh. If you got this far like and subscribe and-- jk plz reply to this mammoth anywhere you see fit or tell me if you have stuffs to add or counter or whatnot I like hearing people talk about Kazufuuma ;w; I am Kazuki and Kazufuuma brainrot can you tell after reading this? No? Lemme just remind you I’m K--

#honeyworks #dolce #kazufuuma #kazuki haiga #fuuma shirayuki #long post #analysis #character analysis #kinda?#nobody cares trash #also keep in mind this is PURELY for self satisfaction LMFAO read it if u wanna dont if u dont idgaf either way #anyway kazufuuma canon fight me #or have intellectual conversation with me #if you want it on a google doc bc it's easier to read hmu #if you can't tell i think about kazufuuma too much #how much of this is repetitive? probably a lot...

74 notes · View notes

bnhayyy · 3 years

Text

The Call (8)

Chapter Title: Catalyst

Wordcount: 3.2k

Fic Tag: Click

Ao3 Link: Click

Chapter Summary: Ymir and Historia make a dangerous discovery.

Notes: I'm one day late in posting, but this is my response to day three of @mikannieweek ! The prompt was fight, so you best believe you're getting a fight. I know that neither Annie nor Mikasa actually appear in this chapter, but since it's very plot-relevant to the fic as a whole, which is very much a Mikannie fic, I say it counts.

Celadon is on vacation this week, so thank you to Rinky for betaing for me! Also, if you haven't already, you may want to read Caution and the Inverse before reading this chapter. It's a Yumihisu one-shot taking place in the same universe as The Call, and while it isn't necessary to understand this chapter, it does add some extra context.

Sleep was a tenuous thing for Historia. Sometimes she could get through the night just fine. Sometimes she would toss and turn, barely dozing off during the night and waking up to another morning where she'd have to put on a pleasant face and pretend that everything was fine.

The worst nights were the ones where she woke up screaming.

Sleeping with Ymir's arms wrapped around her helped keep the nightmares at bay. However, even she could not ward them off completely. There were still times when Historia woke up in the middle of the night with visions of Frieda screaming and snarling demons and shattered church windows flashing behind her eyes. In those horrible moments, the lie that was Krista Lenz felt like it was wrapped around her with the intent to suffocate rather than protect.

Ymir helped. But not even Ymir was truly invulnerable, for all that her strength and bravado tried to lull her into thinking she was. Historia had taken steps to protect her girlfriend after the encounter in the club. She had told the college that she was sick and holed up with Ymir in her apartment, where they had set up hidden cameras around the apartment building and made umpteen plans on what to do if the slayers broke in. Or if they forced them out. Or if they ambushed Ymir when she eventually went outside, because for all that Historia would be happy to make daily visits to the butcher's for the rest of her life if it meant keeping Ymir by her side, she knew that couldn't happen.

She couldn't even manage to keep her inside for two weeks.

Ten days. She only managed to remain inside for ten days, Ymir gradually growing more stir-crazy and Historia more anxious, before they broke. And it was all Historia's fault.

With the threat of the slayers breathing down their necks, the nightmares had increased. She had woken up screaming for seven of the past nine nights. When, on that tenth night, she woke up thrashing in Ymir's arms, concerned eyes staring down at her and the alarm clock on the nightstand reading three A.M., she finally gave in.

It was a short distance from her apartment to the river, and one of the few things that could reliably calm her nerves after an episode like that was going for a walk by the water. That evening, when Ymir caressed her hair and gently suggested that they go for a walk, Historia didn't have it in her to turn her down.

It was risky. There was a chance that one or both of the slayers would have found a reason to be by the river. However, Ymir swore up and down that Mikasa was almost always at the graveyard at three A.M. on weekdays and, Annie, who had been following her around like a cat with a mouse, would likely be there as well.

Historia still made Ymir check the cameras to make sure that the slayers weren't waiting for them outside the apartment. When she couldn't catch so much of as a glimpse of them, they set out.

Walking down the shoreline and breathing in the cool autumn night air, Historia couldn't say she regretted it.

Beside her, Ymir shoved her hands into pockets and glanced up at the sky. "So," she began, extending the word in a drawl. "Want to talk about it?"

Historia shrugged. "There isn't really much to talk about," she admitted. "I don't remember much of it. Just..." She swallowed down the lump in her throat and turned her head to look at the water. "Just that it was about Freida."

Nightmares about Freida weren't exactly uncommon. Most of them featured her in one way or another.

Silence hung over the pair for a long moment. It was broken by Ymir saying, "Well, if it helps at all, I think she'd be proud of you."

Historia glanced over at the vampire and raised an eyebrow. "You sound pretty confident for someone who never met her," she said.

There were many additional statements beyond that comment, things that she couldn't bear to delve into. Maybe someday she would. For now, however, she was content to act like they weren't even there.

Now it was Ymir's turn to shrug. "She sounds like she was the soft, sappy type," she said.

"As opposed to you," Historia countered.

" Exactly, " Ymir said. "You understand me so well, Historia! I really am going to need you to marry me one of these days." She shot her a wide, glowing grin and reached over to ruffle her hair. Historia ducked, but wasn't quick enough to avoid getting several locks of hair brushed out of place.

"Ymir," Historia groaned. Her girlfriend responded by lapsing into laughter, and a smile began to form on Historia's face in turn.

"What?" Ymir teased. "I can't help it if you're-"

Ymir froze, her grin faltering before fading away in place of pursed lips and narrowed eyes. She reached out and grabbed Historia's wrist not a second later.

"Ymir?" Historia whispered, her heart already beginning to quiver in her chest. She forced herself not to pay attention to it. If something was happening, then the last thing she needed to do was give in to panic and fear.

It was a good thing that she was already practiced at pushing those feelings down.

"There's someone up ahead," Ymir hissed.

"One of the slayers?" Historia asked.

She knew she was wrong even before Ymir responded. The gleam in her eyes, the tenseness in her muscles - neither of those things would be quite the same if it was the slayers. This was something that she thought might pose a threat to Historia. Then she slowly shook her head, and the confirmation came soon after.

"A vampire."

Historia nodded slowly. "Is it a stranger, or..."

Ymir took in a deep breath through her nose. She closed her eyes for a moment as she focused on the scent. When she opened them, there was a new fire blazing there. "You know him," she said. "I've caught his scent on your clothes before, when you come back from art class."

Art class? Historia didn't even have to stop and mentally run through the list of her classmates. Her mind immediately zeroed in on the immediate suspect, the vampire Ymir suspected of possessing the legendary gem of amara.

"Reiner," Historia breathed.

Ymir stepped back and tugged on Historia's arm, gentle but insistent. "We should get out of here," she said.

Faintly, Historia realized that Ymir probably had the right idea. However, she could not deny the idea that was beginning to formulate within the depths of her mind... or the dull ache of anger behind the theory that fueled it.

"Wait," Historia said, voice pitching low. "I want to talk to him."

Ymir shot her a startled look. "Are you nuts?" she hissed. "Historia, I smell blood!"

"No," Historia said. "I have an idea."

Ymir hesitated. As she did so, Historia pulled her wrist out of her grasp, grabbed her hand, and looked into her eyes. "I trust you to protect me," she said. "Now trust me on this."

A long moment passed as Ymir stared at her. Finally, the vampire let out a long breath and nodded. "Alright," she said. "What's this plan of yours?"

Historia smiled. "Stay out of sight and follow my lead," she said. "I think it will become clear pretty quickly."

Ymir was once again reduced to staring at her in silence. For a moment, Historia worried that she might go back on her word. However, after a few heartbeats had passed, she nodded and gestured for her to go ahead.

Historia offered a smile that was meant to reassure her girlfriend rather than express any of her own emotions. Then she resumed walking down the shoreline while Ymir wandered off to the side, disappearing into the darkness.

It wasn't long before a figure came into view. Historia slowed her breathing and stepped more carefully, as if her attempts to be quiet would be any real help against a vampire worth their salt.

Except Reiner didn't react as Historia drew closer. Eventually, she drew close enough to make out the shape of a body in the sand beside him, but Reiner didn't move a muscle. He was just standing there, staring out at the ocean. Historia furrowed her eyebrows. There was a chance that he was just faking her out, but she suspected that wasn't the case. She supposed that it might be in part due to the fact that the wind was blowing away from him and toward her. However, she also couldn't help but note that he seemed rather distracted.

Fine. She could use that to her advantage.

Historia drew even closer, drawing forward and closer to the river with each step. The patchy grass beneath her sandals eventually gave way to sand, automatically making her steps fractionally louder. It didn't matter. Reiner still didn't notice, a fact which became a little less surprising when she got close enough to realize that he was talking to himself. She couldn't quite make out the words, but she could see his lips move and make out the low, soft cadence of his voice.

More importantly, she could make out the body beside him.

It was a dark-haired, pale-skinned woman who looked like she was in her early to mid-thirties. Historia didn't recognize her. She stared blankly for a few seconds, feeling next to nothing. There was a faint sense of sorrow that someone had died at all, but no true distress or grief over a random stranger. Historia knew all too well that people died all the time. If she cried over everyone who met an undeserving fate, she would never be able to stop.

Frieda would have cried. But Historia was no Frieda, no matter how hard she tried.

So she stood there and stared for a few seconds. Then, steady and inevitable as the tide, her existing, tepid anger began to rise and grow into ice-cold fury. It probably wasn't fury for the right reason, but if the alternative was no strong feelings at all, she would take it. Especially considering what was at stake.

Another person was dead. That would be another death that the slayers blamed Ymir for. Another reason for them to want her girlfriend dead.

Historia didn't have anything against Reiner. It was horrible that he was killing people, but frankly, as long as he didn't hurt anyone she cared about, she wasn't sure that she'd do anything about it. Reiner was pleasant company, and while she wouldn't help him, she wasn't going to risk the few things she had come to love to bring him to justice. But if it was between him and Ymir...

There weren't many things left that Historia loved in the world, and it had taken her a while to find them. But now that she had them, she wasn't going to let them go for anything.

So Historia plastered a concerned, fearful expression on her face and stepped up to the vampire. "Reiner!" she called. "What are you doing?"

Reiner jolted , and when he turned around, there was genuine surprise in his expression. "Krista," he said. "You're..." His gaze wandered over to the dead body beside him. "I didn't expect you to be here," he finished.

Here. Where he was dumping the body, he meant. Now that she looked, she could see weights attached to the body's hands and ankles.

The river was deep in places. If he handled this right, there was a good chance that the body would never be found again. Which explained where all the other bodies went. And oh, how much easier it became to let someone else take the blame for your crimes when there was no body to tie it back to you.

Not that Krista was supposed to catch on to all of that so quickly. Instead, she looked up at Reiner with large, watering eyes, and asked, "What is 'here'? Reiner, that's a body. We need to do something! We need to call the police or... or..."

She trailed off. Reiner was looking off to the side and running his hand through his hair, his jaw gritted and tension in his shoulders. It was probably safe for her to "realize" now.

"Did you do this?" Historia whispered, coaching her expression into one of dawning horror.

"Shit," Reiner said. "I'm sorry Krista. I didn't want you to get pulled into this."

A warm flame of vindictive triumph flickered in Historia's stomach as she took a step back and held a shaking hand up to her mouth. "Reiner, are you the one behind the disappearances?" she asked.

"Yeah," Reiner said, his expression hardening. "And I'm sorry, but I can't-"

He was cut off by someone fast enough to very nearly be a drill running up and punching him in the chest, sending him flying down the shoreline. "Thanks for the confession," Ymir snarled.

Reiner managed to land on his feet and was back upright in seconds. He looked at Historia, hard eyes meeting her flinty ones, before looking over at Ymir. "Ymir, I'm guessing."

"I'm surprised you didn't catch on," Ymir said, placing her hands on her hips. "I thought the slayers would have told you about us."

Reiner smiled unhappily. "The consensus is that Krista's being manipulated," he said.

"I'm not," Historia said, voice stony.

"Yeah," Reiner replied. "I'm getting that sense."

As Reiner began drawing closer, Ymir took a nigh-unnoticeable half-step back toward Historia and tapped her wrist. A sign to back off. Historia frowned, but reluctantly began stepping back, only stopping when she was several yards away from the other two.

"What I'm wondering," Reiner continued as he took a slow step forward, voice level and suspicious, "is how you knew about me."

"You don't recognize me?" Ymir asked. Her eyes were gleaming the way they did when she was about to do something dangerous, and her feet shifted into a more solid fighting stance. "I'm surprised, seeing as I killed your friend and all. Marvel, or something?"

Reiner froze. A shadow fell over his face for half a second, then melted away as his eyes flashed yellow and his face morphed into the snarled visage as a vampire. "You're lying," he spat.

"You seem awfully upset, if I'm just supposed to be a liar," Ymir remarked.

"Marcel was killed by the slayer."

"Sorry to disappoint." Ymir shrugged. "But hey, he's gone and you're here, so I'd say it worked out pre-"

Reiner charged at her. Ymir lunged to the side but was unable to avoid his blow completely. She let out a hiss and staggered, knocked off-balance as his fist grazed her shoulder. Reiner swung around to aim a blow to her head, but Ymir quickly ducked, raising her arms and aiming a kick at his stomach.

But Reiner pulled his punch and grabbed Ymir's leg before she could make contact. Historia’s stomach wrenched at the sharp crack as Reiner pulled Ymir's leg in two directions. At the same time, Ymir twisted around to grab Reiner's shoulders and flipped herself up and out of his grasp. As she twisted, Historia noticed her grab a stake out of her back pocket.

Historia barely even had a moment to wonder at the fact that her vampire girlfriend was carrying around a stake before Ymir plunged the offending object into Reiner's back, right over his heart.

Reiner gasped and jerked forward.

Ymir pulled the stake out and took a step back.

He should have turned to dust. Instead, Historia watched as the hole in his back instantly closed, leaving only a hole in the back of his shirt.

Reiner took a few steps away from Ymir before turning around. There, the pair stared at each other for a long moment, Reiner's hand hovering over his heart and Ymir leaning heavily on one leg. Finally, Ymir's gaze flickered down to Reiner's hand. "Nice ring," she said. "Wonder how you'd fare against me without it."

"I don't plan on finding out," Reiner said, smiling grimly.

Reiner charged at Ymir, but she lunged forward and grappled him, pivoting on her uninjured leg and using his own momentum to fling him into the river. He hit the waves with a splash and sank like a rock, although Historia knew that it wouldn't keep him down for too long.

Ymir knew it too. She raced over to Historia, or at least, moved as fast as she could in her condition, and moved to pick her up.

Historia wriggled out of her girlfriend's grip and hissed, "Ymir, your leg!"

"Will heal no matter how badly I fuck it up," Ymir said. Historia might have even bought it if her gritted teeth didn't give away how much pain she was actually in. "But you-"

"-Can move faster than you right now," Historia interrupted. "Let's be smart about this." With that, she manhandled Ymir’s arm over her shoulders and all but dragged her girlfriend back up to the path. Once they were on even cement, she picked up the pace and began walking as fast as possible while aiding Ymir.

For her part, Ymir was forced to slump and clearly reluctant to actually lean on her. However, once Historia started speeding up, she gave in and allowed her to bear some of her weight. Historia might have smiled if it weren't for the dire situation.

"Is he following us?" Historia asked.

"No,” Ymir said. "He isn't gonna. He still has to take care of the body. He's gone this long without a corpse being found, it'd mean a lot of trouble if one shows up now. Besides..." Ymir let out a pained laugh. "I staked him. He knows he’d be dead without that ring. He'd be an idiot not to let us get away."

Historia nodded and tried to swallow down her unease. She wasn't about to slow down and gamble on Reiner's willingness to let them escape, but it was good to know that she probably didn't have to worry about a furious vampire attacking them from behind. Even if there were what felt like a million other things that she did have to contend with. Such as...

"I'm sorry I got you hurt," Historia murmured. Since her car was now in sight, she allowed her gaze to drop for a moment before fixing it dead ahead once more.

Ymir laughed again, this time a little less pained and a lot more triumphant. "Hey, don't worry about it," she said. "What you got us is a lot more useful than an uninjured leg. Speaking of which... do you think you could get me a few phone numbers?"

Historia didn't even need to think about it. Being Krista Lenz, warm, kind, and so very involved with her school, came with a lot of benefits. However, she did pause as she led Ymir over to the passenger side door. Once her girlfriend was secure, she walked around to the driver's seat and climbed in. As she buckled her seatbelt and put the key in the ignition, she said, "Of course."

"Good," Ymir replied. A grim smile spread across her lips. "It's about time Ackerman and her friends found out who they're dealing with."

#Mikannie #Yumihisu #Yumikuri #The Call #Mikasa Ackerman #annie leonhardt #annie leonhart #Ymir #Historia Reiss #Krista Lenz #Reiner Braun #My fic #My writing

19 notes · View notes

desertdrift · 4 years

Text

A Man of Letters

Rating: G

Summary: Merriell is sent away to the family summer home indefinitely (with Eugene following after to keep him out of trouble) after getting into a fight. He eventually settles on calligraphy to keep himself occupied, but he has an interesting way of practicing.

Archive Warning(s): None

Additional Tags: calligraphy, writing on skin, Alternate Universe

Pairing(s): Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge

Character(s): Eugene Sledge, Merriell "Snafu" Shelton

Author's Notes: This one is for the "letters" prompt (as you can see, I interpreted things a bit literally).

You can read here at https://archiveofourown.org/works/25549543 or down below.

"Hold still, damnit." Merriell's being his usual self today, but there's no bite to his words.

Eugene struggles a bit to comply. Ordinarily, he’s not that ticklish (hasn’t been, really, since he was a boy). There’s just something about the way Merriell drags that calligraphy brush against his skin. He becomes hyper-aware of each cold, delicate stroke, and the urge to pull away is too great to resist. Still, he must if he wants Merriell to practice.

They're in a sprawling king-size bed, Eugene on his front with his head supported by an overstuffed pillow and Merriell straddling his hips and doing his best to keep his brushstrokes even. Merriell's room is an exercise in opulence; paintings of subjects ranging from landscapes to portraits and religious iconography hang on every wall. Nearly every spare surface in the room itself is occupied by some sculpture or tool or instrument, musical and otherwise. There are a lot of those, left over from his brief forays into the sciences and the arts until finally settling on calligraphy. His bed is little better, with pillows upon pillows crammed against the dark mahogany headboard and tossed off to the corners. In the early days of his and Eugene's cohabitation, Merriell liked to refer to it as his "love nest" just to see that lovely flush show up on Eugene's cheeks. He still calls it that from time to time, though now they get to put it to that use.

The house, more akin to a small mansion, had been the summer home of Merriell's grandmother's family for ages, a respite from the hustle and bustle of the big city. Thanks to an uncomfortably public scuffle between him and the son of a rival family regarding the "womanly honor" of Merriell's mother, it now served as a hideout while the Shelton family attempted to make amends. Though he would swear under oath that that filthy bastard had deserved no less, in fact, quite a bit more than the black eye he'd gotten for insulting Merriell's absent mother, it was clear few others on either side of the matter felt the same way.

"You're just fortunate we're sending your friend along with you," his grandmother had told him a couple of days after the incident. By then, the bruises and scrapes were starting to heal into a greenish yellow mess. He knew they could have been a good deal worse had Eugene not pulled him off the other man and saw to his injuries properly. "Maybe Mr. Sledge can keep you out of trouble, since you can't seem to manage it."

And he supposed he was lucky his grandmother had simply packed him and Eugene up and shipped them off to the summer house for the time being instead of sending Merriell God knows where, all by himself, to get into even more trouble. Not that the other family hadn't tried for a more serious punishment. Luckily, no one told Ms. Shelton what to do with her kin, especially not her dearest and only grandson, so that was that.

Eugene tries to focus more on the length and direction of each stroke Merriell lays down. Merriell used to obscure everything with his sloppy hand and only succeeded in tickling Eugene, which of course made him squirm and make Merriell's attempts even messier. Many a practice session had ended with Merriell giving up halfway through and just scribbling nonsense or dirty words and pictures on Eugene's back. Then Merriell would offer to help him wash it all off in the shower, and the likelihood of them getting anything productive done in the rest of the day went down drastically. Now, though, Merriell's gotten much better at writing and Eugene's gotten better at reading without seeing.

Whatever he's writing, it takes up most of the upper left and lower right of Eugene's back. One stroke curves near the back of his left shoulder and trails down his teres major. A few more strokes spread out and down, something like a fork. He definitely feels three distinct vertical strokes; an 'M', perhaps?

Merriell moves lower down his back, and the writing is harder to discern. The pattern of movement suggests something curved, he thinks it might be a 'C' but there's too many parts to it.

"Mer," he calls softly. Merriell just hums in response.

"What are you writing on me?"

Merriell keeps working long enough that Eugene thinks he either didn't hear him or has decided not to answer. Then, "Don't you worry about it. You'll find out soon enough."

Eugene doesn't think there's anything in his voice that suggests he's drawing something unseemly on his back, but with Merriell you can never quite be sure.

The image in the mirror is reversed, but it doesn't take long for Eugene to figure it out.

"Merriell, these are your initials," he says looking over his shoulder in the mirror.

"Mmhm. Sure are." He doesn't do a very good job keeping the smugness out of his voice; Eugene's not even sure he's trying.

He figures he may as well critique the work; the whole purpose of this is supposedly to improve Merriell's mastery of the calligraphy pen, regardless of what Merriell thinks is going on when he teases that brush over Eugene's skin (or what happens afterward). He starts with the 'M', and it's awkward to look with his neck turned the way it is, but he can see it well enough. Merriell's opted for a Gothic style with the addition of Copperplate flourishes. From anyone else, the contrast would look ridiculous. Out of context, it does look ridiculous, overly complicated, but knowing it comes from the man currently standing off to the side behind him makes it work. It has Merriell's brand all over it.

The 'S' is less stellar; it's legible, but Eugene can tell he struggled with how to combine such different styles here. Some of the strokes are either crooked or veer off like Merriell lost control. Overall, Eugene thinks it's a good job, and he says so.

"You've improved a lot." Alright, it's not exactly a "good job" but it wouldn't do to grow Merriell's ego too much. Given how long they've been staying here, Ms. Shelton wouldn't be too impressed if Merriell came back with an 'S' so messy.

Merriell's eyebrows go up, that cat's smile spreading into a grin. "Well now. You're just full of praise today, ain't you?"

Eugene huffs out a laugh and looks away. He can feel the blush rising on his cheeks. "I've got plenty of praise for those who earn it, you know."

#sledgefuweek #sledgefuweek 2020 #sledgefuweek 2020 day1: letters #sledgefu

11 notes · View notes

emptymasks · 4 years

Text

And I’ll be coming for you too

Pairing: Tom Cody/Raven Shaddock

Words: 3319

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Read on Ao3

Notes: So this whole fic was just written as a practice for the actual fic I want to write, but I wasn't sure if I was getting Raven's dialogue in character so I thought as a practice I could just write scenes from the film. So all the dialogue is actual dialogue from the film (apart from one line), and Raven's internal voice is all my writing. I wasn't sure whether to post it as this was just to help me practice getting into character for them, but once I finished typing I realised it was 3k words long so I may as well post it.

Also, yes, hi, hello, it's been over 2 months since I posted. I was being so good at writing frequently again and then I just dropped off. I don't know why I became convinced I didn't have the time to write, and when I did I just couldn't get myself to do it. But now the UK is on lockdown and I've had to shut my shop, my only source of income, guess I don't have the excuse of not having time anymore huh.

Also it's late and my eyes were hurting as I proof-read so there may be mistakes there wouldn't usually be, sorry.

He’d almost forgotten how pretty she was.

They’d tied her up as soon as they’d gotten back to the bar and Raven had stayed with his men, sorting things out and going through how he was going to handle her, and how none of them were going to tell anyone where she was.

Ellen was still on the bed where they’d left her, of course she was, it’s not like she’d be able to untie herself. She was moving her arms, trying to tug them free and failing. She was glaring at him with such cold hate that only sharpened her features. Her chest was heaving.

Raven was across the room in an instant. He sat on the bed, putting his hands either side of her waist. Not touching her, not yet. He smirked down at her and her expression didn’t change. He felt a twinge of anger. Couldn’t she feel something, even if it was burning rage? Without thinking he swept down in an attempt to kiss her but she turned her head away.

“You know, you’re making things real hard on yourself. You act nice, me and you fall in love for a week or two, and then I let you go. Nobody gets hurt,” He reached out to hold her cheek. “You see, I ain’t such a bad guy. I just… get excited around pretty girls.”

He tried to kiss her again but she continued to turn away and push her legs up to try and create distance between them. Raven frowned.

There were women in this area that would love a chance with him (some men too), though granted it was more because they figured sleeping with the leader of the Bombers would give them some protection, but here he’d had to go after someone who didn’t want him.

She was so beautiful though, even more so without those brightly coloured lights from the stage beaming down on her. She seemed so much smaller like this…

Raven watched as Ellen continued kept herself pressed away from him. He got to his feet and paced the length of the room and back. This should be easy, she was tied down, just… you know… do it… But he’d been hoping she could be into it, a stupid fantasy. Is that what he’d done all this for, some fantasy crush?

Goddamn, if it was that this would all be so much easier.

He’d sensed the Bombers getting restless. What with other gangs rising up, and trouble with the Road Masters, he’d sensed that somewhere getting pretty displeased about how he was running things. They felt like they hadn’t done anything big in ages, that Raven wasn’t bad enough, wasn’t tough enough. That he was starting to go soft. So what could be a bigger move to show he was not to be messed with than to successfully kidnap the single most famous and heavily-guarded person in Richmond. That would be big enough to shut them all up.

He cast a glance back at Ellen before storming out of the room. He let out a slow breath to make himself appear calm before crossing the hallway and into the room where a group of Bombers were playing cards, and he sat in his usual seat next to Greer. Greer wasn’t the best fighter among them, but he’d quickly become Raven’s right-hand man as he had an uncommon sense of loyalty towards Raven. He’d rather have an okay fighter who’d actually give a shit if he was shot, rather than the best fighter who’d leave him to bleed out in the streets.

Raven put Ellen from his mind. Either she’d come around and they’d have a fling, or she wouldn’t and Raven would move her to somewhere where the others Bombers couldn’t get to her. He didn’t want all his men putting his hands on her, and while he had gone to all this trouble, he wasn’t the type to force himself on someone. Abducting, sure that’s easy and hey you don’t have to hurt them, but he wasn’t comfortable doing that. Not that he could let the other Bombers know that.

He was trying to focus on the game and lit a cigarette, when some blond girl burst into the room.

“Knock, knock,” She said, smugly, as she pointed her gun at them.

Raven calmly took the cigarette out of his mouth. He’d had guns pointed at him too many times for it to bother him anymore. Maybe that would worry some people. Maybe it should worry him.

There was a commotion outside the bar, and then he heard footsteps closer to them, before retreating. Shit, someone figured out where Ellen was.

“Guys, it’s been a slice,” The blonde girl backed out of the room, shutting the door behind her as she ran off.

Raven shot to his feet. “Well don’t all just sit there!” He yelled as the Bombers finally started moving and following her out of the door.

When Raven finally got outside, away from all the bodies crashing into each other in a panic, there was fire in the street. Whoever came for Ellen sure was having some fun. Raven could respect that.

Navigating his way through the fire, he saw a man starting up a bike, a Bomber bike.

“Well,” Raven called over to the man as he approached. “Looks like I finally ran into someone that likes to play as rough as I do.”

The man on the bike turned around. Raven had never seen him before. Strange that it wasn’t a local, only locals knew how to get into the Battery. Maybe he was some hired hero or hitman paid off to get Ellen back.

He was pretty though.

It wasn’t like Raven to not notice that. He’d realised when he was fairly young he had a penchant for pretty things, whether they were girls or guys. His mother used to say it was a good thing he was named after a bird, since he always seemed to chase anything pretty and shiny.

“Yeah, this must be your lucky night.” Oh so the man was sure of himself. Quick too. And what those words could mean in another context. Raven could almost think the man was flirting.

“I’m lucky? I guess maybe I am,” Raven smirked, then dropped into a scowl. “And you’re dumb. Real dumb if you think you can pull this off.”

“I think you’re forgetting something,” The man pulled at the front of his coat. “I’ve got the gun.”

“I can get guns, smart guy, lots of them. Now why don’t you tell me your name?” It was a perfectly normal question. If he was going to find this mystery pretty boy (mystery man, his brain fought among itself) and track him down, he’d need his name. It wasn’t because he was interested… Alright, it wasn’t just because he was interested.

“Tom Cody. Pleased to meet ya,” The man’s lip twitched into the hint of a smile. It annoyed Raven.

“I’ll be coming for her. And I’ll be coming for you too.”

“Sure you will. And I’ll be waiting.”

Raven let his face break out into a smirk that seemed to get under the man’s skin as he turned his head away. Raven watched him set off on the bike, then turned to walk back through the fire.

Raven sent Greer to go and arrange the meeting with the cops. Greer could take care of himself, but also Cody wouldn’t care to go after him. Hell, Raven couldn’t show up alone anywhere right now, Tom Cody present or not. Ellen Aim was well loved and being her abductor was not making him any more well liked than he was. People still feared him, sure, but now people from out of town knew his face. He wasn’t sure if he liked that. A guy always needs to be able to disappear. You never know when you might have too.

“I want Tom Cody. I want to nail that son-of-a-bitches’ head to the side walk under that marquee that says ‘Ellen Aim’ on it,” Raven couldn’t help but grin at the thought.

Cody was infuriating him more every second. First he shows up and takes back the girl, then he proceeds to shoot his men, blow up his street, and steal a bike (maybe the bike should bother him less). He wanted to punch him in the face real bad. The idea of Cody losing to him, submitting to him, was a pleasing thought. And he needed it. Not because he was obsessing over Cody, no, not at all, but the Bombers had just suffered a lot of damage while he led them and that was causing a lot of rumblings. If Raven didn’t make Cody pay, the Bombers were going to him pay.

The cops hated him, he knew that. Fuck them.

“And to prove to you that I’m gonna be a nice guy,” Raven continued. “I’m coming in with just two of my men. After I take care of Cody, they’ll be no more trouble,” He was smirking again as soon as he said Cody’s name, he could feel it.

And they were lies of course. For a week or so he’d act like he was keeping his word, but then start to scale things back up again.

“Do your job man, keep the peace.”

That fucking bastard cop. Fucking liar. Cody hadn’t shown up. Knowing Officer Price, he’d probably warned Cody to get out of town.

Whatever. It wasn’t like he was dumb enough to trust cops.

He rode down, with Greer and Mikey riding just behind him, and came to a stop in front of the barricade of cop cars. He stopped his bike and watched as the cops approached, clenching his jaw.

“Well?” Raven lounged back on his bike. Cody was possibly still here, or at least could still show up.

“It’s real simple, Raven,” Officer Price spoke up. “There’s no showdown. Tom Cody ain’t here and neither is the girl.”

Oh fuck, yeah the girl. He’d sort of forgotten about taking Ellen back since he’d been so focused on Cody.

Cody who wasn’t fucking here.

“I don’t get it,” Raven felt his jaw starting to shake.

“Get off your bike, Raven.”

Alright, tough fucking cop.

Raven stood, swinging his leg over his bike. “I ain’t too crazy about jails, chief. I got a better idea for ya.”

As Raven raised reached into the pocket of his black, leather coat, he watched the cops tense as they expected a gun.

Idiots.

Raven pulled up the air horn so they could clearly see what it was, and he pressed it.

He watched the cops faces as they realised what was about to happen. It was so fucking satisfying. Watching their faces crumble as he head the rumble of bike engines approach and approach and the cops’ eyes widen as they realised just how many where coming.

“I told your friend Cody I could get a lot of guns.”

It felt like such a brilliant moment.

Some short little runt had to ruin it, pushing his way through the gathering crowd to start yelling in Raven’s face.

“What is this?! You can’t get away with this! You think you can ride into any town and kidnap anyone you want?”

Yeah, pretty much.

“Now, get the hell out of town and leave these people alone,” The man spoke as if he was somehow intimidating. As if that was going to make Raven leave. Pathetic.

He didn’t even need to tell Greer to get the guy out of his face, Greer just stepped forward and punched the man. The officer behind Price scurried over to help the fallen man.

They could easily take the cops. It would be something. Not as satisfying as if Cody was here. It wasn’t fair.

Then there was a screech. Tires on concrete.

Raven saw the red blur before he even recognised it as a car. Cody pulled up behind the cops, perfectly placed so Raven could see him, like he wanted all of Raven’s attention on him. As soon as Cody stepped out, he took one look at Raven and shrugged off his coat. He threw it back into his car with a sharp turn and stalked towards Raven. Raven couldn’t help but inspect the other man’s physique more. Perhaps Cody was more muscular than he’d thought. He could still take him though… especially with what he’d brought with him.

“Sorry I’m late,” Cody didn’t look fucking sorry at all. His face was this blank expression. Raven couldn’t tell if he was angry, or just bored.

He won’t be bored for long.

“I’ve got something special in mind. I brought them along, just for you,” Raven removed his own coat, revealing even more black leather underneath. He turned around to throw his coat onto his bike.

He motioned to Greer to get the weapons he’d brought with him.

“Well my plan went to shit,” Officer Price turned to Cody. “Let’s see how you do.” He stepped closer to Cody as if he didn’t want Raven to know what he was saying, but Raven could still hear. “Kick his ass.”

He watched Cody give a slight nod and a smile to Price. He looked more infuriating when he was smug.

There was shouting people started to run out form their houses, as they got closer Raven realised most of them had guns. Well, he really better fucking win this.

The hammers made a clanging sound as Greer spun them around in his hand, before throwing one to Cody and the other to Raven.

Fuck guns. These were things that could do some real damage. It also got them up close and personal, made strength come into it. Anyone could stand and fire a gun.

“Nice, huh?” Raven twirled the hammer in his hand, looking casual, before pouncing and striking towards Cody.

Cody’s reflexes were good. He dodged every blow and Raven fully realised the weight of the weapon. If you weren’t careful swinging it, it would bring you down with it.

“Get him!” Greer cheered as Raven struck Tom just below the shoulder.

He’d got a hit in. Okay, he could do this.

Their hammers locked and Raven twisted so it fell out of Cody’s grip, but he was quick to pick it back up. Fuck that. When their hammers locked again, Raven let go with one hand to punch Cody in the face.

That did feel good.

He backed Cody up against a car as he kept dodging more blows. He dodged Cody’s swing that continued on through the car window, covering them both in tiny shards of glass.

They continued to fight and while Cody managed to hit Raven, they quickly went to locking hammers against each other’s. This wasn’t going to work. Fuck! Cody was physically stronger than he’d anticipated. He couldn’t tell from that trench coat that underneath was a fucking jock. If he couldn’t beat him with strength, he’d have to be agile. He twisted and kicked his leg out, his boot landing in Cody’s gut.

Cody was caught off guard and Raven punched him again, sending Cody sprawling onto the floor. He was faintly aware of Greer screaming past the adrenaline pumping through him, blocking out everything other than Cody.

He went to strike down on Cody, but the bastard kept moving. He wasn’t paying attention, purely running on emotions, and before he knew it Cody had grabbed his hammer back and swung it around to hit Raven in the back.

Well turns out he’d been right about them fucking hurting.

Cody then managed to get up and bring his knee into Raven’s stomach, before hitting him across the back with the handle of the hammer.

They locked their hammers a final time as they both pushed with all the strength they had. Their gazes flickered between each other and the hammers which were slowly moving down. Raven could feel himself slipping, he wasn’t strong enough, god fucking dammit.

Raven’s hammer clattered to the ground.

He’d fucked up.

He watched Cody swing back and couldn’t help but feel all kinds of fucking scared as he realised if that hammer hit his head he was very much not going to be okay.

But Cody threw the hammer to the ground.

What the fuck?

What the fuck?! He didn’t want Cody’s fucking pity!

Raven heard himself screaming before his brain processed that that noise was coming from him. He charged at Cody, running him up against some of the Bombers, knocking them and their bikes over. He didn’t care. He didn’t fucking care, he just needed Cody to stop being so fucking infuriating.

He kept punching and kicking and Cody fell and tumbled some more, knocking over even more bikes in his path. When Cody tried to stand up, Raven kicked him in his stomach. When he didn’t try to stand up, Raven grabbed him and pulled him to his feet just to punch him in his face and sent him falling back down again.

He approached Cody again, but Cody’s leg flew up (how was he that fucking flexible?) and kicked Raven in the face. It was Raven’s turn to go sprawling over the floor, landing on one of the Bombers.

He looked up and saw Greer’s face was cold. Jesus, fuck, it’s always the loyal ones isn’t it. Or the ones that think you are. How dare he act like Raven was disappointing him?! He’d only been punched once and already the Bombers were giving up on him.

There he was, not paying attention again, and Cody hauled him to his feet, punching him again and again. They were both getting tired. Raven could feel himself slipping. Tom punched him in the face once, twice, three, four times in a row. Raven stumbled back, barely staying on his feet. He wasn’t sure if he was swaying or the whole world was. His vision was getting blurry.

A shape that looked like Cody walked closer to him and all it took was a push on his shoulder and Raven was falling onto the ground.

He was faintly clinging onto consciousness as he heard cheers and then the sound of too many guns cocking.

“Let’s get out of here!” Greer’s voice called out.

He heard the bikes drive off, more and more or them and he wasn’t sure what he hoped for. If they left him here he’d be sent to jail. If they took him with them… fuck. He’d fucked up. They were not going to keep him around as leader. If they took him with them, he was probably going to get more of a beating and either killed or left out in the street to die like some fucking roadkill.

He felt hands on his shoulders.

“I’ve got you, boss,” It was Greer. Greer was picking him up and placing him on the back of one of the bikes.

Fuck. He was fucked.

His bike was left behind because of course no one fucking thought he might need it. They knew he wouldn’t. He was so tempted to just let his body slide off onto the road before they reached the Battery, just slide off and lay there until someone found him, or he died. He didn’t really care which, right now. He tried to move, but Mikey’s hand was tight around his waist.

“Just making sure you don’t fall off, boss. Don’t want you getting any more hurt than you already are.”

Yeah, sure. That was fucking why. Because they were concerned. Not because they were going to take him back and use his limp body like a trophy to whoever knocked his teeth out first.

This was all his fault.

If Raven lived through the night he was going to hunt that man down.

Tom fucking Cody.

#streets of fire #raven shaddock #tom cody #yep a fandom with 3 fics to its name #mywriting #mine

2 notes · View notes

queensdivas · 5 years

Text

A Damned Soul Chapter 4 (A Vamp Gwil Fic)

I’M BACK FROM THE DEAD BITCHES! Yes I have a concussion but I gotta power through it because I love writing and missed writing this book. Also! 39 isn’t dead! I’m bringing it back bitches because I’ve missed writing Pat Murray so badly!

Here ya go ladies and gentlemen! If you’d like to request a certain bohrap or Queen dad let me know. If you would like to be tagged also let me know! Please enjoy because I’m back and more head issues than ever! WHOOP WHOOP!

Previous Chapter

Taglist:

@mexifangorl @i-live-for-queen @leah-halliwell92 @its-funny-til-its-not@bonafiderocketqueen @b-i-g-i-r-l-b-i @teathymewithben @mayofbrian@brianmydear @sprite-jh

The top was down as the warm summer night of warm July was wrapping itself around the car. It felt nice..and it being a very long time since I found myself in America. Not that I don’t mind the states at all, just enjoy a quick visit every once in a while for the kicks of it. Never imagined she would drag me over here..but somehow she managed to wound up over here.

Stopping at the red light as she began fumbling through the radio station till a familiar guitar riff was beginning to play. John Denver has swept the nation with his new song Country Roads, but Annie's song really hit it home for her that summer to turn out being the song that would play nonstop in the car.

A very loud Volkswagen van pulled up next to us, rolling down the window as all the smoke from the van came out. I’ve never been high in my life, but the amount of smoke that came from that van would’ve made anyone high. It was so damn strong that I think we got a context high from it.

“Hey brother. Do you know how to get to Shark Island? We heard that there’s some voodoo lady who can hit us up with more weed!” So how does Voodoo and weed connect? Now I’m curious on where to even find this voodoo. My entire life I’ve been dealing with witchcraft..but voodoo has been something interesting since it’s even older than most witchcraft.

“Yeah. Actually we’re on our way there to find her ourselves.” Robin told them as they nodded.

“Alright! Road trip!” They yelled as the light turned green for the van to start driving hard down the road.

“C’mon. I’m a witch and would enjoy learning about voodoo. If you don’t wanna go we don’t have to.” Shifting into the next gear then flooring the gas pedal. We caught up with the Volkswagen to keep up the same speed, the hippies were screaming at us through the window as Rolling Stones was blasting through their van.

“Let’s get there before the pot heads.” She encouraged as I let off the accelerator to change into the next gear. Pushing my foot all the way down on the peddle to zoom past the van. Robin cheered as she also turn up the radio.

“COME A LITTLE BIT CLOSER YOU'RE MY KIND OF MAN! SO BIG AND SO STRONG! COME A LITTLE BIT CLOSER! I’M ALL ALONE AND THE NIGHT IS SO LONG!” She sat up in the car to allow the wind to blow her hair all over the place and her body to be enticed by the music and wind.

Stopping the car on the roadway that was lit only by a long line of torches down to the large mansion. In the middle of swap island? Why exactly do I get myself thrown in these situations where we end up in the middle of somewhere like back in Transylvania.

“What do you think? Super spooky?” She giggled as we began going down the driveway slowly. Owls and cicadas were roaring all over the woods as we eventually stopped at the house. The large red doors opened as a very old women dressed in all blue came out of the doorway. She carried a gold cane that smacked onto the ground for the torches around us to become brighter.

“I presume you’re here for my services?” Her voice carried through the entire property as we climbed out of the car.

“You may come inside. Shoes off at the door.” It was like watching a ghost floating away, leaving a trail behind her. She grabbed my arm to guide me up the stairs as the humidity of the swamps fell on top of us like a wool blanket.

Before she started up the stairs to the house to wrap her arms around my neck as I put my hands on her waist. Placing those beautiful lips against mine as my hands gave her waist a little squeeze. Her beautiful brown skin was glowing by the vast amount of fire around us.

“Careful..or the voodoo that we do will tear our souls.” She giggled as she ran up the stairs to start taking off her sandals. Taking off my tennis shoes to see her already walking through the mansion, her fingers grazing over everything in the hallway. Her dark yellow skirt was flowing as we walked to the sitting room to which I was so damn enticed that I forgot to notice she stopped walking.

“My name is Wislande Janvier. You come seeking answers over a little situation you two are constantly in.” Pouring black pebbles into a tiny circle then a cluster of white feathers in the middle.

“Situation? What do you mean a situation?” Robin chuckled as the snap of her fingers the white feathers burned into a white smoke.

“She doesn’t know? Your story is as old as they come, though is slowly disappearing from the world.” Wislande began making the smoke dance in front of her as it danced its way over to Robin.

“Open your eyes.”

“How come you never changed her?” Hyacinth broke my train of thought from the living room. Fixing my jacket in the mirror as I took one last glance to make sure I looked somewhat decent. Each time I always try to look somewhat presentable even though over the years it's gone from tights...to suits..to now jeans. I very much prefer jeans instead of tights.

“Don’t think I haven’t tried in the beginning. Each time I even attempt to change her it would end up cause her body to immediately shut down. Like her body just flicks off whenever it hits her vessels. Tried it for the first few times, but it was just so much more painful.” Walking out into the living room to see Hyacinth was sitting on top of the couch licking himself. Oh god stop stop stop! He must’ve known what I was thinking because he looked up..smirked and continued to give himself a bath on my couch.

“Hyacinth. If you’re going to live in my home then..then we gotta lay some sort of guidelines.” Sighing as I stood above him. God just realizing how big he is sitting on the couch. Think they call him mainecoons or something but regardless of what cat he is! No bathing on my couch!

“But what about the rest of your homes? Because if I could have the house in Montreal or even the one in Aswan that would be quite exquisite. Wait how many places do you have now by this point? Eleven? Twelve? You wouldn’t happen to have one in Alaska or very far north Canada? Do tell so when we fix this sticky situation I can have a nice place to return.” Glad to know that my vast amount of properties across the world is more important than him showing some sort of house manners. Scoffing as I noticed an empty moving box was sitting right next to the table with the tape right on top of the table. Let me try this one more time before I pack his furry arse up.

“Just..no cleaning yourself up on my furniture..I have a bathroom and you’ve been around long enough to know that it's just weird to do that right in front of me or everyone in general. I imagine in your lifetime you’ve had a vast amount of owners who would let you do whatever you want in their house. But I’m different as you can see. Just no more bathing yourself on my furniture please.” His head came back up to stare directly at me. Raising his paw up to his mouth gradually with those eyes squinting at me. Oh I wish he would! OH I HOPE HE DOES! His tongue sliding against his fur as I nodded, getting up from the ground to nod at his actions.

“Fine. I’ll give you one of my places! Now..how would you like to be sent there?” Snatching him up by his stomach to keep a tight grip around him so he wouldn’t budge.

“Hey hey! Let me go you bloodsucker!!” Screaming as I tossed him into the box. Quickly closing the flaps to start taping up the box.

“You realize that I’m a cat! I love boxes!” He wasn’t moving or trying to jump out of the box. Shocking. Maybe when I’m done taping his arse up he'll start getting ancy. Don’t worry I don’t plan on sending him anywhere. He’ll just be going with me into town so he can start “fixing” my situation.

“If you were just a regular cat yes! But your human side can’t stand living in a box!” He went silent as I tossed the tape to the side of the room. A few seconds passed as he began scratching the box.

“Okay you had your fun! Let me out!” Time to go see her. Picking up the now heavy box since this guy is stupidly big for some reason. He began moving around to the box and it almost caused me to drop it.

“Okay okay! I promise I’ll stop the licking on the couch. Can’t exactly pop into the shower with you and diving into salt water won’t solve the problem! Now let me out!” He was so close to getting out till he screamed at me to let him out.

“If you’re so old and so wise..why on earth have your manners not developed.” Locking the cottage door to then begin walking towards the car. He was still screaming at me to let him out, but was being drowned up with my humming of some simple John Denver. Though American..he still has some very beautiful songs.

Throwing him into the passenger seat as I walked over to his side of the car to begin putting the top of the hood up. Yes the sun is going away, but it looks a little more cloudy than I like to have a top down. My playlist was already beginning to play as Hyacinth was hissing in the box.

“Please no John Denver!” Walking towards the other side of the car to put my side of the hood up.

“Why? Can’t stand good music?” He was quite till his eyes looked through the handle holes.

“I just don’t want to cry.” This is for cleaning yourself up on my couch. Turning the dial as he was beginning to meow obnoxiously in the box. Listen to it and wheat bitch! Climbing into the driver side of the car as John began singing through the radio.

“Screw you Gwil.” He was actually cry!? Glad to know that one thing he can do besides be a pest is to be an amusement by watching him sob to John Denver. Putting the car into reverse as I began turning us around, then beginning to drive down the dirt path to get on the main road.

“MEEOOOWWW!” Ignore him.

“MMMMMEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!” He’s being a little attention seeker. Just ignore him.

“MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW!” Nope. Not giving him the stupid satisfaction of annoying me and him getting out of the box.

“Fine. Two can play at this game bloodsucker!” HE coughed a little then stuck his head out in one of the handle holes.

“BUT THE COLORADO ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH! I’VE SEEN IT RAININ FIRE IN THE SKY! SHADOWS FROM THE STARLIGHT IS SOFTER THAN A LULLABYE!”

“DON’T YOU DARE INSULT THE MUSIC OF JOHN DONVER!” He wouldn’t! He wouldn’t dare insult the signing of John Denver!

“ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH!” Turning the car sharply to the side of the road then parking it on the side. Ripping open the box to see him with big stupid eyes looking like regret.

“Fine. You can have the house in Alberta Canada if you stop meowing like alittle twat AND NEVER INSULT THE MUSIC OF JOHN DENVER!” He smiled as he climbed out of the box, kicking it to the floor then getting comfy in the seat.

“Glad we can come to an agreement. What part in Alberta?”

“Right on the shore of Eva Lake. Absolutely gorgeous since no one travels that far north. So the air is very refreshing.” He purred as he sunk into the chair as I got back onto the main road.

Pulling up to the curb as I climbed out of the car with Hyancith falling slowly behind. He kept purring as we got closer and closer to the shop as my fingers began feeling a little numb from the fact of this happening again.

“Oh my god are you really nervous?” Snapping at me before I could open the door. Is it wrong to be nervous.

“Well I can’t help it ya know.”

“Open the stupid door you bafone.” He tried jumping on top of my shoulder but I dodged his jump for him to fall on his feet. Shaking his head as he sat back down on his butt.

“That was rude of you. I was going to hide in your jacket so she wouldn’t notice me.” For someone who calls himself wise..he sure is a dumbass. Like she wouldn’t notice a large bump in my clothing.

Walking into the store with him poking his head out from the back of my jacket. This was so stupid! The door closed behind us as a woman came out of the back with a wooden crate filled with some sort of jars.

“What can I help you with?” She began unpacking the crate as I approached her.

“Ummm..I would like to have a scrying done by..umm..Miss Robin La Torneau? I was planning on getting it done when you were in Highbridge but you two left before I could even give it a shot.” Nervously laughing as I felt Hyacinth shaking his head behind me cause his whiskers were tickling my cheek.

“She went to buy some fish for dinner, should be back in a few minutes or so. Knowing her she got distracted by some kind of animal or some sort of attraction a person has on the side of the street. Please sit at the table behind the curtain till she gets back.” Nodding as I walked through the curtain to sit down at the table. Hyacinth climbed out of my jacket to walk all over the table trying not to knock over anything.

The room was egg white that had painted leafs and branches all over the walls and even the ceilings. The only light source in the room was a light that had vines with little lights acting as leafs. It felt so magical oh my god.

An old blue wardrobe had a bunch of herbs, a collection of different colored candles, a bunch of small knives, some kind of mixing bowl, and other witchy things were in the wardrobe. I’ve never seen her shop before so decked out in so many different spices, and everything else.

“Has she always been this witchy? I swear this place looks like something you would see on Pinterest. But an actual witch place. Do you know if she has skulls in a secret closest or even lambs in the back for sacrifices?” What a furry ass hole!

“A dog? Since when are you into dogs?” Shit! Hyancith looking at the curtain for his fur to start rising. Shit shit! Yanking him from the table to shove him back underneath my jacket.

“Let me out! I’m going to kill that dog!” He was muffling from my jacket till I zipped it up then smacking the back of it.

“Don’t say a word otherwise we’re screwed!” Yelling through my teeth as she was moving stuff around in the other room. He was still moving around in the back of my jacket till I leaned back into the chair for him to stop moving. Looking like a fucking hump on my back as she came into the room.

Her beautiful wild curly hair, her beautiful golden skin was shining with the dimmed lighting in the room. Those beautiful grass green eyes lost in her looking at me..and this dumbass cat on my back.

She wore a long high waisted red skirt with a black dress shirt that had a little bow tie around the collar. Small black heels were on her feet as she was tapping her foot. Every time we come into contact she gets all nervous and her foot always starts tapping.

“Good evening sir..ummm. May I ask what kind of reading were you wanting today?” She looked so beautiful so nervous in front of me.

“No real preference.” Come to think of it..would it be a good idea for her to read my future or anything? Would that cause another sort of body shut down?

“Figured I’d try something a little different and do some capnomancy..sound okay?” Nodding to her as my thumb as began moving in small circles. She was beginning to gather things from the wardrobe.

“So I heard that you came all the way from Highbridge to see little old me.” Little old you?

“Ummm yes.”

“You’re totally blowing it!” Smacking my back as she spun around to see what happened. Acting natural as if it was her imagination doing the voices. Stupid cat! Causing so many stupid troubles in my life!

#Gwilym #gwilym lee x oc #gwilym lee #bohrap boys #bohrap #joe mazzello #joe mazzello is a cat #cat joe #gwil #gwilym lee x reader #bohrap fan fic #rami malek #Lucy Boynton #ben hardy #vampire #vampire gwil #Gwil Vamp

19 notes · View notes

the-astro-ace · 4 years

Text

I was tagged by @mistbornhero. Thank you, friend! 🥰

I’ll tag... @merwaines, and the one other person I thought of had been tagged by the same person as me lol. No obligation to, of course. And if you would like to do this then by all means feel free to say I tagged you lol

AO3 name: Nebula5030

Fandoms: Merlin, Yuri On Ice, and then I have a couple WIPs for Forever, Wayward Children, and Galavant

Number of fics: I have 70 works on AO3, but only 54 of them are fics I’ve written - the rest are art

Fic you spent the most time on: Well, um, I have a two chapter fic that I posted the first chapter during November of 2018 and haven’t posted the second chapter yet 😶 Otherwise I do have a couple completely unposted WIPs I started in late 2017 but haven’t finished yet either

Fic you spent the least time on: I Draw Back the Veil and I Say A Prayer took me an hour and a half. As far as I know it’s the only fic that I managed to complete in one sitting

Longest fic: For the Love of All Who Gather. Coming in at a cool 92,504 words 😎

Shortest fic: Want and A Secret of Night are both 100 words

Most hits: For the Love of All Who Gather, with 8566

Most kudos: The Meeting of Dragoon and Arthur, with 554

Most comment threads: lmaooooo that one’s The Wonders I Know with 547 - SOLELY because I have one subscriber who likes to chat with me in my comments. That work is 30 short fics in one work and with a convo happening in each one...yeah it builds up lmao

Fave fic you wrote: Ironically even though it isn’t about the OTP, the one I find myself rereading the most is A Time of Joy - maybe it’s just because it’s SOFT and FLUFFY and GOOD FOR MY HEART OKAY??

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: 🤔 There are a couple ideas in The Wonders I Know that I want to rework (I have a revision for the last fic in that collection in my gdocs actually) but I think I would like to redo For the Love of All Who Gather. Since it had a deadline, I was forced to skim over a lot of things I would have liked to touch on - mostly going more in depth with the Druid culture and what Merlin learns while he’s with them. Not to mention actually going and seeing what happens in Camelot while Merlin and Gwaine are gone lol

Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning: Oh man how do you expect me to just pick one lmao

Context for this one: I had gone on a Spock/Kirk kick one day, and read a lot of “Mind Meld” fics. Since I can’t turn off the Merwaine hyperfixation, I decided I needed a Merwaine Mind Meld Fic in my life

So I started writing one

Basically: Merlin and Lancelot find a grievously injured Gwaine out in the woods. It’s not looking good, and Merlin, in a last ditch attempt to save Gwaine’s life, performs a spell he had only briefly read: a spell designed to connect two people’s magic together, and he hopes that this spell will give Gwaine a boost and allow them to get him to Camelot in time. It works, Merlin and Gaius fix him up, and Gwaine is left to recover on his own. However, Merlin begins to notice that...the spell isn’t disappearing. He can still feel Gwaine in a way he never could before. So he goes to read his spell book to find out how long the spell is supposed to last, hoping it’ll disappear soon. Especially since Gwaine doesn’t know about his magic, and he would rather it fade before Gwaine realizes something is up.

And he doesn’t like what he finds lmao

Lancelot rapped his knuckles gently against the door to the physician’s tower, before opening it quietly and looking inside.

Gaius was standing by his workbench, examining something in a vial in his hand. He smiled a bit when he saw Lancelot. “Ah, Lancelot,” Gaius said, voice low. “Gwaine is still resting so we’ll have to be quiet. But what can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to check in,” Lancelot said just as quietly, stepping in and shutting the door behind himself. A glance to the patient cot confirmed what Gaius said: Gwaine was still asleep. He didn’t stir when Lancelot walked in, but Lancelot could see his chest rise and fall as he breathed. “How is he?”

“Improving. He woke for a short while, so we managed to get some food and water in him before leaving him to his rest once more.”

Lancelot nodded, a small smile of relief coming to him. “Is Merlin in?”

“He’s in his room,” Gaius said, turning back to whatever it was he was making. “He’s been back there for a while now - I’m not entirely sure what he is doing.”

Lancelot nodded and thanked Gaius, before he headed further into the back. He climbed up the two stairs, before knocking once more. “Merlin?”

And from inside, Lancelot heard a very muffled and dejected sounding, “In here.”

He opened Merlin’s door to find the man in question lying face down on his bed, his face mashed into the pillow, and his arms to his sides - as if he had simply fallen face first onto the bed and had made no effort to reposition himself.

Lancelot was, in a word, concerned. “…Merlin?” he asked as he stepped in and shut the door behind himself. “Is everything alright, my friend?”

“Arthur’s right,” Merlin said, voice still muffled due to a face full of pillow.

“…in what regard?”

Merlin sighed heavily. “In that I’m an idiot.”

He lifted an arm and pointed to his desk, but otherwise didn’t move.

Lancelot glanced between the desk and Merlin for a moment, confused and concerned still, but then he stepped over to the desk. Merlin’s spell book was on top, opened to a page somewhere in the middle. He skimmed it over: the spell displayed was designed to connect two people’s magic, allowing for limitless telepathic communication, empathy between the two of them, and the ability to sense where the other was. A footnote noted that it was often used by Druids after they got married.

Lancelot wasn’t quite understanding. “And this is relevant because…?”

“Remember that spell I used to heal Gwaine yesterday? The mind one?”

“I do, yes.”

“Well…that’s it.” It was then Merlin turned his head, meeting Lancelot’s gaze. “And it’s permanent.”

“Oh,” Lancelot said simply. Then he realized. “Oh! Oh…well, oh dear, Merlin. What do you plan to do?”

Merlin shook his head frantically as he sat up. He gripped his hair with a hand. “I don’t know! I thought the spell was only to - give him a boost! Not…tie us permanently to each other!”

Even though Merlin had just sat up, he flopped back onto the bed with a groan, and covered his face with his hands. “He’s going to wake up and I’m going to have to explain what happened. I didn’t even ask, Lancelot, I just did it because I wanted to help him! I didn’t know it would do this!”

Lancelot was quiet for a moment, thinking over what to say.

He came over and sat on the edge of the bed. “What you did saved his life. Gwaine doesn’t strike me as the kind of man to take that lightly; I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“But what if he doesn’t want…this?” Merlin exclaimed, sitting up and gesturing wildly to himself. “I can feel him in my mind, Lancelot. I can feel his pain, his emotions. Once he’s awake he’ll feel the same for me. We’re going to be stuck like this - forever!”

“…is that really so terrible?”

Merlin blinked at Lancelot, as if he hadn’t considered that other possibility. He let out a breath. “…maybe not, but…it still feels wrong. Like I’m violating his privacy.”

Lancelot considered this. “…we’ll wait to see what Gwaine thinks,” he said calmly. “I’m sure there’s a way to reverse it. While the spell may be designed to be permanent, I am certain there have been people who have wanted to break it.”

Merlin met his eyes. “And what if there isn’t?”

“Then you and Gwaine are just going to have to learn how to live with it.”

#I was tagged #My fic #Technically lol

2 notes · View notes

mere-mortifer-writing · 5 years

Text

Close Quarters

Pairing: Lucifer/Reader; Lucifer/OFC

Rating: Explicit. This is pure filth lmao

Summary: You're stuck in a closet with Lucifer. That's it, that's the plot. Enjoy! x x x The fact is, the closet really is tiny and with her standing up they would be nose-to-nose if it weren’t for the height difference. He's more than a head taller than her, and this close she would need to barely move to kiss the column of his neck. Her eyes follow the line of tendons under his skin from his jawline, down to where his shirt obstructs the view.

Unable to resist the pull of his gaze, she raises her eyes to meet his. “Hi”, she says again, as softly as the atmosphere requires. Her stomach is already tied up in knots. Lucifer's smile softens, and he angles his head so that their lips are even closer together. “Hello, there."

Tags: Dirty talk; Slow sex; Shy!Reader; Attempt at humour; Semi-public sex

You can also read it on Ao3

She knew it was a bad idea even before leaving her house.

Honestly, a blind date? Her? Recipe for disaster, obviously. She still doesn't know what compelled her to accept to go to dinner with some random guy that her best friend works with - actually, she knew why: it was to stop her cries of “you seriously need to get laid!”

And sitting at a table of the restaurant, still blissfully alone after an hour and a half, she realises that the guy had stood her up. Which would be very sad, possibly even a hard blow to her self-confidence, if only cancelling plans didn't always give a rush of endorphins: the anxiety that had clawed her all week disappears; her shoulders relax, the high heels she's wearing don't hurt anymore.

She doesn't even give a fuck that she's sitting alone at a restaurant, that's how good the prospect of good food and her favourite book (she had it in her purse, just in case) without a stranger sitting with her feels.

Also, there's this man, a few tables from hers, that with some luck she'll be able to stare at without being seen.

He's sitting with a dark haired woman, but he's so magnetic she barely notices her presence. He's got dark hair, perfectly styled, and stubbles that shadow his strong jawline. She risks another glance at him a minute later, hoping against hope that he doesn't notices, and catches a view of his profile while he talks with the sommelier. He's smiling, a bit lasciviously, looking at the other man from underneath his lashes.

Is he-is he flirting with him? Chances are he is, considering how the sommelier is blushing - and, really, it makes sense. If she was that hot she would flirt with anything and anyone just to see them all flustered.

He looks like a Hollywood actor.

No, better, he looks like Hollywood actors look in your head when it's the middle of the night and you're thinking of that super hot scene that was your sexual awakening as a teen.

In other words: too good to be true. She is probably just making him up, actually.

Fuck, her friend is right - she does need to get laid.

In the meantime, she will not deny herself the small pleasure of imagining, in graphic details, all the ways she could ruin the expensive suit he's wearing.

Which is obviously when a gunshot resonates in the room, scaring the shit out of every client.

Because this is her life: she can't think “hey, I'd like to have sex with than man” without God going like think again, bitch and sending someone to shoot the place!

She thinks this while scrambling away from her table, fight or flight instinct kicking in before she has time to think. “Flight” wins, hands down, because you don't bring uncomfortable heels and lack of military training to a gunfight.

“Lucifer Morningstar!” someone screams behind her back when the shooting stops. “You're a dead man!”

The oh-so-hot man from before is still comfortably lounging on his chair, idly drinking from his wine glass. “Am I now? That's news to me.”

The woman who was dining with him is standing protectively close to him, wearing the smile of a shark ready to kill some innocent baby seals.

Get the fuck out of here, a rational voice in her head says.

“Door. Too far.” she mumbles to herself, eyeing the scene and the feet of panicked clients and staff exiting the restaurant. She is hiding behind some decorative plants, on her hands and knees.

Great sentence structure. Hide, then, go, come on!

And so she crawls away, praying not to be seen, towards the staff-only part of the restaurant.

***

She ends up in some sort of service closet inside the kitchen, comforting both in size and the silence that closing the door shut brings.

There's a distinctive smell of soap in the air, and the only feasible place to sit are some packages of toilet paper, but you know what that tiny supply closet doesn't have?

Menacing figures dressed in black shooting everywhere.

It feels like a home, already.

She stays there for a while, listening desperately for the distant screams and noises of things breaking to stop - or at least for police sirens to come closer.

And for a while nothing changes, but then the door to the kitchen bangs open and for a second she thinks this is it, this is how I die.

Killed in a dusty closet that smells like a hospital.

“Stay here!” a woman's voice intimidates.

“But, Maze-” A man this time, British, the tone of a child that got denied his favourite candy.

“No but's, I'm not gonna let you get killed!”

There's the sound of two pair of feet moving - oh no, oh no, please no - closer to her hideout and she has literally nowhere to hide, so she slaps a hand on her mouth and tries to do her best impression of a cardboard cutout. She manages to shut off the light, though - not that it will do much.

The door of the closet wrenches open, and she doesn't have time to think before a tall figure takes up the little space left, almost falling over her.

The door closes again, lock clicking into place with violence. “And you stay the fuck in there, Lucifer, am I clear?” the woman says, and then nothing more.

Lucifer?, she thinks. The man I was imagining in compromising positions few minutes ago?

And then, after fixing her priorities: the one they were shooting at?

“Like a lock can stop me…” Lucifer (what kind of parents-) is muttering to himself, but his words trail off. His shoulders tense, his head snaps to the side, but she can barely see all this in the low light that filters from underneath the door. “Oh, but I have company. Hello, there.”

He finds and flicks on the light switch a second later, turns to see her still sitting on - on toilet paper, of all things.

Fuck her life, honestly.

“Um, hi.” She gives him a little wave. The effort not to stare at his crotch, which is at less than 20 centimetres from her face, is using up all of her social skills - she doesn't nervously giggle only by the grace of God.

His eyes light up, and a boyish smile replace the frown on his face. “You're that cute girl from before! What a pleasant surprise”, he purrs, biting his bottom lip as he does a once-over of what he can see of her figure. “And you're at such an interesting angle, too.”

He called you cute, the high-schooler in her notices.

He's thinking of you sucking his dick!, screams what's probably still the high-schooler in her, but this time with more hormones involved.

Ah, the duality of (wo)man.

“I guess that's me, yeah”, she manages to say. “And you're...Lucifer?”

“That's right, Lucifer Morningstar. Mind coming up here?” He offers her a hand, that she gratefully takes, and he helps her back on her feet.

There's a strength behind the gesture, hiding under the smooth material of his suit, that makes her head spin for a second.

That, and the fact that the closet really is tiny and with her standing up they would be nose-to-nose if it weren’t for the height difference. He's more than a head taller than her, and this close she would need to barely move to kiss the column of his neck. Her eyes follow the line of tendons under his skin from his jawline, down to where his shirt obstructs the view.

Unable to resist the pull of his gaze, she raises her eyes to meet his.

“Hi”, she says again, as softly as the atmosphere requires. Her stomach is already tied up in knots.

Lucifer's smile softens, and he angles his head so that their lips are even closer together. “Hello. Can I know your name?”

She tells him.

He says it back, pouring his British accent all over it, tasting its sound on his lips. “Is that right?”

She nods, because she doesn't trust herself to talk, trying to calm herself down. Impossible not to think how he would say it in another context - or, not even in another context, just 10 minutes from now, 5 minutes if she has it her way…

She must be blushing furiously by now, but maybe he notices how nervous she is because he mercifully doesn't comment on it.

Nervous? Weird way of spelling 'turned on’.

“You're alright, yeah? I'm sorry for all this - those men are here for me. Worry not, my friend is taking care of them.”

Right on cue, some muffled screams filter through the door.

“I figured. But I'm fine, yeah”, she reassures him. She doesn't know where to put her hands, where the fuck does she put her - “Uhm, does this happen often to you? Getting shot at, I mean.”

“People like to try, sometimes, yes. It has never been a problem until recently”, he adds in a more irritated tone.

This guy is probably dangerous, she thinks, he's like a mafia boss or something.

...Do I really wanna fuck a mafia boss?

“I think we'll be stuck here for a while. Say, how should we spend this time together?” he says, his big brown eyes shamelessly set on her lips.

Yes, yes she does, apparently, so much so that the desire gets stuck in her throat, renders her speechless for a moment before sliding down, hot and heavy, to her stomach and then even lower.

“How should we spend this time”?

What a stupid fucking question.

He knows what he's doing, the bastard. This beautiful, infuriating man who looks so perfect she's starting to think he's just an hallucination. Eyes too dark, voice too smooth. She's never been one to lust after a man in a suit, always too uncomfortable around them and their aura of confidence to find them attractive...but Lucifer's legs are long in his tailored Prada trousers and she is - she is, at the end of the day, just human. What is the saying? Flesh is weak?

Yeah, she does feel pretty weak at the moment.

Actually, she's gonna pass the fuck out if he keeps looking at her lips like that and expect her to do something about it. It's a miracle she’s even still standing!

“We- we could get more comfortable”, she finally says, after what feels like a year but were probably just a few seconds of her staring at him, mouth open like a dumb, sexually frustrated fish.

“Oh? How so?” Lucifer presses their bodies closer, and shimmies a little, as if to show her that there isn't any space left in their hideout. “Not much to do about that, I'm afraid.”

Flush against him, from her breasts on his toned chest to one of his legs pleasantly slotted between her thighs, she needs a second to get her brain back online. She feels hot all over, and the sound of her own heartbeat is deafening in her ears.

His thigh is so tantalizingly close to where she really wants it - the thought of the friction of his trousers against her already-soaked underwear is maddening.

“Of course, I could hold you up if you want to”, he adds, feigning innocence. The effect is somewhat ruined by the low timbre of his voice, but mostly by the feeling of his cock hardening against her stomach. “I'm sure it'd feel better than standing in those awfully pretty shoes of yours.”

Lucifer's hands rest nonchalantly on her waist, his thumbs stroking comforting circles on her ribs - and wow, his hands are big, aren't they? Her breasts would fit perfectly well in his palms, like they were made to touch her there, and then lower, lower, to cover the expanse of her stomach, and then to finally cup her over her underwear…

“Still with me?” he asks gently, bringing her back to the present.

“What? Yeah, I'm still...here. With you” - what the fuck was that, even? Get a grip! - “I had something else in mind, actually?”

“Do tell.”

“Mh, there's that little glass panel on the door? It's too low for you but if we switched positions I could look through it”, she explains. “So we can see who - uh, enters the kitchen?”

Okay, alright, she pleads the fifth: she just wants to 1) feel him pressed against her back, and 2) hide her face from him to calm her nerves. Sue her.

Lucifer doesn’t seem concerned with the faulty logic behind her plan, though; doesn’t ask questions like “What we would we even do if we saw someone enter the kitchen?, or “How would that make us any more comfortable?”. He just smiles, and looks quite delighted at the proposition.

“That’s a wonderful plan!” he lies, but with a playful tone that tells her he’s ready to humor her. “I’m particularly interested in how this change in positions will happen.”

And she’s very interested, too, if ‘interested’ is an euphemism for ‘turned on out of her mind’. To be fair, his mind seemed to also have gone in the same direction as hers, if the tongue-in-cheek smile he gives her is any indication: there will probably be some grinding involved.

Hopefully, a lot of it.

“Shall we try, then?” he asks, and doesn’t wait her response before making his grip on her waist stronger to tug her against him. His thigh slides higher and presses right against her core, where she desperately needed pressure; she gasps at the feeling, wondering in the back of her mind if he can feel how wet he is through the leg of his trousers.

“Oops, my bad”, Lucifer says, but doesn’t seem sorry at all, because he does it again, making her bite her lip hard enough to bleed in the effort of silencing a moan. She answers “no problem”, or maybe just rolls her hips against him on her own, who knows? Definitely not her.

The pressure of his leg eases right after, unfortunately, and the two of them try to rotate on their place without stepping on each other's feet until her back is now facing the door.

“Yay, we’re halfway there”, she murmurs against his neck, using talking as an excuse to move her lips on his skin. Lucifer laughs breathlessly in her hair and lets her hands sneak under his open jacket to rest against his sides.

Fuck, fuck, he’s perfect, she thinks, a wave of desire hitting her squarely in the chest. She wants him so much she can barely think, and she realizes - hearing how fast his heart is beating, feeling how laboured his own breathing is - that Lucifer wants her, too.

The realization is intoxicating and helps her relax under his touch.

She likes the he’s not being all calm and collected; she likes the thought that he will gladly come apart in her arms with no shame.

“Now's the fun part”, he says, arching an elegant eyebrow at her. His hands leave her body to sit on the door behind her, effectively caging her in. She doesn't mind one bit.

The closet was obviously made to accommodate only one person at a time, because they are squeezed close enough that turning around will be quite the...intimate experience.

She has never been this excited for something in her entire fucking life, she swears.

“Here goes nothing” she giggles, and thankfully Lucifer seems to find it more endearing than annoying.

She slides her hands up from his waist to his chest, in an unnecessary move studied just to feel his abs contract under her fingers, and then takes them away from his body altogether. She tries to disentangle their legs, and Lucifer reluctantly helps her by moving his toned thigh away from between hers - for the pleasure of literally no one in the tiny room.

Finally she can turn around - and God bless high heels because her hips are at just the right height to drag against Lucifer's clothed erection with every move.

“Bloody-” she hears him hiss when her they're finally back-to-chest and her ass presses deliciously on his cock. He feels so hard she doesn't know how he's still coherent.

“You have to agree” - she wiggles her ass a bit with the pretence of fixing her position - “this does feel more comfy.” Being able to hide her face is making her bolder.

Behind her, Lucifer bites back a groan by pressing his lips in her hair. His hands flex into two fists and relax again on the cold surface of the door.

“My pants don't feel that comfortable at the moment, I'm afraid”, he murmures directly in her ear. His voice is so low and grumbly that she can feel his chest vibrate against her back with every word. “I'd apologize for this” - he pushes his erection more firmly on her lower back - “but you haven't complained even once, so. Also, can you blame me?”

She makes a questioning sound, lost in the feeling of his lean body flushed on hers.

“Close contact, the thrill of possibly being caught - also, you're wearing lip gloss and your hair smells awfully nice…” He kisses the soft skin behind her ear, playful. “A better man than me couldn't resist.”

She can feel blood rise to her cheeks again, and she hides her charmed smile behind her hand. He's got this seduction schtick down to a t, doesn't he?

The entire thing feels surreal. Stuff like this doesn't happen in real life, you don't just find yourself stuck in a closet with Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome singing your praises in the sexiest British accent she has ever heard.

“Say,” he continues, oblivious to her line of thought, “before the Bad Guys stormed the place, were you dining by yourself?” One of his hands disappear from her line of vision to shift her hair all on one side.

“I-yes, I was by myself” she says with what little voice she has left. Lucifer's lips kissing her neck are doing wonders to make her forget about the failed blind date. ‘The guy - oh, that's nice - uhm, the guy didn't show up.”

Lucifer knee slides between her legs until she gets the idea and spreads her thighs to accommodate his better. The friction of his trousers against her clit is heavenly even with her panties still in the way - and, oh, she realizes after a few second that she was absentmindedly grinding against him.

“He stood you up? Obviously didn't know what he was missing.” His hand splays over her stomach and then slides down, until he can gather the soft fabric of her dress in his fingers. “What a rude, bad man”, he says, voice breathless with arousal. He keeps his touch feather-light on her inner thigh, making her shiver and bite back a moan.

She wants, needs him to touch her, her hands are shaking with the strength of the feeling. Maybe he is the actual Devil, she thinks, because this is straight up torture.

But she will not beg him: she has a feeling that Lucifer would just want to hear her being desperate for him a while longer if she did.

“But love, you're in luck - cause I'm much, much better anyway.” He leaves another heated kiss on her neck and moans when his fingers finally, finally, touch her where she wants him. “Fuck, darling - you're so wet.”

Wet? She's dripping, she probably completely ruined the leg of his trousers - and she would be mortified if Lucifer wasn't acting like that's the hottest thing he has ever seen.

His fingers have sneaked inside her panties while she was busy grinding her ass against his straining erection and now he's doing - things on her clit that makes her see stars in seconds.

“Mh, what I would do to you if we were in my bed”, he whispers in her ear. Two of his fingers slide easily into her, and they both shudder at the feeling. His free hand goes to the side of her face to angle it towards him, so he can kiss her lips even at the awkward angle. “All naked and flushed and tangled in my sheets. I'd bury my head between your legs, would you like that?”

She gasps at the words, at the image that paints itself in her head. His fingers crook inside of her, just right, and her her hands are shaking so much she can't even properly hold onto him.

Lucifer keeps talking in that grumbly voice of his, lips so close to hers they're almost kissing at every word. “Would you - fuck, would you close your thighs and keep me there... tug my hair, moan my name, all pretty and desperate? I would love it if you did,” - his touch is as frantic as she feels, his free hand roaming everywhere he can reach but returning, always, to gently hold her jaw - “you'd have to beg me to stop - but I would keep going until you came again, and again...like now, oh fuck, you're close, aren't you? Just let go, love, le-”

She kisses the end of the sentence right of his mouth, right when all the tension coiling hot in her belly snaps, leaving her knees week and mind blank.

Lucifer supports her through the shock waves with a strong arm around her waist. He kisses her much like he was talking seconds before: languid, full of promises, and with a thinly-veiled urgency that, more than anything else about him, makes her stomach tie up in knots.

Oh, isn't he so, so lovely? All dark eyes and low voice and clever fingers-

Mh, she's probably a bit high on endorphins.

“You alright, love?” he asks when her legs stop trembling with the force of her orgasm.

Never been better, she wants to say, but “Nnngh” is all that comes out of her mouth.

“I'll take it as a yes.” She can feel him smirk against her neck. “Are you up for more?”

She almost starts sobbing then and there.

So she could just tell him that she is not, in fact, up for more and Lucifer would just be like ‘It’s quite alright, no problem. Excuse me while I try to make my pants less tight in the crotch area’?

Fuck, that's so hot.

She wants him inside of her, like, yesterday.

“Hell yeah, I am” she says with her face still abandoned against his chest, which is not very sexy of her, but also the best she can do at the moment.

He smiles at that, all bright-eyed and red-lipped because of her kiss, stealing her breath away without even trying.

“That's the spirit”, he says, and dips his head down to lick a hot strip on her neck. One of her hands comes up to sink in hair to keep him there, feverish lips attached to her skin, and he responds with a breathless chuckle and a bite.

Things get - a bit blurry, after that. When she'll inevitably tell her friends about what happened, arrived at this part they will not manage to get more that a dreamy sigh out of her.

When her head momentarily clears and she manages to open her eyes, she finds her hand still grasping at Lucifer's hair - too strong, probably, but when she moves to let him go he makes this annoyed sound at the back of his throat -, and him finally unbuttoning his pants.

There's a rustling of fabric, some movements that she can't see because there's no space to turn, and then Lucifer's hand are back on her hips. “Ah, dat 'eels much better”, he says - or tries to, because the...oh, the condom he's holding with his teeth makes things more difficult.

His hands keep her still while he pushes himself against the line of her back so she can feel him, really feel him, with two layers of fabric less between him and her, pressed against her lower back.

Fuck, she wants him so bad she feels it in her stomach, in the spaces between her ribs, in the knot stuck in her throat. The emptiness of not having him inside her is a physical ache.

“Give me that”, she manages to say, and takes the packaged condom from his teeth to open it with shaky fingers. “Hurry up.”

“Bossy - I like it.” The warmth of his body disappears for few second while he hunches her dress up to expose her legs and ass. “Oh, hello. Pretty from every angle, I see”, he says appreciatively.

She can't resist arching her back and wiggling a little.

He laughs low in his throat. “Yeah, yeah, you minx, you already got in my pants. No need to put on a show”, he teases her - but he doesn't waste a second more before sliding her panties down to her ankles.

She would panic about her choice of underwear but 1) she absolutely does not remember what she put on and 2) they already hit the ground. No reason worrying now.

“Lovely”, Lucifer sighs behind her, and both his hands go at her hip bones, thumbs digging in her lower back. He raises her to her tiptoes - because he's too tall for her despite the high-heels -, so close to finally, finally-

She notices she's still holding the condom. “Wait”, she says in the moment of pure panic that only forgetting a condom can bring. “Wait, fuck, the- the thingy, here, before we forget.”

“What thin-oh, I see.” He takes it from her hand. “Of course, common courtesy and all. We could not use it, but I don't want to give a bad example”, he says, conversationally, while he rolls it on.

What does that even mean?, the rational part of her thinks.

If he doesn't fuck me in the next two seconds I'm going to cry, screams the rest of her mind.

But she’s not thinking anything anymore a few seconds later, because Lucifer is sliding into her in one long stroke. She’s so wet and ready that he’s bottoming out before either of them can get used to the sensation, and he breathlessly moans against her parted lips like he wasn’t expecting her body to take him in so easily.

The hand that’s not pressing on the door goes to clutch his jacket, touch the feverish skin of his naked thigh, slide against his ribs until Lucifer takes a hold of it and guides it back to his hair.

“Keep it there”, he half-growls half-mumbles while sinking his face in the crook of her shoulder. He bites there, softly, when he pulls out and she instinctively tightens the grip on his dark locks.

He pushes back in, then, with a practiced roll of his hips that melts her brain and makes her brokenly stutter his name.

Lucifer sets a slow pace, just how she likes it - and how can he read her body so well to even know that she likes it slow and deep and intense?

She thought that there would have been urgency behind every thrust, that he would finally chase his own orgasm after ignoring his own needs to concentrate on hers.

If nothing else, they should hurry before they get interrupted - by the police, by that strange woman he was dining with, anyone.

Instead he revels in every broken sound that leaves her lips, in how her legs shake every time his hips are flushed against hers again.

“Say, would you mind- oh, ungh” - his words fade out into a muffled growl at a particularly hard thrust - “would you mind if I left some marks?” He licks a hot strip on her neck. “I just want to eat you up”, he explains, playful smirk so wide on his face she can basically hear it.

Marks? As in, hickeys? Oh, oh, yes, she wants them. She wants to touch them and hiss in pain and think of him, in the days to come; she wants a physical reminder that she had such a stunning man in her arms.

She nods, probably letting out some affirmative sound - not that she would notice, not through the pleasure clouding her mind and the burning-hot feeling of him inside her.

His white, perfect teeth bite that spot behind her ear that she could swear has never been that sensitive before; and that's the last sensation she chooses to focus on before she closes her eyes and let's Lucifer have his way with her.

Not that she was, like, complaining. Quite the opposite.

Some time later, she could not for the life of her tell how long, his clever fingers slide from her waist to down between her legs.

“I want you to come like this, while I'm inside of you” he murmures, breath hot on her skin. His fingers stroke circles on her clit, while the heel of his hand presses gently on her lower abdomen - and she would bet that he can feel himself move in and out of her under his touch. “Feel you get even more tight around me, pull me closer. Would you like that?”

“Yeah, yes, oh Go-ah!” - he bit her a bit too hard, but he immediately soothes the pain with a feather-light kiss - “Keep doing...yeah, fuck, that. I-I'm close”, she stutters, bold and desperate and impatient, because she wants to see how he looks like when he comes. Wants to know If it's going to be her name rolling off his tongue, if his grip will get strong enough to leave bruises, whether or not his knees are going to give out like hers certainly will. “Are you? A-Are you close?”

He leaves a wet kiss on her cheek, and exhales there, eyelids heavy and brows furrowed, “I'll be right behind you, love. But you first.”

And then he renews his efforts to make her eyes roll back in her head in pleasure.

She falls off the edge soon after at a particularly slow drag of his fingers, when he's so deep inside of her she knows she'll feel empty for days after.

Her muscles clump around him, keeping him there, while her legs lose all strength and it's only his arms that keep her upright.

True to his word, he follows suit. Lucifer comes moaning her name, certainly putting up a bit of a show for her enjoyment - not that she can complain, with how pretty his lips look forming an almost pained ‘oh’.

So she kisses him, when his eyes flatter back open and their breathing start slowing down, because she can't believe he's right there to kiss her back.

***

“These trousers are a lost cause”, he's saying while they try to get decent.

She still doesn't have strength in her hands, but thankfully all she has to do is lower her dress. And pretend she'll have no problem walking out of there on high heels in a few minutes.

“Yeah, I mean”, she responds, “so is my underwear.”

Lucifer raises one eyebrow and smirks. “Then take it off, love. You can stuff it in my back pocket for safe keeping.”

She opens her mouth to say something, although she can't decide what's more appropriate between “hot” and “gross”, when the tell-tale sound of an angry woman in high heels resonates in the kitchen outside.

One second later the knob of their door falls to the ground with an offended thump!, and the door is wrenched open for the second time in the evening.

It's the same dark skinned woman that she was dining with Lucifer, and also apparently beating the shit out of armed men. She looks at her, then shifts her disbelieving gaze to Lucifer. “Really? When did you manage to get a girl in here?”

“I was here first, technically”, she explains. Lucifer nods innocently while slipping out of the room. “That's true, Maze. It was quite the effort, fitting both of us in there both.”

“I think you fit in alright”, Maze replies.

She would blush, but she's still too high on endorphins to care about her freshly-fucked look. Especially when seeing Lucifer's “just had sex” own look is almost a religious experience - messy hair, rumpled clothes, marks of lipstick everywhere. Would it be rude to take a photo?

“We gotta get out of her, fast”, Maze continues. “I called in one of your favours to keep the police busy for a while - you're welcome, by the way. But they are one their way.”

She starts tugging Lucifer away, ignoring his outraged easy, this shirt's Armani!

He turns to her when they're almost out of the kitchen. “Come to my club one of this days, will you? It's called Lux, I'm sure you've heard.” He winks at her, seemingly not giving a fuck about the cops as much as he wasn't fazed by getting shot at. “I believe I made some promises about a real bed, didn't I?”

And then he's out of the door.

But apparently not of out of her life.

A real bed, uh?

***

23.15 - From: BFF <3 > So??? How's the date going?

23.17 - To: BFF <3 > heyyyy omg the guy didn't show up fuck you very much btw but also like,,, thank god, you know?

23.17 - From: BFF <3 > He didn't show up? D: I'm so sorry! What happened? You're writing like you're drunk.

23.18 - To: BFF <3 > drunk on life babyyyyyyy> srry my brain is still mush because i came like twice if you can believe it lmao

Hope you guys like it <3 Any feedback is more than appreciated!

#my writing #lucifer #lucifer morningstar #lucifer on netflix #lucifer fanfictions #lucifer fanfiction #lucifer mornigstar/Reader #pwp #lucifer mornigstar/OFC #smut

114 notes · View notes

tksfandomhellhole · 4 years

Link

Alright now this. This is the one I’ve been waiting for. This is the start to the (ongoing) series that makes me go “I NEED someone else to talk to about this.” Because boy do I have Plans™ that I really hope I follow through on

If I play my cards right the series may very well be the Apex of my apex fic career.

I also may have busted out my photoshop skills for it towards the end and it feels silly now but at least you can tell I had major fun with this

Fandom: Apex Legends (Video Games) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Revenant (Apex Legends), Pathfinder (Apex Legends), Mirage | Elliott Witt Additional Tags: Minor headcanon for The Syndicate, Canon-Typical Violence Series: Part 1 of Infiltrating the Syndicate Summary:

Revenant is bored to death. Pathfinder would spend 10 minutes searching if you told him gullible was on the ceiling. And Mirage somehow gets roped into this.

What ensues ends up being more dangerous than any of them bargained for.

Revenant is bored out of his fucking mind.

Between being in this communal living space where he has to refrain from killing all these people he hates and rarely getting the chance to curbstomp some of them in the ring himself, being an apex legend is not all he imagined it to be.

Where's the death and action he was promised? He hasn't seen a match all day.

Even assholes need to pass the time somehow.

"Hello there, friend!"

Ugh, great. The smiling scrap heap is here.

"Go bother one of those skinbags you love talking to." He says, attempting to strike down the potential conversation before it starts.

The attempt goes unnoticed, as Pathfinder responds anyways. "I would! But they are all in the ring." The screen switches to a frowning face for effect.

If Revenant didn't have proof standing right in front of him, he'd think it was impossible for a robot to wear it's heart on their sleeve. It's not like they're supposed to have them in the first place.

It does give him an idea though. Maybe he can get some entertainment out of this after all.

"Really?" Revenant starts, feigning interest "Which of those skinbags do you consider your friends?"

"All of my teammates are my friends! They are very nice. I hope my creator gets to meet them one day."

"All of them? That's pretty strange considering half of them can't even stand you, including me."

"My friends don't like me...?" Pathfinder is visibly confused but still pauses to consider the thought, and Revenant knows it's working.

"Yea, in fact, I'm pretty sure that skinbag with the stupid hair and holograms has even told me he hates you." Even Revenant knows the scrap heap is partial to that skinbag in particular, as stupid as the idea of a robot harboring any sentiment at all is.

"Mirage? But he is the one who told me about the games! Mirage is my best friend."

"Hey, if you still wanna believe that it's your choice." Revenant says, before taking his leave. The bot may not believe him but the seeds of doubt have been placed, and knowing both parties far better than he'd ever like to, it's only a matter of time before things come to a head.

At this point anything is better than sitting here brainstorming the fastest way to kill himself so he doesn't have to put up with this a minute longer.

And as if on cue, the man of the hour returns to the lounge.

"Ah, Mirage!" Pathfinder calls out, intending to settle this the most logical way: by simply asking.

Before he gets the chance to respond though, another match begins, and Mirage finds himself on a drop platform getting ready to enter the next game.

Pathfinder doesn't have an issue with that of course, until he actually hears what Mirage is saying.

The platform is about to descend, taking their team out of earshot entirely, but not before Pathfinder hears Mirage say "At least I don't have to fight with that smiling robot" with a laugh.

Pathfinder continues to look at the spot where the platform descended crestfallen long after they've disappeared.

"See? What'd I tell ya." Revenant says with the biggest shiteating grin because holy shit this was way easier than he'd thought it would be.

"Oh... I see. I thought I was beginning to understand humans better since joining the Apex Games, but it seems I am still ignorant..."

Pathfinder remembers feeling this way once before; shortly after meeting Elliott for the first time and learning of how he was being tricked. Had he been tricked yet again? Were all humans just cruel? Is this what he was supposed to learn when his creator abandoned him?

He was beginning to suspect learning about the human race was not such a good idea afterall. He did not like being deceived but he also did not mind these things when he did not know any better.

"Well there isn't really a lot to learn about skinbags I wouldn't trouble myself too greatly over it." Revenant begins panic backtracking because, yea, he was trying to stir tensions up a bit, but the scrap heap seems to be taking this far more personally than he thought possible, and he doesn't actually want to be the reason the bot figures out that most skinbags are terrible retched creatures- really, he should learn that on his own the hard way. Later. When he is far far away, and not right now, in front of him, where he can see how devastating this discovery is to the thing.

For a long moment, Revenant isn't even really sure if the machine has heard a word he just said, before Pathfinder suddenly snaps back to normal, in an almost jarring movement. "Well, I should get going now! See you later, friend." he says, and heads out of the lounge area, leaving Revenant more than a little confused.

---

Mirage had almost forgotten Pathfinder had been trying to ask him something earlier before he noticed he hadn't seen Path around since before that match.

That's strange, he thought to himself. Path was not the best at intentionally masking his presence, so he should definitely have run into him by now, especially if there was a question still burning away at his mind. Pathfinder seemed to be an infinitely curious being.

There wasn't any harm in looking around at least. After asking "Path? You here?" to at least four different rooms, Lifeline finally took pity on him and pointed him in the right direction.

"Last I seen him, he was talking with Revenant. Ya better off asking him."

Stranger yet Mirage thinks, but decides not to jump the panic button just yet, heading over to where the robot in question idly twiddled with a knife.

"Revenant, was Pathfinder talking to you earlier?"

Revenant almost seems caught off guard by the question "Yea, what of it, skinsuit?" He bites out.

"Well, did you at least catch where he went after that? Cause he doesn't seem to be here."

If he didn't know any better, Mirage would say Revenant almost looks sheepish now, and given the context that's none too reassuring. Revenant says nothing and Mirage narrows his eyes in suspicion. "Wait, do you know something we don't?" Maybe it was just something robot related that non-robots wouldn't understand? Mirage didn't have any idea what the two could've possibly discussed that would make Revenant of all people clam up.

Revenant finally relents "Alright so I may have said somethings that set the walking quote machine off, but I didn't know the pathetic scrap heap was gonna run off like that."

"I'm sorry, did you say HE RAN OFF?" Mirage asks, internal alarm bells suddenly going off.

Revenant regains his edge with a smirk "Yeah, you might wanna go find him before he gets lost. He's about as smart as a toaster oven."

"Dammit!" Mirage yells, grabbing his gear on the way out.

---

“Stupid Revenant and stupid fast Pathfinder leaving without telling anyone. Seriously how did he get this far away already?" Mirage mutters to himself as he speed searches in the general direction he believes Pathfinder would have went. Maybe he should've enlisted Bloodhound's help before he left. At least they would be able to tell if someone had traveled this way recently.

It's dark out, and he's far from where the ship base docked. He hopes he finds something soon because he really doesn't want to be out here all night.

He's also starting to get paranoid, because he swears he heard some shuffling a few times that definitely wasn't his own, despite the fact no one is around.

Finally, he manages to spot the unmistakable silhouette of Pathfinder up ahead.

"Path! What the hell are you doing out here?!" He yells, to stop the robot in it's tracks.

"Oh, hello Mirage! I have decided to quit the apex games."

Mirage takes only a moment to process this, before asking, incredulous, "Are you dualsinal- delis- dil- are you out of your mind?!"

"I have been informed our friends do not like me, so it does not make sense to continue participating. I decided to continue looking for my creator elsewhere. It appears I am lost though!"

"Ok you're a robot, so you probably dont understand how ironic that is- but more importantly! Who told you that- wait, nevermind don't answer that, I already figured it out." Mirage says, putting two and two together. He sighs before continuing. "Okay, listen. Path. Nobody hates you buddy. Everyone thinks you're a valuable player to the games, and a valuable member to the teams. And, AND the games are still your best bet at finding your creator, not roaming the worlds blindly. So this is a very poor decision!"

"Then does this mean you don't hate me?"

"Hate you? Why would you think- Ok maybe I joke A LOT, but Path, you were the first person I even met in the games. If I hated you, you would definitely know by now."

"Really? This is great! I love you too, friend." Pathfinder exclaims, wrapping Mirage in a hug before he can object.

"Uh-huh, you're coming back and rejoining the games, that's great, now can we please go back? This place is starting to freak me out." Mirage says, pushing out of the hug.

Mirage begins to backtrack the way he came. "Alright, uhhh, I'm pretty sure it's this way, come on let's- ack!" The sound of a bullet whizzes by and Pathfinder and Mirage manage to get a glimpse of three armored figures coming from the direction it came from before dodging into cover behind a nearby rock.

"That's not good!" Mirage states, yelping when a spray of bullets flies past his head while attempting to assess the situation. "Path, how many crimes did you commit, since leaving the ship?!"

"I have not engaged in any illegal activities!" Pathfinder replies, similarly panicked.

"Well, It's a good thing I never leave the ship without my weapon holster!" Mirage says, pulling out a p2020 from his belt.

The three men converging on their position have spread out, attempting to cut them off on all sides.

"Alright, think fast Mirage, there's 3 guys flanking us, we have a robot with a grappling hook, me, and a single p2020. Totally doable."

Mirage straightens up suddenly and takes one last quick look over the cover before turning back to Pathfinder. "Follow my lead!"

Mirage dodges bullets as he runs out from behind the cover and sends out one of his decoys at the person flanking the left. They shoot the decoy and he loads a clip into their skull. In the same motion he swings back towards the center and heads for the remaining two enemies, activating his decoy cloak.

Pathfinder takes the hint and uses the confusion to hook his grappling hook on an iron bar above the person flanking right, swinging into them at full force and knocking them out flat.

"You got bamboozled!" Mirage says, now dramatically posed behind the last guy. He takes aim and-

*click*

"Fuck." Mirage says, upon realizing his clip is empty. The man whips around to train his gun on him and Mirage instinctively stumbles a step back before-

The shadows twitch for a second and suddenly the man cries out in pain, robotic fingers protuding through him for only a moment before Revenant retracts his hand entirely and the man crumples to the floor.

"Revenant? What the hell are you doing here?" Mirage asks, relieved, not for the first time, that Revenant is on their side.

If you accused Revenant of being concerned about the trouble he may have inadvertantly gotten these two idiots into he'd brush you off, so instead he says "I was bored. Thought you guys might be up to something more entertaining. Looks like I was right."

"Well that was an uncomfortably close call. Do we have any idea who these wack jobs were?" Mirage asks approaching one on the ground to get a better look.

" ...Hey wait a minute, this is the Syndicate's symbol." He says, running his hands over a logo printed on the shoulder of their armor.

He picks up a boxy device from the person's holster and clicks the button. It boots up and displays a hologram with a dossier.

Mirage doesn't like being stressed, so he chooses to be offended instead. "Hey! Revenant's here too, why isn't he on the target list?"

"You think I got to be a hitman by being as loud and dumb as you two?" He responds, insulted.

Either way, this didn't bode well for any of them. "...Path, Rev, we-"

"I didn't consent to you giving me a nickname, skinbag." Revenant interrupts.

"You guys! We can't tell anyone about what happened here today."

"But Mirage, should we not notify our friends of-"

"No!" Mirage quickly grabs Pathfinder by the shoulders and shakes him for emphasis. "No. This stays between the three of us. We're already in enough trouble as it is, let's just go back to the ship and pretend nothing happened- And for the love of god, Path, don't try to quit the Apex Games again."

Pathfinder frowns at this turn of events but nods his head. "Understood."

Revenant simply gives a noncommittal grunt of acknowledgement.

"We might not live to tell the tale next time..." Mirage adds under his breath, taking one last look at the mercenaries lying at their feet.

Was there even a guarantee they could return to the games without further issues? Only time could really tell.

One thing was for sure; Revenant got exactly what he asked for.

Things just got a hell of a lot more interesting around here.

Perhaps it was time he revisited the Syndicate, add some targets to his hitlist. No one's gonna tell him where he can and can't go.

And maybe, for once, he had two targets to protect instead.

#apex legends #apex legends fanfic #pathfinder #revenant #mirage #series: Infiltrating the Syndicate

1 note · View note