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tsumuniri · 3 years

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━━━ Atsumu Miya is a free-loader. Living inside his twin brother's home as if it was his, he would bring home girls and annoy Osamu most of the time. Y/N L/N is quite the opposite apparently because she's a virgin loser. Being the popular anonymous BL mangaka known as Yamazaki, she stays in the homey abode of her parents and watches boys from afar for references (not for admiration sadly).

Now what will happen if fate decided to tie these two idiots together and made them live across each other in one apartment?

。m.list ❯❯ prev┃next

ONE ━━ THE TWIN BROTHER’S DECISION

"SO THAT'S THE TEA?"

You nodded dejectedly and raised the Tuna Mayo Onigiri in the direction of your mouth. You bit into the delicious rice snack, humming in delight as the saucy and sweet flavors of tuna cheered you up just for a slight bit. "They said that a girl my age shouldn't be living with her parents and should finally get a guy instead of drawing an imaginary one. You know that they're old school, Mai." You said, mouth full of rice bits and tuna.

The female ran her fingers through her short bright red hair. "Well, you are 25 now, and you haven't got a boyfriend since middle school," She propped her elbow on top of the round wooden table, resting her chin on her palm. "But they should've told you beforehand, right? How are you supposed to look for a residence in a short span of time?" She asked and watched you devour the onigiri meal with such ease. Her black-colored eyes held an uncertain expression as Mai was concerned for her colleague and friend.

After hearing the unfortunate news directly from your loving parents, your mind had to process the sudden information for two solid minutes. The first person you thought of to call is your closest friend, Mai, your roommate back at art school and a mangaka in the shounen industry. Although the two genres have completely different backgrounds, you two are stuck together like peas in a pod through the grace and glory of fawning over 2d men.

Ain't that great?

"They said I could stay back for two weeks until I could find a place to move in. I still have nine days to move out. And as for the residence part..."

You rummaged through the leather bag slung over your shoulder and took out a creased brochure of a newly built apartment based in the heart of east Osaka with its breathtaking cherry blossom conifers and pious shrines. The leaflet's minimalistic design delineated the idiosyncratic architectural structure of the tall building on the front page. Anybody could tell that this jointly owned establishment may settle for tenants with stable incomes.

For someone who changed the BL archives with her plot-driven works, Y/N could provide the fees to rent a homey room on the clabber-plastered apartment complex.

Mai shifted on her seat and studied the brochure on the table with interest— crossing her legs and leaning her torso forward to get a full view of the given pamphlet. "The building does seem promising. You could even check out your works in the Manga Shops at the city." She remarked as her eyes skimmed through the brochure, taking note of the facilities and rooms for the future tenants.

"Right? I already checked the place out yesterday, and coincidentally, the studio office is close by," The H/C-haired female pushed back the tiny strands of baby hair tickling her forehead as it was annoying her smooth skin. "They even allow pets. The apartment buildings I visited mostly don't allow pets, and the others who do, they have weird-ass tenants whom I don't really wanna be neighbors with." She ended, scratching the back of her neck.

"Soooooo, that's the apartment you're planning to move in."

You nodded your head, "I prepared the papers and told my parents about it. Maybe you can help me move my things out?" You suggested to your friend as your leg overlapped with the other, biting into another piece of onigiri from the porcelain plate.

Tilting her head to the side, Mai let out a light scoff from the BL mangaka's proposition as she gestured her hand downwards. "I'm offended, Y/N! Of course, I'll help you." She expressed her whimsical disbelief through her words. "I thought we were best of friends." The young lady teased.

"After all those collab fan arts of the Akatsuki, why wouldn't we be at this point?" You joked; however, the shinobi anime reference wasn't technically a gag as you both had a history of fangirling over the smexy criminal organization— even if you both had a peculiar taste in men. "By the way, why did you choose this place? Isn't this sort of far away from your workplace?" You questioned the red-haired female, a bit curious on why she decided to meet up with you in this Onigiri Restaurant.

Mai's lips turned up into a smirk as she motioned her finger for you to move closer. "My assistants and I decided to eat here after a hard day's work. By the time we were all seated, our eyes got blessed when the restaurant's owner catered to our table!" She whispered with excitement dipped on her tongue.

"Oh boy, if you had seen him, you would've gotten the inspiration to make a character from his well-sculpted face."

You raised a brow and let out a snortle, "We went here because a hot owner caught your attention? I should've gone with you then." You played along and couldn't help but laugh at your friend's reason for dining out a distance away from her studio office.

Like middle schoolers, you both giggled as Mai continued her story of the dashing Onigiri restaurant owner with her witty play of words. You never had any interest in dating; however, you still bid no mind to your friend's fawning over pretty men who would unlikely pay attention to either of them.

"That owner you're talking about might not visit his restaurant, Mai."

"I know, silly! But I do wonder what that work of art does outside his work."

Osamu is a very patient man. May it be through his responsibility of running an Onigiri business, or may it be just a simple waiting in line at the subway station of Tokyo, the male wouldn't lose his temper nor be frustrated over such trivial things.

But when his exhausted figure slugged inside the comforts of his home and found the living room all trashed with empty bottles of energy drinks and bags of chips, Osamu was finally at his breaking point.

"Atsumu, you mother-fucker... COME DOWNSTAIRS THIS INSTANT!" He burst out, calling out his twin brother's name as he began picking up the trashes scattered throughout his coffee table and his lawson couch. His ears caught the sound of loud footsteps thumping on the wooden-tiled floor as he could immediately tell that it was a certain someone who came down the stairs.

A bed of ruffled blonde hair popped out of the stairway as a certain setter casually jumps into the scene of the untidy crime, walking towards the other twin with open arms.

"Welcome home, Samu! Did your staff make a mistake in the newly-opened shop back at Shinjuku? You look a bit frustrated right now-"

Atsumu stopped himself once he noticed his twin brother standing over the mess he forgot to clean up. His arms dropped to the side while his chocolate eyes shifted over to Osamu's annoyed expression, "Okay. This time, I absolutely forgot to clean up." The male tried to explain himself.

The quiet one of the two shook his head in disapproval, sighing out and pinching the bridge of his nose to calm his fiery nerves. "I found this apartment, Tsumu. I think it's best for the both of us if you could finally get your own place." He stated, hearing the slight choke coming from his brother's throat.

"WHAT?! What made you think that this would be the best for the both of us, Samu?" Atsumu protested, his eyebrows furrowing together in confusion as to why his brother would suggest that sort of idea.

Osamu raised his hand and lifted three of his fingers to his twin's eye level. "First, you sometimes disrupt my sleep whenever you'd bring your flings at home," He stated and didn't bother to let the other speak their mind about the issue at hand as he continued his statement of reasons. "Second, you'd sometimes forget to do your lists of chores and often lie that you didn't do them because you were tired from training." He paused for a moment, thinking of a third reason until it clicked in the back of his mind.

"Lastly, you're a 23 professional athlete, who makes a lot of money than what I usually make, and yet, you're living with your twin brother."

Atsumu stared at Osamu as he crossed his arms, "So? You'll kick me out if I don't move out of your place?" He derided, his voice mostly holding a hint of teasing as he knew his brother wouldn't act so rashly over those reasons.

Oh, was the male so wrong.

"Yes, Tsumu. I'm kicking you out."

#haikyuu x you #haikyuu atsumu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!!#atsumu is a cutie #atsumu fluff #atsumubrainrot #atsumu fic #atsumu x female reader #msby atsumu #atsumu miya #hq atsumu #sakusa kiyoomi #msby sakusa #msby #miya osamu #ishiwrites #haikyuu fic

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atxlxs · 3 years

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Beyond The Veil: Chapter 11

The infirmary was nice, quiet, and completely boring so Muska was more than glad to be home. Eras had all but dragged her to the car and fretted over her the entire evening. Even making all her favorite foods and giving her space to settle. Eras had always been attentive to small changes in her mood and knew when she just needed to be alone. That didn’t stop her from making sure she had everything she needed before she left Muska to her own devices.

Eras was in the observatory now, probably destressing from the emotional day she had and really, she couldn’t blame her. When Eras had stepped through the infirmary door, Muska could tell she was on edge. She wasn’t entirely sure that Eras had noticed either, however Muska noticed that she had flinched when she saw the bandages on her arms paired with the word ‘burns’. That's when Muska remembered. She had only seen the scars on Eras’s back once and it was only a quick flash. They were Burn scars.

Fuck, no wonder she was so nervous and on edge. That’s why she relaxed when Recovery Girl promised they wouldn’t scar.

She knew what being burned felt like.

...

....

.....

Absolutely not, she was not dealing with this right now. This emotional revelation will be pushed aside for when she wasn’t absolutely decked by Recovery Girls quirk. Maybe she could even sleep tonight.

Surprisingly, she did actually sleep.

By morning, Eras was back to normal, which is still just as concerning as it usually is. Muska was almost positive that there were some heavy negative consequences to that kind of approach to emotional processing. She may not be a therapist, but her dad had been one so she knew, at least, the basics. Plus, who lives for centuries without gaining some kind of mental instability? At some point she was going to convince her to attend therapy, she just has to find a qualified therapist to handle a young adult vampire with years of memories and possible trauma to get through.

For now though? She was going to focus on her coffee, lovingly made with the higher end brand of coffee Eras had express shipped to their house because she’s desperate like that. Eras also chose not to give Tibbles treats for the next week as punishment which caused Muska to carry around headphones to ignore the loud and meowed complaints voiced during the entire discussion.

The calm and quiet atmosphere that had settled in that morning was shattered by the sound of a blender going off and Tibbles flinging himself from the table to the air and back. A grumbled [Bitch] followed right afterwards which caused Muska to cackle at her familiar.

“Smoothie time huh? It has been awhile since you last ate.” Muska mumbled, even over the sound of a loud ass blender she knew Eras could hear her. Her hearing was freakishly good.

The blender stopped and a few moments passed before the scratch of a pulled out chair was followed by the thump of a physical body collapsing in said chair. Looking up from her coffee, Muska cringed a bit at what she saw.

“Yea, I just… I’ve been a bit tired recently.” Eras looked deader than usual. The pale white skin was bordering on translucent a bit and the deep eyebags normally kept at bay were back full force.

Sighing, Muska sent Eras a rather pointed look. She knew her friend refused to fully sleep so instead she relied on the energy boost coffee and blood gives her to keep going. Along with maintaining a vegetative state close to meditation to make up for not sleeping. Eras rarely ever truly slept and whenever she did she was always off the next day. Energized, but also wary. On edge. Probably nightmares but Eras sleeps in the observatory to prevent Muska from hearing anything so she couldn’t confirm.

Eras ignored her stare in favor of sipping on the smoothie in front of her.

Sighing, Muska dropped the conversation. Eras would just clam up if she pressed further.

After getting ready and heading out, taking the train this time, Muska ran into Midoriya and Uraraka on the way to school. They greeted her with sunshine smiles and dragged her into the conversation. When they got to UA and were still conversing, she had almost missed the loud and angry demands made near the gate of UA.

Reporters.

Muska hates crowds with a passion and they brought one to her school.

Safe to say she absolutely hates them now.

Muska sighed and racked her brain for anything that could help in a situation like this. Energy could be manipulated to push them aside but that’d be a public quirk use law infraction. Witch stuff then. The type to be hidden in plain view. Manipulative…..

Muska grabbed her two new friends' arms and led them through the reporters with ease. The crowd moving and melding around them but not actually recognizing. She was using the energy produced by the human body to limit the signals sent to the brain and pushed the thoughts of “not here” and “just another reporter” to prevent them from being recognized.

She heard the soft mumbled “This is so cool…” behind her from Midoriya and she almost lost her control a bit in her surprise. That would’ve been a nightmare.

They managed to get through unscathed and passed by Aizawa-sensei, keeping the reporters back and helping other students through. Present Mic, or Yamada-sensei as he wanted to be called, was there with him whispering about something.

When they reached the classroom, a sigh escaped Muska as she finally relaxed. There weren’t too many other classmates present, probably due to the reporters outside, and those that were there were relatively quiet. Besides Iida, though it looks like he was refraining from speaking just yet, he did give a nod in their direction though so that was possibly Muska’s fault.

She just really hates when people have a strict view on how you're supposed to operate and act, hates being controlled like that.

Muska Bee-lined for her seat and sat down with a thud as she hooked her book bag on the side of the desk. Relaxing into her seat. Midoriya sat in his seat in front of her and Uraraka deposited her bag on her desk before making her way over to continue talking.

“By the way,” Uraraka started, turning to face Muska who was slowly collapsing in on herself for a nap, “I never got to ask but how were you yesterday? I managed to see Mido here before he left the school yesterday so I was able to ask him but you disappeared.”

Muska sat confused for a second before her brain caught up to the attention.

“Ah, my guardian came to the school for the meeting about what happened and she took me home.” She explained.

“Your guardian?” Uraraka and Midoriya echoed before they both shut their mouths with a click, Uraraka jumped in before Mido to stammer out “Ah! sorry that's rude to inquire about!”

Muska just waved her hand in a dismissive gesture.

“It’s fine. My guardian is a friend and a friend of my family. When My parents passed away a long time ago, she took me in.” Which was the truth. Eras had found Muska when she had just joined the veil and had promised to take her in after her parents passed away. It’s just that her parents died of old age and not an ‘accident’.

The two nodded before Uraraka brightened again.

“What are they like?!” She asked, hands waving around as if getting rid of extra energy.

“Her name is Eras, so Viridis Eras. She's nice and a bitch.”

Uraraka sputtered and Midoriya muffled a snort. Iida snapped his head around with wide eyes but didn’t actually snap out an etiquette speech. Instead, he grumbled a bit and headed over. Before she could even glare, Iida bowed.

What?

“I wished to apologize for my actions regarding you the past couple of times! I spoke with my brother and he agreed that your advice was applicable to the way the world truly works and so I shall better myself and that starts with an apology!”

Muska was speechless. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Uraraka and Midoriya smiling knowing smiles towards Iida so they had probably had a word with him outside of school. That didn’t help her though. Iida was very earnest in a way she had never actually seen in a person before holy hell. What kind of childhood do you live to be this engaged all the time?

“Ah, sure, apology accepted?”

The rest of that morning was spent with Muska listening to her two friends and Iida talk about what could be happening today. Though Robocop did manage to complain about her calling Eras a bitch before class started, it wasn’t as heavy as his usual lectures.

Muska just wants normality please and thank you, but based on this morning so far she doubts she’ll receive a normal day. That thought plagued her throughout the class representative vote and her first few educational classes. (Was she getting different paperwork? She was definitely getting different paperwork...) The bell rang and her classmates all started congregating to head to the cafeteria while Muska just sighed and got up from her seat. Today was definitely not going to be normal and though she wanted to be wrong, it was not to be.

She just didn’t expect an alarm to prove her right.

The minute the alarm started blaring in the middle of Lunch, Muska did as any student that's been through American public education does. She kept eating. The rest of her classmates that had sat at her table, Mido Uraraka and Iida (for some reason), had already jumped up and started running towards the glorified mob at the doors. She just finished off her absolute heaven of a meal, Eras should meet this Lunch Rush dude (Midoriya had fanboyed loud enough for her to learn his name) their collective chef skills would crush Gordan Ramsey’s taste buds and have Guy Fieri screaming flavor town.

Vaguely, she heard Iida shouting about something and a cheery ‘PLUS ULTRA’ shout but she paid little attention. Instead, she headed back to class.

She would later come to regret not paying closer attention that afternoon.

If she did? She would have noticed the oil like energy tainting the harmony of the school.

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

Tags:

@baguettehead

#bnha #bnhaoc #bnhafanfiction #mha #mhaoc #mha fanfic recs #au

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minthysugamon · 4 years

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Barell of a Gun (Hitman! Jimin x Reader)

(Warnings: This one is pretty dark. Please don't read if you feel uncomfortable at the mentions of Paid Murder,Gambling,Uncomfortable Situations and Kidnapping. This doesn't depict Jimin's real personality. It's only a work of fiction. Please don't associate Jimin with this after you read it,he isn't like that in real life. IT IS ONLY A WORK OF FICTION BASED ON A JAMES BOND-AGENT 47 TYPE OF CONDUCTING LINE)

Word count: 2045

As soon as night has fallen,he started to get ready. Pen,check. Knives,check. 9mm,check. Everything was going perfectly. Park Jimin never paid attention to the victim. At least,he never let his emotions rule over the goal he had in front of him. And that goal was the 1,000,000$ he will get after he eliminated the person in the portfolio. It's a well paid price,and until he does the job without being noticed,it's worth it. He never accorded time to his emotions. It's a rational job,find the person,eliminate them,get paid. Nothing really hard. He prefers to say eliminate because killing would make his targets look like victims,whilst most of them are just rotten people.

"Agent 91,welcome. Please type in the password to unlock." His computer displayed the following words. He typed it in once. Doesn't work. The fourth time,same thing happened. "Fuck. Not again. I don't have time for this shit right now." Jimin was starting to get agitated. The fifth time,he just scanned his retina,hoping it would work. And it did. Thankfully. Because if it hadn't,the whole fuck-up would've cost him a lot of money and primarily his life,probably.

While sitting in the car,you had some Depeche Mode song your brother was blasting earlier in his room,stuck on repeat in your head. It was called Barrel of a Gun or something,the guitar riff was kinda cool so it stuck to your neurones. The ride to the casino was accompanied by an awkward silence,your date for the night has chosen some pompous place to dine at and now wanted to go gamble some money away. He was the son of some rich politician at your school,of course he would do something like that. "Did you like the meal?" The guy placed a hand on your knee,not as if you had asked,but for the moment you didn't do anything. "Yes,i liked it,even thought the wine was a little bit dry for my taste." He simply smirked and rolled up the partition in the back of the Limousine before his hand has made its way higher up on your thigh. "Well..if it can comfort you,i know that something won't be as dry as the wine tonight." Breaking point. You took his hand into yours and simply smiled. "Jacques,listen. I appreciate your gestures and all,but please,please,pretty please,don't ever fucking touch me again without me consenting to it." You heard a pop coming from the bone of his hand,not realising you were literally almost breaking it so you had let it go.

Jimin had stepped into the grand hall of the Casino of Monte Carlo,getting the casual verifications done. He stood at the roulette table,and since he had some time to kill,he didn't mind gambling away some thousands. The main point was to blend in,not to be outstanding. "Mesdames,Messieurs,Faites-vos jeux." He had forgotten how wonderful the french language sounds...as wonderful as a cat choking on some plastic wrap. His bet was put on the number 3,his lucky number. Not that he was superstitious,but it always brought him chance,so...why not this time? "Les Jeux sont faits." As soon as the roulette started spinning,he looked around himself and finally saw his target. But it wasn't planned that he will have company.

Sitting besides Jacques while he was playing a hand,needless to say,it was more than just boring. You never wanted to go home as much as you did now. Plus,the high-heels were killing your feet,it was a plus reason for you to just get up and leave. But you didn't. Simply because he was already kind enough to take you on a date,so,you had nothing more to do than just sit beside him and observe. Jacques wasn't good at Poker,even if he liked to think the opposite,and his loss was already over 100,000€. If he were a simple man,he would already be indebted,but it wasn't the case. The game only started to be interesting when another man sat down at the table and joined the party.

"May i?" Jimin asked with a small smile on his lips. He knew his target was beside him,it will be easier to calculate his every moves. But he didn't realise it will be harder since you were in the frame too. As soon as the game started,he saw that the guy wasn't good at playing,only bluffing,so,he took this to his advantage and told himself he will use the "I'm just tryna help you bro" card later. Jimin's eyes were mostly on you though,and he didn't calculate his emotions,but he would've been lying if he said you weren't beautiful.

You were looking at the cards in Jacques's hands. Seeing the 3 others on the table,he was already fucked,but of course,he had to bluff. "50,bet" echoed from the man beside you and everyone folded. Except one. The new player at the table. "Oh...i see you play with big amounts...let me make it more interesting then. Calling 1600." The black haired man's proposition made you jump a little bit. It wasn't only 1600€,but 1,600,000. "So..? What do you think? Reasonable proposition,no? Or...are you scared of losing?" The guy smirked and your partner stood up. "I'm going for a smoke. Pause the game." "Man,it isn't such a bad proposition,but okay...let's say 1,400,000 to save your honor." He followed Jacques to the balcony. Which was a pretty bad idea knowing how he can get when he's angry,you knew how out of hand the situation could get,he was the same at Uni. Anger Issues was his middle name.

Jimin was only trying to provoke the poor guy. Poor...let's not say that. He was the kid of an asshole that got rich by scamming poor people. Let alone,the father was a politician. The only way for Jimin to attain his final target was to hurt him. Not that he had to,but it was more effective this way. "Stop fucking following me. I have enough of your gimmicks. I saw how you were looking at him. You're on a date with me,not him." The hitman simply laughed. "Oh..you thought your little girlfriend came after you? Believe me,she has better things to do. Now,if you excuse me..." Gun cocked. Silencer already on. And fire. The bullet went straight through the younger one's head,in between the eyes. "Bull's eye. Good." As the body of the guy has fallen,Jimin started to wipe his silencer and put the pistol away. Too bad the girl was at the balcony as he did it.

"What the fuck have you done? WHO THE FU-" You screamed at him,but the scream hadn't live to its full potential as the guy from the table had silenced you with a hit to your head. You woke up five hours later,tied to a chair,in a living room in some old ass apartment,still propably in southern France. "Rise and shine babygirl,you're safe now. My name is...you have no buisness knowing it,but call me 91. Or Jay. Whatever suits you." As you looked around you,you saw nothing you could recognise. Only the feeling of the rag on your mouth was prominent,with the bounds around your wrists and legs. "I guess i should take off the gag...but can i trust you to not scream?" You nodded,already planning to get away somehow. As Jay took off the gag you inhaled and tried to scream but he had his hand in front of your mouth. "I should've killed you when i had the chance. I didn't need any kind of witnesses. But here i am,trying to plan out something so you don't talk. Now. Stop screaming or i'll send a bullet flying through your brain. Also..what's your name again?" He knew it of course...but wanted to hear it as he took off his hand of your mouth and looked at you. "Wasn't that your initial plan? And my name is (Y/n)." The sass in your words left him surprised enough to smile and unload his gun. "Wow,getting sassy i see. I like it." "Why did you kill him? Was it because he was involved in some shady buisness?" You talked way more than you should have. And Jimin liked that. More information means more time...which means a better approach towards the target. "What do i look like? A social justice warrior? Honey,i get paid for shit like this. But now,my only problem is you. What should i do with you? You weren't in the frame. And now you are here,bound to a chair...don't get me wrong,i like the view,but you shouldn't have wandered away from that goddamn table yesterday." You simply lowered your head and looked at his hands. He was fidgeting. Unable to decide what he should do. "You should probably kill me then. I mean,if i am too much to handle,and since you know i'll be talking as soon as i get out of here,you should just choke me to death...quick and effective." He smiled and took your chin with two fingers so you were looking into his eyes. "Let me think about it. But i already know i won't kill you...in the end,you're truly innocent so..there would be no fun in that." "So...you're pretty much a social justice warrior then" He let your chin go and stood up to walk around the apartment.

Jimin knew killing you would've made too much mess,plus,cleaning the whole appartment after it would have taken too much time. Plus...he kinda started to like you. You were the type of girl he could settle with. So he went with plan B...or more like,he wanted to go with plan b which was about to let you go and threaten you to not talk. But as soon as he heard footsteps coming towards the apartment,Jimin changed his mind and chose Plan C. "You'll be coming with me. We have to get away. I already lost more than 3 hours with you getting in my way."

You were quickly untied and he secured a gun around your thigh. "You know how to use one? Just in case,to be safe." Why on earth would he give you a gun? "I could kill you right now if i wanted." "Yeah,i know,but you don't want to. That's the positive point. Now open the window and get out." God knows why you obeyed him,but it was almost automatic. Did you like the rush of the situation? Maybe yes. Maybe it was simply because you were scared...maybe it was because you kind of liked the way the whole situation turned out. He was following you as soon as he cleared the area,and unlocked his car. "Get in. I'll be here soon. No more than 2 minutes." "Huh? Where the fuck are you going?" "Getting my shit and then i'll be here." And with that,he was already on his way.

No more than two minutes after,he was back with his suitcase and the briefcase containing some papers,his pc and most importantly,the money. "Buckle the belt. We'll be on the road for 10 to 15 hours..." "Where are we going?" He simply smiled and turned the engine on. "Let that be a surprise..." "So...you're pretty much kidnapping me,right?"

He chuckled and looked into the rear-view mirror. "It's better than the barrel of a gun against your head at least. And...you'll see,it won't be as bad as you think."

Was this really the life you were about to live? Probably. Was it safe? Probably not,but did you have any other choice? No. But...little did you know,it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

(Y'all,i'm sorry if it is bad...i really wanted something different but in the end idk...it doesn't seem good to me...i let you all be the judge)

#bts #bts scenarios #bts au #jimin au #bts jimin #park jimin #jimin #jimin x reader #bts hitman au #hitman au #bts imagines #bts scenario

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itsanerdlife · 5 years

Text

Bad For You 15/28

Pairing: Howie Stark x Reader

Warning: Fuckboy manners. Violence. Reader gets cheated on. Language. Lies. Flirting. Cattiness. Arguing. A few slaps. Sassiness. Slutty boys. Frat Boy bullshit.

A/N: College AU. For my sister, cause I finally gave in. Haha.

“You don’t know me like that.” “Mmm bet I do, baby girl. You want a bad boy who will be good for only you. I’m that guy. Like I want a good girl who’s bad for only me. That’s you, baby girl.”

Howie Stark made one hell of an impression. It started off with mistaken identity. A hand on your ass, your hand across his cheek. What should have pissed him off, set him off differently. Howie Stark is enticed by you and you are so fucked. Bad boy, never afraid of a fight, such a smooth talker, womanizer, and always on your mind. It just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right, you have a boyfriend. Howie’s making everything’s a little blurry. You’re a little cynical and bad boys just aren’t your type. Or could that change with a flash of Howie’s crooked grin?

Tag List Is Open!!

Y/N: Are you going to tell me what we’re doing tonight? Howie: Fall things. Y/N: So it’s going to be cold? Howie: Wear a sweatshirt. I’ll bring my jacket just in case. Y/N: This is still not telling me what we’re doing lol. Howie: You’ll see. Pick you up at six. Y/N: You’re ridiculously frustrating Stark. Howie: ;)

Howie pulls into a massive open lot, filled with cars. The unoccupied land has been converted into a Fall festival. You bite your bottom lip, grinning as your eyes scan the fun waiting. Howie is pulling open your door for you.

“A festival?” You grin at him.

“Absolutely. Cute things like corn mazes and hay rides.” He slips his arm over your shoulders. “Or if you want to get up close and personal, there’s the haunted version.” His head tips to the other side of the lot. It’s all dark and spooky, horror like.

“Oh you were just covering all the bases huh?” You laugh, grinning up at him.

“I mean, I like running home runs.” He winks, tugging you in closer. The two of you walking through the opening of the festival.

“Fucking Tempest.” You laugh, rolling your eyes.

“I’m just going to say it.” Howie chuckles, sipping from the little foam cup in his hand.

“What?” You ask, holding tightly to your own.

“Apple Cider is the superior fall drink, fuck Pumpkin Spice.” He grins.

“Be careful, you probably just offended the pumpkin spice society of girls, and they may attack.” You snort.

“They have bad taste.” Howie shakes his head slowly.

“Howie, do you have any idea how many woman you’ve hooked up with that probably love pumpkin spice?” You snort.

“I’ve never asked.” He shrugs.

“So if they have bad taste, what are you saying about yourself?” You wonder.

“They have bad taste.” He repeats with a nod.

“So I have bad taste?” You lift a brow.

Howie doesn’t reply as the two of you take the little map from the lady at the entrance of the maze. You start down the opening, letting others move past you as you both walk at a slow pace. Neither of you in a rush.

“I’m not the same guy that was hooking up with those girls. So I can’t say you have bad taste, I mean you probably do. You gave me the time of day, and I’ve never been a good guy.” He shrugs. You watch him for a moment, sipping your hot cider.

“Because you were doing hook ups?” You wonder.

“No. Yes.” He sighs. “I guess, yes. But it was worse than that. I barely cared to ask their names or know anything about them. Just as long as they understood it wasn’t more than what it was. I didn’t do repeats or more than a few hours of the night.” He admits with a sad look on his face.

“But?”

“But you slapped me, and I swear to god, everything changed.” His brow pinches together slightly. “I’m like my dad, copy and paste. I’m a slut, selfish, egotistical, a dick with an I.Q in Einstein range.” He chews his bottom lip. “He barely kept my mom, he put her through hell. But they over came it, had us, my little sister.” He nods.

“My parents always say it’s the real love that weathers any storm in it’s path. Real love isn’t easy and sometimes it hurts.” You nod.

“Sometimes I think I’m too much like my dad to have that.” He shrugs.

“Really?” You smirk looking at him.

“All honesty, Y/N.” He stops looking at you. “I didn’t want to change my ways. I always figured I’d end up alone for life. I’m nothing but walking heartbreak. Till you slapped me. I felt that shit for days, not the pain. The thrill from your skin on mine. When you wouldn’t give me the time of day, something in me wanted to be better. Be different, for you.” He admits.

“Well if I’m honest, I felt the same. That thrill.” You smile softly, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “I can’t explain it, but you make me throw caution to the wind. I live for the thrill I get being with you, or around you.” You shrug.

“Good girl that’s bad.” Howie grins, nodding.

“Bad boy that’s good.” You smirk. He steps closer, leaning down to brush his lips against yours.

“Come on let’s get lost.” He takes your free hand in his. Both of you heading into the maze.

“So tell me something, I should know. Like since we’re a couple.” You ask as you round a corner.

“My name’s actually Howard.” He chuckles.

“Oh my god. Why?” You laugh.

“After my grandpa. Peter’s middle name is Benjamin.” He laughs.

“Wow, your mom thought she was having little old men, not fuck boys.” You snort.

“Former.” Howie corrects you. “At least for myself.”

“Of course.” You nod.

“How about you?” He smiles down at you.

“I have a girls night on Monday’s that’s supposed to a be a study group, but we usually get drunk and gossip.” You laugh.

“So you’re not free Mondays.” Howie nods, chuckling.

“Well at least till nine.” You snort.

“I’ll expect drunk texts.” He winks at you.

“Fuck that, drunk snaps.” You grin as Howie laughs.

Standing in line at the Haunted House, Howie’s hand slip around the waist of your black skinny jeans. His thumbs tucked under your red hoodie, brushing against the bare skin they find. He dips his head, kissing you softly, deeply. Warming you.

When he pulls back you shiver at the loss. He slips out of his leather jacket quickly. He helps you into it, leaving him in his black hoodie. He pulls you into his side, tucking you under his arm. You notice a group of girls watching the two of you.

“We go to school with them don’t we?” You ask, looking up at Howie. He presses his lips together, nodding.

“We do. I’ve seen a few groups from the college around tonight.” He explains.

“Howie, they’re watching us.” You lift a brow.

“Good, let them.” He smirks, winking at you.

You couldn’t even help the smile on your face. He wasn’t keeping you a secret, you had to give him credit. He really was trying to be better than the stories about him. Somehow you’d made him into a better person, by slapping him. Who would have thought.

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

Everything Peaches 9/3/19 @mo320 @courtmr @avxgers @eliza-kat @irepeldirt @jordan-ia @jcc04220 @dumblani @nishanki1 @allyp1023 @joannie95 @rogvewitch @rileyloves5 @sarahp879 @sexyvixen7 @doctoranon @queentoffee @abschaffer2 @tony-stank3 @tomhardy41 @bookluver01 @teller258316 @nickimarie94 @wandressfox @cutekittybast @amandab-ftw @carostar2020 @thelostallycat @henrietteoaks @nea90sweetie @circusofchaos @bettercallsabs @miraclesoflove @queenkrissy11 @shield-agent78 @elite4cekalyma @sadyoungadult @destiel-artemis @isabelcrichards @iwillbeinmynest @sweet-honey15 @scooby-doodoo @chanelmadrid13 @killerbumblebee @spookygrantaire @geeksareunique @supernatural508 @itzmegaaaaaaan @optimistic-babes @elizabethaellison @rainbowkisses31 @aspiringtranslator @mariekoukie6661 @pure-princess-97 @capsheadquaters @youclickedthislink @futuremrsb-r-main @lovemarvelousfics @notyourtypicalrose @petersunderoos96 @loving-life-my-way @itsy-bitsy-spidergirl @buckystolemyheart @booktvmoviefangirl @thatpeachybandgirl @supernatural-girl97 @thefridgeismybestie @dumbbitchenergytm @eggingamazinglove @deathofmissjackson @awkwardfangirl2014 @queenoftheunderdark @laneygthememequeen @writingaworldofmyown @shann-the-artist-moon @supernaturallover2002 @daughterofthenight117 @mcuwillbethedeathofme @verymuchclosetedfangirl @for-the-love-of-the-fandom @ocaptain-mycaptainmorgan @crazy-little-thing-called-buck @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @stupendoussciencenaturepanda @supernatural-strangerthings-1980

Howie 'Damn Boy' Stark: @gabile18 @crayonwriting @callme-barnes @untoasted-ravioli

BFY: @sfreeborn @coley0823 @lakamaa12 @amberdawn-01 @honey-bee-holly @intricate-melody @itsmejessicasstuff @badassbeckettswan

#Marvel #OFC!Howie Stark x Reader #Avengers #OFC!Howie x Reader #Bad For You #Marvel Fanfiction #OFC!Howie Stark Series #Avengers Fanfiction #OFC!Howie Series

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palendromicdragonrider · 5 years

Text

Turn Back the Hands - Part 1

Claude sat on his bed, carefully going over each elegant letter of the four-word note in his hands. The note that had been slid under his door in the middle of the night. That he had nearly passed over as another discarded page of his own hand. That he only took notice of due to the sharp edges with which it had been carefully folded, more carefully than Claude himself would have ever attempted.

I’ll fucking kill you.

It’s just a prank, Claude wanted to tell himself. Something to rile him up, probably from one of the students in the Black Eagle house. They were certainly more uptight than usual, ever since the Golden Deer won the mock battle last month. Especially Edelgard, who was so certain that the Black Eagles were going to be unbeatable. Claude nearly smirked to himself, thinking of the look on her face when Jeralt announced the Golden Deer as the winners. Her eyes had appeared ready to burst into flames.

Of course, it had little to do with the Golden Deer’s own might. Had Byleth not chosen to lead them, there was no way they would have won the mock battle. They would have put up a fight, sure, but their victory could only be credited to their teacher who guided the battle. Claude shoved the note in his pocket and sighed. He still had no idea why Byleth had chosen to lead their house. The Black Eagles were far more noble, and even the Blue Lions had an unwavering sense of duty and morality that Claude had to admire. The Golden Deer were a mess in comparison to the other two houses. Claude could hardly keep the group in line before Byleth showed up. Especially when Lorenz was present. The thought of him made Claude frown. He could not understand what that guy’s problem was. Sure, Claude was a surprise heir that undermined Lorenz’s position, but that wasn’t Claude’s fault. It didn’t help matters that Lorenz was also a total douchebag.

The bell tolled the hour of the morning, pulling Claude out of his musings. “Shit,” he said to himself. He was late. Claude leapt from his bed and opened his door. Halfway down the hall, he had to turn around and go back. He nearly forgot his bow. “Shit shit shit!” he muttered the whole way out of the dorms.

The morning was bright and the air was crisp with the remnants of spring. Students and monastery staff alike stared at Claude as he rushed past. “You’re la-ate,” a girl said in a sing-songy voice to him. Claude beamed at the girl in a way that he hoped was interpreted as playful.

“Gotta keep ‘em on edge!” he replied with a wink. The girl and her friend giggled at him, but his back was already facing them. Claude wondered absently how the girl recognized him. Maybe she was also in the Golden Deer house. There were easily a hundred students attending the monastery, but Claude often only interacted with the ones in his group for monthly missions: Hilda, Lorenz, Ignatz, Raphael, Lysithea, Leonie, and Marianne. None of whom he knew particularly well. Growing up in another nation put him at a disadvantage in the friends department. Claude sighed, thinking not for the first time that he would have preferred an easier first mission together. The Blue Lions were on weapon inventory, and the Black Eagles were helping a neighboring town with a mild land dispute. It wasn’t that Claude wanted to shirk the work—despite what other people thought of him, Claude considered himself a hard worker when given the right motivation—but he really wanted the time to get to know his classmates. He was never going to succeed as a ruler if he could not even govern seven other students. He shook the thought. He had to hurry. For once, his tardiness actually mattered, but thankfully the monastery was not too big. He ran faster.

“What a surprise,” Lorenz called as he caught sight of Claude. “Leave it to our illustrious future leader to be late on the eve of battle. I nearly expected you to hide in your room while we fought for you.”

“And good morning to you too, Lorenz,” Claude said, his grin more forced than it was before. He stopped in front of the massive wooden gates that led outside of the school’s grounds, panting slightly. Most of his classmates averted their eyes. Save for Lysithea, none of them liked to get involved in the conflict between Lorenz and Claude. Hell, even Claude did not like to get involved in the conflict between Lorenz and Claude. He thought about the note crumpled in his pocket. Maybe it was from Lorenz. . .

“Oh, leave him alone,” Lysithea said, her tone sounding almost bored. “The bell rang no more than five minutes ago. Hilda is not here yet either, not that anyone should be surprised by that.”

“I tried to wake her up this morning,” Marianne squeaked. “But she was sleeping so soundly—“

“It doesn’t matter whether she shows up on time—or even shows up at all!” Lorenz interrupted. “She is not heir to the throne—“

“Technically, Claude is not heir to a throne, either. I think you’ve been hanging out with Ferdinand too often,” Leonie corrected him. Claude tried not to smile. Lorenz hated being corrected, especially by a commoner. The idea that anyone not of noble blood could know anything besides their own name was a shock to Lorenz. The thought sobered Claude’s mood again. Lorenz’s behavior was only another reminder of why he was not fit to rule.

“You know what I mean!” Lorenz huffed. He opened his mouth as if to continue, then clamped it shut again as something caught his eye. The rest of the students looked in the same direction. Byleth approached the group, as stoic and unreadable as ever. Despite only being a few years older than them, Byleth held an authority and wisdom that was unmatched by most adults two or three times her age. Even Lorenz appeared bashful in her presence.

“Good morning, class,” she said in a low, even voice.

“Good morning, professor,” the students replied.

“Morning, Teach!” Claude beamed. Lorenz rolled his eyes.

“Where is Hilda?” Byleth asked, not missing a beat.

“Sleeping, probably,” Leonie answered flatly, her arms crossed over her chest. Byleth frowned.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “I could have sworn I saw her at breakfast—“

“You did!” A voice beamed from the other side of the gate. Hilda approached the circle. “I had a feeling that you guys would expect me to sleep in. Which honestly, is so unfair. I may not be the most excited soldier ever, but I know how to prioritize. Anyway, so I woke up this morning—“

“Why don’t you tell us on the road?” Byleth asked. “The bandits are not going to subdue themselves, and we have a good day’s journey ahead of us.”

“Of course, professor,” Hilda said with a hop, straightening her back.

“Everyone, get to your horses. I intend to be out that gate in ten minutes. We will review the details of our mission when we take our evening stop.”

The students all hastened to their horses, fastening saddle bags and checking their weapons. Claude lazily approached his own mare. He packed light, so there was little to check. Once his bags and bow were secured to his content, Claude mounted the mare and pat her shaggy neck. A nagging sensation told him he was being watched. Claude looked up, meeting eyes with Byleth. She was already on her mount, dressed in armor rather than her usual teaching uniform. Claude realized he had not seen her dressed as she was since the night he met her. The night she saved his life. The thought of seeing her in a true battle again excited him. Never in his life had he encountered such an expert with a sword. Claude knew he had much to learn from her, on and off the battlefield. Dare he admit it, but he admired her. He only wished he knew what it was that she saw in him as a student.

Byleth prodded her horse gently so it would walk up alongside Claude’s mare. “How are you today?” she asked him.

“As fine as every day, Teach,” Claude replied, putting on the same smile that he had used on the two girls on his way to the gates. Byleth’s expression did not change.

“Are you ready for this mission?” she asked.

“Of course I am! I’m actually rather excited. I hardly got a taste of battle the last time I was out in the field.” And you barely let me fight at all during the mock battle, he thought, but did not say.

“Experience can only take you so far, if your mind is on other things,” Byleth replied. Claude frowned, feeling as if the note in his pocket would burn a hole in the fabric. He hated feeling like an open book.

“Teach, I’m offended!” he said, trying to keep his tone playful. “My mind is only on keeping my classmates safe, and making a good impression on you.”

Something about that almost made Byleth smile. Almost. If Claude had not seen her eyes crinkle for an instant, he would have missed it altogether. “You don’t need to worry about impressing me,” Byleth said. She turned the horse away before Claude could reply. “If everyone is ready, let’s move out!”

They stopped to make camp at the base of Zanado just before the sun set. Each of the students set up tents in a circle, boys on one side and girls on the other, with hired battalions and the knights of Seiros surrounding them for protection. Mission or no mission, they were still students. Still kids. It would not go well if Byleth returned to the monastery without everyone intact.

Lorenz complained about having to pitch his own tent. Claude did his best to ignore him. The other two boys in their class were commoners, sons of merchant families, so they were far more used to this kind of travel. Leonie herself had her tent up before everyone else. Claude vaguely remembered her saying that she used to hunt with her father. Despite her low birth, Claude realized she was probably the most-qualified student for the upcoming battle. She was probably the only one who had experience making a kill.

Well, her and Claude. He had to remind himself of that. Claude did not see the man he had killed that first night with Byleth, the bandit who was after him and the other two house leaders, Edelgard and Dimitri. All he remembered was the shadow approaching from the trees, letting an arrow fly, a grunt. . . And the shadow was gone. Claude didn’t even bother retrieving the arrow. He did not want to look death in the face when he had caused it.

“But you got your tent up so quickly, what is the harm in aiding a fellow classmate?” Lorenz demanded from Ignatz. He towered over the merchant’s son, gesturing between Ignatz’s perfectly pitched tent and his own mess of tarp and poles. Ignatz looked up at him with wide eyes, fumbling between words as Lorenz inched closer to his face. Raphael, who out-matched Lorenz’s tall wiry frame with his thick and solid one, stood between the two.

“We all have to do our own work,” he said. Claude found himself surprised—not for the first time—at how mild the giant’s voice was when he spoke. “It’s how we learn to gain some independence as well as cooperate with others. How can you work well with people if you do not appreciate the work that they do?”

“That’s a foolish notion! I appreciate the work of several people in my life without doing the same work they do. I appreciate the servants that made my bed every day back home, the tailor who provided me with such fine-fitting clothes—“

“Lorenz,” Byleth called from the other side of the camp. “You will set up your own tent tonight. If that is too much work for you, I will be more than happy to assign you to the stables or to weeding duty all next week to teach you what work really is.” Lysithea and Hilda both snickered beside her. Even Leonie seemed to suppress a smile.

Lorenz frowned, but he did not argue with her. He stepped away from Raphael and Ignatz, who sighed audibly and adjusted his glasses. Claude resumed setting up his own tent. No sense rubbing it in Lorenz’s face. That could be the difference between Claude receiving aide or a knife in his back the next day. Life was dangerous enough without stirring up unnecessary trouble.

When Claude had his tent set up, he took a step back to admire his work. The poles were a little crooked, sure, but it was sturdy enough. It would keep him warm and dry for the night. That was what mattered. He scanned the rest of the campsite to see how his classmates fared. Lorenz, at last, had his tent up. It looked similar to Claude’s, if not a little more unstable. Raphael and Ignatz chatted lightly on the other side of him, their work done several minutes prior. Leonie tested her bow strings by the trees next to her perfectly-pitched tent. Lysithea was nowhere to be found, but a dim light could be seen from the inside her modest shelter. Claude assumed she had her nose stuck in a book. Beside her tent was Hilda’s. . .if it could be called a tent. One gust of wind would surely bring the teetering structure down. Byleth’s tent stood as tall and proud as she was. At the end of the circle, where the boy’s half touched the girl’s half again, Marianne was pacing in and out of her low, long tent.

Claude sighed. That girl is a wreck, he thought. Still, he had to get to know these people better. Marianne was shy and a little skittish, but not unfriendly. She might be an easy starting point. “Hey, Marianne?” Claude called. Marianne jumped. Her eyes darted back and forth, looking for who had said her name.

“Oh! My Lord Claude,” she said with a bow as he approached.

“Just ‘Claude’ is fine, Marianne,” Claude said. “Do you need a hand? You look like you’re in a—erm—in a predicament.”

“I can’t find my sword,” Marianne said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I thought you were a magic user? Why on Fódlan would you need a sword?” He did not mean to laugh, but he did. Just a little.

“Magic is finite,” Marianne explained. “And if I run out before the fight is over—“ she wrung her hands. Her eyes met Claude’s, two intense pools of blue. “I don’t want to—“

“Okay, class. Gather around,” Byleth called. Marianne jumped. She bowed to Claude again and approached their professor. Claude’s brow furrowed. Marianne seemed. . . Flightier than normal. If such a thing was possible. It would have to be dealt with later. If Byleth called, he would have to follow, as well. Perhaps Marianne did not want Byleth to think she was ignoring her. Claude joined the gathering in the center of camp. “You all should know the general details of our mission by now,” Byleth began again, now that all eight students were within ear shot. “A group of bandits have been attacking the surrounding villages. We discovered that their base is up in Zanado—commonly referred to as the Red Canyon—above us. Our mission is to disband them at all costs.” She paused to look each of her students in the eye. “This is different from a mock battle. There will be no wooden swords, no holding back the swing of your blade, no hitting the space just next to your opponent with a fire blast. I know most of you have not killed before, and I won’t demean you by pretending it won’t change you. But let me remind you that these men are killers, and letting them live would be the same as failing to protect the people of the valley. One life taken tomorrow may save a dozen more in the future. Lives that matter more than those of murderers.”

Byleth’s words made the students squirm, most of them clutching their arms or shifting back and forth on their feet. Claude wondered if, until this moment, many of them had forgotten that Byleth was a mercenary before becoming their teacher. The only reason she remained at the monastery was because the archbishop Rhea had asked it of her. Denying the request of the church’s head was as if to deny the church itself. And that request had only been made the month before. A few weeks of teaching would not wash away the years of ferocity that came from killing for a living. It was that same ferocity that drew Claude to Byleth in the first place. He doubted they would succeed on tomorrow’s mission if Byleth had chosen to pamper them.

“I won’t blame you for being hesitant about tomorrow’s mission, but that does not mean you can hang back during the fight. The knights will be spread too thin and far to do the fighting for you. Let me assure you, though, it is not my intention to throw caution to the wind. I want you all to gain experience, but your lives are more important to me than anything. That is why I assigned battalions to a handful of you, with the intention of grouping the remaining students with those who have guards with them. The strategy for tomorrow is—“

Claude tuned out Byleth’s words. He knew the plan front and back already, having been the one to help her hammer out the details of the mission with Rhea and the knights the days before. He was much more interested now in the reactions from his classmates. Some pairs would work better together than others. As Byleth listed off each pair, Claude took note of the reactions around the circle to see if he needed to recommend any last-minute changes to Byleth for the next day.

Claude himself was to be paired with Raphael. He had been gifted with his own personal mini-army the moment he enrolled in the officer’s academy. His grandfather saw to that personally. Since they had no other current uses, they acted as Claude’s battalion during missions. Raphael hardly needed the protection, as he preferred close-hand combat. Still, he had the least experience out of all of them, and despite his eagerness to be a knight one day, he was a complete softie. Claude figured he would need some proper motivation on the battlefield. Motivation that he could undoubtedly give. Hilda and Ignatz would be under Hilda’s guard, which Claude thought was a grand idea. For all her laziness, Hilda was a tank with an axe in her hands. Ignatz would make a great support from a distance, without having to worry about being in the way of her blade. Lysithea and Lorenz would be paired together, and while they were hardly on friendly terms with each other, they oddly made a good pair. Lorenz would never let a woman be harmed in his presence, as he saw it as part of his “noble duty” to help women at every opportunity. Conversely, as Lysithea could use her magic at a distance, she did not have to put up with his bullshit at close range. And on the off chance she would need to, she could handle him better than the other girls in her class. Lastly, Byleth listed off Leonie and Marianne. Both girls stiffened. Huh, Claude thought. That was the last reaction he expected. As far as he knew, Leonie and Marianne got along rather well. They were both driven to do well, though their motivations could not be more different. Claude had seen them talking with each other in the hall just a few days prior! He wondered if something had happened between them.

“If anyone has any questions, bring them to me. We leave at sunrise tomorrow,” Byleth finished. She returned to her tent, and one by one the students dismembered. Leonie looked pointedly at Marianne before stalking off. Marianne practically fled back to her tent in response.

“Hey, hey,” Claude called to her as he tried to catch up.

“I need to find my sword. . .”

“We can deal with that later. What’s going on between you and Leonie?”

Marianne sighed, looking everywhere she could except for directly at Claude. Her hands were wringing together over and over. “We. . .” Marianne whispered. “We got in a little fight the other day.”

“What happened?” Claude asked her. Marianne sighed again. It could have been the setting sun, but it appeared that her eyes were welling up with tears.

“We. . . It was all my fault.” Marianne still would not look Claude in the eye. “I was at the stables looking at the horses. Leonie approached me asking if I would help her with something. I declined—but not because I did not want to be helpful! I just—you know—I mess things up sometimes, and I did not want to create more work for her. . .” Marianne’s voice was barely above a whisper now. “But she thought I was blowing her off. I tried to apologize—“ She covered her face with her hands.

“Leonie is a bit of a hot head,” Claude told her, hoping he was speaking low enough to not be heard by anyone else in the camp. He patted Marianne’s shoulder. “Give her a couple of days and I’m sure it will blow over.”

“But that’s the point, isn’t it?” Marianne gasped. “I don’t have a couple of days!” Tears fell down her face. “What if she gets injured—or worse—because I screw something up? I could never be forgiven then.”

“I doubt that will happen,” Claude assured her.

“But you don’t know for sure, do you?” Claude tried to find the right words to comfort her, but they did not come. “I appreciate you looking out for me,” Marianne said. “Truly, I do. But. . . I am not an experienced fighter like you. Or Byleth. Or Le—others in our class. I just don’t want anyone to die tomorrow. I don’t want to, either. Not like this, at least. . . I am afraid, Claude.”

“Don’t be afraid. We will be more than well-guarded by our battalions, and Byleth will keep us out of danger if things get too out of hand.”

“There are never any guarantees, though. That is just fact.” Marianne wiped her eyes and bowed. “If you will excuse me, I need to look for my sword.”

Claude watched her leave, his mouth pressed firmly in a frown. As much as he wanted to be an optimist, she was right. There were no guarantees who would come out on top in the middle of a fight. The odds could be on your side’s favor, but if an arrow had your name on it, you were going to get caught by it. That was something his mother had taught him, years ago. Claude stalked towards Byleth’s tent.

“Hey, Teach!” he beamed. “May I come in?”

Byleth was sitting cross-legged on her sleeping mat, reading what looked like a leather-bound ledger. She closed it with her finger stuck between the pages where she had been reading. “How can I help you, Claude?” she asked. Claude thought he detected concern in her voice.

“I was thinking about the pairs we have set up for tomorrow,” Claude began, leaning lightly against the tent pole. He hoped his tone was casual enough. He did not want Marianne to be put on the spot because of him. “Don’t you think Raphael and Leonie would be a better pair? I know Leonie has some experience with a lance, but truthfully she is so much better with a bow. Besides, who better to motivate Raphael than the class perfectionist?”

“Marianne is also a long-distance unit, though. Like you.”

“She has a sword, doesn’t she?”

“Have you ever actually seen her use it? Or pick it up, for that matter?”

“And here I thought this mission was about giving us some battle experience!”

“Not at the risk of her life, Claude,” Byleth asserted. Her eyes narrowed on him. “Is there something wrong with Raphael? Is there a reason that you don’t want to be paired with him anymore?”

“No, no! Of course not!”

“Then why are you trying to be paired with Marianne?”

“I’m not trying to be paired with Marianne. I just told you, I think Leonie and Raphael—“

“Claude—“

“Not that there is anything wrong with Marianne at all, either—“

“Claude—“

“Okay, okay. You caught me. I have a crush on her. I was hoping if I could prove how dashing I am in action—“

“Claude!”

“What?”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Claude replied, lacing his fingers behind his head and giving Byleth his most convincing smile. Byleth sighed. She removed her finger from between the pages of her book and leaned forward.

“You are quite mischievous, but you are shit at deception. You act the most relaxed when you are the most bothered. It’s part of why I chose to lead your house. I don’t like not knowing what is going on around me, a sentiment I’m sure you share.”

Claude gulped. He had always considered himself an expert liar. It kept him out of a lot of trouble growing up. But of course Byleth would be able to see through it. She had yet to fail to impress him. He sighed, resting his hands on his lap.

“Are you going to tell me what’s really going on now?”

“Not all of it,” Claude admitted. “Just that I think it is important for me to be by Marianne’s side tomorrow. The rest of it is her business.”

Byleth nodded, seeming to accept his answer. “Consider it done. I will tell Leonie and Raphael of the changes if you want to tell Marianne.”

“Thank you, Teach!” Claude beamed, leaping forward. “I will go tell her now.”

“One more thing,” Byleth called, stopping him at the doorway. “I may not know all of the details, but I can tell that you are acting out of your position as a leader. Looking after your people is more important than having power and giving orders ever will be. I’m proud of you.”

Claude smiled, though he felt embarrassed for how happy her words made him. “Even a scoundrel gets it right sometimes,” he said. He ducked out of the tent and rushed back to where he last saw Marianne heading. The only taint in his victory was the death threat still crumbled in his pocket.

“Get back!” Claude called, pulling Marianne out of the way of an arrow. “It came from the left.” Marianne straightened, facing the cliffs where Claude had indicated. She uttered an incantation, and with a wave of her hand, a bolt of light crashed down on the entire area. There is no way anyone could have survived that, Claude thought. “Let’s go,” he said, taking her hand.

They had been separated from the rest of the group, including their battalions. The canyon trail leading to the thieves’ hideout split into two, so Byleth split the group in half to go around each side and corner the enemy. But the thieves were fast, faster than Claude anticipated. In minutes, they had corralled Claude and Marianne away from everyone else. If it hadn’t been for Marianne’s healing abilities, Claude was sure he would not be able to walk anymore.

“It’s too quiet. . .” Marianna whispered, eyes flicking from crevice to crevice in the cliffside.

Claude squeezed Marianne’s hand. “It will be okay,” he said. “I can hear shouting around this curve in the road. Our friends are just up ahead, I’m sure of it.”

Marianne nodded, clutching her free hand to her chest.

A few steps further brought the pair to an opening in the path. As Claude suspected, his classmates were on the other side of the clearing, taking out the remaining bandits at the base of their hideout. “See?” he said to Marianne, letting go of her hand to point ahead. “We have nearly caught up to them. Let’s go!” Claude quickened his pace, eager to be in the safety provided by large numbers. Marianne was right on his heels. Claude could see Byleth at the back of the group, watching over her students and barking orders to their guards. “Byleth!” Claude called. Byleth turned around. It may have been the distance, but Claude could have sworn relief washed over her face.

“Hurry!” she called. Claude smiled, running faster.

“Claude—“ Marianne panted. She was further behind him now. “I can’t keep—“

“Rawwwrrrgh!” A voice boomed. Claude was barely turning on his heels when he heard it. The sound of metal penetrating flesh rang in his ears. He met Marianne’s eyes just as they went blank. She crumbled to the ground, a large man standing between her and Claude, and his sword dripping wet with Marianne’s blood.

“No!!” Claude cried, letting an arrow fly. He caught the man between the eyes, and his body fell. Claude rushed to Marianne’s side. “No, no, no,” he whispered, cupping her head. She did not respond. Her body was limp, lifeless. “You can’t die on me.”

Claude had failed her. He told Marianne that she would not have to worry if she was with him. He was so convinced that as her house leader, he could protect her. But he was wrong. Claude’s tears spilled onto her pale face. She was dead. And it was all Claude’s fault. He failed as a leader.

He failed as a protector.

How could anyone trust him now?

How could anyone follow him now?

Marianne.

Marianne. . .

Mari—

—iraM.

?won mih wollof enoyna dluoc woH

?won mihtsurtenoynadluocwoH.rotcetorpasadeliafeH.redaelasadeliafeH.tluafs’edualc—

Claude squeezed Marianne’s hand. “It will be okay,” he said. “I can hear shouting around this curve in the road. Our friends are just up ahead, I’m sure of it.”

Marianne nodded, clutching her free hand to her chest.

A few steps further brought the pair to an opening in the path. As Claude suspected, his classmates were on the other side of the clearing, taking out the remaining bandits at the base of their hideout “See?” he said to Marianne, letting go of her hand to point ahead. “We have nearly caught up to them. Let’s go!” Claude quickened his pace, eager to be in the safety provided by large numbers. Marianne was right on his heels. Byleth was at the back, watching over her students and barking orders to their guards. “Byleth!” Claude called. Byleth turned around. It may have been the distance, but Claude could have sworn her face was one of rage and ferocity.

“Stay there!” she shouted, charging forward with her blade drawn. Claude halted, and Marianne ran into his back.

“Oof!” she grunted. Claude hardly noticed. Why would Teach want them to—

“Rawwwrrrgh!” A voice boomed. Claude instinctually raised his bow, letting an arrow fly. . .

Right between the eyes of a bandit. The large man fell to his knees, dropping his sword just inches from Claude’s chest.

Claude stared blankly at the man. Had he taken one more step. . . Or worse, had he ran ahead, leaving Marianne a few steps behind him— His knees buckled, and Marianne had to catch him to keep him from falling.

“Are you two okay?” Byleth asked. Claude felt Marianne nod against his back, and he numbly mimicked the motion. Byleth watched him scrutinizingly. “There should be no more surprises,” she said. “We have the rest of the bandits apprehended. It looks like keeping everyone in pairs was a good move, because there are no casualties on our side.”

“No casualties. . .” Claude repeated. Why did that not seem right to him? He felt Marianne still pressed up against his back, shaking slightly. Or was it his own body shaking?

“Yes, no casualties,” Byleth said. She extended her hand to Claude. “Can you stand? I would rather have everyone in a group in case there are any other enemies in hiding.”

Claude looked up at her. Byleth’s eyes were unreadable. Blank, motionless pools. They made the perfect mirror. Inside them, Claude saw his own fear and confusion. He was alive. Marianne was alive.

Marianne was alive?

Pull yourself together.

Claude straightened up, smiling weakly. “You got it, Teach. I wouldn’t want to miss the cheers of victory, now would I? Come on, Marianne, let’s join the others.” He looped Marianne’s arm through his and led her to the rest of their classmates. Byleth followed silently.

That was a close one, Claude thought. He refused to give Byleth a reason to doubt choosing him. To doubt choosing the Golden Deer. He would not let her down.

But. . .

Why did he feel like he already had?

The group of classmates were all chattering excitedly when Claude and Marianne approached. Claude heard bits and pieces: most of them had made their first kills today. Some were excited. Others. . . Tried to be. But Claude could tell many of them would see blank faces in their dreams that night. Leonie was the first to notice their presence. Her eyes widened at the sight of them.

“Marianne!” she called, rushing forward to meet them just before they entered the circle of students. “Your arm is bleeding! I think I have a vulnerary in my bag.”

“I’m fine,” Marianne whispered. Leonie’s brow furrowed. She tugged on Marianne’s good arm.

“Of course you are not fine! Look at you, you’re shaking! I cannot let a friend of mine remain in this condition.”

“Friend?” Marianne asked. Leonie stopped tugging on her.

“Of course.”

“I just—I thought that—after the other day—“ Marianne’s eyes welled up with tears.

“Let’s not worry about that right now,” Leonie said. “I was being hasty and stupid when I said—Come on, let’s get this wound looked at. We can talk once you’re healed. . .” Leonie wrapped her arm around Marianne, who nodded and allowed Leonie to lead her away. Claude smiled as he watched them leave. Who knew a dangerous battle could cause them to make up?

“I am assuming they got in a fight before the mission. Was that why you wanted to switch partners?” Byleth asked. Claude nearly jumped. He did not realize she was standing just on the other side of him.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I did not want them to have their minds in two different places on the battlefield. A split mind is dangerous.”

“Yes. It is,” Byleth replied, a hint of accusation in her tone.

“You saved her life, by the way. Had you not called out for me to wait, I—“

“What’s done is done,” Byleth said, cutting him off. “The bandit is dead and neither of you got hurt.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Claude sighed. “But still, your leadership was amazing, Teach. We can probably leave the rest of the work here to the knights and head back to the monastery.”

“I agree. Go celebrate with your peers. I am going to speak with the knights to make sure they do not need any more help from us before we leave. We can hopefully make it back to the monastery by nightfall.”

Claude nodded. “You got it, Teach.” He winked at her then caught up to his classmates.

“Claude!” Raphael boomed, picking Claude up and squeezing him. “I feel so pumped right now! Like I could lift a mountain! I can’t believe our first mission was so successful!”

“Of course it was successful,” Claude laughed, nearly out of breath. Raphael put him down and clapped him on the back. “With someone like Teach leading us, how could we go wrong?”

“At least you admit that you were not the cause for our success,” Lorenz muttered. His hair was messed up, and he was frantically trying to pat it down smooth again.

“I take credit where credit is due. No more, no less,” Claude replied. He was suddenly thinking of the death threat in his pocket again.

“I thought you did magnificent, Claude!” Hilda beamed. She swung her axe over her shoulder. It was a wonder she had not accidentally cut off one of her two long ponytails by now. “Ignatz and I saw you take down a guy at least three hundred yards away with only one shot!”

“I admit, I was a little jealous,” Ignatz added. He was sitting on a rock, hands clasped together. No doubt to keep them from shaking.

“I would not be here if it wasn’t for Claude,” a faint voice said behind him. Leonie and Marianne were returning to the circle. “He had my back the entire battle, even though I was no use to him. . . That final bandit surely would have killed us if Claude had not been so quick with the bow.”

Claude forced a swallow. His classmates were all looking at him with awe and admiration. Even Lorenz had the grace to look impressed. But. . . Claude did not feel like he deserved it. Even though he was looking her in the eye, alive and well, he had the feeling like he had somehow failed Marianne.

“Yeah, but I would have been dead several times over if I did not have you healing my wounds when we got separated from the rest of class,” Claude said with a grin. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

“See? You were not useless at all, Marianne,” Leonie piped up.

Claude smiled. His classmates continued chattering excitedly, patting each other on the back and praising each other’s victories. Claude sat back and watched. He wanted to bond with them, but not when he felt this way. There would be other days to celebrate victory. He sighed, looking around at the surrounding soldiers who were securing the area. They were seasoned warriors, used to far more than the Golden Deer could fathom at the moment. They were not celebrating. Everything was business as usual.

Claude squinted, wondering where Byleth had gone. She said she wanted to speak with the knights, but he could not spot her among them. And the woman certainly stood out, even in the midst of men twice her size. Frowning, Claude scanned the canyon for her. He spotted her standing alone, by the edge of a cliff. She seemed to be looking at something, though Claude could not tell what. Curious, he approached her.

“I remember this being a peaceful place. . .” Byleth murmured, so soft that Claude did not think she meant to say it aloud. Claude stopped right behind her. She did not acknowledge him. Her mind seemed to be elsewhere, as her eyes were glazed over.

“Teach?” he said, resting his hand on her shoulder. Byleth jumped, causing him to recoil. Byleth was usually not the skittish type. Far from it. “What are you doing over here? I thought you were going to get the clear to leave from the knights?”

“I was—I did. They do not need anything else from us today.”

Claude waited to see if she would offer more, but she did not. “We should get back to the academy, then,” Claude said. “So we don’t get caught in the middle of nowhere when it’s dark.”

“Of course,” Byleth replied, her eyes sharper than a sword once again. “I will tell the other students.” Byleth pushed past him and stalked away. Claude frowned. Something was clearly bothering her about this place, though he did not know what. As far as he knew, the Red Canyon had been abandoned for centuries. Well, abandoned save for the bandits. When would she even have had a chance to be there before?

“Claude!” Hilda called. “We’re heading back! Let’s go!”

“Coming!” Claude called, running to catch up to her. He wondered what sort of knowledge Byleth had that Claude did not. He had researched every notable square inch of Fódlan before entering the continent to enroll in the Academy, and nothing seemed particularly of note about this place save for some boring lore about the goddess living here. Come to think of it, why was Zanado not occupied by the church? Should it not have been sanctioned as holy ground?

Claude caught sight of Marianne as he got closer to the group, and guilt overcame him once again. He could not explain it, but he could have sworn his arrow was too late, that he saw her dead in his arms. But there she was, practically unscathed, being praised for her bravery by her classmates. Perhaps it was something about the Red Canyon that affected him this way. Maybe Byleth could feel it too? At the very least, she knew something that Claude did not. And Claude wanted answers. Byleth might not swoon at his charms the way that other girls did, but that was not his only method for getting information. It was always possible that she would be more open to talking once they left the Red Canyon, as well. . .

#fe3h turn back the hands #claude von reigen #fe3h claude #fe3h fanfic #Fire Emblem Three Houses #claude x byleth #fe3h #claude von riegan

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oh-mother-of-darkness · 4 years

Text

asks (16)

Anonymous said: Sorry in advanced that I'm asking about it, don't really know how your rules work precisely, I'm not trying to pull a prank promise. I'm romance repulsed too, I don't care about ships the way ships are cared about if it makes any sense. I just wanted to know if you block people who you follow if they ever reblog anything with a ship, since sometimes panels tend to have characters who are canonically a ship and maybe it's a meta post about some character's life n has a ship in it..

Oh no, don’t worry. I don’t really look at blogs that follow me. I block people that ask me ship questions or tag my fics with ship names. That’s about it.

@babybatbrat said: thoughts on the best pizza topping

Oh yes I used to work at a pizza restaurant so I have Opinions about this. Steps to ultimate pizza:

Stretch simple dough thinly over a small-sized metal pan.

Lay down a base of olive oil. Rub minced garlic on top of your oil.

Add an over-generous topping of mozzarella cheese.

Add bacon bits, onions, and feta cheese.

Bake to taste

Having been a pizza employee, I also have strong opinions about the WORST pizza toppings-- not by taste but by unpleasant-ness of preparation. Do NOT ask me for artichoke hearts. You may ask for anchovies ONLY if there is a box already open. If you make me prepare you a s'mores dessert pizza I will kill you on sight.

Anonymous said: thoughts on non-english language/ non-western music? everyone's spotify wrap this year got me looking into this

One of my sisters is super into k-pop, and I’ve tried to share her interest, but it doesn’t really work for me. I do, however, love bollywood music. That shit slaps, and it reminds me of dancing in my friend’s living room all throughout high school.

Anonymous said: Thoughts on Batman beyond?

I’ve never really been exposed to it honestly. I understand that was kinda a childhood staple for a lot of people, but my house didn’t do tv shows while I was growing up.

@mediumsizedmedium said: Thoughts on Damian coming across the concept of furries?

I have no thoughts on this point

Anonymous said: You dont need to respond to this, but I wanted to tell you that my favorite thing about your fics is that theyre ship-free. It makes me so happy to read stories about the batfam just being a family. I wanted you to know that even tho people are being disrespectful about your boundaries, i really appreciate what you DO write and what you put out into the world is lovely and a joy to read. I know u probably already know there are tons of people who support you, but I just wanted to say I do too :)

Ahhh thank you my darling I appreciate you very much

Anonymous said: I'm on a kick right now, and need more fics about Dick being confronted about Tim's emotions on the way Damian became Robin. I've read all the ones I can find, but you might know of ones I haven't found yet. Do you do you have any recs?

Hmmm I have a couple, but I don’t really read fanfiction myself, so I can’t give recommendations.

Anonymous said: Okay, been a few days, but fun fact about myself. I thought that movies were supposed to be kinda fuzzy and movie credits were supposed to be borderline unreadable for years until I was 14 and my parents got me glasses.

akjgalfgslasf you poor child

@materassassino said: Facts about me: I am wearing Wonder Woman socks

That’s the pinnacle of fashion to be honest

Anonymous said: as a (portuguese speaking) kid, my dad always put on american songs and I thought english was a made up language

That’s so valid anon

Anonymous said: Fun fact about myself, I usually cook full meals for my daughter, friends and family but when it is just me, I can live off of a jar of peanut butter and half a loaf of bread for a week

[John Mulaney voice] I lived like a goddman ninja turtle

@insideoflit said: Fun Fact: I have a total addiction to cheezy movies (Think: In Like Flint)

I saw my very first romcom the other day and ????? ?? ?????

Anonymous said: That’s not a super fun fact but I am also pretty drunk so I can’t think of fun ones uhhh I have my cat a middle name and his middle name is Alexander and he is perfect

I support you, your cat, and your drunken exploits

Anonymous said: A fact about me is coronavirus got the play I’m in cancelled so I went to a castmates apartment and am now drunk for the first time but it’s ok i drank water and I’m goin to sleep

They took my graduation away :(

@areverieofchaosdreams said: Fun fact: I've broken every toe but one, and have multiple hairline fractures running theough my ankles and shins. 12 years of ballet will break you, literally. Also, you're adorable and are ome of the key reasons I stay here on tumblr.

Wowza!! Yikes!! I’m so sorry, but thank you very much too

Anonymous said: Canon but kinda different is canon divergent, not AU. AU in this fandom would not work the way it would in some other fandoms, here we already have alternate canon universes. We should use canon divergent more since that's the best way to explain the small-medium changes. Canon divergent would be Oracle never coming back to Batgirl or Jason coming back without Red Hood fiasco. AU would be they're all magical beings or reverse age or no cape. Fundamentally different universe.

Interesting, thank you

#asks

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writeyourownlifestory · 4 years

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SUCKER PUNCHED

Chapters: 4/9 Fandom: IT Rating: M Warnings: Mention of past child // psychological abuse, Fight Club!au, mentions of suicide attempt. Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Beverly Marsh/Ben Hanscom Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, learning to love yourself

Tag list: @richietoaster, @beproudtozier, @that-weird-girls-blog, @s-onora, @s-s-georgie, @bellarosewrites, @iamcupcakefrosting, @reddieonwheels, @ghostnebula, @madidraw @madi-main, @gazebobullshit, @thoughtfullyyoungduck, @airbenderking, @ambitiousskychild

By the time Eddie was 13, he was allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, and several cooking oils. By 15, he had never swum in gym class and never went to a friend’s birthday party or had one of his own. By 16, Eddie knew that he liked looking at boys rather than looking at girls, though that didn’t seem to matter at the time. By 18, he had graduated high school and that was the end of his social life. And by 21, Eddie’s life had been torn to pieces.

He was a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy and now left without a mother, without a home, and without a clue. On top of being told he should go to group therapy, his caseworker had also suggested doing something to blow off some steam. Join a book club or go to the gym. Or maybe join a need-to-know based fight club. Either or.

Chapters one, two, three

As it turned out, Eddie didn’t have much to lose after all.

He tried to think of a couple of things that would make it into a good excuse not to go to the gym, but he kept coming up empty. He did need to start working out and getting healthy. Sure, his mom pumped him up with supplements and protein, but that didn’t make him healthy. He was walking everywhere nowadays, so his legs were getting a good hit, but what about his arms?

Sure, he had to carry the heavy boxes at the store and lifted a few of them while restocking, but he knew he could do better. It wasn’t like he was getting thrown into the ring after all. He would hit a few machines and lift a few weights. Nothing worth bragging about.

After coming home from work, he hung around the house for a little bit, having nothing else really to do. Ben and Beverly were going to see a movie and while they had invited him to tag along, he declined, claiming he had something he had to take care of. The two had done everything they could to not make him feel like he was the third wheel, but sometimes two people just needed to be alone, whether they were a couple or not.

Mrs. Hanscom was working late, so he had the house to himself for a little while. He lasted about twenty minutes before he threw in the towel and changed from his work shirt and jeans into a plain tee-shirt and shorts. He locked the door behind him and made his way into town, down Main street and up to the gym.

He looked through the window, finding it somewhat empty for the night. He guessed even gym rats had something else to do on a Friday night. There were only a couple of guys inside and after a few minutes of just standing there, he finally entered.

Richie was off in the morning, doing a handful of genetic stretches on the mat. Eddie didn’t want to think of how often, or lack thereof, the mat was wiped down just like the rest of the machines.

Eddie liked to keep it clean, as it was something they would do every week back when he was living with his mother. Sonia Kaspbrak wasn’t one with OCD, but it was a chance for them to bond together. Wiping everything down with Lysol was a great way to get rid of any common germs and Eddie had learned from a very early age how to disinfect and keep order.

“Eds!” Richie called out upon spotting him.

“It’s Eddie.” He retorted, already wondering if he had made the right decision.

“Eds is short for Eddie.”

“And Eddie is already short for Edward.”

“Richie is short for Richard. Wanna know something even shorter?”

“If you say your dick, I’m leaving.”

Richie gasped, placing his hand over his chest as he faked shock and dismay. “Edward! How could you? Why would I ever lie about my penis like that?”

“Beep, Beep, Richie.” Eddie stared at him, blank and unimpressed. “Can we get this over with?”

“Don’t sound so depressed, Eds. You’re spending your night with a certified hottie.” Adjusting his headband, he brought Eddie over to the machine. He gave a quick rundown of what it was called and how to use it. “This is a rower. Like a boat, all right? Hold onto that, keep your legs straight, you’re gonna lean back and well, row.”

“Doesn��t sound too bad.”

Richie chuckled, slapping his shoulder before adjusting the weight.

The machine turned out to be a nightmare as it required a hell of a lot more muscles than Eddie thought he was capable of using. Even in a lighter setting, he felt like he was straining himself just to be able to keep up. He did a couple of sets or reps, whatever Richie called them before Richie moved him onto the next machine.

He hadn’t brought water or anything to keep him hydrated so he had to stick with the tiny paper cups from the water cooler in the corner. He tried not to think about how many times that water was changed out. He was too parched to taste the bland, staleness of old water.

When the first hour passed they took a small break. They sat against the mirrors, watching the other guys who came to work out do their sets. “So, any chance of you becoming a gym rat like the rest of us?” Richie asked him, resting his chin on his bent knees.

Eddie was very doubtful that he’d ever willingly want to work out. Ever would willingly want to sweat into his clothes and strain his muscles until he was left tired and aching.

He remembered his mother shaking her head whenever the Olympics would come around and they’d sit by the television and watch all the competitions. Sonia would comment about how they would work so hard just for one chance at winning.

“All of that hard work for nothing,” she would comment whenever they lost. Eddie, the innocent one, who always tried to be optimistic, reminded her about the winners. “They might have won but how long will that last? Trust me, Eddie-Bear. They will lose that shapely body soon enough and get addicted to opioids just like every other former star.”

She turned the television off after that. Very rarely did they watch anything that contained athletes or anything other than game shows and children’s programming. It’s a mystery Eddie turned out even half okay after having a woman like that as his only companion for so long.

He wondered what his mother would be thinking if she knew where he was. If she knew her precious little boy was sweating and working out on machines that hadn’t been cleaned and drinking water almost from the tap.

“How much is it?” Eddie questioned, deciding to throw caution to the wind.

It wound up only costing Eddie fifteen bucks a month to join. He found that to be pretty decent on account of it being a small private gym.

A small group of women came in and greeted Richie as Eddie was signing up. They flashed their teeth at him and Richie commented, calling them pearly white and magnificent. Eddie brushes his teeth every morning and every night, always flossing in between and using that terrible tasting mouthwash whenever he could. Dental hygiene was important and taking care of his mouth was one thing Eddie took pride in even after leaving his mother’s house.

Once his membership was started, Eddie hung around for a few minutes after, using the hand weights that were in the corner. He found himself watching as Richie went around the room, helping out those who needed it. He had a way about him that even if you had just met him, he’d find a way to get under your skin. Whether or not it was in a good way all depended on Richie but that was his style.

They left together after another half hour. Eddie was tired and he knew he would be sore in the morning.

“Now that you joined maybe we could become gym buddies?” Richie had suggested, playfully bumping their shoulders together as they walked down the street.

They did become gym buddies, much to Eddie’s dismay. His body aches for days after the first trip and he had become very comfortable with standing in the freezers of the grocery store on days when he felt extra sore.

Richie didn’t go easy on him but he also knew not to test his limits. They found a routine that worked for them both and on days when Richie couldn’t make it or their schedules just couldn’t line up, Ben and Beverly were more than happy to tag along with him.

It may not have been his intention of becoming a gym rat but he found himself going two to three times a week. Any night when he wasn’t in the mood to just sit back and watch tv or read a book or do a puzzle.

He also went out to the farm to watch a fight now and then. He still didn’t understand it that much, the rapid appeal of going head to head with another person, but it was another excuse to get out of the house and socialize.

Eddie found himself doing a lot of things he wouldn’t have thought he would do before coming. He was eating new foods all the time, trying different things.

He was making his own choices, going out to buy his clothes with Beverly in tow. She didn’t choose anything for him but gave her the best intel since she had a thing for fashion.

He found his sense of style for the first time. He found his sense of reality for the first time. Making his own choices and doing things he wanted to do without worrying if he would get in trouble or he would make his mommy angry.

It hadn’t been what Eddie expected when he first arrived in Bangor. Trying to move on from the life he once lived wasn’t easy but the alternative wasn’t much better.

He had spoken up about it during one of the group meetings. He was half listening, not even sure what the topic was but nobody else commented. It was obvious the director was feeling a bit dejected and thought well, why not?

“We try to find a middle ground. Between the life, we lived before breaking away and the life we’ve been thrown into now that we're out of that situation. It’s not easy. May not even be possible but, it’s worth trying right?”

“That’s right, Mr. Kaspbrak. That’s exactly right.”

“Look at you making an impression in the group,” Beverly mentioned as they left.

Eddie didn’t want a pat on the back for coming up with something that made sense or for just being honest. He knew everybody had been through something similar and he wasn’t going to pretend like he had done or said anything poetic. If they didn’t find something to hold onto, something to shape their life around, then what was the point of having a life, to begin with?

“Are you seeing Richie tonight?” Beverly asked.

He was but not for the gym. The old theatre was playing some old-time movies and Richie thought it would be good for Eddie to see them. He had blown a gasket when he found out Eddie hadn’t seen Titanic and Back to the Future so they had begun to have designated movie nights.

Sometimes they would invite Ben and Beverly and on other nights it would be a rude group thing. The sorry lot of Bangor Maine had welcomed Eddie in without a second thought and they planned on spending the remaining days of their summer before Bill and Stan went back to school out of state enjoying every part of this.

They had shown him all different types of movies, from black and white classics to modern horror. They were widening his horizon film-wise and he found that it was a great way to spend his night.

On this particular night, it was just Richie and himself, watching the classic film Singin’ in the Rain. Richie insisted he wasn’t a dancer in any way but he has a passion for Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor.

The movie itself was rather grand and Eddie wondered why his mother hadn’t allowed him to watch it. Perhaps the dancing ladies were a bit too much but he found it to be enjoyable.

They found their way to the diner afterward, sitting in the far corner away from sight. Richie ordered waffles even though it was nearly eleven pm, asking for syrup, and whipped cream, and peanut butter all on top.

Richie was rambling on about the film they had just seen and then suggesting a few others along the way. “I certainly can’t believe you’ve never seen Star Wars man. Not even like on tv or something during the holidays?”

“I wasn’t given a lot of screen time, Rich.” Eddie reminded him.

He had opened up to Richie slowly over the weeks of them knowing each other. Ben hadn’t said much about his predicament other than his mother was overly protected and shielded him from the world. Eddie had been the one to tell Richie just how bad it had been in between their weekly gym meetups and regular hangouts.

Richie took it in stride, never once showing that he felt sorry for Eddie. He treated him just like every other person, apologizing only when a “your mom” joke slipped through his lips because old habits were hard to break.

“Seriously, dude. We’re watching it. You’re gonna come over to my place and I’m making you sit through it all.”

“Aren’t there like, six of them?”

“Technically nine bit the prequels aren't that important unless you want backstory and the newer ones are garbage. An only good thing to come out of them is the eye candy.” He placed his hand dramatically over his chest. “Oscar Isaac? Oh, be still my beating vagina.”

The waitress came over then, placing their food down between them.

“Did you just quote Mamma Mia 2?”

Richie slammed his fist down on the table, something that the waitress seemed completely unfazed by. “You haven’t seen Star Wars but you’ve seen Mamma Mia 2?!”

“And the first one. Mrs. Hanscom showed them to me.”

“You, Edward, have hurt me today. I don’t know how I’m gonna cope.” He announced and then proceeds to dig into his waffle.

Eddie ate his food, which consists of a simple grilled cheese. They had gotten popcorn at the theatre and he didn’t want to start pigging out just because he was working out more. He watched Richie gorge himself on the sloppy, crunchy waffle and found himself realizing he had never eaten a normal pancake or waffle.

Everything had been gluten-free, sugar-free. He never tried whipped cream or peanut butter. Due to his birthday being around the time of thanksgiving his mom would make him a fruit cake or sometimes a gelatin cake. He didn’t even know what real birthday cake tasted like.

“Can I ask you a weird question?” He asked suddenly. “Can I have a bite?”

“A bite?” Richie asked, his mouth still full from his bite.

“I’ve never had a waffle. I’ve never had peanut butter.”

Richie swallowed hard, shaking his head in despair. “Fuck, Eds. Your mom messed you up good, didn’t she?” He slid the plate over, knowing better than offering Eddie his fork to eat off of. “Knock yourself off.”

Eddie grabbed his fork and knife to cut off a small piece. It looked soggy and heavy, completely covered in the sticky substances. He took the bite slowly, chewing it down carefully. It was hard to describe; the ooey-gooey, nutty flavor mixed with the maple of the syrup and the creaminess of the whipped cream.

Richie was watching him intensely, ready to jump into action in the rare chance his mom wasn’t lying and he needed to inject him with an EpiPen just in case.

“Well?” He asked after a moment.

“Holy shit,” Eddie replied.

“Is that a good holy shit or bad holy shit?”

“A very good holy shit. Holy shit!”

“I know right? Delicious.”

“Disgustingly delicious.”

“Do you want your own?” Richie asked, already half turning down he could get their waitresses' attention.

“No.” Eddie decided. “I want Reece’s cup.”

“Yeah? We can get you one of those.”

And they did. After leaving the diner they went down to the nearest 7/11 and bought Eddie Reece’s cup and other assortments of candy that he had been deprived of his entire life.

They spent the rest of the night driving around, eating candy, and just laughing about the stupid shit going on in their town. It was nearly one am when Richie dropped Eddie off at home.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot Spaghetti,” Richie asked, shifting in the darkness of the car. He turned on the lights above them, giving them a chance to see one another.

“Why do you think Ben and Beverly aren’t together?” He asked carefully. “It’s obvious they like one another. Even I can see that.”

“You’re not the only one,” Richie chuckled dryly. “I think they’re scared. They don’t wanna lose what they had, you know? Good friendships are hard to come by.”

“What would you do?”

“In their situation?” Richie shifted once more, turning his body slightly, uncomfortable against the restraints of the seatbelt. “Oh boy. Well. Hmm.”

He laughed again, awkward this time around. He looked to Eddie, reaching up to adjust his glasses slightly.

“You kind of told me your own sob story, so I guess it’s only fair I tell you to mind.” He admitted, turning his face so he looked at Eddie somewhat properly. “Look. You know I’m gay right?” He asked then.

Eddie had more or less guessed it along the way. Richie had been very upfront with the flirting, but he also was like that with people of all sexes. Very open and bubbly. Eddie found it somewhat off-putting in the beginning. Eddie, who was so somber and quiet, who had been trained and conditioned to be this quiet, gentle soul like his mother wanted him to be was a very large contrast to Richie’s outwardly and blunt personality.

He had grown used to it over time, thanks to the spare chances they had been given to be around one another. It was still a lot for Eddie to get used to, but after the endless comments about certain male celebrities, it led Eddie to believe Richie leaned more towards one side than the other.

“I don’t make it very subtle,” Richie admitted, another quiet laugh slipping through his lips.

“Back when I was in high school, there was this guy. His name was Connor. We met at the arcade and we sort of . . . we became friends. Like, fast friends. And like Bev and Ben, we spent all our time together. Anyway, I sort of always knew I liked Han more than Leia, so it didn’t take long for me to become head over heels for him. We wound up going to prom together as friends. We hung around the bleachers and all I kept thinking about was wanting to dance with him, you know? Not even just slow dance but just get out there and move our bodies. To just dance with another guy! Later on, we went outside to smoke and on the way back in I stopped him. I just looked at him and couldn’t stop myself. I kissed him there in the hallway. And you know, for a split second I could have sworn he kissed me back.”

“But he didn’t?”

Richie shook his head, his tongue slipping across his dry lips nervously. “Someone spotted us. Soon everybody was gathering in the hallway to see what the queers were doing. He pushed me away and a fight started. He tried to choke me right there, surrounded by everybody until the teachers pulled him off me. He said some not so nice things.”

“What happened after?”

“I had to survive without my best friend. And I guess I didn’t know-how. Being called a faggot is one thing, but hearing how sick you are. Knowing the one person you care about most in the world thought you were better off dead. It’s hard to imagine otherwise. I decided to prove him right.”

“Rich….”

“That’s how I wound up at the gym. After tossing myself off a bridge and living to tell the tale, my parents put me through all sorts of therapy. One of them happened to be physical. I decided after that I wasn’t going to hide anymore. I’d be the real me, whether people liked it or not. I dialed it down a bit. I was an annoying little shit who used to do voices and stuff.”

“You still do that.”

Eddie could count on both hands how many times he would slip into some character while they were working out. Eddie first thought it was a way to egg him on and give him a bit of a push but he soon realized it was just Richie’s personality.

Richie didn’t seem like the type that would have done something like that. Had put himself in harm's way because of the sadness he kept. Eddie knew that it was something of a well-known fact. That some of the cheeriest people can be so dead inside. That the loudest voice could be the quietest call for help.

It made Eddie angry to know that someone Richie had held so dearly could treat him so badly. Could have turned on him for his issues. It didn’t make sense to him and all he could think about was wanting to know why.

“Thank you for telling me this,” Eddie told him.

Richie adjusted his glasses again, putting on a far genuine smile as he glanced back over to him. “So now that you know my villain origin story can I ask something about you?”

“Shoot.”

“What would you do?”

Eddie didn’t have an answer. It could have been easy to say just go for it but the reality was Eddie didn’t know if he would even make that leap. He got out of the car then, shrugging in response as he bid Richie a good night.

Eddie went to bed, surrounded by his sweet treats, falling asleep to the thoughts of Richie’s laughter and wondering what he would do in that position.

#Richie Tozier #Eddie Kaspbrak #Reddie #Reddie au #IT au #IT fanfic #Reddie Fanfic #Connor Bowers

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shametheshadow · 4 years

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It's been a while. A lot of shit's been going on since I was last kinda active. Sorry, I dont remember how to hide this under a read more line... feel free to scroll past if you arent in the mood for existential whinging. I got a new job and it's pleasant. The people are nice. It's still food, but it's at a fancy restaurant where the management actually cares and tries to keep their crew happy. The hours could be better and I'm currently sick of salads with how many I've made. They give hours based on reliability and if you're a hard worker who is nice to work with. But like... everybody is nice and hard working so it's hard to just muscle in sometimes. But on the positive side I've dropped ten pounds, probably thanks to how light my wallet is. Had an issue with my little brother. Well, there's been an unspoken issue for years that I've been trying to just give him space on, but it finally came to a head. I called him out and he said some pretty hurtful things. I saw him on Christmas, but it wasnt the same. I think it kind of damaged something between us, or at the very least it certainly has me. I think, as people, we build these pillars of absolute truths into our identities. The things we know without a doubt, that we can rely on to stay true even when things are bad. Like, that the sky is blue or that a parent we have will always love us. When those truths are shaken they really make you wonder what else could be wrong or if there was ever any truth in it to begin with. For me, no matter how bad I felt or hated myself, I knew I could be a good sister. I'd throw myself down for it. I have done so, unfortunately, many times before. We all see the world a little differently, so my truth may not be the truth someone else sees. I dont know whether that makes it any better, but I certainly feel unsure about more things now than I used to. Some days I even feel like giving up on our relationship. I'm just too tired, too worn down, and I don't think I can handle being called a failure again. Which sucks, because I dont really want to. I just want to know how to fix it, even though I'm not sure I have any more energy to try again if it's just going to lead to another failure. And on top of all of that my bio dad and all those siblings are tasting the bitter consequences of their actions. My youngest sister got taken away from her parents because instead of breaking up and being adults about it they have to be petty and cowardly. One has unchecked anger issues mixed with plenty of excuses and the other thinks she's owed some sort of respect despite her immature actions. Thing is, I've had plenty of talks with my bio dad about the effects their toxic relationship have on his 6 year old daughter. He knows. He isnt stupid or blind. He'd just rather keep it going despite everyone's unhappiness and dig a deeper hole so he doesn't have to risk losing custody of his daughter if they break up. And here we are now. With his daughter taken away and given to our 21 year old sister who doesn't have a clue. And they've failed to regain custody once already. And you know the fucking hilariously tragic part of it? Me and my sister Des are the only two without some sort of record so nobody else in the family can help. Just a fucking warning for any teens out there who think being a gangster is cool, life always has consequence. Doing drugs, selling pills, pimping, stealing cars, assault, having unregistered weapons... my family has probably done just about anything. Apparently my bio dad's stepfather even threatened to shoot my grandma once. There's an argument to made about the environment they all grew up in, but I really wish people would just have the self awareness to realize that things will always find a way to bite you in the ass and it's it big enough then it'll get the people around you too. I normally get my sister on weekends, but I need to work Saturdays as a requirement for my employment. I try to cut it short so I can be there when they drop her off, but half the time they dont and send her somewhere she isnt supposed to go. I'm risking my job trying to be there when I'm needed, just for them to change their mind at the last second because I wasnt home soon enough. They'd rather risk losing our sister to the system by breaking the rules. CPS doesn't play around. I've had to tell them two or three times that I couldn't take our sister because I was sick or dealing with some really stressful family stuff that Koral didnt need to be there to see. Every time I feel like the punishment is that they stop letting me see her by not bringing her over anymore. Then out of the blue they call on a weekday and ask if I can take her because she has a day off or something. I have never once said no but every time it sends me into an anxiety attack because I can't handle being kept in the dark until they need me. It's got me so worked up that sometimes I genuinely wish I had never been told my dad wasnt my real dad. Of course, I know that by knowing I can help a little girl who needs help, but I wont lie and say that I never wished I didn't have time deal with any of it. I got the news today that my bio dad is in trouble for something else, though they wouldn't say what. So they arent going to give him custody until that's settled at the very least. Shortly into it my sister had asked me to take over the guardianship. I was so out of the loop that I thought the question was absurd. I thought they'd pull it together and get her back in a short time, so what would the point of moving her to another town and school be? How would I go about that? What would the home requirements be? Would I be able to provide for the both of us? I wouldn't be able to leave work until 4 at the earliest shift, so would after school stuff be best or daycare? There's so much that goes into taking care of a kid to just spring that question onto someone. Now it's been four or five months and I'm hating the idea that she's stuck there in the middle of it all more and more. People keep telling me I should take her. Even my manager after I broke down and told him everything after my sister's call left me a mess at work, said that I would be the better option. I know what it's like to be fought over in custody battles and I understand way too well the fear of being taken away from your home as well as what it's like to change schools. I dont want that for Koral. I dont even know if I would be the better option. I talked to my cousin, whom I live with, about it for a while last night and she said she wouldn't be opposed to having Koral with us... but I feel bad making this her issue too. I want what is best for my sister. She's way too smart. You know when unqualified pet owners get a dog breed that is really smart and they struggle to meet the needs to keep it entertained so it just makes trouble? That is what my sister is like. My family has their strengths, but Koral is 6 and could run circles both physically and mentally around them. It might be "funny" now, but Lansing itself is a shitty influence on people and by the time she's a teenager and wants to go to a party, nothing is going to keep her from getting out short of bars on the windows and doors. The only thing stopping her from doing it now is motive. But would I do any better? I genuinely dont know. I wish I could talk to my brother about it. He knows where I come from and, even if he thinks I failed, he could at least tell me how to be better so I dont fuck up again for a little girl who is in a situation similar to one we were in. I asked Des today if she wanted to talk to their case worker about transfering guardianship. She said she's have to talk to her dad... which is bullshit. He lost the right to dictate where Koral goes when he fucked up. How is he supposed to be motivated to fix this if the only thing that has changed is that she doesn't sleep in her bedroom anymore? He shouldn't see her when he wants to or be able to say what happens to her. And I dont say that because I think he shouldn't ever be able to, because I want him to step it up, I just feel like he wont if things keep going as they are. I dont want to lose my sister to the system. Supposedly the social worker said that Koral also has to stay in the same school and can't see anyone not on the already approved list of people for the sake of consistency... but that's stupid. I know that changing schools can be traumatizing, and if Lansing was a good place to live and raise a kid, then maybe I'd try to make that work, but it isnt. So it makes me wonder that if I came to the table with a clearly stable, appealing plan would they change their minds? If it were my choice, I'd have her in therapy to help deal with everything, maybe a sport like gymnastics or whatever else she might be interested in to keep her engaged. I'm planning a kids d&d session for her and another kiddo that she plays with when she's here because last time she found my monster manual and got obsessed. And I know it wont be all good. She's a handful and a brat, and she can be a force of nature when she doesn't get her way, but I've been an older sister since I was five and my family didnt out up with bratty behavior. I know how to deal with it, and I also know how to use the internet and other resources to learn. Hell, I live with a child therapist/youth minister. I know I could do it. Even if it ended up being a permanent thing. I'm torn between the fear of not being enough at the expense of my sister's wellbeing and knowing that I'd gladly twist myself into a pretzel to try and do right. But when it comes to other people, especially a kid, is trying enough? Good intentions don't equal a quality of living. So yeah, that's where I am right now. Trying to be better and figure out who I am while also being incredibly stressed out and lost. If you read through this, thank you for listening to this TED talk. I'm open to advice.

#That's how far down this rabbit hole I am #I'm looking for guidance from the internet #long post

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honeymoonjin · 5 years

Text

transition - jin x reader

A/N: 1.2k words. Kim Seokjin is here to guide you onto the next stage of your cosmic existence, but you’re not quite ready to go. Purely a crack fic, based off the Grim Reapers on the k-drama Goblin. Please let me know if you’d like me to make another part of this, maybe make a little mini-series! I just want to gauge interest before I commit to it.

You would call Seokjin the hottest man you’d ever seen in your life, but neither of those criteria were true. He wasn’t a man, he was a grim reaper, and this was no longer your life anymore.

He was still pretty fucking hot though.

“So, I’m dead dead.”

He pauses. “Yes. We’ve been through this.” You scoff and stomp your foot pettily on the paisley floor tiles. He doesn’t berate you, simply sighing as though this was the grim reaper equivalent of a Monday morning. “You attempted to go pat a dog on the other side of the street and walked straight into oncoming traffic. Yes, you are dead.”

You grimace. “Is the dog okay, though?”

“The dog was never in danger. Peanut was safely tethered to a bicycle rack on the footpath.”

Your eyes light up. “His name was Peanut? Oh, what a good boy! I wish I made it to the other side to meet him.” You glance around the room. “So, is this heaven then? Pretty empty.”

The room you were led into was vast, with high ceilings and filled with tall mahogany shelves that looked like they continued infinitely. Right at the entrance was what you would probably refer to as a staffroom, though with slightly shittier amenities. A table and a bench were about as good as it got.

The beautiful…entity across from you was in a perfectly tailored black suit. When he had retrieved you from the middle of the street, as you stared down hopelessly at your own mangled body, he was wearing a leather trench coat and wide-brimmed hat, but those were on a coatrack by the door now. He had been more or less patiently fielding your questions for the past hour or so, slowly edging a little cup of tea towards you.

He sighs at yet another naïve question. “No, it’s not.”

“Well, fuck. I went to hell, then?”

“Also no.” You raise your eyebrows at him expectantly. “Just drink the tea before it gets cold, and you’ll be able to move on to a new life. A better life, perhaps.”

You stare into the murky yellow depths of the delicate china teacup. It smells vaguely of chamomile, and despite how long you’ve been sitting here since he brewed it, it’s still steaming away lightly. “Do you have coffee? I’m not really a tea girl.”

Were you imagining his lips quirking for a second? He schools his expression before you can process it for sure. “No, we don’t have coffee. This isn’t a Starbucks.”

“Clearly,” you mutter. He stares at you blankly, tipping his head towards the cup. “Uh, can I use your bathroom?”

“You’re a soul, not a physical organism. You don’t need to use the bathroom.”

You splutter. “I never said I needed to pee, I just wanted to…make sure my hair looked alright before I moved on to the afterlife. I have just been in a head-on collision, you know.”

“Your hair looks perfect. And, like I’ve said, it’s not the afterlife, it’s another life. Drink the tea.”

You blush furiously, hearing nothing else but the compliment. His stare is so blank and disinterested that if this was any human on Earth, you would have given up, but he’s not a human. And this is your last interaction ever as Y/n L/n before you’re reborn as someone else, apparently. Is it wrong to want to make the most of it? “I’m not thirsty.”

He closes his beautiful eyes and purses his lips. “Y/n, we’ve established you’re not drinking the tea for its nutritional value. It will erase your memories from this life so that you may live peacefully in the next. It is a blessing you should be grateful for.”

You scratch your nose. “If I drink the tea, will I forget meeting Peanut?”

“Technically, you never met Peanut.”

“Will I forget seeing Peanut, then?”

“Yes.”

You gasp. “Will I forget dogs exist?”

He sighs out. “N- Well, yes, but just until you experience them again as a chil-”

“It’ll be a peaceful life, you say? But, God, at what cost?”

His knuckles are white where he’s gripping his hands together. “Please, I’m begging you, just drink the tea. I have other souls to collect today.”

“What if I promise to drink the tea later?” you bargain.

He stares at you with an incredulous look on his face. “What?”

“Why the rush, you know? Besides, iced tea tastes way better, and this bad boy is still well above lukewarm.”

“What could you possibly want to do in the meantime?”

You shrug. “Bring a Soul to Work day? Get some sightseeing in before the Big D.” You wince as you say it out loud. “D meaning death, by the way, that sounded less sexual in my head. Although…” you trail off meaningfully, batting your eyelashes at him.

He opens his mouth and closes it again. After a few moments, he lets out a strangled sound of defeat. “I have watched more than one hundred billion human souls pass through this very room, given them this very tea, but I have never met a single one quite like you.” There’s a duality in his voice: exasperation mixed with wonder.

You smile at him cheekily. “Oo-oh, you like me!”

He frowns, a pained look on his face. “I’ve changed my mind; it’s no longer a compliment.”

You sigh heavily, dipping a finger into the tea and swirling it lazily. His eyes light up as he thinks you’re about to finally take a sip, but you just suck the tip of your finger clean and slump onto the table, pouting. “Ah, I’m so bored!”

He leans back in his chair, eyes lifting skywards, like he’s praying for God to intervene himself. “Then drink the tea. Trust me, I’m even more miserable than you right now.”

You look up through your eyelashes, glancing at the shelf behind him, and the containers of tea leaves lined up on top of it. You give him a shrug. “Doesn’t look like you’re about to run out anytime soon.” You gasp and sit up again. “What if you drank the tea? What then?”

“Then I would lose my memories and be unable to do my job. Hence why I do not drink the tea.”

You fiddle with the teacup’s delicate handle. “What if you accidentally drank some and then you lost all your memories? And you had no one who could take over for you because you were here all by yourself? Seems to me like you need an assistant.”

His voice is as flat as his expression. “To make sure I don’t accidentally drink the tea?”

“Precisely,” you state proudly. He gives you an unimpressed look. “Listen, just give me a chance! One week. Surely you must get lonely.”

Seokjin’s gaze turns inwards and the hard façade drops. He’s silent for a minute or so, eyes flickering back and forth, unfocused. When he eventually speaks up again, his voice is softer than you’ve ever heard it. “One week.”

You pump your fist in the air. “You won’t regret it!”

He affords you a gentle smile. “I think, for the first time since I met you, you’re actually right.”

#bts fic #bts imagine #bts au #jin x reader #bts x reader

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bee-kathony · 6 years

Photo

I’ll Never Love Again: Part 3/4 - “Commitment”

written by @julesbeauchamp & @curlsgetdemgurls

a/n: thank you so much for your love on the previous chapters! we hope you’ll enjoy seeing their commitment to each other... several decades later

Part I / Part II

May 2005

She opened her eyes slowly to the early morning sun, and looked over at her still sleeping husband -- laying on his back with his hands folded across his stomach. Claire had been hoping he wouldn’t wake at the crack of dawn like he always did, because she had a special birthday plan to wake him up.

Pushing her side of the covers away, Claire moved to her knees and carefully pulled back the sheet covering her husband’s waist. Even in middle age, Jamie had a fit body, always at the gym, taking care of himself -- not that Claire minded in the slightest.

She didn’t want to straddle him, because that would surely wake him, so instead she turned her body to face him and placed one hand lightly on his bare thigh. Jamie started sleeping naked again when their kids had grown too old to barge into their room at all hours of the day, and for this Claire was thankful.

As she moved his hand gently on his thigh, she looked down between his legs, and saw his semi-erect cock twitch slightly. Claire’s heart started to race, nervous that Jamie would wake up before she wanted him to.

Leaning over his body, careful to keep her curls from tickling his skin, Claire touched his cock with one finger, from base to tip. Seeing that he only squirmed, but didn’t stir, made her aroused and so Claire took hold of his cock in her hand and placed her lips around the tip. He tasted salty and warm, she smiled to herself and opened her mouth for more of him. As her tongue swirled on his head, tasting the pre-cum that had started to ooze, all of a sudden, Claire felt a large hand on her shoulder.

She turned her face to look at him, and saw two squinty, sleep filled blue eyes peering down at her, with a smirk on the owner’s face.

“Happy 45th Birthday, Jamie.” Claire smiled, and then dipped her head to place a kiss on his cock.

“Are ye tryin’ to give me a heart attack, Sassenach?” Jamie grunted.

“Something like that,” Claire smirked and continued to suck on his length. Jamie groaned, arching his back off the bed and moving his hand to tangle in her curls, which had streaks of grey in them.

“Claire…” Jamie sighed, “I canna --”

She looked up just in time to see Jamie shut his eyes tightly, his other hand twisting the sheets and then she felt him spill himself into her mouth. Claire nearly gagged -- it had been awhile since she’d done this to him, but swallowed, and pulled back, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

“I’m dead, Sassenach.” Jamie said softly, reaching out his hand for her. Claire climbed on top of him, laying her body flat over his, nuzzling her face into his neck -- she was thankful that she too, was naked… but that might have more to do with their extracurricular activities the night before.

“Would you like me to sing?” Claire smiled against his chest, placing a soft kiss there.

“Oh aye, I would.” Jamie grinned, sliding his hands over the small of her back and finally resting on her round arse. Even as they got older, Claire’s arse was still firm -- a bit more plump, which Jamie liked, but firm nonetheless.

“But first,” Jamie grabbed both her hips to lift her slightly off of him, and understanding his meaning, Claire reached in between their bodies and took hold of his cock, guiding it to her center.

“Happy Birthday… to you,” Claire started to sing, as she rose off his chest and placed a hand on his belly, sinking down on his hard cock.

She rolled her hips, her breasts bouncing slightly as Jamie pushed himself off of the bed. “Happy birthday to you,” she sang.

Jamie thrust upwards, squeezing her hips, and moved one calloused hand over her breast, kneading and flicking her nipple. Claire’s breath was becoming heavy and quick, making it harder for her to sing.

“Happy,” she moaned and rested her hand on one of Jamie’s knees behind her. “Birthday dear,” Jamie cried out, “Jamie.” Claire sighed, rolling her hips in a figure eight movement and finally moaned as her orgasm took over her body and she fell against his chest.

A moment later after they had taken a breath, Claire lifted up to look at him, brushing a finger across his lips. “Happy birthday to you,” she pressed her lips against his, kissing him deeply.

“Thank ye for making my birthday so good every year for the last seventeen years, Sassenach,” Jamie whispered against her lips, his hand brushing a few curls away from her face.

“You do age like a good wine,” Claire remarked with a smile. Since the day she had met him, his gorgeous face didn’t change a lot, it simply got better -- a few lines were gracing the sides of his eyes and a new one on his forehead because he worried about the children so much. His fiery curls were starting to fade into a lighter auburn colour and he discovered his first white hair the other morning.

“Thank ye for the compliment,” Jamie chuckled softly, kissing her nose, “So do ye, Sassenach. I like the grey,” Jamie’s finger touched the grey streak in her hair.

“That’s what happens when you marry someone older than you by three years,” Claire smirked.

“It’s beautiful,” Jamie lifted her chin, “Ye’re beautiful, Sorcha.”

Claire sealed their lips once more, “Smooth talk like that can get you everything you want, Fraser.”

“I already have everything I want, Fraser,” Jamie admitted with a broad smile, his index finger stroking her upper lip. “I never thought at forty five I would be so happy, so fulfilled, so peaceful but I am and tis’ all thanks to ye, Claire.”

Jamie hadn’t touched a glass of alcohol after the night of Claire’s graduation and their argument. It had not been easy, neither for him and for her -- who lived in the constant fear of seeing a relapse but they had trusted one another completely and together, took small steps towards his recovery. “I’m so proud of you,” Claire could barely hide the emotion in her voice and her eyes were shiny with tears about to spill but they were not sad tears -- they were happy ones. “And thank you for allowing me to see not only your good side but also the less appealing one and most importantly, thank you for trusting me enough to let me help you.”

“We built a good life together, I canna wait to see what lays ahead for us for the many years to come.”

“I can see lots of love,” Claire winked, kissing his cheek, “And graduations, birthdays, weddings, grandchildren…”

“Och, we have many more years before grandchildren,” Jamie chuckled, “I ken it will happen one day but there’s still time.”

Their oldest daughter Flora was sixteen, Skye turned fourteen in the fall and their latest, Henry was eight. They did have plenty of time to think about grandchildren but they also knew how fast life passed by and they were determined to enjoy every moment.

“Yes, we’ve got all the time in the world,” Claire pulled him close and kissed him tenderly, her legs tangled with his. They kissed thoroughly for a long time, being in their own bubble, in their own world -- together and not a care in the world.

******

After reluctantly getting up, Jamie and Claire took a shower together -- that took longer than planned once Claire ended up pinned against the wall while Jamie kneeled down and had what he referred as his “english breakfast.”

They got dressed and went downstairs to find the kids at the kitchen table having breakfast together. After a few kisses and hugs for Jamie by the children and real breakfast consumed, everyone left for their respective activities. Claire left for the hospital and the kids left with Jamie for school before he went to his studio to start some work.

In the early afternoon, Claire left the hospital and made her way to Carfax’s Close to surprise him. She walked up the familiar stairs, remembering the thousands of times she had come here. Once, Jamie didn’t allow anyone to visit him at his studio, but after their argument that night about the car crash and his fiancée, he had welcomed Claire’s presence and even sometimes preferred when she was there to keep him company when she could.

With a light knock to warn him that she was entering, Claire walked through the door and immediately stopped in her tracks.

Jamie was sitting on his stool, not painting, not drawing. Simply sitting on his stool and staring at an unopened bottle of whisky that was sitting on the table nearby.

“I’m no goin’ to drink it, Sassenach.” Jamie said without looking at her.

She pulled off her jacket, walked into the studio and draped it over the couch. “I didn’t think you were.”

“Tis a gift…” He finally met her eye, “From my friend Charlie from University, I suppose he doesna ken about my wee addiction.” Jamie half laughed and then sighed, looking back at the bottle. Claire came to stand beside him, sliding her arm around his shoulder, and he leaned his head against her chest.

“A long time ago, I woulda craved this, mo nighean donn.” Jamie moved his arm around her waist to pull her closer. “Even after that horrible night, I woulda been tempted to drink it and forget what I’d done to ye.”

“But now?”

“But now,” Jamie turned his face to look up at his beautiful wife that had stood by him for so long, “All I crave is ye.” He turned her body so that she was facing him and she straddled him, wrapping both legs around his waist as he put his hands on her back. “Ye are a great surgeon, Claire. Yer a great mother, a wonderful wife. There isna much that ye canna do.”

Claire blushed and buried her face into his neck, breathing in the scent of him, acrylics and his own personal musk. “There’s plenty that I can’t do, Jamie.”

“Ye canna cook, that’s for sure.” Jamie laughed, squeezing her arse gently, making her squirm on his lap. “Ye canna… well. As I said,” He pressed his lips against hers, “Ye can do anythin’ ye put yer mind to.”

“Well yes, that I do, but it’s stubbornness,” she pinched the tip of his nose.

“I still dinna know what ye decide to spend yer life wi’ a loser like me but I’m thankful,” He tried to bite at her finger, but she was too quick.

“Oh stop it, you’re stuck with me forever and nothing you can say will make me change my mind at this point,” Claire kissed him.

“I’ll take that bottle outside, put it on the stairs and I’m sure someone will grab it!” Claire laughed, and untangled herself from Jamie’s lap. When she reached for the bottle, however, she couldn’t control her hand as it started to shake and before her or Jamie could stop it, the bottle went crashing to the floor. Glass and whisky covered the ground, and Claire stood still, staring down at her hand with a subtle tremor.

“It’s okay, Sassenach. Dinna move,” Jamie said quietly and tip toed his way to the small kitchen in his studio to grab towels and something to collect the glass in.

“It’s gotten worse, hasn’t it?” He said when he returned, and bent down to mop up the spilled liquid.

“Only slightly more so than the last time I noticed.” Claire said and feeling defeated, she plopped down on the stool, careful to not let her feet touch the broken glass. “I thought…”

“The doctor said that Parkinson’s can be a slowly developing disease, mo ghraidh,” Jamie did his best to collect the glass into a small pile but left it to attend to his wife. “Claire, look at me,” He tilted her chin up with his hand.

“Yer hand might shake a wee bit from time to time, and ye have that new medication to help with some of the anxiety.” Jamie brushed his thumb across her cheek.

“I know that. But if the shakin gets worse, I’ll have to stop working at the hospital and I don’t want to do that Jamie!” Claire started to cry, and leaned into his body, feeling his arms wrap around her.

“I used to ken a man who had the disease -- I was just a lad, but he managed alright. He had good days when the shaking wasna so much.” Jamie stroked her hair, softly whispering things in gaelic she couldn’t understand but eased her nonetheless. “And the man had bad days, when his whole body wouldn’t do what he wanted it to, and he couldna stop the moving.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?” Claire looked up at him, and he wiped her tears away.

“Because, Sassenach, ye will have good days and bad days, that’s just how life works. But that old man also had a wife that loved him and she took care of him everyday. I saw how his life was better because of her in it.” Jamie kissed her softly, “I vow to ye now, Sassenach -- that when ye can no longer hold yer own spoon or write a letter, that I’ll be there to help ye every step of the way… just as ye have been there for me.”

“Oh, Jamie.” Claire sighed and pulled his face to hers once again, kissing him with all her strength.

Jamie kissed her back and leaned to the side to grab a paintbrush before presenting it to her, “Let’s paint.”

“I can’t paint and you know that,” Claire looked at him amused.

“We can paint, together,” Jamie took her hand, “Come on.”

“And what do you want to paint?” Claire raised her eyebrow, looking at him amused while he set up a blank canvas and prepared some colours.

“I dinna ken, whatever ye feel like painting,” Jamie smiled at her, making his way to the record player and put on a Stevie Nicks record on.

Claire looked at him, her mouth curling into a smirk as the first notes of “Blue Denim” went off, “Now that takes me back.”

Jamie dipped his brush into the blue paint, “Ye hypnotized me that night, mo nighean.” He began to paint big strokes over the canvas and Claire watched, always fascinated.

Claire dipped her own brush into some of the red paint, but she had something else that she wanted to paint instead of the canvas. She brushed the paint quickly on Jamie’s forearm, smearing the red and he gasped, looking up at her with an open mouth.

“Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp…” he smirked, “Ye take my good paints and ye dinna use them on the art.”

Claire bit her bottom lip, looking up at her husband, “Oh… but you are a work of art.”

Jamie squinted his eyes at her, and then decided two could play at this game. He reloaded his brush with blue paint and swiped it across her chest. “Fair’s fair.”

“My dress!” Claire laughed and looked down at herself, smudged with blue paint. “You’ll pay for this, Fraser.” She swiped at him again but he dodged her, running behind the canvas. With the music blasting and her heart racing, Claire chased him around the studio with her paintbrush in hand.

Jamie was trapped in a corner with nowhere to turn, so Claire walked up to him, pressing herself against his body so that the blue smudge on his shirt. “Let’s make purple,” she sighed and kissed him.

“See,” he growled, lifting her legs and wrapping them around his waist. “Ye do know how to paint.” Jamie laughed, kissing her neck and carried her over to a tarp near the easel, laying her down on her back.

Claire quickly removed her dress and panties, while Jamie made an effort to rid himself of his clothes. He stood above her, naked, his cock throbbing and she licked her lips. “Jamie,” she sighed and held up her hands. He laughed, turning to the side and placing both of his hands into the paint before climbing on top of her body.

“It’ll be cold, Sassenach.” Jamie grinned and then placed both of his paint covered hands over her breasts, squeezing and kneading until her chest and stomach was covered in paint.

She shivered slightly, and moaned as the cool paint covered her skin. She arched her back, smearing the paint over Jamie and placed both her hands on his back to press him against her. Jamie slid home, rolling his hips and chest, gliding over her. Together they rolled around in the paint, laughing and giggling like teenagers, lost in their love.

#outlander #outlander fanfiction #jamie x claire #jamie fraser #claire fraser #i'll never love again #em and jules write the things #part 3 #INLA #modern au #claire beauchamp #outlander fanfic #EMXJU #paint party

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honeybammie · 6 years

Text

seoul › kim namjoon

↳ in which you leave your heart in seoul, seven thousand miles away from new york city ↳ angst, but ends in fluff? sorta? you’ll see

Moving seven thousand miles away from Namjoon was the hardest thing I ever did, but in the end, I had no choice. I would’ve stayed with him in Seoul if I had been rejected from the top film school in New York, but the day my acceptance letter came in the mail, our the time left in our relationship was no more than a few grains left in the hourglass.

“I’ll wait for you,” he tried to say, but four years apart to a couple of eighteen-year-olds was practically a lifetime, and whether or not I’d ever return to Korea was one of the biggest questions of all, especially when cities like New York and Los Angeles might’ve given me a lifetime of opportunity. I broke both of our hearts and turned them into shattered pieces, and for months afterwards I pricked myself on the jagged edges that remained.

We stayed in touch for a year, perhaps, but distance and time are a lethal combination, and fresh heartache faded to a bitter taste in the back of my throat. Gradually, we stopped answering each other’s calls, fabricating excuses that we had been too busy or too tired, but we were only too tired of pretending we could be friends.

His features faded from time. His dimpled cheeks and dainty, sloped nose blurred among eight million faces, and with Seoul’s even larger population, Namjoon undoubtedly felt the same about me. I fell into bed with new people, as would he. I found new coffee shops and places to buy my clothes, as would he.

By the time my junior year rolled around, I stopped missing him. My phone number changed. I cut my hair, bought my own apartment with two close college friends, assimilated to the city as if I had never come from Seoul in the first place.

My greatest accomplishment was in filming, as I always hoped. Professors dipped my short productions in praise, and I scored myself a paid internship at a nearby film studio. On the internet, I attracted a small—but growing—community who motivated me to release more. Whoever first coined New York as the city that never sleeps hadn’t been joking. There was no time to sleep, between classes and the internship and filming new videos and keeping my roommates in check while trying my damnedest to maintain a normal social life.

Graduation made the juggling process easier, but hardly. The studio hired me full-time with a generous starting salary, but if we were filming, I might be at work for twelve, fourteen hours. Art is art and the artist drives himself mad in pursuit, and I was no different, but maybe it would be nice to sleep again. My roommates pointed out that they’d go weeks without seeing me, like I was a ghost in our apartment. All traces that I had been there were still present—unmade bed, empty shampoo bottles, half-eaten dinners shoved into Tupperware containers—but I had not been truly present in some time.

I was happy, but I missed interaction. The artist may think he can live off merely his art, but he will eventually realize he is human, too, and second to oxygen, he needs other humans.

Which is why I didn’t think twice when my parents asked me to fly into Seoul for a week during the summer. They usually visited New York a couple times a year, but they were growing older and the flights were taking bigger tolls on them, so I filled in. A trip home might alleviate some of my stress anyway, and I’d have the chance to meet with friends I hadn’t seen in half a decade.

The only problem with travelling a fourteen-hour time difference was the jet-lag. My first day, I passed out on the couch at two in the afternoon. The smell was comforting and reminded me of childhood and the nostalgia became a lullaby that rocked me to sleep in the middle of a conversation with my mother. She let me be, covering me with a blanket and preparing a cup of tea for when I woke.

I tried to sleep again in the evening. My parents went to bed at midnight, but I tossed and turned for an hour to no avail. Luckily, there was always one person I could call at 1AM and expect an answer every time: Jung Hoseok.

He picked me up not twenty minutes later, shouting on my front porch about how many years it had been and how my face matured and how hot I looked. I shushed him when a neighbor’s dog started barking, and he yanked me into his car.

“Have you talked to Jimin yet? Or Yoongi? They wonder about you all the time,” he gushed. “We’ve seen all of your videos on YouTube, and we placed bets on how old you’ll be when you become a millionaire. I said twenty-seven, so you still have a few years, but you should probably start planning as soon as you can.”

Hoseok fired a million questions a minute, hardly granting me the opportunity to answer, but he made up for it by constantly making me laugh. Even when I tried to glare at him at a slightly-too-personal inquiry, he smirked at me out of the corner of his eye, and I forgave him in an instant. He was always the biggest personality in the room, and he was on his way to opening the dance studio he had always dreamed of as a teenager.

“Can you believe it? We’re both achieving everything we ever dreamed of!” he beamed.

“Well…sort of,” I said with a shrug, and he almost swerved into oncoming traffic as he whipped his head to stare at me in shock. “What? Don’t kill us, Hoseok.”

“You’re living the New York dream life. You’re making short movies and you have your own growing fan base. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Of course, but…it’s lonely sometimes, and my roommates and I still talk, but our friendship has faded since college. I’d prefer you, Yoongi, and Jimin a hundred times over.”

“None of us would complain if you moved back,” he suggested. “If you needed a place to stay, your parents would surely let you, or you’re welcome to live with me. I’m in a one-bedroom right now, but we’d figure something out, and—”

“That isn’t what I meant,” I interrupted. “I gave up everything to be able to make a life in New York, and I’m doing it. I’m making good money. The apartment is nice enough. I—”

“You can make good money and get a nice apartment in Seoul,” Hoseok said. “I’m not asking you to give up your life, but if you aren’t as happy there as you always thought you’d be, maybe it’s time to reevaluate your decision. That’s all. Do you want to get some drinks?”

“Do you mind if we get drinks another night?” I asked, never one to tear him away from a party, but I hadn’t walked the city streets in so long that I missed them, and I didn’t want to forget my first night home after winding up black-out drunk in the back of Hoseok’s car. “Show me the city. What’s new? What hasn’t changed?”

“Right. I have a place for you, and luckily, we’re pretty close,” he said, taking the next left. “Remember that underground music venue we always used to go to? They sold old records and sometimes featured live artists sometimes?”

I nodded.

“It’s gotten pretty popular over the years. One of their guys seems to be on the cusp of making it big, so the crowd might be a little bigger,” he warned.

“I’ve lived in two of the biggest cities in the world. Crowds don’t scare me,” I said. “Are you sure we’ll be able to make it inside, though?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” he said, parking his car on the side of the road and leading me a couple blocks down vaguely familiar streets. The memories came back to me—buying school supplies from that store over there, or makeup from the place on the corner because I wanted to impress my peers. There were a couple places I didn’t recognize at all.

“Is this the line?” I asked at the sight of fifty or so people—mostly in their twenties—standing around the venue Hoseok and I used to slip into with little more than a five minute wait. “How aren’t they at capacity?”

“They’ve had to expand, and with the expansion they introduced VIP passes for a few of the regulars,” Hoseok said, digging a card out of his pocket as he strolled passed the waiting swath of people like he owned the entire place.

“Are you sure that’ll get me in?” I worried, but he merely waved his hand at me.

“Jin!” Hoseok greeted the worker, who I somewhat remembered was a couple years older than me in school, but I never spoke to him. Apparently he and Hoseok were well acquainted.

“Hoseok! Who is your friend?” Jin asked, but upon closer inspection his eyes widened in recognition. “I remember you! You moved to New York, right? Hoseok mentions you all the time.”

“Yeah, it’s great.” I forced myself to chuckle a little, trying my best to be polite. “Is it alright that I cut in front of all these people?”

“Normally, I’d say no, but I get the feeling Hoseok would never let me hear the end of it,” Jin tsked. Hoseok laid down a few bills in front of him, and Jin nodded for us to head inside, down the steps.

The bar was larger, equipped with more shimmering glasses than ever, and the standing area had easily doubled in size, perhaps tripled, which a slightly lifted stage whereas singers used to stand eye-to-eye with their audience. A dim light bathed the space in red.

“Red?” I said aloud. “Sexy.”

“Or angry,” Hoseok proposed, spending the next fifteen or so minutes chatting my ear off while people filled in around us. We weren’t near the front, but the view was good enough regardless, and in the event I would need to make a hasty exit, we were close to the stairs.

There was no warning that anyone was about to walk onto the stage. No announcement to introduce his presence was made, but the crowd knew. The shouting leveled to a murmur in the moments leading up to the grand reveal.

Then they erupted. One glimpse, and they became an entire stadium of fans, hands stretched into the air while lungs strained for breath.

But for my heart, the moment was anything but worthy of celebration.

If I thought Namjoon was handsome five years ago, he was breathtaking now, with the same sloped nose and dimples, but he matured into his features and his new confidence hit me full force. He changed his hair, too. Just like me.

But he was so, so angry. With the world. Sometimes with his friends or himself, but mostly with me.

“Why would you bring me here?” I shoved Hoseok’s arm. “What makes you think I’d want to see him, of all people?”

He narrowed his eyes, still moving with the music. “You broke up when you were eighteen. I thought you’d be over it by now and might want to see that he’s making something of himself, too.”

“I’m over it, but are you even listening to him? Half of these songs have been about me.”

“You were a big influence on his music. Don’t you think it’s kind of flattering?” Hoseok argued. “Most of the ones about you are from years ago, anyway, but he’s got to keep performing the fan favorites. Heartbreak resonates with people.”

He made complete sense, but that didn’t mean I wanted to admit that or stand and listen to the words coming out of Namjoon’s mouth.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I said, winding my way to the steps. I shut myself in the upper-level bathroom, where the voices downstairs were muffled and thus unintelligible.

Namjoon enrolled in a music school in Seoul, always praying that he’d be that one-in-a-million to make his music known on a global stage. He sang me to sleep so many times and rapped with more passion than most professionals. I believed in him more than myself, and he was on his way, but hearing the vehemence that backed his words made me hate him so slightly.

When others started coming into the bathroom at a quicker rate, I realized the music had ended. I exited to find the crowd filing their way out. How long had I been hiding?

“There you are.” Hoseok took my arm and pulled me towards him. “I started to think you left without me. Look, if I crossed a line by bringing you here—”

“How can I talk to him?” I blurted out, unaware that I had even thought of the question, but it was out in the open.

“You’re sure you want to do that?” he asked, giving me the chance to back out, but I nodded my head. “You know you aren’t allowed to hit him, right?”

“Yes, now please tell me, or I might hit you,” I threatened.

“Go back downstairs. Off the side of the stage, there’s a hall. He’ll be in the room on the end,” Hoseok said, handing me the VIP card. “There’s a guard. Show him this.”

“Thank you. Wait here.” I snatched the card and hurried back to the basement, following Hoseok’s set of instructions until my hand was on the doorknob of Namjoon’s room. What do you say to your ex-boyfriend who just performed several rap songs about your break-up to several hundred people?

Apparently, you don’t have to speak first anyway.

I only step halfway into the room when he catches my reflection in the mirror. The ice pack he was pressing to his neck falls to the floor, and he’s on his feet faster than if I’d told him the building was about to collapse.

“You’re here,” he breathes. “I saw you in the crowd, but you left, and I thought you were gone for good. Again.”

Again. I wince at the word. “Clearly you had a lot to say about me, so I came to give you the chance to say it to my face. If you hated me so much, why—”

“No, no, no, no.” He crosses half the floor in a few steps but stops in the middle of the room because he remembers that he can’t wrap his arms around me anymore when I need the comfort. “Those songs were all written years ago. Three, four, or five years, and they aren’t the only ones I wrote. I have sappy ballads and about a dozen songs titled ‘I Miss You’ and I can perform those at the breakfast café, but this isn’t the crowd for that.”

“A breakfast café?” I ask. He nods. “How many venues do you have booked?”

“Depends how many openings a place has—sometimes two or three, but other times up to six,” he says, attempting to mask his pride, but he glows a little brighter.

“So you aren’t angry all the time?”

He rocks his head side to side. “No,” he decides. “I’m angry some of the time, but isn’t everyone?”

“So you’re happy?” I ask. “This is what you want, right?”

This question is, evidently, more difficult to answer. “I’m…happy with the music, sure. And the fans,” he supposes. “There’s talk that I might go to a couple cities around the country and do a few performances, but we’ll see.”

“What about your friends? Your social life?” I ask. “How’re those things?”

“You care?” he wonders, and I nod. “I have a few people I’ve been working with, and they’re all great. They’re so passionate about getting me off the ground, and I love them, but I miss having actual friends sometimes, and going out for drinks, or seeing concerts.”

“Filming has been kind of the same way for me,” I admit. “Weird, don’t you think? How we both went after what we wanted, but one year after graduating, we’re both stuck already.”

“I’ve seen your work. It’s phenomenal,” he mumbles, rubbing his neck. “I tried to text you about it once, but you must’ve gotten a new number and I didn’t want to bother you.”

“We both bothered each other, don’t you think?” I ask, recalling how we mutually drifted apart after all the missed calls and unread messages. “We weren’t capable of being friends. It took me two years to stop missing you.”

“What about the last three years? Do you ever think of me?”

“I…sometimes.” I shrug, unsure of myself. “When I talk about high school, you’re usually in the mix, or sometimes when I smell peppermint I think of your house, but I had to move on eventually. We both did.”

“Right, right,” he says, nodding in agreement. “But…I would’ve still loved you, you know?”

“You would’ve?” I ask. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“It does. If you stayed here, or if you asked me to wait for you like I offered, I think we could’ve done it.” His stage personality starts to fade and I recognize a younger, shyer Namjoon who figured out how to love someone with his whole heart when he was sixteen years old and spent two years doing anything and everything to make me happy, which included letting me break his heart and move across the world.

“But I didn’t stay, and I didn’t ask you to wait,” I say, “so the question isn’t a matter of whether you would’ve loved me, but a matter of if you still do.”

“I beg to differ. It’s not a matter of if I do, but of if I can,” he corrects me. “Because I can’t be in love with someone seven thousand miles away. Not again.”

“Haven’t we been over this before?” I mutter. Five years ago, I said the same things. I couldn’t survive a relationship and distance, so I chose the latter.

“When you said you weren’t sure you’d ever come back, but here you are,” he says, gesturing to me and he was giving us both a little more hope than we knew what to do with, bringing forth all the memories of when we were just teenagers in love and what could possibly be more convincing than that? Didn’t we deserve that again?

“My entire life is over there.” I shake my head. “How long has it been since we last spoke? And you’re talking about being in love? We have to most past this eventually.”

“You were the one who asked me if I still love you,” he points out. “Do you still love me?”

Of course I do.

The thought springs into existence as easy as air, even if it had been years since I last thought it. I’d always love him, even when I hated him so slightly.

“Does it matter?” I ask, pushing the feelings down, down, down into the pit of my stomach. “You said you can’t be in love with someone seven thousand miles away, and I can’t, either. That’s why we broke up.”

“But you aren’t seven thousand miles away right now.”

“So what? I’m here for a week,” I sigh at my growing headache. Namjoon always had been one to throw aside logic in a desperate attempt to keep what he wanted.

“Then we have a week,” he says.

“You’re out of your mind,” I tell him, but he knew that already. He had to.

“Maybe, but you aren’t saying no.” He catches onto me, and I swear at him in my head. “You haven’t walked out, either, which you used to do when you didn’t agree with me.”

“Storming out of rooms is too teenager-esque for me,” I say, but he’s crossing the room again. I either want to slap or kiss him, but I’ll figure it out for sure in the moment. “You really think we can pretend this is a good idea for a week?”

He nods. “I really do.”

“Good enough for me.”

I grab the collar of his shirt with both hands and pull him to me, his lips meeting mine in a less than graceful collision but our love had never been pretty in the first place.

In a week, I’ll regret the decision. I’ll hate myself for kissing him. I’ll hate myself for asking to see him. I’ll hate myself for turning down Hoseok’s offer to drink ourselves into a stupor, or for leaving my parents’ house in the first place, but not yet. Not when Namjoon is standing right in front of me and his hands are in my hair and we’re eighteen again.

For the next six days, we have all the time in the world.

a/n: have i mentioned how much i love kim namjoon bc i love him with my entire heart that’s all

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frederator-studios · 6 years

Text

Meet Kate Tsang and Jennifer Cho Suhr, Creators of “Welcome to Doozy”

Kate and Jennifer are award-winning, multidimensional filmmakers who bonded over being the food table hoverers at networking events. Others may schmooze; Kate + Jen sandwich. Their passion for food - and for their friendship - shines through in their short “Welcome to Doozy,” our 6th GO! Cartoon. I sat down with these very impressive ladies to discuss the bureaucracy behind imaginary friends, the importance of representation, and karaoke tea-time.

Sooo, how’d you two meet? Kate: We met in film school at NYU, where we were in the same Masters program. Jen: Kate took classes in animation - but I have no animation background, and, sadly, can barely draw...

What brought you together as collaborators? Jen: We were paired in the same production group our first week of school, and became good friends. Kate: We’ve since collaborated on each other’s class exercises, thesis films, and various arty things.

Partners in movie-making! What brought you to Frederator as a team? Kate: I’ve always had an interest in animation. I love Adventure Time and Bee and PuppyCat. So when Natasha Allegri posted on her blog about GO! Cartoons, I told Jen we should ‘go’ for it. Jen: We had - still have! - the concept for a full series prepared, so we actually pitched the show bible first and then reverse-engineered that into the short.

How did “Doozy” change throughout your development process? Jen: A lot, actually. Lou is a Kitsune fox demon now - she started out as an eyeball with cowboy boots! But the concept was always 2 girlfriends, a la Broad City, having misadventures. Kate: A little origin story: Ex (who has always been a rabbit) recently retired from being an imaginary friend. The Bureau of Imaginary Friends handles the re-adjustment of retired IF’s back into the imaginary world. So this is the story of Ex re-assimilating: finding a roommate in Lou, getting a job, and developing a crush on her coworker Skeletim. Jen: Skeletim stayed really consistent since the pitch - Eric (Homan, our VP of Development) always really liked him. We joke that Eric only stuck with us because of Skeletim.

How much are Ex and Lou based on you two, and who’s who? Kate: It’s a bit of a mix… Jen: But I’d say I’m more Ex, almost by default - just because Kate is so much more like Lou. Kate: I AM the mischievous one. Jen: And I’m the more... straight-laced one? I guess that’s the way to put it. Although! Kate is the one who does martial arts, like Ex.

What themes recur in your work? Kate: There’s always hopefulness in mine. I’m interested in outsiders, and finding whimsy and humor, even when things look bleak. I enjoy working in mediums where I can create wonderment. Like right now: I’m learning magic! Jen: I care a lot about representation and grounding stories in the realities of human relationships. The feature film that I’m developing now is inspired by my relationship with my sister. And with “Doozy”: it’s very specific to Kate and my identities as Asian Americans. Kate: Like incorporating the bento box, and the influence of Japanese anime and manga, of which we’re both fans. We were definitely inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s way with food.

❀ A happy lil side note: one of the most popular Youtube comments on the short reads ‘A lot of people won’t know what a bento is but thanks to you, now they do!’ ❀

Jen: And we were conscious of the fact that most buddy comedies are about male friendships. We wanted to show girls being silly together and represent female friendship as it really is. Kate: That’s why Broad City was such an inspiration and even a motivator for “Doozy”. We were like ‘Ok, people do want to watch this.’

I read recently that Broad City’s viewership is split almost evenly male/female - it’s actually something like 55/45, with more men watching than women. Kate: What? That’s awesome. Jen: It just goes to show that it all comes down to good comedy and strong characters. I’m actually about to have a baby boy which has made me think about the types of stories that I’ll read to him as he grows up. I’ve been thinking of some of my favorite YA books with female protagonists like Anne of Green Gables and A Wrinkle in Time… it’s important to me that he’s able to identify and empathize with female characters. The only reason that boys “wouldn’t be able to” as people say, is if they learn socially that they shouldn’t.

What are some cool things we’ll get to see if “Welcome to Doozy” gets a series? Jen: Well, let’s just say there are some nefarious happenings in Ex’s office…

Gasp! Not Mrs. Hugs! Kate: Nah, not Mrs. Hugs. She’s a true office drone, doesn’t know what’s really up. Jen: We’d also backtrack, to show how Ex and Lou came to be friends and roommates. Kate: And we’d get to introduce their pet popsicle, who lives in the freezer. Jen: And we’d get to see Lou working her job at a run-down mini golf course. She schemes and ~magics~ to keep it afloat. Kate: There’s an underlying mystery, and it’d be a lot of them screwing up while trying to investigate it.

What sorta stuff do you guys like to do together - any wild adventures? Kate: Actually, yes. We try to take a road trip together every year. So far we’ve done the Badlands, the Southwest, the Midwest, the South and New Orleans. Jen: Admittedly, the Midwest was probably the most boring… not to knock where I’m from. But here’s a story: when we were in Nashville - the biggest music town - we quickly realized that karaoke is different there and that everyone getting onstage was a pro or semi-pro country singer. And then Kate got up - Kate: I didn’t know any better. Jen: And sang an Amy Winehouse/Mark Ronson cover amid all this country music. Truly the new kids in town. And the audience TOTALLY ate it up! They loved it. Kate: We karaoke together a lot. Sometimes we rent a room for just the two of us… during the middle of the day… one might call us enthusiasts.

What cartoons do you guys like? Jen: Well, Kate and I have wildly different tastes. But we both love Adventure Time and Rick and Morty. Kate: And we share 90s cartoons, like Dexter’s Lab, Daria, and Invader Zim - Jen: But Kate likes things like Ren & Stimpy - which is too grotesque for me…

What about your favorite Studio Ghibli film? Jen: Spirited Away. Kate: My Neighbor Totoro.

Last up: what are you working on now, and what’s your favorite thing you’ve made in the past? Kate: Favorite film I’ve made is “So You’ve Grown Attached” - “Doozy” inherited elements from it, like the imaginary friends, and the name ‘Ex’. Jen: I’m really focused on getting my feature financed right now, which we want to shoot this summer.

Oo-ooh! What’s it about, and who’s the star? Jen: The film is called You and Me Both and we have Constance Wu from Fresh Off the Boat as one of the stars (me = !!). It’s a drama with comedic notes about two sisters, one a struggling heroin addict, who take a road trip to find their birth mother. While it touches on some heavy topics like loss and addiction, it’s ultimately a love story between sisters… so if anyone is looking to finance a film, hit me up! As far as favorite work… I don’t know… Kate: What about “Saeng-Il”? (“Birthday” in Korean) Jen: Okay, “Saeng-Il” then.

vimeo

And Kate, what are you working on?

Kate: Eeeerrrrrr…. Jen: C’mon! Your feature! Kate: Okay, yeah, I’m working on a feature too. It’s a drama-comedy about a teen delinquent who teams up with a struggling party magician to battle her inner demons, strained home life, and avoid reform school. If anyone happens to know anyone who knows Catherine O’Hara - I’ve got a part for her.

youtube

You heard it here first, folks. Let’s snag financing for “You and Me Both” and Catherine O’Hara as Kate’s lead.

Thanks for taking the time, Kate and Jen! Great chatting with you, and best of luck on all of your projects. Can’t wait to see ‘em on the big screen (and also, little screens).

- Cooper

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scamperingscribbles · 6 years

Text

Melonhead

It was Wednesday again, and Emil’s presentation wasn’t perfect yet, so it might as well have been armageddon. He sat in his cubicle, twitching nervously at his desk as the three cups of black coffee he’d downed in the last hour wound their way through his bloodstream. Perfection was non-negotiable, especially two weeks into his new position of reporting directly to the highest manager, with last week’s meeting in the books as a complete catastrophe. All he’d had to do was go over how the latest product they’d released had been selling over the past month. A simple statistic, and a simple presentation. He should have been able to get through it without a single screw up. He’d done it plenty of times before.

Instead, he’d completely frozen before he’d even turned on the projector, because Mr. Maloney had come in, taken one look at Emil’s outfit, and then decided to make an off-handed comment to a lower-division manager about the tackiness and unprofessionalism of the paisley pattern in ties. It had gone downhill from there. Emil had made an attempt to scratch his nose while answering a simple question about gross profits, and had instead spilled his entire cup of scalding black coffee down the front of his blazer. Today, with fifteen minutes left before his presentation, Emil was quickly coming to realize that it was pretty difficult to type with his head buried in his hands.

“Maria?” said a voice. “What are you doing here?”

Emil blinked through his fingers and looked up at the ceiling. Had that voice come through the loudspeaker, or was he imagining things? He wasn’t sure. Not that he wouldn’t have liked it if he’d really heard something; he’d be glad for any excuse to take his mind on a nice date to literally anywhere else.

“James Matthew Maloney, I need to talk to you.”

“I see that. You are, in fact, talking to me, Maria.”

“No, but not— I mean, talk.”

“There’s a difference between talking and talking?”

“That’s not— you’re missing the point!”

“What point? The only point you’ve made is that we’re not talking until we’re talking, and if we’re not talking yet, then I’d say that no point has really been made.”

“I—you— will you fucking stop that?”

Frozen in his desk chair, Emil was now positive that he was not imagining things. Someone in the main office must have accidentally turned on the intercom, because Maloney’s voice was now crackling through the air, accompanied by a woman’s voice that Emil didn’t recognize. He stared at his screen unseeing, not daring to move.

“Was there something you wanted to discuss?”

“Yes, James, there is something I wanted to discuss.”

“Come on, there’s no need to take that tone—”

“Oh, there isn’t? Remind me who you are to tell me what tones I can and cannot take, hmm?”

“Maria, please—“

“Don’t ‘Maria’ me!”

Emil suddenly became aware he was not the only one eavesdropping. The office had gone completely silent; clicks of keyboards, shuffles of paper, occasional bouts of cursing over spilled mugs of cold coffee— all gone. He wondered, in spite of himself, where all this rapt attention was during his presentation last week.

“Then what’s the problem? Make it fast, if you could— you’ve decided to barge into my office in the middle of my day, and I have a meeting to attend in fifteen minutes.”

“Oh my god, you’re such an ass.”

“What the hell did I do now?”

“The cantaloupe that I brought home literally yesterday, that’s what you did.”

Emil had never been aware that silence could change tone, but apparently it could, and it did. It morphed, somehow, from a quiet tension into that characteristic silence that occurs immediately after someone farts loudly in a silent auditorium. A sort of shocked, incredulous silence. A few cubicles over, somebody coughed.

“Alright, now hold on just a second here—”

“James!”

“Would you calm down? The employees will hear you.”

“Maybe they should! Maybe I want them to! Maybe I want them to know exactly what my idiot of a husband does to the fresh produce I bring home for our weekend brunch with his parents!”

A snicker rippled through the cubicles, reminding Emil distinctly of the familiar sound that used to accompany falling on one’s face in high school gym class. He cracked a smile. This was the most fun he’d had since his striped tie had gotten stuck in the fax machine. It had been a really terrible tie.

“Maria, please—“

“I told you last night that I was saving it for them, and this morning I come into the kitchen and find it full of holes!”

“You were asleep— and I couldn’t just leave for work like that, I had to do something, and it was right there—”

“The fuck is wrong with using your hands, James?”

Emil’s ribs were killing him. He could hear the snickers from the cubicles getting louder, with occasional subdued snorts— he clapped his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing, the sudden movement tipping a stack of meticulously organized notecards onto the floor. He paused— for once, he realized, literally nothing in his life mattered any less than picking them back up and putting them back in order. They could lie there at his feet for hours, for all he cared. Maybe he hadn’t even needed them in the first place. He tentatively stepped on one, and it crumpled under his polished black shoe. Beneath his hand, he slowly began to grin.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight, I was in a rush, it was right there— Maria, I’m sorry, but can we please talk about this later? At home? When I’m not at work, or in public?”

“Oh, of course, now he apologizes. Now he feels sorry. He’s gonna feel a hell of a lot sorrier when he ends up with a UTI from a melon, I can tell you that much.”

“I used protection, Maria, I’m not an idiot.”

“Oh? Oh, you used protection, now, did you? Tell me, did you use one of the ribbed ones, for the cantaloupe’s personal pleasure? I mean, lord knows you’d need the boost—”

“Maria!”

Now hunched over his keyboard in silent spasms of suppressed snickering, Emil came to the conclusion that he had not previously been aware of what true pain was, regardless of circumstance. His ribs felt like they were about to burst, he’d never wanted to laugh so badly in his life. The woman in the next cubicle had already excused herself to the restroom in a fit of giggles; Emil didn’t dare follow suit. He didn’t want to miss a goddamn second of this. This was gospel. Sadistic, awful, beautiful gospel.

“Look, I just want to know if you asked for its consent first, because you certainly didn’t ask for mine on the subject— not that I would’ve given it to you, but I’m not the cantaloupe, now, am I?”

“This is getting ridiculous.”

“More ridiculous than my finding our brunch cantaloupe leaking in the sink?”

Someone must have fallen over in muffled hysterics on top of the copy machine, based on the distressed beeping and giggles now eminating from the back of the office. Emil couldn’t blame them in the slightest. He stuffed his pale pink tie into his mouth, hoping it would quiet the odd squeaking noises he was now making. Evidently, Marshalls didn’t product-test their ties for flavor; it tasted like dust. And suppression. And also paisley patterned cloth, he realized, with just a tiny thrill of devilish glee.

“Maria, please, this really isn’t the time or the place to be talking about this.”

“When would you like to, then?”

“Later. At home. Like I said.”

“What if I threw the rest of the cantaloupe at your other head when you walked through the door, would that be a good conversation starter? Since that head is supposed to have a brain in it?”

“...I think we’re finished here.”

“Don’t you push me— James, we are not finished here! James—!“

“Please, Maria, go home. We will talk about this when I get back this evening, alright? I swear.”

“This conversation is not over.”

“Of course not, dearest heart. Now, would you please—?”

The door of the corner office opened, and then slammed loudly. Livid, high-heeled footsteps stormed past Emil’s cubicle and towards the elevator; he spat out his tie and tried fruitlessly to cease his spasms by thumping his fist on his thigh a few times. The sound of the corner office door opening again caught his attention, and he froze.

Black rubber soles he had once thought he feared tapped across the floor toward his cubicle. A slightly flushed face poked through the open wall, stiffly adjusting the pristine scarlet tie on its neck and furrowing its eyebrows. He turned toward it, quickly attempting to plaster on a neutral expression.

“Emil?”

“Yes, Mr. Maloney?” He thought he saw the face loosen at his respectfulness, if only slightly.

“You’re ready for our meeting?”

“Yes, Mr. Maloney.”

“We’re in room 216 again, I assume?” The expression was definitely calmer now, more confident; his nose began to lift with an air of superiority Emil had seen all too often.

“Yes, Mr. Maloney.”

“Good. Don’t be late.” He threw his shoulders back, his chest thrusted forward, composure regained along with supposed control. Emil coughed.

“Never, Mr. Maloney.”

“You may want to leave your mug of coffee in your cubicle, this time.” The face contorted into a sneer, lowering its eyebrows, searing Emil with an accusatory glare.

“Of course, Mr. Maloney.”

“Right.”

The head withdrew from the wall again, and the footsteps tapped away. Emil blinked at his crumpled notecards on the floor, and then returned his gaze to the space where the head had been. For months, even before he’d been reporting to Maloney directly, he’d allowed himself to be crushed under rubber-soled heels that he had deemed judge, jury, and executioner. Why was he only now coming to the simple conclusion that he disliked being stepped on?

He stood slowly from his chair and turned toward the hallway; the apprehensive silence followed his footsteps as he walked towards the meeting room. Placing his hand on the door handle, he paused. He heard himself speak, his words cutting smoothly through the deafening hush.

“Anything for you, Mr. Melonhead, sir.”

If there was any sound in the world more beautiful than that of an entire office exploding into peals of wheezing, unbridled laughter, Emil didn’t want to know what it was.

#creative writing #short story #humor #melonhead #reupload- now with edits!

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ahiddenpath · 6 years

Text

Vidja Games

So I checked out Game Informer’s list of the top 300 greatest video games, and they are objectively wrong, lol (I can’t imagine the fights that went into making this list??)!

I’m no critic, and I’m not interested in attempting to objectively rate games, but here are my (subjective) faves in rough order-ish, if you’re interested! They are arranged by franchise for my sanity below the cut.

The Elder Scrolls (TES)

My all time favorite video game series is TES, although I wasn’t able to stomach playing I and II. In order, my favorites are: Morrowind, then Oblivion, then Skyrim.

Morrowind is unfriendly to casual gamers, and even experienced folks need to learn the lay of the enormous world, how to fast travel, and even how to level and plan characters to best effect. The learning curve is enormous, and if you decide to play a different type of character later on, you’re stuck! You might even have to start over, since you level your character by increasing the major and minor skills you chose upfront.

But I have never experienced such an open, imaginative world. The later installments felt both smaller and less varied. In Morrowind, you’ll find everything from sprawling floating cities to houses built into enormous mushrooms, with ashlands, swamps, and mountainous terrains in between, complete with hell-on-earth smack-dab in the middle of everything.

Oblivion is more user-friendly than Morrowind, and it has some of the most engaging quests in the series. What it loses in environmental diversity and sheer exploration potential, it almost- almost- compensates for in fun quests (there’s much less ‘fetch me some swamp muck’ involved), easier transportation, and the wonderful world of Shivering Isles, an expansion.

Skyrim is the most accessible of the three by far, and it’s forgiving in that it allows players to change their play style on the fly with little repercussions. It also has the best combat. Sadly, the repetitive environments make it far less compelling to explore than its predecessors, which is a huge part of TES’s charm for me. I also found the enemies repetitive. The more fanciful enemies are almost absent, and the few that exist are tied to specific daedric quest lines. Do you know how hard it is to recharge enchanted items when you only encounter a handful of daedra? Wolves and trolls just don’t fill them back up well.

Also, while the accessibility widens the target audience considerably, it cuts into the customization options previously available to more experienced gamers. That was a huge disappointment for me, personally.

To be clear, though, I still adore Skyrim.

Personal anecdote: My Morrowind strategy book was so worn that it fell apart, so I punched holes in the pages and kept it in a binder. I took out the fast travel map and the local map of whatever area I was combing to find a dungeon door tucked into a cave hidden behind ivy or whatever. I still have it; it’s a sentimental treasure.

The Sims

The more open-ended a game is, the more I like it, and The Sims is king of that arena! For me, 3 is by far the best installment. 2 introduced the idea of having types of Sims with personal goals to meet to create direction for the player, but ultimately, it felt like I was stuck with the same five Sims over and over again. The wishes and moodlet system of 3, along with the five slots for personality traits, gave me so much more power to create Sims that felt like actual characters.

I... don’t even want to know how much of my life I’ve put into The Sims...

My ranking: 3>1>2>4

It should be noted that I didn’t mind 1′s lack of direction, since my imagination alone is way more than enough to pull me forward in a sandbox game. In comparison, 2 felt restrictive by creating five character types, limiting me to that in a way I couldn’t ignore.

Personal anecdote: I received the original Sims for Christmas when I was in middle school. I accidentally played from bed time until 4 AM, which is the closest I’ve ever come to pulling an all-nighter.

Sonic the Hedgehog

WHERE DO I EVEN START WITH THE BLUE BLUR.

Sonic was an enormous part of my childhood, guys. I played all the games. I watched both cartoons (the one with Sally and the Freedom Fighters and the one where it’s just Sonic/Tails/Eggman/some robots), I learned to read with the comic books. I have a vivid memory of my brother taunting me by refusing to let me see his comics “because I couldn’t read”... So I spite-learned using the comics when he wasn’t paying attention.

I don’t think I can pick a favorite! As a kid, I played Sonic 3 the most; I was a huge Knuckles fan, so that might have played a role (also the original Sonic was too difficult for me at the time, although I certainly tried). But I also loooooved Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2. And Sonic Generations was so much fun!

Mario Bros

Lord, I was playing Mario games before I could read, I don’t... Mario has always been around for me, okay? It’s a huge part of my story, and the franchise is so iconic that there’s little for me to say. There are way too many amazing games in this franchise for me to name, but personal faves include: Super Mario RPG, Super Mario World, and Yoshi’s Island.

The Legend of Zelda

This is another franchise where I don’t know what to say... It’s too iconic for me to offer much. Zelda games are known for their exploration and adventure, even from the beginning. Ocarina of Time was a big part of my childhood, but I also adore the newest installment, Breath of the Wild. And I know this may be silly, but I love Hyrule Warriors! I can’t wait to play it on the Switch with all the DLC.

And the music??? Guys????? THE MUSIC?!?!?!

Bioshock

Amazing atmosphere, fun game play, and one of the best stories in gaming history add up to an unforgettable experience. Also a fore-runner to the idea of playing dialogue and recordings while the player explores, a trend that caught on in a huuuge way.

Persona

It’s hard to describe Persona games... They basically combine Jungian psychology with various mythologies, sprinkle in some horror (or glob it on in the case of 3), throw in an RPG, and add a heaping serving of everyday high school life. The games tackle a wide range of ideas and game play, creating a unique experience that has drawn a devoted following.

I’ll make this quick:

3: Best story and atmosphere, worst/most needlessly frustrating game play, very prickly cast lol

4: Best characters and character development

5: Best game play (exquisitely polished game play, really), best overall style, worst story and character development

My ranking is 4>3>5. It should probably be noted that story and character are king for me, so while 5 was incredibly polished mechanics wise, the comparatively weak story and characters sunk it to the bottom of the list for me. It was one of those games where I understood where they were going hours ahead of time, and then they would explain “the twist” to the player for half an hour over and over and over. Frankly, it was... kind of insulting, and soured the experience for me.

Also, Mona, I swear to god, how am I supposed to pass school if you don’t let me study or do my homework because you think I need to sleep at 5 PM every day ahhhhh! XD

Harvest Moon

Oh god, here’s another franchise I don’t want to delve into in terms of hours I’ve spent playing O_O

I can’t even explain why I like these games... In HM, you are a farmer, and your job is usually to prove to the villagers that you’re a valuable member of society so that they won’t evict you from your own inherited property. (I’m curious about their deeds and legal policies, lol. How do you write that clause up?).

These games combine farming with socialization and light dating sim elements, and time management is the name of the game. They pull in players by tapping into the universal desire to create order and advancement.

My favorite installment is Friends of Mineral Town. I also adored Harvest Moon 64, but the controls are sadly too dated for me to replay it.

Pokemon

I’m sure I’ve missed at least one, but I’ve played almost every mainstream release of Pokemon since Red and Blue came out. It must be doing something right, lol!

I’m a huge sucker for games where you choose monsters to raise. It’s so fun to assemble a team based on your tastes and raise them just so!

My favorite release is the remake of Gold and Silver.

Monster Rancher 2

OH MY LORD I played this game to the point where I’m shocked the disc still works. In Monster Rancher 2, you find monsters by placing discs into your Play Station, which each encode a monster. In order to access the strongest monsters, you must raise your rank as a trainer by winning official tournaments.

I wish I could explain why I latched on to this particular game so hard, but... I think it had something to do with the massive variety of monsters, the difficulty of the tournaments (I never did hit S rank, and not for lack of trying!), and the myriad of odd ways to unlock special monsters.

Mario Kart

Seriously, who doesn’t like smiting friends and family on the race track? MK is a fun, family-friendly way to deliver a beat down... As long as you contain your desire to cuss like a sailor, anyway.

It’s so hard to pick a favorite here! It’s hard to top the original for the challenge... But Double Dash and Infinity are contenders, too.

Danganronpa

Danganronpa games are visual novels that mix survival, horror, and crime-solving into a dark, bizarre, unique experience. I’ve written a ton about this series lately, so I won’t delve into it here, but you can check out the danganronpa tag on my blog for more.

Kingdom Hearts

These games are so charming and fun to play! I’ve never completed one on my own- linear games are rough for me- but I’ve seen my husband play them all, even the (many) extra installments. KH2 is probably my favorite, although Birth by Sleep was amazing, too.

Final Fantasy

I’ll admit that I don’t really enjoy playing Japanese RPGs; linear gameplay doesn’t appeal to me much in general. But the FF franchise is famous for its sweeping narratives, imaginative environments, and breath-taking music, and I enjoy them for that. I’ve watched my husband play X-XV, and I briefly joined him in playing XI and XIV. My favorite is probably X... Although I have an enormous crush on Ignis from XV.

My favorite FF game to play is Theaterhythm: Curtain Call.

Mass Effect

How do I say this... I don’t think I’ve ever played a game that better simulated becoming an entire universe’s hero and moral center. In Mass Effect, you shape the world and the political climate in unprecedented ways. By the end of 3, every player is so deeply invested in their Shepard and the world s/he created. In that sense, it’s en epic experience without peer.

Destiny

I love playing Destiny with my husband and our friend! I’m a titan, Tony is a hunter, and our buddy is a warlock, and together, we are... three guardians, lol!

Okay, so the vanilla Destiny release needed some help, but it became a great game with the expansions. I’m still waiting for that breath of rejuvenation for 2, but I treasure the time we spend together kicking ass as a team.

Left 4 Dead

This game redefined what co-op meant to me. I always thought of it as Halo, basically competing on the same team against other players. And yeah, you do that in L4D... But the cooperation angle that this game brought to the table was more or less unprecedented.

In L4D, if your team of ragtag survivors doesn’t work together, it’s unlikely that anyone will survive. I spent a lot of free time in college playing this with my friends spread out over different schools. I had so, so much fun with it.

Although 2 had more varied game play, which was great, I enjoyed the original more, mostly because the online game play wasn’t as loaded in favor of the zombie team. Objectively speaking, though, the sequel was the more robust game.

Personal anecdote: L4D is where I learned about dealing with males online. With Halo, which I also played at the time, I only enjoyed it enough to play it with people I knew. I loved L4D so much that I would log in to play even when my friends weren’t available, which meant that I was teamed with random players.

I have a very feminine voice, which apparently means that I am meant to be treated like crap online. Even though it’s a co-op game, and communication is important, I spent most of my sessions with the headset turned off.

Borderlands

THIS GAME, I HAD SO MUCH FUN WITH IT! The crass humor, the expanse of wastelands, the gun-slinging insanity, the incredible couch co-op! What’s not to love?

Sadly, the sequel was a downgrade from the original, but the first game was an amazing ride. I’ve been considering replaying it with Tony with all of the DLC.

Metal Gear

I’ve never played these myself, but I watched my husband play the first three. They’re so cinematic and goofy and over-the-top and awesome! I love breaking out my Solid Snake gravel voice, too. My favorite is... probably 3? It’s hard to pick between 2 and 3, though...

Disgaea

Hmm... How to describe these games... They’re tactics games, I guess? And there’s a lot of story, too... Game play wise, the later installments perfect what the earlier ones started, but you can’t beat the story and characters of the original. Laharl is still one of my all-time favorite male video game characters. He’s... such a brat? I love him???

Honorable mentions in no order (ie, I’m tired of writing descriptions, sorry to the rest of these games):

Halo, Dragon Age, Fallout 3, Ratchet & Clank, Resident Evil, Portal, Soul Calibur, Tetris Attack, Uncharted, Ms. Pacman, the Batman Arkham games

EDIT: I forgot Nier: Automata and Super Smash Bros! FOR SHAME!

#video games #vidja games #hidden's favorite video games #my favorite games

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andthisisthewonder · 7 years

Text

Amendments

I wanted to try my hand at a trope I enjoy but have never written before. Let’s see how it worked out, lol. Rated M for sexy reasons.

As the applause for Peeta’s speech died down, Mr. Mellark lifted up his drink to toast his son. There had to be over three hundred people in the room, but Peeta’s voice and hands were steady. Winning over a crowd was what he excelled at.

“Thank you for trusting me to take over as CEO,” Peeta said into the microphone. “I promise to give everything I have to this company. While we will miss your dedication, passion, and leadership, I promise there are only bright days ahead for Mellark Tech.”

More applause. A few whistles, probably from his closest friends Finnick and Johanna.

“Now I need to take a moment to thank the most important person in my life: my beautiful fiancée, Katniss.”

Katniss smiled and ducked her head as everyone swiveled in their seats to find her table.

“She has been nothing but patient and encouraging these past two months as I worked nights and weekends to prepare for my new role. She knows how often I lose track of time when I’m in the middle of a project, so thank you for always making sure I ate dinner. While she may not know her way around the kitchen, there’s no one better at ordering takeout.” The audience laughed, and he flashed them a charming smile. “I’m so proud to have you by my side as I take this next step. I promise to make time for you, for us, even as I continue to work hard to support your shopping habit.”

More laughter. A few men in the room elbowed their wives.

“Thank you for coming out this evening to celebrate my father’s retirement. Enjoy dinner! And don’t forget, it’s open bar.” He winked and walked back to his table to thunderous applause.

Katniss stood when he reached his chair. She leaned in for a hug, pressed her mouth against his cheek, and whispered, “I’m going to stab you with the salad fork.”

“I doubt you know which fork that is,” he said under his breath as they sat down.

“Any sharp object will due at this point.”

Moments later, the first course was served. Katniss picked up the wrong fork, winked at him, and dug into her garden salad.

This was going to be a long night.

He had brought this upon himself with the jabs he had made during his speech. The audience viewed it as a little teasing between a man and his soon-to-be wife, but Katniss saw it for what it was. He had cut her down in front of everyone, remade her into the wife he wanted: harmless and silly. Insubstantial.

The truth was Katniss knew how to cook quite well. He had never tasted her cooking due to the personal chef he employed, but on more than one occasion he had come home from work to find Katniss making herself dinner. His plate, prepared to his specifications by his chef Sae, always waited in the oven.

Katniss didn’t have a shopping habit either, although he suspected she might develop one out of sheer boredom. She spent most days reading, practicing archery at the country club, or volunteering at a variety of charities around the city. There wasn’t much else to do. He wouldn’t let her work.

By the time the main course arrived, Katniss had downed two glasses of wine and had barely said a word. Clove Arlington, seated on her other side, tried to strike up a conversation several times, but Katniss either offered one word answers or deferred to Peeta.

He should have known she’d crack sooner or later.

Halfway through the filet mignon, Clove turned to Katniss and said, “I meant to tell you sooner. Your dress is absolutely stunning. Who designed it?”

“Six thousand dollars,” Katniss said without missing a beat. She stabbed a piece of steak and shoved it in her mouth.

“Excuse me?” Clove asked.

Peeta touched Katniss’s arm, but it was too late. The words came tumbling out.

“The dress cost six thousand dollars,” Katniss repeated. “That’s what you meant, right? You ask for the designer, look up the cost, and the next time I see you, you’re wearing something that cost an extra thousand.”

The other men and women at the table fell silent. Katniss raised her eyebrows and took a healthy gulp of wine.

“Honey, we talked about this,” Peeta said with a sheepish what-can-you-do glance around the table. “She’s not good at taking compliments.”

“It’s by Cinna.” Katniss tapped her chandelier earrings. “You want to know how much these cost too? I’ll give you a hint. They could feed a family of four for a year.”

“I’m sorry,” Peeta said. He rested his hand on her knee and squeezed. “Katniss grew up in a...different environment. She’s still learning what qualifies as an appropriate topic of conversation.”

“My apologies,” Katniss said. “I forgot we’re not supposed to discuss money out loud. We just quietly compare our networths based on what everyone wears and drives.”

His chair screeched against the ballroom floor as he stood. He yanked Katniss upright, much too brusquely to be considered polite, but anger clouded his judgment.

“If you’ll excuse us,” he said.

As they made their way across the ballroom, Peeta shot everyone who made eye contact a smile to reassure them there was nothing wrong. For all they knew, he was headed into the bathroom for a quickie with his fiancée.

Like he’d ever sleep with her. Like she’d ever let him.

They had almost reached the exit, when Cashmere fucking Laughlin stepped in front of them. Peeta cursed whatever deity had it out for him and came to an abrupt halt.

“Peeta!” She threw her arms around him, forcing him to let go of Katniss. “I feel like it’s been forever. You haven’t introduced me to your fiancée yet.”

“Of course,” Peeta said, switching on the charm. “Cashmere, this is Katniss. Katniss, this is Cashmere.”

“We go way back,” Cashmere said, sticking out her hand. “Friends since elementary school.”

Katniss looked from Cashmere’s face down to her hand and back up again. She shot Peeta a look as if to ask, Really? Normally, Peeta would call her out on her rudeness, but in this situation, he’d let the niceties slide.

Cashmere dropped her arm back to her side and returned her attention to Peeta.

“My computer has been giving me such trouble the past few days. You must come over and take a look at it.”

Katniss stiffened. Peeta drew her into his side, and for once, she didn’t fight him on the physical contact.

“I’m sure you could hire someone to fix it,” he said.

“Do you have any idea how much they charge?” Cashmere asked, as if she couldn’t afford to simply throw out the defective computer and buy ten brand new ones. “Besides, who better to take a look than the new CEO of Mellark Tech?”

Peeta gritted his teeth. “I’ll have to check my schedule.”

“I’m free this Wednesday,” Cashmere said. “Maybe you could stop by after work?”

“Like I said, I’ll have to check if I’m available.”

“If you’re planning on fucking her, could you let me know ahead of time? I’d hate to let your dinner get cold,” Katniss said in the sweetest voice she could muster. She almost sounded like the doting fiancée he billed her as.

Peeta shut his eyes and let out a breath. He opened them just in time to find Katniss pressing her cheek against Cashmere’s.

“It was wonderful to meet you,” Katniss said, before sweeping past Cashmere and out the exit.

Cashmere looked over her shoulder. “What the fuck?”

Peeta walked as calmly as he could, but as soon as he reached the lobby, he picked up his pace and caught Katniss by the arm. “We need to have a conversation. Now.”

The second ballroom was empty, so he tugged her through there into the attached bridal suite. He slammed the door behind them and locked it.

“Are you trying to make me look like an idiot?” he demanded.

She came to a stop in front of the large oak table in the center of the room and spun around to face him. “You don’t need my help with that.”

“You’re embarrassing me.”

She shrugged. “You embarrassed me.”

“No one gives a shit about what I said.”

“I care!” She kicked off her heels. He dove to the left to avoid being struck. “Those heels are the most painful shoes I have ever worn. God forbid I wear something practical.”

“We’re at my father’s retirement party,” he reminded her. “You couldn’t exactly wear your hiking boots.”

She glared at him. “I know what I’m expected to wear. I read the contract.”

She probably had it memorized. When he had approached her with this arrangement, she had disappeared with the contract for a full twenty-four hours. He had half expected to find it leaked online, but she finally resurfaced with a list of amendments.

The section about her physical appearance had been too broad. She worried what he’d make her do if she didn’t get specific. No surgical alterations. No cutting or dying her hair. She had complied with the rest of it though: high heels, a new wardrobe of skirts and dresses, make-up everyday, manicured nails. When they met, her nails had been short and unpolished. He had made her grow them out.

She went through an entire afternoon of waxing, plucking, and exfoliating. He should have sprung for a full body massage to end the day, but it hadn’t occurred to him until she’d come home with a scowl carved into her face. Red and raw, she disappeared into her room where she took her dinner.

None of the changes she made to the contract had bothered him, although he had fought her on nearly every single one. While her stubbornness impressed him, it also pissed him off. He was offering her an incredible amount of money for a six month engagement and two years of marriage. Not only did she get a weekly allowance and have access to his credit cards, but she’d also receive a large lump sum upon the finalization of their divorce.

Strangely enough, the money was the only part of the contract she had never complained about. Guess she was content with the number of zeroes.

“You’re acting like an insufferable asshole,” she said. At his stony face, she amended, “More so than usual.”

“You’re too sensitive. It was just a quick speech. They thought it was funny.”

“I don’t want to be a joke,” she snapped. “I have to coexist with these people for the next two years. Half of them believe I’m some simpleton from Hicksville, USA while the other half think I’m a gold-digging slut you picked up off a stripper pole.”

He smirked. “I did find you at a strip club.”

“I was the bartender!” she yelled.

He stepped in front of her, and she scowled at the invasion of her personal space.

“I’m sorry I embarrassed you,” he said, annoyed that he actually meant it. There was something about her that he couldn’t avoid when he got close like this. He had kissed her a hundred times and held her close, but it was all for the public eye. When they were alone, when he looked at her for too long, his skin felt hot and prickly. She really was quite pretty, even without makeup. But tonight, god, tonight she looked fucking amazing. It didn’t help that Cinna’s dress put her breasts on display. He ached to touch him.

Fuck. He hated when he fell into this train of thought.

“No, you’re not,” she said. “You think I’m your pet. You think you can dress me up and treat me however you want so long as you’re paying me. It makes me sick.”

His jaw dropped. “I don’t think that.”

“If you want to fuck half the women in this city, fine, but don’t parade them around in front of me. It’s insulting.”

“That wasn’t my fault.”

“Are you going to fix her computer this week?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. “Take a look at her hardware?”

The truth was Cashmere hadn’t been lying when she said she hadn’t seen him. It had been over a month since he’d slept with her. Or anyone else for that matter. He wanted to blame the long hours he had put in at the office, but he had a nagging suspicion it was something else entirely.

“You’re just pissed that the landscapers finish on Sunday,” he said, anger making him too hot in his suit jacket. That was the real reason he had added those insults to his speech tonight. That fucking landscaper who somehow always ended up working with his shirt off.

Katniss frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Your lover won’t be around the house anymore. Will you start meeting him at hotels?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“That asshole. Gale Hawthorne.”

“Oh.” Her smile was smug. She held up her hand at least six inches above Peeta’s head. “Tall, dark, and handsome.”

He grabbed her wrist and crushed it between their bodies. “Are you sleeping with him?”

“No.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not!” She tried to pull away, but she had nowhere to go. He had her trapped between his body and the table.

“So that massage he gave you was just part of their services? Will I find it on the final bill?”

The corner of her lip curled up. He couldn’t tell if it was the start of a sneer or a smile. “I knew that made you jealous.”

“It didn’t make me jealous. It pissed me off.”

Yesterday, a strange urge to spend time with her had sent him home during lunch. He knew how bored she was when she had no volunteering scheduled. When he’d arrived, he’d found her in front of the pool, lounging on her stomach in the tiny orange bikini he had picked out for her to wear on their honeymoon. Gale knelt at her side, an open bottle of sunblock on the ground. Peeta couldn’t find a streak of sunblock on his fiancée’s back. Gale had rubbed it in well.

As soon as he cleared his throat, Gale sprang to his feet, but Katniss had merely looked up and greeted Peeta as if another man’s hands hadn’t just been all over her.

“You know the contract states--”

She cut him off. “Yes. I know the contract says you can continue fucking whoever you want while I have to live like a goddamn nun for two and a half years.”

It was unfair to expect her to remain faithful when he saw whomever he pleased, but this was the world he lived in. The wife stayed home, pretended not to notice, while the men did whatever they liked. He didn’t want to get married. He was only twenty-eight, and he enjoyed being a bachelor.

“I liked flirting with him,” she said. “And he liked staring at me in a bikini. We never did anything more than that massage.”

“Would you have if I hadn’t come home?”

“No, Peeta. I’m not going to break that contract. No matter how much of an asshole you are.”

This wasn’t a new insult. Hell, she had called him that a few minutes ago when they first came into the room. But for some reason, in that moment, it stung. He had given her everything, but she couldn’t stand him.

“Why do you stay if you’re so miserable?” he asked.

“Because you sign my sister’s tuition checks.”

Finally, he let go of her wrist, but instead of backing away, he placed his hands on the table, one on either side of her.

Her gaze dropped down to his lips then back up so quickly, he wondered if he imagined it.

“Right. I forgot about the whole martyr older sister thing.”

“You wouldn’t understand. You hate your brothers.”

He didn’t mind Graham who had zero interest in the company. Rye was a different story. It was actually his fault that Peeta was in this mess in the first place. Peeta was more intelligent, more capable, and infinitely more charming, but their father had originally tapped Rye to take over as CEO. Mr. Mellark claimed Rye was “more stable.” Peeta liked to party, liked to go out with a different woman every week, and Mr. Mellark worried he wouldn’t take the position seriously.

Enter Katniss Everdeen, the bartender Peeta had met while on vacation in California. It wasn’t enough to have a steady girlfriend or even a fiancée. He had to marry her and prove to his father and the rest of his family that he was capable of commitment. Rye still sat on the Board of Directors, and he was less than thrilled with their father’s decision. If he found out that Katniss was a fake, if he suspected anything was amiss, Peeta could lose everything.

To be fair, Katniss had never said or done anything to risk Peeta’s position. Yeah, she was rude and sarcastic, but everyone knew she didn’t come from money. No one expected her to fit in.

“So you’re doing all this for your sister?” Peeta asked. “Such a sacrifice.”

“I spent half my childhood in unwashed clothes that barely fit. I spent it hungry and angry, and I did everything I could to shield Prim from the worst of it. Now that I have the chance for a lifetime of financial security for me, Prim, and her future family, of course I’m going to take it.”

Peeta didn’t know what to say. Katniss had alluded to a rough childhood, but she had never given him any details.

“Prim’s future family?” he asked, deciding to ignore the rest for now. “Not yours?”

“I’m never getting married. Not for a second time, at least.”

He wanted to ask why, but he knew she wouldn’t say. When they first met, she had brushed off his attempts at conversation, uninterested in a guy that frequented a strip club. But as the night wore on, he paid less attention to the stage and more attention to the gorgeous brunette who kept supplying him with Jack and Cokes. When he returned the next night, she had been happy to see him.

That was the worst part. She had liked him in the beginning. Everything changed when he gave her that contract. She’d been closed off ever since.

“I’m not going to Cashmere’s,” he said. “This week or any week.”

“Maybe Glimmer then?” she asked. “Clove’s been eyeing you too.”

He narrowed his eyes, annoyed that he was trying to be honest with her, and she was acting like a brat.

“You’re jealous,” he said.

“Of those women? Not a chance.”

“No, you’re jealous that I can have fun and you can’t.” He slid his knee between her legs. For whatever reason, she let him. “Is this why you’re so cranky? No one to get you off?”

“I bought a hundred and fifty dollar vibrator with your credit card,” she said with a smug smile. “I’m all set.”

“Get on the table.”

“Is that a command?”

He squeezed her hip and she hopped up onto the table, her dress riding up her thighs. He yanked her forward until she was pressed against him.

“What are you doing?” She tried to look annoyed, but she had already hooked her foot around his leg.

“I thought I could help.”

“Sorry. Rich, blond assholes aren’t my type.”

“Weird. Brunettes with smart mouths are mine.”

He hiked her right leg up around his waist. She watched his hand disappear beneath her dress.

“Oh.” The noise escaped his mouth involuntarily. “You’re not wearing underwear.”

“Can’t have pantylines,” she said. “My fiancé’s the new CEO. I don’t want to embarrass him.”

He ran a finger over her lips, surprised at how wet she was. She had an amazing poker face. He never would have guessed she was as turned on as him.

When he reached her clit, she gasped and closed her eyes, her head falling back. He leaned into the table, his pants growing uncomfortably tight, and kissed her neck.

“Do you want this?” he asked.

He slid a finger inside her and bit down her earlobe.

“Katniss, tell me what you want.”

When she remained silent, he yanked his hand away. She squeezed her legs around his waist to keep him from walking away.

“Touch me,” she said.

He grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her into a fierce kiss, their first without an audience. She tasted like the red wine she’d been nursing all night, sweet and bitter all at once. She shoved his suit jacket off his shoulders and wrapped her arms around him. When he yanked on her hair to force her head up, she bucked against him. He kissed a trail along her neck as he pulled the straps of her dress down. With one final tug on the bodice, the dress slipped down her stomach, revealing a tiny strapless bra.

She unhooked it herself and dropped it on the ground. It was all the permission he needed. He cupped the back of her head before lowering her onto the table. Finally, after an entire night of staring at her chest, after months of wondering how they’d feel in his hands, he palmed her left breast and lowered his mouth over the other.

She moaned as he sucked on her nipple, his teeth just grazing the sensitive bud. The back of her feet dug into his ass as she tried to pull him closer. He was two seconds away from climbing on top of her when she abruptly sat up. Her cheeks flushed, her updo ruined, he couldn’t remember a moment when she’d been more beautiful.

She unbuckled his belt and slid it out of the first loop of his dress pants. He grabbed her wrist, and she stopped.

“This is what I want,” she said.

His mouth was back on hers, his belt halfway off, when someone knocked on the door. She froze. Peeta turned around.

“Mr. Mellark?” asked an unfamiliar voice. “Are you in there?”

Peeta cleared his throat. “Is there something you need?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but your father’s been looking for you.”

“Thank you. Let him know I’ll be right there.”

He plucked Katniss’s bra off the floor and handed it to her. Using a little more force than necessary, she pushed him away with her foot. She slid off the table and hooked her bra back into place.

He could practically see the wheels turning in her head as she adjusted her dress. He couldn’t tell what’d she decide, what she’d regret.

“I’m not putting those heels back on,” she said.

“Fine. Walk around barefoot. Everyone knows you have no manners.”

She narrowed her eyes. “But I’d hate to embarrass you in front of your mistresses. That wouldn’t be very classy of me.”

They stared at each other. Something important had shifted between them, but he couldn’t read her expression.

“Let’s make a deal,” he said. “You be a good girl for the rest of the night, and I’ll use my mouth when we get home.”

She yanked on her heels and curtsied. “I hate you,” she said with a wide, fake smile.

He took the chance and kissed her. Instead of pushing him away as he feared she would, she leaned into him and kissed him back. He nearly sighed with relief.

“I know,” he said, letting her go. “Fix your hair before you come back out. You’re a mess.”

She swept past him in her disheveled state, right out the door and into the ballroom. He wanted to be annoyed, but he was too turned on. As he pulled on his suit jacket and fixed his belt, he imagined her in his bed, fisting the sheets as he went down on her. He wanted to watch her fall apart, hear the two syllables of his name break on her tongue.

Then, he wanted to bury himself inside of her.

He thought he had been prepared for this. He had been so careful when he drew up that contract, certain he’d get to maintain his bachelor lifestyle while finally taking control of his father’s company.

He wasn’t certain of anything anymore. The only thing he knew for sure was that for better or for worse, he and Katniss were stuck with each other for the next two years.

He looked forward to it.

#everlark #i wrote this

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