#but wishing death on someone (and not even in a joking tone)...

[bluespring864]

guys.

saying you've had enough of djoko: absolutely fine, the fact that that meme post already has around 100 notes will elicit a wry smirk and nothing else

reblogging a post saying that you need him to die though? um. maybe just a tiny bit unnecessary?

#tennis talk #honestly #i think there will be some nole posting in the near future #(if i find the time tonight) #look if i've followed and you've followed me back (or vice versa) i've seen that you dislike the guy and you can assume i'm fine with that #but wishing death on someone (and not even in a joking tone)... #well.

[writing-for-marvel]

A Solid Foundation

Builder!Bucky Barnes x Fiancé!Fem!Reader

Summary: Your best friend suspects your fiancé of having an affair when he starts working late, but Bucky would never cheat on you, right?

Warnings: slight angst - discussion of Bucky potentially cheating (no actual cheating), soft fluff

Word count: 2.4k

A/N: thank you so much for this gorgeous inspiration my love 💕 this is my second entry for the Connect 4: Into an Alternate June-iverse Event by @buckybarnesevents, for the prompt ‘Modern AU’. Banners by @vase-of-lilies

Masterlist | Ask me anything! | Library

“Where’s Bucky? You two just got engaged, I would have thought he’d barely be able to keep his hands off you - he does at the best of times.” Nat jokes before taking a sip of her wine.

She had been stopping off at your apartment on her way home to drop some supplies for your engagement party next weekend, when you invited her to stay for a drink, wanting to take your mind off your fiancés absence.

“He’s been working late recently.” You try to say nonchalantly, but Nat’s far too observant to miss the disheartened edge to your voice.

“He’s a builder. Start early, finish early, what’s he doing still working at 6:30?” You didn’t know the answer to that question. And though part of you is curious as to what he’s up to, you’re also nervous to find out the truth.

It’s Bucky, the man who has loved you through every high and low, treasured every part of you, especially on those days where your insecurities were at their worst. Who has done the silliest, most embarrassing things just to hear your laugh. Who trusted you enough to reveal his deepest trauma, who comes to your arms for comfort through every nightmare.

You find it difficult to believe that man would be capable of hurting you, even knowing he hadn’t been completely forthcoming with you the past few weeks.

“I’m not sure, he’s been a little secretive since we got engaged. I don’t wanna push him to talk about it, I just wish he knew he can trust me with whatever it is.” You say as Nat supportively takes your hand, something of sympathy in her eyes.

“Oh sweetie, you are far too pure for this world. Working late, the ring, the secrecy - has it crossed your mind that he might be having an affair?”

“It crossed my mind for half a second before I scolded myself. It’s Bucky, he would never cheat on me.” You state with conviction, the memory of each night you’ve fallen to a peaceful sleep in Bucky’s arms only supporting your belief that he would never put himself in that position with someone else.

“As much as I want to believe you, you know I’m a cynic. In my experience men are pigs, you give them an inch and they take a mile. I know he’s sweet and you love him, but at the end of the day, he is a man.”

But Nat doesn’t know Bucky intimately like you do, hasn’t experienced his selfless and generous heart day after day for the past two years, hasn’t been loved all-encompassingly by him like you have.

You’ve never even thought to question his loyalty to you - Bucky has never given you reason to.

You hear keys rattle in the front door and shoot Nat a look which unquestionably screams don’t bring this up.

Bucky smiles instantly when he sees you seated at the dining table, that same adoration and serenity brimming in his eyes as when he always comes home to you. Though you do notice his skin is somewhat flushed, as if he’s just been physically exerting himself, his hair looks a complete mess and appears slightly darker with sweat.

You know exactly what’s running through Nat’s mind at this very moment.

“I’m gonna let you two talk.” She declares with a perceptible tension in her tone as she stands and grabs her purse. “But I swear if you ever hurt her Bucko, you’ll die a slow, painful death.” She vows with a glare that seals her promise. Though you know Nat well enough to perceive she isn’t joking, Bucky seems to think she’s kidding.

“Duly noted Nattie.” He chuckles as he watches Nat shoot you an encouraging look and then make her way out the front door Bucky just walked through. “What was that all about?”

“She’s just being protective.” You justify, not knowing how to, nor really wanting to tell him that your best friend suspects he’s having an affair. “I told her you’d been working late recently.”

“What… she thinks I should instead be here doting on you hand and foot?” Bucky asks as he moves behind where you’re seated, his hands reach for the back of your neck and begin massaging the tension from your shoulders which had built up from your long week at work. “You know I’d much prefer to be here with you than working.” You shudder slightly at his words as he places a gentle kiss to the skin where your neck curves into your shoulder, your body subconsciously revealing that you don’t fully believe he was working.

“What’s wrong, doll?” He asks, feeling your muscles tense even further underneath his hands, and you internally curse yourself for letting Nat’s speculation get under your skin.

“Where were you tonight?” It’s a simple, four word question, yet the weight of significance on his answer feels like your whole world could start crumbling before you depending on his response.

“I told you this morning: Steve needed me working late.” Bucky replies without hesitation. It’s a straightforward answer, yet there’s something about it you can’t quite believe - a half truth that he’s practised too much that doesn’t quite feel natural. “Why do you ask?” There’s a hint of worry to his voice, as if you’re getting a little too close to something he’d like to keep to himself.

“Nat thinks ‘working late’ is code for you cheating on me.” You comment, placing all the blame on your friends postulation rather than your own curiosity.

You hope Bucky won’t hate you too much for indulging in your friends theory, that he won’t completely resent you for insinuating he’s been unfaithful. Because you don’t think he’s cheating on you, but you also don’t believe he was working late tonight.

Instead, Bucky steps towards you and tentatively places two gentle fingers under your chin, tilting your face so that you’re gazing directly into his vulnerable, sincere eyes.

“Doll, you know I would never, ever, hurt you like that. I love you, you’re my whole world, I wanna marry you and spend the rest of my days making you feel as loved and cherished as you make me feel.” You sense the heaviness of your engagement ring on your left hand, you’re still getting used to carrying the small weight of it around with you everyday, though right now it feels substantial.

“I know you wouldn’t Buck, but since you proposed you’ve been a little secretive. Long days, working weekends. I mean you have to admit it’s slightly suspicious.”

He sighs, coming to some sort of internal decision when his gaze meets yours again. His thumb brushes over your bottom lip and for a moment you think he’s going to kiss you in an attempt to distract you from the topic of discussion.

“I promise you, I can explain everything, but I think it would be easier to show you.” His hands snake down your arms and when he takes both your hands, pulls you from your seated position at the dining table.

“Show me?” You query, having no idea what that could indicate he’s been keeping to himself.

“Yeah, care for a drive?”

* * *

The night is dark as you sit in the passenger seat watching the world pass you by, the empty roads only lit by periodically placed street lamps and the bright headlights of Bucky’s truck.

You have no idea where he’s taking you - you’ve never been to this part of town before and have no preconceived ideas as to what being here indicates for his unplanned surprise.

Bucky drives with one hand on the steering wheel, the other rests comfortingly on your thigh, an indicator that he’s not upset about you insinuating he could be having an affair, and that where he’s taking you to is not a revelation you should be anxious about.

Soon enough he turns down an innocuous street and pulls the car to a slow stop. You're in the middle of a suburban area with expansive blocks of land, stopped a few metres behind an SUV that has stickers of a family of five and a dog on their back window. Looking over at Bucky, you find he’s staring at you with an excited expectancy from the driver's seat.

You turn to look out the car window and the reason Bucky’s been ‘working late’ hits you like a bus.

You’re parked in front of a half built house - at the moment it’s just studs and partitions, with an unemptied skip out the front, but you can see the skeleton of a beautifully spacious two story house.

He’s building you a home.

“Bucky…” You comment under your breath, unable to articulate the swarm of thoughts buzzing around your head and the pure love blooming in your chest like a flower as he rounds the car and opens the passenger door for you.

“I know it doesn’t look like much yet, it’s just the frame and foundation, but soon there will be a roof, walls, windows, and a proper floor. It’ll really start taking shape.” He's nervous, you can tell by his shaky tone of voice, which you find adorable.

“You’re building us a house?” Your stomach contorts with guilt when he smiles crookedly and nods. How could you have ever been suspicious of his long working hours when they were spent building a physical monument to his love for you?

“I wanted to build our dream house, somewhere we can grow old together.” Your heart just about bursts when these words fall from his lips. Though the night is dark, the moon and the small torch Bucky keeps in his truck are the only source of light available, you can see the fondness in his eyes.

You give him a sweet kiss before approaching the house, an outline in chalk on the ground indicates where a front porch will be built and the entry to the house is currently only the rectangular frame of timber.

Bucky starts walking you through the house hand in hand, explaining what he had planned each room to be used for. There's only wooden studs outlining every room and a concrete slab for a floor, but you can already imagine what the space will look like when it’s all complete.

The entry foyer has high ceilings where you can currently see the stars shining, a large winding staircase connects the ground floor with the one above. To one side is a large garage, an offset office and bathroom, to the other has a large sitting room.

As Bucky pulls you further into the structure, the house opens up to a large, open plan living area. You can picture cooking together in the kitchen, room enough for a large island where you can sit and watch as Bucky cooks you breakfast, sneaking kisses in between breaking eggs. A smile grows on your features as you imagine what the future holds for you two, and what you envisage is beautiful.

He shows you where he thinks the lounge room television would go, before steering you to the right to an open room where the walls don’t have horizontal studs like all the other rooms you’ve seen so far.

“And this will be your sunroom.” He comments, eying you with a smile as your jaw drops in awe.

“A sunroom?” You ask as your voice cracks and hot tears well in your eyes.

Your dream house always seemed so far out of reach, you wondered if you would ever earn enough to own a place of your own. But it didn’t stop you from wishing for your dream house. That concept had changed over the years, but the one aspect which remained the same was it containing a sunroom. A place where you could sit in quiet contemplation and read your plethora of novels in peace, the warm afternoon sun heating the room as you draped your legs over beloveds, finding tranquillity together.

Bucky really is making all your dreams come true.

“It wouldn’t be our dream home if we didn’t have the sunroom you always wished for. This entire wall will be a huge built-in bookshelf, then the rest will be just glass, looking out over our backyard and have the perfect view of the setting sun.”

You find yourself completely lost for words, unable to articulate how remarkable this entire house is, that he built it for you, and how you will forever come home to a physical reminder of just how much Bucky loves you.

“If there’s anything you don’t like I’ll change it. I want it to be perfect, I want you to love it.” He says as if he can’t see that you already adore every inch of the house he’s built, thinking that your silence indicates aversion rather than pure amazement.

“Bucky, it’s already perfect.” You lean over to kiss him, slow and sweet, because you need to express the overwhelming gratitude and affection for him doing something so special for you. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you when you were putting in your spare hours to build us a home.”

“I’m the one who should be sorry, doll, I shouldn’t have lied to you about where I was and what I was doing, but I wanted it to be a surprise.” His arms snake around your middle and pull you closer to him so none of the cool night air separates you.

“It is a surprise, such a wonderful surprise. I love you so much and I can’t wait to spend our life together here.” You say, looking up at him with wide eyes, only closing them to kiss the stubble on his sharp jawline.

“I love you more than you’ll ever know.” Bucky places a kiss to your forehead, his voice soft but heartfelt and full of tenderness.

For a moment you stay cuddled into his strong, warm chest, his arms gently stroking up and down your back in soothing motions, feeling completely loved and so excited to start your marriage in a new home together.

“Will you show me the bedrooms upstairs?” You ask with a small voice, part of you not wanting to move from Bucky’s embrace, but also intrigued to see how much more work he’s done in the name of love for you.

“Of course, my love.”

He kisses you once more, for emphasis, before guiding you carefully upstairs to show you the spacious master bedroom where you will be spending your first nights as a married couple.

If you're interested in seeing the floorplan I based the house off, you can find that here

#em answers #em writes #Cia 🐴 #bucky Barnes #Bucky #Connect4AU #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes oneshot #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes au #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky fanfiction #bucky fanfic #sebastian stan #sebastian stan characters

[heiayen]

so, when i die, which i must do - neuvillette x gn!reader

summary: "how unfortunate it was, that the later you longed for… never came. not how you wished for it to do." of fate's cruel joke and tragedy

tags: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, braiding neuvie's hair!! fluff/angst. reader gets shot but it isn't described in details. not proofread

notes: i don't know how to write neuvillette. alsooo at first it was meant to just be a fluffy fic of braiding neuvie's hair but thanks to écrin network yall are getting angst <3 and yes. the title is mitski lyrics

Every morning, you would wake up early to braid Neuvillette's hair.

It started as something small at first, as hushed morning conversations in bed, with your fingers lazily braiding a strand of his hair. It was always sloppy, a little out of shape and you would always unbraid it before he would leave the bed— and you back to sleep, but… it was here. Always was here, a quiet declaration of your love for him.

Only with time did it evolve into actual braids. You remembered clearly this one time when you woke up in surprisingly good spirits and with the sudden urge to properly braid his hair.

He didn't refuse, because how could he? Seeing the shine in your eyes as you asked him, his only choice was to say yes.

He looked beautiful, you remembered.

The braid wasn't perfect, no, far from it even. One of the three strands was a little thicker than the other, the shape was a little off at the end but, really, you just woke up minutes ago and were running on nothing but pure will and adoration for this man. You'd make a perfect braid for him later, you said to yourself.

And as your hands moved to brush your fingers through the strands to free his hair from the plait, he stopped you.

He wanted to wear it for the rest of the day, you remembered him saying. That he didn't care about it not being perfect.

It was yours and it made you happy.

He looked so beautiful, smiling softly at you.

That day marked the beginning of your little tradition of braiding his hair every morning, and today was no different, accompanied by your rambling about the upcoming day.

"…wish I could sleep longer today, though. Right after I am done with the fighting, I will go to your office and take a nap there."

Today was an important day for you. You were one of the Champion Duelists, known for your elegant, but efficient swordplay, and today you had a duel to win. You were confident in your skills and, if anything, more worried for the man who challenged you. He didn't seem like someone adept at swords enough to win, but if he wished to fight for his honor, then it was his choice.

"You are welcome to do as you wish, love. But be careful during the duel." Came his reply in a low voice, with traces of morning sleepiness evident in his tone, "I don't want anything to happen to you."

You appreciated his concern despite your confidence. It made warmth bloom somewhere inside you, as you continued gently brushing his long hair.

"Only Clorinde surpasses my skills as a fighter, there's no reason for you to worry about me." You said softly, finally putting the brush away and starting to part his hair, "But no matter, I will be careful either way."

You leaned to peck his cheek before you went back to braiding. You and Neuvillette talked about mundane things for the rest of it. You shared your plans for the rest of the day, how you planned to meet up with Clorinde in the afternoon, feed her some good desserts or just food because, archons, you two finally managed to find a moment of free time to meet up and talk and you wouldn't pass on the occasion to share your favorite sweets and other dishes, no.

When you were finally finished, you tied it with his usual ribbon and moved from your place behind him to get up from bed. You stood in front of him, smiling.

"It's all done!" You clapped your hands and gestured at Neuvillette with your hands, "You can now go and do your important court duties, dove."

A small chuckle slipped past his lips and he reached out to hold your hands, tug you a little closer to him.

"Thank you, love." He got up and placed a gentle kiss on each of your hands, for your hard work, "I'll be waiting for you to come later."

You wished the later could come faster and that today wasn't so busy for you both. How you wished to spend the entire day with just him, his loving embrace, and the blooming warmth in your chest.

"Me too."

How unfortunate it was, that the later you longed for… never came. Not how you wished for it to do.

In all of your confidence you failed to notice the conspiracy, the tragedy brewing behind the shadows. You took your safety for granted, believing you wouldn't get hurt because why? You were so good at it, and the man who challenged you barely seemed to know how to hold his blade and–

Maybe that was your undoing. The damned self-confidence that prevented you from understanding what was really happening before it was too late.

Only when someone yelled in the crowd, the defeated man smiled wickedly at you from the ground, only when your eyes met the gun's barrel did you realize that your safety never was granted, and that being the Iudex's lover had its price one you didn't wish to pay any soon.

He was your beloved, your Neuvillette in the warm embrace of your arms and at home. Your lover, for whom you would do anything, even if it meant waking up early just to braid his hair and sleepily mumble into his shoulder, your fingers doing the job on their own but in people's eyes you were one of the Champion Duelists, someone important to the Iudex of Fontaine, a playing card in a greater scheme of revenge.

Right.

Before you could react, the bullet hit its goal and you fell to the ground, gasping in shock and scowling in pain. You stared at the man who shot you before someone came and dragged him away, another person trying to move you away, but you could already feel your consciousness slowly slipping away from you.

You weren't ready to pay with your life for simply loving, and yet the decision was made for you.

Your lips parted as you tried to say your lover's name before losing consciousness but you barely managed to utter it, light as a whisper and as lovely as a prayer.

Oh, no.

You didn't want to leave him. Not yet, not anytime soon, not at all, not before spending an eternity with him. Was it foolish to wish for it? To wish for something impossible, yet something your heart longed for?

You wanted to braid his hair again, get all the rainbow roses and other flowers, and ribbons, and weave it into the strands. You wanted to kiss him once more, share your favorite desserts, and talk about your day to him, sleep peacefully knowing he was next to you, knowing that you were–

To think about it, you never were safe, not with how fate loved cruel jokes and tragedy.

Someone's warm, gloved hand cupped your cheek and soon, you could feel the first drops of rain on your skin. You wanted to speak an apology into his palm, but you didn't have enough strength for it anymore.

It seemed the rain wouldn't stop for a long time.

#astronetwrk #favoniuslibrary #・ nouveau livre ˎˊ˗ #genshin impact x reader #heia's writin' #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact x you #neuvillette x reader #neuvillette x you #gender neutral reader

[anemptypuddingcup]

Pollinating my flower (Soft sex w/ Doflamingo.)

Ion know much about Doflamingo with where I am in the anime atm. (Ep. 241, Bear with me)

Y’all I fucking adore the pet name that I made for Doffy to call reader- I fucking love it so much. (Excuse the errors if there are any, I’m halfway sleep.)

also, after the poll results I’ll be posting the 400+ special.

Contains; Soft sex. Fingering. Slight oral (reader receiving). Doffy being soft for once. Doffy genuinely caring about how Reader feels. Doffy calling Reader his ‘little flower’. Doffy pollinating his flower.

It was hard to try and convince him to be nice, you knew he couldn’t help it but that didn’t mean he couldn’t change right…? Someone like Doflamingo had went through a lot in his life so you couldn’t really blame him for his nature and how he acted. Though the only issue was that…he was really rough. It was hard to have sex with him, because every time you did, you’d be bruised and covered in bite marks. And even though you pushed through his painful bites and scratches, you couldn’t help but to ask him to tone it down.

Asking Doflamingo to be sweet and soft felt like a death wish, which is why you always hesitated to ask him. Yes he had his moments where he would cuddle you or hug up on you from stress but that was really the most soft he would ever ever be. You took a deep breath and tried your best to keep your composure. You had to ask him, you didn’t really have a choice if you didn’t want to keep getting hurt by him during sex. With the cutest little nightgown on, you slowly trailed into the bedroom where Doflamingo waited. He sat there looking down at the floor, slumped over a bit.

“Doffy…?” You called out to him softly and he reacts slowly. He lifts his head as he stared at you in that cute little nightgown softly flowing along your body. “Come here my precious little flower.” Doflamingo motions his finger for you to come towards him, which you do. He grabs your hips while his eyes peers down at you, that shit-eating grin still plastered across his face. “You look as lovely as ever my dearest, you smell wonderful too~” He says, inhaling your sweet scent. Just a good sniff of that sweet perfume and your original scent made his dick twitch with anticipation and impatience. Your lips began to quiver and you were now rather reluctant to talk to him about what you were just thinking about. “Doffy…” His name slide off your tongue smoothly as your hands cup his face. This caught him off guard and he raises a brow towards you.

“Doffy…could you be…nicer…tonight?..” You ask slowly, now feeling slight regret and nervousness brew in your stomach. Doflamingo lets out a little chuckle before full on laughing at your question. It’s like he took your words for a joke, like he couldn’t believe what he had just heard from you. Doflamingo covers his face in a hand as another snicker leaves him. “How cute. Are you askin’ me to go soft on you girl…?” He asked, his eyes now giving you a dark glare. You shivered from his glare, now feeling that bit of regret now engulfing your stomach. “W-Well…sometimes I-It hurts and…you don’t…Y’know..” You squeaked softly as Doflamingo’s hand grips your face a bit tight, squishing it. “Hm…Are you saying that you don’t like how I fuck you at night? You better not lie t’me either. All of those moans you let out every time we fuck should tell me everything.” Doflamingo took offense to your words. How dare you claim that you don’t like it. He knew that you loved being fucked like a little toy.

But you weren’t smiling or flustered by his words.

“I…I do like it…but sometimes my moans can be from…pain too.” You admit, looking away from him. Doflamingo takes in your words and sighs lightly. He presses a kiss to your lips before trailing his hands up your nightgown and to your breasts. Groping them softly, he fondles them while you moan into his lips. He pulls away, a string of saliva connected to both of your mouths. “So you want me to go soft huh..? Fufufu…I’ll try my best~” He smiles as he lick his lips, enjoying your sweet tastes along his tongue. You felt your knees go weak at his words and he holds you up to make sure you didn’t fall.

“Get on the bed and spread your legs for me.” He demanded, his gaze softening up towards you. You obey and lay your body softly onto the fluffy blankets. His rough hands grips your thighs softly and he pulls your nightgown up, revealing your pretty little cunny. Doflamingo licks his lips before press a kiss to your clit, causing you to let out a slight squeaky moan. Trailing his tongue along your slit, he never took his eyes off of you. He wanted to see those pretty expressions you made while he pleased your cunt. “Fufufu…do you like when I kiss your cute little flower like this? Is this enjoying to you sweetheart?” He asked as his hands trails up your sides. You shivered under his tongue and nodded slowly as a soft moan leaves your lip. A little slap on the thigh causes you to yelp and look down at him with furrowed brows. “Ah ah~ you know I don’t answer to head movements.” He chuckled as he flicks at your clit. You jolt and spoke out to him. “Y-Yes…it feels good D-Doffy…” You whispered as you to cover half of your face with your hand. Doflamingo enjoyed how you squirm under him from his tongue, but something just made him feel a bit more bored with this than what he’d usually do with you.

“What’s wrong? Didn’t you want me to go soft..? It’s startin’ to get boring…” He pouts as he looks at you, his eyes drifting off somewhere. You give him a saddened expression before looking away. “M-M’sorry Doffy…” You apologized, knowing that the wasn’t gonna work out the way you hope for it to. “Hm?..” Doffy tilts his head in question, wondering why you were even apologizing to him. He climbs onto the bed and stares down at you, that smile now softening up to something a bit more warm…and sweet.

“Fufufu…what kinda man would I be to not fulfill my delicate little flower’s request?” He snickered. You looked up at him nervously and flinches as he moves in closer to you. He peppers a kiss to your cheek before moving his nimble fingers up to your mouth. You trail your tongue along his fingers before sucking on them for a little bit, using your saliva to lubricate them. He moved his hand down and rubs his fingers along your slit before slowly sliding them through your entrance. A moan leaves your lips as Doflamingo feels around your gummy walls. You gasp as you feel his fingers curl and hit your g-spot, a little laugh leaves him.

“Such a pretty little flower…I enjoy watching you writhe around on my fingers. Fufufu.” He sighs, enjoying the mesmerizing sight of you arching your back from the pleasure. “Hahh~ F-Fuck!~” You gasp as you felt your tummy growing more warm inside. You clench around Doflamingo’s finger and he smile before he began to kiss up on your neck. His fingers started to move faster inside of you while you moaned out praises and pleads profusely. “Yes yes! I-I feel it coming!~” You whined as you began to roll your hips up against his hand. Doflamingo giggles before pressing a kiss to your lips. “Go on and cum my flower~ Squirt out onto my fingers, I wanna see your expression~” He whispered into your ears. A whimper leaves your lips as your toes began to curl from his fingertips hitting your g-spot. “Hahh~ D-Doffyyy~” A gasp leaves you as you finally squirt out onto his hand followed by a slight whimper from the intensity.

His long tongue trails across his lips hungrily as he watched you release your sweet nectar along his hand. He slowly pulls his fingers from your cunt and trails his tongue along them, desperate for your sweet taste. He shivers and as he feels his cock grow harder within his briefs. “Your nectar taste so wonderful my dear~” He complimented before climbing over you. You were still getting over your orgasm, but Doflamingo was enjoying the afterglow. “So fuckin’ pretty, yet so delicate.” He says softly. You unconsciously wrap your arms around his neck and he smiles before pressing a kiss to your lips.

He sighs happily as he finally pulls his briefs down slightly to reveal his hard cock, pressing it against your tummy. The warmth of his cock made you shiver as he leans in closer to you. “Ya ready for me to pollinate you, little flower?” He joked, licking his lips. An intense heat engulfs your face as you blushed deeply from his words. He chuckles as he rubs his cock against your entrance, a slight trail of precum spreading across your cunt. “Fufu, M’so ready…m’so so ready~” Doflamingo says eagerly as he slowly slides himself inside of you. A gasp leaves both you and him as he wastes no time to bottom out inside of you. A moan leaves your lips as he slowly thrusts into your sloppy cunt. Doflamingo breathes heavily as your sweet gummy walls suck his cock in all nice and snug.

“Oh goodness~ Fuck you feel so wonderful ‘round me~” He groans as he begins to increase the speed of his thrusts. Soft angelic moans leaves your lips as Doflamingo grips your hips before he begins to lose himself. Your moans grow louder as you feel his hips thrust upward and hard against your g-spot. Doflamingo holds your hand tightly as he continues to thrust his hips harsh against yours. “Doffy! F-Fuck! Doffyyy!~” You whined as you felt your orgasm growing closer already. He presses kisses against your shoulders and neck as he grew closer to his orgasm as well, his groans growing louder and louder as his tongue spills out. “Kiss me~ Kiss me my flower~” He demanded. You kiss Doflamingo and he groans into the kiss before fucking deeper into you.

Your loud moans were muffled by Doflamingo’s lips and tongue against your before he finally pulls back to allow you to breathe. “Fuck I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum so deep inside of your cunt~” He groans loudly. Your legs wrap around his hips tightly and you held on to the pillow tightly behind your head. “D-Doffy! F-FUCK DOFFY!~” You cry out as you feel yourself tipping over the edge. “Cum! Cum on this fucking dick my flower!~“ He groans as his eyebrows began to furrow. A gasp leaves you as you feel yourself shake and shiver on his cock. “D-Doffy! M-M’gonna! M’gonna cum!~” You whined as your walls clench tightly around his cock. Doflamingo smiles before sinking his head deep into your neck. “Yes~ let me pollinate you, take my seed deep inside of your pussy~” He groans, his cock beginning to twitch inside of you.

A loud moan leaves you as you cum on his cock, your pussy gushing cum out onto his soft tanned skin. A groan leaves his lips as he cums deep inside of your cunt before finally resting against your body. You both breathe heavily while you wrap your arms around his torso, hugging him. You feel Dolflamingo hesitate but settles in hugging you tightly before planting a kiss into your cheek. “It felt so good~ It felt so so good Doffy…” You say before peppering kisses onto his face. Doflamingo stares at you in disbelief, never hearing you say such word to him before. “Never heard you say those words before…” He says as he held on to your body tightly. It made him realize that him being soft actually made you feel happier and way better, which is all that mattered to him.

He sighs and yawns, hugging your body like a little teddy bear. “Keep your legs ‘round my hips…I wanna sleep like this.” He demanded as before settling down against the soft and fluffy blankets. You nodded before yawning, your body feeling tired from Doflamingo. “Get some rest…my sweet sweet little flower.” He says softly yet tiredly. “Yes Doffy…Goodnight…” You say tiredly. His grin stayed on his face but it was a softer sweeter grin rather than his shit-eating one. He peeks at the window and looks up at the pretty stars which made him grow tired and yawn.

“G’Night my flower.” Doflamingo whispered before laying his head against the pillows, now drifting off into sleep.

-EEEEE BRO JUST DOFLAMINGO CALLING US HIS LITTLE FLOWER MAKES ME QUAKE MAN.

#one piece #one piece smut #one piece fluff #op smut #op fluff #one piece x female reader #one piece doflamingo #op doflamingo #donquixote doflamingo #doflamingo smut #doflamingo fluff #doflamingo x reader #puddingcupfics #hahaha flower breeding- #doffy being soft #doffy pollinating his flower #get it?

[local-ground-apple]

Hi could I request Diasomnia crew with a s/o who knows martial arts?

I swear this is the last diasomnia not-separate 🤭

everyone is here (with a lil focus on malmal), oh, and i enjoy bullying sebek a bit too much🤭🤭

,,Child of Man, I've been thinking...Perhaps, it's time we hired a knight for you"

At the sound of Malleus' proposition, you opened your eyes, suddenly feeling wide awake. You rose slightly from the comfortable place in his lap. You titled your head to one side, looking at him questioningly, trying to determine whether he was joking or not.

Malleus Draconia wasn't the type to crack some jokes.

He was deadly serious.

A knight ? For you ?

It seemed a bit too excessive, in your opinion.

,,A knight ? Why would I need a knight ?

You asked him, confusion audible in your voice. Before Malleus could even respond, you heard a soft, yet amused chuckle from the distance. You supposed that Lilia was eavesdropping on your conversation with Tsunotarou. You didn't even bother trying to spot the bat-fae; he was probably hiding somewhere in the bushes or branches. You briefly glanced at Malleus who was carefully observing you, as if he was scanning your face, trying to predict your reaction. He cleared his throat before he spoke up once again.

,,It would be wise. There should be someone to protect you, in case we're not around"

You furrowed your eyebrows, as your head once again layed in Malleus' lap. You could feel him gently running his fingers through your hair, playing with lose strands. Your eyes fell on Silver and Sebek sparring few metres before you. Their swords were cutting through the air, furiously attacking each other. You knew Lilia was nearby, probably silently observing their match from afar and noticing their weak areas that could have been improved.

,,I don't need anyone to protect me"

You said firmly, turning your attention to Malleus who only raised his eyebrow. He clearly didn't believe you, as a soft smile appeared on his lips. He sighed heavily, as his curious gaze seemed to pierce through your form.

Perhaps Lilia was right in his prediction that it would be quite hard to convince you to agree to his proposition. Malleus only wished to protect you, especially given the relationship between you two and his status as future king of Briar Valley. He was a bit concerned that some Faes may attempt to hurt you.

You appreciated his concern. Truly.

Yet, you were more than capable of taking care of yourself and protecting yourself. And you were going to prove it to Malleus.

,,Oh, is that so, Child of Man ?"

Judging by the amused and condescending tone of his voice, Malleus had absolutely no faith in you. You rolled your eyes, playfully nudging him.

,,Actually, I will show you ! I trained martial arts for a while back in my world and I was pretty good"

,,Oh, please do"

You remarqued quite confidently, your eyes stopping once again on two figures before you. For a brief moment you seemed pensive, quickly assessing two man in your mind. You weren't sure which knight you should pick to prove your point. You only watched their training from time to time, if Malleus or Lilia invited you.

You didn't know their particular fighting styles that well, so you could only guess who would be the easier target,

Suddenly, you felt a soft breeze gently brushing against your skin, as warm breath slightly tickled your skin. A hand rested on your shoulder, as you jumped in surprise. You didn't have enough time to turn around, as the mysterious figure leaned down and whispered in your ear.

,,Little One, you could simply pick one who annoys you more"

At this point you were sure that your cause of death would be heart attack caused by Lilia Vanrouge himself popping out of nowhere and scaring you. However, he had a point.

What a splendid idea, you thought to yourself.

,,Thank you for the suggestion, Lilia"

You responded, grinning, clearly delighted with the idea. You stood up, brushing any excessive grass from your pants, before you waved agressively at Sebek, trying to grab his attention.

,,Sebek Zigvolt ! Fight me !"

You yelled, managing to surprise both Silver and Sebek, who immediately stopped their fight. Lilia let out a chuckle at their perplexed and confused faces. Malleus only raised an eyebrow, clearly amused with the whole situation. Although, he couldn't help but worry slightly.

After all, you were just a human, meanwhile Sebek was a professionally trained half-fae knight.

Sebek furrowed his eyebrows, processing your words, before his face twisted in grimace.

,,What, no ! I will hurt you, Human ! You're just a weak mortal !"

Great, as always Sebek was subtly insulting you. You were certainly not weak and you were going to prove it to him teh hard way.

,,Oh, come on, Sebek ! Don't tell me you're afraid that some weak human could beat you in the fight ?"

You yelled back, your voice clearly teasing and railing him up, which was exactly what you hoped for. Perhaps your taunts would hurt his pride and temper and he would agree to your provocation.

Sebek was hesitant.

He actually wouldn't mind wiping that arrogant and confident smile off your face, however one look from Malleus told him otherwise. He glanced at his Master, who was eyeing him carefully. Sebek could literally feel chills on his back from Draconia's icy glare filled with subtle threat.

Sebek felt that if he managed to land a hit on you, his Master would personally murder him. He took a deep breath, his fists gripping his sword firmly, as he shook his head once again.

,,No need to worry, Malleus"

Lilia's amused and carefree tone broke through the silence. Silver looked at him in disbelief. His arms were crossed on his chest, as he was contemplating the situation. On the one hand, he had hope that the possibility of you decking Sebek existed and he would love to watch it; but on the other hand, he was a bit worried that you could get seriously injured. After all, his fellow knight wasn't known for his gentleness.

You approached them both, teasing Sebek once again, trying to rail him up so he would agree to your proposition.

,,Come on, Silver ! You gotta help me convince him"

,,I'm not sure if this is a good idea"

Silver responded diplomatically, eyeing Malleus and Lilia sitting in the shadow of the willow tree. They were whispering, but from this distance, he couldn't make out what they were talking about exactly. Given the cheerful look and playful smile on his father's lips, probably nothing good.

Silver sighned heavily. Now you and Sebek were screaming at each other, trying to assert dominance and convince the other party. Silver was definitely inviting you to a nap after this.

,,Your precious human will be alright, I can assure you of that, Malleus"

Lilia leaned forward and sat near Malleus, who didn't take his eyes off your form for a mere second. Diasomnia dorm leader clearly wasn't believing his friend. He eyed him suspiciously and in disbelief. There was absolutely no way that he was letting you fight one of his knights and possibly get hurt.

,, I've seen them in action once. They will be fine, I can't say the same thing about Sebek"

Lilia stated calmly, as Malleus' eyes widen at his words. Oh, that was quite unexpected. He supposed that if his caretaker was allowing this, he should be fine with your proposition. After all, Lilia was never mistakened in matters concerning any type of fighting.

,,Did you spare with them ?"

Malleus asked, as he glanced in your direction. You and Sebek were eagerly screaming at each other, as Silver stood there massaging his temples, as this arguing was giving him a bad headache.

,,Oh yes, once. I even gave them few tips. "

Malleus nodded his head in an understanding way. Lilia was quite proficient in fighting and throughout his long life he had learned plenty of martial arts. When he spotted you practicing by yourself in secret, he was more than happy to guide you, watch you train and offer some tips on how you could improve.

Lilia was confident that you could absolutely destroy Sebek in a fight. You were less aggressive and more agile and faster than him.

Malleus waved his hand, giving Sebek a green light.

,,Thank you, Tsunotarou ! You will definitely love this !

You exclaimed, as Sebek only rolled his eyes at the sound of your voice. He certainly wasn't planning on using his full strength in order not to severely injure. However, he wasn't the type to go easy on you either.

,, I will go easy on you, Sebek. No need to worry "

You said confidently, smiling softly. Your words clearly irked him, as Sebek scowled in indignation. As if you were the one who would get hurt.

Silver tried to mask a giggle escaping his lips by coughing diplomatically, as he took few steps back, to give you two enough space for your battle.

You were positive that you were going to deck Sebek.

To say that you got carried away a bit would be an understatement. You went absolutely feral and you certainly didn't hold back at all.

That "weak" human had kicked Sebek's ass and decked him hard.

,,You broke my arm !"

,,Your incompetence broke your arm, Sebek"

Silver responded, before he started laughing at Sebek's misery who only yelled at him. Lilia was currently observing Sebek's broken arm, assessing the damage you had inflicted, as his one hand gently tapped his back, telling him not to be so dramatic. Meanwhile you were repeating your apologies over and over again, as if they could magically heal Sebek and his shattered pride.

,, Hmm, I suppose you were right, dearest Child of Man. You don't need a knight"

Malleus' calm voice shifted your attention from Sebek yelling at you once again. You smiled slightly in embarrassement. You didn't mean to injure one of his knights.

,,Well, I didn't mean to break Sebek's arm. I swear it was an accident"

You began explaining yourself, yet Malleus brushed you off with a mere wave of his hand, signaling you not to worry about it. He was impressed with your skills.

,,Don't mind him, Child of Man, that was quite an entertaining show, I must admit"

You shook your head in embarrassement, hiding your face in your hands. Malleus certainly wasn't helping you right now. Not even mentioning Silver who was also having time of his life. Silver tried to mask his wheezing in the background, but he failed splendidly. It was the greatest thing he had witnessed this week.

,,Y/n, you need to teach me some of your moves "

Silver suggested once he stopped laughing at Sebek's misery.

,,I will teach you how to wield a sword in return"

At Silver's suggestion, your eyes widen in surprise. You liked that idea. Malleus seeing sparkles dancing in your eyes and excitement oozing from your figure, only shook his head, sighing heavily.

This was clearly a bad idea.

#twisted wonderland #disney twst #twst x reader #malleus draconia #malleus draconia x reader #silver #silver x reader #sebek zigvolt #sebek zigvolt x reader #lilia vanrouge #lilia vanrouge x reader #twst malleus x reader #twst malleus draconia #twst silver x reader #twst lilia vanrouge #twst lilia x reader #twst sebek zigvolt #twst malleus draconia x reader #twst sebek x reader #twst lilia vanrouge x reader #twst sebek zigvolt x reader

[navybrat817]

Make Yourself at Home

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader Summary: You find a familiar face in your home after a long day. Word Count: Over 2.1k Warnings: Pining, fluff, feels, swearing, sass, a bit of humor, mentions of blood and trauma, Bucky Barnes (he’s a warning, okay?) A/N: Hey, lovelies! I began this in June of 2021. That's right! I'm slowly, but surely, trying to make my way through WIPs and this felt good to complete. Shockingly no smut for Sinday. Beta read by the beautiful @buckyownsmylife, but any and all mistakes are my own. Moodboard by the wonderful @sweeterthanthis. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Please reblog or comment as it means the world!

To say that you had a rough work day was an understatement. Between spilling your drink all over yourself on your way to your desk, being unprepared for a last minute meeting (which your boss called you out on), and your system crashing right before your report was finished, you were done. All you wanted to do was curl up on the couch with a stiff drink. Anything to forget that you had to stay at that place to get a paycheck. 

I can't even fuck out my frustrations since I'm painfully single. I really need to buy a new toy.

The moment you walked in your front door, you knew it wouldn't be a relaxing evening. The glow from the living room gave it away. Sighing, you tossed your bag and keys down before heading into the room. You weren’t shocked when you saw Bucky Barnes slumped against your couch, but you weren't exactly happy either.

The dark tactical gear clashed with the soft throw pillows surrounding the soldier. He often looked larger than his 6'3" height since he took up space, but he somehow looked like he belonged there. He cut his long locks some time ago, his short, dark hair urging you to run your fingers through it. Maybe you could pull it if he gave you the chance.  

I would have a crush on a man who may have a death wish.

“Hey, doll,” he smirked when he acknowledged your presence. “We really need to stop meeting like this.”

“Well, maybe we would if you would STOP BREAKING INTO MY FUCKING HOUSE!”

He seemed to wince more at your tone than the wound on his right arm. “What can I say? You and your place are comforting.”

You tried to ignore the way your heart raced faster at his sincerity. “You’re bleeding on my couch!”

“Sorry. I’ll get it cleaned or replaced. I promise,” he swore as he sat up more, smiling a bit when you rushed over to help.

“That’s what you said about my rug,” you muttered as you sat down. How does someone bleeding smell so good? He already had your first aid kit, water and towels on the coffee table. He knew by heart where you kept everything. "What happened this time? Who did this to you?"

Bucky’s smile widened as he shifted to give you more room. “Why? Will you take him out for me?”

“I just might,” you said. Truthfully, your heart stopped whenever you saw him in a state like this, even though he bounced back quickly. And you wanted to hurt anyone who hurt him. 

I’ve got it bad. Why am I like this?

"I’m flattered, but I handled him and you don’t need to worry about it. Fucker had a knife up his sleeve though. Not as nice as mine," he told you as you opened the kit, taking a moment to figure out what you needed to clean the wound with.

"Better not let Steve catch you swearing. He might chastise you."

"Don't let that punk fool you. He swears like a sailor and he's still kicking himself for saying 'language' to his team. Wish I could've been there to hear that."

The fondness made you smile a little. You were glad Bucky had a good friend by his side. You were also flattered that Bucky trusted you enough to tell you stories. "Super soldier reflexes certainly don't stop you from getting hurt, do they?"

"Nope. Still human."

"You know, sometimes I think you fake these just so you have an excuse to visit me."

"You caught me," he half joked, something soft in his eyes as he looked at you. 

"Bucky, how many times have you broken in?"

"More than enough," he acknowledged.

The first time Bucky broke into your place, to hide out from someone whose name you can’t even remember, you almost took a swing at him because you thought he was a burglar. You, luckily, recognized the former Winter Soldier and he promised he wouldn’t hide out long. But after the day you had today, you were reconsidering grabbing the nearest object and throwing it at his head. If only for making you worry. 

I doubt it would knock any sense into him. And I shouldn't be mad at him. He didn't do anything. Except break in. Again. 

Every few weeks, Bucky let himself into your place when he got injured or needed a quiet place to relax. Some nights he talked to you and others he hardly said a word. He even left you "thank you" gifts following his visits. Admittedly, you looked forward to them, even on your bad days, because you simply got to see him. You just wish you knew why he kept coming back. 

"Seriously. Why don't you see a doctor or a nurse?" you questioned, carefully dabbing at the cut. "They're much more qualified than I am."

"I told you, doll. You and your place are more comforting."

"Stop calling me doll!"

"Sure thing, sassy," he smirked, making you groan when your cheeks felt hot. 

"Grumpy," you grumbled back at him. 

If I use one of his own knives on him, can I consider it self defense? 

"I'm not grumpy. I'm an old man," he argued.

"You don't look like an old man. My new boyfriend might be jealous."

Your eyes flickered up just in time to catch the tiny tick in his jaw. "You're seeing someone?"

"No," you scoffed, not bothering to continue with the joke. "Still single, like every other time you've shown up."

Bucky slowly exhaled, relaxing against the cushions again. "That's good," he whispered.

Your teeth ground together as you cleaned him up. Maybe it was good to him, but it wasn't to you. It was lonely.

"You okay?" he asked. 

"Fine," you lied, avoiding his gaze.

He gently caught your wrist before you pulled away, the metal cool against your skin. "I really am sorry about the couch. I know the last thing you want is to deal with me."

Guilt crept in when you saw hurt in his icy blue eyes. “It isn’t ‘dealing’ with you, Bucky, and I’m sorry for snapping. Work was shit, but that's no excuse to take it out on you."

“I'm sorry you had a bad day," he swore and you wished the ground would swallow you up. The man was hurt and he felt bad for you. "And I don’t blame you. I did kind of invade your space again.”

“It's okay," you said, glancing at your wrist. He was still holding it, his grip softer than you expected. "Why do you come here? Is it really comforting?”

He sighed as he rested his head against the cushion. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere since it’s my place,” you teased, making him chuckle. You did pride yourself on making the often stoic man laugh. “So, try me.”

"You're not afraid of me," he stated, his thumb moving in slow circles over your pulse. You weren't sure if he was aware that he was doing it, but it had your heart racing faster. "Most people are."

"I have no reason to be afraid of you. As many times as you've managed to break in, you would've hurt me long ago if you wanted to," you said, shaking your head. "And I don't think you'll do that."

"I've hurt and killed people," he swallowed as he looked at the ceiling.

You weren't sure if he wanted you to listen or respond, but you chose the latter. "I know," you acknowledged, shifting so you could face him as he lifted his head. "But from what I've heard and what you've told me, it wasn't you, Bucky. You didn't have a choice."

"It doesn't make what happened go away," he said, blinking rapidly at the wetness that filled his eyes.

Seeing him on the verge of tears made you blink a few times, too. You wanted to hug him, but refused to initiate that kind of touch without his permission. "No, it doesn't, but you aren't who they tried to force you to be."

"Then who am I?" his voice cracked as his grip tightened on your wrist.

It doesn't hurt. You won't hurt me.

"You're Bucky," you stated, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "You're a hero and good man. You're also a pain in my ass who keeps ruining my furniture."

Bucky chuckled, his nose scrunching like you told a hilarious joke. The sound soothed the cracks his tears formed in your heart. The pain hadn't left his eyes, but it began to fade. "That easy to answer, huh?"

"I wouldn't say that. I think it's just easier for us to see the best in others because we tend to see the worst in ourselves."

"Is that what you do? See the worst in yourself?"

"I try not to," you admitted, but you were human. It was easy to hyperfocus on your flaws. 

"I don't want you doing that," he said, frowning as his hand moved from your wrist to your fingers. 

The delicate touch had your thighs pressing together. You hoped his super soldier senses didn't detect arousal. Though you pretty much were turned on at some point during each visit, this was a heart-to-heart moment and no time to want him.

"You don't have to worry about me."

"But I do. I worry about you when I'm not around," he said, sitting up a bit as you moved closer. "It's one of the reasons I don't use your front door. I don't want your neighbors to recognize me and be afraid."

"Yes, because breaking and entering is safer. Great logic, grumpy."

Bucky laughed, his eyes warm again. "Can I admit something and you can throw me out, sassy?"

"I won't throw you out, but I'm listening."

He cleared his throat, toying with your fingers. "I don't have nightmares after I see you."

His words hit you in your chest. You didn't know what to say. "You don't?"

"No," a heartbeat passed before he spoke again. "Most nights I wake up in a cold sweat, remembering the screams and fear. I remember everything."

"Bucky, I'm so sorry," you spoke, wishing you could take that pain away.

"The days I see you before I go home, I think of your smile, your scent, even your sass. A woman who showed me kindness time and time again, even on tiring and long days," he smiled sadly as you hung on his every word. "I eventually fall asleep and wake up peacefully. Nothing else I do works."

It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to you. "I had no idea."

"It's why I'm glad you don't have a boyfriend because I know he wouldn't tolerate me being around. Among other reasons."

You almost threw yourself at him, but had to maintain your dignity as you carefully leaned in. You weren't sure if the temperature rose in the room, but the sudden tension had you breathing faster. "What other reasons?"

"I think you know," he whispered, his gaze dropping to your lips. 

Oh, shit. 

"For the record, no boyfriend of mine will tell me who I can and can't be friends with."

"I don't doubt that," he said, placing a hand on your cheek. 

"He needs to clean up his messes," you teased. "Like bleeding on my couch."

"That's a given," he smiled, his massive thighs opening so you could move in closer.

"I would also like it if he took me out on a date once in awhile," you added. 

"I can take you out," he offered as you pressed closer, your heart pounding faster. You were practically in his lap and he wasn't stopping you. "Wherever you want to go."

"Yeah? You want to be my boyfriend?" you asked, smiling at how silly the question sounded. "You've already bought me gifts."

"If you'll let me," he answered, his lips a fraction away from yours. "I'll even use the front door."

"I'd like that," you sighed, closing your eyes as his nose touched yours.

Finally. He's finally going to kiss me.

"Buck!" Steve said from the window, climbing inside as the two of you broke apart. Bucky caught you before you fell backwards. The former captain's boots didn't make a sound as they touched the floor, brushing his gloved hands on his thighs. "Why didn't you answer your- Oh. I'm sorry. Am I interrupting?"

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?!

Bucky ran his hand over his face with a sigh and handed you one of the pillows. "Hey, Steve?"

"Yeah?" 

 "Duck."

*****

Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

#navybrat writes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes imagine #grumpy and sassy #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan x female reader #sebastian stan x you

[foxilayde]

Conversion Rates [Nathan Bateman x Reader]

Word Count: 1.9k

Summary: Nathan gets some unexpected news.

Warnings: Cigarettes, talk about death, talk about blood, brief mention of oral sex.

A/N: Feel free to ignore 💚

There’s buzzing coming from Nathan’s side of the bed. Long and persistent enough that it appears in your dreams, morphs into reality, and annoys you to the point of shoving your boyfriend’s shoulder.

“Get it.” You grunt, peeking a bleary eye open to the clock at your own night table. 3:55am. Only someone with a death wish would be calling Nathan at this hour.

“I’m gonna kill whoever that is.” Nathan is haplessly searching for his glasses, he groans when he finds them and flips the blankets off of himself to then locate the source of the buzzing. The person must’ve called again because the buzzing has been going on for at least a minute.

“Whomever.” You yawn.

“What’d you say” Nathan grunts distractedly while pawing the sheets, searching for his phone.

“Nothing.”

“Were you correcting my grammar? At four in the goddamn morning?”

“Hey don’t get cranky on me. I’m not the one calling.” You sleepily smile at him as he shakes his head, “go back to sleep,” he mutters to you when he answers the call.

“What?” Nathan answers simply, the greeting replete with annoyance. He’s scratching his head and then suddenly his hand stops like it forgot what it was supposed to be doing. His back goes rigid and he shakes his head quickly before swallowing and swinging his legs out to rest on the floor, elbows on knees, forehead in palm.

“Yeah I’m here… mmhmm…yeah.. Sure…. Yeah… okay…” He sighs a lot and rubs his head, h is eyes, his beard. This doesn’t sound like a work emergency. You scoot close to him and soothe his back in long slow strokes. He puts a hand on your knee.

“Yeah. Friday…. Uh huh. Okay thanks— no, not— … I don’t know what to say, Aimes. It’s fucking four am over here…. That’s….. alright fine, whatever, see you Friday… yeah you can tell her. Fine, don’t tell her, tell her, either way I’m— I’ll be there…. Yeah. Okay it’s okay, I’m fucking—……. Yeah. Got it…. Bye.”

Nathan’s jaw clenches and one breath after hanging up he hurls his phone across the room and against the concrete wall in an over handed frisbee-type toss. It cracks against the wall and thuds on the rug.

“Oh, that one got some air. Eight point seven. I’m deducting a point for lack of expletive. Couldn’t even give me a ‘bastard’? Disappointing, Bateman. You’ll never make it to regionals with that attitude.”

Nathan pulls both hands down his face and lays back down. Not in a joking mood. It’s quite possible he didn’t hear you at all.

“Was it work?” You ask quietly, changing your tone to something softer, something more befitting the early hour and the mystified expression on his face.

“No.” He breaths. Your eyes fall to the smithereened phone.

“Where are you going on Friday?”

“Hmmm?”

“You said something about being there Friday? Where’s there?”

“New York.”

“But not HQ?”

“No.”

Nathan puts his arms behind his head and stares impassively at his reflection in the mirrored ceiling. He is nowhere near a playful mood, so it’s a mystery to you why he’s making you play 20 questions, but as long as he’s answering, you’ll keep asking. Your first instinct is to inquire how many questions of the twenty remain, but his face reminds you of the early hour and you think better of it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” You offer sincerely.

Nathan blinks several times but does not answer.

“You want to go back to sleep?”

Nathan sighs and shakes his head slightly.

“You want me to make you a smoothie? Or some matcha just the way you like it? I promise I’ll use the whisk and not a fork this time.”

No response.

“Although I’d like to do the Pepsi test on you with that and see if you really can taste the difference.”

“Honey.”

“You gotta admit, it’s a little pretentious.”

“My dad’s dead.”

“What?”

“Funeral’s on Friday. New York. That was Amy.” His face is impassive as ever. You however flip the fuck out.

“OH my GOD. Nathan!” You opt out of a crushing hug and gently place your hand over his heart instead. “I’m so sorry.” Your brow furrows. “What happened?”

“Heart attack.”

“Nathan, I’m so sorry.” You repeat, at a loss for words.

“Hey, if he didn’t want to die from a heart attack, he should have taken better care of himself.” Nathan pulls the rumpled sheet over himself and turns to face you. “C’mere. Let’s go back to sleep.” He beckons you to your little spoon spot with one grabby hand.

You don’t ask him if he’s sure, let alone ask him if he’d rather talk about it. Something like this is going to take your boyfriend months to process. You scoot back against him and kiss his hand.

“Don’t for a second think this gets you out of our 6am trail run, by the way.” He grumbles and kisses your shoulder.

You pat his arm, the one that crosses your chest and holds you flush against him. “You don’t think we could skip the hell trail, I mean the trail run, just this once? I mean, we should probably pack. We’ve still gotta helicopter out of here and plus the time difference in New York, Friday is technically only… fifty one hours from now. Your family probably needs help? With things— arrangements?”

“You don’t have to go with me.”

“Oh shut up, of course I’m going, you nut.”

“This is so fucking typical of him.”

“What is? Perishing?”

“Fucking up everything.”

“Yes. Very rude of him to die on this the morning of our trail run. What an asshole.”

“You think I’m kidding. I’m not kidding. He made it his life’s goal to be as much of a burden as he possibly could. Died as he fucking lived.”

“Hey now, save some of that heartfelt sentimentality for the eulogy.”

*******

“I’m not speaking. Absolutely the fuck not.”

“Nathan, come on. You have to say some words. They don’t have to be true, you just go up and say “He will be missed” and you can leave out the “just not by me” part. It’ll be over before you know it.”

“Can’t believe Amy would just assume that I’m going to do it and stick it in the fucking program.”

“Totally, who does she think you are? The only son of the man who died, or something? Pretty presumptuous of her.” You roll your eyes.

Nathan takes an angry drag from what is probably his twentieth cigarette of the day, and it’s only noon. You didn’t even know he smoked until you landed in New York and his first stop was at the Bronx Boulevard Bodega and Deli for a pack of Viceroy 100s.

“You keep staring at me like that and your face is gonna get stuck that way.” Was the only ‘conversation’ the two of you had about the revisited habit when he lit up in the back of the towncar on your way from his mom’s place to the church on Tinton Ave.

Cars honk and whiz by. It’s dry and exceptionally cold for April, you tug your black coat closer around your middle. Nathan doesn’t flinch to the temperature in his thin black wool blazer, still in agitated ponderance, still pissed off at his dead father. He’s been standing outdoors most of the day already. Excusing himself to his mother’s porch to chain smoke all by himself in lieu of making small talk at the pre-funeral breakfast with his mother, sister, and yourself.

You check your watch before tucking your arm back around yourself in a contained shiver.

“Service starts in ten minutes. You think we should head in?”

“Go ahead. I’ll meet you in there.”

“Seriously Nate, lets go.”

“Don’t tell me what the fuck to do okay, you’re not my mother.”

“Oh shit, you’re right I’m not. She is inside though. I can go get her if you want. She’s passing out programs right now for her dead husband’s funeral services, but I’m sure she’d be willing to stop the world and burp you, or whatever the hell you need that’ll make you stop acting like a child.”

“Fuck off, alright?” His Bronx accent gets thicker with each passing cancer stick.

“You know, it pains me to say it, but for as much as you hate your father…”

“Don’t.”

“I don’t have to, you already know.”

Nathan flips the lid of his cigarettes, curses, crumples the Viceroy box, and shoves it back in his pocket.

“Out of excuses are we?” You’re trying to be supportive, you really really are, but he’s being fucking ridiculous. You loop your arm around his, hoping he’ll be too upset and distracted to stop you from leading him into the church.

He lets you take him two steps forward before halting. “I haven’t been in there since I was fifteen.”

“Looks intimidating.” You nod at the tall dark grey stone walls and narrow strips of stained glass.

“‘It’s fucking creepy is what it is.”

“Are you… scared? Of seeing him?”

“Who? The lifesize bloody effigy of Christ the redeemer suspended from the middle of the ceiling? Yeah, a little. Did I ever tell you that my first nightmare as a child was thinking I was caught in a tropical rainstorm in my bedroom, but then, I look up, and its a fifty foot tall man in a loincloth and barbed wire crown floating above me, bleeding on me in these fat, red drops—“

“Holy shit— no, what the fuck? I’m talking about seeing your dad. About the open casket… fuck me. We’ll unpack that levitating son-of-god nightmare later.”

“I haven’t spoken to my dad in… I don’t know. I don’t even remember the last time we talked on the phone. I’m trying….to remember the last time I saw his face and… I….can’t.”

Nathan swallows hard and looks up at the overcast sky. He’s, choked up, his chin quivers angrily.

“Some holiday probably. If there even was a holiday in the last ten years that he spent someplace other than that hole on 165th.” He shakes his head and bites his lip in resolve. “I can’t do it, honey. I can’t go in there for him. I can’t do this this when he would have never—“

“Then don’t do it for him.” You squeeze the crook of his elbow. “Do it for your mom, who misses her husband. Do it for Amy, who is equally as fucking pissed at her dad but had to organize this whole funeral anyway, without any help.” You poke his chest.

Nathan grimaces.

“And most importantly, do it for me.” You peck him on his cringing lips, “because I am fucking freeeezing.” He kisses you again and you pull back and grin at the novel tang. “So that’s what Mac DeMarco’s ashtray tastes like, I’ve always wondered.”

He smiles for the first time in days. It’s a little one, but it’s there. “I’ll do it. I’ll go in, I’ll speak. For you. But, you owe me.”

“You still accept blowjobs as payment, I assume?”

“Yeah but the conversion rate in New York is much higher than in Norway.”

“Wow, how randomly convenient for you. The rich just keep getting richer, don’t they?”

Nathan gives your butt a tap to usher you inside. “That’s economics for you.”

END

#Nathan Bateman x Reader #Nathan Bateman x You #Ex Machina FanFiction #Oscar Isaac

[anzulvr]

OMG YOUR WORKS ARE SO AWOOGA I CANT STOP 😭 can I request karma x reader too with a s/o that cries with a straight face and cries whenever they're seething in anger, if I tried to say smth while I'm sad then the straight face just dissolves into a mess 🤠 maybe a part where Karma makes them cry im both ways and another part someone in class makes them cry, ty if you can (> <)!!

Karma x Reader who cries out of Anger. Sorry for being late (again!!), Ily your typing is so fun😭 thank you for requesting!ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM SPOILERS ꒱

Karma is too straightforward, he makes insensitive jokes, he isn’t the most emotionally mature person and he can be pushier than most. So when you’re sitting beside him, holding back tears, he doesn’t know which one of his traits drove you to this point.

The worst part is you refuse to answer when he asks, instead opting for looking the other direction or giving him a scowled expression. He racked his brain, you guys went to school, were perfectly fine, came back and now you’re angry.

“[Name] why have you been mad at me all day? And don’t say you’re not, you keep a straight face whenever you are.”

He pries and pries until you finally blow up on him.

“So you can just throw yourself off a mountain for an assassination attempt without a second thought and expect me not to care?”

“I’m fine aren’t I? That was the best idea I could come up with, I don’t know how I could top it.” He says like he’s disappointed in the fact it failed.

“You don’t see the problem? Seriously?”

“If somebody doesn’t kill him, everyone is going to die- you’re gonna die, did you expect me to not try my ideas??”

“I didn’t expect you to try to off yourself in the process.”

“It’s not about my life it’s about yours, I’m not letting you die.”

“How am I supposed to live if you’re dead?!” Your voice only gets louder.

“How am I supposed to live if you die because I was too scared to try something?!” Karma replies matching your tone.

“Tell me you won’t try anything like that again.”

He looks at the floor not wanting to face you.

You press further “If you die over this, I’ll die with you.”

The tears stream down your face, you do your best to keep your blank expression.

He can’t be the reason you get hurt, he knows you know that much. “It won’t come to that, we’ll assassinate him together.”

୨୧

If the reason for your tears is someone else the way Karma reacts is a unique depending on the person.

If Teraska makes you cry Karma going to instigate until Terasaka gets pissed off enough to fight him.

“Making [Name] cry? No wonder you’ve gotten rejected by every girl you’ve shown interest in.”

“Ya don’t know anything- stop shoving your head in other peoples business.”

“[Names] business is mine too, if you don’t like that you can fight me over it.”

“Tch..” Terasaka looks away in annoyance

“What? You scared?” Karma isn’t giving up until Terasaka throws a punch and looses.

If Maehara and Okajima are the culprits, Karmas exposing their embarrassing secrets to the class.

“I know you two aren’t the brightest… but I’d think you’d know not to bother [Name].”

Unlike Terasaka they’re not willing to take their chances against Karma, they know it’s too late making you cry is a death wish.

“Hear us out- we weren’t trying to offend anyone we just-”

Karma doesn’t let them finish their sentence before he says “You know what I think is so funny, I found this crazy video of you guys.”

“Wait huh?”

“It’s not loading right now, I’ll post it on my story later so you two know what I’m talking about!”

“Please don’t! What even is it?!”

It’s a video of the time they tried a contemporary dance class to impress some girls and ended up tripping on each other and fighting, they kept slipping with every punch, needless to say they’re prohibited from going back.

If Korosenseis work load is what’s making you upset he’s going to guilt trip him until he agrees to excuse your assignments, “You call yourself a teacher? Poor [Name] is stressed out and you don’t care.”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to pressure anyone that’s the opposite of what I want to do!! [Name] I’ll give you an extension.”

“Just an extension after what you did? [Name] is humiliated after crying infront of everyone and that’s the solution?”

“It wasn’t that bad…” You felt better and you tried talking yourself out of it but he kept going.

“I say you excuse the assignment and let [name] rest. You’re so cruel… making your student hate school.” He knows exactly where to hit, Korosensei is sensitive enough to make that easy, he would never forgive himself if he burnt out his students.

“Okay [Name] you’re excused for the project. Please, forgive me!” Korosensei is the one crying now, but at least you don’t have to worry about the assignment anymore. The rest of the class starts complaining about it too in hopes to get it excused themselves.

#karma x reader #karma akabane x reader #akabane x reader #akabane karma #ansatsu kyoushitsu x reader #reader x karma #karma akabane #karma akabane x you #korosensei #eclass #assasination classroom #akabane karma x reader #assassination classroom x reader #assassination classroom

[ivystoryweaver]

The Only One - A Poe Dameron Story Masterlist

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

Episode 7

My Masterlist

Poe Dameron Masterlist

Overall Fic Summary: You are a computer technician and programmer, relatively new to the Resistance. Despite your sunny demeanor, the Resistance is your last hope. Orphaned and homeless, you hide a secret you hope no one will ever discover, because if they did, you would be truly alone, with no place even in a band of rebels.

Pairing: Poe Dameron x female original character. Fic is written in second person, but the female "you" has a name; OC is neurodivergent* (see disclaimer at the bottom of this post)

There will be some other oc's too (because I don't feel like messing up Jess and Snap), along with familiar faces like Leia.

Overall fic content: Acquaintances to friends to lovers, slow-ish burn, fluff at first, angst later. The fic will get a little darker later, but won't go way off the rails from the tone of the first episode.

Overall fic warnings: ableism, bullying, mentions of death, some violence, though not pervasive throughout, past trauma, some cursing, there will be intimacy, but not explicit.

Lmk if you want to be tagged

dividers by saradika

*I understand that the term "neurodivergent" or "neurodiverse" is incredibly broad, I am leaving it up to each reader to fill in whatever gaps they wish. I am speaking from experience here. In the case of this story, I think you'll see some of the OC's habits/traits pretty quickly: info-dumping, rambling, speaking bluntly, missing social cues, being literal/unable to discern sarcasm, or sometimes unable to tell if someone is joking. Fidgeting, having a slight aversion to touch and certain textures. Extremely intelligent. If this characterization is offensive to anyone, I apologize. I am happy to hear your thoughts on it.

#poe dameron #poe dameron fic #poe dameron fanfiction #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron x female oc #poe dameron x oc #poe dameron x f!reader #star wars sequels #star wars fanfiction #star wars fic #oscar isaac fic

[gamblersdoll]

ITS THE MATTER OF IT.

Chapter 2

there is no way you're here, you damned woman.

you never thought your life could change simply because you existed. after all, you were just a person.

"so.. uhhh. I'm yuuji itadori." he chuckled awkwardly, putting his hand on the back of his head as he smiled warmly.

you would've taken it as weird, but it rolled off your mind very quickly- maybe even too quick.

"y/n." you said blankly. you still felt like you were being watched, but by another pair of eyes. you could tell it was gojo.

how he could even look at you through a blindfold was beyond you. but you eventually figured it out– he's satoru gojo after all.

nobara and megumi had been excused for that moment, something you caught onto, and yuuji was oblivious to it. you turned your focus onto the slits on his cheekbones under his eyes. maybe a bad fight and they somehow landed in the same place? by coincidence? whatever.

"im... also a vessel for a cursed spirit. sukuna." he said in a defeated tone.

oh.

oh.

" so... a parasite?" you tried to joke, but it came out more as a insult or a "i wish for instant death." thing.

"ohoho.. youre bold." gojo said, laughing in amusement.

you didn't really understand on what he meant, until someone chimed in.

"you still have got that damn attitude." the voice said, it didn't bother you until you looked over at yuuji to see some form of a mouth and red pupil on his cheek— replacing the slits.

"so.. I'm taking it as that's sukuna? hold on– I still have a attitude?? we just met." you said, folding your arms. "gojo? you have people watching me?" you asked, deciding on if you should fend for your life or should you ignore it.

"no no. sukuna knows you!" gojo smiled, putting a hand on your shoulder in friendliness.

".... and how is that??" you asked, pinching his index finger off of your shoulder. yuuji also looked at him, confused since he's quite literally never met you before.

"because, you're a reincarnation of someone he knew before he was a cursed spirit.. duhhhh." he said in a matter-of-factly tone. it would've irritated you if he hadn't just said the king of curses knows you.

you and yuuji looked at him in disbelief, you making the worst stank face in your life, because how in the ever lasting hell could you ever have known- no, have been close to the king of curses?! he has to be pulling your leg, a crude joke, because he's satoru gojo.

"she is??" yuuji asked, not sounding to bothered by it, but you were now irritated.

"yep! before she died and sukuna because a cursed spirit, they knew each other very well. they respected each other." he said, feeling very knowledgeable on you.

you remained quiet, now feeling dreadful. there was no way in hell you knew sukuna— nor the fact of respecting him or being close with him.

"have nothing to say, woman?" sukuna said in his domain to where no one would hear him, feeling proud to know he found you again, to either make you pay for dying and showing up after 1000+ years, or having to find a opportunity to get his hands on you.

"yeah, I call total bullshit. it's been years since that happened." you said, "anyway. I guess I'll be working with you, yuuji." she sighed, closing her eyes.

she didn't miss the way yuuji looked at her, nor did she miss when sukuna peeked through yuuji's cheek.

"sooo.. what's it like being reincarnated?" yuuji asked, both of you sitting in one of the dining halls jujustu high had established. you were originally by yourself, finding peace within that. but of course, someone always followed you.

"im not sure what you're talking about, pinkhead." you flatly said. you wouldn't fall for this dumb prank gojo started. and the more you heard it, the more you wished you weren't here.

"but gojo said-" yuuji started, before you started as well.

"gojo ain't said a damn thing." you butted in, "i need to see in writing of some book that I was in a past life. then maybe– maybe I'll believe it." said only by you. you can't fall for that.

in sukunas domain, he felt his anger rising.

"what if it's true though, y/n?" yuuji asked, twiddling his thumbs. he couldn't handle the tension... not with you.

"it isn't. " you stated, crossing over your legs that spilled onto the other one. you stared ahead, thinking of something else.

"... you're a very quiet person, aren't you?" yuuji asked, smiling at you. he wanted to get closer with you already. something about you made that in him. "could I get your uh.. number? for school purposes of course!!" he added, hoping he didn't sound creepy already only after a few hours of meeting him.

you only nodded, both of your iphones tapping each other to exchange numbers— thank god for that update.

"to answer your question, there's no way in hell he and I were ever close. that's just a fairy tale." you said, not knowing what you just started.

because in sukuna's domain, he wanted to kill you for even suggesting that. were you not happy with your history of him? are you calling history a liar??

why aren't you honored to be cherry picked by him?

he could only imagine what he'd say or do to you once he had control, once he was glooming over your frame.

you still look the same when you did 1000+ years ago...

"ill make sure to remind you of your place, y/n." he thought to himself, already enjoying the joy ride of being the king— and where you both left off.

honorable tags: @lisaaannna @coldbreadbouquetworld

#jjk gojo #jjk spoilers #jjk x reader #jjk #sukuna x you #itadori yuuji #reincarnation

[ponyosmom35]

going home

Simon ghost Riley x reader

Liability chapter fourteen!

summary: reader bids her friends goodbye as she readies herself to go home and deal with the aftermath of her sisters death. Having to say goodbye to Simon proved much harder than she ever imagined.

Liability masterlist:

https://www.tumblr.com/ponyosmom35/733401347573088256/simon-ghost-riley?source=share

Simon walks into the base and hands his weapon to one of the soliders who took care of it. He pauses as he spots a familiar redhead speaking to a group of medics. He wasn’t expecting to see her again, he figured that she woud’ve left by now. Part of him was thankful that he was given another chance to say goodbye, another part wished she’d gone. Each time they spoke it was harder to push her into the back of his mind. He lingers in the area for a few minutes before her eyes find him. She hugs the medics and moves over to him holding her suitcase and bag in her hands. 

“didn't expect to see you here, thought you were leaving” he comments 

“got delayed” she says softly 

He noitces the sadness in your eyes, and the pain that's eating away at her “how have you been holding up?”

“I'm doing my best to keep my shit together” she admits sadly ”if one more person tries to talk to me about her I think I might scream, anyways how was the mission, seemed like you were in and out”

“it was just a routine operation. Not too much action or anything special” he says taking her bags and setting them on the ground. 

“I'm glad that I caught you guys before leaving” she smiles

“thought you already said your goodbyes?”

“one more can't hurt right?”

“alright, then, get to it” he jokes

“I am gonna miss you Simon, who else is gonna tell me the dumbest fucking jokes all day?” she asks, causing him to laugh.

“and you're gonna miss my brilliant sense of humor” he says this in a sarcastic, yet playful tone. “you just love to hear me talk, don't ya?”

“I like your accent” she admits,  mocking his voice

“oh, really? well you wouldn't be the first to find it charming and irresistible” he brags

She laughs loudly, playing it off as a joke, though she knew it was true. “yet another thing I'm gonna miss, your massive ego”

“a massive ego?” he questions, not even bothering to deny it “I mean, it's the truth, innit?”

“hand to god it is the truth” she admits 

“You might be the only person who can make me laugh at myself”

“someone needs to knock you down a peg” she says hitting his arm 

He leans back against the wall and crosses his arms, while maintaining a playful tone of voice, “ah yes, that's right, you used to be a real brat back then, didn't ya? thought you knew everything, and could teach me a few things” he teases

“I'm a fountain of knowledge” she shrugs 

“a fountain of pride, more like it” he teases, watching as you laugh “and a fountain of attitude”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, all that from the most arrogant and stubborn man I’ve ever met”

“just 'cause I'm the best at what I do, doesn't mean I'm arrogant or stubborn, does it?”

“I hate to break it to you but, you might just be the most-” she is cut off by Soap sprinting over to them. He hops over her luggage and wraps his arms around her, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around. Simon looks over to Soap and shakes his head, noticing his playful antics with her while slightly rolling my eyes, and grinning playfully to himself. 

“precious cargo suds!” she yells as she hits his back, trying to get him to set her down. Giggling at him. 

He continues to spin her, then sets her down on her feet. “ankle biter I thought you were leaving!”

“I'm leaving in ten, got delayed”

“Well that means we got time...for a game of hide and seek” He puts his hands over his face and starts counting.

“shut the fuck up, normally I wouldn't turn down an opportunity to hide from you but I'm gonna have to raincheck this time” she smiles sadly.

Soap drops his hands a sighs, placing a hand on her shoulder  “what am I gonna do here without you lass? who's gonna debate with me all day?”

“you'll just have to call me when you feel like getting verbally assaulted” she says making them laugh  “what I'm concerned about is nobody making sure you don't eat more than 12 tacos on taco Tuesday”

“12 is light work”

“you have to save some for everyone else!” she repremands, He starts rubbing the back of his head sheepishly and mumbles

“Yeah alright. I'll save some” He pauses for a moment and looks at her. his face is filled with worry. he then speaks in a more serious tone. “are you gonna be okay? should I be worried?”

“everyone keeps telling me I'll be okay eventually, I'm not sure right now. I think being with my parents is what's best right now”

“Yeah...Yeah. You'll be okay” He steps forward, and pulls her into into a hug. He holds her tight for a few seconds, and then let's go. The smile comes back to his face. “You're strong lass. One of the strongest out there. Trust me”

“thank you Johnny, I'm really gonna miss you”

“Take care of yourself alright? you know my number, you have any trouble or need anything at all, get in touch with me.”

“don't worry whenever I feel like fighting, you'll be getting a phone call”

“perfect”

“I've already got a list of stuff we're gonna discuss”

“A full list?!” he asks in shock

“ten topics and counting”

“God help me”

She leans up and kisses his cheek gently “ bye Johnny”

“Bye lass”

She spots Kyle walking through the base, he takes off his vest and she runs over to him. She wraps her arms around his shoulders. He holds her tightly and rubs her back. “Glad to see you haven’t left yet”

“Just saying my goodbyes” she admits as she pulls back

“I’m gonna miss you red”

“What are you guys gonna do without me?” she jokes

“Cry probably” 

“Me too” she laughs 

“When do you think you’ll be comin back?”

“I’m not sure” she responds 

“Take your time love, allow yourself to feel it”

“I’ll do my best” she nods 

“You’ve got my number yeah?”

“Yeah”

“I expect at least one call a week”

“How about two?” she smiles, he holds his heart

“How did I get so lucky?”

“Nobody knows” she smirks 

“Take it easy alright? Know that you’ve got people here who love you, anything you need you let us know”

“Thank you Kyle” she smiles as she hugs him once more 

“Miss you already kid” he murmurs 

“Save your tears for another day” she says pulling away as she sees Simon and Price waiting near her car. She walks up to them and Price sets his hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you for all of your work here, you’re presence here will be missed”

“Thank you sir”

“Take all of the time you need, and when you’re ready, you give me a call alright?” 

“I will”

“Don’t hesitate to reach out” he says before wrapping her in a quick hug. “I’ll leave you to it Simon”

She moves closer to him with tears in her eyes. He steps forward to meet her halfway, and embraces her tightly for a long, strong hug, letting her lean her head on his shoulder, as he comforts jer and rubs her back reassuringly, all while trying hard to hold back his own tears, and his voice shaking from all of the suppressed emotion, barely able to get out a few words.

 “It's alright…” he whispers in her ear “you remember what I said?”

“I remember”

“Good…” he pulls away and gently cups both sides of her face, making sure to look deeply into her eyes, noticing how red and swollen they are from all of the crying, and wiping away her tears with his thumbs. 

“don't be a stranger ghost” she whispers “make sure you don't forget about simon, he deserves a life too”

Simon nods, and opens the vehicle door for her. He looks at her once more before shutting it. He throws her luggage in the back and hits the tuck twice. He watches as they drive away. He does not move from his spot until the vehicle disappears from his view. There she goes, the only woman he’s ever loved. 

#smut #cod mw2 #ghost call of duty #ghost cod #mw2 #simon ghost riley #simon ghost x you #simon riley #angst #cod x reader #call of duty x reader #call of duty #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty modern warfare 2 #modern warefare ii #cod modern warfare #modern warfare 2 #modern warfare #ghost mw2 #ghost #ghost simon riley #cod ghost #call of duty ghost #cod mw ghost #call of duty mw2 #call of duty mwii #call of duty ghosts #simon riley x you #simon riley x reader #simon ghost x reader

[sariahsue]

Hope

Talk of dating had started as a joke.

Ladybug and Chat Noir were obviously not together, Adrien had said, so what better way to protect their identities than have their civilian personas date each other? Marinette laughed at the idea, and then took him up on it.

That was two weeks ago. Two glorious weeks. Two amazing, torturous, exhilarating weeks. Filled with timid handholding and awkward smiles and even a few kisses, for show.

Well, on Marinette's part it was for show. It killed him to know that the affection she so easily gifted to him was all fake, but Adrien tried to pour his heart into the little pecks that they shared, as he pretended she felt something for him, too.

Tonight, it was their first public appearance as a couple.

He'd been to the Hotel Le Marois only once before, for a wedding reception. This time it was a formal dinner for Fashion Week. The flower arrangements were towering yellows and blues, the outfits were stunning, and Marinette was vibrating with excitement next to him and outshining them all in a dress of her own design. She'd never looked more radiant or more kissable.

Dinner started out great. Marinette was seated to his right, and a teenage model friend of his, Lili, on his left. The three of them chatted through the main course, but during dessert, Lili reached forward and grabbed his hand. Marinette's laughter cut off mid-giggle.

"You okay?" he asked, turning toward her.

Marinette sipped her drink. Lili slid her hand away. Neither of them would look at him. What had he missed?

"Well." Lili stood up abruptly, her fruit cup only half eaten. "I see another friend I need to catch up with. It's been nice talking with you, Adrien."

He turned to watch as she walked away. "What was that about?" he asked Marinette.

She only blushed and shook her head.

---

After dinner, Adrien was a good little gentleman and pulled Marinette's seat out for her as she stood. "Ready to schmooze with a bunch of socialites?"

Marinette latched onto his arm, like she wanted to keep him close. (He could pretend.) "As long as we don't run into Lili again."

"What?" he asked. "What's wrong with her?" She was one of the models he enjoyed working with the most.

She only shrugged one slender (fashionably bare) shoulder. "I don't want to talk to her again. That's all."

"But–"

She cut him off with a glare.

"Okay." He raised his hands in surrender. "I won't make you talk to her again."

They spent the next half hour of the night flitting from one corner of the room to the other. Adrien would get into the rhythm of the conversation, and then someone would smile at him, or touch his arm, or laugh at something he said, and Marinette would pull him away shortly after. It was almost as if…

He shook his head to clear the thought. They were now standing at one side of the room all by themselves, partially hidden by a towering floral arrangement sitting above the equally towering but empty fireplace. He didn't think Marinette was appreciating the decorations though. She seemed to be glaring tiny daggers at anyone who caught her attention. (Though she might have been studying the designs. Her serious face sometimes looked mean. The death grip she had on his arm suggested the first option, though.)

"My Lady," he started. He said it in a joking tone. There was no way she really was... But he wished. And he wanted. "You feeling a little jealous tonight, hm?" She would probably roll her eyes, but she might smile at him, and he could pretend.

Marinette turned her face away, lips pressed in a thin line. Silent.

That- that almost sounded like an admission. Adrien found himself breathing very fast.

"Marinette?"

She turned back just enough for him to see the edge of her bright red cheek. "W-well, you're my date, aren't you? Not theirs?" Her grip on his arm tightened as she continued to ramble. "Maybe I don't want to share your attention. That's all! I thought we were going to hang out together tonight, you know, like hanging out. That's all." She turned her face to the floor at their feet instead and whispered, "That's all."

Adrien stopped pretending. He started hoping.

"Marinette, can I kiss you?"

She tilted her head in confusion. "We're dating," she said. "I told you you didn't need to ask every time."

"No, I mean—"

He moved in front of her so he could block out the distractions of the room and all the curious eyes, and then leaned toward her. Their faces were so close.

"Can I kiss you for real?"

(Based on this)

#love square #adrinette #prpr #fake dating #miraculous ladybug #ml #adrien gets a clue

[halothenthehorns]

Chapter 21: MY BIRTHDAY PARTY TAKES A DARK TURN

Thank you so much to:

@ary-cm

on Tumblr for the awesome cover image!

I can't believe I'm already almost done with one of the three series?!

PJOPJOPJOPJO

Will read what he was sure to be the last chapter title with heavy concern. What on earth could be left to happen to Percy that couldn't have waited until the next disaster of an adventure to start with?

Nico's heart sunk that's how his appearance was described. Apparently whatever respect he'd gained from Percy was already twisted into fear so early. He couldn't blame him, after what he'd talked him into. A lifelong curse he now had no clue about...

"Please involve something cool and fun for once," Thalia sighed, imagining him having one last fight to the death and passing out on his birthday or something. "Like blacklights! You don't enjoy the effects of those enough!"

"To see all the blood in my room? No thank you," Percy scoffed.

The rest of the summer seemed strange because it was so normal.

Will's tone was happy, hyper even, he seemed genuinely excited he was finally getting to share Percy having a normal time at their camp for actual weeks on end for once.

The daily activities continued: archery, rock climbing, Pegasus riding. We played capture the flag (though we all avoided Zeus's Fist).

"Clarisse actually sat out of most of them," Percy recalled in surprise. "Her whole cabin didn't, but she and Chris helped be the medics for a few fights. It was sooo weird, but it made a lot of the campers who were clearly uneasy about him warm up a bit. Especially when Mrs. O'Leary cuddled up to him too."

"He caught on pretty quick," Will agreed, "he still helps out in the infirmary too when he doesn't really need to anymore," he finished with a significant look at Nico. Most kids didn't seem to care who was helping them as long as the pain was going away, his parentage or whatever he'd done in the past usually wasn't on their mind when it hurt like that.

"Are you sure it wasn't changed to Kampe's fist?" Alex asked when Nico didn't seem to be answering in any way. "The first never even seemed to fit."

"Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to try and get everybody to agree on a new name for something?" Will asked. "Even if we did a poll it would be chaos."

Which was no bother at all to Alex of course, so she looked at him like he was the one who was nuts for pretending that was a good excuse not to.

We sang at the campfire and raced chariots and played practical jokes on the other cabins. 

Will hid well how hard the adjustment had been for him that time marched on. Kids had come and gone from the camp, his siblings hadn't been immune to shocking deaths from a random monster attack in the forest or even defecting, it wasn't even the first time he'd been witness to such a thing, if only a handful of times before; but it was usually the ones who'd been there a few weeks. The kids who he'd barely gotten to know.

Lee had been there from day one. Had shown Will the ropes and been his Luke, his best friend, his go to for advice on everything there. It was strange for so long to not wake up every day and have him rousing them for breakfast. Micheal had never tried to emulate him either, he'd done it his own way, which had been all right, but a part of Will had wished someone in there would keep making Loony Tunes references, would keep challenging them to archery target practice instead of just letting the memory of him slowly fade away. Hearing him in Percy's life had been the most he'd been able to think of him in a few years now, and it felt nice.

I spent a lot of time with Tyson, playing with Mrs. O'Leary, but she would still howl at night when she got lonely for her old master. Annabeth and I pretty much skirted around each other. I was glad to be with her, but it also kind of hurt, and it hurt when I wasn't with her, too.

Percy expected the laughing at the teasing, probably a few snarky comments about Rachel.

None came, and as he looked around in surprise he just saw sympathy. Because he didn't have that option now with her nowhere to be seen. He had friends down here, but he still didn't have someone very important to be going through all of this with him.

I wanted to talk to her about Kronos, but I couldn't do that anymore without bringing up Luke. And that was one subject I couldn't raise. She would shut me out every time I tried.

Jason couldn't let that one go without a good laugh though. "I'm now imagining you following her around and she actually darts into random cabins or bathrooms or anywhere she can to slam a door in your face. Maybe even a window if you agitate her enough."

"You're right Jason," Percy sighed with indulgent exhaustion. "I should have cornered her in the woods, maybe used Grover and Tyson to triangle her in so she couldn't escape."

"You say that like she doesn't need an intervention," Thalia grumbled.

July passed, with fireworks on the beach on the Fourth. August turned so hot the strawberries started baking in the fields. Finally, the last day of camp arrived. The standard form letter appeared on my bed after breakfast, warning me that the cleaning harpies would devour me if I stayed past noon.

Magnus opened and closed his mouth several times like he couldn't decide if he wanted to ask how real that threat was. If he stayed and killed the harpies would he be punished or rewarded for yet another fight for his life? Would they devour him if he stayed until 12:01 or if he managed to avoid them until next summer would the ban be lifted?

He ultimately closed his mouth and decided it wasn't worth the headache.

At ten o'clock I stood on the top of Half-Blood Hill, waiting for the camp van that would take me into the city. I'd made arrangements to leave Mrs. O'Leary at camp, where Chiron promised she'd be looked after.

"Tell me you at least intend on riding her down the streets of New York once Percy," Alex looked rather betrayed such a glorious hound was being confined to one camp.

"She deserves to be on a farm where she can stretch and be happy, um, without the death metaphor," Percy shrugged.

"You can still have her for the weekend," she sighed but didn't argue the point further.

Tyson and I would take turns visiting her during the year.

I hoped Annabeth would be riding into Manhattan with me, but she only came to see me off. She said she'd arranged to stay at camp a little longer.

"I can't decide how the bus should feel about that," Jason told him with an almost straight face. "You now range from blowing them up to awkward silence when she's around."

"He's blown up more on his own in his younger years without her, I think the bus should be worried," Thalia offered.

Percy sighed and muttered something about normal friends, whatever that meant.

She would tend to Chiron until his leg was fully recovered, and keep studying Deadalus's laptop, which had engrossed her for the last two months.

"I think you should be thanking some god out there for making sure she stepped away from it," Will agreed.

"She slept with it, Malcolm has proof," Thalia agreed.

Then she would head back to her father's place in San Francisco.

"There's a private school out there that I'll be going to," she said. "I'll probably hate it, but..." she shrugged.

"Yeah, that but," Percy agreed with the same feelings of awkwardness swimming through him now. A feeling that apparently wasn't as good of a swimmer as him, as it kept coasting up and down his throat like vomit!

"Truancy, something even a child of a wisdom goddess would never break the rules for," Alex agreed tragically.

"Yeah, well, call me, okay?"

"Sure," she said half-heartedly. "I'll keep my eyes open for..."

There it was again. Luke. She couldn't even say his name without opening up a huge box of hurt and worry and anger.

"I'll get the key," Nico promised through gritted teeth.

"Maybe you could lose a few while you're at it," Will muttered. Nico seemed to have been better as of late about not keeping everything so close to the chest, but it was still something he found himself worrying about.

"Annabeth," I said. "What was the rest of the prophecy?"

She fixed her eyes on the woods in the distance, but she didn't say anything.

"You would nag Zeus himself about not finishing destroying you," Alex told him with a hint of awe in her voice.

"Seriously Perce, learn to let it go," Jason couldn't help but agree with a troubled frown. Annabeth had been through enough.

Percy didn't feel particularly ashamed though. His stubbornness paid off, and if Annabeth didn't resent him he wasn't going to let these guys make him feel guilty for getting the full picture. It had happened so rarely before meeting her.

"You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze," I remembered. "The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise. We raised a lot of the dead.

Magnus had a cheeky remark on his tongue for, 'who's this we,' before he paused and realized. Bianca might never have revealed herself to Nico if Percy hadn't been there. His coming along on Annabeth's quest was likely essential for that to happen. It hurt his head, a lot, to realize all over again how powerful those fates were to be able to weave together such immensely different and important things.

We saved Ethan Nakamura, who turned out to be a traitor.

A line that Annabeth had probably hoped referred to Luke all this time, Thalia thought miserably. The girl had been a hopeless optimist when it came to him, but that would imply she'd ever fully admit to Luke being a full blown traitor.

We raised the spirit of Pan, the lost one."

"Raised, and or released," Will agreed.

Jason pursed his lips rather than putting in. He kind of regretted his comment to Percy because he loved that they went over these at the end to analyze them, but he felt like he'd only be encouraging Percy.

Annabeth shook her head like she wanted me to stop.

"You shall rise or fall by the ghost king's hand," I pressed on. "That wasn't Minos, like I'd thought. It was Nico. By choosing to be on our side, he saved us.

Nico still smiled at how casually Percy acknowledged the good he'd done on this quest instead of that unfortunate period of threatening his death. Seems Will had been right, Percy really didn't go around saying a bad thing about him.

And the child of Athena's final stand—that was Daedalus."

"I'm sure Malcolm is so relieved," Percy snorted.

"Percy—"

"Destroy with a hero's final breath. That makes sense now. Daedalus died to destroy the Labyrinth.

"Which is very awesome," Alex couldn't deny. "Though I'm still mildly disappointed Annabeth didn't discover some kind of sonic blast breath or something along the way."

"She uses words as a weapon, isn't that enough?" Percy sighed.

"Whoever said words don't hurt never got hit by a dictionary," Thalia nodded in agreement. She'd gotten quite angry in her youth trying to memorize all the homonyms once and thrown it across the room where Thalia's head happened to be.

But what was the last—"

"And lose a love to worse than death." Annabeth had tears in her eyes. "That was the last line, Percy. Are you happy now?"

"No," Percy whispered, shivering for the first time in the cold depths of the ocean. He'd always known she liked him, but it didn't really hit him until now she liked liked him. Not just admired and was impressed, as Percy once was. It left a very dead feeling inside him, wondering what had stopped her from running away with Luke back when he'd tried to kill Percy. If Luke had gone to Annabeth and taken her away then, how different his life could have been without her.

The sun seemed colder than it had a moment ago. "Oh," I said. "So Luke—"

"Percy, I didn't know who the prophecy was talking about. I—I didn't know if..." She faltered helplessly.

If it meant him, Percy clearly understood that context! She'd thought him dead, she might have even thought kissing him was some final breath that had been all her fault!

He found himself scrunched up in his seat to stop himself beating at the walls. He wanted her in here! He wanted Annabeth to look him in the eyes and say she was okay with how this had all gone and mean it! It was probably selfish of him to want her to relieve this nightmare with him, but he ached for her in a new way he couldn't even begin to describe to himself. Annabeth meant so much to him, couldn't her prophecy have mentioned that!

"Luke and I—for years, he was the only one who really cared about me. I thought..."

Before she could continue, a sparkle of light appeared next to us, like someone had opened a gold curtain in the air.

Magnus finally released a breath he'd been holding for getting to jump off the topic of the creepy idea of his cousin hoping some guy twice her age would be in love with her too and instead blanched in horror if that was Kronos/ Luke about to appear from thin air and murder them all. How was it possible her life was so much more miserable and complicated than his?

"You have nothing to apologize for, my dear." Standing on the hill was a tall woman in a white dress, her dark hair braided over her shoulder.

"Oh hey," Alex said with a hint of violence already on the horizon. "She owes you an explanation!"

Percy grinned a scary sight, tapping his fingers impatiently on his leg and glowering at the book. She'd scarred the piss out of Annabeth, her advice had been in no way helpful, and he had a bad feeling already he could blame more on her soon for how miserable this quest had gone.

Jason sighed. Just what they needed, another god for Percy to piss off.

Thalia was glancing uneasily between Percy and Jason though as her own guilty thoughts got an unpleasant jumpstart. Their reaction to her showing up only reinforced in her she was doing the right thing for now, keeping her suspicions to herself. Percy was already unhappy at Hera for his own and Annabeth's past, if he found out what Thalia was considering he'd rip apart the ocean in a heartbeat just to get rid of his growing tension.

Jason, Jason just looked like he would want no part in this. He was too cautious, to content to let things slide. She enjoyed that about her little brother, it would make picking on him much easier and made him nothing like their dad, but for this it felt right to keep him where he felt safe.

"Hera," Annabeth said.

The goddess smiled. "You found the answers, as I knew you would. Your quest was a success."

"A success?" Annabeth said. "Luke is gone. Daedalus is dead. Pan is dead. How is that—"

"Our family is safe," Hera insisted.

Will couldn't help but read that in agreement. He couldn't help but share the sentiment, that the good had outweighed the bad this time. His brother had died, his camp had felt vulnerable and left him scared to sleep at night like nothing before...and yet he still had a bed. Siblings he could lean on. Not all was lost as it could have easily been. There were better paths out there, like if Hera had actually stepped in and banished all the monsters before any of her 'family' had to die, but Will honestly read that with a sense of joy in his tone that, to Percy's ears, had somehow been lacking. Hera had been stating a fact with pride, Will made Percy smile in some sense of agreement of the word family, even if not the whole pie.

"Those others are better gone, my dear. I am proud of you."

I balled my fists. I couldn't believe she was saying this. "You're the one who paid Geryon to let us through the ranch, weren't you?"

Hera shrugged. Her dress shimmered in rainbow colors.

"Taking a rainbow in vain," Alex scowled hotly for such a beautiful representation of inclusiveness being taken hostage by someone so selective.

"I wanted to speed you on your way."

Will's voice cracked, like someone had stabbed his bubble with a knife. He knew Annabeth had a beef with Hera, the whole camp knew she blamed the goddess for Percy missing. His heart broke though that Nico's journey hadn't even been considered in her wisdom? That she'd only paid for just Annabeth's group to get through and any other half-blood could suffer the consequences? That had been Hera!

"But you didn't care about Nico. You were happy to see him turned over to the Titans."

"Oh, please." Hera waved her hand dismissively. "The son of Hades said it himself. No one wants him around. He does not belong."

The pain of hearing that surprised Nico more than the actual words. His dad said it all the time, he assumed it frequently from the few interactions he'd had with these major gods, but for Hera herself to just come outright and say it made him flinch.

Which quickly morphed into admiration when he heard Will cuss. He hadn't seen that before. Sure he'd been angry in the past, but never full-blown swearing like he was doing now. His southern accent really came through too, he was twanging bad on all his i's and drawing them out to a noticeable level.

"It's, erm, not a big deal Will," Nico patted his hand again. Not one person in here looked like they even sort of agreed with Hera, instead they all looked varying levels of anxious at Will and a tad angry too and his behalf. For some reason that didn't surprise him anymore, which surprised him. "We all know that's how the gods feel about-"

"It is a big deal Nico, because she's being a mother fu-"

"Will," Alex sighed, rubbing her temples. "I agree with every word you're saying, but maybe use some other language, oh child of a poetry god."*

Will finally shut his mouth with a restrained grimace. He didn't feel nearly the amount of better as he'd have liked after venting, but Alex looked as discomforted as Nico for once, who was looking equal parts uncomfortable as usual at being so focused on, everybody watching him for his reaction, and just a tad flattered at Will so vehementily defending him; all while looking rather anxiously at the book clearly wondering how Percy had reacted to that.

So Will conceded he'd made himself plain enough while wondering what the opposite of an offering was as he muttered and searched for his place.

Thalia looked on, mildly impressed and perhaps recruiting Will on her kill Hera crusade, while Percy just felt bad the guy was finally at his level of outrage. He hadn't wanted to drag anyone else down with him.

Magnus and Jason were to busy glancing at every speck to make sure Hera wasn't going to appear and blast them all to smithereens to react properly in time.

"Hephaestus was right," I growled. "You only care about your perfect family, not real people."

Will's voice still shook with fury at just how right the god of the forge was about that apparently. When the gods were born, how much understanding did they have? Had this newborn child looked up at his mother and seen the look of disgust on her face before being pitched off a mountain?

It was an ugly truth Will had never really been confronted with until this moment. It made him sick to realize if Luke had been telling kids this kind of stuff all along and how it wasn't that unbelievable to him anymore. He'd never considered the gods perfect, but growing up in camp had always given him a sense they'd at least grown from their first depictions as the very worst they could be called today. They'd laid out a safe space for their kids to practice and grow, they had to have been evolving with the times, if slower, right?

His breath shook loose, a calming feeling as he remembered his dad helping Percy find Artemis and how awkwardly yet fervently Posideon continued to help Percy. None of them were perfect. They were distant and often harsh and more often unhelpful if they did try and tended to make their lives worse, but Hera was just a horrible exception.

Ares and Hephestus, Zeus and Posideon, he'd never really had much firsthand experience with any god except Mr. D and flip-flopped between pitty and heavy annoyance with him with minimal grudging appreciation he didn't just incinerate them all and call it a job done. Percy's adventure in detail didn't really change anything, it just gave him a heavier feeling of what he'd been fighting for than he'd gone to Manhatten with.

It sort of scared him for a moment, actually, as he frowned at the rest of the page and his skin twitched with displeasure at what he'd really just been doing. He never would have considered thinking all that before being thrown in here, let alone saying it out loud, verbosely, and only having to be stopped because someone asked him to. He'd been noting Nico's slow change with enthusiasm, but hadn't really stopped to consider his own until this moment, and it left an uncomfortable knot in him as he continued.

Her eyes turned dangerously bright. "Watch yourself, son of Poseidon. I guided you more than you know in the maze. I was at your side when you faced Geryon. I let your arrow fly straight. I sent you to Calypso's island. I opened the way to the Titan's mountain.

Nico felt his mouth open for several moments before he realized he should close it. Not since the stories of old had he heard such blatant interference, and it kind of impressed him. That Hera had gone so out of her way, unprompted, to help them every step of the way. He'd never have believed such a thing from Percy's own mouth, but to hear it from an Olympian herself was amazing. Like a real flip of the cards to reveal what her plan had been all along and strike down all foes come to life.

It was, of course, possible she'd done all that just to gloat and change history a bit in making her seem like the caring mother her title suggested she could be, Thalia's painful looking sneer proved this wasn't a popular thought, but Nico still found it extremely fascinating. He'd have never wanted such help from a god before all this, every interaction he'd had with them was laced with tension and she herself proved they wanted nothing to do with him in return...but that didn't make this less interesting to hear by a mile.

Annabeth, my dear, surely you see how I've helped. I would welcome a sacrifice for my efforts."

"Do you think anybody sacrifices to her?" Magnus had very mixed feelings about hearing this, Percy was a tad disgusted to hear a touch of pity in his voice. "I think she really did do this, like a kind of adoption?" He didn't sound that sure though. Like a theory he expected to get trashed. He even mouthed 'sorry' to Nico, not trying to disconnect from the fact she didn't do it well! Yet Annabeth's own mother didn't seem to have stepped in here, maybe Hera had really wanted to help and was just out of practice.

Percy strived to keep his voice even and not too harsh in return. "I, um, think it's a tad more selfish. It sounds like she was willing to win by any means necessary, it just happened to align with our means."

Annabeth stood still as a statue. She could've said thank you. She could've promised to throw some barbecue on the brazier for Hera and forget the whole thing.

Jason looked very queasy at all of this, for once instead of being the arguing party he understood both sides well. Juno probably did feel undervalued, with no direct link to those kids at Camp. Her temple dusty, her history rarely spoken of and if so negatively.

Yet, he had a feeling what Annabeth was about do. The same thing Percy would have done. He had almost grown used to the level of disrespect these guys so often showed to the gods, and it froze some inner part of him with dread at the mere bubble of thought, let alone what his ears were about to hear worse than anything Will could have called her.

But she clenched her jaw stubbornly. She looked just the way she had when she'd faced the Sphinx—like she wasn't going to accept an easy answer, even if it got her in serious trouble. I realized that was one of the things I liked best about Annabeth.

"Name a thing you don't like about Annabeth," Thalia rolled her eyes.

Percy opened his mouth, closed it, thought about it for a moment, and then said with confidence, "her love of olives. I tolerate them at best, but she puts them on everything!"

"Ah, the olive theory, a classic," Alex snickered while Thalia just looked at him with complete pity. Gods, boys.

"Percy is right." she turned her back on the goddess. "You're the one who doesn't belong, Queen Hera. So next time, thanks...but no thanks."

"Not really as harsh as I was expecting," Magnus admitted even as his heart tried to jump around his chest like a jackrabbit on crack no matter what he said.

"I guess that was her restrained dismissal," Alex agreed with a tad more disappointment. She'd probably wanted at least one jump scare at minimum to impress her.

"And this was the girl who warned you to be polite to Ares," Jason mumbled through numb lips, expecting her to drop dead any second honestly.

Hera's sneer was worse than an empousa's. Her form began to glow.

"That, is not great," Magnus said with a very dry mouth. Somehow Percy constantly pissing off gods felt like second nature by now, it really wasn't that great of a concern at this point since he was alive.

Where the heck was Annabeth?! Was this curse to be forced to live at the bottom of the ocean meant for her? If so, the digs seemed way to nice, though perhaps by their standards this was poverty?

"You will regret this insult, Annabeth. You will regret this very much."

I averted my eyes as the goddess turned into her true divine form and disappeared in a blaze of light.

Most of the others flinched and instinctively wanted to close their eyes, imagining a mushroom cloud in her wake after that.

Except Jason, who sat frozen in place without the good sense to do anything other than mutter, "uhoh."

Percy sighed, already knowing he'd probably have to tackle this idiot to the ground at least once in his life if he saw something cool enough to kill them all.

The hilltop was peaceful again. Over at the pine tree, Peleus the dragon dozed under the Golden Fleece as if nothing had happened.

"I'm sorry," Annabeth told me.

"She's sorry?" Percy asked meekly, a very strange expression on his face. "Where's my apology?" His tone implied none was needed though, his lips were twitching to much and he kept rubbing his thumb across them. They all figured out what that tone was and collectively decided they didn't want to hear it again.

"I—I should get back. I'll keep in touch."

"Listen, Annabeth—" I thought about Mount St. Helens, Calypso's Island, Luke and Rachel Elizabeth Dare, and how suddenly everything had gotten so complicated. I wanted to tell Annabeth that I didn't really want to be so distant from her.

Then Argus honked his horn down at the road, and I lost my chance.

"Remind me to smack an eyeball onto Argus's sense of timing," Thalia groaned. She would have personally handcuffed the two together if it would have resolved their problems already.

"Duly noted," Percy and Jason both promised, causing the others to snicker hard.

"You'd better get going," Annabeth said. "Take care, Seaweed Brain."

She jogged down the hill. I watched her until she reached the cabins. She didn't look back once.

Percy had never felt so much at once seeing her take off like a blond comet across the green fields. Her confidence in every stride, how happy he was for her she'd finally made peace with her dad and felt no need to look back.

The longing he wished she'd at least slow down, that she'd shove that tenacity of hers in his face and kiss him again when he wasn't about to die. That she'd tell him he was a Seaweed Brain and that her feelings for him were just as complicated as they were for Luke's at minimum.

Will's voice startled him out of his memory, to be dragged back here as lost and confused as ever what Annabeth would ultimately decide was best for her with no clue how to show her it could be him.

He didn't even know who to ask for advice about this. His dad was kind of out of touch at the dating thing, he'd probably just suggest Percy snap his fingers and offer to split the ocean for her or something, or ban him from talking to Annabeth if he didn't already know who she was. His mom was just way to embarrassing to even consider every time her name came up. Chiron, maybe...nope. Still to awkward. He was starting to become more convinced by the hour that lone memory he'd awoken in here with was a dream and a fortune teller was probably his best bet. Gods he was hopeless.

Two days later it was my birthday. I never advertised the date, because it always fell right after camp, so none of my camp friends could usually come, and I didn't have that many mortal friends.

"Do you, have any?" Thalia honestly tried to ask without sarcasm, but it sounded that way anyways.

"Um, I used to cat sit for this really old lady before we moved and she'd give me jelly beans when I walked her dog," Percy shrugged.

"A true bestie I'm sorry we never got to meet," Thalia chuckled.

Besides, getting older didn't seem like anything to celebrate since I'd gotten the big prophecy about me destroying or saving the world when I turned sixteen.

"There are so many themes you could do around that though!" Alex sighed. "I can think of three off the top of my head!"

"Alex can and will make a volcano explode in your apartment," Magnus sighed with full confidence.

"But I'll leave the surprise of who jumps out," she winked.

"Pass," Percy could only say hesitantly though. It sounded fun, he'd never even had a bounce house before...but hadn't it already happened? Retroactive birthday party? Maybe? If he survived another year?

Now I was turning fifteen. I was running out of time.

My mom threw me a small party at our apartment. Paul Blofis came over, but that was okay because Chiron had manipulated the Mist to convince everyone at Goode High School that I had nothing to do with the band room explosion.

"Yes!" Percy fist bumped the air with such exuberance there was yet another new crack in the ceiling. "I thought of that before but didn't know if I'd remember to tell Chiron before I left!"

"Now remember this plan for the next time," Nico chuckled.

Percy sighed at the already assured knowledge there was going to be a next time, but it had been a nice five seconds while it lasted.

Now Paul and the other witnesses were convinced that Kelli had been a crazy, firebomb-throwing cheerleader, while I had simply been an innocent bystander who'd panicked and ran from the scene. I would still be allowed to start as a freshman at Goode next month. If I wanted to keep my record of getting kicked out of school every year, I'd have to try harder.

"You say that like it was your fault," Magnus told him bracingly. "Until someone invents monster repellent, you can try all you like and get nowhere."

He meant it in a positive way, but Percy nodded as glumly as before. It was something he'd heard all his life being ADHD. He'd have to try ten times harder than the 'normal' kids and still never be on their level, which to him sounded like he really shouldn't bother trying that hard at all.

Tyson came to my party, too, and my mother baked two extra blue cakes just for him.

Percy bounced in his seat for a moment with one of the happier grins they'd seen on his face today. Annabeth couldn't or wouldn't be there, Percy didn't feel like his own birth should be celebrated, but his little brother was there. His mom had opened the door and greeted him with a Tyson worthy hug and had extra cake just for him and that was pretty much the greatest birthday present he'd want anyways.

While Tyson helped my mom blow up party balloons, Paul Blofis asked me to help him in the kitchen.

As we were pouring punch, he said, "I hear your mom signed you up for driver's ed this fall."

"Would Percy's bus explosion problem translate to cars?" Alex asked eagerly.

"Gods I hope not," Percy sighed.

"I'm not sure I get the stereotype about New Yorkers and driving," Magnus admitted. "You have to walk everywhere because the streets are horrible, but if everybody walks or takes the subway why are the streets so bad?"

"We're fearless about any obstacle but are to impatient," Percy grinned.

Magnus might as well have asked him to spell out those Canadian monsters names again for all the light that provided on the subject.

"Yeah. It's cool. I can't wait."

Seriously, I'd been excited about getting my license forever,

"Pretty sure that's something we look forward to from the time we're born," Will said wistfully. He'd spent the whole day of his sixteenth birthday on the chariot track, imagining it as his dad's sun-mobile. He'd spent the previous week painting it bright red and everything and, according to his own imagination, won every Indie 500 Race that day.

Only to have several of his siblings show up and hog the races the rest of the day from the rest of camp to make that a reality. Kayla had even painted brands and logos on some of them for authenticity while Micheal and Lee somehow always had the dastardly bad luck of fumbling the finish so Will could sail through.

It really had been a good day, and only a tad bittersweet at the end as he sat on the roof of his cabin watching the sun go down, his prayer unanswered of hoping his dad would just make an appearance, let alone let him touch the sun. Austin had assured him that night as he flopped into bed they'd all made that wish and Apollo hadn't answered in centries for any of his kids, just another day.

but I guess my heart wasn't in it anymore, and Paul could tell. In a weird way he reminded me of Chiron sometimes, how he could look at you and actually see your thoughts.

Will realized his thoughts had drifted him into a melancholy mood, and trying to jump right back out, he offered, "hey, did you know Chiron will help kids at camp get their license if they want to. He does something with the mist, gives them papers if they need it, but they still have to pass on their own merit," he finished with a grin at remembering Connor nearly drove his practice car into a jewelry store and still insisted it was an accident. It probably was an accident, but it was still funny too.

"I was actually wondering about that for a second," Magnus told him gratefully. He knew he was out of luck on that front and would likely remain homeless forever because of it, but for once this Camp finally had a solid, irrefutably good thing he might be able to look into.

 I guess it was that teacher aura.

"Is the dark turn Paul's been a secret FBI agent all along infiltrating the school," she paused with a wild gasp, "or your family! And he reveals the secret conspiracy of hauling you all away to Area 51!"

"Alex," Percy sighed with a good-hearted grin. "You are going to be excellent at whatever you decide your life is."

"Living that dream," she smirked.

"You've had a rough summer," he said. "I'm guessing you lost someone important. And...girl trouble?"

"I guess we know who the problem child is, the ones the parents gossip about," Thalia did a pretty good impression of an ornery older sister to Percy's ears while he flushed and muttered a bit about how he wasn't surprised this had come up with his mom.

I stared at him. "How do you know that? Did my mom—"

He held up his hands. "Your mom hasn't said a thing.

"Oh," Thalia sounded as stunned as anybody while Percy went from shocked to pleased the fastest. Percy had never really missed his life as a mortal, he'd spent to much of his younger years being the odd kid out to even know what that felt like but at this moment he knew that if Paul was the dad in his life that he didn't have to be, things would have still turned out all right for him.

And I won't pry. I just know there's something unusual about you, Percy. You've got a lot going on that I can't figure. But I was also fifteen once, and I'm just guessing from your expression...Well, you've had a rough time."

I nodded. I'd promised my mom I would tell Paul the truth about me, but now didn't seem the time. Not yet.

"Save that for his birthday," Jason chuckled, "see how long he thinks you're pranking him and asking for his real present before it sinks in."

"Well I know who I'm scratching off my next guest list," Percy rolled his eyes.

"I was on the list?" Jason looked surprised, which Percy hoped was a joke. Obviously everybody in here was.

"I lost a couple of friends at this camp I go to," I said. "I mean, not close friends, but still—"

Will looked touched all the same Percy didn't go back to his home and try to forget it even happened. Maybe the next time there was a war council meeting and Lee wasn't at the table Percy wouldn't just blink and breeze right past it like it had entirely left his mind.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah. And, uh, I guess the girl stuff..."

Percy had never been the greatest with his words. He had no more clue what to say to Paul than to Annabeth herself, how to get started on her and Rachel and Luke and the constant question mark bouncing around in his head. It wasn't because of Paul though. He'd stood there waiting patiently the entire time as he'd gathered his useless thoughts and then scraped them at least five times.

"Here." Paul handed me some punch. "To your fifteenth birthday. And to a better year to come."

We tapped our paper cups together and drank.

Percy couldn't have asked for a better toast. Any year had to be better than the one he'd just had. Right?

"Percy, I kind of feel bad giving you one more thing to think about," Paul said. "But I wanted to ask you something."

"He asks you if you're a half-blood?" Thalia asked, because really, it had to be something with Paul. Maybe he could see through the Mist too and never knew how to say it before he saw Kelli.

"Is he going to ask what he should have gotten you for your birthday?" Will asked, imagining he'd gotten Percy, like, a black puppy that turned out to be a hellhound too or something and that was the 'dark turn.'

"Is he going to ask to move in already?" Magnus asked, no clue how fast these things were supposed to go, but it felt like 'a step,' worthy of including Percy.

"What is the capital of Bulgaria?" Alex chuckled.

"Yeah?"

"Girl stuff."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Oh gods," Jason's mind started spinning like a guinea pig. "He's not going to ask you what he should get your mom for her birthday?" 

"Sounds, um, kind of nice?" Nico offered. Percy obviously got along with Paul, maybe Paul was looking for a way to spend more time with him.

"Your mom," Paul said. "I'm thinking about proposing to her."

"Oooh," all seven of them said with the same blank look. That was, so beyond the scope of their understanding honestly, they barely knew how to react to that other than nonplussed, maybe a little mild pleasure. None of the others really had a great enough relationship with their own mortal parent to process entirely what was being said.

I almost dropped my cup. "You mean...marrying her? You and her?"

"Sally and Paul, sitting in a tree," Thalia burst out singing with surprised laughter.

Percy came out of his dumbfounded state enough to react to that and give her a shove. He was happy for them, a hundred percent. Really, it wouldn't even be that weird, the guy was over all the time anyways. He just didn't even know how to process something like this because it didn't involve stabbing something.

"Well, that was the genera idea. Would that be okay with you?"

"You're asking my permission?"

Paul scratched his beard. "I don't know if it's permission, so much, but she's your mother. And I know you're going through a lot. I wouldn't feel right if I didn't talk to you about it first, man to man."

"Man to man," I repeated.

Percy had never been called anything more than his mom's little man before. He found himself sitting up straight in his beanbag chair, smiling with a new kind of pride.

It sounded strange, saying that. I thought about Paul and my mom, how she smiled and laughed more whenever he was around, and how Paul had gone out of his way to get me into high school. I found myself saying, "I think that's a great idea, Paul. Go for it."

It had felt like the obvious answer the moment he'd said it. Paul had looked him right in the eye while asking, despite their height difference. He was always there for his mom, he'd never made her cry. Percy didn't even know what else people needed to be in a marriage, but he already knew it would be better than what she'd had before.

He smiled really wide then. "Cheers, Percy. Let's join the party."

Percy had followed him with a strut in his step he'd never had before. His imagination had already been going wild, asking Paul to help him put on those weird monkey suits he'd only seen on TV. Would Paul ask Percy to call him dad? How upset would he be if Percy never wanted to?

But his mom...those seemed like minor problems when he could already feel the happiness through a kind of faith alone he'd never had for the gods that she was never going to stop smiling after this day.

I was just getting ready to blow out the candles when the doorbell rang.

"Did you make a wish?" Thalia asked with interest. The only time she'd ever managed to sit down for one of her birthdays was over a trashcan fire with Luke and Annabeth. They'd found some lumpy, frozen chocolate that had clearly all once melted together and were chipping it away, the two teasing her not to blow out their 'candle' that was keeping them warm, and she'd only promised her wish would be it never did. Other than that experience, she had no clue what someone would wish for.

"Yeah," Percy grinned without elaborating. It had just been a feeling really, of hope, that everything would be okay. He'd bottled it up tight and been about to exhale it onto that candle as a kind of offering all its own to the cosmos when that knock had interrupted him. He tried not to frown at that being some kind of bad omen.

My mom frowned. "Who could that be?"

It was weird, because our new building had a doorman, but he hadn't called up or anything. My mom opened the door and gasped.

It was my dad.

Percy had instantly felt zapped, shrunk back down to twelve years old again and seeing him for the first time on Olympus. He'd wanted to load him into a taxi and have some fairy tale ending. Instead, he'd told Percy he regretted him being born.

He was wearing Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt and Birkenstocks, like he usually does. His black beard was neatly trimmed and his sea-green eyes twinkled. He wore a battered cap decorated with fishing lures. It said NEPTUNE'S LUCKY FISHING HAT.

"Pos—" My mother stopped herself.

"What kind of fake name could she have even given?" Alex asked in amusement. "Pos, pause, pus," she kept trying to enunciate that into something and looked increasingly frustrated coming up with nothing. "Posterior? Pustrami? Pussudinym? Postumus? Possible? Positive, Pustual, Potter, Pos-"

"Posey?" Percy offered. That was a flower, and a girl's name, right? Then he went crosseyed as he realized what he just suggested his dad should go by for any length of time.

"Yes! Great one Percy!" Alex cackled in delight.

"I think we could go through every religion to find his alter ego and he'd still rather just go by his own name," Will finally interrupted the madness with a laugh.

She was blushing right to the roots of her hair. "Um, hello."

"Hello, Sally," Poseidon said. "You look as beautiful as ever. May I come in?"

"Can you say no to that?" Magnus stage whispered.

"I wouldn't want to try," Percy shrugged though because it was his dad, not in general.

My mother made a squeaking sound that might've been either a "Yes" or "Help." Poseidon took it as a yes and came in.

Percy shook his head at the six of them getting a good laugh out of that, Thalia of course escalating it by giving him a hearty clap on the shoulder and saying, "well, now we know where you got that from too."

"I don't squeak," he finished with a long, exhausted sigh knowing he couldn't really deny any such thing.

Paul was looking back and forth between us, trying to read our expressions.

Jason nodded in understanding. Some random guy showing up probably had Paul instinctively worried about Gabe showing up, if Sally had shared anything about him at all.

Finally he stepped forward. "Hi, I'm Paul Blofis."

Magnus crinkled up his nose in disgust at the idea of a creepy, three-eyed monkey coming to mind who always introduced himself like that at the end of those old cartoons. He'd really hated that thing. It had nothing to do with Paul, it was just a bad name association.

Poseidon raised his eyebrows as they shook hands. "Blowfish, did you say?"

"Ah, no. Blofis, actually."

"Oh, I see," Poseidon said. "A shame. I quite like blowfish.

"Poseidon's favorite son confirmed," Will snorted.

"At least it's not Antaeus," Percy shrugged.

I am Poseidon."

"I kind of like that better," Alex said. "Just come right out with it, why hide?"

"I think we just heard Alex's life motto," Nico grinned.

"Poseidon? That's an interesting name."

"Yes, I like it. I've gone by other names, but I do prefer Poseidon."

"Like the god of the sea."

"Very much like that, yes."

"Well!" my mom interrupted.

"I have never thought of your mom as a killjoy before this moment," Thalia admitted. "Even when she's being boring and safe and loving, telling you not to die and be careful and all that nonsense. This, this I would have paid to see how long your dad would go on like this."

"She's a little stressed," Percy shrugged, "and she gets a free pass."

"She gets all the free passes," Thalia nodded in agreement.

"Um, we're so glad you could drop by. Paul, this is Percy's father."

"Ah." Paul nodded, though he didn't look real pleased. "I see."

"Oooh, jealousy," Alex snickered in surprise.

"I'm guessing Paul's not his biggest fan," Percy agreed, confusion mixed into every syllable of how he felt about this. "My mom always made sure I knew my dad didn't abandon me, but you know, I was a little kid. I don't think Pual would have taken to that lost at sea thing. He probably wants to speak to him man to man too," he finished with an awkward smile he'd definitely have to be a part of that conversation to make sure nobody got turned into blowfishes.

Poseidon smiled at me. "There you are, my boy. And Tyson, hello, son!"

"Daddy!" Tyson bounded across the room and gave Poseidon a big hug, which almost knocked off his fishing hat.

"Naww," Magnus smiled in surprise.

"It was that or Tyson was going to burst into tears of joy or something," Percy grinned in relief at this choice.

Paul's jaw dropped. He stared at my mom. "Tyson is..."

"Not mine," she promised.

"Legally," Percy mock whispered, using air quotes and everything.

"It's a long story."

"I couldn't miss Percy's fifteenth birthday," Poseidon said. "Why, if this were Sparta, Percy would be a man today!"

"That's true," Paul said. "I used to teach ancient history."

Poseidon's eyes twinkled. "That's me. Ancient history.

"Have the gods written a memoir?" Jason asked with a false amusement meant to hide his instant need for such a thing. "An autobiography? A manuscript? A rough draft I could steal?"

"Jason, that last one could count as high treason, worse than stealing the bolt," Percy told him with wide-eyed concern that wasn't really mocking.

Jason laughed like he was kidding, but even to his own ears he knew he didn't convince anyone.

Sally, Paul, Tyson...would you mind if I borrowed Percy for a moment?"

He put his arm around me and steered me into the kitchen.

Once we were alone, his smile faded.

Percy sighed as that chapter title came true, again. He wished they wouldn't even be there to kill his blue skies, always looming over whatever nice moment he'd been having. Like storm clouds rolling in and chasing everyone off the beach. His dad hadn't done it on purpose he was sure, it had just instantly killed his mood.

"Are you all right, my boy?"

That immediately felt like the storm running out of rain though as Percy smiled. Chiron had called him that many times, but it had never hit as hard as that did.

"Yeah. I'm fine. I guess."

"I guess," Thalia nodded without surprise. "You know Percy, you don't have to guess every question you're given."

"I'm right like, fifty percent of the time," Percy shrugged.

"I call bullsit on that number," Jason scoffed.

"And I'm to bad at math to do the actual percentage," Percy scoffed right back.

"I heard stories," Poseidon said. "But I wanted to hear it directly from you. Tell me everything."

"See, this is why they invented cellphones though, to avoid awkward moments like this," Magnus said with a twitchy feeling in his gut. The gods popped up at any old place now, yeah been there done that, but something about Poseidon being in Percy's apartment was giving him a feeling of anxiety. Ever since Gabe had left, Percy had always felt safe there, and though his dad was clearly no threat to him, it felt invasive. Like he could hear howls in the distance...

So I did. It was kind of disconcerting, because Poseidon listened so intently. His eyes never left my face. His expression didn't change the whole time I talked. When I was done, he nodded slowly.

"I cannot say I've ever had a god's undivided attention before," Will said with a touch of awe. When Annabeth had done it, he'd been infuriated beyond words. Now his mind felt overflown with jealousy at Percy getting the same from his dad. It really did feel like all or nothing for the Olympians sometimes.

"So Kronos is indeed back. It will not be long before full war is upon us."

"As opposed to the minor battles you've been dealing with," Nico sighed.

"What is war if not just for a bunch of little battles," Thalia agreed.

"Violent," Alex offered.

"Profitable," Percy raised his hand for something he actually remembered from a class.

"You two think you're so clever," Thalia scoffed.

"What about Luke?" I asked. "Is he really gone?"

"I don't know, Percy. It is most disturbing."

"But his body is mortal. Couldn't you just destroy him?"

"We've been asking that since he summoned a scorpion and tore a rip in the air with a sword," Magnus said, and by we he clearly meant himself.

"Mortal, perhaps, but there is something different about Luke, my boy. I don't know how he was prepared to host the Titan's soul, but he will not be easily killed. And yet, I fear he must be killed if we are to send Kronos back to the pit. I will have to think on this. Unfortunately, I have other problems of my own."

"That, was the best summary of the gods, and I didn't even have to Sparknotes it," Nico sighed. Yeah, your problem sucked, but I'm busy with other things!

I remembered what Tyson had told me at the beginning of the summer. "The old sea gods?"

"I wonder if Oceanus is listening in on us and muttering about how his strategies still would have worked," Thalia said with interest. She wished he wasn't such a reclusive old nut, she'd have liked the chance to hear the perspective of an old Titan.

"More likely he'd forget our names every other minute and be whining about how the Olympians run things," Percy rolled his eyes.

"Back in my day we squashed puny mortals on their birthday!" Alex even gave a helpful old man impression again to prove Percy's point, earning a grin from said child of the sea.

"Tethy's didn't seem that bad," Jason was clearly on Thalia's side with a hopeful smile at the door.

"So long as she keeps that thermometer away from me," Percy insisted.

"Indeed. The battle came first to me, Percy. In fact, I cannot stay long. Even now the ocean is at war with itself. It is all I can do to keep hurricanes and typhoons from destroying your surface world, the fighting is so intense."

His dad had been stroking his beard the whole time, a nervous tick Percy had never seen him do before. He didn't have his triton on him, also a first. Poseidon had seemed more human in that kitchen than Percy realized he even could be. Like that delirious moment of him just waltzing back into his mom's life and snapping his fingers to make everything perfect was possible for just this second.

And then what he'd said really sunk in. That his dad, in all his godly power, was already exhausted and torn in half by a war long before Zeus even admitted one was happening. His father, like any of the gods, was far from perfect.

"Let me come down there," I said. "Let me help."

"The summer camp I'm honestly surprised you haven't attended yet," Alex agreed.

"Not for lack of trying!" Percy groaned.

Poseidon's eyes crinkled as he smiled. "Not yet, my boy.

"Yet," Percy sighed, though when he did try and search through his mind to get a glimpse for that feeling, it hurt. A trace of pain lancing through him he had no wish to play connect the dots with in the slightest.

I sense you will be needed here. Which reminds me..." He brought out a sand dollar and pressed it into my hand. "Your birthday present. Spend it wisely."

"Is, that a joke?" Jason asked slowly.

"Um, spoiler, I didn't laugh," Percy promised if it was.

"Uh, spend a sand dollar?"

"Oh, yes. In my day, you could buy quite a lot with a sand dollar.

"Could probably buy a whole sand mansion or something back in his day," Nico snorted.

"Wasn't he kind of born owning the ocean?" Magnus asked. "How rich is he from just all the treasure in the seas?"

"More immeasurable than his already infinite power I'm sure," Percy sighed at them missing the point, as usual.

I think you will find it still buys a lot, if used in the right situation."

"What situation?"

"When the time comes," Poseidon said, "I think you'll know."

Percy sighed at the strange feeling that gave him. Like he knew his dad was right, and it wasn't even particularly painful like the last time he'd just tried to understand this cryptic advice, but it was still as exhausting as wondering whose string those old ladies had cut. Better than sending him another card though.

I closed my hand around the sand dollar, but something was really bothering me.

"Only one something?" Jason sighed. "Because I'm over here losing track of all my somethings."

"I prioritize better," Percy smirked.

"You forget more," Thalia rolled her eyes.

"Dad," I said, "when I was in the maze, I met Antaeus. He said...well, he said he was your favorite son. He decorated his arena with skulls and—"

It had been a really horrible moment in a vast, never-ending sequence of horrible moments down in that maze. Nobody was surprised this one had stuck with Percy.

It was nice he got the chance to air it for once. That Poseidon had a chance to answer for why he'd never stepped in and told Antaeus to knock it off with the murdery entertainment.

"He dedicated them to me," Poseidon supplied. "And you are wondering how someone could do something so horrible in my name."

I nodded uncomfortably.

Poseidon put his weathered hand on my shoulder. "Percy, lesser beings do many horrible things in the name of the gods. That does not mean we gods approve. The way our sons and daughters act in our names...well, it usually says more about them than it does about us. And you, Percy, are my favorite son."

Percy smiled to bright for them to do anything other than smile along, the answer had clearly meant a lot to him that they weren't going to badger for more.

Yet it felt more like a redirect than an answer.

He smiled, and at that moment, just being in the kitchen with him was the best birthday present I ever got. Then my mom called from the living room.

"Percy? The candles are melting!"

"You'd better go," Poseidon said. "But, Percy, one last thing you should know. That incident at Mount St. Helens..."

For a second I thought he was talking about Annabeth kissing me, and I blushed, but then I realized he was talking about something a lot bigger.

"There was something bigger that happened?" Alex said in an oh so innocent impression of Percy's voice.

Percy gave her an eye roll for that, a blush on his cheeks but sinking lower in his seat all the same for what he'd done.

"The eruptions are continuing," he said. "Typhon is stirring. It is very likely that soon, in a few months, perhaps a year at best, he will escape his bonds."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean—"

Poseidon raised his hand. "It is not your fault, Percy. It would've happened sooner or later, with Kronos awakening the ancient monsters.

Percy couldn't believe the weight that was lifted off of him, like taking a much needed breath of air. He did still feel the responsibility of that on his shoulders, but for his own dad to assure him it wasn't his fault was unbelievable when he knew best the gods would try and blame this kind of mistake on the easiest target available.

But be aware, if Typhon stirs...it will be unlike anything you have faced before. The first time he appeared, all the forces of Olympus were barely enough to battle him. And when he stirs again, he will come here, to New York. He will make straight for Olympus."

"Oh, so it's not just my birthday that took a dark turn," Percy sighed. "It's the whole stinking continent that's soon going to be covered in ash and blotting out the sun getting a dark turn."

Thalia gave his shoulder a gentle shake and her usual spiel about not freaking out to early while Nico batted his eyes at Percy in surprise. He'd been so sure that stupid thing related to him, that he'd hear Percy's uncomfortable thoughts about inviting him inside to darken his apartment. Percy's wasn't exactly a great interpretation, but it certainly was different than his.

That was just the kind of wonderful news I wanted to get on my birthday, but Poseidon patted me on the back like everything was fine. "I should go. Enjoy your cake."

And just like that he turned to mist and was swept out the window on a warm ocean breeze.

Alex chuckled for a moment before telling Nico, "you still have the best calling card in this one by the way, but Poseidon does get points for spirit on that."

Nico swelled with pride he was being compared to some god other than his dad to care what those points were worth.

It took a little work to convince Paul that Poseidon had left via the fire escape, but since people can't vanish into thin air, he had no choice but to believe it.

"I feel so bad for Paul," Magnus chuckled as he rubbed his temple. "Knowing the answer you're given isn't the truth but feeling crazy there's no other answer."

"Yeah," Percy agreed with a sorrowful nod. He'd felt awful lying to Paul after the awesome talk they'd just had and resolved in himself to tell him the truth sooner rather than later. He hoped he'd managed to do that before this whole disappearing off the face of the earth thing he'd apparently done so his mom had someone to really confide in about her worries.

We ate blue cake and ice cream until we couldn't eat anymore. Then we played a bunch of cheesy party games like charades and Monopoly. Tyson didn't get charades. He kept shouting out the answer he was trying to mime,

"Which is lucky for you because he would have kicked all of your butts being such an awesome artist," Alex grinned.

"I call him on my team!" Jason instantly yelped.

"Hey, no dibs before we even set up our own game night," Alex narrowed her eyes with a menace none of them were sure was entirely playful.

"Got to be faster Alex, sorry," Jason just shrugged smugly.

Thalia loudly cleared her throat to move that on before she had to restrain the two.

but it turned out he was really good at Monopoly. He knocked me out of the game in the first five rounds and started bankrupting my mom and Paul.

"I see Tyson really got all of Poseidon's good traits," Magnus laughed in surprise.

"I call him on my Monopoly team," Alex said swiftly.

Jason sighed in defeat they would switch it up between games and gave in.

"How do you play Monopoly in teams?" Percy asked.

"By making shit up I'm sure," Thalia shrugged at the amount of chaos that was going to happen when this night happened.

I left them playing and went into my bedroom.

"Aw Perce, don't tell me you're a sore loser," Will frowned.

"More like I was getting a headache watching their money move hands so fast," Percy grinned.

I set an uneaten slice of blue cake on my dresser.

Nico smiled in surprise that finally explained why, when he'd materialized, he'd heard shouting in the background like there had been a gameshow on when the TV was off as he'd come in. He'd thought he had shut it off or something crazy when he'd come in with his weird powers and aura and they'd fallen silent upon seeing him. Turned out it was a much more fun, and mundane reason.

Then I took off my Camp Half-Blood necklace and laid it on the windowsill. There were three beads now, representing my three summers at camp—a trident, the Golden Fleece, and the latest: an intricate maze, symbolizing the Battle of the Labyrinth, as the campers had started to call it. I wondered what next year's bead would be, if I was still around to get it. If the camp survived until next summer.

Percy did have another bead on there, of course, and he clasped his fist around the lot now, his throat as tight with worry as ever what had happened between all that. He felt like the best-case scenario was he'd come out alive, but the more realistic possibility was he'd just gone nuts and molded one for himself in a mock victory from his grave or something before being plopped in here.

I looked at the phone by my bedside. I thought about calling Rachel Elizabeth Dare. My mom had asked me if there was anyone else I wanted to have over tonight, and I'd thought about Rachel. But I didn't call. I don't know why. The idea made me almost as nervous as a door into the Labyrinth.

Thalia sighed with guilty relief he hadn't. It would have just been awkward if Annabeth found out about that...and yet she knew from Annabeth Percy had spent a large chunk of time coming up hanging out with Rachel so she was a tad surprised that hadn't started here.

I patted my pockets and emptied out my stuff—Riptide, a Kleenex, my apartment key.

"You kept up with that this whole time," Will asked in complete disbelief. "I need the brightest rainbow lanyard I can find to keep up with my key to my cabin because I keep losing the dang thing and my siblings started locking me out after the seventh time."

"I never lock my cabin door," Percy said blankly.

"You scare kids to much to sneak in there," Thalia scoffed.

"I want to know how and why you got a kleenex," Alex snorted. "And, more importantly, why you didn't offer that to Annabeth when she was sobbing her nose out."

Percy's heart froze and his mind scrambled as he suddenly found himself asking the same thing before Magnus jumped in saying, "probably pocketed it from that meal with Hera, I wouldn't trust that thing not to be poisoned anymore. Grover's probably just immune to such things."

Which didn't make Percy feel better, but did make him laugh for a moment along with the others.

Then I patted my shirt pocket and felt a small lump. I hadn't even realized it, but I was wearing the white cotton shirt Calypso had given me on Ogygia.

"I bet Annabeth loved that," Jason muttered, imagining she'd hardly looked at him the entire time because of the reminder.

Percy had been amazed it held up so well, covered in dirt, mud, and other unmentionable things he was sure. She was probably more amazing with a loom than Circe for giving him clothes he hadn't lost and or torn to shreds.

I brought out a little piece of cloth, unwrapped it, and found the clipping of moonlace. It was a tiny sprig, shriveled up after two months, but I could still smell the faint scent of the enchanted garden. It made me sad.

Percy touched where the little pocket had been over his heart, of course no longer there on his camp shirt. He had done the impossible, he had forgotten about Calypso even for a brief time in all the other madness that went on when he came home. Now it was Annabeth, Rachel, and Calypso all bouncing around in his head like a screen saver all fighting for his attention as his fingers tightened in his shirt before he dropped his hand back to his lap and sighed.

What the hell had Hera meant by it, sending him to her island? Had it been a warning, that all the Titans had faced punishment and Percy had better remember which side he belonged on? Had it been her deranged way of helping, giving him a chance to heal there, a place she knew he'd never stay on?

All he did know was that, like all help with the gods, it felt more harmful than good really. From now on, only his dad was allowed to send him off on vacations, and that was a spotty vow considering he wasn't sure what the outcome of this place was going to be yet.

I remembered Calypso's last request of me: Plant a garden in Manhattan for me, will you? I opened the window and stepped onto the fire escape.

My mom kept a planter box out there. In the spring she usually filled it with flowers, but now it was all dirt, waiting for something new. It was a clear night. The moon was full over Eighty-second Street. I planted the dried sprig of moonlace carefully in the dirt and sprinkled a little nectar on it from my camp canteen.

Nothing happened at first.

Then, as I watched, a tiny silver plant sprang out of the soil—a baby moonlace, growing in the warm summer night.

"I'm surprised Grover didn't sniff that out and eat it," Alex broke the heavy tension falling around them. "I honestly expected this to be mentioned back at camp as an invasive species and D would rip it up and threaten to strangle you with it."

"My brain works in mysterious ways," Percy grinned, a sad but meaningful one to help take his mind off all the bad. "That's probably why it waited until just now, weeks later, for me to ever think of cleaning out my pockets."

"Mmm, yes, mysterious," Alex laughed, because she said mysterious like one would their least favorite kind of cheese.

"Nice plant," a voice said.

I jumped. Nico di Angelo was standing on the fire escape right next to me.

"Nico's back!" Will yelped in surprise. For once he hadn't been tensing up beside him, fidgeting and internally freaking out about this happening, so Will had not a hint of warning any more than anybody else.

"I've been here the whole time you nit," Nico rolled his eyes with a smile.

Will's arm pulled him just another tiny little bit closer as he just laughed in surprise and kept going like the whole room was a bit brighter all of a sudden, making Nico blush and for the first time think of pushing him away making this 'a thing.' It was just a fleeting thought though, one he didn't act on.

Will didn't find it hard to explain to himself why he was so jazzed for this news. It was the very first instance of Nico reaching out to anybody, especially the most perfect person on the planet being Percy with his mom right on the other side of that door. For Nico to get a glimpse of how he should be greeted any time he entered a room.

"Is anybody going to ask how?" Percy yelped loudly, rudely interrupting Will's joyful reading as he stared strangely at Nico. "You appeared out of nowhere dude!"

"Practice," Nico said with pride in his voice, which of course, was no answer.

Percy groaned, Chiron and Thalia were known to do that too so it wasn't just the gods being cryptic and annoying, they were passing it on!

Nico really did give him a sorrowful smile though and pressed his finger to his lips, his skull ring gleaming. They had shadow-traveled a lot in the coming time, and he didn't want to upset Percy now when he saw the last page in Will's hand. They were nearly done with another, no need to go pushing Percy's mind to its limit when he'd get his answer without Nico forcing it on him soon enough.

He'd just appeared there.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"That's—that's okay. I mean...what are you doing here?"

Nico inhaled carefully, letting his mind think of that with interest now rather than the little happy dance he'd been doing in his head Percy's first reaction back then hadn't been pushing him off the fire escape in surprise. Now he really heard this for what it was. Not the blatant acceptance he so craved, just Percy reacting to him somehow even better than he had Rachel popping up in his mortal life. It was surprisingly a nicer, warmer feeling than his old feeling he had to keep off any part of his face.

He'd grown about an inch taller over the last couple of months. His hair was a shaggy black mess. He wore a black T-shirt, black jeans, and a new silver ring shaped like a skull. His Stygian iron sword hung at his side.

"An outfit you apparently never changed out of," Jason chuckled in surprise.

"I bet he has a closet full of the same outfit," Alex sighed tragically.

"I like this color," he kept the childish note out of his voice almost well enough. He should get used to defending his odd choices now if he was going to go to camp and hear this over and over...then he was surprised how easily that thought had come to mind. Tartarus had gone to far from his plans, he realized as a cold feeling swept him.

Will's hand curled gently around his arm, a warm pulse radiating from his palm that gave Nico a chance to exhale and focus on this.

"I've done some exploring," he said.

"A common day pirate," Will smiled in delight. "A vassst yee, I shall be tied down to no land!"

"See, now you're getting it," Nico's eyes shimmered with delight at the goofy impression.

"Even pirates need a secret cove to bury all their treasure," Will reminded hopefully. If that's all camp could be to him, a way station of safety, it would feel like enough so long as he'd always feel free to use it.

"Hmm, I'm not much of an artist Will, I'll have to work on getting a map together," Nico couldn't help the glib comment, the wishy-washy response. Despite how comfortable he felt under Will's arm, it was the longest, most permanent feeling he'd ever had in his life up to this point. Something so solid, even more permanent like Will kept wanting still sounded like to much for him to wrap his mind around right now.

"That's okay, I know a good one. X marks the spot and all that," he grinned all the same. He'd still carve that on Thalia's old tree when he got back and knew Nico at least would get the reference.

 "Thought you'd like to know, Daedalus got his punishment."

Will's voice somehow sparked with even more joy getting to read this so soon. He really had wanted to know his fate, and Alex was right there with him, leaning forward eagerly in her seat, her teeth sunk into her lip as she wavered back in forth in her head how harsh she wanted to hear this being.

"You saw him?"

Nico nodded. "Minos wanted to boil him in cheese fondue for an eternity, but my father had other ideas.

Nico had been surprised when he'd showed up in his courtroom he hadn't even needed to step in and offer anything for this. Daedalus had been such a notoriously lost soul for so long Hades had already taken an interest, and swift execution before Nico had even woken up.

Hades had laughed to himself about the cheese fondue idea and even filed it away for later though. As far as Nico knew, Minos was still on his seat at the judge's table, so he hadn't exactly been as punished as Nico would have liked, but hey, you win some you lose some.

Daedalus will be building overpasses and exit ramps in Asphodel for all time. It'll help ease the traffic congestion. Truthfully, I think the old guy is pretty happy with that. He's still building. Still creating. And he gets to see his son and Perdix on the weekends."

It was just the perfect kind of Greek ending really. Quintus, Daeadlus the fifth's body, had had a very long road, and his punishment was to continue making them. It was no reward, but really, it was no great punishment. Hades seemed to have found a stroke of balance in his domain that all wished for really, a kind of medium eternal life after his grand adventure that rocked to many boats.

"That's good."

Nico tapped at his silver ring. "But that's not the real reason I've come. I've found out some things. I want to make you an offer."

"What?"

Percy hadn't squinted suspiciously at him or anything, he hadn't gone for his sword or jumped back in and slammed the window in his face. He hadn't exactly jumped to his feet with delight either and hugged him for finding all this out, so, that had been the highlight of Nico's month.

"The way to beat Luke," he said. "If I'm right, it's the only way you'll stand a chance."

I took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm listening."

Will's voice was so happy as he read that, his pupils kept wanting to jump away from the text to glance at the two with such bright eyes. This, this had been what he'd been hoping for Nico for so long, ever since he'd vanished after the Titan War. He already knew Percy and Nico made an awesome team, the two working together had been the saving strategy and the reason they were probably all alive today. Why did Nico constantly think he wasn't accepted again when Percy had been open and amenable from the start to his plan?!

Nico glanced inside my room. His eyebrows furrowed. "Is that...is that blue birthday cake?"

It had been the strangest feeling, Nico shook his head at himself. He'd been glancing around for an enemy, someone eavesdropping. Instead he'd seen the brightest splash of color, a blue swirl patterned cake with sprinkles. The exact kind of thing Bianca would have smacked his hand for reaching for, telling him he'd get a cavity just looking at that thing.

He sounded hungry, maybe a little wistful. I wondered if the poor kid had ever had a birthday party, or if he'd ever even been invited to one.

No, and no, Nico pursed his lips together rather than answer. Will, thankfully, read right over the moment without waiting for an answer, bless him. Nico still considered himself a no on both too, because he hadn't been 'invited' to this party. He'd gate crashed.

"Come inside for some cake and ice cream," I said. "It sounds like we've got a lot to talk about."

"Everything Percy brags about his mom's cooking is true by the way," Nico said swiftly before anybody could ask questions they weren't going to get an answer to. "It was, the best cake, I've ever had." He smacked his lips in appreciation at just the thought. It had been the most solid food he'd had in months and he was pretty sure his ambrosia had switched to tasting like that for a while.

"We'll get her her own cookbook, or a TV network show or something," Jason laughed.

Percy had a lot more questions buzzing around his mind about how that night would have continued. He opened his mouth with at least three trying to all bunch together, but all that came out was a very rude yawn.

"The question now is, do we take a break or just start the next one?" Thalia asked, stretching and jumping to her feet all the same.

"A break, definitely," Percy pleaded at once. "Hell, can I take a nap, since the days all out of whack anyways and we start the next one tomorrow."

"Nap yes," Thalia told him not unkindly, "but I am waking you back up to at least start on the next one! We'll be in here for twenty years if you sleep to your heart's content Rip Van Winkle!"

Percy nodded and then, actually just slumped over, right there in his chair. It would have been a tad concerning if he hadn't started drooling only moments later.

Nico expected Will to jump up and join the others as they all started talking quietly, stretching and going off to eat, but instead he stayed in place, hugging the black book tight to his chest and smiling at it still. Nico still thought him nuts, but a very charming kind. Nuts and berries.

Something had been nagging at the back of his mind though. A pessimistic idea that wouldn't leave him, an observation about Will always being so happy and optimistic at the idea of Nico being at camp. "Did you kiss me because you want me to stay at Camp?" Nico asked, his stomach in painful knots that the answer was going to be yes and how much he should care about that and how much it would make a difference. Maybe Will did just want something from him-

"No!" Will's startled blue eyes were pure honesty. "I kissed you because I wanted to, no other reason." Nico still seemed confused though, so he offered, "look, I, I feel like I should apologize, for kissing you right then," Will confessed. "That, um, wasn't exactly, 'friendly,' and if that's what you need right now-" his arm started to pull away even.

"I like it," Nico interrupted, the surprise on his own face for admitting that causing him to sheepishly avert his eyes, but his hand darting up to hold his fingers in place, nearly pining them to his black shirt. "L-liked. Um, it was, it feels- felt, good, but if you regret it-" his hand spasmed as he told himself to let go.

"Woah, I never said that," Will interpreted right back. "I've been trying to get to know you since we met. I just, um, was trying to make sure-" he was blushing himself and stammering and going very blank in the mind to find words to describe anything.

"Right, well," Nico took a shaky breath but looked back at him with a hesitant smile. He interlocked their fingers, and Will easily mimicked him. "That's, established. Neither of us, regret it, and we both like talking, so let's just, keep doing, that."

"Sounds perfect," Will grinned.

PJOPJOPJO

I am not promising that this will be the last book to end with Solangelo, I don't want to be a liar like that, but I do already have the ending to the next book planned out and it's not focused on them, so there's that?

So I'm taking a short break and then posting Demigod Files next month for sure, and then I'm going to start Last Olympian in May! I'm so excited guys, I'm looking forward to it all as much as anybody!

*I know most people probably imagine Alex using the f' word like a bestie, but I'm more familiar with people who grew up in verbally abusive households disliking strong language because it's been used on them to much. Also I do my best to keep these PG, T at most, so it's going to stay at least in the level of clean you've seen so far in the tone of the original books, so this is what I'm going with.

#pjo #Percy Jackson #HDYSG #Thalia Grace #Jason Grace #alex fierro #Magnus Chase #Will Solace #nico di angelo #solangelo #fierrochase #percabeth #BotL #battle of the labyrinth

[haveyouseenthishorrormovie]

Maybe this is "chronically online" of me but I feel it's disrespectful, or at least tone deaf to be posting about films made in "israel". Maybe you could skip them at least for the time being, if not disregard them entirely? Given the ongoing genocide, it puts a bad taste in my mouth to see things they've made be put up without any sort of acknowledgement of it or anything. I don't believe it's a political statement or whatever (and this isn't meant to be a call-out) it just seems weird. Cheers for considering it if you do.

I'd like to first make a reminder, that this answer is exclusively written by mod Sus only, and should not be considered as entire blog's or other mods' (or its original mod's) collective opinion. They can make their own statement if wishing so, but I take the full responsibility for this answer.

I don't think you can make this kind of topic apolitical considering what it involves and touches. If you make a statement about something that involves something as heavy as war, it's going to be political.

It's not like the thought of "is this right thing to do?" hasn't ever occured my mind when I've seen these movies in queue and their country of origin is Israel. But I, personally, have been looking at this topic through the lenses of "separaring art from the artist." Movies are a form of art, and they are made by the groups of invidiuals with their own ideas and views. While I do understand the idea of not wanting to give an artist, group or in this case, a country, visibility and wanting to boycott them, I don't think it can't really be applied in art. Not if the said problematic target is not even the one who created it or benefiting from it. These israeli people who made these movies are not their goverment. These movies were made before the current political climate boom (the conflict itself has been going on for longer than some of us are old) by individual people because they wanted to create. The country or the people causing the fuckery are not benefiting from the visibility enough to make it matter.

That being said, I think trying to ignore or erase something that's not directly related to the problematic thing in attempt to not support it is the laziest from of activitism. It's "boycott everything russian" again. Us refusing to acknowledge these movies made by people who are not benefiting their country does not help people in need and facing horrible, awful things in their own home.

This is under no circumstances, in any form, meant to be taken as supporting the genocide, Israel or to erase the existence of the conflict and genocide going on. As much as here in the horror circles we love joking about violence and killing, causing deaths of any real life people is awful and one of the most unacceptable things there can be. We acknowledge there's horrible things going on in the world and don't want it to be not acknowledged. But this is not a place for that.

Art, that was not made to reflect and represent those awful times, should not be the victim of sins of someone who didn't create it. The artists should not be the victims of sins of their group. The movie creators and their creations shouldn't be blamed for awful acts their goverment makes. Blaming them does not help the people that are the real victims.

I'd like to imagine Tumblr, as a social media site, as a place of escapism. This might of course not be same for everyone, but when I come into Tumblr, that's when I want to leave all the real world news behind and just enjoy things I like without remembering world has awful things in it. This is a mere small, independent horror movie tumblr blog, where we encourage people to talk about movies and horror genre. I'd wish we could leave as much of these heavy real-life topics outside the blog and posts we make, even if they are good to be acknowledged. (Now if other mods of course want to be the ones to discuss these things, they can. I'm not taking part of them.)

Now, what you can do if you don't want to see movies that were made in Israel by israelis?

We tag movies by country of origin, using Wikipedia as source for these. You can block "israel" tag to avoid seeing them. You can not vote in the poll. If following a blog that allows Israeli movies to be published in it, you can unfollow us. Curate your own social media feed. If you see something you're uncomfortable with, erase that from your own exposure.

As the final statement, as a singular person in the Internet. You don't have to agree with me and in places like Tumblr or anything, I don't think we can agree with everything. But the kind of black-white thinking, where you think everything with any kind of connection to problematic thing is bad and people attached to it are bad, is not healthy. It will make you stay on your toes all the time, and it's not flexible way of thinking. You're not going to make it in the world if you see everything inside it only that way.

Focus on what matters. If you're going to fight, fight the actual enemy, not the gravel under its shadow.

#you must forgive mod sus' smooth brain trying its best to word everything but i really do wish whatever i say would not be taken wrong #it is likely some sentences make no sense but thats on me i proof read this twice #not a poll #ask #mod sus

[shunchitaro]

Chishiya x Fem!Reader

Genre: Romance, Angst (TW: Reader!Death, QueenofHearts!Reader, lazily made drabble) Romantic [REQUESTED]

["Two lovers met Two strangers left"]

"I'll go"

They turned to Chishiya, who was standing calmly with a stoic expression.

There was one last game, and everyone was either too injured or weak to continue. Chishiya was the only one that was able to go, so he volunteered.

Climbing up the building stairs, he got to the roof. He swung the door open to see a white open garden house and white rose bushes surrounding the area. He saw some colored balls and some other targets, and came to a conclusion.

"Croquet?"

"You are correct! Now- Chishiya?" The bubbly voice had switched to one of shock, and Chishiya looked up too, seeming unfazed.

"Y/N? I did think you would be one of the face card games"

Y/N stood before him in a long black dress with white accents, holding her mallet.

"How did you-"

"10 of Hearts. During the game I couldn't see you anywhere, I couldn't even detect you on the CCTV. You must've hidden during the entire game, no? Just like Mira"

Y/N suspected he would know. He was Chishiya Shuntaro after all.

"You shouldn't be here. You have five minutes to leave before the game starts."

"Why? You think i'm going to lose?" Chishiya asked in a deadly calm tone.

"It's either you die or I die, I wish for neither."

"Someone has to win to get out of here, Y/N. Clearly you should have thought of that before choosing to be a face card, right? One.. and two. One of us dies, and it's our choice." He pointed out.

'The game has begun'

Y/N didn't want to play the game with Chishiya. It wasn't because she didn't want him to die- he'd easily be the one to survive, but that was the thing.

Either one of them was going to die, and Y/N knew it would be herself.

"All you have to do is play three rounds of croquet with me" She returned to her cheery nature, grinning at him in an unsettling way.

Chishiya grabbed a mallet without a word, beginning since Y/N had given him a chance of going first. The male had never held a mallet before, yet he managed to hit all holes and goals in the first round.

"My turn~!" Y/N sang to hide her nervousness, winning the first round along with him. They both won the second round, and the time Y/N feared had come.

She stifled a fake yawn, leaning on her mallet. "Ah, I'm tired. Why don't we sit first? Have a cup of tea?" She gestured to the table in the open garden house. Chishiya's eyes drifted to the table with an incredulous look on his face, but he went towards it without a word.

She sat as well, pouring him a cup of tea.

"Cut to the chase, L/N. If I play this game, do we get to leave? How were we even brought here?"

She sipped her tea peeking at him to see he was staring, not even touching his tea.

"This is all a simulation"

"What?"

"You are merely nothing but robots. We're testing the IQ and EQ of the robots we made, and you are one of them. You just don't realize, because we inserted a microchip into your brain that tells you that you are human, and it programs you by default. You won't know you're a robot, you'll think you're perfectly human."

"You aren't serious are you?" He asked, unsure.

She laughed, pouring herself another cup. "I was kidding. What I really meant was that I am your psychiatrist. You got called in to my office since you kept hallucinating about that kid you weren't able to give the donor to. I've been giving you medication, but the effects is that you are imagining you are in this world, when really none of this is happening."

He was silent, not knowing what to say as he glanced at his unfinished cup of tea.

Yet again she was laughing, finishing her cup of tea. "Oh goodness, it was all a joke. Don't worry Chishiya, you haven't gone insane."

He gave her a sour look, getting up. "I'm not falling for your tricks. Let's play the final round and end all of this."

Y/N felt a tremble in her heart as she slowly got up to oblige. She knew he wouldn't fall for any of it, and the last time she would see him would be this very moment. She knew it was either her or him, and all she wanted was to extend her last moments with him a few minutes longer. She took her mallet and paid extra attention to him as she watched him play, remembering this would be the last time she could ever be with him.

His round finished and she went forward with her mallet, going as slow as she could. When she was going to make her last move, she paused.

"I have something else to tell you" She spoke up, and she glanced up to see his bored trance staring at the ground. He sighed in frustration hands still tucked in his pockets. "Look, just give up already. I'm going to win, so there's no point in trying to lie to m-"

"Did you know that I love you, Chishiya Shuntaro?"

His head shot up at her sudden confession, searching her eyes to see if she was lying. She smiled sadly as she walked towards him, he didn't move away which relieved her.

"When I first met you at the beach, I didn't think about you as anything more than someone I had to stop from winning games. Then when I got closer to you, I couldn't help it. When I was first asked to be the Queen of Hearts I agreed, I had nothing to do with my life anyways. But then I met you.." She laughs painfully. "It's a pity now that I can't stay with the person that helped me find my purpose.. just because I made a stupid decision."

He looked at her eyes, and she noticed how his expression softened. "You changed my view.. of people." He began. "Before you came, I didn't care anymore. After my patient couldn't get his donor.. I decided that the only life I should care about was mine, because either way people die and getting attached just makes it worse. Then.. you. Because of you, I cherish people. Kuina, Arisu, Usagi.. even you."

She looked up in surprise, searching his eyes to see if he was playing around but he wasn't.

She chuckled softly, caressing his cheek as tears brimmed in her eyes. She didn't want to ever let go of this moment, but she knew that the games had to end. "May I..?" He asked softly, and her eyebrows knit in confusion. "What are you doing?"

"Asking for permission to kiss you."

She nodded slowly, and it felt euphoric as he leaned in to kiss her. It was soft and gentle, as if he was scared that he wouldn't be able to pull away from her. He pulled away and she felt her lips tingling, making her smile sadly.

"I guess it's time."

She went back in position and hit the ball, letting it go into the last hoop. Chishiya didn't show any emotion as she looked at him once more, smiling brightly. It didn't seem sad, it seemed carefree and genuine.

"Thank you for playing with me, Chishiya Shuntaro."

He flinched slightly as the laser went through her head, and he caught her before she hit the ground. He could hear fireworks in the distance, but all he could think about was her final words to him. He caressed her now cold and pale face, the ghost of a smile still etched on it as a small tear dripped from the side of her face.

He stood up, picking a fresh white rose from one of the bushes and took her hand, wrapping it around the stem as he kissed her forehead.

He wanted to believe that he just kissed her as a parting gift, so that she could die peacefully without having to endure any pain before she met with death; but he knew deep down that he too had loved her, and only just realized. He knew that he too had slowly fallen for her back at the hotel but he hadn't said anything, fearing he would be attached.

He knew that her last moments spent with him were short, but it was just enough for him. It was enough for the both of them to share their love for one another.

He held her close to his chest, closing his eyes and inhaling her scent for probably the last time ever. He knew that somehow, if they return to the true world, he would forget her.

He didn't care because he knew that eventually- even if just a bit- she was a lost memory waiting to be found.

He knew he'd find that memory somehow, and fall in love with her all over again.

Author's note: I'm so sorry I took so long to finish this request! I had writer's block and I'm glad it's gone again :') Anyways I ran out of idea halfway through the story, but I hope the story is still enjoyable and that it still makes sense. <33

#chishiya imagine #chishiya fic #chishiya fanfic #chishiya alice in borderland #aib season 2 #aib x reader #aib chishiya #imawa no kuni no alice #alice in boderland x reader #alice in borderland #aib #aib x you #aib x y/n #aib x female reader #fem!y/n #female reader #chishiya x fem!reader #chishiya angst #chishiya shuntaro #angst #fanfic

[itevilhag]

ang huling el bimbo | tangerine (bullet train)

tangerine x reader | tangerine x fem!reader | tangerine x assassin!reader |

summary: estel is late, and estel is never late. tangerine's worst nightmare comes true.

warning: ANGST with no happy ending, hurt/comfort (kind of), major character death, mentions of blood and violence (not explicit), apart from these one written, nothing more.

an: enjoy this angst filled fic that i wrote! and i highly recommend you listen to the song attached to the fic, just to rub more salt into the wound.

...

"Where the fuck is she?" Tangerine muttered to himself as glance at his blood speckled watch.

5:30 a.m

You were never this late on a job. Yes, there have been several occasions when you were off by a few minutes, but never this much. You were supposed to be here ages ago, and yet there's no sign of you. Usually Tangerine wouldn't worry this much about you on a job. You were a highly skilled assassin. The best of the best. Taking down every single target with grace and finesse, he had no need to worry over you. But he understood risk that this line of work could bring to someone.

"Fuck this."

"What the fuck are you doing?" Lemon asked, confusion painting his face as he watched his brother load his gun with a fresh round of ammo and holster another gun to his belt.

"I'm gonna go look for Estel, you stay here and keep that hard drive safe." Tangerine didn't even let Lemon speak another word as he was already out of the car.

“Rude bastard.” - Lemon.

With his gun cocked and his finger on the trigger, he went out and checked every single crevice of the warehouse that they had just infiltrated, passing by a few dead bodies as he walked around cautiously. While searching In the silence of the warehouse his mind began to wander to the most hopeful thoughts he’s ever had in his entire life to the most horrendous and gut-wrenching images his mind could conjure, and in all of them was you.

But a pained wheezing coming from one of the rooms made him halt his steps. Turning his head to his left, he came face to face with a door which was slightly cracked open. Moving closer to the door, he saw a slumped figure seemingly trying to reach for something. Knowing that they could potentially be reaching for a gun, he immediately opened the door. And right at that moment, Tangerine wished he hadn’t.

"Looks like cupid got me this time." you joked softly, with a barely noticeable grin on your bloody lips. Though your tone was light your appearance did nothing to hide the pain you were in. Sitting on the floor, your hair crusted with blood, your lip split open, a bruise blossoming on your cheek, your teeth stained with blood which dripped down from your lips to your chin, and an arrow making your chest it’s home, soaking the suit Tangerine had given you for your birthday with blood.

As your eyes met his, Tangerine lowered his gun and said nothing. He slowly walked towards you with a distant look on his face, his eyes shifting focus towards the arrow on your chest. He knelt in front of you, his hand stained red as his hands cupped your cheek, the other gravitating towards your chest. Your hand met his wrist, stopping him.

“Don’t. I’ll bleed.”

"Fucking bastard." he cursed. He is now backed into a corner. A corner where he can do absolutely nothing to save her. Pull it out or drive her out of the middle of nowhere to get medicated. He had two choices in his hands and yet both of them lead to the same thing- her death.

He hadn't even realized that he was crying until he felt your fingers brushing away his tears. Your skin felt warm and cold at the same time. A fucking reminder of what could and what would be.

"Hey, Tan?" He felt something cold being placed on his hand. "Give this to Lemon, will ya'?" A Thomas and Friends keychain, all three of their trains in one hook. "Tell him to keep it safe. Risked my arse for that one."

Tangerine despite the tears chuckled lightly. Through his disheveled curls, Tangerine could see her struggling to get something out of her breast pocket. But when she eventually did, something familiar was laid before his eyes. A velvet box.

"I was going to eventually. But it never was the right time." You opened the box and admired the ring that you were supposed to propose with on the reserved dinner anniversary a few months away from now, but now that will never come now would it?

You took the ring, and placed it on his finger.

"You just fucking had to, didn't ya'?" Your brows immediately furrowed, confused at what he said.

"Always beating me to it." Tangerine met your eyes, questions stirring within them, and he answered you by doing the same thing, he took the velvet box in his breast pocket, and presented it to you.

He took the ring out of the box, held your blood stained hand in his, and placed the ring on your finger.

"Now we're even."

Tears flooded your eyes, a smile grew on your lips as a watery laugh bubbled from your chest, which you immediately came to regret as it sent a wave of pain all over your body.

“Hey, come here.” he whispered softly, his arm wrapped around your shoulders guiding you to sit back against the wall. He felt your shoulders rise and fall as a heavy sigh of relief leaves your lips. You were so tired and exhausted, you just wanted to rest, to close your eyes and succumb to the enclosing darkness around you, to let it wash away the pain. But you couldn’t leave Tangerine and Lemon, you didn’t want to. But you guessed at this moment that fate had other plans for the three of you.

And as the warm glow of the sun rose on the horizon, painting the sky with hues of colors, bathing you and Tangerine in its light. You were flooded with a sense of peace. You knew that even when you leave, they'll be alright.

"I've never seen a proper sunrise before." You said softly, your head falling on his shoulder, his head on yours.

"It's so beautiful." you breathed.

Before the darkness collapse around, you felt warmth embrace you, and a kiss was placed upon your forehead, and then…

Tangerine's tears cascaded down from his cheeks to your forehead as your body slumped against his, your last breath on his neck.

"It is."

#tangerine bullet train #tangerine x reader #tangerine #lemon and tangerine #bullet train lemon #the twins bullet train #bullet train #bullet train fic #Spotify