#cut in two because otherwise the quality drops entirely >:-(
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ıllıllı 𝙄𝙣𝙫𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙀𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩 12/17: 𝙋𝙖𝙧𝙩 3.1 - Rendall, Irwin, Dawson- ıllıllı
Transcript of Event below Cut:
DEVIN
While Devin wasn't the most expressive person in the family, it had been incredible and almost unbelievable that she got to spend some quality time with *both* her daughters. Octavius clearly enjoyed it far more than anyone else in the family, beaming at everyone at always. It was also nice to see how attached Peyton was despite not having her feelings reciprocated to the same extent - but let's be honest, no one can possibly match the level of the Dawsons. Even Devin couldn't.
So when they were over at the ranch, Devin had expected.. a somewhat peaceful time. What she got instead, was 3 babies suddenly taking place of the children. The scene itself just rendered her silence for so many reasons.
One of which was that she literally sees the baby she left behind so many years ago. "This..." She rose from her seat and picked up her eldest daughter the same time as Oct picking up Peyton. "What is this?"
IZZY
It took everything in Izzy not to punch Brax in the arm when be he replied 'That's a baby' because, no shit that was a baby. Instead she just looked at him like he'd grown a second head until she saw the penny literally drop in his mind. Walking over, she scooped up Sean as Octavius scooped up Peyton and she gave her brother a quick once-over. "Well, at least they appear to be relatively healthy and unharmed otherwise..."
She trailed off as a thought suddenly hit her and she quickly handed Sean over to Brax as she exclaimed, "The twins!" and rushed upstairs to the nursery.
BRAXTON
Excusing himself with Sean, he followed Izzy up the stairs to seee how the twins were. It was honestly a good thing Izzy had the brain cells most of the time. "Oh.. they are real tiny." He actually let out a chuckle as he hovered a finger over one of the babies and letting her grab onto it with the wee strength they had. "Ohhhhhhh, do you think this is happening to the other people?"
Almost on cue, his phone pinged. Pulling away from the baby, he quickly checked his phone and spotted the group message. "Oh.. I think all the kids are affected." Then he raised the phone up to his mouth to record a voice message, "Is Tomi a baby too?" He asked.
IZZY
Just as Brax was catching up to her, Izzy had made her way into the nursery and let out a sigh of relief at the sight of her beautiful girls still in their cribs, if only -as Brax put it- very tiny. "Oh, I'm just so relieved to see that they're still _here_. If whatever caused this managed to shrink legal adults back to infants, I was terrified to think what it might do a pair of barely two year-olds."
She listened as Brax read the message and recorded his own, a thought suddenly occurring to her as he hit send. "Brax, honey, this means we're going to probably be dealing with a set of near newborn twins _and_ the Tornado Twins just as they begin to start walking....we're going to need baby-proof this entire place twice over, especially if we can't figure out how long it's going to last."
DEVIN
Octavius and she was just in awe at the pair of babies that were just cuddling against them. Devin did not hesitate to wrap her arms securely around her oldest daughter when she felt her lean against her. While her husband was always beaming, the smile he sent her way did suggest he knew how she was feeling. Not that she wanted to be biased with her children, but to have Amaryllis be in her arms again. That was quite the feeling to process.
Taking them upstairs, she appeared in the doorway. "How are the twins?" She asked since she couldn't quite see with the two adults blocking the view of the crib. However she could smell the younger set of girls and noted the shift in their scent as well. "Oh. They're even tinier." Somehow, she didn't expect that. "I'm assuming that this doesn't happen that often." She had heard stories about Fallcrest, but to experience a magical accidental like this was very different.
IZZY
Izzy couldn't help the bright smile at the sight of Amaryllis looking so clearly comfortable in her mother's arms. After all this time, she'd only ever seen the girl look this relaxed around her brother and knowing the story behind the duo, it had Izzy's already emotional state needing a deep breath to not become a mess. "Yes, sorry. They're okay. They're jammies and diapers are a bit loose now, but at least we have plenty of supplies to tide us over, and to go around of course. We're already risking a lot with three undiapered infants," she laughed, already moving to grab things from the drawers.
As Brax took on the task of trying to wrangle Sean into a diaper as he tried to escape over to Ryllie, she picked up her phone when the group chat dinged. Glancing up at Devin she said, "This specifically? No, but mishaps with magic have kind of become par for the course whenever the Nexus has a seal broken. According to the group chat, the Paladins think that's the most likely root of all this."
BRAXTON
"Babies.. are probably one of the best things that came from a seal being broken." He snorted as he laid back down onto the ground once he got Sean sorted out. Watching him crawl over towards Devin, Braxton only let a chuckle. "I might go pick Tomi up soon..." He was already excited to see his baby girl but he should at least get the current kids in the house sorted out first. "...Do you think Sean is going to cry if they take Ryllie home?"
Braxton rolled over to his back and looked up at the ceiling, thinking about the things he might do after picking Tomi up. "I might also grab more things along the way. Now that we have so many babies, we are going to run out of supplies real fast." He chuckled, "From the looks of things, only the kids got affected. My sister is still fine, but her girlfriend isn't."
IZZY
"We were just talking about post-seal break shenanigans a few days ago," she mused aloud, briefly distracted by Brax's sudden decision to mimic a teenage girl working on homework as he laid on the floor. If he stated kicking his feet she might have to call Col... Her attention, however, was immediately drawn away as she watched her now _baby_ brother make his way over to the other woman. A sad smile crossed her face, but she went over to pick him up before he tried latching onto things.
Seeing as the tiny ginger began to immediately reach out to the girl, Izzy glanced down at Brax and said, "It's probably about as likely as Skylar crying when you go pick Tomi up, so best of luck bargaining with Keagan," she replied as the man rolled over. "But much like anything else with a baby, he'll get over it."
DEVIN
When she spotted the red haired baby crawl towards her, Devin felt sorry for the other considering that she was very tempted to bring Amaryllis home with her. Of course, she wouldn't if the others said no - and she also wasn't sure how upset Ryllie would be despite her current cuddly state.
"If both babies don't want to be separated, then I suppose there won't be other choice than to leave Amaryllis here with you - I hope it won't be too overwhelming since you have 3 - well, 4 from the sounds of things, in one house house." Surely they all understood how exhausting it could get simply with one kid, much less five in total."
IZZY
Izzy glanced up at Devin once again, knowing full well the feeling of having to be separated from your kids. True, Sean and Tomi were quite older when she'd left for Philly, but it had hurt all the same. She couldn't fathom what it would be like for the blonde to see a fresh opportunity with the baby she missed out on only to have to already leave her behind.
"Ideally, I'd love to have Ryllie stay here with us for the first bit, if only for her own comfort of being in a place she knows and is comfortable. That being said, the ranch has plenty of extra rooms and space if you and Octavius would like to stick around here as well? I mean, it's not like it wouldn't be nice to have another two sets of hands to keep track of everyone."
OCTAVIUS
He had followed after his wife whilst holding their younger daughter. At the sight of the sisters together as babies simply warmed his heart and he could not stop beaming all the way up the stairs and into the room. What better time than now for Devin to bond with the daughter she never thought she'd ever see again until now. It was great yet slow porcess so far, and Octavius had to admit that the other being a baby now might be a very good stroke of luck.
"If you don't mind, we would love to stay! Babies all around." He grinned, wider when Devin looked over his way. "It's a good idea. The more hands the better, and Sean would be less likely to cry if Ryllie's around!."
IZZY
"Of course I don't mind," Izzy replied with a smile of her own. "Believe me, if the idea weren't appealing I wouldn't have offered. Besides, I do genuinely think that keeping Amaryllis in a place she's comfortable and has called home for a while now is much more conducive to all three of you being able to bond with her more."
Sparing a glance to the Beta that was still laying on the nursery floor, she looked back up and said, "And it would also ease my mind a lot to know that while I'm at work caring for other babies, mine are being looked after by more than just my new _rug_."
BRAXTON
The man was now on his back raising the kid up and down in the air, swaying side to side. "Yeahhh, you flying kid!" He chuckled. How he missed this - not that he didn't do the same with the younger pair of twins, but having Sean, and hopefully Tomi be petite size again? Surely this was a blessing because everyone was almost getting a second chance to do things right.
Eventually, he set the kid back on his chest and wrapped his arms around him. "Peanut, I forgot how small you were." He grinned before looking up at Iz, "I am more than willing to be the new rug if Sean is going to be down here chilling with me."
IZZY
The giggles that filled the room were nothing short of the sweetest sound she'd heard in a while. There would never be a question about how much she loved and cherished similar giggles from her younger girls, but Sean was basically her first born and there had honestly always been just _something_ about him that made it to where his happiness just radiated.
At the mention of his size, Izzy just looked at the baby endearingly. "Yeah, we're going to have to pick up stuff for him when we shop for the minis. As nicely as their diapers and onesies fit the kittens, he's basically swimming in his," she noted, before rolling her eyes at Brax's antics. "Rugs can't pick up babies from their friends' homes..." Rugs also didn't really _help_ with babies either so, she was wary of that offer.
BRAXTON
"This is why I said the van would've been a good idea because we can fit all the car seats." Not that they would have predicted this situation but at the very least, they would all fit in one car instead of taking two. "Oh man, I forgot Peanut here was smaller than everyone until that growth spurt." He chuckled as he did his best at making Sean's outfit.. less loose-looking.
At the topic of picking up his daughter, Braxton looked up at Izzy. "...Do you think Keagan's not going to let me?" He frowned as he sat up carefully with Sean in his arms and then fully got up from the floor. "I hope I get to spend some time with Tomes..." He looked down at Sean and walked right up to Izzy, "Look at him. Oh my god, his little baby hands are trying to grab onto my shirt."
IZZY
The nurse looked down at him with a furrowed brow. Not only had the topic of vehicles not been brought up but, they’d both had their respective trucks long before being back in the same town…? Izzy opted to just blink and let it go. There was enough to process as is.
“Well, he _is_ known as the ‘runt’ of the pack for a reason,” she said, not that she was ever too keen on that title. Not the least reason being that their own father had given it to him. Shaking her head slightly she chuckled at the man. “I meant more that if you were a literal rug, obviously they don’t drive. I’m sure that Keagan of all people would be more than understanding of you wanting a bit of a second shot at the baby days,” she reassured before practically melting again at the sight of Sean grabbing onto Braxton. “He _has_ always been a Stage 5 clinger…”
BRAXTON
"Peanut of the runt. Well, Bean of the runt. Sky was not happy when both Sean and T outgrew her before they even reached highschool." He grinned, "Ugh, loook at him... Look at *them*. Now I'm real excited to see Tomi and the rest of the babies. They're all going to be tinyyyy.. I should set up a kids area at the gym..."
Braxton smiled at the idea of getting to spend time with Tomi. This time being very different from when Tomi was still a baby.. and not reverted back by magic. "Do you think they'll remember anything? Or would they forget everything once they ..uh.. grow up again."
IZZY
It took one look to get him to drop the ‘runt’. This ma had the unique ability to make her regret speaking in less than ten seconds sometimes…”Ooh we should try to get them all together for at least one picture. Not to be biased but, they were already a group of very good looking young adults. I don’t expect they wouldn’t be equally as cute as babies.”
She furrowed her brow at his sudden desire for a kids’ area. “You already have one? Luke was in charge of it until Sky outgrew it, but it’s still there. Aves is also in charge of the kid drop-off, where people can get the kids watched while they workout…how long has it been since you did your own paperwork?”
The last question made her pause before admitting, “I don’t know. I would err on the side of caution though, and just assume they will.” Izzy reached over and took Sean from him. “Now go on, go get our missing twin.”
BRAXTON
It was clear as day just how giddy Braxton was on his way to the car. Leaving the kids with the Dawsons, he drove them over to the not-mansion cabin. He prayed that he wasn't going to be met by an upset Sky or Tomi. The last thing he wanted was for Tomi to bawl like the world was ending. "Okay.. okay.. Here we go.." He steeled his nerves as he gave the cabin door a knock... Only to be met by.. Not-Keagan which was all he could ask for.
When his eyes laid onto the sight of his baby girl being cradled, he visibly melted. She was exactly how he remembered but now that he was aware that he made this? That was another wave of emotions. The amount of wariness he had when he held her in his arm was far more than he needed to be but the baby was so small that he felt like he could just.. accidentally break her.
Braxton could not keep his eyes off of the baby even when they were on their way back. "Iz.. she's so small!" As if he hadn't already said this a million times at the cabin, and during their trip back to the ranch.
IZZY
Izzy would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little wary of possibly being denied the chance to take Tomi back with them. After all, they themselves had just agreed to host the Dawsons in a bid to avoid splitting up Sean and Amaryllis not fifteen minutes ago.
She had been pleasantly surprised to find her baby girl so well looked after already, and though there was slight noises of complaints when Erin had said her goodbyes, it had worked out well.
As they made their way back inside the house at the ranch, she looked back at him and said, “I was more surprised to see how comfortable she was with Rikke. Tomi’s always been the least fan of ‘new’ people. I guess maybe it’s their Paladin-charge bond? Do you think that will have Rikke orbing in if she’s upset?”
BRAXTON
He looked up for the first time at the question, "Maybe..? As her charge, she might have felt it - like, 'this person is safe' sorta vibe?" He shrugged, "Then we better not upset T too much." He chuckled, "I'm not entirely sure how the whole Paladin bond would feel, but I think Rikke would be able to differentiate the different levels of 'upset', right? If not, then I guess.... we should prace ourselves for a visit..."
Braxton went to the room where Sean was in but then stood by the door. ".....Would it be a good idea... to put them together right now... He might cry." He joked before actually stepping closer to the kid. "Look who we got, it's your sib!" He whispered softly as he showed at an angle, Tomi in his arms.
IZZY
She nodded at his words. He wasn’t the most eloquent, but his point made sense. “I’m sure with as much experience as she has, the woman’s bound to have system right? I mean, I can’t imagine she’d have been in such good spirits with _two_ of her charges being infants if she _didn’t_ know how to tell when a cry could be ignored….but I still think we should arrange to have Erin and Sky visit at some point soon…just in case.” It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Rikke, it was just the idea of someone randomly materializing in her home that was odd.
Being mindful of the baby, Izzy smacked him in the arm at the crack her brother’s expense. “Bold of you to assume he hasn’t already senses she’s here and won’t cry if you _don’t_ bring her in,” she noted. Izzy could only watch as the baby boy immediately zeroed in on his sister and began crawling over.
BRAXTON
"The more the merrier?" He chuckled, "Ooooh, they could have a baby sleepover! Well, maybe we should have more cribs in here, just in case they do come.. all of them? Doesn't make sense to leave out a baby. Baby huddle!!!" He lifted his daughter into the air, up and down a few times before going back to cradling her. "Oh, it looks like someone wants to play with you." He crouched down so he can set Tomi down carefully onto the floor. "Heyyyy here's your sister."
He smiled as he watched the babies interact before taking a seat again on the floor. "I need pictures of you two. More pictures of you too!" He took out his phone and started snapping away - making a few boomerangs, and taking a few short clips. "Ugh. Izzy.. my heart."
IZZY
“Friendly reminder that Erin won’t fit in a crib, so maybe we’ll want to confer with someone who has actual experience in renovating rooms before we make changes…or at least get a second opinion.” As irritating as Brax’s impulsiveness could be, the sight of Tomi and Sean immediately making their way to each other was far too lovely to _not_ take her focus.
Sitting on the floor beside the Beta, she pulled out her own phone and began to snap pics all around. Even the younger girls got in on the fun once they were up. “I always wanted to have a daycare’s worth of kids running around, but I guess crawling will do.”
BRAXTON
"Well.. if we made it... bigger, it might?" He joked, "And the ones we've entrusted to help build most of things are.. well, babies themselves. Kinda hard to ask them for a second opinion." He wiggled his brows, knowing full well there were others they could ask. "We could ask Luke - but she might renovate the place and turn it into Not-Mansion 2.0. I mean.. Although.. There is a space for one.."
He grinned as he showed his phone to Izzy, swiping through the pics he took himself. "And this isn't even the whole pack. Oh man, wait till every babies together in one place."
IZZY
“Okay, _babies_ hardly ever want to be in a crib, I highly doubt a college freshman does…although the way Erin is around Tomi and Skylar…I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised if she decided to pull a _you_ and just share a crib with them…” Izzy listened to his suggestion before saying, “Well, we may need to consult with Luke and Keagan about other things regardless. Tomi is fine now, but she may not be tomorrow, in the bright light of day.”
As she scanned through the pics Brax had taken, Izzy couldn’t help the clear look of utter adoration that crossed her face. “The fact we get to see these kids as littles all over again? And get to do it with no interference from deadbeat dads? I just can’t.”
BRAXTON
"Have you *seen* them be apart? Because I haven't so I think it's best to make some room for erin, and the 'rents in case they all want to stay over. It's going to be a party." He grinned, "I hope Tomi's going to be fine...." it'd break his heart if he can't calm the kid down the next day if she did decide to cry - Hell, maybe he'd cry too.
"Yeah.. To think we've been given this opportunity." He smiled as he already made one of the new pictures his wallpaper. "No deadbeat dads." He agreed as he looked over at the kids, still wrapping his mind over the fact that he and Kimi made that kid. Hopefully he won't mess up either.
IZZY
"Well, for the time being let's worry about how we're going to arrange these kiddos for sleep _tonight_. We can always sort out future sleeping arrangements later," she said, already looking around the nursery. "It's not really the best idea to have babies share a sleeping space before a certain age, but I think we can manage with the older bubs. The kittens can share one crib, the tornado twins the other, and I think I still have the mini-twins' basinets in storage, so they can sleep in those in my room...What was _your_ plan for sleeping?"
It was almost immediate how much happier Sean was this time around. He'd always been a happy baby, and more so when Tomi was around, but this time he had Amaryllis and it really seemed like nothing could turn his smile upside-down. Those four little teeth were on full display, and Tomi was even managing to be patient with Peyton and the minis..."They're just so happy."
BRAXTON
"The Dawsons are staying too right?" He was already excited for getting all the kids together. "...Should we have a divider for T and Bean? Because it's like 50% they'd sleep peacefully, 50% T might kill him." He joked before giving her a shrug. "Well.. It's like what you said, except I wanted to put all the cribs next to each other so they're sort of altogether - Unless you meant me.. I could.. take the couch unless.. you've got.. another suggestion..?"
"They are.." He smiled as he reached out to give one of the siblings a poke to the side. "And the plan is to keep it that way." The beta couldn't help but inch forward so that he could scoop the two pups into his arms. "Heyyyyyyy. I'm feeling left out here."
IZZY
Nodded, and simply stated, “Yes, hence the kitten comment. Because kittens are baby cats…” it was her way of calling him dumb without actually saying it. Looking between the babies she nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I think once they’ve fallen asleep I can manage to find a safe divider. Tomi may not intentionally try to hurt him, but Sean is still small.” She raised a brow as she listened to him explain his master design plan. “Okay, we’ll we can do that, though I did mean where you were planning sleeping _yourself_. The couch is certainly an option, unless you’re up for helping with feedings throughout the night…than I suppose you can share with me and the minis.”
Izzy could only laugh as Tomi immediately ’responded’ to the man’s complaints with a series of babbles that Sean then came in after to back up. “Sounds like they just put you in your place, sir.”
BRAXTON
"I think Tomi has a stronger grip now.. Or is it just me?" Brax wondered since Tomi didn't have her powers bound anymore. "Yeah, we'll definitely need a divider between them... Should we put Bean in .. I don't know.. baby hockey gear." He laughed, "Do they even make them in his current size?" His eyes widened when Izzy suggested he could share with her and the youngest. "..You wouldn't mind?" Those blue hues immediately softened, "Yeah, I'd be down to help with that.."
He looked down at the babies and decided to rub his scruff against the babies. "Are you guys complaining? Hm? Are you?" He laughed at the squeals before giving them a break.
IZZY
“Well I wouldn’t really know, given that you’ve been the only to hold her since Rikke hand her over so…” Was there tinge of jealousy? Hell yes. It wasn’t like _she’d_ denied him holding Sean. Speaking of which, “A divider should be more than fine. Tomi was never an erratic sleeper anyway, and I don’t see that having changed of she’s managing to share uh…_sleeping space_ with two other people.” It was awkward, to say the least, to even think about Tomi’s adult love life while she was currently a baby. Bless Erin….The question brought her back to the moment. “I mean, things have been going well and it would be something we’d ideally be doing at some point. As long as you can behave, I don’t see why we can’t do this one little thing to make traversing this sudden change a little easier.”
When he proceeded to go mess with the kids, Izzy just threw Octavius a look that silently said, “You’re the dad in charge”
DEVIN
As endearing as it was to see Braxton playing with the kids, Devin wondered if Izzy was going to be okay. Perhaps it was a good idea for them to be here with this many kids in the household. "We'll be in here so we can always keep an eye on them." Moreover, it sounded like Brax was more focused on playing with the children more than anything else. Perhaps, it really was a good thing Octavius and she were here.
Carrying over their daughters, she laid her down into the empty crib with her husband doing the same with the other baby. The moment Peyton was on the mattress, she was already reaching out for Amaryllis and Devin could feel her heart ache. That was just too cute. "I'm glad that we took this trip down here."
AYDEN
She didn't know what to expect when she got the messages about the youngest scoobs turned into babies. She could only assume that the parents weren't too upset over it, where as the ones *dating* them, like Avery.. who had sent a message in all caps about it, were conflicted. Knowing that Izzy was with Braxton, Ayden felt concerned to how they were handling it so she decided to head over for a visit - bringing food in case the adults haven't eaten yet.
"Hey." She smiled when the door revealed her best friend and she immediately went in for a hug. "How's everything going? ...Is Brax helping?"
IZZY
As wary as she may have been leaving the babies out of sight with just Brax, it was somewhat alleviated by the fact that Devin and Octavius would also be in the room. Also, she had a feeling she knew who would be on the other side of the door anyway, given that everyone else was pretty much either busy themselves or in this room. Taking the stairs two at a time, she never happier to be proven right as she saw her best friend and reciprocated the hug. "Hey yourself," she said before stepping aside, "Come in, come in. It's freezing out there."
She laughed at the question as she closed the front door. "Depends on how you define 'helping', but he's certainly much more eager to be more involved this time around."
AYDEN
Once she was inside, Ayden took off her jacket and hung it nearby. "It's times like this when I wished I got that innate body warmer you wolves have." She joked. "Mm.. I figured so I thought I might pop by to help out." Braxton always meant well, but Ayden did not trust him enough to know what he was doing. "Is he only playing with the kids?" Because that definitely sounded like something he would do.
Then it hit her that there were other voices in the house. "Oh, you've got extra hands around already." She mused although she had a feeling that they were busy with their own daughters.
IZZY
"It's great when we're out working on the ranch, but it can get a bit stuffy to still have to wear thick jackets to play things off around the town's mundanes," she noted, already walking over to the refrigerator to grab Ayden a drink. "It is very much appreciated, because as much as he claims to _want_ to help out more...I don't think that man can tell the difference between a baby's diaper and a sanitary pad," she deadpanned, before a thought occurred to her. "Speaking of such a mix-up, how is Avery dealing with her girlfriend being a baby? Erin seemed to be holding out well enough when we picked Tomi up but, I think that's because she had Lyra as a distraction?"
AYDEN
"I'm in my garage most of the time and I am so glad to have that HVAC system installed there. *So* glad." She chuckled as she followed Izzy over to the kitchen, grabbing a seat at the counter. "Well, getting him to do it - without help - is probably the best way to get him to learn." After all, Braxton always managed to pull through at times when under pressure... One way or another. "Well, she did send me this?" She pulled out her phone and showed the text message with all caps from the youngest Rendall. "I don't think she's.. dealing all that well, but apparently she sent home after a while since her sister in law brought the baby up to sleep."
IZZY
"And Irwin Co. is _exceedingly_ happy you thought of us to the do the job," she said, teasingly. Everyone knew that Izzy had less than zero to do with the contracting and construction company, although now with both 'heads' being babies...She shook her head. That was a headache for another day. "Yeah, that approach normally works with just about anything...but these are babies. So...I guess we'll just have to wait and see."
Setting the drink down in front of her friend, Izzy lent in to read the message. "Wow, I feel for her, I really do..._but_ I can't bring myself to say I wish this hadn't happened," she admitted with a grin. "I really never thought I'd get to see what my first set of babies would be like around my new ones, and they're getting along so great."
AYDEN
"Who else was I supposed to go to?" She pointed out - as if all the Scoobs hadn't already been getting the Irwins' to be their contractors for most of their renos. "I can always stick around for a while in case anything happens? Like how much do you trust Brax can handle it." She was.. half joking? Maybe. She honestly wasn't sure herself.
She accepted the drink with a small thanks before warming herself up with it. Both her hands pressed against the mug, welcoming the warmth coming from it. "I feel bad for.. everyone whom they're dating but so far, it sounds like all the 'rents are loving it right now. Especially with the amount of shopping that was done - or so I've heard." She could hear that Braxton was still playing with them in the room above and let out a smile at the giggles. "Never thought we'd get to hear those giggles again." It was one thing to hear Kimi and Tilly giggle, it was another to heard Sean and Tomi giggle like that again.
IZZY
Izzy made a face before a look of realization dawned on her. "Sean and Tomi _have_ managed to kind of monopolize the game in town haven't they?" she asked, more rhetorically than anything, but there was no small hint of pride as she said it. "You are a lifesaver, and honestly if we couldn't get you the opportunity of having Avery toddling around after you, I can at least share my brood with you," Izzy said, knowing already that for Ayden it was less about the 'helping' and more about the babies..though not nearly to Brax's level.
She nodded in understanding. "I know it can't be easy for the older members of the various relationships right now, and I do genuinely feel bad for them, _but_ I can't bring myself to wish that it hadn't happened," she admitted. "To get to interact with Sean and Tomi with some actual know-how, for Brax to get to relieve this stage _knowing_ Tomi is his actual daughter, and for Keg- Oh my god, for Keg was gone for so much of the twins' first year?? She must be over the moon!"
AYDEN
"It seems so, they're good at what they do, so I'm not surprised if everyone wants to hire their services - although, it might be a bit tricky to do so at the moment." She pointed out before her eyes gave a hint of sympathy. "I would love to see Avery as a baby again - but that kid is a menace at any age. It's just that she can be responsible for her own actions now that she's an adult." She joked as she thought about the younger years of that girl. "Taking care of 2 kids at a time is already a lot of work, I can't imagine having to take care of four."
Ayden smiled as she thought about their mutual friends getting the chance to relive the bits they missed out and could not feel anything but happiness for them. "It really is a blessing of sorts." She was positive that the parents were all loving this right now. "We should get the babies together soon - one big playdate like how we used to do it."
IZZY
Izzy thought about it for a moment and said, “Well, for the immediate future we can just use the holidays to our advantage, and if by some chance this lasts longer, we can figure something out then. Hopefully just nothing that would require dad coming back to town.” Just the thought of that man around any of the children made her physically shudder. “I used to say the same thing about Tomi, but it turns out no matter how old they get, they always find a way to loop you back in,” she said tossing her friend a knowing wink. If Avery didn’t have a legit criminal record yet, it was due in no small part to Ayden’s involvement.
She let out a dramatic sigh, dropping her head at the mention of _four_ babies, only to snap it back up with a huge grin. “I’m sure it’ll be physically and even mentally taxing, but I am so looking forward to it, Ayde. The matching outfits, the tornadoes and the minis, the kittens??” Izzy let out an uncharacteristic squeal. Well, uncharacteristic to _most_. Ayden, Keagan, Blake, and Kimi had heard it all. “Brax is already planning a massive sleepover upstairs. I didn’t have the heart to tell him Leo or Luke could probably host better.”
AYDEN
"..Let's hope we don't need to come to that." Somehow all the Scoobs had a shit father - although Tomi's bio dad didn't even know he was the dad until recently. However Ayden was not a fan of the rest of them, including Joe. "And it seems worth the effort since all the kids grew up to be who they are now." She may complain, but everyone knew she wouldn't trade Avery for anyone else. She may be a menace, but Aves was her menace.
"Quite the bundle you have here." She was genuinely happy for her friend who looked thrilled that all her babies are literal babies now. "Speaking of upstairs, how about we head up? I haven't seen the kiddies yet.. and I don't know how Brax is faring."
IZZY
"If I know Tomi as well as I do, she has all of the bureaucratic stuff so well-organized that I should be able to take a look over everything and get things sorted. If not, I'll just ask you and Blake for help on memos and invoices and whatever else," she said, the look on her face clearly stating 'I'm a nurse'. She beamed at the mention of the kids being worth the effort. "I wouldn't trade a single day with them for anything."
Without much warning, she reached out to take her friend's hand and effectively pulled her up the stairs. "I really doubt things are too bad. There _are_ two other adults in the room."
AYDEN
It didn't surprise her that Tomi had everything organized. After all, she was also why Braxton can find anything in his life. "Yeah, let me know if you need any help, I'd drop by - My schedule might be a bit more lenient than Blake's so there's that." She chuckled. It was a given that all of the Scoobs were thankful all the kids grew up well, none of them being assholes like certain folks in this town.
Letting her friend lead her up the stairs, Ayden peered into the room to see the Dawsons leaning against a crib where she assumed both their daughters were sleeping in.. and then there was Braxton who seemed to be.. bullied by the four babies - well, Tomi mostly, while the other 3 giggled. "Hey guys..." She greeted, already softening at the sight of them all. "They're as adorable as I remembered."
IZZY
Izzy just grinned up at her, somehow always reverting back to her teenage self around her best friend. "Your schedule is _always_ more lenient than Blake's where I'm concerned," she pointed, making zero effort to hide the smug tone in her voice. The irony of how similar to Brax she could be around Ayden was completely lost to her as she once again let her brain be overtaken by thoughts of her babies.
It took everything in her not to just burst out into laughter at the sight of a tiny girl clearly calling the shots over a grown man, and it was only at the reminder that there were two babies already asleep in the room. Not bothering to drop the shifter's hand, she pulled her in further and brought her down to the floor so they could get in on the baby action. "Oh, whose my tough girl teaching her sisters and brother how to handle this big oaf? Huh?"
AYDEN
The older woman playfully rolled her eyes, not denying nor admitting that she may have a soft spot for Izzy - something that hadn't changed over all the years. Even now, she was being dragged away by the hand without voicing a single complaint.
She gave a quick nod as a greet to the man on the floor and reached out with her free hand to grab the baby girl's attention. "Are we sure her goal isn't to make Brax cry?" She laughed as she poked the baby in the sides. "Glad to know she can still handle her dad regardless of age and size."
IZZY
"Oh, Tomi's goal is always to make Brax cry. It was a lesson she learned from her aunt Avery basically from day one, and if I'm not mistaken, Avery herself learned it from...someone," Izzy said offhandedly, as she made her own way back down to the floor so she could check on the younger girls. Both seemed absolutely more than okay to be left to their own devices of attempting to make Brax cry, but Sean was quick to lose interest in Brax as he crawled over to her lap.
"Aw, I can always count on my baby boy to seek peace...even if he can never seem to keep it around him," she cooed as she scooped him up.
AYDEN
"She must have learned it from you." She easily quipped, "Because I don't think I've ever made him cry." She looked at said man, who seemed to be trying very hard to negotiate with the baby. Wanting to hold one of them, Ayden reached over and carefully picked up one of the younger set of twins - and then the other who followed.
"I think it might be a good idea that I came over, with four of them.. plus the Dawson's two, that's a lot of babies in one place." Again, her eyes went over to the Beta - the one she felt like she should have a bit more faith in.
IZZY
Izzy simply looked over at her friend and stated, "Just because you did not witness the tears, it does not mean they did not exist." As a matter of fact, she was almost sure that if Brax wasn't so caught up being told-off by his own baby, he'd be tearing up at the sight of Ayden right now. Whether because she was on the outs with Col or because she was clearly _not_ on the outs with Izzy...that would be up for debate.
"Yeah, and Brax is already planning on hosting a get together for _all_ the babies, so I say you go ahead and just move in for the foreseeable future."
AYDEN
She met those eyes, looking genuinely confused by that. When did she make Brax cry? Moving her attention back to the beta, she was trying to recall the last time she did anything to him. "I.. don't think I've made him cry before?" She looked back at Izzy curiously.
The shifter started to bop the babies in her lap, which resulted in a series of giggles. "A get together for all the babies is a good idea, but I thought Leo and Luke were going to do that? Also, I can drop by more often, I don't know if you'd want me to be permanently hogging your couch."
IZZY
All Izzy could do was stifle a laugh at the irony as she recalled just how close Brax had come to crying in _public_ over the topic of Ayden....in the middle of their _date_. "I'm only here to spill _specific_ secrets of an unaware man, not all of them," she teased instead.
"I mean technically they haven't said anything, but that may be because Leo and Julia are getting to see one kid as a baby for the first time ever, and Luke has Lyra to deal with. Also, bold of you to assume anything's been done to your designated guest room since I've been away. Seany here has been his usual, kindhearted little self and left all rooms the same," she said snuggling into the tiny ginger and earning a giggle.
AYDEN
"To think you're keeping secrets from me *at all*." She teased back but didn't press on it. Maybe she'll ask Braxton on a later day about it to see. As far as she could remember, she hadn't made the man cry in all the years they've known each other.
"Knowing them, it might happen sooner than later." Not that she thought bad of Braxton, but the two women always had the children's interest at heart with almost everything they do. "Lyra's still in town?" This might be her longest stay since their family stopped living in Fallcrest. "Isn't it just a general guest room?" She chuckled, "You know, for anyone who visits and decides to stay for a *few* days."
IZZY
"A girl has to have some secrets otherwise where's the mystery? Where's the draw? What keeps them coming back for more?" It was all delivered with her best impression of a typical femme fatale...granted, as a wolf, she was a literal fatal woman so ...
"I'm sure the fact that these kids rarely go an entire twenty-four hours without seeing each other will have a lot to do with that," she mentioned. "Yeah, at this point I think she and Nix might as well just admit they've moved in with Luke and Keagan, but as we learned many a year ago, no one tells Lyra what to do," Izzy laughed, before rolling her eyes at her friend. "Gee thanks," she said flatly, "I _know_ what a guest room is and we have a couple of those too."
AYDEN
"Oh, you're trying to be mysterious now? Oh okay. Sure." She laughed, "Fine, don't tell me. I won't ask anymore." Her attention went all to the babies she had in her arms. "Okay, so they are living here now? That's weird because last I checked, Lyra did not want to come back into town - JJ already left, right? I think he was first to get out of here when they all came to visit. Anyways, at least Teg and Nix is in town. There are people to keep an eye on her so that the rest of us can have peace."
Ayden let out a sigh and gave in, "I guess that means I don't have to go back home and back a few things over." She pulled out her phone to send a text to her staff, telling them to watch the garage for the next two or three days.
IZZY
Izzy simply raised a brow as she shot her friend a sly grin in response. At the topic of the Lyra, Izzy’s eyes widened comically at the thought of the wolf. “I think we both know the only thing _actually_ keeping that girl out of this town was the free housing with her parents, and the fact that her family wasn’t here. JJ and Teagan were off in Philly, Luke and the girls were in Seattle, and Keagan was somewhere secret so… But you are right in saying that they’ll be needing all hands on deck with that one.”
At the sight of the phone, Izzy new her win was clinched. Grinning broadly she said, “Yay! We have another proper adult in the house!”
AYDEN
There was probably some joke in there about how Lyra didn't like the rest of them enough to stay, but Ayden knew it wasn't the case. "And now everyone seems to be back in town, at least for the next little while... And we have a bunch of babies." THis was really quite the throwback in a way but also a new experience since they had more friends and family around. Honestly, Ayden was thrilled for everyone for getting to experience this the second time. "
"And who is that?" She asked, switching her hold on the baby so that the kid was sort of standing with Ayden's help. "Col?" He was the first to mind since his brother was also here.
IZZY
"Yeah, I don't see anyone being too eager to leave with the kids being back to babies and the holidays being in full-swing, and there's also the fact that technically the Council and Guild found a way to keep anyone within town lines magically immune to Covid. That last bit seems to have flown under the radar, what with the hunters coming in two weeks ago and all, but I wouldn't be surprised if word got out and _more_ people made their way here or to any of the other sanctioned super-towns around the globe." Izzy paused before adding, "Oh, I only got the inside scoop because of my job."
The wolf didn't quite know what to make of her friend's response, so instead she focused on how to reply herself. "I was _actually_ referring to _you_," she said slowly, "Given that you literally _just_ agreed to stay...I would assume that Col is currently at the Rendall home with Aves, but it's nice to see that you still remember him."
AYDEN
"I'm glad that everyone's getting this chance. I wish I could see Keg's face when she found out her twins are kids again." Speaking of parents who was getting another chance, Ayden looked at the man with his daughter. To her surprise, Braxton was look up at the two of them with an expression she didn't quite understand. "Do you want to switch?" She ended up asking instead because she could not begin to understand what ran though Braxton's mind half the time.
"Hm? Oh. I just thought you meant there was another proper adult coming on top of me staying." She made a face at that last comment, "Is there a reason why I wouldn't?"
IZZY
"Oh, check the group chat. Luke's already posted like four reaction snaps, which in itself should let us know just how focused and engrossed Keagan is with the girls because otherwise she'd have done something about the pics," Izzy chuckled. The question seemed a bit random, but Izzy just figured everyone one wanted some time with everyone else, so she just smiled and took her girl as she eased Sean over -who seemed a little _less_ happy about the arrangement.
She shook her head and briefly contemplated where she was going to go with this, but ultimately just settled on, "Nah, I guess I was just being facetious. It would take more than a week of not seeing someone you normally see almost daily to forget them."
AYDEN
Her brows rose before doing just that - pulling out her phone, she went to the group chat and saw pictures of her friend *beaming* at her twin girls. "I don't think I've ever seen her smile so bright before." She joked before turning to see the somewhat disappointed kid in her own arms. "Oh, Sean doesn't like me I see. Are you upset with me that I pulled you away from Iz?" She laughed at the small pout.
She, on the other hand, was a bit confused with the responses she was getting. "Right..." is what she settled on since she didn't know how else to respond to that. Luckily, her attention was pulled away by a yelp coming from the beta. "Uh.. I think Brax needs help handling Tomi after all."
IZZY
Glancing at the pics over her friend's shoulder she said, "Man, even as babies those girls look nothing like Dicky. Bless their little hearts." It was an open secret that no one in the pack actually cared for Richard, but man had he earned himself a target with his latest stunts. Glancing over, she reached out to take the boy back as her own girl was off and gone to her sister. "Oh, he's just a little shy again...or possibly upset that his girlfriend is now on the opposite side of the room and out of reach."
"We'll have plenty of time to chat later," was all she said, before watching Ayden head over to rescue Brax.
BRAXTON
Braxton had been distracted by his daughter during the whole time - which ended up with Tomi baby-scold him even though he wasn't exactly sure what he did wrong, but he was forever thankful when Ayden swooped Tomi up to save him. Finally getting off the ground, he walked over to Izzy and gave her a back-hug and resting his chin on her shoulder so he could peek over at Sean. "Bean, you'll get to see your girl soon after she's well rested. I think you should focus on surviving the night with your sister - that is the challenge." He joked before reaching out to poke the kid in the belly. "Iz, T has been yelling at me this entire time, I think she's mad that I brought her here from Keg's."
IZZY
Izzy couldn't help but put her suddenly odd mood aside as she watched her best friend literally have to swoop in and play rescue. A small laugh escaped her as it seemed that even though Tomi was more than happy to rest herself against Ayden, she clearly still had a few choice words left for her dad, before she turned her attention to her new 'grown-up' and seemingly began to just fill her in on whatever the issue was.
She'd been so caught up in the sight of Tomi trying to babble her point across to Ayden, that she was almost surprised when Brax came around, this stubble prickling at her neck. "Oh no, you need to shave sir," was her first comment. "No wonder the kids ganged up on you, their skin is very sensitive right now and you are a walking steel-wool pad." Was there a specific reason she was suddenly prioritizing and pointing this out? Izzy was sure there was, but she'd rather not open _that_ pandora's box right now.
Sean seemed to fully understand and though he still looked like the saddest little pup, he did stop fussing and just settled into the crook of Izzy's arm. "Oh buddy, I'm sure you'll feel better once you're also asleep. Something tells me you'll be fine and the only one that needs to worry about your sister is Brax," she turned to face him, "I told you splitting those three up was going to be struggle."
BRAXTON
Had Tomi always been this talkative as a baby? Or was this because they retained some memory of their older selves and the girl had a *lot* to say about him. But that was long forgotten at the sudden complaint about his scruff; his hand automatically going up to it and ran his fingers over his chin. "... Is it that bad?" He asked without actually lifting himself off of her.
"I guess I could shave a bit more often now, but I thought you used to like them, T." He turned, only to see that Tomi was already engaged with a conversation with Ayden, who seemed to just smile and nod at everything that was being babbled to her. "...I'll shave more." He mumbled as he turned back to the Irwins, "I think we should get all the babies together as soon as we can." Is all he could say about it because he didn't want to impose on the cabin because he selfishly wanted to spend more time with his baby daughter.
IZZY
"Four infants attacked you as a result of you scratching them with that scruff," Izzy pointed out with ease. "Yes, it's terrible." Again, why she was suddenly finding fault in something as innocuous as the man's facial hair...was a question for future Izzy to deal with because right now there were other matters at hand that required her full attention.
"You're either misremembering or she's retained her likes and dislikes from now that she's older. I'm no witch, but I'd bet money it's the latter considering she _really_ laid into you earlier," she noted, before smiling at the satisfaction of him agreeing to shave more. "I think we definitely should...hey, do you think that they can still understand _each other_? Like in Rugrats, where no one understood the babies but they had drawn out conversations amongst themselves?"
BRAXTON
He didn't think his scruff was such a big deal that all four kids - and apparently Izzy didn't like, but if they wanted him to shave it, he will. "Yeah, I guess they all retained those - like how the Bean wants to be closer to Ryllie and all. I wonder if they have all their memories intact too? Because basically, we're looking at them being .. like their older selves.. but shrunken down, instead of completely regressing all the way."
He looked over to his daughter, to the other set of twins, to the Bean. "I'm guessing they understand each other - did you not see the full fledge conversation they had just a second ago?"
IZZY
Izzy thought about it for a bit, and then said, "Well, considering that Tomi currently feels like she's having the most in-depth conversation with Ayden, while her aunt is literally just nodding and replying with 'go on', I think they probably regressed at least a little." Glancing down at Sean and how he was suddenly enthralled with her necklace she added, "See, he outgrew his fascination with shiny things when he was seven."
Izzy nodded in agreement with the beta. "Yeah, I suppose it _would_ have taken some form of proper communication in order to coordinate the take down of full-grown Beta."
AYDEN
"Come on, baby girl." It seemed that whatever Brax did, Tomi was still not done complaining about. Although she didn't have a clue to what she was complaining about exactly, Ayden still tried to reason with her, "Your dad said he was going to shave, and we'll make sure that you get to see Sky and Erin soon!" She looked over her shoulder to the other adults, "..I'm sure they won't mind if we drop by?"
She joined in on the conversation about whether the babies understood each other. "She's got a point though. The mini twins seemed like they were following every word Tomi was telling them on how to deal with Braxton."
IZZY
"Wow...I, obviously, can't be certain of what the heck it is you did, but that kid is still going on about it," Izzy noted as she heard Ayden begin to do her best to try and bring the tiny new wolf's rant to a close. But it seemed to only somewhat mellow the kid out when Ayden mentioned Sky and Erin, and when the attention was put back on her and Brax, she simply nodded in agreement. "Yes, all the clean-shaven faces and, Sky and Erin time you could ever want. After one sleep...please."
Izzy's face lit up as she said, "Maybe we can ask the scoobs what the minis are like once they're back....though...I suppose that would require they remember all of this..." She trailed off as the penny dropped. "We should really watch what we say and do around them."
AYDEN
Ayden found it adorable just how quickly Tomi settled down when it was promised - moreorless - that she'll see her girlfriends soon enough. Poor Braxton - it seemed that nothing he did was going to placate her tonight. "Let's get you some sleep first." The shifter walked over to the crib and carefully placed the kid in there before tucking her in. "Come on, baby girl, otherwise you'll fall asleep when we bring you over to their place."
She looked back with a strange look, "...What.. can't we say? Because if you're talking about profanities, it might be a bit late for that?"
IZZY
Although Izzy did find it ironic how Ayden had come in and managed to get Tomi under control and actually in her crib, settled for sleep versus Brax failing to even get her to want to stop baby-assaulting him...she also didn't think now was the time to be pointing such things out. Not only was Brax's ego already bruised by the fact the kid was not having it, but she herself didn't want to unpack what it meant that Ayden was so capable with her most troublesome kiddo.
At Ayden's question, she just waved her off and said, "Oh Lyra made sure they all knew a plethora of those before they were even in pre-school the first time around. That's not the issue I foresee. It's more like when we used to have 'girl talk' around them before, because we were certain they'd not even understand what we were discussing....yeah, I don't think Sean here would appreciate 'girl talk' now."
BRAXTON
He didn't know how to feel when he saw Tomi listening to Ayden way better than to him. Maybe he deserved it since he hadn't actually been acting like a dad up until recently - *very* recently. It was a very mixed feeling watching it all happen before him, and there wasn't anything he could do since Ayden pretty much did the job with ease. However, maybe he'll get better luck with the mini twins.
Turning his attention to the youngest pair, he lifted them with ease in his arms. "Maybe if we put them all to bed, you ladies can have your girl talk." The kids are just about to knock out on their own anyways so it might be good timing to call it a night. "If you want, you can go clean up while I get these kiddos tucked in - The Dawsons are here, like I swear we're going to be fine." He joked since he was aware that Izzy probably didn't completely trust him to be alone.
IZZY
"Yeah, that's not happening." The words left Izzy's mouth before she even processed the sentiment. "I mean, not that I don't trust you all to handle things, but I like to be present for bedtime any chance my schedule with the hospital will let me. Besides, four of the six babies in this room, and every single adult in this house, have _superhearing_. Girl talk's not happening tonight," was the final word as she stood up with an already sleeping Sean in her arms, and began to walk over to Tomi's crib.
AYDEN
At Izzy’s immediate rejection of the idea, Ayden looked up just in time to see Braxton looking rather sheepish on his part. At the same time, it didn’t feel like it’d be a good idea for her to interject either so she kept quiet. However, the beta decided to surprise her even further when he came over to *her* and passed the youngest pair of twins to her before excusing himself to clean up first. Her eyes swept over to Izzy briefly before carefully placing the girls into the crib. “Hey, hey. You girls have your own.” She smiled softly as she made sure they’re properly tucked in with their own blankets. Once she was done with all of that, she glanced around the room. “I should.. go make sure I have everything I need for the night.”
IZZY
She wasn't blind to the fact that Brax had effectively ceded the act of putting the minis to sleep over to Ayden and made a hasty retreat, but she also hadn't been exaggerating when she said bedtime was special and she avoided having to miss out unless absolutely necessary. After making sure that Sean was properly swaddled in so he felt 'hugged' all night and would sleep till morning, she glanced over at her friend.
"Yeah, that sounds good. I should go check in on Braxton anyways," she said, "Make sure Tomi didn't give him a concussion." The joke felt flat even as she said it. After getting the Dawsons sorted out in one of the guest rooms closest to the nursery, she made her way to her own room where she figured Brax would be after cleaning up.
BRAXTON
Since he excused himself from the group, Braxton went straight to Izzy's room and started to get himself cleaned up as he announced earlier. During the entire time, he was thinking about what he did and said because somewhere in that time span, he must have done something wrong. That and Izzy must be feeling tired from the long day they had with four kids to handle. Braxton also made sure that he shaved since that had been the first thing they mentioned.
Even when he was done with his shower, the beta could not stop touching his face because it felt weird after having a scruff for so long. The breeze was just.. hitting his face and it was just so strange. "Oh, are the kids asleep?" He asked when he noticed that he wasn't alone in the room anymore. "Uh, I made sure that the shower and all are clean after I was done, so no random strands of hair anywhere." He grinned as he started folding the clothes he had on earlier.
IZZY
“Okay, gross on the random strands of hair, but thank you for keeping things tidy. With Sean being a baby but his personality being mostly intact, I think he might have an aneurysm at the sight of mess and the inability to fix it,” she mentioned with a slight chuckle.
It was an attempt to keep things light, but Izzy was nothing if not direct. It was the trait that kept her friendship with Keagan, Ayden, and Blake as strong as it was. They were all direct and suffered from massive R.B.F. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I probably got a bit weird there for a bit, but I just want to make sure you know it wasn’t because of anything _you_ did. You’ve been as good a help tonight as our little Krav Maga girl has allowed you to. I really do appreciate that you’re more than willing to step up this time, and I’m sure the kids just need some time to settle all of their grown up emotions in their tiny baby bodies.”
BRAXTON
At the apology, Braxton dropped what he was doing to walk over and took her hands gently in his, "Well, while it.. uh.. it's a bit discouraging, but it's sorta obvious that there wasn't much I could do.. so I figured that I should just remove myself from the situation otherwise T wasn't going to sleep if she keeps yelling at me. Can't say I didn't completely expect it. It sorta is because I didn't do my duty as a dad before .. that, and she always did like spending time with Ayden and Aves when they were younger." He sighed, "I'm also an idiot, so while I really hope that I won't screw up, I feel like it's inevitable for me to mess up somewhere even if I do put all my efforts into it. Like, I still can't believe my gym is where it is today too."
IZZY
There was a pang of guilt she felt when he took her hands in his and began speaking. It only grew as he proceeded to state how he felt _he'd_ be the one to mess things up. Izzy still refused to address the 'why' behind it, and instead swapped their hands so now she was holding his instead. "Braxton Walker Rendall, that gym is the biggest testament to the fact that it's not a lack of ability, it's a lack of will that often causes you problems. Yes, Tomi's likely not happy about how you acted when she was younger, but on the flip-side of that coin, if you ask Luke she'd probably rave about what amazing brother you were. The difference was just what role you were _willing_ to take on. And since this time, you're clearly more than willing to be her daddy, she's going to see it soon enough. Just give her some time. She did _magically_ morph from a legal adult back to an infant just a few hours ago."
BRAXTON
The beta only smiled when Izzy reassured him - as she had done numerous times before since they were kids. Of course, there was always logic behind her words and Brax did believe in them, that all of this was going to take time which was something he already expected. However, it still felt discouraging to have your own kid yell at you as a baby and have her mellow out just a bit once she was handed off to someone else. "That's really all I can do right now, give her time." he chuckled before slipping his hands out of hers and set them onto her shoulders, then proceeded to turn her around in the direction of the bathroom. "Meanwhile, I think you could use some Z's, so clean up and stuff."
IZZY
She didn't fight him as he pushed her in the direction of the bathroom. Izzy desperately wanted a long, hot shower -even if she knew that what she needed to scrub clean would not be achieved in the process... "Alright, alright. Who am I to argue against my Beta," she snarked as she finally made it to the shower. Once in there, instead of halcyon she found the opposite, so it was far shorter than she'd planned for. Regardless, she took her time getting making sure her natural hair got everything it would need to survive the tugs to come, and getting into her PJs.
As she came out of the bathroom, she tossed her clothes and towels into the hamper in the corner of the room before picking it up and saying, "I'm going to go ahead and take this down to the laundry room and check in to make sure everyone else is sorted."
BRAXTON
When he was left alone again, he slipped into bed with his laptop. While office work was his least favourite thing to do, he figured that he should get ahead in order to find more time in his schedule to be with the kids. Considering that there were four kids to look after, he also wanted to make sure that he could back up his claim of being there for Izzy and them. The point was to *not* burden Izzy with all the work after all.
He had no idea how long it was but he barely gone through a few emails before she emerged from the bathroom. He looked up, almost expected the other to be coming into bed, but instead found her holding the hamper. "Oh, yeah. No problem. I've got a few things to work on before I sleep anyways."
IZZY
The pang of guilty returned at his reply, but once again she pushed it down and did as she said she would. The task took less than five minutes, but it gave her something to do that felt productive. On her way back from the laundry room, she caught sight of Ayden's truck out front, and so she went ahead and deadbolted the door and set the alarm. As she made it to the second floor, she checked in with the Dawsons to ensure everything was all right. She made a pit-stop in the nursery just to ensure all was still calm. She made it as far as standing in front of Ayden's door with a raised hand to knock, only to drop it by her side and shake her head. Whatever she'd unearthed _there_ could wait. Tonight, Brax was waiting and the least she could do was not keep him up too long.
Crawling into bed, she turned on the baby monitor on her nightstand. "I know we're likely to hear anything in the nursery much clearer just with our wolf hearing, but it's a comfort to know there's a backup. Now go on, put that thing away. We're going to be zombies if the kids don't sleep through the night, no need to add to it."
BRAXTON
Braxton felt that he hadn't focused like that since highschool because he managed to get through a few things in the short time Izzy was away and so, when she returned, he put away his laptop and slid in further into bed. The moment his head hit the pillow, he turned to his side so he could face her. "See I was thinking about this.. What if we ask if one of the witches could sound proof the place - except for the rooms with the babies obviously. So we can hear the babies, but we can't hear anyone in the other rooms? That way we don't have to be worried about uh.. the kids picking up on things they shouldn't listen to."
"But you're right, we can think about all of this tomorrow. Gotta get as much sleep we can." He chuckled before leaning in and give the other a quick peck. "Good night." He whispered with a dumb smile on his face. "...It's so weird now that I shaved..."
IZZY
Izzy just looked at him and said, "See, I told you that braincell in there works perfectly fine. Just gotta let it warm up first is all. I'll text Blake in the morning." She wasn't exactly expecting the quick kiss -not that it was anything long enough for that to show through- but she smiled at him after nonetheless. "If you think that's weird, you should consider what it's like for those of us that shave all sorts of other body hair. Sweet dreams."
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hermes pochette kelly 21
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Breeding Kink
I’m taking this as a kink instead so I hope that’s alright for the request! I apologize if it isn’t! I treated them like drabbles and if I’m honest I’m a bit disappointed in my work ;-; this rose tea is not my best.
Illumi
You opened your door to your pitch-black apartment with the same sluggishness and tiredness you had walking all the way from your work to here. Today had been one of those days, and those were fine once in a while...but the entire week? No, that was not normal. You had been on edge and stressed to the point of burning out. So the plans for this evening consisted of showering, eating something quick, and just dying on your bed. That was until you noticed the figure sitting on your sofa.
Illumi's back was to you; he was so still and quiet, you might as well think he fell asleep while sitting.
"You're late," his voice cut through the silence.
"I didn't know I was expected," you replied, and it was the truth; Illumi had left for a week on a job and didn't even called you. You weren't feeling particularly forgiving this evening, and the edge of your tone contrasted the calm and monotony in his
"It's been a long day, Illumi, is there anything I can do for you?"
Your relationship wasn't the best when it came to normal; there was a lot of miscommunication or lack of it. But Illumi did his best, he was interested in you, and that didn't happen often.
"As my love interest, you should always expect me is a quality that every wife should have. It's their job to wait for their husbands no matter how long they take" Illumi turned slightly to look into your eyes as he talked.
You perked up at the word wife; he had never made allusions to marriage, at least not directly like this. You knew his goals when it came to relationships. Still, you always expected him to leave you in the end for someone more suitable, almost royalty. After all, his parents were very demanding, and you knew you didn't fit the role of the perfect wife, starting with the fact that you worked a regular job and haven't found your nen if you even had one.
"But we're not married, Illumi. Besides, I don't think your parents would approve of someone as vain as me. I'm not strong, and I don't meet the qualifications. So..." you shrugged in the end, dropping your keys on the counter and your bag nearby.
Your hand went to flip the switch; all this talk in the darkness was unnerving you, especially when you took into consideration Illumi was an assassin. Right when you flipped the switch, Illumi's hand was on your wrist, turning off the lights once more. You could feel his toned chest as he pulled you close to him. For a second, you struggled in a fight or flight response, and Illumi's face went to the crook of your neck. His breath on your neck sent chills down your spine as he planted a feather-like kiss on your pulse. The action almost threatening, and it made you swallow. The fear and desire burned equally in your veins as he stretched your clothes, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses all the way to your shoulder.
"I think I've given you too much freedom. Do you think you're in control in this relationship?" He whispered to your shoulder, his other hand holding you tightly to him. "Do you think you can talk back to me just because you're tired? If you're going to be my wife, you need to learn how to behave properly."
Illumi slammed you down on the island counter, both of your hands twisted on your back held with one hand. You gasped and yelped as he did so. Whether it was from desire or fear, you didn't know. He bent over you, leaning close to the side of your head, nibbling your earlobe and whispering.
"Don't worry, I'll teach you" Illumi's free hand caressed your side, going down and squeezing everything he could. "The first lesson is to obey my every command. Can you do that?"
You nodded frantically, and he tilted his head innocently as if he wasn't holding you down or grinding into your hips slowly.
"Good girl" Illumi turned your body so you'd be laying on your back facing him. His hands went to your shirt, ripping it open, sending the buttons flying all around.
"Second, we have to continue the Zoldyck Legacy..." Illumi caressed a trail down your stomach and undid his pants, his eyes never leaving yours.
"I'll ensure you're filled to the brim, just to be sure it takes. We still have all night to try."
Hisoka
Hisoka had managed to find you where you were staying. You were on a short business trip. After he had disappeared to go on another gig, you didn't think it would matter if you actually did the same for the same reason. But Hisoka didn't like that. Like the petulant child he is, he was expecting to arrive home and be received and welcomed with a nice meal and some more relaxing activities afterward. But all he got was a nicely written note on the counter explaining your absence.
P.S feed your cat dummy :)
"Hmm," the cat meow made him look down to the fluff currently sitting at his feet, "She left you too, huh? Well, at least you welcomed me." He said in a bitterly playful tone.
After feeding the adorable and fearsome beast that guarded your apartment, he went on to look for you. He wanted your attention, and he wanted it now.
You had been staying at a company-paid hotel near the station. It was a relatively short trip, three days max, counting on everything going according to the agenda. After you had finished your last reports, you were set for a nice shower and sleep. Your stomach growling said otherwise, though. So you ordered some room service and went to shower quickly just in case the food came. When you were out in your robes, there was a knock on the door.
"Coming"
You opened the door, still drying your hair, when you looked up at the man serving you. It was Hisoka. Somewhere along the way, after he figured where you were, he had seen the boy coming up with your food, and once that was temporarily disposed of, he went on to serve you.
"Mmm, hello (Y/N)-Chan, how lovely to see you" he rolled the cart inside the room and closed the door by slamming you into it.
"Hisoka, w-what are you doing here?"
"I was lonely and bored. You left me all alone" He licked a trip up your neck all the way to your cheek.
"You leave alone all the time; what's the difference?" You were angry at that statement, 'how dare he?'
Hisoka's eyes widened for a split second, but not in shock, more in amusement.
"Oh," he chuckled, the tone dangerous, "my bad, little pet, I didn't realize this was such a sensitive topic" his tone was whimsical and mocking.
"Here, let's eat, and maybe you'll feel better" without giving you a chance, Hisoka grabbed your arms and flung you into the bed.
After your first release, you felt tired. You had been working nonstop for these two days. Your eyes closed, and his half-lidded ones are the last thing you remember.
"You actually passed out, doll. Was our sexy time too much to handle, or have I been mistreating you all these weeks I wasn't there, hmm~?"
You let out a breath at his playful look. He was rubbing circles on your exposed stomach while straddling you.
"Mmm, I think you're not relaxed enough; we might as well try again. After all, you let all my efforts slip out; I'll have to work hard to fill you up again~" he pouted playfully, looking over your tired form. "Don't worry, you can sleep while I'm at it, little fruit."
Chrollo
You were currently perched on your island counter chair like a vulture looking down at its prey. The entire week had been a mess of deadlines, due dates, and unhelpful people. To say you were stressed was an understatement. You were so stressed you no longer felt stressed.
That's how Chrollo found you when he entered your house. He could've used the front door, but he wanted to surprise you, and now he was worried about your confused face staring down the laptop screen.
You were so concentrated that when his hand laid on your shoulder, you jumped with a yelp.
"Argh, don't scare me like that," you chuckled, giving him a quick peck on the cheek but immediately turned to the computer screen once more.
Chrollo pouted slightly. He had been gone for an entirety of two weeks because of a small job; the least he expected was to be received with kisses, praise, and hugs like it was a kings parade.
He understood the stress, but he wasn't having it.
"Have you eaten anything?" He casually asked.
"Not really, but I can make you something if you want?" Chrollo gave a small smiled at the fact that you'd roll were willing to attend to him. You just needed to relax.
"Don't worry, love, I'll go shower" you nodded, and he turned, making his way down the hall and disappearing. You heard the water turn on muffled because of the closed door.
While you were concentrated on your work Chrollo slipped out of the bathroom, he grabbed you by the waist, spinning you and slamming you against the wall. His lips were possessive and angry as he kissed you. Sandwiched between his toned chest and the wall, you tried to push him back but eventually gave in to the way his fingers caressed your sides, his tongue forced yours into submission, and how he grinds his hips suggestively.
"Chrollo," you gasped when he finally let go of your swollen lips to suck on the skin of your neck. "I have to w-work."
At the mention of it, he bit down hard on your shoulder, making you Yelp.
"No more work" he licked the bite, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses. "I just returned, expecting my little darling to receive me with kisses and at least one hug. But instead," his free hand grabbed your hips tightly enough to bruise, "you've overworked to the bone" your hands held his head close to your chest, ruffling his hair in the process and making him look even hotter.
"I-I"
"It's alright, I know how you can make it better" kiss on your shoulder.
"for both of us" kiss on your jaw.
"I'm going to shower, and you're coming with me; after getting on your knees for me, you can let me fill you up nicely."
"But-t" a moan slipped your lips as his knee went between your legs.
"And if you keep protesting, I'll just keep stuffing you until you can't think straight. See if you can work after that"
I hope this was good! I’m sorry if I butchered this 😭
#hisoka x reader#hisoka fanfiction#hunter x hunter fanfic#hunter xhunter#hxh#hisoka x y/n#hisoka morrow x reader#hisoka x you#hisoka morrow#illumi hunter x hunter#illumi x reader#illumi x you#illumi x y/n#chrollo hxh#chrollo x reader#chrollo x y/n#fanfiction requests
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Long Fall Into Oblivion (Ezra x reader)
(header by sirtadcooper - check out the whole beautiful set here.)
Rating: Mature.
Pairing: Ezra (post-Prospect film) x f!reader
Warnings: Non-explicit sex. Some swears maybe (think there’s a f*ck in there somewhere, my GOODNESS). A lot of gooey, syrupy, soft fluffety fluff. Author attempts at writing Ezra dialogue. A lot of chewy prose.
A/N: I can’t believe I’m posting this, but here goes. I love Ezra. He is a man of questionable morality and an insufferable tongue and I really shouldn’t. But I really do. I just wanted to give him a try. I’ve softened him up here, putting a few years on him so maybe he’s fluffed up some since the events in the film. Also I just ignored the fade or assumed that aurelac mining was still happening because scarcity/demand. Doesn’t matter. Just wanted to go exploring.
Summary: You take a job as an aurelac prospecting trainee and Ezra shows you the ropes. You’re gonna fall in love with him. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
TAGLIST: you can always request to be on the taglist for this or any of my work. If you’d like to be on taglists for upcoming fic, please sign up here –> TAGLIST
MASTERLIST
________________
Bakhroma is one of the smallest gas giants in the sector, but as you stand on the surface of the Green Moon, it dominates the entire horizon, pulling your focus, threatening to engulf everything around it. You almost feel sorry for the lush moon as you walk through its undergrowth, so gentle and full of beauty, destined many years after you’re gone to give its life to her.
A moon is an orbiting admirer, and what is an orbit but a long fall to oblivion?
There’s a painful, sour ache in your heart as you walk back to the camp in twilight, watching the back of Ezra’s helmet bob along in front of you. You’d spent two days digging that claim only to find the weakest aurelac nest you’ve seen yet, only three viable nodes. You’d dug through one of them by accident and completely melted another like an incompetent fool. Kevva’s ass, you were such a disappointment. Three months in the Green and you still can’t cut a blister out properly. Not even once.
Ezra’s shoulders are wide and tense, his one hand splayed out as he walks, running over the tops of the tall ferns, catching one every now and then only to rip the top away, twirl it between his gloved fingers and toss it impatiently aside.
The other two members of your team headed out on a sling this morning, another two will be arriving in a few days. And you wonder if Ez regrets just not cutting his losses and leaving with them, or at least sending you back in exchange for another kip.
You think about shifting through the comm channels, hoping that he’s chattering away in one of them, switched without your knowledge, but it’s a lost cause. You can hear him breathing on the channel between you. It’s not often Ezra has nothing to say.
________________
You thought your father was leaving you an inheritance. It’s not the reason you took care of him through his illness, but you’d dropped everything to be back home with him through his final months. In a way, it was a blessing, a reason to quit the Dasha factory and the terrible working conditions there, come back home and focus on your dad, relive good memories, just spend time. The reconnection lifted your heart, but his death sank it low again. When you learned he had nothing to leave you but a small house and some old vehicles, you sold what you could and traded in the rest.
Then you had nothing. No family, no job, little savings, questionable future. It almost broke your spirit. But the last few months with your father rekindled your love of him as he told you about his years in the Fringe, mining and prospecting. And your heart had said, “what the hell, let’s try that.” So you listened.
It took some time to track down the right inroads, but you were able to find some ads for prospecting teams, in particular those who were willing to take on members in training for a re-distributed cut. With all provisions included--other than suit and gear, which your father’s inheritance neatly covered--it seemed like just as good of a deal as any, and an adventure to boot.
But the reality was, every team you met with was full of hardened men, and while you were not a soft Central woman, you also weren’t overly versed in weaponry and didn’t know if you could defend yourself out in the Fringe against attack if things got crusty.
You were just about ready to admit defeat when you walked into yet another conference bunker and found your match. The first thing you noticed was that he was standing when you arrived, waiting for you politely rather than manspread at the table. Second were his eyes. Deep, brown, and sad. Maybe sad was the wrong word, certainly it seemed by the lines in his face, possibly by the missing arm, that he’d seen enough sadness, but toward you, it read more as concern. You wouldn’t know it until later when he confessed his feelings about this first meeting, but he was worried you wouldn’t choose him. Ezra had a hell of a time hiring partners. He may have been one of the longest-working aurelac diggers out there, but young kippers saw his greying beard and seasoned diggers saw his lacking arm and they all tended to turn around and walk out before he even said hello. So he’d tried to put himself out there as a trainer, show that he had something more to offer.
It didn’t hurt his feelings when you admitted to him later that those qualities were exactly why you chose him. He seemed the opposite of threatening. And his eyes were bright when he smiled at you. With his thrumming baritone and his Fringe twang and his mixed deck of mosaic words, he had a way of speaking that felt like a fluffy blanket curling around you, your brain vibrating with comfort at every new monologue. He was eccentric and perhaps a little jarringly rough in his humor at times, but there was something about him that you trusted immediately, even though you’d come to learn later you probably shouldn’t have if you were being overly cautious.
Not that your judgement ever came to detriment. Not that he ever proved you wrong that way. Not when it came to you. But the man was dangerous when he had to be in a way you hadn’t initially picked up on.
________________
You hadn’t been out in the Green two weeks before you looked up from the bottom of a dig hole to see Ezra standing over you with a thrower.
“You get down and you stay down, understand?”
“Ez? What--”
“I said stay down! Do not make me waste words on mere repetition!” The fuzzy blanket of his voice replaced suddenly by a snarling, snapping brush wolf, a quick change hitting you like a slap in the ear.
There’d been pops and whizzes as shots rang through and you did as your trainer said, face down, the view of your visor giving you nothing but dirt. Your helmet was a chorus of quick breathing from both of you and sweat rolled down your neck as you begged the eyes of Kevva to look down upon your partner. When the crossfire faded, you’d heard Ezra stalk away. Then there were a couple more shots. Then more footsteps returning.
“You are permitted to stand, trinket. All is well as it can be for us. But not so much for our dearly departed friends.” These words were as soothing as much as his previous ones had burned, and he simply went back to working at the dig at hand as if he’d just come back from taking a leak. It wasn’t until you left the site that evening that you tramped past two rotting raiders, gaudily outfitted with broken face shields, left to let the Green take them.
Ezra whistled as he stepped over them, stopping only to harvest their filters and munition rods, which he tossed your way to stow in your pack, and then continued lazily down the path toward camp. Just another day on the job.
He may be a little peculiar and not someone to trifle with, he may have just killed two people without remorse or further comment, but his lack of reassuring words told you that this was just part of the deal. You wear the suit, you use the air scrubber in the tent, you follow the landing pod instructions as written, and you defend yourself against those who wish to harm you. Survival by any and all means is paramount, mundane, and something he has no qualms with on any level.
There was something deep down inside of you that instinctually pulled you to follow him, not just down the literal path before you, but whatever path Ezra chose to wander.
________________
Before you’d left the station with him, he’d taken you to a thrower range to gauge your skill which was decent in theory, but dismal compared with what he could do. No matter, he still patiently taught you how to properly clean and charge a weapon and the best way to breathe and pull the trigger; “like you’re taking hold of a man’s...well... Just go easy and firm.” He suggested you should come and practice every day before lift off and then hope to Kevva that you didn’t have to rely too heavily on it.
“If I find myself in a coffin of my own suit, then feel free to defend yourself as a final means of preservation. Otherwise, when it comes down to shots fired, best to let me do the dirty work. Might as well keep the blood where the blood has been.”
You’d been a little nervous about sharing a freighter pod alone with him, but Ezra was...well, not so much a gentleman as just a comfortable soul.
He always waited until you were hungry to eat, thinking it rude to eat alone in front of you. He never moved around the pod while you were sleeping, content to keep still with a book in his cot. And if you couldn’t sleep, he was always willing to read to you from whatever impossibly dense old world classic he was digging through for the umpteenth time, letting his voice come up from the deeps and pull you gently under. If you asked permission to turn on the radio, he’d ask you “why Isn’t it on yet, woman,” quietly tolerating your taste in harsh and gleeful babblecore pshcyopop. In the later days of the journey, he’d even come to dance with you from time to time, although both of you were dismal at it and ended up with you in a fit of giggles. It was a sure-fire way to cure a case of the pouts you carried through from the morning fitness sessions when he beat you at pushups. Again.
When it came to privacy in the tight space, he had a habit of turning away without having to be asked or stopping his stream of talk when you went to change clothes, just happily chattering away until you called the all clear. Although he was not squeamish about his own state of undress, should you happen to catch it by accident. While he was respectful of your privacy, he seemed to need none of his own, but neither did he flaunt anything. You might look up from studying the flight manual to notice he was changing into a fresh pair of compression pants, tugging them on haphazardly with one hand, more concerned with telling you the overwhelmingly disgusting manufacturing process of Bits Bars than his own ass hanging out where you might see it. At least he always changed facing away from you which was a kindness.
Until it wasn’t.
After you realized you’d fallen quietly in love with him--a sudden, soft moment on the Green--then you’d admit only privately to yourself that you wouldn’t mind if you accidentally saw a little more than the occasional shirtless attire he might wear around the tent.
But in the pod, the only part of him that had caught your curiosity was his stump, and you’d known Ezra intensely enough over the past couple of weeks where you knew he wouldn’t take offense. Especially if you asked him the right way.
“Will you tell me a story, Ezra?”
“I feel that it is my duty to do so whether you ask me to or not. Shall I choose, or is there something in particular you would like to hear?”
He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, propped up against his cot, going through his kit, cleaning his gear. You waited until he noticed your lack of answer and looked up to meet your eyes. When he saw that you had put your manual down and were focusing all your quiet attention on him, he stopped his busy work.
When Ezra gives you his attention, it is absolute. When he knows you seriously need something from him, that becomes his immediate main priority and all else can wait. It’s only gotten more intense since that day, but there is a trust that resides between you when you look into his eyes, gathering your words as he waits patiently every time to hear whatever you’re going to request of him. There’s always hope there in his big browns, always something specific he’s waiting for you to ask, and every day you get a little bit closer to understanding what it might be. But until then, any question is a welcome one, any query is met with his wish to provide.
“Will you tell me how you lost your arm?”
At first you thought you may have gone too far, that maybe you insulted him, as his eyebrows peaked together and he looked down at his hand. But then, “That is a tale that may cause you some consternation, trinket. The Green is dangerous and unforgiving, and there were times I may not have been a man worthy of fair opinion.”
“My father was a prospector, you know. I’ve heard stories. Have you ever killed anyone?”
He clicked his tongue and screwed up an eye, causing the thin white scar on his cheek to twist. Then he sighed and returned to your locked gaze. “To be honest, I have. Though I have never done so with pleasure, I have killed in defense and out of desperation, and it was out of dispatching a man in this way that I came to lose the second favorite of all my appendages.”
“Second favorite?”
“Well, it depends what you classify as a limb.” He huffed a small laugh, a spark in his eye, trying to diffuse the harsh subject in his own way.
His leaning into baseness never bothered you. There was something earthy about it, gritty and rough, but never lewd. You rewarded his crassness with a smile. “Do you plan on killing me out in the Green?”
“I would hope my murdering days are behind me, and if they are not, you would see me aim a thrower at everyone but you in the course of my spree. You are under my tutelage, and for that, I owe you a duty of care. That is my word by Kevva.”
“Then tell me the story. I like your stories. I promise not to judge now-Ezra by then-Ezra.”
A dimple formed on his cheek, a punctuation mark framing the approaching anecdote on his lips. “Then I will declare myself absolved of any sin heretofore and regale you with a clean and grateful heart.”
________________
You can see the tent through the trees and you realize with some horror that it’s just you and Ezra for the next few nights. If he’s angry with you, and this is how he is when he’s upset, the silence will be unbearable.
Even that little girl he helped out here years ago was probably more capable than you. You feel so lost in this moment, and it’s only made worse by his silence. You fumble with your communicator and hit the mute just in time to choke on a sob.
This isn’t like you. You’re not one to cry when things get rough. You hardly shed a tear when your father died. But the thought of that just brings another sob and as acting as your own psychologist you realize that you are experiencing some displaced sorrow, the odd need to please the leading male in your life, the one that’s walking ahead of you, away from you. If he’d just turn around and throw you his worn weary smile, if he’d just start up a conversation you’d know that there was hope for you, you’d know you didn’t give up everything to be here in a job you couldn’t hack.
You gotta stop this. Or it’s going to be an uncomfortable night.
Shake it off.
Once you enter the tent, the usual dance happens. Ezra reaches up to turn on the air scrubber and you unhook his filter tube from his helmet. When he turns to you, you pull open the zipper cover on his suit and start his zip for him before lifting his helmet up and off. He can pull the zip the rest of the way, but you generally pull the left collar down for him so he can get his arm out. He’s on his own from there as you turn to fuss with your own gear.
________________
You remember it starting easily enough. He was telling you a story about the breeding habits of the Tokovian Musk Owl and you could see he was having trouble with his suit zipper, yanking at it and trying to look down at it even though it was under his chin and his helmet. Without another hand to keep the fabric taut, the zip didn’t want to release, so you simply batted his hand away and started it for him. He didn’t even stop his yammering, just threw in a “thank you” somewhere in between “could hear them screeching” and “for a fuck.” He’d right out asked you the day before if you wouldn’t mind disengaging the filter tube just because it was delicate and he didn’t want to mangle the expensive part trying to pop it out one-handed day after day. And while he could manage the helmet fine enough, his prominent nose thanked you for a smoother removal for sure.
It wasn’t the only routine dance you’d concocted.
There was the harness dance.
While dig days were excruciating, you always looked forward to helping him attach the harness for his prosthesis--a kind of rigid pole attached to a shovel so you didn’t have to do all the hard digging alone. There were a couple of straps that came around his torso with multiple latches and you’d come to really enjoy wrapping your arms around him to fit the straps on. Sure, you could do the job just as easily from behind, but if you embraced him at the front, he’d usually raise his arm and let it come to rest around your shoulders while you worked. If you let yourself dream, it would be easy to imagine that he might be pressing you into him just a little bit.
And there was the harvesting dance.
On a dig, you were the one to mix the fazer and Ezra did the pour. He fished the sack, you cut the cord. You sliced the outer casing and held it open while he did the extraction. And with the flesh-covered stone, he told you every time to “hold it like you love it” so he could cut away the slippery blister before cleaning the gemstone.
It was a beautiful harmony. And the only way it worked. Because once on every dig he urged you to do a solo extraction, and on every dig, you pierced the blister and lost that stone. And on every dig, he squeezed your shoulder and told you it was a wondrous try, that he was proud of you, and there would always be another turn. There was no sarcasm, no pity, just a warm smile and ceaseless optimism even though you just lost both of you thousands in pay.
These were the first touches, these shoulder squeezes that ran down your arm on the let-go. Sometimes he would just reach out and grab onto you like a pole to help himself up, or he might stumble off balance on uneven ground and without the counterweight of his right arm he’d throw his hand out onto you to steady himself. He wasn’t beyond lightly touching the small of your back to encourage you down a path or to take your next try at a gem pull.
This was all part of something you’ve secretly named the left-handed-lover’s dance. Basically, that you keep on his left whenever you can in case he needs your help or has the inclination to reach for you. It started out as just trying to be a good partner. Then it became a passing hope that it was more than just a friendly bond. But you were both here to do a job. He was here to teach you to be an independent prospector and you were here to assist and learn. That was evident at the end of the day; once you were both in the tent and out of the suits he never touched you, never so much as bumped into you or grazed your hand in passing an item or clapped you on the arm after a good joke.
But out in the field all zipped in and helmets on, there was nothing more natural than his gentle hand guiding you or reaching for your assistance, including the day you realized you loved him.
________________
Before you can turn away to strip off your own coverings, Ezra catches your arm, spinning your face into the light. You try to shake him off, not wanting him to catch your eyes puffy from crying and your cheeks still streaked with tears, but his grip is not so gentle now and he yanks you back around to his stormy glare, chin up, brows low. His intensity paralyzes you, rendering you unable to continue your struggle when he catches your eyes with his.
When Ezra gives you his attention, it is absolute.
His gaze travels back and forth between your eyes, waiting for an explanation, a minute so stringent it breaks you down, dissolves you into the tears you’d tried so hard to hide.
“I’m sorry, Ezra. I really am trying... I don’t know why I’m such a scuffer at this and I know it would only be right to release you from the contract and tell you to send me back but I don’t want you to, I really wanna stay, I really wanna learn and I’m so, so sorry.”
Your words have an immediate effect, softening him, pulling his glare into concern and wonder, his lips parting just the tiniest bit in surprise.
“This is the reason for your heavy mood? You think I am provoked by your proficiency in the field?”
“I crusted up good today and it seems like you’re not happy about it. Just...know that it means so much to me that...I don’t wanna let you down.”
“Oh, trinket, no.” An incredulous huff jumps out of him and his grip on your arm loosens, becomes a splayed warm support behind your shoulder, moving in soothing patterns and you’re instantly relieved that your assumptions were wrong. “You have done no harm in my book. It is not an easy thing to deliver a gem of this ilk into the world unscathed. Your opportunities have been few and scattered and it takes many sticks before a lover becomes a lothario.” He knows the crass humor will make you laugh, knows what to say to lighten your heart, to get you to soften, and bring you into his intimate, conspiratorial mood. “To be perfectly honest, I am selfish to an unrighteous degree, for every gem you burn keeps me in value to you. A worthy sacrifice to guarantee you mightn’t be so quick in your need to fly away from me until your training’s complete.”
This causes a hitch in your breath as you see the welcome turn the conversation he’s taking and you follow the path he’s making for you. “I don’t want to leave you, Ez.”
A smile creeps up one side of his mouth. “Well then I am a happy man. A bargain is struck! Partners it is.”
“Partners it is.”
A moment hangs between you as he rubs his thumb in slow circles on your shoulder. There’s that look in his eye again, the one where he’s waiting for you to ask the question he wants to hear from you. So close now.
Still, you’re unsure. “I guess I’m lucky I found the one person who wants an incompetent partner.”
“No, I do not, nor is it what I have and I must express my objection to your self-debasement. This work is not for the shiny, and you have not once complained about taking on the meat of the digging or the crawl of my schedule.” His hand comes to your helmet shield and he rakes his thumb across it as if he ached to wipe away one of your staleing tears. “Those bright eyes of yours got a penchant for spotting deposits more skillfully than I could ever manage and that’s not something that can be taught; that’s talent, girl. The blistering?” He shrugs. “Even I can’t manage that without the steady help of your fine hands. You may think that your blunders in education are causing us some financial ruin, but our fortunes are creamy. I assure you, we can afford it.”
That look is still there. He’s waiting. “There’s some ‘us’ and ‘we’ in there, Ez.” Your hands drift to his sides, taking fistfuls of his compression suit top, willing him closer.
The edges of his eyes take on the crinkle you’ve come to find so much comfort in. “So there is.”
You’re almost there. You know what he wants. “Why were you so quiet on the walk back?”
“Because for the next few days we are alone here and I have a mind full of questions I do not know how to ask you.”
“Then let me go first.” A yearning happiness settles in his brown eyes; finally. Finally you’ve found out what it is he needs you to request of him. “If I take this helmet off, are you going to kiss me, Ez?”
His eyes close in contentment and he nods, “Yes. Yes, little jewel. Yes I am, that and more. I hope I have inferred correctly that it is your wish that I do so, because I am in free fall. I feel my orbit ending and my pull to you is complete.”
_______________
“A moon is an orbiting admirer, and what is an orbit but a long fall to oblivion?”
Speculating days were some of your favorite times, just wading through the brush and looking for the telltale signs and shoots of an underlying deposit. Sometimes you came upon nests of strange groundling insects or flowers that only grew in secret. There were treasures underfoot on this poisonous moon, but if you remembered to look up as well, you might find some dangerous beauties there too.
On that day--the one where you finally understood your heart--you’d looked up to find that you were on a cliffside overlooking a valley, the canopy a million different hues of green, the gas giant looming over half the sky in a big pink and orange semi-circle. There was a fallen log that served as a perfect seat for the perfect view and you knew Ezra wouldn’t mind if you stole a few moments to sit and to take it in. It’s just the kind of thing he’d appreciate. And you were proven right when he came up behind you, putting a hand on your shoulder to steady himself as he swung one leg then the other over the log, finding a perch next to you, spouting pretty words through the channel link--soft and low--about moons and orbits and obilvions.
“That glowing beauty is Bakhroma. She is quiet and fierce, made up of the unfathomable and the unknowable, always within sight, but out of reach and untouchable unless one would trade the honor with great sacrifice. She reflects the light that is given to her with a patience that is heretofore untold. And the Green Moon upon which we ride follows where she goes like a lovesick fool, spinning around her in a heady kind of adoration, full of secret treasures buried deep down that will ultimately one day belong to her, falling incrementally over eons until he finally loses himself in her, all his glories gladly forfeit to her welcome and inevitable embrace. Alone but together, seemingly eternal, pulled as one by the laws of a mysterious universe.”
The void that came after those words was filled with the beating of your heart, and you were sure he could hear it through the channel.
When he’d landed there beside you, you’d registered how his hand slid off your shoulder, diagonally down across your back, coming to rest at your waist, his arm draped lightly around you. Natural. Easy. Everything was warm--the colors of the sky, the care with which he kept you close as if to better hear the honey sweetness in his prose, the fire burning in your lungs and neck.
Ezra probably didn’t know that you spoke a little Vayok.
Bakh being the Vayok word for adornment. Ornament, Gem. Roma was a modifier, a diminutive. Small. Dear.
Bakhroma. Sentimental bauble. A little jewel.
In other words, a trinket.
All you wanted to do was sit down to take in the view of an entire world for a few moments, but by the time Ezra took your hand and helped you to your feet, all you saw was him.
________________
The helmet is barely off before his lips are sealed to yours in a press of greed. Even if he can’t form words when he kisses you, he can’t help but express his deep relief in a heartbreaking moan. It’s a fight to release yourself from the suit when he keeps pulling you against him and every time you try to get some space between you to work the zipper, he chuckles into your mouth, enjoying the tease and the struggle. It’s simultaneously frustrating and thrilling and you give in for a few moments just to give him what he seems to want so desperately right now.
Ezra kisses like a man starved for air, long, hard, and full of need, peeling his lips away only to come back for another breath of you until his initial want is slaked and he slows, allows for more time between his taking, his mouth starting to mumble against yours, praising you with pet names, telling you how perfect you are to him, how long he’s “fought against my more dubious natures to respect your womanly virtues and take them only when you could see in me a man worth bestowing them on.”
You’re able to use his weakness for monologuing to turn around in his vice-like embrace, finally freeing yourself of the suit and he takes the opportunity to drawl more pretty words in your ear, warning you that “I’m afraid I have been enamored of you overly long and may be extra eager in my attentions. So you just say the word if you need a slow down, gentle one, and I will do my best to comply. Although I will admit it will be a difficult endeavor indeed as I feel I am entering your atmosphere and nothing might quell this burn but finding some drowning place to land.”
Your first impression of him was of a man whose age and temperament and body would not be able to overpower you.
Your first impression was wrong.
Of course, it helps that you are willing.
It doesn’t take long for him to strip you down, and then himself. To kiss you down onto the floor. To find exactly where you like to be touched most and how long it takes for you to break from it. He has so many words for you, so many praises to sing about every part of you that is round or soft or wet, comparing you to things that are sweet and plush or celestial and holy. And when you take his favorite limb in hand--as wondrous as the rest of his body--and guide it to its fit, he plunders and harvests all you have to give him, filing you with himself, for as long as you call for it, as long as you let him. He loves you like he speaks to you: rough and drawn out, full of beautiful tangents and meandering plotlines, but in the end it is beautiful and fulfilling; you may be just a little bit confused how you got to the ending, but you’re completely in awe.
When you lay breathing heavy, staring but not seeing the ceiling of the tent, your consciousness seemingly lifted to see through it to the stars, to the glowing face of Bakhroma, you run hands through rough-chopped hair on a head laying on your chest. He’s listening to your heartbeat, waiting for it to slow down so he can start again. The air is thick--even the air scrubber can’t keep up with all your humidity--and there’s a halo around each bulb of the string lights just barely illuminating the darkness.
“How long, Ez?”
“Hm?”
“How long have you been waiting for that.”
“Most likely since the day you walked into my interview. I am a man of simple wants and you had all the right parts for my preferences.”
“For real, Ez.”
He tipped his head up to find you. “What you ask has many true answers, and I stand by the first. I have no qualms telling you of my weakness for a pretty succulence and a kind smile the likes of which you possess. But if you are asking when I knew I would have it, well, that may have been the first day you danced. Or when you asked me to read you to sleep. Or when I understood I wouldn’t let those bastard raiders get near enough to take their turn at your qualities when I had not had them myself. Or when you finally saw me as a viable person to drape your affections on; maybe it was that day too.”
“When I finally saw you as....”
“I have read many tomes and verses but none so full of beautiful passages as your face that day on the cliff. There is a difference of knowing and being. I knew the feel of your pull that day, but found I’d been in orbit all along.”
How he can live this way, twist everything into a tossed away poem...it should be exhausting. Yet you feed off it. You breathe it like air.
After another long cycle of frenzied entanglement and violent euphoria, you ask Ezra if he’d like to move to a cot, maybe get some sleep. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to walk to the dig tomorrow morning,” you confess.
“No need to worry about tomorrow,” he says, wapping his arm around you and dragging you back to him, grumbling into your ear. “We are the only prospectors in this sector and the aurelac will wait. Until our new compatriots arrive, we are officially on hiatus. Recreational mining only. Restricted to the confines of this tent. By order of your supervisor. In the interest of more precious treasures. And I intend to strike it rich.”
“Well. I’m here to assist. And learn.”
“When it comes to this dig, trinket, you are more than competent. I am no longer your trainer. Partners it is.”
“Partners it is.”
The new contract is struck, signed and sealed in kissing and in touch and a long, slow fall into inevitable oblivion.
#ezra x reader#ezra/reader#ezra prospect#prospect fanfic#prospect fanfiction#pedro pascal#soft#soft ezra
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The Princess of all Saiyans
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Masterlist
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Hey Everyone! It's been a while. My life's been kind of hectic the past couple of months. Long story short: I Graduated from Highschool this year, so I was busy with everything having to do with that. Then my summer job sadly prevented me from writing as well. And then I started College, which was a big change for me. For now, there are no more chapters in my life opening or closing. Now I'm finally in a place where I feel comfortable continuing this book again. I could've honestly been writing during all of this chaos. But I wouldn't have been pleased with the quality of my writing. I'm really excited to get back into the swing of things. I don't think this chapter panned out the way I originally planned, but I'm still happy with it. As always, I hope you enjoy it. And if you have any comments or concerns, feel free to let me know. My inbox is always open!
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Chapter 11
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You've been walking for quite some time now, and the experience has been excruciating. You haven't been in this much pain since you and Raditz were on planet Telia, ten-something years ago. Those damn underlings were able to get a good sneak attack on you. Though you can't say, you let them get away scot-free. You made sure to make their entire dreadful race pay for that injury. You and Raditz had covered up that incident, much like you're doing with your current injury.
"So---" You can hear Goku talking to Krillin from just slightly left of you. "Did you guys find the senzu beans?" Wow, Kakarot may be the least subtle creature you've ever encountered.
"Ya." Krillin chuckles. "All four of us were in pretty rough shape." Goku glances at you with a worried look on his face. You glare at him as Raditz eyes the two of you skeptically. He knows something's off between the two of you. Maybe something serious did happen while you and his brother were trapped together.
A bit more time has passed, and you've been trying your best to keep up with the others. But it isn't as easy as you thought. You're now trailing behind the rest of them, with Raditz turning back to look at you every so often. The largest Saiyan slows down to catch up with your slower pace, now walking beside you.
He turns to you, whispering in a low tone. "Something's off." Raditz can no longer stay silent about his concerns. First, it was the strange vibes between you and Kakarot. And now it's your out-of-character demeanor making him uneasy.
"About what?"
"You. Typically you walk beside your brother, and when he doesn't let you, you make sure you're always only a few paces behind. But right now, you couldn't be more content to trail everyone. Plus, you're far too confident to not be in the very front." Raditz has been around far too long for your liking. Damn him. He knows you far too well, and you hate him for it.
You roll your eyes at him. "So this conclusion of yours is based on the way I'm walking? I'm tired. When I fought, Burter, that physically drained me. And then I got trapped in a ditch with your moronic brother, that mentally drained me. I'm exhausted, Raditz."
"It's not just the way you're walking. It's your mannerisms as well." He points at your side. "Your hand hasn't moved from your side from the moment I first saw you."
"God, Raditz." You scoff. "Stop overanalyzing everything."
"Getting defensive now? That's your M.O whenever you're hiding something." He looks back and forth between your face and your hand that has remained glued to your side. The gears in the older Saiyan's head slowly but surely turning. " Y/N, are you hurt?"
"No." You snap your eyes shut, biting your lip hard enough to draw blood in an attempt to suppress a wince of pain. "I'm fine."
He tilts his head at you. "Y/N, I know you claim otherwise, but I'm not stupid. I know you're in pain."
You chuckle softly in a self-pitying way. "Am I that easy to read?"
Raditz shakes his head, smiling to himself. "No, I've just known you for a long time now." He returns to his serious demeanor, his gaze returning to the area of your wound. "How bad is it?"
"I barely feel it at all. Though, climbing out of that ditch must have reopened the cut."
Raditz snickers. "You're a bad liar."
"That's strange. I've been told in the past that I'm quite good at lying."
A smirk spreads across Raditz's lips. "Well, you apparently aren't when I'm involved."
The larger Saiyan glances at the back of your brother's head. You respond with a glare, firmly pulling on a large chunk of his hair. You know what Raditz wants to do, and it's not happening. "Don't even think about it."
"I-I think we should tell him Y/N."
"No." You let go of his hair, tapping his chest with extreme force. "You're going to keep your big mouth shut. Vegeta will freak out. You know how irrational he gets."
Raditz decides to let you have your way--- for now. The man can't help but wonder why you're so stubborn, but then again, his nature isn't much different from yours.
With every minute that passes, your condition only seems to worsen. Your eyes even start to droop. "Y/N?" Raditz turns to you, his features beginning to fill with worry. He places one of his large hands on your forehead. You're burning up. "You have a fever. Your wound must be infected."
"No." You shake your head in disagreement, almost like a child. As your mental state becomes more and more delirious.
"Vegeta!" Raditz shouts, gaining your brother's attention.
"Fuck you, Raditz! You're such a blabbermouth!" You shout at the larger Saiyan in front of you.
"What's wrong this time? Is my sister trying to pull you into another one of her elaborate schemes?"
"Y/N's hurt--- bad." Vegeta's eyes widen, and not even a millisecond later, he rushes to your side. "She has a fever. I think her cut is infected."
"Where is it?" He crosses his arms at you, noticing your hand placed firmly on your side. He moves your hand out of the way with ease, lifting your armor. "How did this happen?"
"Burter nicked me during our fight. It's no big deal."
"No big deal? It's infected, you stupid woman!" He turns his attention to Kakarot. "Did you know about this?"
You snicker. "Oh ya, Vegeta. I get hurt, and the first person I run to tell is Kakarot." Vegeta's fists clench at your sarcastic remark, turning his fit of rage back at you.
"You know, in certain situations, you're more prone to infections. And a planet like Namek checks all of the boxes! You know you need to be more careful. Damn our mother and her faulty genetics!" Sadly that's a trait you had inherited from your mother. On most planets, you'd be fine, and injuring yourself would be no big deal. But Namek has specific conditions that result in you being more vulnerable.
"Raditz, pick her up." Raditz picks you up, giving you a piggyback ride. You wrap your arms around his neck, giving yourself better balance. Vegeta glances up at you. He looks even madder than usual. "With the condition, you're in, you will not be fighting. You will stay away from Jeice, and you won't even enter the same proximity as Ginyu. Do you understand me?"
"But--"
"No!" His voice booms, gaining the attention of every creature for miles. "I'm not kidding around. Do you understand me?"
You bite your lip, tilting your head downwards, avoiding your brother's gaze like the plague. "Yes, Vegeta." Vegeta returns to the front of the group, his mood sourer than ever.
As Raditz begins to walk, he starts talking to you again. "Are you mad at me?" You don't verbally respond. Instead, you claw into his shoulders, your nails digging into his flesh. "Fuck. I'll take that as a yes."
"You're a tattletale."
Raditz chuckles. "No wonder why Vegeta babies you. You'll thank me for this later, you stubborn woman. And I've kept your secrets before, handfuls of them, actually. Like what happened on planet Telia----" Raditz realized the grave mistake he had just made, mentioning that incident in the presence of the very being you worked so hard to hide it from.
You slap the older Saiyan upside the head as Vegeta turns backward, a scowl plastered on his face. "What happened on plant Telia?" It was a rhetorical question, mocking both you and Raditz. "Oh, the three of us will be discussing this in length later. Because it sounds to me like you both lied to me on that initial report." You and Raditz gulp, you've heard that tone from your brother millions of times now, and it has never once become any less terrifying.
"Oh, lighten up, Geta." You groan. "That was like, what? Around thirteen years ago?"
"The amount of time that has passed matters very little to me. As I said before, this is a discussion for later."
A few more hours have passed, which honestly feels like days at this point. And considering Namek's strange day cycle, it very well could've been. "How much farther?" Your question was clearly directed at Vegeta. And at this point, you're not even sure he has any idea where you're headed either.
"I don't know why you're the one complaining." Raditz huffs. "You're not the one doing all of the walking! And if you ask him that one more time, I'm going to drop you." Ok so maybe, that wasn't the first time you've asked that question today. Or the second, or third, you're very bored.
"Man Raditz." You roll your eyes, which are barely open at this point. "You sure complain--- a lot."
"You were just complaining." The long-haired Saiyan grumbles.
"No, I simply asked Vegeta a question. There's a difference Raditz. I know it's hard for your feeble mind to understand." When you're sick, you tend to act, oh what's the word? Bitcher than normal. And that's saying a lot.
Raditz clenches his jaw. "Vegeta. I need a break from your sister."
"That's how I felt ninety percent of the time I was stuck in a room with you, Nappa, and Cado. And you didn't see me running to wine to Frieza about it."
Before Raditz can retort, your brother interjects. "That's enough! From both of you!"
Krillin, Gohan, and Goku have identical bewildered expressions on their faces. Krillin turns to Vegeta, lowering his voice to a whisper. He doesn't want to be the next victim of your wrath. "Do they always fight like this?" The human finds this perplexing. Back on Earth, the pair seemed inseparable. They appeared to be the Saiyan equivalent of what on Earth would be considered best friends.
Vegeta lets out an exaggerated sigh. "Yes, but typically it's more playful in nature. When my sister is sick, she becomes even brattier than usual."
Vegeta's warning to both of you seems to have fallen on dead ears. Because your quarrel has not ceased, in fact, it has only elevated. "I will drop you, you royal brat!"
"I dare you to you second-class runt. I could still kick your ass even in my delirious state. I wouldn't even have to try very hard."
"I'm considering----"
Before Raditz can even get three words out, your bickering is once again interrupted, and not by the person you may think. "Enough!" Gohan shouts. You honestly forgot the others were here for a moment."If you two keep fighting like this, you're going to get all of us killed!" You and Raditz stare at the boy in shock. It's been a long time since the two of you have been yelled at by a child. The last time being when you were children yourselves. Vegeta hasn't changed much since childhood. He's been bossing you around and shouting at you since you were children, but I'm sure that's not very surprising.
"Ya, and I can take Y/N---- if you need a break." Goku rubs the back of his neck, chuckling sheepishly. "Not that I want to hold Y/N or anything."
"No." You rapidly shake your head. "Raditz, I'm sorry. I'll be good now--- I promise."
A wicked grin spreads across Raditz's lips right before he grabs your hands with his larger ones. He loosens your grip around his neck, moving your body with ease, scooping you up into his arms. Every step Raditz takes toward Goku seems even more antagonizing slower than the last. Until he's standing directly in front of his younger brother. He elevates his arms slightly, dropping you right in front of an unsuspecting Goku.
Lucky for you, Goku has sharp reflexes. That allows the Saiyan to catch you easily. Raditz look's his brother dead in the eyes, his typical arrogant grin still on his lips. "She's your problem now, Kakarot." Raditz gazes downward to look at you. "Stop pouting. Maybe next time, you'll be nicer to good old Raditz."
A low growl echoes in the back of your throat as you glare daggers at the Saiyan standing before you. "Ya, or maybe next time, I'll rip out your tail and strangle you with it!" The only thing that's stopping you from lunging at Raditz is Goku's firm grip holding you in place.
Rather than arguing that the entire group has become accustomed to, the whole area has become dead silent. You're no longer pouting. Instead, you are glaring at the man who continues to carry you bridal style. You've never liked being held like this. It makes you feel weak like you have no control over your own body.
What makes you even more irritated, Is how Goku reacts to your death stare. He just grins at you. Does he just never get angry? What kind of Saiyan is he? It fills you with so much anger that someone as dopey as Kakarot has Saiyan blood flowing through his veins.
You clench your fists. You just wanna punch Kakarot so badly. He just has such a punchable face. If you could take away his cheery personality, he'd actually be quite attractive. Wait--- what the hell are you thinking? Kakarot is stupid and way too friendly for you to ever think of him in that way.
You move your fist up, finally giving in to your urges, attempting to punch the man holding you. Probably not your wisest moment, but your brain isn't functioning normally right now. Goku catches your hand with ease. His reflexes are unreal, or maybe this fever has you more sluggish than you believed. You'd prefer to think that it's the second option. He chuckles to himself. He's still not upset. What the hell is wrong with him? "Come on, Y/N. You gotta be quicker than that." He's challenging you. How Saiyan like of him. You seem to always be able to find specks of Saiyan nature in the cheerful man. And those are the aspects you actually like about him.
Your eyes begin to once again feel heavy as your eyes droop shut, just before you fall asleep in the arms of your enemy.
Twenty-Something Years Ago:
You're sitting on your bed, sitting crisscrossed, a book laying open on your lap. Since your father is currently off-planet, you can read all you want. You're enamored with your newest book. It's all about a topic referred to as diplomacy. It's fascinating and has many concepts that are entirely foreign to you, yet at the same time, some of these ideas are also familiar.
As you read, your door slams open, but you pay the interruption almost no attention, not even bothering to look up from your book. Honestly, the unwelcome intrusion has you more angered than anything else. "God, Vegeta." You roll your eyes. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" Something's not right. When Vegeta usually bursts into your room, he's automatically shouting at you.
Out of pure curiosity, you look up from your book. However, standing at your door, you don't find Vegeta. A boy with a very similar appearance but with a much smaller stature stands in your door frame. He's out of breath, desperately huffing for air. "Tarble?" You furrow your brows at your brother, launching off your bed to get closer to him. "What's wrong?" You have this sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. Your twin has never behaved in such a manner before.
"Captain--- Captain Ginyu is here." Tarble is shaking, his eyes watering slightly.
You scowl ever so slightly. "But Ginyu's not scheduled to be on planet Vegeta any time soon."
"It's--- It's a surprise visit. What do we do, Y/N?"
You contemplate for a moment before your features fill with alarm. "Tarble? Where's Vegeta?"
His lip quivers as he looks down at the floor. "He's with Captain Ginyu."
"Damn it." You mutter under your breath. Diplomacy is a skill you need right now. And Vegeta doesn't have a single quality that a diplomat possesses. Your elder brother is more likely to unnecessarily provoke the Captain, putting your entire race in hot water with the Frieza Force.
You rush over to your bedside table, rummaging through the drawer. Once you have your scouter in your hand, you run back over to your brother. "Stay in here, and use this to channel our father. Let him know what's going on." You push past your twin, about to leave, before Tarble's voice calls out to you.
"Wait, Y/N!" You turn back to look at him. "Where are you going?"
"I have to go stop our older brother from doing something stupid. Everything will be fine, I promise. Just calm down and do as I said." And with that, you take off, praying that Vegeta hasn't already done something rash.
As you sprint down the halls of the palace, you run face-first into the torso of a large body. "Princess?"
You look up at the bald Saiyan, the one who's supposed to be at your brother's side at all times. Since the future king of planet Vegeta needs to be protected. "Nappa, Where is my brother?"
The imbecile scratches the back of his neck, contemplating much longer for your liking. "I'm not sure. I haven't seen the runt in quite some time. You should probably ask Vegeta."
You scowl at the Saiyan. "Not Tarble, you fool! I'm asking you where Vegeta is!"
"Oh, Why didn't you just say so?" It's taking every ounce of restraint you have in your body to not viciously attack Nappa. "He's just outside of the palace."
You run through Nappa, intentionally knocking the large Saiayn onto the floor. His stupidity lost you precious time. It was quite an amusing sight, though. A mere child, being able to take down one of your father's best warriors.
You arrive outside of the palace, your eyes landing on your target. This is the first time you've ever seen Captain Ginyu. Sure, you've heard stories of the purple man. And much like your people, Ginyu is just as bloodthirsty and just as ruthless. Much to your surprise, the Captain doesn't have an army behind him. This was just before the Ginyu Force had formed. All Ginyu was at this point in time was a captain of one of Frieza's many armies.
You walk over to them, now standing at your brother's side. "Captain Ginyu." You speak with your hands, an exaggerated smile appearing on your lips. "To what do we owe the honor?"
The man looks down at you, clearly analyzing you with his scouter. "Well, if this isn't a surprise. I think this is the first time I've had the pleasure of meeting you, Y/N." Ginyu extends his large hand out to you, causing Vegeta to feel a great deal of alarm. Your brother's body has gone tense with an apprehensive look on his face. But when your older brother looks over to you, there isn't even a glint of fear in your eyes. You're calm, almost as if one of Lord Frieza's deadliest warriors was not standing before you. You accept the Captain's hand, presenting him with a short but polite handshake. "Your father doesn't like showing you off much, does he?"
You chuckle softly. "My father likes to hold his cards close to his chest. I'm sure a man like yourself is quite similar." Sucking up to Ginyu is not your favorite pastime, but it needs to be done. And every Saiyan on this planet knows your big brother is far too prideful to do it himself.
Ginyu looks between you and Vegeta carefully. For someone so highly regarded by Frieza, he sure isn't subtle. He's trying to read your facial expressions. Unfortunately for him, your father has raised you both much better than that. A poker face to you feels more natural than a genuine expression. "Speaking of your father, where is he right now?"
"He's of---"
You quickly cut Vegeta off. "He's in a meeting. That's why our father sent me out. He wanted you to know he sends his regards, but his hands are tied at the moment. He will be here at soon as possible. I hope my brother and I can suffice your needs in the meantime."
Captain Ginyu eyes you skeptically, tilting his head at you ever so slightly. "That sounds serious. I hope it's nothing too pressing."
"Of course not. It's nothing my father can't handle."
You're about to continue your schmoozing, but you're stopped by Vegeta aggressively yanking on your arm. "We need to talk-- in private."
You grimace at your brother's words. He just always has to make everything that much more difficult for you. You turn back to Ginyu, offering the man a cheerful smile. "Will you excuse us for a moment? We'll be right back."
Vegeta drags you around a corner, concealing you both from Ginyu's prying eyes. "What do you think you're doing?" He huffs at you in a whisper. "I had everything under control."
You snicker, crossing your arms. "You were just about to tell Ginyu that our father was off-planet. It sounds to me like I got here just in time to prevent you from making a grave mistake."
"I don't see why that matters."
"And that's the issue, Vegeta. Now we don't have time for this. Let's go." You turn back around, walking back over to Ginyu, Vegeta trailing not far behind. "I'd like to apologize for my brother's rudeness, Captain Ginyu." You shake your head but with a slight smirk across your lips. "All Saiyan men are the same, and my brother is no exception. They're incredibly thickheaded and quite savage. I'm convinced they don't even realize what brutes they are." You watch your brother ball his hands up into fists from beside you. It fills you with an immense feeling of joy knowing you're getting under Vegeta's skin for once. You turn back to Ginyu, plastering that disingenuous grin on your face. "Now, how about we give you a tour of our wonderful planet?"
You and Vegeta have shown Ginyu around almost the entirety of your planet, and you must admit you're beginning to grow worried. Luckily you've managed to hold off any more questions about your father's whereabouts by charming him with various facts about planet Vegeta. But to be honest, you're not sure how much longer you can hold up this charade for. You've exhausted pretty much every idea that you've been able to come up with.
"Captain Ginyu!" Your father's brash voice invades your ears as you turn around to finally see the man you've been anxiously waiting for. You've never seen your father walk in such an urgent manner, and it's pretty funny watching your twin struggling to keep up with your father's pace.
Your father places himself between you and Vegeta, ruffling your hair affectionately. You look up at him. "How'd your meeting go?"
Your father meets your gaze, catching onto your deception almost immediately. "It went very well. Thank you both for keeping Captain Ginyu company in my absence, but I think I can handle it from here." He directs his attention back onto Captain Ginyu. "Now, how about we discuss you're abrupt arrival somewhere more private."
The two men exit your field of view, leaving the three of you alone. Tarble, in his typical fashion, glues himself to your side. "What the hell was that?" Vegeta spits out with venom. "Where was your pride? You were basically groveling at his feet."
You furrow your brows at him. "I was doing what needed to be done. And if you think our father isn't currently doing the same thing, you're a bigger fool than I thought."
"I know our father is being more agreeable with him, but not at the cost of his pride."
"It's always about pride with you." You step closer to Vegeta, closing the distance between you. "Your pride today would have cost the loss of countless lives today, Vegeta."
"Then so be it. If there are Saiayn's that inadequate on our planet, we should probably just exterminate them now. It'll save us the hassle later on."
You snicker, shaking your head at Vegeta. "Some King you'll be." You turn to your twin. "Let's go, Tarble. I have no desire to be near our foolish brother right now."
The conversation between Captain Ginyu and your father was brief. It was a very anticlimactic ending to the naked eye. The briefness of this encounter only set off more alarm bells in King Vegeta's head. It was clear to the man that Ginyu's excuse for being on his planet was bullshit. He's just not quite sure what the captain's intentions were, but he sure as hell is going to find out.
As soon as Ginyu left planet Vegeta, he promptly set course for his next destination. He's headed straight to Lord Frieza to report his findings, and he's eager to do so.
Ginyu arrives on the planet in record time, heading straight for the throne room. Ginyu kneels before Frieza, waiting for his boss to speak. "Captain Ginyu. You're sure back early. I trust you were able to gather enough information on the young prince."
Captain Ginyu nods enthusiastically. "Of course, Lord Frieza. The Price was exactly the same as the previous data we collected on him. He's powerful and quite intelligent for a Saiyan. Though, he did inherit that nasty temper from his father."
Frieza sighs. "How disappointing."
"But I did discover something that you may find interesting, Lord Frieza."
Frieza tilts his head at the man. He can't help but feel intrigued. "Go on." It's not that easy for him to find an advantage over those monkeys, so he'll take any information Ginyu can give him, no matter how minuscule.
"Y/N--- King Vegeta's daughter piqued my interest greatly. She's not even close to as strong as her brother, but she's remarkably clever. She's very good with words, she knows how to manipulate people. I'd say she might even be better than King Vegeta himself."
"Now, that is fascinating. Good work, Ginyu. I'll look into the Princess's abilities more in-depth later. You're excused."
-
This is just something I felt the need to clarify: So in this chapter's flashback, Vegeta is around three, and Y/N and Tarble are about two. In my head, I picture children on planet Vegeta behaving like miniature adults. My idea is once they leave their chambers (the tanks they are raised in to get their basic Saiyan instincts under control), their minds are fully grown, but their physical growth is quite delayed. That's why they curse and stuff. I have a minuscule window of time to squash in all of my plot ideas. So this was the best way to do so.
#goku#goku x reader#saiyan reader#vegeta#vegeta's sister#DBZ Fanfiction#dbz x reader#dragon ball x reader#dragon ball z#the princess of all saiyans
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Build-A-Bear
Part Eleven
Featuring: Bucky x Stark!reader, dad!Tony, Steve, Sam, Peter, OC background characters
Warnings: language, sexual implications and references, blackmail
Summary: Bucky decides it’s time to come clean to Tony, consequences be damned. Steve has his own bombshell, of sorts.
Author’s Note: Hi. I’m a lazy piece of crud. I wanted to post this earlier but I suck. It’s kinda short too, at least compared to previous parts. There will probably only be a couple parts left, maybe 2-3? I’m posting these chapters as I write so tbd in length lol. And as always, feel free to buy me a coffee!
Tags: @amourmarvel @fangirlvoice @kennedywxlsh @devilswaldorf @what-the-hap-is-fuckning @alyispunk @fredweasleysbitchh @wearegroot @sunflowerbebe107 @prestigious-tea @brckenmemories @angelbabymed @charmedbysarge @cruelsummer-s
Series Masterlist
“Are you fucking insane?”
Everyone moved back to your apartment to avoid freaking poor Matt out any more. And now there was a standoff in your living room.
“It’s the only course of action that makes sense,” Bucky said in his defense.
“Buck, her dad will skin you alive if he sees those pictures,” Sam said. “Even if he’s somehow fine with it, she’ll lose her job!”
“If we don’t do this, that kid downstairs loses his family!” Bucky shouted back.
Sam groaned in exasperation and ran his hands over his face. “There’s gotta be a way to get the money.”
“There’s not,” you said defeatedly. All eyes turn to you. They initially looked to you for guidance, but your reliance on Bucky gave him the wheel on your own personal highway to hell. “Even if we do give this person the money, there’s only one person we can get that kind of cash from. Bucky’s right. We have to tell my dad.”
“[Y/N], maybe we should brainstorm some other options,” Peter nearly whispered, keeping his voice soft in the midst of the chaos. “I don’t want you to lose your job.”
“I’ll quit,” Bucky said suddenly. “I’ll quit being an Avenger and just do, fuck, private security? Or something.”
You could see the stress and fear and frustration written on his face. In a couple steps, you were standing in front of him and were able to cup his scruffy cheeks as you spoke.
“We’ll figure all that out later.” You perked up on your toes and gave him a short kiss. “But right now, we’re on a bit of a time crunch. I’d like to end this sooner rather than later so… let’s tell Tony.”
With Peter willingly sitting in the open trunk area of the Jeep, everyone was able to fit in one car back to the Tower. The tension inside the vehicle could’ve been cut, sliced, and diced with a knife. No one wanted to say anything, but no one really knew what to say anyway.
Steve was still silent. He didn’t say a word when you discussed telling Tony, but you could practically see the gears turning in his head. He had something to say, he just wasn’t saying it.
By the time you got to the Tower, you felt like you were gonna throw up. You held the envelope with the letter and media tight in your grasp, only letting go to open your door. The second your feet touched the garage floor, Bucky was right beside you.
He kept a firm grip on your hand, squeezing a little extra so you knew he was there with you and wasn’t going to let anything bad (worse) happen. Knowing he was willing to risk his entire livelihood for you made you love him even more. But you knew if it came down to it, you’d give up your position with the Avengers. Even with only two years spent at Stark Industries — just under a year spent with the Avengers (and nearly a year with Bucky) — you’d have no problem getting a new job with any other company. Bucky’s skills were put to the best use saving the world.
As the elevator approached the floor with your dad’s office, Sam finally broke the silence.
“Do you want us to be in there with you? I’m thinking it might be better if it’s just you two.”
You turned to see Peter wringing his hands, subconsciously agreeing with Sam — he clearly didn’t want to be in the room when all this went down but was putting on a brave face to be a good support system. Steve still stood silent with his arms crossed over his chest. Whatever was going on in that head was still festering.
“I think you’re right,” you agreed with Sam. “We’ll come find you once he gets the news.”
Your eyes met Bucky’s and even though he was trying to remain confident for you, there was fear behind those baby blues.
“We’ll be okay,” you said just loudly enough for him to hear.
When you reached the floor you’d been dreading, Sam, Steve, and Peter all turned to go to their designated rooms, partially because it had been a while since all of them had been back, partially to stay far away from the impending outburst.
You took a deep breath and started toward Tony’s office, just to be pulled back into Bucky’s arms. He held you tight, nuzzling his face in your hair and just holding you. You gripped the back of his shirt in response and just took a moment to appreciate the hard muscles of his chest and the weight of his arms around you.
“We’re gonna be okay,” you whispered.
Bucky let out a breath and kissed the crown of your head.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
This made you pull back and look up at him.
“Lose me? Bucky, I’m not going to let this affect us. No matter what happens, I’m not going anywhere. I love you too much, Bucky Bear.”
The affectionate nickname made him smile, even if it was just a little quirk of the lips.
“I love you too, Build-A-Bear.”
You let him hold you for a couple more minutes before leading him to your dad’s closed office door. When you slowly pushed the door open, you saw Tony sitting behind his desk with half a dozen holographic screens open in front of him.
“Hey pumpkin, what are you doing here?” he asked, barely taking his eyes off his work for a second.
“Um, I kind of really need to talk to you.” Despite being on close speaking terms with your dad — the kind where you felt comfortable swearing in front of him and joking with him, even sharing some of your secrets — you felt like this was crossing a line.
Of course it was. You were in bed with (his perception of) the enemy.
Tony could tell something was wrong by how timid you sounded. You were always loud and bubbly with him — a quality you definitely got from him. He swiped all of the screens closed and walked around the large desk to stand in front of you. He briefly met Bucky’s eyes as the super soldier stood close behind you.
“What’s going on?”
“You-you should probably sit down for this,” you said shakily. Tony took the seat nearest you instead of walking back behind his desk. “So… you know how I’ve been dating James for, like, 10, 11ish months now?”
“And I still haven’t met him?” Tony said with a quirked brow.
“Yeah.” You forced a chuckle. “Well, when we were going through mail this morning, I… I got this.”
You held up the envelope before sliding out the letter and handing it to your dad. His expression went from curious to furious in seconds as his eyes scanned the entire page.
“They sent pictures. Pictures taken through my apartment windows of me and James. Being… intimate.”
“James who?” your dad asked, still staring at the letter. When you didn’t reply, he looked you in the eye, his expression hard as he demanded, “[Y/N], what is James’s last name?”
You took a short breath, the most your anxiety-gripped lungs could handle, and avoided his gaze as you replied.
“Barnes.”
Tony shot up from his seat, his eyes moving from you to the man behind you. The familiar feeling of a metal hand on your lower back helped ease the anxiety coursing through you at your dad’s reaction. When Tony took a step toward Bucky, you countered with a panicked step between them, looking up at your dad and pleading.
“He didn’t know who I was.”
“Bullshit,” Tony spat. He and Bucky were glaring at each other over your head.
“He didn’t, I swear. He found out the same day everyone else did.”
The grinding of his teeth let you know he was seething. But trying to hold it together for now.
“Let me see the rest,” Tony said calmly, holding his hand out. You reluctantly dropped the photos and DVD into his open palm. Bucky didn’t want to get too affectionate, so he just rested his hand on your hip while Tony flipped through the photos.
Everything was back in order, so he went through the same sequence you did: pap photos, to apartment photos, to sex photos. You could tell when the pictures turned raunchy by the way Tony’s face contorted, tossing the photos down shortly after.
“Friday, play the disc,” he commanded. The video played against the only blank wall in the room, the audio of you and Bucky playing through the speakers.
“Dad, you really don’t need to —” you started, quickly stopped by a sharp glare from your father.
“What are you gonna do to me?”
“I’m gonna put a baby in you. I’m gonna cum inside this tight pussy until you can’t take it anymore.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Tony nearly growled. “Friday, shut it off.”
“I tried to tell you,” you murmured under breath, though not loud enough for him to hear. Bucky did hear it though, evident by the way he squeezed your hip.
Tony leaned forward against his desk, hanging his head in clear frustration. You knew better than to speak up while he contained his emotions, so you stood in silence with Bucky as your dad sighed heavily and spoke to himself under his breath.
“You just have something against me, don’t you?” Tony said accusingly to Bucky.
“Don’t do that,” you scoffed. “You don’t get to do that. If you’re going to get mad at anyone, it needs to be me.” You never got snappy with your dad, but everything weighing on your shoulders frayed your nerves and his attitude didn’t do anything to fix it. “I’m the one who knew full well what we were doing. I’m the one who had all the details. I’m the one who chose to risk everything for this from the start. So if you’re really that mad, take it out on me. Otherwise, help us. We’ll get to the semantics and firing and all that bullshit later. Right now, there are literal lives on the line.”
Tony was still fuming until he heard the last line.
“What do you means ‘lives on the line’?”
Bringing Steve, Sam, and Peter in helped all of you explain what happened, from the note you received to the first viewing of the photos and video to the confrontation with Matt, but not without Tony grilling all of them about when and how they found out about you and Bucky. Peter looked nervous about keeping a secret from his boss, but you knew your dad wouldn’t do anything too bad to the kid. Maybe kick him off a couple missions, but nothing noteworthy. Steve and Sam looked like they really couldn’t care less, especially since Sam was the last to know.
Despite still wanting to rip Bucky’s arm off and beat him with it, Tony remained civil for your sake, at least until all of this was sorted.
The first step was getting Peter, Happy, and Pepper to try to track down where the letters came from, which likely meant scanning for fingerprints (despite how many hands held it that day alone). The second step was for you, Bucky, Tony, Sam, and Steve to scope out your building and any neighboring buildings someone may have been scoping your apartment from. There was no one someone could’ve been dangling outside your windows without you noticing. The third step was meeting with your doorman again to try to piece together some answers.
You all agreed to keep local law enforcement out of it so the culprit didn’t catch on as quickly. Having a few Avengers and Tony Stark show up at Tony’s daughter’s apartment wasn’t out of the ordinary so you could still stay under wraps. There was no reason to draw attention to your place and possibly trigger the mystery person into accelerating their plans.
With your dad’s confidence in the plan, you gradually grew more and more optimistic about the plan. If all else failed, Tony would get the two million and continue tracking the fucker down. It wouldn’t be hard to sneak a tracker into the cash and watch where it goes once it’s out of your hands. That’s when you could bring in local law enforcement.
It felt like things were finally going your way.
As you and your crew headed downstairs to drive back to your place, Steve grabbed your arm and tugged you to the side.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” he asked quietly.
You nodded and followed him down the hall; Bucky was busy talking to Sam and Tony was on the phone briefing Rhodey so he could stand guard outside your doorman’s place for a while, giving you the perfect opportunity to step away for a minute. When Steve pulled you into a side room, you finally spoke up.
“What’s up? Is everything okay?”
Steve crossed his arms and huffed. That signature frown of his softened when he met your concerned gaze.
“I know we’re not necessarily close, but I consider you a friend. You know that, right?”
“I consider you a friend too,” you said with a nod.
“What I’m about to say... I need you to keep it between us. Don’t tell Bucky or Sam or Peter or your dad. Just between us, at least for now. Okay?”
“O-okay...? You’re making me nervous, Steve,” you admitted. “What’s going on?”
“I think I know who’s blackmailing you.”
#SORRY IT’S SUCKY AND SHORT#I’M THE WORST#bucky x reader#bucky x stark!reader#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes x stark!reader#bucky barnes series
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another sequel to @obiwanobi's ex-sith anakin au (here and here), and at this rate… yea. yea we’re gonna have to archive this on ao3 (soon)
anyway here’s 2.8k words of tonal inconsistency
et si les étoiles sont cachées
Obi-Wan barely sleeps a wink through the night. His mind turns and whirls as he battles between second-guessing his decisions regarding the former Sith sleeping in his bed and planning on what to do going forward. Anakin knows how to cloak his own signature well enough, that much Obi-Wan can observe, but he will not stand a chance if Masters such as Yoda or Windu search his presence. And then there is the matter of the elusive Darth Sidious’ death, as well - Obi-Wan can only assume that it would be classified information on the Confederacy side, but even then, the Force only knows what kind of hell would break loose once his body is discovered. It doesn’t help that he could barely pull his hand out of Anakin’s without him frowning in his sleep and stirring. He simply has to stay put, with Anakin’s very likely feverish body pressed up against his side in a bed that is only snugly enough for two.
In meditating all of those scenarios, he forgets to account for the hell that breaks loose in his own quarters upon the return of his apprentice.
“Master, what were you thinking?” Ahsoka hisses, eyes darting from him to the closed door of his bedroom, from where the sound of Anakin’s pacing is obvious. Her hand is still clutching one of her lightsabers, alert.
“He was an injured man who crawled to my doorstep for aid, young one.” Obi-Wan sighs. “Surely you cannot expect me to simply turn my back to him, can you? That wouldn’t be the Jedi way.”
“Yes, but…” Ahsoka pinches her own forehead, shoulders dropping in a harsh exhale. “He’s a Sith lord, Master. We’ve all seen what he has done and can do!”
“He was a Sith, Ahsoka. Leading him back to the Light means one less darksider for the galaxy, and no more lives lost. I have always been trying to accomplish this.” Obi-Wan realizes, all of a sudden, that he is trying to convince himself rather than his apprentice. “He came in a moment of need, with nowhere else to go. He no longer wants to remain with the Dark.”
Ahsoka blinks. “And you just trust him? Just like that?”
Well, Obi-Wan wants to say, you didn’t see him on his knees in the hallway with blood covering half his body and bruises the other half; and you didn’t see him hang his head as you took his lightsaber and then his ruined arm off before setting him to bed. Then again, nobody would ever see that: the exact devastation and distress the once-Darth Vader was in last night, at his door. “That is the case, Ahsoka. I would like to trust him, for the time being.”
Ahsoka grumbles something about tried to kill me earlier, didn’t you see that? which of course inspires a twinge of guilt in Obi-Wan - because indeed, this borders on being a foolhardy venture, that his Padawan is dragged into solely by virtue of her sharing quarters with him. She shakes her head and speaks clearly again for him to hear. “...Fine, I get it. Where do you even plan to house him, Master?”
Obi-Wan pauses. He has had plenty of time in the night to consider this, and still he cannot find any better solution than the one he is about to suggest. “I suppose there is no place safer than here.”
“Here? You mean as in, your own quarters, in the Jedi Temple?” Ahsoka stresses on the last few words, incredulous.
Something crashes inside his room, followed by Anakin’s muffled curse. Obi-Wan looks his apprentice dead in the eye as he lets out a sigh, and says, “Yes.”
—
Anakin is strangely good at cooking.
Obi-Wan supposes he shouldn’t have presumed; after all, being a Sith apprentice should probably not interfere with the more mundane aspects of life. But not only is Anakin’s cooking distinctly above average (how did he learn enough skills to make a three-course meal out of the few basic ingredients in Obi-Wan’s pantry, and at what cost?), he also seems to undertake the task with zeal. It’s rather endearing to watch him shuffle around the kitchenette in warm beige pants that barely reach his ankles, and a left sleeve that doesn't need to be rolled up because it's already too short for his long arm.
It’s been less than a week since Anakin first comes to his door. He clearly doesn't like Ahsoka, but with one arm and no lightsaber and Obi-Wan firmly telling him to behave, he eventually, and clearly grudgingly, tolerates her presence, from time to time. The gleam in his eyes is still worrying, from time to time, but the most Anakin does nowadays when Ahsoka passes by is turn his back to her. He seems to be trying his best, which is why Obi-Wan feels immensely guilty for having to preface their meal with a rather somber question.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, as Anakin sets down before him a plate of steak that smells nearly the same as that one luxurious dish he once had while in disguise as a socialite at a prestigious fine dining party. It isn’t the materiality that is distracting, but the efforts that must have gone into it. “I would like to ask you a question.”
Anakin sits down opposite of him, balancing himself. Even with the Force, he’s unused to not having a weight elbow-down on his right hand. “What? Leftover is in the kitchen for your apprentice. If she wants it.” His voice still sharpens at your apprentice, defensive. “I didn’t mean to let her starve.”
Obi-Wan is torn between a smile and a grimace. “No, that isn’t my question, Anakin. I’ve been wondering if you knew of your allies’ plans.”
“What kind of plans?” Anakin’s eyes narrow, warily. “It depends. Dooku knew most. I just did battlefield strategy.”
“You don’t happen to know if there has been recent plans to assassinate the Supreme Chancellor, do you?” It has been on Obi-Wan’s mind ever since he was summoned to an urgent Council meeting days ago. Investigative teams reported that the Supreme Chancellor has gone missing; then midway through the meeting, another report came, and so they ended up discussing how to keep peace while the Senate would break the staggering news of the Supreme Chancellor’s death to the entire galaxy and organize an emergency election. The timing fit too well with Anakin’s arrival, and he doesn’t know what to make of it.
“Oh, there’s never any.” Anakin shrugs, tension melting out of his shoulder. He begins to cut into his steak without a care.
Obi-Wan frowns. There has been plenty of attempted assassinations before, as well as kidnapping - he himself has been sent to protect the Chancellor on many occasions. He’s loath to contradict Anakin, though, so he asks, carefully: “And you are sure?”
“I’m sure,” Anakin says, swallowing a mouthful. “My mas—Darth Sidious, is Palpatine.”
It takes Obi-Wan a stunned moment, while Anakin just continues to eat.
Well, the Council had their suspicions, but it was never so direct. Some have speculated, very privately, that the Chancellor might be linked to a darksider in some way. Perhaps somebody who is in opposition to Count Dooku, another Master has raised. But for the Chancellor *himself* to be this elusive, mysterious Darth Sidious, seems downright unfathomable.
“You…” Obi-Wan pauses, rewording the sentence in his mind for the seventh time. “I would like you to be serious, Anakin. That was not a joke, was it?”
Anakin, unsmiling, turns his eyes up to him with a look of confusion as if saying What’s a joke? “Darth Sidious is Palpatine,” he repeats. “I’m not allowed—I was not allowed to call him that, though.”
Obi-Wan takes a deep breath. The timing does line up far too well. “Anakin, that means you have... disposed of the Supreme Chancellor.”
Anakin scoffs, scrunches up his nose, and shrugs again. “If you put it that way,” he mutters, slouching down even lower as he pointedly eats his food.
Obi-Wan opens his mouth, then closes it again. He sighs at the ceiling, and picks up his fork and knife. Might as well enjoy a good meal before the migraine sets in.
—
To his own amazement, Obi-Wan is getting used to the way Anakin follows him around like a hatchling, whenever he is home.
During the first few days, it took Obi-Wan a considerable amount of patient explanation to convince Anakin not to sit on the floor at the foot of the door frame until he came back. His reasons ranged from “It’s rather undignified for you” (to which Anakin said, “I’ve done worse,” at which point Obi-Wan had to switch subjects immediately, putting a pin in it for future unpacking), to “You might catch a cold, sitting here for so long” (to which Anakin answered, “It’ll go away on its own,” which prompted Obi-Wan to check his temperature immediately, only to realize that Anakin had been cloaking his fever for at least a day, and - well, that was another pin on the board). In the end, it was only the allowance for him to use the kitchenette that kept the former Sith from waiting at the door like a hound, rather busying himself at the stove instead. It was a great decision through and through, considering how much Anakin improved the quality of their meals.
But otherwise, Anakin still makes no secret of his immediate attachment to him. Perhaps there should be no surprise in that, considering the sort of upbringing he must have suffered through; not that Obi-Wan knows much of it anyway, considering how quiet Anakin remains and how reluctant he himself is to ask personal questions. Nevertheless, from the way Anakin acted - finding his way into the Jedi Temple and declaring his trust to a sworn enemy rather than relying on his own Sith allies - it isn’t hard to infer that this man has had precious little reason to put his trust into anybody in his surroundings. It also aligns with the Sith ways, Obi-Wan speculates - and could only dare speculate, because truth be told he does not know all that much of the Sith outside of his research on ancient texts. Contemporary Sith are few. The Master might just make his own rules, and Darth Sidious - the Supreme Chancellor, Force have mercy - seemed like the type to play cruel games. So he has every reason to understand and empathize. And he truly does extend his most heartfelt compassion to this wayward Force-wielder.
That doesn’t make it any easier to deal with Anakin’s irritability whenever Obi-Wan comes back from a mission.
He’s clearly unhappy about Obi-Wan being away, especially if he discovers that the mission has been with Ahsoka. He only grows more upset and quick-tempered as time goes by; it begins with him upturning the decorative datapad shelves in the living room, escalating to a series of broken glasses and plates in the kitchenette; finally one day Obi-Wan comes back home to knives lodged in the wall, Anakin in the midst of pulling them out.
Anakin has the decency to look sheepish, even just slightly, as he silently puts away all the knives and hides himself in the kitchen completely. He cleans up, at least. In fact, he was almost always in the middle of cleaning up when Obi-Wan caught him in the act, which prompts the question: How many other times has he done this while left alone?
Obi-Wan only sighs. It does border on cruelty to keep somebody alone in these cramped quarters for weeks on end. He also knows that whatever measures he has set up to keep Anakin safe here - from the world, and from Anakin himself, - it would be a fatal oversight to underestimate the ability of a former Sith. He has no doubts that Anakin, even while one-handed and saber-less, could escape if he truly wanted to. The fact that Anakin willingly keeps himself stowed away in a Jedi’s quarters while desperately and entertaining himself through destructive means only to then be embarrassed about it… is a testament to some budding virtue, Obi-Wan supposes. And it only intensifies his guilt: it’s as if he’s taking advantage of Anakin’s trust to confine him to solitude, while he himself pushes back and back the kind of work a true mentor would need to engage in to help Anakin. The fact that he is fighting a war, or whatever is left of it, is no excuse.
It is with resolution that he stands up and heads into the kitchen. Their eyes meet as soon as he steps in; clearly enough, Anakin has been watching him. Anakin’s fingers grip the counter, knuckles blanched. Obi-Wan holds up his hands, moving as slowly and unpredictably as possible, and cuts to the chase.
“I was wondering if you’d like to go outside, Anakin.”
Anakin’s brows shoot up, but he still doesn’t unclench his jaws.
“I believe it’s rather unfair to keep you locked inside,” Obi-Wan explains. “After all, cooking can only do so much to spend all of one’s pent up energy.” He gives a small, gentle smile, inwardly anxious because of the way Anakin still looks at him with his guards up, shoulders squared, halfway between fight and flight. “I am not suggesting anything much, Anakin. Only a walk in the park, if it suits you. The decision is up to you.”
A moment or two passes in thick, awkward silence. Then Anakin, hesitantly: “Will you be there?”
It’s the first pleasant surprise Obi-Wan has had in what felt like an age. His smile grows, unbidden. “Yes, I insist.”
—
Autumn winds reel through his hair before rushing off to rustle in the foliage. The nightly air is crisp on his cheeks, and Obi-Wan doesn’t even think to tighten his robes around him; he enjoys a nice, chilly evening. Silence is alleviated by the song of insects in the grass, as they make their way down the serpentine path, round fountains and beds of flowers. Their robes flutter, and their hands are firmly linked.
It’s nothing that cannot be explained by strict necessity, or so Obi-Wan reasons: He must be able to make sure Anakin never strays from his sight, for safety reasons; and he dislikes the thought of putting any kind of binding or chains or even just a simple tied thread on Anakin. As usual, when all else fails, undertaking by hand is the solution - hence Anakin’s hand in his own, their palms warmly interfacing, their calluses fitting together.
The contact is also enjoyable, but that’s beside the point.
“I like the sky at night,” Anakin says, sudden but quiet. Obi-Wan glances at him to find Anakin not looking back at him for once. Anakin’s hood has long since slipped off because of the way he tips his head back to turn his eyes to the stars. Most of them are shrouded by gathering clouds, but some of them still shine through the dark.
“I see,” Obi-Wan muses. “May I ask why?”
For once, Anakin doesn’t hesitate to answer. “I like to look at the stars. They’re just suns, but far away. Can’t burn you, only blink at you.” Anakin’s hand tightens just a little. A patch of wildflowers gently glows when the two of them pass by. “When you blink back at them, you’re not alone.”
“And what if the stars are hidden?” Obi-Wan gestures, voice light, even as his heart sinks. He knows a lonely child, or one who used to be a lonely child, when he sees one. “What do you do then?”
The sigh that follows is lost in a gust of wind. There’s only the slightest of tremors in Anakin’s fingertips. They fall back into silence, deeper silence this time, as even the insects seem to quiet. The air feels earthy and damp with a coming rain. The sky blackens as clouds roil and thicken, and suddenly it’s dark as pitch and the comfortable coolness splinters into shivers under his skin. When the first drop falls, Obi-Wan reaches over to draw up Anakin’s hood for him. Anakin turns to him, eyes downcast.
“Then I’m alone,” he answers, belated and small.
—
“Maybe you’re right, Master.” Ahsoka picks up her steaming mug of tea, sinking comfortably into her amply cushioned seat on the couch. A strip of morning sunlight draws lazily across the room. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. He’s getting... nicer, lately. You should keep walking him.”
Obi-Wan chuckles at the turn of phrase. Walking him… “I don’t think it’s my doing,” he says, pouring a little more tea for himself. Anakin shuffles from one corner of the kitchenette to another, apron strings fluttering behind him. Obi-Wan shakes his head and takes a sip of tea, smiling. “I don’t think it’s my doing at all.”
#obikin#anakin skywalker#obi-wan kenobi#obi wan kenobi#ahsoka tano#star wars prequels#the clone wars#raised as sith anakin#i really did hijack clem’s au#sorry for pinging you again!#why is this so reminiscent of le petit prince all of a sudden#will that story ever stop haunting me? (no)#all aboard the woobify train yay
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Requests and those prompt pages you shared make me go full on thot...but soft
Frankie with "when one of them has never had a proper birthday party for whatever reason, and their lover makes it their mission to give them the best day ever, followed by “you didn’t have to do all this for me. just being with you is enough.” “i know. but i thought you deserved ?’’ and their lover smiles, a kiss is shared"
And maybe the dialogue prompt "I wanted to say I love you for the first time without stuttering, but that failed"
Is that too much? Too weird? I'd be happy for either one :)
soft thots are the best thots no one can convince me otherwise 😌😌😌
i added a lil... somethin somethin to this bc i honestly just couldn’t resist.
--
frankie always lets his birthday pass quietly. it’s been that way since you’ve met him--he usually preferred a quiet night out with his friends, maybe ordering some nice meal in, but never anything big.
he firmly resisted your suggestions of throwing a party in celebration for the first two years you were together, not adamantly, but with enough gentle insistence that you knew to back off. you could tell that there was some weight there, something unspoken that made him dark and moody during the week that lead up to the day, but you figured he’d let you know on his own time, if ever.
so you’re more than a little nervous for the surprise dinner you had spent the past month planning. you’d coordinated his whole crew to fly back to Texas for his birthday weekend, figured maybe after the year Frankie had had it would be a nice break, if not to celebrate then to distract.
you made the delta force boys well aware of it, that if he didn’t want to do anything official the lot of your would play along without insisting anything more. the sparklers and cake you were hiding in the kitchen was purely optional, depending on how you read Frankie’s mood after the surprise reveal.
you’re all nerves for the entire day leading up to the party. luckily, Frankie is out of the house for most of it, and you told him you’d take him to a fancy dinner so he’d come pick you up from the apartment straight from work, already dressed in the suit jacket and button-down you’d picked out for him.
the boys and their dates help you with the last of the preparations--you’ve spent most of the day cooking, so they set up the table while you change into a pair of heels and Frankie’s favorite sundress of yours. you take one calming breath before stepping out of your bedroom and back into the fray.
the click of the lock sliding back is the only warning you get as Frankie shoulders the door open. his hands are busy with something and he has his back turned to you as he throws his keys on the side-table by the door.
“hey, sweetheart--listen i called the restaurant about our reservation and they said they didn’t have anything down under your name so i made something for--”
and he freezes, eyes wide with utter disbelief at the scene in front of him.
you’re in the center of the gathered group, made up of the delta force crew as well as some other friends from work. the house is warm with the smell of dinner, with a few, sparse decorations mostly consisting of candles and thin, paper wall hangings.
you give him your biggest possible smile as you and your guests burst out in a synchronous:
“happy birthday!”
the grin Frankie gifts you with is enough to have made all the anxious planning worth it. he crosses the distance between the two of you in a few quick strides. cradled in the crook of his arm is a bouquet of flowers, which he hands to you with a still-shocked “thank you, baby,” after kissing your cheek. then the boys start crowding around him in a mass of back-clapping hugs and loud laughter.
once he makes his rounds to greet everyone and finishes the beer Santi placed in his hand as soon as he handed you the bouquet, Frankie places a hand at the small of your back and ducks his head to speak directly into your ear.
“can i talk to you for a second, on the balcony?”
there’s a quavering quality of seriousness in his tone that catches you utterly off-guard. you lick you lips and try to feign a confident smile as you nod, leading the way. you can practically hear your own heartbeat, a frantic pulse in your ears.
he clears his throat after closing the sliding glass doors behind himself. your eyes widen further as you realize he’s flexing his hands in that way that he does when he’s trying to get them to stop shaking.
your heart drops to the pit of your stomach as he guides you away from the doors and into the sequestered corner of the balcony, where you’d spent the better half of last week replanting your pollinator bushes in preparation for the summer. the bulbed fairy lights he’d helped you install last summer were still holding up, casting the balcony in warm hues of pink and orange. your brain seems to work on over-time, utterly unsure of what the fuck could possibly be going on.
“first, i just want to thank you for planning all of this. it um--i really wasn’t expecting it, so, surprise well planned and all,” he gives a nervous laugh, rubbing his hand over the lower half of his face as his eyes flick towards the flood of light emanating from the living room on the other side of the sliding doors. in the quiet that follows, you can barely hear the chatter of music and conversation from the people inside because you genuinely can’t read the pained expression on Frankie’s face right now and that has literally never happened before and honestly you’re utterly terrified.
because it sure as hell felt like he was about to give you an ultimatum.
so you do what you always do whenever you get freaked out. you start to babble.
“listen, i--i’m really sorry, i know you usually like to keep things low key and everything but Santi texted me that he was thinking of coming up and surprising you so then i thought that maybe i could reach out to the whole team too but i can totally tell them to leave and you guys can just do your own thing and--” you cut yourself off because the look he’s giving you now is just confused. you take in a gulp of air, these next words just as rushed as the previous ones were. “please don’t break up with me.”
Frankie’s jaw hangs open for a second.
and then he starts laughing.
full-body laughing, his face breaking out into that great big smile that you were so relieved to see not even a half-hour ago. but now you’re as confused as he once was.
“i was... i was going to do this later tonight, over dinner but, given the circumstances...” he’s trying to fish something out of his suit jacket’s pocket.
the realization slams into you like a brick wall.
because holy shit he’s trying to fish something out of the suit jacket pocket.
you half realize what’s happening and you half don’t, because he’s balancing a small velvet box in the palm of his hand which he holds in the space between the two of you like he’s cradling a small bird and holy fuck you were absolutely in no way prepared for this of all things.
you think he knows as much because when you look up at him with tear-filled eyes, your hand raised to your mouth in shock, he has a bit of a sheepish look on his face.
“i know it’s a lot,” he clears his throat. “and you don’t have to say yes right away but i just... i wanted to let you know that if you wanted this, it would make me the luckiest man in the world to be able to give it to you. whenever you’re ready and i--i’d love to be able to celebrate this,” he opens the box. the ring is beautiful, simple but delicate and understated and perfect. absolutely perfect. “to celebrate us around this time of year, too. i’d love that more than anything.”
“i--Frankie,” you rip your gaze from the ring in his palm, lip wobbling as your tears begin to fall. christ, you had no idea how full your heart would feel. you thought, in fantasy, that you would but it was nothing compared to this. “Frankie, i wanted tonight to--”
“you don’t have to say anything now, if you don’t want to,” his words are as rushed as you feel, a bit frantic. “i understand if it’s too much for right i just thought i should make my intentions--”
you shut him up with a kiss.
“yes,” your voice is infinitely firmer than you expected it to be, you kiss him again, as if it could serve as punctuation. “yes, yes--a million times, yes.”
he laughs against your mouth in turn, wrapping both arms around your waist and lifting you up in the air without breaking the kiss.
placing you gently on the ground, both your and Frankie’s hands are shaking so hard that he can barely put the ring on you. it sits on your ring-finger perfectly. you can’t bring yourself to take your eyes off of it for more than a second. neither can he.
someone turns the music up inside, the heightened volume of chatter is the only thing to break your combined reverie.
Frankie tucks you into his side with an arm slung over your shoulders, kissing the crown of your head. there’s a rare ease to his posture that you can already see yourself getting used to.
“let’s see if they notice,” he whispers in your ear with a mischievous wink. you don’t think you’ve ever seen his eyes so bright. grinning, you lean further into his side. the two of you step back into the living room.
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All I Want
A/N: Surprise surprise! I actually finished another request yay! So here you all are my JJ people. I would like to say this is a little deep I’d say. There is mentions of rape which was a little hard to write, and it’s centered around anxiety.
Both of those topics are serious matters of discussion and if anyone is in need of help speak up. It’s best to be heard and get help with whatever situation you find yourself in.
AND y’all I do NOT hate Drew whatsoever. He played a great Rafe. Honestly, love that man as much as Rudy (ok maybe not that much), but just wanted to point that out. It’s just the character so don’t give me shit about hating on Drew for all you Rafe fans out there lmao.
To the nonny who requested, I hope this is what you were looking for! As always please send feedback! Comment, like, etc. I’ll get another request done at some point so keep baring with me please.
JJ x Reader, Outer Banks
Warnings: mentions of rape and anxiety
*Credits go to original owner!*
It was a particularly warm day on the Cut when Y/N, JJ, and Pope were going to make a grocery delivery to the Figure Eight. Kie was off with John B and Sarah doing something probably more fun than delivering groceries, but Y/N had been kind enough to offer Pope some help, dragging her boyfriend along. JJ complained the entire way to Heyward’s.
“I don’t see why we have to help,” he whined as Y/N dragged him along. “It’s a perfect day to go surfing.” “Which we can do afterwards,” she said, tugging him along by his hand. JJ groaned, but ran into Y/N as she stopped. The tan girl turned to face him, placed both hands on his chest as he wrapped his arms around her, and looked up at him through her long lashes, a hint of mischief in her eyes.
“If you would stop complaining, we can do more than just surf later,” she drawled, standing on her toes to whisper in his ear. JJ practically melted as he felt her lips brush his ear and trace his skin. He leaned down trying to steal a kiss, but Y/N slipped out of his arms and ran down the dock with a giggle. “Seriously?” JJ called after her, jogging to catch up.
Y/N and JJ had been together for a solid two years. John B never would have thought his best friend would be able to hold down a relationship for that long, but alas, the blond proved him otherwise. Of course the crew had the no-Pogue-on-Pogue macking rule, but did it really apply to Y/N and JJ? They had been friends long before he met John B and the rest of the crew.
Kie knew the moment Y/N’s feelings changed from friendship to romantic, and John B knew he’d never seen JJ so smitten with someone, so the rest was history.
“Hey, what did we say about PDA?” Pope groaned as Y/N and JJ approached the boat. “That it’s perfectly okay as long as we aren’t groping each other?” Y/N offered with a smirk. Pope rolled his eyes and JJ let out a hearty laugh as the two climbed on board.
“As long as it doesn’t stop you from making these deliveries,” Heyward commented.
The four worked as a team, loading all the groceries on board. Finally, they got everything packed in and were off to the other side of the island. Y/N watched the homes roll by and slowly transform into huge mansions. She wrung her hands a bit at the thought of entering Kook territory, but pushed her nervousness aside.
“You’ll be okay,” JJ said, coming up beside his girlfriend. He knew she struggled with a bit of anxiety, and it didn’t help when Kooks would mess with her.
Y/N shot him a small smile as he wrapped an arm around her. She leaned in a bit and listened to his steady breathing, matching her breath with his. A wave of relief washed over her and she felt herself back to normal.
Y/N absolutely hated this about herself. No matter how many times JJ would tell her that’s what made her who she is and how much he loves her because of it, Y/N would still find herself shying away from help. Of course she let JJ help whenever she was in one of her spells, but she had always been reluctant. Her anxiety made her feel weak, and the Kooks could practically smell it on her.
That wasn’t to say she couldn’t throw a punch and handle herself in a fight. She was a Pogue after all. But, Y/N had never been a fan of small spaces and seemed to be nervous over small things such as social interactions. Somehow, some of the Kooks figured out she was never good when she was cornered either.
The Pogues were always careful not to leave her alone when any Kooks were around despite her protests. That just made her feel even weaker when she had personal bodyguards, but they still wouldn’t listen. JJ was the most concerned. She knew he meant well, but he would lose his shit if anyone laid a hand on his girl. Especially now that he had the gun.
Y/N really did appreciate her friends’ efforts to keep her safe, but it still annoyed her a bit. Yet, what could she do? Her friends were the closest thing to a normal family.
Sighing a bit, Y/N and JJ went over to help Pope dock the boat. “So most of this stuff is going to the club house so Y/N can come with me,” Pope said sorting through the bags. JJ gave him a skeptical look, grabbing a few of the resident’s orders.
“I’ll be fine JJ,” Y/N said. Pope shot the pair a glance, deciding it would be best to let the couple work out the situation. “What if we made two trips and you can go with me?” JJ suggested, failing miserably at hiding his concern. Y/N rolled her eyes, “Seriously, I can take care of myself. Besides I haven’t had an anxiety attack in like years so I’m fine.”
“I just think it would be better if you were with me,” JJ shrugged. “Quality couple time.”
“As if you two don’t already spend every waking moment with each other,” Pope muttered under his breath. JJ shot him a glare.
“Pope is right,” Y/N said, starting to get irritated. “It doesn’t make sense to make two trips when there are three of us. The club is kind of far too.” JJ studied her for a moment realizing she was genuinely annoyed with him, so he let up. “Fine,” he muttered, situating the bags on his arms and hopping off the boat. “See you ladies later!” JJ called over his shoulder, his voice returned to its normal goofiness.
Y/N grabbed the rest of the bags and followed Pope off the boat as well. “You know we are just trying to look out for you,” Pope started. Y/N rolled her eyes a bit. “Look I get it, but I’m not weak. I can take care of myself. Pogue-style, baby,” Y/N replied.
Pope laughed a bit and nodded in agreement. “You sure can throw a punch,” he said causing the girl to smile. “And you rival JJ in the craziness a bit.” “I do not!” Y/N laughed, playfully shoving him. The two went on like this bickering back and forth as they made their way past one of the tee boxes.
Unbeknownst to them, two Kooks watched as the Pogues made their way across their golf course. “Hey, hey,” Rafe said, smacking Topper’s chest and pointing to Y/N and Pope. “Shiiit,” Topper said watching the girl and boy. “Yo, when did Y/N get hot?” Topper commented. “Bro she’s always been pretty hot for a Pogue,” Rafe responded as he started walking towards the pair.
“Hey!” he and Topper called. Y/N’s face paled immediately as she heard the sound of the infamous Kooks. Pope sucked in a breath and said, “It’ll be fine.” “Yeah after they caved your face in last time you were here,” Y/N hissed, turning to face the boys coming towards them.
“What’d I say about coming back on our side of the island?” Rafe snarled, reaching Pope. “Oh so you want to go pick up your own groceries then?” Y/N stepped up in front of Pope. She may have anxiety, but she sure as hell wouldn’t let any Kooks walk all over her friends. Topper smirked and stepped forward too.
Y/N did her best not to suck back as two Kooks towered over her, but Rafe caught her flinch a bit, a wicked smile curving up on his lips. “Where’s blondie, Y/N?” he smirked. “Not here to protect you?”
Pope shoved him back away from Y/N who now seemed to be at a loss for words. No she told herself. “Get your nasty Pogue hands off me,” Rafe snapped, lunging at Pope. All the groceries were spilled as Y/N was knocked out of the way. She hit the ground feeling the side of her face scrape on the gravel.
Y/N groaned in pain, but pushed herself off the ground to see Rafe and Topper shoving Pope around. “Get off of him Topper!” she screamed, jumping on his back. The Kook easily shoved her off as he and Rafe kept messing with her friend. His nose was bleeding and he was covered in a can of beer that Topper thought it would be funny to dump on him.
“Stop!” Y/N screamed again. “What, he your boyfriend now?” Topper mocked. “No wonder Sarah dumped you! Jackass,” Y/N snarled, shoving him away from Pope. Rafe stopped punching Pope in the face and stood up. Pope lay on the ground groaning in pain.
Topper’s face went dark. “Don’t you dare,” he hissed. “When did you get a mouth on you?” Rafe smirked again slowly approaching Y/N. “It’s kinda hot.”
Y/N gulped and felt her legs subconsciously back away. She felt the walls begin to close in as the two boys stalked towards her. “Please, don’t,” her voice cracked, giving her fear away. It was like a feeding frenzy for sharks. Y/N turned to run, but Topper caught her before she could get anywhere.
“Get off!” Y/N yelped, as she struggled with her back pressed against his chest. “You’ll pay. You Pogue’s took one of us, so we’ll just take you for an even trade. Seems fair? Right Rafe?” Topper said. “No,” Pope tried getting up but Rafe punched him in the face again before turning back to Y/N.
“That’s right Topper,” Rafe grinned, “I’m sure your boyfriend wouldn’t mind.” Y/N was still flailing as she felt the walls begin to close in every step Rafe took.
“Please! Just let me go!” she felt tears burn in her eyes. “Now now, don’t cry,” Rafe cooed, brushing a stray tear from her face. The wall was right in front of her now, sucking her air out. Y/N began gasping.
“I haven’t got laid in awhile,” Rafe said. Y/N’s stomach dropped to the ground. Even Topper seemed to release his grip a bit. “Wait, bro--” Topper started. “Might I remind you Topper,” Rafe cut in, “Her idiotic boyfriend put a gun to your head, and that long-haired surfer friend of hers stole your girlfriend.”
Y/N let out a choked sob. “Please,” she flailed again, but Topper still didn’t let go. Y/N literally screamed as Rafe grabbed her hips, allowing her to shirt to ride up a bit, his hands grazing over her exposed skin. “Stop!” Pope jumped up, but was shoved off by Rafe. “Dude seriously. This isn’t cool,” Topper cut in, releasing Y/N. Rafe ignored him, pulling Y/N up off the ground and digging his hands into her waist.
“Pretty hot for a Pogue,” he whispered in her ear. Y/N’s eyes were watering as she took shallow breaths. Y/N let out a blood-curdling scream as Rafe placed a chaste kiss on her neck. She fought, scratched, kicked, flailed, trying to get out of his grasp. Her lungs burned and she felt like she was being crushed.
As she tried to let out another scream, Rafe clamped a hand over her mouth and she felt like she was drowning. “Dude!” Y/N faintly heard Topper. “Rafe, c’mon man! Let her go!” Pope yelled, struggling to get up.
In a matter of seconds, though, Rafe was ripped off Y/N. “Get the fuck off!” a familiar voice shouted. But, it wasn’t the voice she was looking for. “Rafe, what the fuck?” a girl’s voice shouted. Sarah. Y/N was sobbing and trying to take in air, but she couldn’t stop trembling.
“Hey hey it’s okay,” someone’s hand was on her back. Kie.
“Bro! Bro!” there was a lot of shouting.
“John B! Get off, you made your point man!”
“Let’s go!”
Y/N saw two blurred shapes running away from them. A familiar figure approached her. “JJ?” she gasped. “No, no, it’s me, John B,” he said. Y/N flinched away and started crying harder. She just wanted JJ.
“No hey hey you’re okay,” Kie’s voice rang out in her ear. Sarah knelt down on her other side and helped her up. Y/N’s lungs were on fire and she still found herself being suffocated by the walls. “Where’s…” Y/N gasped, more sobs coming out. “I--I don’t know, but we should get back to the boat. He may be there waiting,” Sarah said rubbing her arm gently.
Y/N cried harder, collapsing into Kie. John B went to help but the girl shot him a look telling him to stay back.
“All...” gasp. “I want…” gasp. “JJ…”
With the help from Sarah, the girls managed to get Y/N back to the boat with John B and Pope trailing after them. JJ was not back yet.
Y/N collapsed onto the ground in a corner, jumping away from all of her friends who were trying to help. As they tried approaching her slowly, all the girl felt were the walls getting tighter. Sadly, none of the Pogues really knew how to help her besides JJ. They had never seen her in this particular state.
At this point, Y/N was struggling for air as if she were drowning and was on the verge of passing out. “Guys, guys, back up,” Kie said. “We’re making it worse.”
“But how are we supposed to get her to stop?” John B snapped, running a hand through his hair. “Where the hell is JJ?” Sarah said looking around.
The group all tried reassuring Y/N from a safe distance, but nothing seemed to work.
“Yo! You will not believe how well these old guys tipped!” the voice they were all waiting for yelled on the dock.
“They gave me like--whoa what happened? When did you guys get--” JJ stopped in his tracks at the sight of all of his friends circled around his beat-up girlfriend. What the hell? Why’s her pretty face damaged? He started fuming.
JJ immediately shoved past Pope and Kie towards the girl in the corner.
“Hey! Hey! It’s me,” he said, not hesitating as Y/N tried backing away. As if something in her mind clicked, her body went limp as JJ pulled her into his chest, leaning himself back on the wall. Her breaths were still straggled and she was still trembling but she quit fighting.
“Hey, Y/N,” JJ said softly. “H-hey,” she tried taking a breath, but it caught in her throat. “Shhhh,” he held on to her tighter, wrapping his arm around her head and putting her ear to his chest. “Listen to my heart, and breath with me.”
The Pogues watched silently in awe as Y/N began breathing normally.
“Good, keep going,” JJ encouraged kindly. John B had never seen JJ this way, but he really saw how close the two actually were. He pulled Sarah tight to his side.
“You wanna tell the group what we’re gonna do when we go full Kook?” JJ asked, glancing down at Y/N before looking up at their friends. He felt Y/N flinch after he said the word Kook. His gut turned at the thought this was brought on by a Kook.
“Never mind,” he said quickly. “Tell them about that dream you had of us. Off the island.” He knew his friends were studying him closely. They’d never really seen this side of him. He was always coping with his own problems in his own way, but this was how Y/N got to see him. JJ let his guard down with her the most. And while he loved to joke around, get stoned, wasted, and all that, he was still human.
Y/N slowly nodded, her breaths becoming more even. “I--I had this dream,” she started with a shaky voice, “JJ and I were in a uh little house, away from here.”
Sarah clung to John B as tears welled in her eyes as she watched the girl in JJ’s arms. She always saw Y/N as this tough Pogue who wouldn’t take shit from anyone regardless of her own problems. She never knew Y/N struggled like this, and it broke Sarah’s heart.
Kie had a faint idea of what Y/N was really struggling with but she had never seen her friend in this state. The sight of her, curled in JJ’s arms, trying to talk about something that was for certain extremely personal between the couple, made her heart break as well.
“W-we had a little house, and two blond headed boys running circles around us,” Y/N cracked a weak smile as the group let out a light laugh, the tension finally breaking. “And you,” she raised a more steady hand pointing at John B and Sarah, “you two would come over for dinner with your girls and we’d watch Kie and Pope on the news being superstars.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Sarah smiled.
Y/N, at last, took a deep strong breath. Color was already returning to her face as she slowly regained her composure. John B and Pope went to untie the boat and soon enough, they were on their way back to their side of the island.
JJ didn’t release Y/N, but looked to Pope for answers.
“What happened?” he tried holding in his anger for Y/N’s sake.
“We were taking the stuff up to the club and Topper and Rafe came up,” Pope said slowly. JJ felt Y/N tense under his arms and he gave her a reassuring squeeze.
No one dared speak a word as to what happened next.
JJ got the hint, though. “Then?” he pressed.
“R-Rafe,” Y/N started, and he was shocked to hear her talking about it. “No, no, you don’t…” the words died in JJ’s mouth. “He, he tried--”
JJ knew immediately. Y/N felt his body go rigid and didn’t say the words. She didn’t even want to think about it. “I’ll kill him,” JJ hissed.
“John B about did,” Kie said. Sarah seemed to be looking away from them. Y/N knew what she was thinking.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Y/N said softly. Sarah turned to her with a sad look on her face. “But he’s my brother,” she whispered. Y/N shook her head, “He’s not you Sarah. Stop beating yourself up.”
“Y/N…”
“This is how it is for us Pogues. We’re all a little broken somehow. Well maybe except Kie,” Y/N chuckled a bit, leaning back on JJ who was still seething. Sarah gave her a small smile and sat down by John B’s legs. “Anyways,” John B continued, “Kie, Sarah, and I were getting ice cream by the course, and heard Y/N scream so we came and helped.”
JJ stood up completely knocking Y/N over. She shot him a glare rather than going back to hyperventilating. “Pope! Turn around! I’m going to rip his face off,” JJ snarled. “No,” Y/N said, standing up facing him. “Just forget it. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”
JJ stared at her in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?” he was trying not to yell at Y/N. However, the girl just stared at him with a raised brow. JJ stared back.
“What is going on?” Sarah asked.
“Shh, they do this all the time,” John B replied.
Soon enough JJ broke his gaze and sat down pulling Y/N back into his arms. Y/N had a triumphant look in her eyes as they continued on. “Oh my god,” Sarah laughed.
“Shut up,” JJ mumbled resting his head on Y/N’s shoulder.
Later that night, in the Chateau, Y/N and JJ were curled together in the small bed of the guest room. “Are you okay?” JJ finally asked after hours. Moments like these were saved for behind closed doors and just the two of them.
Y/N thought for a moment and then nodded. “I am now,” she said in the darkness. His arms gave her a little squeeze. “But, how,” JJ hesitated, “how can you let me hold you like this after what happened?” he asked shyly. Y/N rolled over to look at him in the darkness.
JJ’s eyes were swimming with concern. She pressed her lips to his, savoring his warm breath and body before pulling away. His kisses were always soft and sexy at the same time.
“Because you’re you,” Y/N answered, resting her forehead on his. “I’m still a guy,” JJ muttered. Y/N let out a laugh. “You don’t get it. You’re the only one I want. You’re the guy who knows me the best. You know how to deal with my problems. You’ve known me since we were literally babies. Sure, we’ve known John B for a long time, but he doesn’t know me like you,” Y/N said.
“But--” JJ started but was cut off.
“JJ, you’re the one I’m in love with and have been since as long as I can remember. I trust you with my life. Yeah, you baby me sometimes, but I’ve accepted that’s how it comes being with you.”
“I love you too,” he whispered.
It was JJ’s turn to place a kiss on her lips. She sighed, content at how soft his were. Their lips molded together like two puzzle pieces as he pressed his body closer to hers. She let her mouth open as he ran his tongue over her lips resulting in a low moan. His hands tugged her waist and pulled her on top of him just as they did plenty of times before.
This time, though, it wasn’t like they were going to have sex. It was more of a tender kiss. A declaration of their love for one another as cheesy as it sounds.
Eventually, they both turned up for air, and Y/N fell back next to JJ. He wrapped his arm around her again as she rested her head on his chest. “We’ll get out of here one day,” JJ said with a promise in his voice. “I won’t doubt that,” she smiled. “But I’ll kill Rafe first,” he said. Y/N laughed a bit again.
“No you won’t. Then you’ll go to prison, and I don’t want you to go to prison. Besides, Rafe is always tweaked. Everyone knows that,” Y/N snorted. “Well I’m always smoking weed,” JJ offered.
“Aren’t all the Pogues though? There’s a difference between weed and cocaine too.”
JJ groaned causing Y/N to let out another laugh. “You’re always so optimistic.”
“Yes yes I know,” Y/N giggled. “But I know you love it cause otherwise you would’ve dumped me a long time ago.” “I would never dump you. You’re too good for this place, Y/N” JJ mumbled squeezing her again.
Slowly but surely, the couple then fell asleep, content and safe from everything the cruel world would throw at them, in each other’s arms.
_______________________________________________
Not really sure I like the ending but it is what it is I suppose. It’s more about the story in the middle. Plus I really don’t think I’m good at writing endings so yea. Enjoy m’dears!
xoxo
#outer banks#outer banks imagines#outer banks imagine#jj x reader#jj imagine#jj maybank#john b#pope#kiara#sarah cameron#fandom imagine#multifandom#multifandom imagines#imagines#request#pogue#pogue life#topper#rafe cameron#outer banks is the best#trulivin#did you just yeet
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Looking Through A Window (3)
macriley married undercover au
masterlist.
Fun fact: the final scene of this chapter is part of my original brainstorm for this fic. The rest of the scenes I initially dreamt up won’t come until much later, so I’m thrilled to have at least one of them come early on in the story.
To Carrie and Anna, the lights of my life: I named the neighbor after you two. She’s annoying as shit and nothing like either of you, but I needed a name and decided if anyone deserves to have their name as an Easter egg, it’s the two of you.
*****
Despite the storm, Matty has the shipment of borrowed guns delivered to the Port of Houston in the middle of the night. While they eat breakfast, Mac and Riley study Matty’s excruciatingly detailed directions for navigating the port and finding their shipping crate. She certainly didn’t make it easy on them.
Riley leans back in her chair, looking around until her eyes land on Harley. “Time for you to earn your keep,” she says between mouthfuls of toast.
Supposedly, this is what Harley specializes in—sniffing out weapons. The dog should be able to confirm which shipping container the guns are stashed in without Mac or Riley having to check themselves. Theoretically.
Mac finishes his own plate of eggs and toast in a few ravenous bites. “Thanks for making breakfast.” He gets up to clear the plates and start rinsing dishes. After living with her for more than a year, Riley making breakfast is routine, but Mac still thanks her for it every day.
Living in the apartment together, they fall right back into their old habits. Mac wakes up early and goes for a run. By the time he returns, Riley is awake and making breakfast. After they eat, Mac showers while Riley goes on her own run. And so on and so forth.
While Mac was out this morning, he wove through the whole neighborhood, making sure it’s safe for Riley to go out alone. She can handle herself, but Mac has no delusions about the overall quality of men on the streets, and even though he can’t fix that, at least he can help minimize her chances of encountering creepy dudes.
Before they leave for the Port, Mac and Riley scour their car for a bug or any other surveillance equipment the organization might’ve hidden while they were inside the warehouse talking to Conrad yesterday. They find none. Thankfully.
Once again, they’re going in armed, and the weight of Mac’s gun feels just as foreign and unwelcome as it did yesterday. He tries not to fidget with it while Riley drives, but she notices his discomfort anyway. “You’ve got to relax,” she says. “All your squirming is stressing me out.”
“Sorry.” Mac stills, even though his whole body screams to put the gun somewhere else.
Anywhere else.
Once they arrive at the Port, Mac guides Riley through the maze of cranes and crates and warehouses until they find the one Matty had the guns stashed in—dark green and otherwise nondescript.
Unfortunately, there are multiple shipping containers that fit that description at the location Matty provided. As they get out of the SUV, Riley glances between the boxes nervously. “Uhh, which one is it?”
Mac doesn’t have a clue. “I guess that’s for Harley to tell us.” He looks down at the dog standing obediently beside him. “Find it.”
He releases the leash as Harley takes off like a rocket, sniffing each container and the surrounding area. She inspects more than half of them before sitting and looking back at Mac. He waits for her to bark, but she doesn’t. Whoever trained her clearly did so with stealth in mind.
“Do we open it to double check?” Riley asks.
Mac opens his mouth to say yes, but he doesn’t get a chance to answer before a muddy, dark-blue diesel truck parks beside their SUV. Conrad jumps out of the driver’s seat, accompanied by two younger men, wearing matching scowls and Carhartt jackets. He walks with that same entitled swagger, and a cheap smile spreads across his face.
“Mr. Turner!” Conrad exclaims, shaking Mac’s hand. His grip is too firm to be friendly. Stepping back, he sneers at Riley, acknowledging her just long enough to impatiently say, “Genevieve.” Mac doesn’t miss the way Conrad’s eyes drop to Riley’s chest, nor the way Riley bristles beside him, wrapping her jacket more tightly around her and crossing her arms to hold it in place. Mac clears his throat. “Sorry,” Conrad says, not sounding sorry at all, “but your wife is very attractive.”
Riley rolls her eyes so hard they nearly fall out of her head.
“Your order is this way,” Mac says, cutting off Conrad before he could make another gross statement, “Follow me.” Mac puts a hand on Conrad’s shoulder, squeezing hard as he steers the man toward the shipping container. Harley is still sitting beside it, waiting patiently, and Mac scratches her head with his free hand.
Riley whistles, a single sharp note that sends Harley running back to her side. Mac buries his relief that she’s not alone, although he’d still much rather the hulking bodyguards were closer to him than Riley.
Focus, Mac reminds himself. Riley can hold her own. Just get this over with.
Mac opens the container, revealing two nondescript wooden crates. Still sneering—at this point, Mac’s starting to think that’s the only expression Conrad is capable of—Conrad waves over his bodyguards, gesturing for them to open the crates.
For just a second, Conrad’s sneer edges toward a smile. Inside the crates lie exactly what he ordered: military-grade, semi-automatic rifles and enough ammo to kickstart the apocalypse. Mac’s gut churns. He hates this. He hates everything about this. He hates that he’s arming terrorists. He hates how these men look at Riley like dogs drooling over a steak. He hates that he can’t do anything about any of it, that he has no choice but to play along.
Mac wishes he could bury his feelings the way Riley does, locking them behind a carefully controlled mask. Instead, his linger just beneath the surface, waiting to make themselves known at the first available opportunity.
Counting backward from five, he steels himself to finish the game. Just as Conrad brushes a reverent finger down the barrel of a rifle, Mac chides, “We followed through on our end of the bargain. Did you?”
“Of course.”
One of the bodyguards pulls out his phone. In a deeper voice than Mac expects, he says, “We can wire the payment to your bank account right now.”
“Good. My wife will help you set that up.” Mac gestures to Riley, and the bodyguard walks over to her.
Conrad extends his hand, and Mac takes it, trying not to wince when his arm brushes his concealed gun. “Pleasure doing business with you, James,” Conrad says.
“I hope this is the beginning of a long and prosperous partnership.” Long and prosper? Who was he, Spock?
“Indeed. Welcome to the Patriots.” Conrad gestures for his men to start loading the guns into their truck. “Expect another order within the week.”
Mac doesn’t know how to respond to that. Thankfully he doesn’t have to, because Riley waves him over, apparently having finished her conversation with Conrad’s lackey. “I’ll leave you to it,” Mac says, then turns his back on the terrorists and rejoins Riley. On instinct, he reaches for her arm as he murmurs, “Are you okay?”
Riley tenses under his touch, but doesn’t pull away. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Good.” He said the same thing to Conrad just a minute ago. Good. But the word is light years different from before—soft and caring, not curt and vaguely challenging. Bozer pointed it out to him once, how he talks to Riley differently than he does anyone else.
Mac shakes off the thought. He can’t get distracted, no matter how much his mind only wants to think about Riley. Releasing her arm, he says, “Let’s get out of here.”
*****
Back at the apartment, Riley settles in on the couch to dig into the Patriots' bank records. By wire-transferring the money instead of paying them in cash, Conrad practically offered up the organization's entire digital footprint on a silver platter, at least to someone like Riley. She doesn't speak as she works, so Mac listens to the melody of keyboard clicks while he makes them each a grilled cheese.
Contrary to popular belief, he's not completely incompetent, although Bozer has nearly everyone convinced otherwise. Mac will never be able to cook something fancy, but he does make a mean sandwich.
He even spreads mayo on the bread, the way Bozer does, because Riley prefers it that way.
The sizzle of the sandwiches hitting the hot pan joins the keyboard clicks right as Riley announces, "I hacked into their bank records."
"What've you got?"
"From the look of it, the shell corp they used to pay us has only been around for four months. Before that, they must've either paid in cash or used personal accounts."
"That makes sense though, since the Patriots haven't been around all that long."
"That's what I thought at first, but come look." Mac does, leaning over the back of the couch so his head is right beside hers. Riley points at the screen. "The first three transactions were all big deposits, each one two weeks apart."
Frowning, Mac squints at the tiny numbers on the screen. "One hundred thousand dollars?"
"Times three deposits," Riley adds.
"Where the hell did they get that kind of money?"
"I don't know. The deposits were cash."
“Damn. Did you at least figure out who their previous arms dealer was?”
“Yeah.” Riley shifts, causing her hair to tickle Mac’s nose, and he brushes her hair to the opposite side of her neck without another thought. “Turns out their previous dealer has Mexican cartel connections, which explains why the Patriots only paid them twice. I’m guessing they found out about the cartel part and broke it off before they made a long-term deal.”
“At least they’re not complete idiots,” Mac mumbles. Tired of squinting, he leans closer to better see the screen.
Except now they’re cheek to cheek, and Mac suddenly can’t focus on the screen at all.
Riley twists to look at him, and it takes every ounce of Mac’s willpower not to glance at her lips. "Are you burning my grilled cheese?"
"No." He straightens, simultaneously disappointed and relieved by the space now between them. Mac shakes off the thought. He can’t keep getting distracted like this.
"Uh huh. Sure."
Retreating to the kitchen, Mac calls, "That was one time!"
*****
As expected, they don’t hear anything from Conrad or the Patriots the following day. Mac doesn’t know what to do with all the downtime on this op. There are plenty of books in the apartment, but he’s too restless to sit and read. He opens the fridge, more out of boredom than actual hunger.
They’re on day five of the undercover op, and it’s starting to feel an awful lot like quarantine. With nothing to do but hurry up and wait, hanging out in the apartment and doing nothing is starting to make Mac go a little stir crazy.
When Riley emerges from the bedroom wearing workout clothes, it’s clear she feels the same way. “I’m going for a run,” she announces.
“Want company?” He hopes she says yes. Anything to get out of the apartment for a while.
Riley unplugs her phone from the charger and slides it into her pocket. “No offense, but no.”
Dammit. Mac shoves down his disappointment. “None taken.” He closes the fridge. Nothing in there looks good.
“Tell you what,” she says. “After I get back we can go to the space museum, okay?”
His heart skips a beat at her offer. “Is it that obvious I’m bored?”
“Yes.” Riley gives him a pitying smile. “So do you want to go?”
Mac smiles. It feels like she just asked him out on a date. It’s not, but it feels like one anyway. Be cool. “What kind of question is that? Of course I do.”
“Okay then.” Popping in her earbuds, she walks out the door.
“Enjoy your run, muffin!” Mac calls, stealing Bozer’s go-to pet name for when he’s undercover with Riley. She reaches back inside to flip him off before slamming the door shut, and Mac chuckles. Riley really hates that nickname.
Now it’s just him, Harley, and this tiny apartment.
Resuming his search for food he’s not even hungry for, Mac opens the pantry, and Harley comes running into the kitchen. She must’ve learned the sound of the door opening since they keep the dog food in there. Harley looks up at Mac expectantly.
“Don’t look at me like that.” She whines, and her pleading expression reminds Mac of the wide-eyed look Bozer mastered as a kid while begging his parents for something. Neither are very effective. “You just had breakfast an hour ago,” he insists.
Harley glances at the open pantry, then back at him.
Mac doesn’t give in, but he does kneel to pet her instead, scratching Harley’s neck and ending up with a handful of hair. Frowning, Mac digs through every drawer in the kitchen in search of a dog brush. No luck. He checks the bedroom and bathroom, coming up empty once again. Who even organized this house? It makes no sense. His gaze lands on the laundry room door.
Ah.
Sure enough, there’s a dog brush on the shelf above the washing machine.
Leash and brush in-hand, Mac calls out, “Alright, girl. Let’s go de-floof you.”
Harley takes one look at the brush and sprints in the other direction.
Well this is going to be harder than Mac anticipated.
He ends up chasing Harley throughout the apartment, zig-zagging from one room to the next. Every time Mac gets close, Harley slips by, just out of reach. After the fourth time she sends Mac stumbling into the furniture after lunging for her and missing, he realizes what she’s doing.
Harley is playing him. This is a game to her. And, so far, she’s winning.
Mac stares the dog down, and she seems to narrow her eyes in response. “Challenge accepted,” he tells her.
This time, he knows exactly where to find what he’s looking for—peanut butter. He smears an unnecessarily large glob into Harley’s dog bowl, making sure she sees exactly what he’s doing. Harley’s stubborn, and does a good job of appearing not to care, but Mac has a hard time believing any dog would turn down peanut butter.
Harley, it turns out, is no exception.
She follows him to the door, and Mac rewards her with a few licks of peanut butter while he clips on the leash, careful not to let her eat so much that there’s not enough to last while brushing her. Despite Harley’s obvious enjoyment of the peanut butter, Mac is no fool. She let him win this round, no doubt about it.
He leads Harley down the stairs to the small lawn in front of the apartment building, where it wouldn’t matter if he left dog hair everywhere. The brush pulls away thick chunks of her undercoat with each pass, and it doesn’t take long for the lawn to look like something died there.
The peanut butter, unfortunately, doesn’t last nearly as long as Mac hopes.
Mac figures out pretty quickly that Harley does not like her tail being brushed; she turns away and tucks her tail and generally makes it impossible for Mac to reach it. He sits back on his heels, formulating a new strategy. “If I don’t brush your tail,” he says, “you’re going to look like a squirrel, and neither of us wants that.”
Harley’s ears prick at the word squirrel.
Mac tries again, and this time Harley lets him…sort of. It’s not perfect, but at least she won’t be leaving hair all over the apartment anymore—hair that he needs to vacuum, because Riley asked him to last night and he’d completely forgotten until now. Tucking the brush into his back pocket, Mac scratches Harley’s ears the way he learned she likes, and when she leans into his touch, Mac’s heart swells.
“Good girl.” He kisses her head, and Harley licks his chin in return. “See? We’re not so bad.” Mac sighs. “I know we’re not who you wanted, but we’re going to take good care of you.”
Riley made the same promise in the war room. Even if she doesn’t stay with them after the op, Mac will make sure Harley ends up with people who will love her for the rest of her life.
“I promise,” he murmurs into her fur, kissing her head again.
Mac startles when a feminine voice calls, “You could make a whole other dog from all that hair.” A middle-aged woman stands in the walkway, oversized blue purse on her shoulder and car keys in hand. She smiles at Mac. “I haven’t seen you before. Did you just move in?”
“Yeah,” Mac says, standing up. “My wife and I moved in this week.”
“Well, welcome. My name is Carrie Ann, and my husband and I live in apartment 317. Feel free to stop by anytime. I think you’ll like living here, though I must warn you that it gets pretty loud during football season.”
Mac nods. “Nice to meet you. I’m James.” He expects Carrie Ann to keep walking—presumably to her car—but she doesn’t, and Mac suddenly gets the feeling this conversation is about to be much longer than he wants.
“And who is this cutie?” she asks, directing her attention to the dog.
“This is Harley.”
Carrie Ann sounds like a squeaker toy, greeting Harley in a voice so high-pitched it’s almost inhuman and petting her without bothering to ask for permission. Harley eyes the woman warily but surprisingly sits still. “I love dogs,” she says at a mercifully normal decibel. “Sadly my husband is allergic.”
“That is unfortunate.” Mac shifts from foot to foot, eager to escape the small talk. He’s never really had the patience for it.
Carrie Ann, it seems, is completely oblivious to his discomfort. She prattles on, asking asinine questions about what he does for work, if he’s been to the coffee place down the street, and when she can meet his wife.
Mac doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse when Riley appears in his peripheral vision, as if on cue. “Actually,” he says to Carrie Ann, “you can meet her right now.” Mac flashes Riley a wide, bright smile that she returns half-heartedly, chest still heaving after her run. Sweat glistens on her body, and a few wispy curls that escaped her ponytail are now plastered to her face. “This is my wife, Genevieve.”
Giving Harley a quick scratch, Riley stands beside him, close enough that Mac can feel the heat radiating off her body. Instinctively, he starts to put a hand on her back, but he quickly pulls away. She’s not wearing a shirt—only a sports bra and those stupidly tight leggings—and the intimacy of putting his hand on her bare skin is too much to handle. “Hi,” she says, completely oblivious to Mac’s internal panic.
Carrie Ann introduces herself again, and Mac is only half-listening while she and Riley chat. Riley’s so much better at small talk anyway.
He’s much too focused on how Riley grabs his shoulder to use him for balance while she stretches. She’s so casual about it, like she’s done it a million times before. His skin burns under her touch.
Mac wants to feel more of her, wants his whole body to feel like that.
Stop it, he chastises himself. Stop thinking about her like that.
He can’t.
Even after Riley lets go, the feeling lingers, and Mac can’t stop thinking about that too. She’s standing slightly in front of him now, almost as if she’s protecting him from their nosey neighbor.
“When are you having kids?” Carrie Ann coos. “An attractive couple such as yourselves would make such beautiful children.”
Shit. He and Riley never talked about that.
Before Mac can come up with an answer, Riley pulls his arms around her, a smile blooming on her face. She guides his hands to rest low on her abdomen. “We’re actually trying right now.”
Mac’s brain short-circuits.
He blushes, both at the casual intimacy of Riley wrapping herself in him and at the implications of what she just said. Pressing her body fully into Mac’s, Riley looks up at him, smiling like he’s her whole world, and Mac’s heart stops. He’s not breathing.
His whole body burns, and the feeling is so much more intense than he imagined just seconds ago.
Alight with mischief, Riley’s dark brown eyes draw him in, and suddenly Mac is picturing Riley with that exact same expression while wearing far less clothing.
Mac thinks he might die from spontaneous combustion.
You are so beautiful, he barely stops himself from saying. His blush deepens as he’s snared in the mental image of him and Riley doing said “trying.”
Their neighbor has the audacity to laugh. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it, Genevieve. Your husband looks like he’s ready for another round.”
That makes it worse. So much worse. If he doesn’t spontaneously combust, then he’ll definitely die of embarrassment. It’s not how he wants to die, but it’s better than explaining his reaction to Riley. Because she’s going to ask him about it. Mac knows this—knows this like he knows grass is green and gravity is what keeps his feet on the ground.
As soon as Carrie Ann leaves, Riley does exactly that. She extricates herself from his grasp, putting her hands on her hips and furrowing her brow the way she always does when she knows something’s up. “Are you okay?” she asks.
Mac’s voice is strained as he replies, “Yeah. I’m good.”
He is not good. He is definitely not good.
And Riley knows it.
This op feels like all Mac’s worst nightmares coming to fruition. Simultaneously.
Riley can’t know. Her knowing would ruin everything—their friendship, their work, their trust. Mac can hardly look her in the eye. How is Riley supposed to trust him when he’s secretly thinking about her like that? He’s her friend; he’s supposed to protect her from guys who want her like that, not become one of them.
But god does Mac want to be one of them. Not one of them, he corrects himself. The only one.
He’s screwed.
.
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@tall-tanned-tattoo
@thecarrieonokay
@tom-hunter-summah
@whatsabex
#beth writes#macgyver#macriley#macgyver fanfiction#angus macgyver#riley davis#mac x riley#looking through a window au
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NAV- By Member (Min Yoongi)
This is where I sort my ficrecs by member, all fics are (x reader) unless stated otherwise, personally I don’t really like reading mxm fics cos im basically a delusional y/n but sometimes i ran out of xreader, gave in, and actually found some good fics. (updated: 17 May 2021)
moved from @ksjmlizt cos i’m a dumbass and can’t figured out how to use tumblr’s sideblog
Category: Angst (A), Fluff (F), Smut (S)
Status: ✔️ completed, or 🔛 ongoing, or 🛑 discontinued/ haven’t been updated for more than a year
disclaimer: these fics are not mine. I’ll tag the authors and you guys should go check their other works💕
Series:
Kitten's Little Flame by @magicalsalamander ✔️(6/6)
Hybrid AU, Children BTS ♥︎ A, F, S
You (cat hybrid) have transferred to a new elementary school because your parents have moved towns. You start your new kindergarten class and meet other hybrids, but one special one catches your eye, Yoongi, the dragon hybrid. How will you manage this new environment?
A Wish Out of Water by @jimlingss ✔️(2/2)
Genie!Yoongi ♥︎ F, A (very heavy angst towards the end IMO)
A genie could solve all your problems. Though you wouldn’t even know exactly what to ask for - money, a warmer house, a better job, a better life? But Min Yoongi is no ordinary genie. He’s here to make your life a living hell. Too bad it was hell to begin with.
The Truth Between Us by @jimlingss and @gukyi ✔️(7/7)
e2l AU, fic-ception ♥︎ A, F
a book deal should be the most exciting time of your life, but there seems to be a constant and omnipresent damper on your mood in the form of a certain min yoongi, who you would just cut out from your life, if he weren’t your editor. but then, the world shifts beneath your feet, and you begin to wonder if maybe you’ve always been looking at life from the wrong angle.
Cat's Cradle by @whitesparrows97 ✔️(5/5)
Hybrid AU ♥︎ A, F, S
Yoongi is your best friend – and your lovable and not at all grumpy cat hybrid, who lives with you under the same roof. He despises your boyfriend Namjoon and makes sure the human gets to feel that. A fight between you unfolds and from then on everything can only go downhill.
Of Fire and Love by @hollyhomburg 🔛 (7/9)
Fantasy AU, Dragon!Yoongi ft. Baby!Jungkook, Baby Dragon!Hoseok ♥︎ A, F, S
When Dragon Yoongi finds baby Jungkook in the wreckage of a house he burned down, he can’t bring himself to kill the child. Months after someone drops off a baby at your door, you start to notice something- or someone, lurking at the edge of the woods.
Silver Spoon by @happy-meo ✔️(9/9)
Office AU, Rom-com ♥︎ F
Having been born and raised in the country side, you have worked hard your entire life to make it to the big city. You eventually achieved your dream and now you have a wonderful paying job for a large company and you continue putting your 110% into everything you do. However, your perfect plan to climb to success through consistent effort and hard work becomes disarrayed with the arrival of your branch’s new rebellious and easy-going CEO, who never desired the position in the first place and has never truly worked hard a day in his life. Your job is on the line if he can’t be turned into a quality CEO within a year, but he has no intention of changing himself for anyone or letting you boss him around so easily. How will you work your way through this obstacle? Will you succeed in changing him or will he be the one that changes you?
Greedy by @xjoonchildx 🔛 (5/?)
Mafia AU, pining ♥︎ A, F, eventual S
being a loner has never bothered yoongi until now. until you.
Oneshot:
Love Grows Where You Go by @hueseok
Arranged Marriage AU, Pining AU, Tsundere!Yoongi ♥︎ A, F, S
determined to make you and yoongi grow closer for your upcoming wedding in two weeks, your parents plan a trip for the both of you that lasts five days long. you know you should be ecstatic about it, considering your longtime crush on your fiancé, but by how you’re positive that he secretly despises your whole being, you don’t find this mini vacation with him something to look forward to. that is until things take an unexpected turn and suddenly, he makes it apparent he doesn’t hate you at all as you reckoned.
Make me by @ppersonna
pwp, filthy fluff lol ♥︎ F, S
an ordinary sleepover with your best friend turns into anything but ordinary, thanks to your ridiculously loud neighbours above you.
Demon!Yoongi Drabble by @jungshookz
Halloween AU ♥︎ F, S
All I Want for Christmas by @hayjeon
Single dad!Yoongi, CEO!Yoongi, Secretary!reader ♥︎ F
Hold Me Tight by @floralseokjin
Established Relationship AU ♥︎ A
the end of a relationship comes slowly but suddenly
Something to hold on @fantasybangtan
Single dad!Yoongi, Christmas AU ♥︎ A, F
it’s not that you don’t like your job. on the contrary, reading bedtime stories to a certified little princess is something you still can’t believe you get paid to do. it’s just that between all the school runs, snow days and secret second hot chocolates before bed, you may fallen a little too hard for those dimpled cheeks and gummy smiles…. worse still, you’ve fallen for her father too.
Yoongi as Neuroserugon
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Guardian rewatch: Episode 5
I thought this would be a shorter recap. Ha!
Every now and then throughout this show we are getting CGI wide shots of the Dragon City, mostly establishing the time of day. They have three settings: nighttime, daytime, and sunset/sunrise. While quality-wise those wide shots would not feel out of place in a video game from ten years ago, with buildings looking all rubbery, I actually really like this sunset sky. I also appreciate that they firmly establish that this is city is not, in fact, a real place. I almost wish the architecture was a little bit less familiar, but making the city look truly otherworldly here would make location scouting much harder. As it happens, the buildings on the forefront have a very 60’s art deco revival inspired feeling, and there are some distinctively neoclassical buildings peppered around as well. We can also see that the roads are very wide, and generally there is a hint of Stalinist grandioseness about the downtown. Unfortunately, it looks nothing like the locations and sets the characters are running in; we also get a feeling that the Dragon City is very large, which is not entirely consistent with the very few locations that were available when shooting the series. This shot does, however, remind me the city I grew up in (Moscow).
The actual plot of the episode centres around Huang Linqi and his fiancé, Li Jiaqi, going missing - it will be important, because their disastrous wedding will produce the most Clark Kent moment that Shen Wei will ever have. We also meet the parents of the couple, who are stinking rich and extremely unpleasant. It also introduces us to Butler Wu (Wu Tian’en) and his son, who will become important in later episodes. Butler Wu is not actually the villain of the piece, despite this shot clearly telling us otherwise.
Back at the university, Shen Wei is having a morning tea with his dean. He holding his teacup with almost god-like elegance, very close to actually covering his mouth when he drinks, which is extremely old-fashioned. This is in stark contrast with him brazenly and un-gentlemanly showing his ankles.
Shen Wei is asked to move off campus, because, apparently, having a chief of the special task force showing up at your office is bad for the reputation. Since the professor does not look surprised, and states that he has already found a flat, I’m guessing that he was clever enough to have predicted this turn of events, and used it to secure the place a breath away from Zhao Yunlan. It is up to speculation as to when he started scouting for an apartment: it could not have been more than a few weeks since he met Zhao Yunlan, and finding a flat can take a while.
At the SID office, we are treated to a lovely moment between the team members, crowding around Lin Jin’s new invention: a popcorn-specific microwave.
It’s very sweet to see the team indulge in some nonsense outside of their case work, made even better by Wang Zheng being there. The fact that Zhao Yunlan is on board with his department’s time and resources being spent on a popcorn maker only makes this scene better. He is crouching on the table, because chairs are for the weak.
After inspecting the crime scene, Zhao Yunlan is spending some time outside chatting to Buttler Wu, and comments on Li Jiaqi’s good looks, since Zhao Yunlan is a man who can appreciate beauty.
As Xiao Guo is awe-struck at his boss’ ability to note someone’s prettiness from a distance, Chu Shuzhi literally rolls his eyes calling those “instincts of a beast”, and Zhao Yunlan fails to reprimand him for the remark, because… fair enough. Very fair enough. It’s hard not to relate to Zhao Yunlan, a self-admitted bi disaster.
Shen Wei is being shown his new apartment. He does not even look around it, staring instead at Zhao Yunlan’s front door across the hall from him.
Moving here is a completely senseless thing to do. How on earth is he planning to hide his Hei Pao Shi persona while being a next door neighbour to the chief of SID? My conclusion is that from a character stand-point, it’s nothing but an act of desperate devotion; from a narrative stand-point, this codifies that their relationship is about to get very intimate indeed.
The SID members are interrogating Buttler Wu: as is often the case, instead of bringing him in, like they did with Shen Wei, they hijack a cafe nearby to have a more relaxed conversation. As they talk, Shen Wei is making his way past the cafe, which both Wu Tian'en and Shen Wei notice.
Shen Wei proceed to follow Butler Wu, who calls him out on it. This leads to a removal of his glasses so epic it warrants a jump-cut to close-up, on top of the dutch angle used mere seconds prior to it.
Instantly recognizing Shen Wei as Hei Pao Shi, Wu Tian’en sinks to his knees in reverence. Again, fair enough. After having a brief conversation about their shared history, Shen Wei states that Butler Wu is not allowed to lay a hand on Zhao Yunlan.
“Chief Zhao? You’re stalking him?”
“You don’t need to know more.”
That is not a no. Mostly because that is a yes.
Shen Wei promises to not take Wu Tian’en away before the man resolves his current problems, adding that he hopes his old acquaintance won’t have any regrets when that happens. As Shen Wei walks away, he muses “Then how much time is there left for me?”
(And I have to fight an uncomfortable sinking feeling in my stomach, which is occurring a lot as I rewatch those series.)
The same evening at the SID offices the team is struggling with the case so much Da Qing suggests asking Hei Pao Shi’s help. Zhao Yunlan bristles at the idea, and… calls Shen Wei instead. Of course he does.
To be fair, he does so to check whether the other man is stalking him, but he also calls him by his given name rather Professor Shen, reinforcing that he makes this enquiry as a friend, not at as the chief of the Special Investigations Department.
During the phone call Shen Wei is absentmindedly playing with the corner of the publication he is reading.
While Yunlan does not deny that he still thinks Shen Wei is potentially up to something dodgy, he still proceeds to ask his advice on the case. This continues the dynamic from the previous episode: it’s not that Yunlan is completely blind, it’s just that he trusts Shen Wei regardless of the secrets he might be hiding.
Moving on, here’s what I have to say on he topic of bad CGI. There are several reasons in the world for a piece of visual media to have a poor quality computer animation. It could be laziness, or it could be absence of imagination, both of which are inexcusable. It also could be absence of funds, as is the case with the Guardian. And, honestly, I am alright with that. It’s not their fault, and I would much rather see this drama as it is - bad CGI and all - than none at all.
And, the quality of CGI here has energy similar to Live Action Sailor Moon (PGSM), which I honestly find both nostalgic and endearing.
That show also has a talking cat, but it’s performed by a literal plush toy on strings, so Guardian certainly wins here.
While Huang Linqi and Li Jiaqi are being kept together (possibly in an alternate dimension, seeing as how they have emerged from the lake completely dry), they talk through their relationship issues, and the audience finds itself with a sugar-sweet take on the arranged marriage/strangers to lovers trope. I feel a little bit bad about their disaster wedding now.
At the same time, Xiao Jun and Wu Tian’en’s story is a tiny echo of Shen Wei end Je Zun: the son thinks his dad left him to fend for himself when he was young and vulnerable, and distrusts the very concept of love because of that perceived abandonment. Unlike Je Zun however, he stops to have an actual conversation, which ultimately forces him to quit his senseless act of revenge, and make the first step on the path of reconciliation and redemption. This is Guardian telling us that communication skills do, in fact, matter.
He also drops this bombshell of a line, which hurts my heart a lot.
“In the face of death every love in the world is mere foam”
On an entirely separate note, I am very glad that the actor who plays Butler Wu is wearing nice thick knee pads.
They are very visible, and they make a little “boing” when he hits the ground, but the actor has to fall to his knees twice in this episode, both times on hard surfaces, one of which is literal gravel, and I’m happy that the production is being considerate of their actors’ physical well-being.
While this episode does not mark the first time Zhao Yunlan is being understanding to the Undergrounders in pain, this is the first time anti-Unvergrounder bigotry is explicitly framed in a negative light. The two evil businessmen, who cast a child aside just because he has special powers, are shown as unquestionably in the wrong. Xiao Jun is lightly scolded for his rash actions, but he is not brought back to SID in cuffs, and he is not immediately given away to Hei Pao Shi. Far from that: he is brought in softly, to spend some time at his dying father’s side.
As Butler Wu slipping away, we once more see Guo Changcheng being recklessly heroic, as he is prepared to use the Longevity Dial to share his life force. Instead of letting him do it, Zhao Yunlan snatches the Hallow away and decides to perform this particular miracle himself. This is the same man who will later sacrifice his eyesight to bring people’s lives back. Bai Yu’s acting in that moment is utterly phenomenal, showing a whole range of emotion from horror to determination to dismay in mere seconds.
Hei Pao Shi teleports in, and, without a preamble, scolds Zhao Yunlan (the first episode in the series-long “don’t touch the Hallows” saga), and then asks him whether it’s worth shortening his life for an Undergrounder. This is in equal parts a provocation and a test, because I’m fairly certain that Shen Wei was going to save Wu Tian’en anyway.
As SID members beg Hei Pao Shi to save Butler Wu in perfect unison, Zhao Yunlan states that a person is a person, regardless of their origin. Shen Wei notes inwardly that SID had changed, and, as expected, heals Butler Wu, while Yunlan stares at his power with relief and awe.
Since I have talked about the wide shot of the Dragon City, let’s talk about its counterpart in the Underworld.
I have failed to notice before that there appears to be a vast city next to the volcano river, some way away from the royal Palace, looming over it. Geographically, this makes little sense: we will see characters leave the Palace and instantly end up in a city square throughout the series, but I still really enjoy this wide shot. It is also interesting to see the architecture of the place. It is somewhere between (western) medieval abodes and futuristic shipment container blocks, with living spaces built on top of each other, crammed-in, and unpleasant. I also love the lighting here, contrasting blue and red.
Hallows random power #n: projecting their brethren. Imagine how useful it would be if they also did that for the Brush and the Lantern.
The next day, Zhao Yunlan and Da Qing are on a leisurely morning jog, while Yunlan is wearing bottoms that my partner refers to as “sheggings” (as in, shorts + leggings)
They are talking about Shen Wei, naturally. In my head-canon, Zhao Yunlan is driving his colleagues nuts because can’t help himself but bring the good professor up every goddamn minute of every goddamn day.
As they turn the corner to go home, they bump into the subject of discussion, who informs them that he moved into the building, and leaves abruptly looking more than slightly pleased with himself.
Finally, we are treated to Guo Changcheng’s surveillance exam. I don’t know why he thought this outfit would make him look less conspicuous.
Eventually, the SID will learn that some of their staff members don’t have to be fighters or detectives. In Xiao Guo, they have found the heart of their team, and that is enough.
Next up, Episode 6: The Coat Zhao Yunlan Will Buy
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PS: I have mentioned earlier, that I have a sinking feeling as I watch Guardian, and I would like to elaborate on that. You see, I am very scared of flying. It’s an irrational fear, but it is the one I nonetheless have. There is a very specific feeling I get just as the plane starts gaining speed on the runway: there is joy, because at the end of this journey they is something to look forward to (my parents’ hugs, a drink with a friend, a favourite place, a new city to explore), but there is also a painful anticipation, as I brace for the moment the aircraft will tilt upwards, knowing that I will be pushed back into my chair by gravity, battling against an onslaught of a panic attack, shaking, learning to breathe, fighting with everything I have to keep my heart rate down. Watching Guardian from the beginning, knowing where the story is going, mirrors that feeling perfectly.
PPS: The following conversation happened with my partner as I way typing this recap.
My partner: Do you think Shen Wei ever wears sheggings?
Me: Sweetie, I think he would rather die.
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The Difference
I was inspired to write by some of the amazing @ghostgirl19posts‘s work for Febwhump and with permission I’ve decided to write a little epilogue for the Ganon’sChampion!Link chapters, the first of which can be found here but you should also read parts two and three for this to make sense.
Overall rating: T
Warnings: Emotional Manipulation, unhealthy relationship that grows to be slightly less unhealthy.
“Did you really believe that anything would be different?”
No, she supposes she didn’t. Not really. She isn’t that stupid.
Zelda sees the dead sincerity in his eyes when he speaks, but the relief at Ganon’s fall has sparked a rebellious streak in her. She won’t let him get off that easy, so she masks her dismay with an apathetic flip of her hair.
“Just as well,” she hums, the picture of a bored princess, “As far as I’m concerned, my job is done so long as the kingdom isn’t actively on fire. I see nothing wrong with lounging about for the rest of my days. If you want to do all the paperwork, be my guest. In the meantime, I’ll be in the library. It’s been too long since I’ve read a good book.”
She doesn’t wait for permission, slipping out of his arms and breezing out the door. He stands there a moment, shocked into silence. He likely would have called after her if he wasn’t rooted to the spot by the dread sinking in his body.
“ . . . Paperwork?”
Despite Link’s insistence otherwise, Zelda did begin to notice things were different. The changes were small, incremental, but no less potent. She was not so foolish as to let her guard down, but a drop of water can cut through stone through sheer persistence.
Zelda woke up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom. This was an increasingly common occurrence as her midriff expanded to accommodate the child growing there. She lay on her side, Link curled around her back and his hand on her stomach. The day after Ganon’s assassination his rooms were cleared and refurbished to house the new royal couple.
The first difference. Their rooms were divided no longer. At first, Zelda assumed that he was tired of having to summon her and this unification was an attempt to streamline his path between her legs. She thought it a decision driven by lust, but she had to admit that their nightly escapades had decreased. He still took Zelda into his arms often enough, unwrapping her with painstaking, almost precious care and leaving her skin open to be devoured. But there were also nights like these, where the days were long and Link seemed to sense her fatigue and was content to simply lie wrapped around her, his hand never straying from her abdomen. Zelda wondered if he was as tired as she was, adjusting to kingship, but most of her husband’s mind was still a mystery to her.
Her husband.
There was no royal wedding. No dress. No grand feast to celebrate Zelda’s return to royalty. There was only an acolyte and a set of documents to be signed before she was once again dragged off to bed. They couldn’t find a priest, so they said their vows in front of the closest alternative.
Zelda yawned and slipped out of bed to relieve herself. While she was washing her hands she took a moment to consider her reflection.
Zelda knew there were aspects of her marriage that were unacceptable, she knew that.
But there was no denying the privilege afforded to her as queen, even if she was only a puppet. Her hair still shone, her eyes were bright, and her cheeks full. A far cry from the gaunt, weary state the servants were in. She shuddered to think of how her citizens looked outside the castle walls. The conquest of Hyrule was her fault. It was her failure to claim her birthright that brought this ruin upon him. Yet here she stood, safely tucked away, insulated from the Calamity’s devastation.
Sometimes, when she was honest with herself, Zelda had to admit there was a part of her that was grateful for Link’s command that she stay within the castle. His mandate, cruel though it was, gave her a plausible excuse to hide from her mistakes. The castle walls were high and thick, strong enough to shut out the guilt that was her obligation.
Zelda jerked her head to the side, unable to look herself in the eye any longer. She padded back into the room. Instead of heading straight back to bed, though the promise of warmth against the late fall evening was tempting, she was drawn to the window. The guardians still roamed the streets of the shattered Castle Town. They were malicious no longer, only patrolling out of ancient duty, but none dared approach. Above all the ruin, the sky was clear of Ganon’s hateful red. At least she could see the stars.
“Come to bed.”
Zelda turned to where Link lay, staring at her. She supposed he finally lost his patience with her idling. If she were a more fanciful woman, Zelda would think he was fussing over her standing in a room that chilled when the fire died in the hearth. She returned to the massive bed Link claimed as theirs and sat down, kicking her slippers off before sliding back under the lush, heavy comforter. Link’s hand was back on her stomach before she settled, an imitation of a caring husband so convincing it was cruel.
She didn’t cry, because tears were a cry for help she didn’t deserve.
Before her growing stomach prevented it, Zelda spent most of her days firmly ensconced in Link’s lap as he looked over documents. He refused to ask for the help any of the few conquered noblemen that still lived, as he insisted such an action was beneath him. Besides, what better way to remind the captive queen of her place than to make her explain all of this bureaucratic nonsense?
“What exactly is the point of a crop rotation?” he huffed as he read the agricultural proposal over lunch. Zelda finished off her sandwich before answering.
“Different plants require different nutrients from the land to grow. If you grow the same crop in the same field every year, eventually those nutrients will deplete. Switching things up gives the soil an opportunity to regain those specific nutrients while reducing the amount of bad harvests.”
Link hummed as he signed his approval of the proposal. All of this drivel was really giving him a headache. He reached for the last half of his sandwich, but Zelda got there first, plucking it off of his plate and sinking her teeth into it. Child crafting was a hungry business, after all.
Link disguised his failed reach by redirecting it around Zelda so his arms circled her waist, both hands resting on her stomach. He supposed a sense of entitlement was a good quality for a queen to have.
He didn’t need that sandwich anyway.
The powers that be must have finally resigned themselves that he was here to stay. They must have given up on his downfall, and instead must have focused on encouraging what little virtue he had. They must be, for such a petty generosity to be rewarded by the baby’s first kick.
“The baby kicked!” he gasped, craning his head over her shoulder to look down at where her tummy peeked out under her breasts.
“Yes, love, I noticed,” Zelda deadpanned, then they stilled in tandem.
Love. A word that had no business between them. Obsession, perhaps. Possession. But ‘love’? It was laughable. Link opened his mouth to say something castigating, something harsh enough to bring back the status quo.
“Careful.”
Link’s head jerked back in surprise. She didn’t turn to look at him, ignoring him in favor of taking the apple from his plate, so he pressed.
“What did you say?” Who was she to caution him?
“Merely making an observation,” she said, turning her hand this way and that, regarding the fruit with a critical eye, “After all, what upsets the mother threatens the child.”
A chill ran down Link’s spine. Perhaps, even after all this time, he had underestimated her. He didn’t have the luxury of composing himself at his own pace, because she had turned to him. The calculating, sharp look in her eye brought him to heel.
“Wouldn’t you agree?” she asked.
Link’s hands started rubbing again, and his lips dropped to her shoulder. He had surrendered, but he wasn’t sure if the victor was Zelda or his own traitorous heart.
“Yes, dearest.”
Zelda hummed in response, bringing a hand up to comb luxuriously through his hair. He sighed, and she brought the apple to her lips, biting into it with a satisfying crunch.
After all, a marriage bed is an arena of equals.
Perhaps the statement was insensitive, but being a pregnant queen of a ruined castle did have some perks. Primarily, it was the absolute lack of regard for decorum. Despite the circumstances, Zelda felt a lighthearted thrill of walking around the palace, once a place of rigid etiquette, in nothing but a nightgown and silk robe. Link’s insistence, of course. When her corset was no longer comfortable to wear, Link inferred that her dresses would be too tight as well. He could have had new ones made, but why bother with garments that would have to be altered half a dozen times? No, it was far more efficient for his queen to lounge about in her nightgowns.
Of course, the knee length hem had absolutely nothing to do with it. Link didn’t even notice when a knee length gown in the first trimester stopped at the top of her thighs in the third. Or the fact that Zelda stopped wearing anything underneath when putting something on became difficult. Irrelevant, all of it.
If he happened to capitalize on the opportunities it afforded to him, fine, but that was an entirely separate matter.
Zelda stretches, trying to release some of the tension in her back, before falling stiffly back into her chaise. It was absurd, but the moment he realized she could no longer fit in his lap he’d commissioned a modified chaise specifically for her and had it brought to the office. She said it was overkill, but he didn’t care. That said, her back had grown to appreciate the reclined seat and cushions.
Still, one couldn’t help the stiffness that came with sitting for long periods of time. Perhaps she should take a turn about the room? Zelda swung her legs down, then started probing for her slippers. Surely they must be in the same spot she left them? Still, with her stomach as large as it was she couldn’t really see.
Link knelt on the floor next to her, having gotten up the moment he saw her sit up. He took her foot in his hand gently while the other reached under the chaise to pull out the missing footwear. He delicately put the slipper on one foot, perhaps wary of hurting her swollen ankles. He repeated the action with her other foot before wordlessly helping her stand, even though he knew she didn’t need it.
At least, she thought she didn’t. Turns out, fate had other plans, and Zelda felt an intense cramping in her lower abdomen, causing her to double over with a start.
“Zelda!? Zelda, tell me what’s wrong?”
She looked him in the eyes, the same concern held in his grip supporting her arms shining in his eyes.
“Call the midwives.”
The night was quiet. Link would swear that it was the first peaceful moment since Ganon’s rise. Although, it’s entirely possible that this tranquility was an illusion born of the chaos of the day preceding. Now his lovely wife was sleeping, exhausted, in the bed while he sat in a chair next to her.
The baby in his arms huffed, and Link’s attention was drawn from the Zelda sleeping in the bed to the one resting in his arms.
They had to name her Zelda. Of course they did. Other names didn’t seem to fit.
The people of Hyrule couldn’t be trusted to look after his daughter, they were losers! How could they be trusted with someone so precious when they couldn’t even win one war? They couldn’t, simple as that. No, the only ones who were capable of looking after little Zelda were himself and his queen, no others.
But then who would run the country?
Link supposed he could carry on, leaving the childrearing to Zelda as he made sure any and all threats were eliminated before they even looked at the castle. Baby Zelda squirmed, one of her arms coming loose of her swaddling and slapping him in the face.
What was he thinking? Zelda couldn’t hone these raw battle instincts. She can’t even do a backflip, much less after giving birth. Besides, why should she get all the time with the baby? He’s the king! He should get to do what he wants, and he wants to raise his little girl. Zelda can handle affairs of the state well enough. Not right away of course, she needs time to recuperate, but after a few months she should be more than capable of take Hyrule’s reins while he looks after the little one.
“Come here,”
Link looked to the bed, Zelda was sitting up. He moved to help her, but she waved him away, pulling herself into a sitting position with a wince. Once she was settled he slid under the blankets. Zelda undid her nightgown, allowing their sweet daughter to latch on her breast. She winced.
“Does it hurt?” he asked with a frown. She shook her head.
“It’s a bit uncomfortable, I’ll get used to it.”
Link put an arm around her shoulders and gently pulled her to him. She leaned on him, resting her drowsy head in the crook of his neck, and Link was overcome. He couldn’t fight anymore. It was time to admit defeat.
He pressed his nose into her hair, “I love you.”
When his statement was met with silence, he thought she had fallen back asleep, or perhaps his whispered words were lost in the crown of her head. Then, like a dream, she answered.
“I love you, too.”
Outside, a cool breeze blows through the land, a sigh of relief as the first sprout pushes through the earth, marking the beginning of a new era.
#the legend of zelda#zelink#tw#emotional manipulation#botw zelink#link#zelda#Lantana Lore#LoZ AU#LantanaLore#tw pregnancy
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gif tutorial ✨🎥
I got a few requests to make a gif tutorial so here it is. hope it helps :) It’s quite long so I’ll put it all under a read more. If you have any questions, feel free to ask or PM me directly for help!
Alright....sooo, I don’t remember the last time I made a gif tutorial on this site, but I figured I would even though I use the same method a lot of gif makers have been using for years. I have never strayed from this process and I’ve been making gifs on this site for a decade.
There are a couple methods to making gifs. You can import your video directly into photoshop and cut your gif there. OR you can use a separate video player that has a screencapping tool, then import all your frames into photoshop; this is the method I use and it’s how I’ve adapted and perfected my giffing skills over time.
This post will be long, but I want to be as detailed as I can and explain it step by step. It’s really NOT difficult once you get the hang of it, which is probably why I’ve always done it this way.
Disclaimer: There are three programs I use and I highly suggest you look for reliable links yourself if I’m not able to provide one. I use pretty old versions of KMPlayer and Photoshop (I’ll explain why later), so be careful where you go looking for downloads. There are some photoshop downloads here, but I can’t vouch for them.
Let’s start :)
DOWNLOADING VIDEOS
I use a program called 4k Video Downloader to rip HD videos from Youtube. 1080p is the way to go, but obviously that’s not always possible. It’s ridiculously easy, all you do is click the “Paste Link” button and it’ll download your video. Clicking the “Smart Mode” button will let you set the default quality and the folder you want all your videos to be saved to.
As you can see, here are all the videos I’ve downloaded recently for my gif posts. You can clear this download history list at any time.
SCREENCAPPING
After your video is done downloading, I open the video in KMPlayer. Now, I use an OLD version of this program because this was exactly how I learned to do this back in the day. You can find old versions online, I don’t really know exactly which version mine is because I’ve had it forever, but it’s the old school one that looks like this.
When you open the video, it might stretch the player to full screen so I always adjust it by dragging the corner of the player inward so it shrinks to a more medium size. This will also make your screencaps not so GIANT, which will take longer to load into photoshop.
Anyways, you’re gonna open your video and right click anywhere on the video to select Capture > Frame Extract... (or Ctrl+G on Windows). This window will come up. Make sure all your settings look like this to ensure a really smooth gif.
The first thing you should do is click that little “G” button next to the window size at the bottom. That’ll lock in the dimensions of however big you’ve made your video window, and if you stretch it you’ll see these numbers change. If you start capping without remembering to push that and you make your window smaller/bigger, your caps might be a wacky size or look stretched and you’ll have to go back and do it again. Also note the extracting location at the top. All your caps will go directly to a default folder titled “Capture”.
Once all the settings are ready, go to your desired section of the video, pause it, and hit “Start”. Play the video, pause the video when you’ve got all your caps, then hit “Stop”.
Locate your “Capture” folder and doublecheck you got all the caps you want. This is where I take a moment to delete any caps I don’t want in my gif, that way you don’t bother loading them into photoshop and making it take longer than it needs to.
MAKING THE GIF
You’re gonna open whatever version of Photoshop you’re using. I hilariously still use CS3 to make gifs because the next script I’m gonna run doesn’t work in the free download that I have of CS5, but that’s what you get sometimes when you don’t pay for stuff. Hopefully whatever more recent version of PS you use, you have no problems.
Go to File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack...
This window will come up.
Hit “Browse” and locate your capture folder. Highlight all your caps and press OK. You’ll see them all come up in a list as shown above. Press OK again. Your caps will start to load into one big stack of layers. This will take a minute or so.
When it’s all loaded in, you’ll see them all stacked in your Layers window (Windows > Layers). You’re gonna open your animations timeline (Windows > Animation) and click the little drop down button in the top right corner of the window and select “Make Frames From Layers”.
Click that drop down menu again and hit “Reverse Frames”. Click that drop down menu again and hit “Flatten Frames Into Layers” (this is so our sharpening action will work later). Click the drop down menu again and select “Select All Frames”. All your frames will be highlighted. This is where you’ll set your animation speed. Under each frame you’ll see “0 sec.” Click on that and select “Other”. Type in your desired speed. I usually go for 0.04 if it has a lot of frames. For less frames, 0.05 or 0.06. This is honestly entirely up to your preference. I actually made myself a photoshop action doing all these repetitive steps so it saves me a few precious long seconds of clicking around over and over. I just run the action after my caps are loaded. If you make gifs a lot, I recommend it.
Next it cropping. The reason I don’t crop right away after the files are loaded into a stack is because I like to see where the subject in the gif moves before I decide where I need to crop. I don’t want to accidentally cut anything off. The subject might sway in and out of frame or be off center if I crop it blindly before seeing exactly where the object moves around. So I’ll play the gif first to see exactly where to crop.
Anyways, you’re gonna set your desired width x height of your gif. I’m making this a big gif so you can see the details better. 540 px is Tumblr’s width for big horizontal gifs. If you’re making a photoset with two gifs side by side the width for Tumblr is 268 px.
Go ahead and crop your gif. It’ll resize itself as well. Play the gif back so you can see if anything gets cut off or it’s not where you want it. You can undo the crop and do it again until you’re satisfied.
Here is what my gif looks like animated and cropped.
As you can see, it plays nice and smoothly due to our screencap settings from before in KMPlayer and with our set gif speed (I used 0.05 here).
Next is sharpening the gif. I use a sharpening action that can quickly sharpen up to 120 frames. You can download it here. Open the action by going to File > Open and locating the file. It’ll be added to your Actions window. (Window > Actions if you can’t see it.) In order for it to run correctly, you have to have the first frame selected on your animation window, as well as “Frame 1″ in the layers window. Just like this:
Click the play button on the action and wait a few seconds for all the gifs to finish being sharpened. For any gif with less than 120 frames (which I hope is always, good God) a pop-up will come up when it reaches the end of the frames asking you if you want to stop. Click “Stop”.
Tip: If you think you want to delete more frames, run the sharpening action before you do it. Otherwise you’ll have to flatten your frames into layers again. The first frame and the “Frame 1″ layer should always be the same (the little eye will appear to the left of the layer to let you know it’s visible when you have that specific frame selected) otherwise the action won’t work.
Here is what my gif looks like now that it’s sharpened.
COLORING THE GIF
This is where all the fun (or pain) comes in. All your coloring will be done by using Adjustment Layers (Layers > New Adjustment Layer). I usually go in the same order of adjustments, but this is where personal style comes in and you do no have to do it in the same order I do. You can practice with this part all you want and see how you like to do it.
I start with brightening the gif first and fixing the white balance if a scene needs it. I chose this video specifically so you could see this next handy trick that a lot of people don’t even know about. It’s a dark scene and the white balance makes the subject look quite blue.
I can fix this by starting with a Curves layer. By clicking the third eyedropper tool, you can go and click on a white point in your gif (in this case, I clicked on a white square on his shirt) and bumped up the input number a bit for a little contrast (optional). My curves look like this. Click OK.
My gif now looks like this.
It’s much better, right? The white eyedropper tool will become a lifesaver sometimes, but it’s not always needed.
Next, I go in with a Levels adjustment to do some more brightening. This is all up to preference, but you can play around with this. I typically like to add more contrast with this layer. I just adjust the sliders until I’m satisfied.
Here is my gif now.
Onto yet another brightening layer. Brightness/Contrast. A couple teeny tiny more positive numbers and I now have this.
Next is Selective Color. I wish I could explain this in a way that makes sense, but this is the layer that takes a bit of practice getting down and boils down to how you like the colors in your gif to look. I personally don’t like a lot of yellow in mine, so I focus a lot on the Yellow and Black sliders in each specific tab. I start in the Reds, then Yellows, Whites, Neutrals, then bump up the Blacks a tiny bit.
Here is my gif now. It’s a bit more cool toned, which is what I like.
Next I’ll go in with a Color Balance layer and play with the Midtones and Shadows.
Here it is now.
This is usually my last step unless I want to adjust the brightness again (which I do), so I might go back into my Curves and Levels layers to bump it up.
And you can totally stop there, but I would like to mention a few more optional layers to add depending on your gif. If I wanted more saturation, I would add a Hue/Saturation layer at this point, but I think it’s colorful enough so I’m not going to.
Another layer you can use is Gradient Maps.
Setting a black and white gradient map overtop your gif and setting the layer to Soft Light and lowering the opacity to your heart’s desire (you might need to go to the little drop down menu in your animation timeline and hit “Match Layers Across Frames”) can give your gif a very contrast-y look like this.
Or you can change the black color to something else for a different tone, like a dark blue.
Here is my final gif.
If you want to add a caption to your gif, you can do so with your font of choice (Arial and Calibri are good) and add Stroke or a Drop Shadow to it by going to Layer > Layer Style. You can make sure the text is perfectly centered by clicking on your top frame layer under all your coloring adjustments, hitting Select > All, then clicking your text layer again and going to Layer > Align Layers To Selection > Horizontal Centers. Then hit Select > Deselect and go to your little drop down menu in your animation timeline and click “Match Layers Across Frames”.
Here is what it looks like with a caption.
SAVING YOUR GIF
Go to File > Save for Web & Devices...
A big window will come up where you can preview your finished gif by pressing the play button on the right hand side. In the bottom left corner will tell you what size your gif is. Tumblr’s gif limit is a whopping 10 MB, so we’re good.
Your gif settings should look something like this.
We always want to keep all colors at 256 (the highest). Lowering this number will make our gif file size smaller, but also decrease the quality of the gif itself. If your file size is more than 10 MB, I recommend going back and deleting some frames or making some more curve adjustments. Some users also like to set their gif to “Adaptive” instead of “Selective”. This is up to you.
Click Save and you’re done!
#this took me all day and half the gifs dont even move when you view this post on my desktop theme#LOVE THAT#please view this on the mobile view
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You and I, a takumegu story
joy is meant to be fleeting. and yet.
Morning
“Takumi-kun,” Megumi yawned as she approached him bearing onigiri and a stainless steel HydroFlask filled to the brim with piping hot jujube tea.
The Italian greeted her with a steaming mug of coffee from his espresso machine in his kitchenette. “I wish I could say good morning, but I’m rather averse to the notion at this point.”
Megumi laughed. It was nearing 5 AM in Tokyo, and they’d been in Takumi’s office at Legislation with a veritable cityscape of the first and second seats’ paperwork organized by importance for the last ten hours. It was tragic that they had agreed to finish all their work a night early so they could enjoy each other’s presence, but this quality time had been relegated to the stupid office.
“Shall we continue?” Megumi asked, her words lacking any and all traces of conviction.
Takumi heaved a sigh. “I’ve signed so many documents today I can’t tell if I’m writing in Japanese or Italian.”
“To be honest, I’ve probably not even been signing my own name,” she mused. Then she blanched. “O-oh no! W-what if I sent t-the—”
“Relax, Tadokoro-san,” Takumi said, sensing an impending panic attack. “I’m sure Arato-san reviewed the documents before we sent them to New York.”
“I was the one reviewing them!”
Takumi put his hand over hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. His eyes widened slightly as he realized what he was doing, but he brushed the feeling aside. “It’ll be alright, Tadokoro-san. It won’t matter too much.”
It looked for a second as if she were about to implode, but then she sighed, “I don’t have enough energy to hyperventilate.”
“I understood that on so many different levels.” Takumi took one of the onigiri and felt rejuvenated with the first bite, reveling in the warmth of the honey dressed pork. “This is a masterpiece,” he told her. “I feel better than I’ve been the rest of the month collectively.”
She smiled, a faint blush rising to her cheeks. “I’m glad you think so.”
Takumi’s eyebrows drew together. “Tadokoro-san, now that we’re both functional, do you want to visit the noodle festival in Dotonbori?”
She dropped her onigiri. “T-that’s in Osaka, Takumi-kun.”
“Well, Nakiri Alice told me we’re free to take the jet whenever we want as long as it’s not in use.” Takumi lifted his hand. Dangling from his fingers was a lanyard with a small gold key. “Shall we?”
“It’s five in the morning…” But they both knew she was already more than convinced.
When they landed in Osaka, the festival was already underway.
The sun was slipping past the horizon by the time they realized they’d been gone the entire day and probably caused pandemonium at Legislation — tragic, how they were the sole pillar keeping the Elite Ten from falling to pieces — but neither seemed to mind.
They were sitting on a bench, watching the passersby, content with all the noodles they’d consumed.
Takumi furrowed his brows. “Tadokoro-san?”
“Yes, Takumi-kun.”
“How would you feel if we called this a date?”
Megumi’s eyes widened. “E-ehh?”
Takumi’s face turned red as he attempted to contrive a respectable excuse, but his panic was cut short when Megumi took hold of his hand with an uncharacteristically calm air.
“I would love that, Takumi-kun,” she smiled, and with one look, Takumi figured that not even the urban atmosphere around them could compare to the cosmopolitan vibrancy in her gold eyes.
Sunset
There has always been some vague concept of balance. Everything comes with a counterpart; there is no exception to this, and there never will be. It is a universal truth, as constant as the laws of motion, as flexible as time. Balance is often unseen, and yet it is there. Joy is countered with anguish, laughter with tears; neither can exist without the other.
And yet, every time Takumi Aldini’s electric blue eyes fell upon that sweet cinnamon roll of a girl — one hell of a chef when she was provoked, though — he realized that no law was absolute, because he had never experienced anything but exhilaration when he was with her.
Love was fleeting; that was another supposed aphorism he’d learned from the wise.
But loving Tadokoro Megumi was something he could do once, twice, twice eternity.
“It says in Nakiri-san’s memo that we’re supposed to be providing a lunch service for the jury of the Bocuse d’Or,” Megumi frowned, reading the post-it note stuck on the inside cover of the manila folder Alice had provided for this particular task.
Takumi finished off his espresso. They were watching the sunset in Vienna, drinking Melange and sharing a slice of Sachertorte with the sun descending beyond the Wiener Musikverein in the gentle Saturday backdrop. “For a second there I was going to ask you which Nakiri you’re talking about. Isn’t the Bocuse d’Or in France?”
“Lyon,” Megumi confirmed. “I’m betting Nakiri-san sent us here on purpose. Bocuse d’Or won’t even happen this year. Ah, look. She left us a note on the back of the post-it.” Megumi cleared her throat before reading, “Happy one year, lovebirds. You have twelve hours before Erina goes berserk and calls NATO to send troops to find you guys, so enjoy them. Call me when you want the jet to come pick you up from VIE.”
“Well, Tadokoro-san, I guess we can relax for the rest of the task period. Happy one year, by the way.”
Megumi gave him a bright smile and replied, “Happy one year, Takumi-kun.”
The sky was soft, an endless canvas streaked with muted shades of orange and pink, everything blending into a gorgeous view highlighted by the spectacular architecture — and yet Takumi couldn’t seem to register anything other than the remarkable girl blushing nervously across from him.
To think it had been a whole year. It was too good to be true. This was the type of love most men searched for their entire lives without once catching a glimpse of; this was the type of love in fantasy, romance novels — everything an illusion. And yet this was real, as real as the warmth of her heart beating against his when she pressed her nose to his neck.
Takumi knew even he, with all his virtues, didn’t deserve her. But maybe she’d be willing to take him along for the ride; wherever Tadokoro Megumi went, he would follow.
It was just then that Takumi’s phone rang, snapping both out of their shared reverie.
The Italian sighed as he read the caller ID: Nakiri Erina.
“Do I pick this up?” he mused aloud, but he already had his answer.
“Y-you have to, Takumi-kun! She’s the first seat!”
“What do you say we don’t go back to school?” Takumi said, turning his phone on silent and flipping it face down.
Megumi gave him a horrified look. “You just ghosted Nakiri Erina!”
“I mean, she’s probably too busy dealing with Yukihira’s chaos to care, right?”
“Chaos is a severe understatement,” Megumi admitted. “B-but what if she kicks us off the council?”
Takumi grinned. “It’ll be alright, Tadokoro-san. We have a whole week to ourselves.”
With a sigh, Megumi relented. “So… we’re in Vienna.”
“Right.”
“There’s this restaurant I really want to try… but there’s another place down the street that Ryo-kun said had really good rainbow trout. And while we’re in Europe… have you been to Budapest?”
Takumi clapped his hands together. “Say less. We’re taking a sabbatical for the rest of the month.”
Megumi gave a nervous chuckle. “For research purposes, right? Otherwise Nakiri-san is going to kick us over the Pacific Ocean when we get back.”
At this, Takumi burst out laughing. He managed to choke out, “You are truly one in a million, Tadokoro-san.”
And he meant it.
Dawn
To say Takumi Aldini was known for his elegant calisthenics would be a stretch, but when that chaotically graceful blessing was around him, swinging up onto the rooftop of the trattoria with a picnic basket perched precariously on his fingertips was most definitely not a problem.
Megumi was waiting for him with a fleece blanket around her shoulders and a gentle smile that warmed her gold eyes brighter than the Italian sunrise. “Hi, honey,” she said sweetly, as if she hadn’t prodded him awake ten minutes ago and told him to bring breakfast up to the roof in five. He’d never be able to catch up to her hopping hare speed, but he figured he’d gotten the basics of Tadokoro Time down. To be early was to be on time and to be on time was to be late. Considering he was five minutes past the downbeat, his girlfriend had probably been waiting for him since before the dinosaurs.
“Good morning, amore,” he replied as he sat beside her and opened the basket. Takumi produced a loaf of brioche and began cutting with expert precision, trying to keep his pulse steady as he felt her eyes on him. The small velvet box in his pocket was doing nothing to help this endeavor.
Megumi regarded the two identical 1.8-centimeter slices in awe before thanking him and lifting the first bite to her lips.
“This is delicious,” she said once the tranquil hum of the autumn pond had faded to the back of her mind. “The rosemary completes the ensemble really well.” He was truly amazing; they’d been cooking love confessions for each other for the last seven years and he could still make her heart skip beats. His love was unconditional, more pastel than anything.
“Grazie, amore,” he said. “It means the world coming from you.”
“I’m only telling you the truth,” she blushed. “If I have to, I’ll say it every day to make sure you know that.”
It was now or never.
“Listen, Megumi. There’s something you need to know.”
She gazed up at him curiously over her brioche.
Takumi took a deep breath. To hell with the speech he’d parsed out in his head last night — that kind of thing never worked anyhow.
Loving Tadokoro Megumi was about elements and worlds that weren’t in their dimension or maybe even in their universe; it was something beyond time and space that his mind couldn’t process, much less put into words, but maybe this dawn would help transmit this, somehow.
But it was highly probable that Takumi had been ready for this simple statement since the moment he first laid eyes on her. A night’s worth of drafting could not possibly hope to serve justice to everything he needed to say. It was the pinnacle of all his emotions that would do more than enough, right here, right now.
“If I said I knew exactly when I fell in love with you, I’d be lying, but if anyone asks I’ll tell them I love you now, and that is all that matters. Tadokoro Megumi, you are the most insanely talented, beautiful girl I have ever known, and I am the luckiest man in the world to stand by your side, so thank you for that. I know I’m far from perfect; I have my flaws, and you have yours, but you need to know that every little part of you is absolutely everything to me, and nothing in this universe could ever change that. With your hand in mine we will turn this wasteland into paradise. You and I, no… us. I promise that I will always be with you. Forever is finite. But my love for you is beyond that.”
At this point, Megumi closely resembled something similar to a red train — Takumi swore he could see the smoke venting from her ears — but he’d waded too far in to step back out.
“I have one question for you.” Takumi got down on one knee, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the Verragio box. The ring was elegant to the point where it possessed an ethereal quality. Diamonds seamlessly fused with rose gold on a platinum band; it was definitely flashier than anything either had ever dreamt of before, much less purchased, and yet it was heartfelt and deliberate. And, perhaps most importantly, it spoke volumes — more words and confessions captured within the metal than Takumi could ever express.
It was a promise of the unbridled love he had for her, the promise of a sterling future he wanted to build with her.
“It is a privilege and an honor to love you. Will you make me not only the luckiest, but also the happiest man in the world and marry me?”
She nodded, doing her utmost to fight back the tears. And as dawn broke in the sky above them, the girl that brought onigiri to his office at five in the morning, the girl that laughed at him over hiyamugi and squeaked whenever he wrapped his arms around her, the beautiful girl that always made him wonder what he had done to deserve her, said two words, and that was enough.
“I will.”
-
soooo um hi @taku-megu i was your secret santa this year! writing a takumegu fic is something i haven’t done before, so i’m really glad i was given the opportunity to write for you. i hope you have a safe and wonderful holiday with your loved ones!
and of course, thanks to @shokugeki-secretsanta for organizing this event :)
- reina
#shokugeki no soma#shokugeki no soma secret santa#takumi aldini#tadokoro megumi#takumegu#merry frickin chriSTmaS
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All or Nothing (FE3H)
Sylvix | Canon-Compliant | War Phase | General
Sylvain hopes that Felix likes flowers, even if he's a few days late.
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A/N: There's an adorable art that goes with this by the amazing Satodee, which can be found here! Read this fic here on AO3 for better quality, and you can follow me here on Twitter!
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Sylvain doesn’t usually think much of calendar dates, but the Pegasus Moon brings two things: Valentine’s Day and Felix’s Birthday.
The former never meant much in the past, usually full of empty promises and swooning women. Tangled limbs that don’t mean anything other than a night of trying to forget. The latter, though, is something that’s been seared into Sylvain’s brain, impossible to overlook. Some years are easier than others because Felix is within reach. It’s the separation that makes it difficult, so having Felix nearby for the first time in years has all but fried his brain.
Neither of them will admit it; this thing, they’ve been dancing around it for years. This go-around, Sylvain's made the decision to finally do something about it. Five years is a long time to feel empty and war kind does things to a man’s brain. Like, give you a sense of urgency.
Ironic, considering that Sylvain’s the kind of person to care for himself last.
He’d gone and fucked it up the last battle, getting injured. Byleth looked none-too-happy, lips pulled into a sour frown. Then he’d waved at Mercedes and turned away. Mercedes at least, bless her fucking soul, was kind. She’d helped him to his tent with soft words, soothed over his wounds with warm hands, and suddenly, Sylvain wasn’t kind of dying anymore.
Felix has visited every night, but only to yell at him. Sylvain will take any crumb of attention that he can because Felix so rarely bestows it of his own regard. Usually, it’s like pulling teeth or backing him into a corner. For some reason, Felix has been going out of his way more and more lately.
Sylvain’s doing better. It’d taken a few days but he’s right as rain now, able to stand without much pain and stretch one side and then the other without busting a stitch. Mercedes always helps, but she doesn’t make it easy. She says that healing the old-fashioned way is good for the soul, even if she speeds up the pace.
Because he’s finally on his feet, Sylvain has an errand to run. He sneaks out of his tent, doing his best to keep a low profile.
#
“It’s going to cost you,” says Anna, tapping her finger against her chin as she gives Sylvain a wide smirk.
“Anna,” says Sylvain, “Darling, dear, peddler of mine. Undoubtedly the best smuggler around--”
“Fancy words and compliments don’t pay for more goods.” Anna crosses her arms over her chest. “Though, it’s not a bad start.”
Sylvain leans forward and whispers in a low voice. “Two day’s pay and I’ll throw in a grilled golden trout.”
“A week’s pay, fuck the trout, I want beast meat teppanyaki instead. You’re the only one dumb enough to go out and fight one on your own.”
“That’s not much of a bargain,” says Sylvain, trying to strike a deal.
“They’re out of season.”
Well, she’s got him there. “The Goddess will smite you one day,” says Sylvain, mouth twisting into a frown.
Anna smiles at him and gives him a wink. “Nah, I think the Goddess would enjoy a hard bargain. Hard work and all that.”
“Five day’s pay,” Sylvain counters. “I’ll still get you the beast meat though.”
Anna taps her finger against her chin as she thinks, and then smiles. “Alright, Red. You’ve got yourself a deal.” She reaches out and he shakes her hand, feeling like he’s just made a deal with a devil. Working with Anna is often like that.
Still, worth it. He grabs the goods and is on his way.
#
When Sylvain finds Felix, he’s cutting firewood for Flayn. Sylvain watches as he gathers it in his arms and figuring that Flayn is likely to keep his secret, he chooses that moment to go up. When she sees Sylvain, she flashes him a smile and wink and slips away to leave them alone.
“Flayn,” says Felix, his back turned. “Where--” He stops dead at the sight of Sylvain, mouth floundering as he tries to figure out what to say.
“Hey, Felix,” says Sylvain.
“Sylvain,” says Felix in a low hiss. “What on earth are you doing here? You’re supposed to be back in your tent. Resting. Not moving. Healing up.” Sylvain can hear the implied dolt in his words.
“I’m fine. Look? I can move--”
“Not the point, you absolute dolt.” Ah, there it is .
Sylvain pouts. “Felix, I came here too--”
“Whatever it is, it can wait,” says Felix.
“I mean, yeah, it could. But I don’t want to wait.”
“For what?” asks Felix.
Sylvain falters for a moment, biting his lip. This definitely isn’t the way that he expects this to happen, but as far as confessions go it can definitely be worse. Besides, Felix isn’t an idiot, he’s probably figured out a thing or two. Hopefully. Otherwise, all of this will be entirely out of the blue.
“Felix, I--”
“OH, MERCEDES, FANCY SEEING YOU HERE!” Flayn suddenly yells from around the corner, just a little bit too loud. Sylvain winces but he knows a warning when he hears it. He’s got about a minute to get this done before Mercedes appears, sees them, and rips him a new one.
Mercedes is the kindest healer when warranted, but she can be absolutely brutal when it comes to punishment. Oh, Bless your heart, she’d say before pulling the bandage just a little bit too tight for comfort.
“Okay, so here’s the jig, Felix. Happy late Valentine’s and Birthday, and also, I love you.” Sylvain shoves the bouquet of flowers towards him and Felix has to drop the armful of firewood to grab them.
Felix gapes at him, looking like a fish out of water. And then he says dumbly, “These are sunflowers. And tulips.”
“Yep.”
“These are out of season.”
“Also yep.”
Felix’s face turns a delightful shade of pink as he looks anywhere other than Sylvain’s face. “Idiot,” he says. “You fool, get out of here before Mercedes murders you.” There’s a pause. “We’ll… talk about this tonight.”
Sylvain’s heart doesn’t just flutter, it flips upside-down entirely, but in a good way, not that dread in the pit of your chest way. “Yeah? Tonight?”
“Yes! That’s what I said!”
Sylvain impulsively leans forward and presses a kiss to the side of his forehead, much to Felix’s horror and embarrassment. But, he doesn’t pull away.
“Sylvain,” snaps Felix in that beloved, incredibly vexed tone of his.
“Alright, alright, I’m leaving,” says Sylvain. “Tonight though. My tent.” Then he winks.
Felix scowls and shoots him a rude gesture, but then cradles the flowers close to his chest, carefully. Good sign. Sylvain does as he’s told and backs away, managing to make it to the tent before Mercedes sees him.
When she comes to the tent later to check his stitches, she’s a little rougher than usual and Sylvain knows that he’s been caught. But she doesn’t say anything, only pats his bandage gently before she sends Felix in.
He’s a contradiction, saying both kind and not-so-kind words. But that’s what Sylvain loves most about him; he’s a man of many sides. Never boring. And, he wears his heart on his sleeve.
In the end, Felix stays and for once in his damn life, Sylvain’s happy.
#sylvain jose gautier#felix hugo fraldarius#felix x sylvain#sylvain/felix#fe3h#fire emblem fanfiction#fire emblem three houses#sylvix
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