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wellbehavedyeti · 1 year

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Happiness Looks Good On You

Tabletop orc OC’s collide Thrug/Zeke (Zeke belongs to @axelwarriorvs )

Zeke’s friends don’t believe he managed to find someone to join his book club, let alone DATE him. He takes Thrug to the gym to prove them wrong, events spiral from there. Zeke’s perspective. Also smut.

"Zeke, are you sure this is what I'm supposed to wear? These work-out shorts seem....short."

“That’s why they’re called shorts,” Zeke deadpanned without looking up.

He was busy with the last sheet of the comprehensive workout routine he was setting up for Thrug. Convincing him to go was just the first part. And even though he’d only did it so he could show Thrug off and convince his gym friends that he did, in fact, have a real boyfriend, Zeke found himself enjoying the process of getting said boyfriend prepared. Especially after he found out over Christmas that Thrug would wear just about anything he gave him. He got him some respectable attire of course, no taking advantage of him here. Though if the shorts he gave him happen to be a little too short, well…what a rare and fortuitous mistake for him.

Although now he had to keep his attention on the worksheet under his hands because a glance in Thrug’s direction, checking himself out in the mirror with a bloom of scarlet on his face and neck, nearly made him call the whole thing off and spend the night figuring out how he could get that blush to spread further. If he could get Thrug interested enough in this to come with him regularly he’d consider it a plus, and they couldn’t do that if he was hovering over his body trying to find all the ways to play his favorite instrument.

“Come on, we’ll be late,” he said after clearing his throat, closing and setting his books into a haphazard pile on whatever available space he could find. It wasn’t strictly true, they had plenty of time, but Zeke wanted to get there before any of his meathead friends did. That moment where they would walk in was prime show-off material.

“Yeah yeah, I’m coming.”

Thrug gave up trying to see his own rear in the mirror and grabbed his hat which did nothing to stop the constant wild bed of hair atop his head that always seemed to look like he’d just been ravaged. Or perhaps his hair looked like that because of his hat? Zeke hadn’t started that particular branch of research yet.

The gym was thankfully barren at this time of day. Not only did he not have to deal with a large amount of people but it also meant that there would be a clear line of sight to Thrug, who was staring at the folder of work-out notes Zeke had given him. There was something about his concentration face, brows so furrowed it made them look like one large ridge and his tongue pushing at a tusk, that always managed to grab his attention. Time seemed to shrink down until the world only contained the two of them as he showed Thrug how to use the machines, finding any excuse he could to touch him.

He almost missed when someone called his name and Zeke forced himself to forget the way Thrug would push back against his torso, turning to watch the pack of jocks that was The Gym Bros make their way in. They waved him down with meaty arms, strangely in tandem with each other as if they shared a single brain cell. There was evidence enough to uphold that theory.

“BRO!”

“Bro.”

“Bro?”

“Bro…”

“Bro!”

A series of one word sentences followed, The Gym Bros having entire conversations with a single syllable and the look on their face. An entire language that took Zeke a year to interpret. Enough for him to reply with a quieter “Bro,” and a polite almost-there smile he reserved for public situations.

“You’re early, Bookworm Bro!” The Bro in the lead declared happily.

“Had to get the jump on you and get the boyfriend started,” Zeke replied with a grin.

“Holy shit, you actually brought him?”

“Bro!”

“No shit, where?!”

Zeke motioned confidently in his boyfriend’s direction, grin growing slightly at the sight of Thrug handling the machine with all the grace of a boar in a china shop. His concentration face mixed with a healthy dose of resting bitch face which combined sent people in wide circles around him, afraid to get too close.

“What the hell?”

“There’s no way.”

“Yeah, there’s no way that’s your boyfriend, bro.”

“Probably just some random guy you brought along.”

“Yeah, that’s why he looks so pissed, bro.”

A cacophony of chuckles followed shortly after as Zeke turned around, indignant.

“Oh yeah!? I’ll fuckin’ prove it!”

With a huff he turned away from the pack of jocks and stomped over to where Thrug was checking the weight of the machine he was using. The druid looked up just in time for Zeke to wrap his hand around his neck and pull him in for a bruising kiss before he could even ask what was happening. The effect was immediate, lips parted to allow the scholar to dive in. He dominated him, tongue running over gums and teeth and the ridged roof of his mouth, bushing against the tusks that gently clacked together with every move of his lips. Thrug reached up to grasp at his shirt, tugging it down as he was left needy and wanting for more. Zeke’s hands traveled, one found its way under Thrug’s shirt, wrapped around his back and pushed him tighter against his body. The other grabbed a heaping helping of ass, kneading the flesh under too thin fabric until he could feel their arousal push against each other. Hard, the pressure so alluring that Zeke almost forgot he was in public. A display that would normally push at the edges of what he was comfortable with, but his stubborn need to win pushed drowned what anxiety it would normally cause to a whisper. Before long they both had to come up for air, parting with finger shaped bruises on Zeke’s skin and Thrug blushing so brightly one could swear he was born that way. The druids’ lips were bruised and kiss swollen, his eyes in a daze as he breathed deeply.

“Wh-what's happening? Was that a good set?” he asked in a blissed haze.

“Oh yeah,” Zeke said, “You’re doing great, babe.”

Thrug’s smile was so wide it made his ears wiggle as he turned to get back to the machine with that same look of determination he’d been so fond of.

He turned back to the pack of Gym Bros with the largest grin on his face and drank in their shocked faces.

“DUDE!”

“Bro! You weren’t fuckin’ kiddin’!”

“Well shit. That settles it, bro. You have to bring him to the New Years party…” followed by a series of affirmations, most of which boiled down to ‘Hell yeah!’. Zeke’s smug grin had turned back to a pair of wiggling ears launching into his next workout with even more enthusiasm. A kind of solid heat settled in his chest that he chalked up to watching Thrug bend over in shorts much too short for him to pick up the weights, along with a second undefined thing that begged for attention. But before he could examine it too closely a heavy hand on his shoulder pulled him out of his mind and back into the fresh air of his victory.

“Seriously, bro. Y’all have to come!” his friend insisted, and Zeke found himself nodding before the rest of the conversation solidified in his head. “Great!”

When the words finally registered in his head the Gym Bros had already migrated to their respective work outs. Zeke groaned quietly, kicking himself for not paying better attention. He’d rather not go at all, but he already agreed and one night of social discomfort was preferable to the weeks, if not months, of joyful ribbing the Bros would give him if he backed out now. His eyes wandered back over to his boyfriend, smirking at the way his legs were crossed, knowing that Thrug had noticed his erection and was waiting for it to die down. Maybe if he convinced him, the New Years party wouldn’t be so bad.

—

“No. No, absolutely not.”

Zeke figured he’d try to convince him on the way home, he had it all laid out and Thrug was having none of it, as he expected.

“That sounds awful. A whole night at a party with the roving pack of meatheads?” he continued, his resting bitch face quickly moving into an active one.

“They’re not all meatheads,” Zeke supplied defensively.

“Aren’t they the ones who laughed at you when you asked them to join the book club?”

“To be fair, they thought I was telling a joke.”

Thrug stared back at him silently, waiting for that sentence to connect. Zeke sighed and shook his head.

“Okay, yeah the meatheads. But I promised I would go and it would suck way less if you came with me,” he continued, pleading with his eyes now to supplement his words. Thrug looked unconvinced. In fact he started to get that look on his face that Zeke recognized as the offer of sexual favors to get out of an argument. It’s how he got out of Zeke’s Dragon Ball Z marathon.

“They have a dog!” he offered quickly, which made the look on his partner’s face change considerably. Hell yeah, Zeke thought, get him with the animals. And like he thought, Thrug eventually sighed and nodded.

“Alright, I’ll go.”

Zeke actually cheered in victory, moving behind Thrug to wrap his arms around him as he planted a huge, wet kiss on his cheek. “Thanks, babe!,” he whispered in his ear, hands bunching up the legs of the short shorts as they walked, “How ‘bout we finish what we started when we get home, huh? Show you how much I liked seeing you in the gym.”

He felt the blush before he could see it, his hand sneaking inside Thrug’s shorts as the druid nodded rapidly. He’d make it worth his while.

—

“I regret everything,” Thrug muttered in such a resonating way that Zeke couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

They stood together staring up at what appeared to be a normal, every day, suburban home. But they could feel the thrumming of the music playing inside from the front lawn, which was littered in various detritus. The Gym Bros all lived here together, living out their college days in wasteful merriment day after day.

At the very least the roving pack of jocks seemed to want everyone they met to be as content and carefree as they were. Zeke wasn’t absolutely sure how they did it, and in some small way envied the ease at which it came to them. The harsh tones of his father’s “advice” began to ring in his head. He shook it to drown them out, unwilling to make tonight worse than it needed to be. Thrug’s hand held him firmly in the moment, tucked in the cup of his palm like for all the world it belonged there, for which he was thankful.

“An hour, tops,” he explained quietly while leading his boyfriend by the hand towards the porch, “By then they’ll be too drunk to remember we left.”

Once they were inside, however, Zeke suddenly wondered if an hour might be a bit much. A wave of beer, weed, and axe body spray washed over them as the door opened and an unbearable heat permeated the place. The music’s dull thrum had turned into a cacophony of a clearly overtuned bass equalizer.

Before Zeke could turn around and decide that a week of ribbing was worth missing this party, he was enveloped in a cage of muscle, sweat, and joyful (and loud) affirmation.

“Yo, dude! You came! BROS! HE CAME!”

The resounding cheer that followed nearly knocked the breath out of him. How could they be this excited that Zeke came to a stupid party? The question would remain unanswered as he was finally released from his entrapment only to find that the mass of man had rounded on Thrug.

Despite how uncomfortable he knew it must have been for him, Zeke couldn’t help but grin and stare at the bloom of blush upon Thrug’s skin. Which only intensified when the Gym Bros had gathered and began to tease them, thanking the druid for his existence because Zeke would never have come otherwise so he must be the determining factor. A statement that began to roll the cogs in Zeke’s head but he wasn’t allowed to dwell on that too long as they were tugged into the main parlor.

Drinks were shoved into their hands and they had meatheads take up stations on either side of them on a couch that had clearly had enough of large men sitting upon it and given up on supporting anything.

Zeke immediately began sipping from his drink, counting a personal victory that he didn’t cringe at the taste of the concoction they’d made. Normally he wouldn’t drink anything handed to him but the Gym Bros had long since proven that they had no nefarious purpose. Just idiotic well meaning party vibes.

He looked over and saw Thrug eyeing his own drink with trepidation and smirked. He provided a gentle nudge to get his lover’s attention and nodded when he looked up, assuring him it was safe. In part because it was, but also because he was curious what Thrug was like with a little alcohol in him. Several months together and he’d never seen him drink a drop ever.

Thrug, who was slowly sinking into the cushions, gave Zeke a look before offering a shrug and taking a sip of the swill inside the red plastic cup. The following grimace was enough to make Zeke chuckle, but immediately afterwards when a meaty hand collided with Thrug’s back and caused him to chug more than he was prepared to drink at once.

“There you go, bro! Whoa, easy, don’t breathe it in!” the jock warned while Zeke saw to Thrug, unable to stop his laughter and worry at the same time.

When it became apparent that the druid would be fine, his worry ebbed and the liquor proved loosen Thrug up a bit. The effect was nearly immediate, little rosy spots blooming on his cheeks. Zeke watched him intently as he drank more, nodding in encouragement any time his lover looked at him. He was curious, and resolved to see where this would lead and gave him an excuse to turn down any drinks as the designated driver, now.

It didn’t take long, by the second drink, Thrug was one of the Gym Bros. Participating in beer pong, succumbing to the allure of karaoke and belting out a love song that earned Zeke more than a few jabs in the ribs, and even managed to vanish from his site for a split second only to return wearing a bedsheet as a toga. The latter of which caused a loud chant of “TOGA TOGA TOGA” as bro after bro stripped on the spot and donned whatever bed sheets they could find.

Such displays normally would have Zeke slowly edging for the door. But to his surprise, he found himself playing along. If only a little. With Thrug there, none of it grated on his nerves as much as it normally would.

Before he knew it they had been there for three hours, seated across the den with a new glass of water as he watched Thrug squatting to be face level with the dog the bros collectively took care of.

“Bro, your boyfriend is so drunk he’s talkin’ to the dog,” The largest bro said, dropping on the sofa so hard Zeke nearly spilled his drink from the jostle.

“That’s normal for him,” he said flatly, checking for wet spots on the fabric, “The dog was actually how I convinced him to come.”

Just as he was satisfied he hadn’t spilled a drop, his friend nudged him with his beefy arm and knocked half his drink out of his glass anyway.

“Dude!” Zeke started in, turning towards the jock but found a knowing smile pinning him on the spot, “Wha-”

“He’s good for you.”

“Who, Thrug? I-” Zeke started, but the bro cut him off.

“No seriously, bro. I seen you watching him all night and, yeah, that’s good lookin’ out right? But also you would have left waaaaay before now normally and just been a grumpy doofus all night,” he continued, wrapping that same arm around Zeke and pulling him into a one-armed hug, “Plus I’ve never seen you smile before. Ever. Smirk? Yeah. Sneer? Definitely. But with him you smile. It’s nice, bro.”

Zeke stared up into his friend’s face, bewildered at the sudden wisdom of the meathead. Heat washed over him as his own blush flooded his face, eyes finding the figure of his lover. Thrug was occupied with placing a pair of earmuffs made out of plants over the dog's ears and Zeke couldn’t stop the smile that marked his face.

“See, bro!” The jock cheered, unwinding his arm from Zeke at the slightest hint of resistance, “It’s like come fairytale shit!”

Zeke winced at that, though his smile didn’t completely fade. Thrug at this point had joined the dog in howling some melody he couldn’t recognize. Clearly he had to get his boyfriend home before he did something he’d regret. He was surprised at the lack of joyful teasing when the words “I should probably get him home” left his mouth, instead coordinating with the cognizant Bros to convince Thrug it was time to leave and helped them to the car. For the first time he could recall, Zeke left a social event with a lingering warmth he’d examine later.

Aside from an incident through a drive thru where Thrug had climbed across Zeke’s lap to hang out the driver window and shout an order, the ride home was thankfully uneventful. The same could not be said on the way up to the apartment.

Drunk Thrug was an unruly force of nature. With nothing else to distract him, his clothes nearly abandoned before they got to the elevator, his hands grasping at places Zeke would definitely appreciate more behind closed doors. Doors it took longer and longer to get to as he dragged his boyfriend carefully along. .

“Weeeee should, go aaaaaaaaaaaaaaall theway,” Thrug slurred, having given up on his own stubborn clothing and begun investigating how best to rid Zeke of his own. “Y’know? We should…should do that.”

Zeke stopped in his tracks for a moment, Thrugs words seeping into his body sending warmth and blood to his core which was now very much on board with the druid’s attempt to release it from its confines. His brain recognized what his lover meant by that, the implications involved, screaming the news to his heart which leapt in his chest. But the stench of alcohol put the breaks on everything, giving Zeke the focus he needed to push forward and tug his pants up.

“Yeah,” he agreed, throat a little dry but he knew he’d have to wait for Thrug to sober up to talk about that. Make sure he knew what he was doing, not floating down a river of liquor and poor life choices.

“Yeah, yeah,” he started again with a clear throat, finally having enough of this squirmy asshole and lifting him over his shoulder as easily as one would carry a sack of potatoes, “I’m real tired though, you know? We should do it in the morning.”

“Oooooh! You’re so right, baby. You’re so smart. The smartest ever,” Thrug hiccupped behind him, doing neither of them any favors as he openly groped at Zeke’s backside.

Eventually they made it to the door, a small seed of relief settling in the scholar’s chest. The door swung open to familiarity, cozy and made just for him. Or, them, now he realized as he set Thrug down in a nearby chair and locked out the rest of the world with a turn of the key. He hadn’t noticed until now just how much of Thrug’s presence had taken over the place. All of which were small additions that Zeke had come to think of fondly without realizing it. Not least of which, the very man who put it there…and was currently pulling Zeke’s pants down.

Getting ready for bed luckily wasn’t nearly as tedious as getting into the apartment itself, and once Zeke was naked Thrug was a lot more cooperative. The larger orc couldn’t help but smirk and soak in the attention like sunlight for his ego. He wanted to wash the smell of party off of both of them, but decided that would also be best left in the morning when Thrug was no longer inebriated and trying to convince him the non-orc half of him was some sort of goblin. Instead they settled into bed, the druid tucked into his side as they let the dark blanket them. Zeke wrapped his arm around his lover, sighing softly while he waited for sleep to take him.

It felt as though he had just begun to drift off to sleep when he felt himself being gently shaken. A single eye pulled open, blinking while it adjusted to the dark.

“Zeke, you awake?” came Thrug’s voice, now without the sting of liquor carried on his breath. Maybe it had been a few hours after all.

“I am now,” he grumbled, shifting to look out the window. The moon was still high in the sky, shining into their bedroom.

“Sorry, I couldn’t sleep. I…” Zeke’s eyes turned back to the moment at hand, curious.

Thrug shifted on the bed, moving himself closer and running a hand up Zeke’s torso, threading his fingers through his chest hair because the scholar secretly liked it.

"I was serious, you know..."

Thrug whispered into the silvery dark, his voice impossibly soft. As though if he said it too loudly he'd wake up from whatever dream he found himself in. It made something in Zeke's chest jump as he looked down into eyes that stared back. Watching. Waiting. That little jumping bean in his chest pulled his limbs into motion and before he could register what the swelling in his gut meant his lips found Thrug's, the moonlight banished behind closed eyelids and a sudden waking need to have every inch of that body connected to his.

He situated himself over Thrug’s body like they’d done so many times before, foreheads resting together as they shared the same air. It wasn’t at all how he thought this would go. Zeke had done the research, he knew the first time should be on all fours because it was easier. But he wanted to see Thrug’s face. Had to.

His cock twitched happily, already leaking as his hips drew forward, sliding wetly against Thrug’s weeping length. They groaned together at the contact, Zeke reaching down to take both of them in hand while he rocked forward.

“Remember our first time?” he muttered quietly, nipping at the line of Thrug’s jaw. The air filled with the slick sound of their cocks sliding against each other and the druid’s moans.

“Shit, Zeke…I-”

“Yeah.”

Even in the dim moonlight he could see the blush bloom, darkening his partner’s skin across his nose and creeping down his cheeks onto his chest. Zeke paused to stare at the pull of his lips against his teeth. He needed more. He smirked, nudging against Thrug’s skin with his nose as he moved down his body.

“Ah, f-fuck,” Thrug’s breathy voice like a loudspeaker in the quiet of their room, lifting in octave when Zeke turned his attention to his nipples. Tongue dragging over it before his teeth grazed the raised nub, all the while he watched and committed the druid’s face to memory. Thick arms shifted, pulling Thrug’s legs up and apart, spreading his lover out for him like the feast he was.

Further and further down Zeke traveled, running through his lists and diagrams as he pulled moan after groan out of Thrug. Touching those special places, rubbing him a certain way, dragging his tongue along his cock in the same manner one would play an instrument.

“Zeeeeeeke,” Thrug whined, his hands in Zeke’s hair. The tugs were gentle, even as the scholar suckled on the tip of his engorged member just so he could watch his facial expressions. “Zeke, please! Need you…!”

There was a brief consideration to dip between his cheeks, pull more of these melodic notes out of the druid with his tongue. His own ignored length twitched angrily, eager to get inside and the thought was abandoned. Zeke was just as impatient.

He crawled back up his body, straddling over the half-orc’s chest, cock pressed against his face and leaving glistening streaks in its wake. But Thrug’s face turned not towards it, but the fingers Zeke offered and pulled them between his tusks.

Amber eyes never broke contact, holding Zeke captive. “Fuck, babe,” he encouraged quietly, moving his fingers against the wet heat and watching the pull of lips, somehow equally as alluring here as they were wrapped around his length. He reached out with his other hand, grabbing the bottle they kept by the bed and set it in the druid’s hand. Thrug followed his lead, popping the lid and gently applying a thick layer of lube along Zeke’s leaking cock. All the while never taking his eyes or his mouth away from his lover.

Thrug let loose a throaty moan when Zeke pulled his spit-soaked fingers free, sending a ripple through his body that traveled down his spine to his lubed up cock. It ached for more touch, more friction, but he held off. It was coming. But he had to make sure they were ready.

Passages of books, instructions he’d read, videos watched replayed in Zeke’s head while his thick, spit-slick finger ran up and down, circling his entrance.

Zeke hummed, leaning forward to offer a gentle kiss. “Ready, babe?”

Thrug nodded quickly, reaching down to grasp his abandoned cock too eagerly as he hissed, “Pleaaaase.” His eyes close as Zeke’s finger pushed passed the ring of muscle.

“You’re so tight,” he said, working the finger in and pushing in a second with the practiced ease of someone well versed in this body.

He pushed his partner’s legs further apart, while his own hulking body made a home between them. His hand joined Thrug’s around his length, in part to anchor himself and in part to pull more of those life-giving noises from his lover. Mewling and sweet, they grew in volume into mouth watering moans as his fingers pushed their way inside and worked to spread him open. They’d done this part before, of course. Many times over, one particular evening came to mind where Zeke decided to pull Thrug apart by the seams until well into the night. Familiar and exhilarating all at once, every time.

By the time he’d reached the third, twisting and rubbing against that bundle of nerves that had the druid shouting and his cock beliver another burst of precome, Thrug had reduced himself to a being of sensation, clutching at Zeke’s arms so hard they would leave bruises before a final, breathy “I’m ready, Zeke, I’m ready! Fuck me!” broke through his lips.

Zeke dove in to swallow the whimpering moan that escaped Thrug when he pulled his fingers out and lined up his swollen cock with his rim. The druid nodded when he felt the swell of the cock head press against him, then enter. A gasp escaped him, Zeke all too happy to capture it for himself before he leaned back on his haunches.

For the first time that night, his eyes were torn from Thrug’s face to watch where they connected. Eyes trained on the way his cock slid slowly inside and watching, feeling his lover stretch around him. Inch by solid inch he was swallowed, until the messy nest of his hairs pushed flush against Thrug’s rear. There he stayed, buried to the hilt as Zeke tried to catch his breath. And then came the squeeze, Thrug tightening down against him like a vice.

“N-No, don’t! FUCK! Don’t, don’t do that,” he cried in his own desperate tone, overwhelmed for just a moment. For the longest time, neither of them moved. And then Zeke pulled out slowly, relishing the drag of his cock against Thrug’s inner walls and the mewling groans that came with them.

He set a pace, slow and focused. Staring down and watching himself inter and leave his lover over, and over again. He could do this for an eternity, watching the way his body gripped at him. The way his cock glistened before pushing back in. “I wish you could see this,” Zeke breathes, making a mental note to convince Thrug to let him do just this for hours sometime. Maybe record it. For science.

But tonight was not that night, not the way Thrug’s legs had hooked around his waist. Heels dug into the dimple above his ass, pushing, urging him onward. How was he to deny that?

Suddenly Zeke is much closer, having dropped onto his forearms so they are chest to chest, already devouring Thrug’s moans with a kiss. His legs pushed him up, his ass raised into the air. And all the wonderfully flowery words that were floating around in his head for this moment blur into nothing as he started to move in earnest. Each thrust, each loud smack of their skin against skin, the steady ‘thwack’ of his balls against Thrug’s ass driving him onward. Faster. Harder.

He finally relinquished Thrug’s lips, traveling lower to bury his face in his neck. To nibble at the skin, his tusks pressed so firmly there he was sure to leave bruises. But he needed to leave more. More evidence of tonight. The druid’s moans filled the air, loud and broken with each brutal push. Thrug’s fingers curled, dragging against Zeke’s back with an intensity that would leave a mark for days.

This had to be what bliss was, Zeke thought, sweaty and growling. He bit down as Thrug let loose a garbled “I’m coming!” and felt the way his partner clamped down on him repeatedly through his orgasm for he felt the warm spill between them. The druid’s face turned, biting firmly but gently against Zeke’s neck as he rode out his climax. And still Zeke kept fucking him. Immensely proud that he was able to pull that from him first but now chasing his own. It did not take long with Thrug’s pulsing walls before the blinding pleasure overtook him, burying himself to the hilt and emptying himself deep inside his lover.

They stay there for several long moments, pressed as close as they can possibly be, Zeke rocking slowly into Thrug while coming down from the physical high. He pulled his face back enough to line their foreheads up again, pressing lazy kisses against Thrug’s lips. The druid’s hands cupped his face, thumb tracing every line, every ridge it could reach.

“That was…wow,” Thrug was the first to speak, out of breath and smiling broadly.

“Yeah? Was it awesome enough?” Zeke said, grinning.

“Yeah, yeah. It was so awesome,” Thrug said back, laughing softly.

Zeke pulled away again, but only just enough so he could watch himself pull out of Thrug, earning him a whimpering moan in the process. “Oh, shit yeah,” he crooned, going in for another kiss, “One more question.”

“Hmm?”

“You wanna do that again?”

Thrug laughed, deep and from his chest as he nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, fuck yeah I want to do that again.”

“Cool. Give me like, fifteen minutes,” Zeke said and rolled over onto his back, pulling Thrug on top of him.

“Zeke?” Thrug asked after a quiet moment.

“Hmm?”

“What do you want out of life?”

The question hit him like a ton of bricks, settling something strange in the bottom of his gut that was making his slowly rebuilding erection falter, “Damn, Uhh... I dunno. This is pretty good."

"This is pretty great, yeah. I just wondered if there was anything more you wanted to do. What you wanted to be."

"Hmm. I just wanna do things I like, you know? I never really thought much past that,” he all but whispered, staring up at the ceiling in thought. And yet Thrug’s warmth remained, Zeke’s arm pulling tightly around him, “At some point even this much seemed unlikely."

"Live in the moment. Hmh,” Thrug said thoughtfully, “Hold nothing back. Wild."

Zeke smirked, and asked, "You got any grand plans figured out for your future?"

Thrug looked up at him, because of course he did. No matter the situation Zeke always ended up nearly a head higher than him, which meant he always had the high ground. A benefit of being so bloody tall.

"Nah," he sighed, content, "Turns out what I was looking for ended up being here." The druid’s eyes turned back towards the ceiling, “The rest I'll figure out as we go."

Zeke watched him, allowing himself to feel the wave of warmth at those words instead of setting them aside to analyze later. For once. He rolled over the druid, earning him a giggle as he went in for a kiss and clutched at his lover. As it turned out, he didn’t need to wait the full fifteen minutes after all.

#ORCS!#Ship: Zug #Ship: Zeke #Officially short story length #tw: smut #Friends to lovers trope #This took so long @_@#Happy Valentine's Day?

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fursasaida · 2 years

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fucking hell

Ed Yong, bless him, just published a long form piece on brain fog (re: long COVID, but appropriately situated wrt other conditions as well - chemo brain, ME/CFS, etc).

Early in the piece, in describing one patient's experience, he includes the line: "For Davis, it has been distinct from and worse than her experience with ADHD." This is it. This is the only mention of ADHD in the article. Which is fine, because it is about brain fog and not about ADHD. Let us note that the line is clearly conveying one person's subjective experience.

And yet. There are dozens of ADHDers in the twitter replies going full "I AM UNCOMFORTABLE WHEN WE ARE NOT ABOUT ME???", claiming that this is "dismissive," that it "denies any similarities," that it "invalidates my experience." This is because brain fog affects executive function (....no shit), and I guess they think they own executive dysfunction. Never MIND that if anybody's "invalidating" anybody's expérience, it's them invalidating that patient's experience--and mine, for that matter; both she and I deal with both issues, and it is clear from their comments that they've never had brain fog. [points, yells, OWN VOICES!! OWN VOICES!!! FLAG ON THE PLAY!!!!] Never MIND that overlapping life impacts is not the same as shared symptoms, aetiologies, or sensations. Never MIND that there was nothing dismissive about any of this until they showed up. Never MIND that their evident refusal (even when challenged) to reason about the possibilities that might exist for brain fog to share impacts with ADHD while remaining distinct shows that they are just reacting without thinking it through at all. We are here!! To yell!!!!

I just really hate everyone (except for Ed Yong). I can understand this kind of behavior from people with ME/CFS because that illness is so widely dismissed and understudied, and they absolutely have to advocate for themselves relentlessly. There are occasions when I think their "but what about my thing" reactions are misplaced, but I understand why that happens and I'm sympathetic. It's an inevitable, ancillary aspect of the appropriate response to their situation. This, though--it's not like ADHD is venerated or extremely well understood, but people broadly agree it exists and there are medications, treatments, dozens of books and podcasts, just way more resources. (Yes, many of us have people in our lives who will dismiss something as a consequence of ADHD and insist we're just lazy. It is not the same thing. Not everything that sucks is the same as everything else that sucks! Sorry about it!!) I just do not see any justification for this besides "you said it's not ADHD but then you mentioned my stuff and I can't be bothered to think of any reason why that would be other than that you are discriminating against me. And it's MY stuff, MINE."

Like, god, all of this is made up. (INB4: I'm not saying symptoms are imaginary or that there are no physiological aetiologies, I am saying the diagnostic system for sorting, grouping, and explaining them is constructed and varies by time, place, culture, etc, DO NOT START.) It is a higgledy piggledy pseudo-taxonomic pile of overlapping buckets. It has the structural coherence of Gormenghast castle and the rational planning of an unreconstructed medieval town. No bucket holds anything exclusively--not a symptom, not a feeling, not an effect on one's life. There can be many reasons why someone is unable to walk, but this is does not mean that talking about amputees is invalidating or neglecting people with paralysis. It's not like it's news to me that people over-identify with diagnoses and use the medicalizations and reifications involved in those diagnoses to make it everyone else's problem, but once again, with especial feeling this time: Shut up. SHUT UP.

#covid a bloo bloo #ADHD

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samuel-de-champagne-problems · 3 years

Text

I Can’t Say Anything to Your Face

Summary: Lunchtime is Spencer Reid’s favorite time of day and not because of the crappy endless coffee, dry sandwiches, or the occasional chocolate donut. Spencer’s favorite time of day comes in the shape of a little post it notes and fits perfectly into his heart.

Pairing: Spencer x Female Reader

Content: Fluff (1 use of a$$)

Author’s Note: The idea of for this came from @shemarmooresfedora for giving Spencer compliment cards

Word Count: 2.6 K

I Can't Say Anything To Your Face

When Spencer checks his watch for the twelfth time that day, he can practically feel Derek’s eyes roll. He tries to cover up his action by picking at his sleeve, but that just seems to draw attention to the situation. Derek raises his eyebrows at Spencer, as if to tell him, I saw that.

When it comes to teasing Spencer, Derek doesn’t miss a beat.

The team, minus Derek and Spencer, continue to work diligently. JJ walks back and forth from her office to Hotch’s, constantly shuffling through piles and piles of paperwork. Emily seems to keep herself busy with the 33 tabs that she has open on her screen. Y/N, who’s tongue slips out of her teeth in concentration, doesn’t look up from her mound of case files. Spencer likes studying how each of the members of his team works, but he particularly likes to watch Y/N. She always sticks her tongue out when she’s deep in thought. Sometimes she’ll close her eyes and rub the butt of her palm against them. Other times she’ll push her glasses up on top of her head and her hair frames her face perfectly. Spencer couldn’t care less what she looked like or how she wore her hair, but watching her was his favorite part of the day.

In a totally platonic, non-creepy way.

A beep distracts Spencer from being distracted by Y/N. It’s an IM from Derek, telling him something to the effect of asking Y/N out. Instead of responding, Spencer decides to send Derek a more direct message. He shuts off his computer, which isn’t really used, besides for Y/N to send Spencer requests for online scrabble.

Spencer, ignoring Derek’s gloating, walks from the bullpen into the team’s lunch room. It’s a small kitchenette with a couple tables, a very old coffee machine, and an even older refrigerator. Peeking into the refrigerator, Spencer takes out two lunch boxes. One is light green with patterned purple and orange dinosaurs all over and the other is a light blue with green plants. Like clockwork, Y/N rounds the corner with a smile plastered to her face.

“What’s got you smiling like that?” Spencer asks, placing his lunch box down across from Y/N’s seat.

“It’s just my favorite time of day,” Y/N responds, unzipping her bag and taking out her banana, water bottle, granola, and turkey sandwich.

Spencer tries to hold back his smile at Y/N saying that lunch is her favorite time of day. He likes to believe that it’s because of him and not because of the top tier kitchen facility the government provides for them. But who’s he kidding, there’s no way that lunch is Y/N favorite part of the day because of Spencer when he’s up against a crappy coffee maker.

“Did you know that sandwiches were only called sandwiches because the Earl of Sandwich ate his meals with bread, meat and cheese like modern day sandwiches? However, there’s much debate if sandwiches existed prior to this. Researchers actually believe that sandwiches were simply referred to as bread and meat or bread cheese, depending on the ingredients. There’s hundreds of works of literature that help to determine this,” Spencer says, as he unwraps his leftovers from dinner the previous night.

Y/N, who takes a bite of her turkey sandwich, listens intently to Spencer’s oral history of sandwiches. She starts to respond to Spencer, but before she can even get the chance, Derek interjects into the conversation.

“Hold your horses, there Reid,” Derek says, his voice tainted with sarcasm and Spencer braces himself for a clipping comment, “you don’t want to scare away the newbie,”

Y/N, ever quick witted, rolls her eyes dramatically at Derek. She gets up and moves her seat closer to Spencer who’s heart rate, at the thought of her sitting even closer to him, speeds up. He knows that it's just an effort to tease Derek. That she'd rather suffer next to Spencer, than to have to entertain the idea of sitting next to Derek. But still, Spencer is a dreamer; he'd like to think she'd sit next to him even without the added bonus at avoiding Derek's playful teasing.

“Derek, leave Spencer alone, I happen to adore his facts. You know, I’ve seen I’ve been here I’ve been a Jeopardy beast. And when are you going to realize that I’m not a newbie, I’ve been here for what 2 years-”

“2 years, 4 months, and 4 days,” Spencer says, cursing himself silently for interrupting Y/N.

Derek grabs his lunch from the refrigerator, and sits down across from Spencer and Y/N.

“You remember the day I started?” Y/N asks, turning her attention from Derek to Spencer, whose face is twisted in what he can only assume is an extremely unattractive deer-in-head-lights look. He shrugs off Y/N’s comment, as if to say it’s just normal for him.

"Of course I do, I remember how long each of us has been here,"

"Oh, right. Eidetic Memory," Y/N mumbles, almost like she's slightly disappointed in something.

Suddenly Spencer’s mouth is quite dry; he reaches into his lunch bag to grab his water bottle, but his fingers brush across a small card taped to the outside. Forgetting that showing the card to Morgan would give him enough ammunition for the rest of day, Spencer quickly scans the card. It’s a small piece of paper, but it suddenly has become Spencer’s most treasured object. More than the set of Chaucer tales that his mother gave him, or Gideon’s watch, or his first microscope that his biology teacher in high school gave him at his graduation.

The one side of the card is decorated in small hearts and there’s a sketch of a dinosaur on the other side. In careful handwriting, the giver of the card wrote “Are you made of Nickel, Cerium, Arsenic, and Sulfur? Because you got a NiCe AsS!”

Spencer’s eyes grow a couple sizes once his brain registers the meaning of the card. Handling it less than gracefully, he chokes on his water, which catches Derek and Y/N’s attention.

“You okay there, Spence?’ Derek asks, questioning what sent Spencer coughing and choking on water like that.

Spencer, not wanting Y/N or Derek, especially Derek, to read the card, attempts to put it in the front pocket of his lunch box. Unfortunately, Derek catches sight of the card and snatches it out of Spencer’s hand.

“Derek!” Spencer whines.

He can feel his embarrassment deepen as Morgan’s smile grows. Spencer seriously thinks that this is how he’s going to die. His death, being in his line of work, is something that plagues his thoughts from time to time, but any gory hero’s death pales in comparison to Derek Morgan reading Spencer’s love notes about his ass.

“Nice ass? I’m not too sure about this, Reid, but looks like your secret lover likes your ass just as much as your brains,” Derek teases, handing back Spencer his card.

“Those are private,” Spencer says, grateful that Derek’s going to leave him alone, places the card back in it’s temporary resting spot near his driver’s license and photographs of him and Y/N at the arcade.

“Hey man, I was just going to put in that shoe box you have tucked under your desk, you must have hundreds of them by now,” Derek says, taking a bite of his ham and cheese wrap. His eyes dash between Spencer and Y/N, like the pair of them is the most entertaining reality show he could think of.

“I have 645, now,” Spencer says, unable to help himself much to Derek’s amusement. Spencer hears the chair next to him screech and Y/N rushes to pack up her half eaten lunch.

“I completely forgot, Anderson needs me to uh, help him with something,” Y/N says, stuffing her water bottle into her lunch box in a flustered state. Spencer watches as she rushes, her need to leave the kitchenette quite evident. Spencer is left wondering why she has to go see Anderson, of all people.

“Anderson? What does he want with you? I don’t remember Hotch saying anything about that,” Spencer says, his voice comes off a little more bitter than he indented.

“Maybe Anderson has some extracurriculars that he needs Y/N’s help with Spencer,” Derek says with a wink. Spencer’s brow tightens and his blush deepens as if he’s trying to decipher the way that Derek’s voice is laced with suggestion. The only logical conclusion is that Y/N is flustered because she’s sneaking off to see Anderson, because she likes him.

Y/N likes Anderson? Something about that doesn’t taste right in Spencer’s mouth.

Like the wind, Y/N is gone and all that remains is Derek’s sly chuckle.

“What!” Spencer says, much too loud for him to continue the coy and unassuming demeanor he usually produces when Y/N gets hit on at the bar or on case by local cops.

“Nothing, Reid. You're just clueless. Just think about how many of those little compliment cards you’ve gotten,” Derek says. He reaches into Spencer’s lunch box and takes his brownie. Usually, Spencer would have protested, but Derek’s words sent him into a confused spiral.

“645,” Spencer responds.

“Okay,” Derek continues, “645 days you’ve gotten those cute little cards in your lunch box or taped to your hotel room door on cases. Now, Reid think. How many years, months, and days, is 645 days”

“That’s 2 years, 4 months, and 3 days,” Spencer starts, “now given if it’s a Leap Year that could change it a little bit bit-”

“Think about it Reid,” Derek says, talking slowly to get the words sink in and hoping that he doesn’t have to spell it out for him.

“Y/N?” Spencer asks, kind of like he can’t believe it, but desperately wants to believe it at the same time.

“Y/N,” Derek repeats, “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long, Reid. She’s been making eyes at you the day she’s gotten here. It’s almost sickening to watch you to dance around each other,”

“Y/N,” Spencer says, it’s like he’s saying her name for the first time. It’s the most beautiful string of syllables to ever come from his lips.

Spencer pushes back the chair and swings the door open. As he walks to Y/N’s desk he gets distracted by the little brown shoe box that sticks out slightly from under his desk. He crouches down and picks it up, hoping that it can be helpful. He approaches Y/N’s desk, but JJ stops him before he can go closer.

“Stairwell,” Is all she says before she brushes past with an armful of case files. Spencer, heading JJ’s advice, practically runs to the stairwell. As he approaches he can hear quiet sobs, which he can only imagine are Y/N’s.

Spencer opens the door and Y/N, startled, stands up and tries to mop the tears away from her face.

“Spencer, oh god, I didn’t know you were here, I’m okay, it’s just me being a little silly,” she says, trying to laugh through what she can only assume is going to be rejection.

“I really hope you don’t think these are silly, well some are kind of silly, but others were very poetic,” Spencer says, taking a step forward and gesturing with the shoe box to make it obvious to Y/N that he’s talking about the compliment cards.

“What are you talking about, Spencer?” Y/N says, feigning ignorance.

“Don’t play dumb, Y/N. You're much too smart to play dumb,” Spencer says, moving closer to Y/N so he can wipe her tear-stricken face with the sleeve of his soft cardigan. He tries not to focus on the way that Y/N seems to melt into his touch. He knows that if he can get another touch of that, he’ll never want to touch another person ever again.

“I’m not playing dumb, Spence. I just never planned for you to find out,” Y/N mumbles. Spencer’s face resembles a mix between shock and confusion.

“Why would you not tell me, I don’t think I made it anything but obvious that I’m crazy about you,” Spencer says, deeply wondering why Y/N would ever hide something like this from him.

“God Spencer, have you ever looked in a mirror?” Y/N asks him, sitting down on the third step, “you’re so gorgeous, Spencer, I can’t say anything to your face. So the next best thing was to write down everything that I wanted to say to you,” Y/N finishes, a little embarrassed. She tries to hide that embarrassment by not making eye contact with Spencer, who sits down next to her.

“You think I’m gorgeous?” Spencer asks, not entirely sure that he heard her correctly.

Y/N peaks at him with teary eyes and a runny nose. Spencer thanks science and the universe for his Eidetic Memory. He knows that there won’t be a single day of his life that he won’t want to think back to this day and remember the way that Y/N looked when she first told him that she thinks he’s gorgeous.

“I think you’re the most beautiful person that I’ve ever seen,” Y/N says breathily, her voice laced with restraint. She’s terrified of rejection, terrified that Spencer will turn her down still.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard that,” Spencer says, equally as quiet and equally as terrified. He notices that Y/N’s hand creeps closer to his. Spencer is itching to intertwine it to his and never let go.

“You deserve to hear it more often, hence the cards,” Y/N explains, moving her hand even more closer to Spencer’s. He has no choice but to wrap his much larger one in Y/N’s smaller one.

“You meant it, right?” Spencer asks, bravely putting her heart out there on the line, “because if you did Y/N, that I’d really like to kiss you right now. But if you didn’t then that’s-”

Spencer tries to finish the sentence, to give Y/N an out, but somehow she doesn’t take it. Somehow she decides to kiss him.

Spencer has kissed a total of three people in his entire life, but none of them ever mattered again the second he feels Y/N’s lips against his and her hands in his hair. Spencer doesn’t complain when Y/N starts to set the pace. Her lips roam across his face. They venture across his jaw, up closer to his nose and then back down to his lips. Spencer had no clue Y/N can kiss like this. It's a little passionate for a first kiss, but maybe it's just the pent up tension and frustration 2 years in the making finally being let out. He's dreamt of the way that Y/N's pillowy lips would feel when they were finally pressed up against his. Spencer, from the fibers that make him up to the hormones that surge throughout his body, tries to be brave. He places his hands so they rest on Y/N’s neck. He’s not passive, but he’s happy to sit back and let Y/N have her way as she continues her feverish assault on his lips.

Her ministrations are interrupted, however, when the box of cards falls from Spencer’s lap. It seems to remind both of them that they are in the stairwell of the FBI making out like over zealous teenagers for the first time. Y/N lets out a small giggle. Spencer wishes he can write down the feeling it gives him and tuck it away safely in a shoe box.

“I hope you know that those compliments aren’t platonic, Spencer. I really do think you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met,” Y/N says, her fingers gravitating to the brown curls behind Spencer’s ears. He has the softest, silkiest hair she’s ever felt.

“That’s a good thing, Y/N, because you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met,”

Standing up, Y/N winks and pecks Spencer on the cheek, “I hate to break it to you, darling, but I think I win when it comes compliments,”

--Thank you for reading--

Taglist (Comment & I'll Happily Add You)

@shemarmooresfedora

@april-14-blog

@willowrose99

@calm-and-doctor

@spideygenius

@measure-in-pain

@nomajdetective

#spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x reader fluff #dr spencer reid #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #spencer reid x reader one shot #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid x reader happy ending #criminal minds fanfiction

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witcher-and-his-bard-archive · 3 years

Text

What The Tide Brings

for @petrificustotaluss ❤ this was not an official ask, but i loved the idea too much not to write it!

Keeping the lighthouse is a family tradition. Before Eskel, it was Vesemir and after him, if Geralt is still capable, he will take over. If not, it will be Lambert and so on until no one is left to tend to it. But Eskel is new here, he's only been around a couple of months and he's still adjusting. It's not the solitude that bothers him, not really, and he loves the location right on the ocean, but there's something that just feels off and he can't quite place it.

He starts his mornings the same way every day, with breakfast and tea, then sets himself to his chores. In the afternoons, he reads and paints and in the evenings he lights a fire in the hearth and watches out for incoming ships. But the island is a lonely one and there isn't much traffic, so he rarely has much to report in his log. The days progress in much the same way, changing only in the content in his books and paintings and what he eats for supper and then one day while he's heading down to the beach to fish, he finds…. something.

He climbs down the rocky ledge to the beach to closer inspect it. It's just above the tide line so even if the tide came in high, it would remain untouched. Eskel crouches down next to it and it's actually an amalgamation of bits of stone and shell and coral and while from a distance it's just a pile, it's actually quite beautiful up close. No one lives nearby so Eskel is certain it cannot belong to anyone and he doesn't feel any guilt about picking it up and taking it home with him.

He takes it inside and sets it on the mantle where he can look at it when he reads. The following morning, there is another.

This one is simpler but unmistakably handmade and Eskel would call it windchimes under other circumstances. There is a cross of driftwood at the top with small, beautiful stones and bits of softened sea glass tied on rope. When he picks it up it blows lightly in the wind and for something so simple, it makes a remarkably beautiful sound. He takes it back to the lighthouse and hangs it outside the front door.

The gifts keep coming, each one more beautiful than the next and there's no denying any longer that someone is leaving them there intentionally. But no one lives within a hundred miles and Eskel would know if there were ships passing through, so he can't figure out who is leaving the gifts.

He resolves to find out.

Vesemir taught him to brew teas to keep him awake and alert long into the night if need be. And this is not a situation where he needs to be awake, but no one needs to know but him. So he brews his tea and fills out his log and in the early hours of the morning, he slips down to the beach to wait.

For a little while, there is nothing and then, just before dawn, just before Eskel would regularly wake, the surface of the ocean ripples and something breaks the surface. Eskel watches as a head appears from beneath the waves, shiny blonde hair flat against the skull and then blue eyes, so bright he can see them even in the early morning light. He holds his breath as the man slips above the surface, strong arms and a strong chest now fully visible. And then the man freezes.

Eskel doesn't move for fear of startling him, but he holds his gaze, soft and unwavering until the man turns abruptly and dives back below, a thick silver-blue tail slapping the water as he goes. And then, just as suddenly as he appeared, he's gone and Eskel is left stunned and alone.

He's heard the tales of merfolk, of course, every ship's captain and lighthouse keeper has, but he never believed in them until now. Because his visitor was certainly not human. From the chest up he had seemed so, but no human man bears a scaled tail and no human is that shockingly beautiful.

Eskel sits in the sand for some time thinking about it as the sun rises and the day begins around him. He starts his routine late that day and as he goes through the motions, he can't seem to shake the image of blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He's reminded of the fields of buttercups where he grew up and absently starts referring to the creature as Jaskier.

He spends the entire morning thinking about him and by lunchtime, he's made up his mind to leave a gift of his own. He wants to show that he doesn't mean any harm, that whatever Jaskier is doing around here, he's welcome to stay and that Eskel appreciates the gifts he's been leaving. But he can't exactly leave a painting and he doesn't know what else a merperson might want or need, so he thinks on it as he eats and comes up with the idea to carve something for him.

It's been a long time since he's done any whittling, but he's sure he'll still be able to pull something off. He looks around his untidy kitchen and living area and reluctantly ignores them for the time being, heading upstairs to dig out his knife.

Eskel spends far longer than he should trying to find a piece of wood that's acceptable for carving and then even longer trying to decide what to carve.

At first, he considers a whale, but then thinking about it, he doesn't know if that might offend a merperson. What is their relationship with the other creatures around them? He doesn't know. So he thinks about something else he might recognize. Coral, perhaps? A shell?

Eventually, he settles on a ship. It came before the idea for a lighthouse, but he thought that might be presumptuous and had returned back to the ship idea.

He gets to work, carving out the basic shape with practiced draws and shortly he's left with something that already resembles a ship. He carves out the shape of the bow, and the deck then makes a quick decision to add sails and a little rope coming off the side for the anchor. When it's done he smiles down at it. It's not his best work, by far, but it's been years since he's done anything like this and he's out of practice. But it's finished before he has to turn in, which is what he wanted because he wants to wake up early tomorrow to deliver to Jaskier himself if he can.

So he tucks the knife back into his pocket and carries the boat back up to the lighthouse. He sets it on a table and goes about the rest of his evening, tucking into bed early so he can wake up early.

When dawn rolls around, Eskel is exhausted, but he manages to wake up and he hurries down to the beach with his little boat. He sets it down in the sand where he'd found the other gifts and backs away in case Jaskier sees him and gets nervous again. He doesn't want to startle him.

And just like yesterday, after a few moments, he rises out of the surf only this time he doesn't turn back. This time he sees the boat and comes closer, pulling himself up out of the water and picking the boat up in his hand. He turns it over, inspecting it, raking clawed fingers gently along the side. After a moment, evidently unaware of Eskel sitting close by, he curls his tail up under himself and sits and looks at the boat. His eyes are wide with interest and a small smile spreads across his lips as he turns the boat around in his hands once more.

Eskel holds his breath, afraid to even move lest he startle Jaskier. He watches him carefully but lets himself look this time. Jaskier really is beautiful. His hair shines in the early morning sun and when he shifts, his tail seems almost to shimmer.

Abruptly, Jaskier looks up and spots Eskel and for a moment, neither of them moves, but then Jaskier cocks his head and shifts. Eskel thinks he's about to slide back into the water and he can only hope he takes the boat with him, but he doesn't. Instead, Jaskier slides closer to the bottom of the ledge and holds the boat up to him.

"Did you make this?" he asks and Eskel is a little startled to hear his voice. It's as beautiful as the rest of him, but he hadn't expected him to speak in the common tongue. He nods, unsure of what else to say. "It's lovely," Jaskier smiles.

"'S for you."

"For me?"

"You left such beautiful things," Eskel shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck, "I thought I could give something back in return."

"Oh." Jaskier looks down at the carving.

"Is that... okay?" Eskel asks. After a moment, Jaskier looks back at him.

"Yes."

"Thank you," Eskel adds, "for the gifts. And I'm sorry if I startled you yesterday, I just wanted to see who was leaving them. At this, Jaskier's face flushes a bright red and his gaze drops to the sand in front of him.

"I think you're beautiful," he mumbles, the colour in his cheeks deepening, "and you always seemed so alone up here."

Eskel flounders. He has never considered himself beautiful, especially not with his scar and especially not in comparison to someone like Jaskier.

"Oh."

"I didn't want to disturb you, I just wanted to... visit," he shrugs lamely, "to come and see you."

"You could have just come up when I was on the beach," Eskel suggests and Jaskier looks perplexed.

"Just come up and talk to you?" he asks as if it's a foreign concept. And really, Eskel doesn't know anything about merpeople, it could be.

"Yeah," he says, "I wouldn't mind. It'd be nice to have someone to talk to while I fish."

"Oh. I... have never had someone I could just talk to before."

"What do you mean?"

"Back at my home, I'm a prince," he sighs, "so everyone is intimidated by me because my father is the king. They never want to talk to me in case they anger me or my father, I suppose. And my parents are too busy."

Eskel nods, he knows what that was like. It was just his dad and the three of them, but Lambert was enough work for four parents, never mind one on his own. If Eskel hadn't had Geralt, he would have spent much of his younger life alone.

"Well," he says, "you're welcome to come here. I'd be happy to have company." Jaskier beams at him and Eskel's heart clenches a little. It's been too long since he's had company, he tells himself. "I have a few things to do around the house, but I'll be back shortly if you'd like to wait." Jaskier nods eagerly and just as Eskel calls out to him.

"Wait! I have something for you."

Eskel clambers down the rocks and Jaskier slides over to him, holding out a wreath of dried coral and shells. It's a little damp but holds its shape and Jaskier looks so proud of himself when he gives it to him.

"Thank you," Eskel smiles, "I'll hang it above the fireplace with the first one."

Eskel's chores take altogether too much time and he finds himself skipping over things that aren't necessary and putting jobs aside for later that aren't as important. He shouldn't, but he's eager to get back down to the beach and see Jaskier, even if he can't quite explain why. When everything is finished, he gathers his fishing supplies and makes a lunch to take to the beach with him.

Jaskier is waiting in the shallow water, lying on his stomach and tracing lines in the sand. He looks positively radiant in the afternoon sun, but Eskel finds himself wondering if the sun is good for his skin. He keeps his thoughts to himself and heads down to the beach.

"Hey," he says a little awkwardly and Jaskier perks up. He smiles at Eskel and swipes away the lines in the sand. "I usually go to the end of the rocks, if you want to come?"

"Yes," Jaskier grins and slips back into the water. By the time Eskel makes it to the end of the jut of land, Jaskier is perfectly poised on a flat rock just above the water's edge.

Eskel situates himself and pulls out a worm to hook and Jaskier gives him a funny look.

"What?" Eskel asks, then abruptly realizes Jaskeir has likely never fished like this before. "You put a worm on the hook to attract a fish."

Jaskier wrinkles up his nose at him and then dives soundly into the water. He reappears a moment later with a fish in his hands, offering it up to Eskel where he bobs before him.

"Thank you," Eskel says, trying to avoid the note of confusion in his voice. "You didn't have to."

"I don't mind. Do you need more?"

"No, I-" he wants to tell him no, but Jaskier looks so hopeful that he can't possibly. "If you don't mind?"

"Not at all," Jaskier chirps.

Eskel sets his fishing supplies aside and lies back against the rocks. This time, when Jaskier resurfaces, he comes to lie next to him in the sun. Once Jaskier gets talking, he doesn't stop, but Eskel is happy enough to sit back and listen to him.

It's not until the sun is sinking low in the sky that he realizes how long they've been there. Eskel casts a disappointed look at the fish sitting next to them on the rocks. He'll take them with him anyway because he doesn't want to offend Jaskier, but he's already mentally planning what he's going to eat for supper instead. Only Jaskier follows his gaze and frowns at the fish, picking them up and chucking them back into the water.

"I'll get more," he says and with that, he slips back into the water. He resurfaces only a moment later, holding two fish up to Eskel and smiling almost sadly.

"This was nice," he says and Eskel can't help but smile. He crouches down next to him.

"You're welcome to come back."

"Tomorrow?"

"Any time," Eskel smiles. "Goodnight, Jas-" he stops himself, but Jaskier is already cocking his head at him.

"What?"

"Goodnight," Eskel mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Julian," he offers and Eskel smiles.

"Eskel. Goodnight, Julian."

"Goodnight, Eskel." He turns with a flick of his tail and dives down beneath the surface. For a moment, Eskel watches him, but then the glimmer of his scales fades into the darkness and he's gone.

Julian, he thinks to himself and he can't help but smile.

Julian continues to visit him in the weeks that follow and Eskel finds himself changing up his entire schedule for the time he gets to spend with his new friend. Although more and more often the word friend feels wrong. Because he thinks about Julian even after he's left and he looks forward to seeing him in the morning and he's started whittling little trinkets for him to take home with him.

And Julian tells him more about his people and how they live and Eskel hangs on every word. It's incredible to think there's an entire kingdom practically beneath his feet and he's never known. They talk about everything; Eskel tells him about his brothers and Julian tells him about his family, though he's never very enthusiastic about it.

He shows up every single day and Eskel finds himself hanging on his words, watching the way Julian gestures when he speaks and the way he squirms when he gets too warm sitting out in the sun. He likes to roll off the rocks straight into the water and splash Eskel in the process, once he even pulled him in with him, holding him aloft by wrapping his tail around his legs. And Eskel hasn't been able to stop thinking about that since.

How Julian was warm against him, despite the coolness of the water. How he held him tight and smiled mere inches from his face. Eskel had wanted to lean in, to kiss those plush lips and run his hands through blond, shining hair. He thinks about it still, even as he makes his way down to the rocks. He's packed a lunch and has a carved humpback whale for Julian - Eskel has asked and he'd said they were his favourite. But Julian doesn't come.

Eskel waits and worries and by the time night has fallen and the air has cooled off, he's sure he's done something wrong. Maybe he said something out of place and offended him, or maybe Julian knows how he feels and he's disgusted by it. A sickly feeling swirls in Eskel's gut and he leaves the little carving above the tideline in the hopes Julian will come back during the night.

But when he checks in the morning, the whale is still there and his heart sinks. Surely, he has done something to offend him or Julian would have just said he wouldn't be back. But he didn't and Eskel is alone again. He leaves the carving, in the slim hopes that Julian will still come and collect his final gift, but he's not optimistic.

Night seems to set in early that day and Eskel is tucked into bed long before he normally will be. He can't bear to look out over the ocean tonight knowing Julian is out there and just doesn't want to see him any longer. He buries his head in the pillow and tries to think of anything but Julian and the sea he calls home, but he's surrounded by it, inescapably.

For the next two days, Eskel goes through the motions, wondering how he spent his time before Julian. He's bored, antsy, wishing he had something to do to occupy his mind, but he can't focus on books and his paintings all seem dull and pointless. And he can't even bring himself to look at driftwood again.

But when he can't sleep one night, he climbs out of bed and wanders down to the rocks, wishing he knew how to make this empty feeling stop. But when he gets there, the little whale is gone, replaced by a bottle, soft with the tide and tied neatly with twine. His heart skips a beat and he looks around wildly for any other sign of Julian. There isn't any, but Eskel sits down next to the gift and waits.

He's not sure when he fell asleep, but the next thing he knows it's bright and he opens his eyes to the sun high in the sky and a gull perched on the rock next to him. It flies away when he sits up and next to him, there's a little gasp. He turns to see Julian's head, just peering out of the water and he's so relieved he could cry.

"What are you doing here?" he asks gently, afraid of making things worse.

"I'm sorry I was gone," Julian whispers, "my father found out I've been coming to the surface so often and he was… less than impressed."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"Don't apologize," Julian smiles, "I'd rather be here."

"You were gone for so long, I thought I'd done something wrong-"

"Not at all! I would give all of them up for you." Eskel ducks his head, but he sees the light flush that crosses Julian's cheeks and he fumbles into a sitting position.

"You don't mean that," he mumbles. Julian just looks up at him and pushes himself a little further out of the water.

"Come down here and I'll show you," he whispers and he looks so sincere that Eskel couldn't possibly deny him.

He pulls his boots off and slips down to sit on the lower rocks and he sits with his feet in the water. Julian slips beneath the surface but stays close enough that Eskel can watch him swimming toward him. He resurfaces between Eskel's feet, pulling himself onto the rock between his thighs and leans up so they're nose to nose. Eskel's mouth goes dry and he searches Julian's eyes for any sign of hesitation.

"I'd like to kiss you," Julian whispers and Eskel is barely aware that he's nodding before soft lips are pressed to his own, sharp claws gently running through his hair.

When he pulls away, Julian is beaming at him and he leans in for another kiss before humming softly and drawing away again.

"Could I stay here? Nearby, I mean."

"Of course," Eskel says quickly, "but your family-"

"They told me if I came back to you I'd forfeit the crown and my place in the kingdom."

"Then why are you back?" Eskel exclaims. Julian's hand slips to cup Eskel's jaw and he smiles.

"Because I gave it up."

"For me?"

"For us."

#eskel x jaskier #mer!jaskier #lighthouse keeper eskel #mermay 2021 #rex writes #the witcher

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alphabravocharliedelta · 3 years

Text

Therefore I Am | Russell Adler x Bell! Reader VIII

Series: Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

Therefore I Am | Russell Adler x Bell! Reader

Chapter VIII

Word Count: 6200+

[Chapter VII] [Chapter IX]

Summary: After somehow reconciling with Adler, Bell and the team are left to continue their pursuit of bringing down the undercover spy ring, but it proves to be more of a challenge as Bell struggles to move on from their Perseus-affiliated past.

Content Warning: mature content, vulgar language, mention of drugs, torture

Notes: As mentioned, huge time skip! I also apologize in advance for writing this but at the same time... Yeah, have fun. Thanks for making it this far though!

[Y/N] “Bell” [L/N]

January, 1984

CIA Safehouse, West Berlin

"We’re going to be a bit busy this month, Bell. Are you sure you can handle the safehouse alone?”

You roll your eyes at Adler’s worries. “It’s just one month. Nothing to worry about if you guys do your jobs, right?”

It didn't settle his anxiousness. Adler's been rather nitpicky leading up to this day, making sure nothing was out of place, and that everything was accounted for. Now, he was talking to you as if it was your first time staying home alone.

“The phone is right there." He points to the landline on the table. "Sims will be in charge of communications between us, so give him a call if anything happens. We'll try to update you on what's going on with our end, but no guarantees.”

“Fine." You close the fridge, unscrewing the cap to the water bottle you just took out. "I still don’t get as to why I can’t go along, but have fun I guess.”

“You’re not going anywhere with that leg of yours.”

“It’s healed already!”

The entire team shuffles out the door, and you could hear their vehicles start up. Adler lingers behind at the doorway, watching you gulp down some water. You eyed him curiously, before tossing the plastic away. “Don’t you have to go?”

Adler adjusts the strap of his bag on his shoulder and straightens up slightly. “I was thinking… When we come back, I can take you somewhere."

A smile tugs at your lips. “Is that your way of apologizing for not bringing me to D.C.?”

“You can say that.”

“Is that a date then?”

“I’ll leave that up to you.”

“God, get a fucking room!” you hear Woods howl from outside.

Adler tilts his head slightly over his shoulder, slight annoyance written on his face, before resuming. "There's a couple CIA associates that's going to visit the safehouse a few days. You're technically not supposed to be here, so try to stay out of their way."

"If they stay out of mine."

He gives you a final lookover, before parting off and getting into the driver's seat of his car.

You watched as he pulled away from the driveway, waving farewell to your teammates before closing the door. Now, it was just you and the safehouse in West Berlin.

Adler, along with the rest of the team, were called back into the Pentagon to go over the upcoming operation consisting of the prison transport. You couldn't exactly tag along since, of course, since you're technically dead. Adler said he would pull a few strings to birth you a real identity and all (like he'd done before) but so far nothing led up to him fulfilling that promise… yet.

Not all of them were going to Washington though, a couple being relieved of their duties for a short vacation. Mason didn’t give you much details when he left the first week of December, confidentiality and privacy a part of it, but you knew that you, in the end, were going nowhere. You also heard that Hudson took a small leave to spend time with his family (you didn’t even know he had one).

It didn't help that you also sustained several injuries from a mission one month ago, where NATO decided to attack a Soviet missile convoy out of spite for what they did to their training facility in November. To put it short, you took a good tumble down the snowy cliffside while providing overwatch for the team, and gained a small concussion and a fracture in your leg. It wasn't as bad as it seemed, but it was enough to make you limp a couple weeks.

You weren't supposed to be there, but you managed to convince Hudson to slip you into the strike team. Needless to say, Adler had ripped you a new one post-mission upon finding you lying on the ground underneath a pile of snow.

"How the hell did you fall off?"

"Someone snuck up on me. Don't worry though, I took him with me. Now are you going to help me up?"

The lecture that followed was a long one, but obligatory. It was his way of caring, you suppose. What better way to spend the holidays than to walk around with crutches while waiting for a tiny crack in your bone to heal?

Not much was done for Christmas, but it did have its highlights. You did wake up to a brand new black bomber jacket sitting on your desk that morning, and had a gut feeling who it came from. The rest of the team that stayed behind assembled together a small barbecue dinner, Sims calling the shots. He was a pretty good cook, you had to admit (much to Woods’ opposition). It was a casual day consisting of beer and food.

Now you have a whole month to yourself.

Sighing, already bored, you span around on the swivel chair you sat on. You already did your paperwork ahead of time, and even made sure everyone else’s was well sorted and organized. If someone had given you a heads-up that you were going to be stuck here, you would have put it off.

Pulling yourself back to the table, you plopped a notepad in front of you, pencil in hand. A good amount of pages were filled out, and you estimated almost 2/3rds of it were left. The pages consisted of a multitude of things, such as notes, drawings, or translations. There were a couple of times where you would try to sketch out the dreams you had while sleeping on the job. While they weren’t great, both in context and in technical skill, you were proud of it… kinda.

The notepad was freely accessible, and Woods would sometimes write little comments about the drawings in the corners of the page. Or Lazar who would try to draw the same thing. And it just so happened that you found a note that said “Bell has a crush” in Woods’ handwriting, so you immediately ripped it out and threw it into the incineration pile.

After taking the time to eat Woods' snacks to spite him, especially that last bit of Hershey's, you powered on your Walkman, shoving in MIX 2 and settled yourself in front of the arcade machine.

When you were hungry you would check the fridge, and everytime you expected some kind of new dish to appear. But instead there were just a few bottles of German beer, some leftovers, and a stack of TV dinners that looked like it had been sitting there for a while.

0000

Over the course of two weeks, you explored every bit of the place, every nook and cranny, and read every piece of paper you could find. There were newspaper clippings of the Kennedy assasination, old mission details and briefings, as well as some unprocessed polaroids. The supply area was especially interesting, a bunch of locomotive parts lying around.

The time did come where two particular individual people had come to visit. It was dead early in the morning when they came in, and you, who couldn't get any sleep that night, almost shot them when they entered. After de-escalating the situation, they were just as surprised as you were, but introduced themselves as Carson and Ben, the two CIA agents Adler mentioned beforehand.

Coming up with a bullshit lie, they seemed to believe you, and left you alone. If you didn’t bother them, they wouldn’t bother you.

It felt a bit awkward working around strangers, as you couldn't estimate their skills and predict their next thought. Being the safehouse members made you comfortable, so to be paired up with two random CIA agents was difficult to adapt to. But, it wasn't without reason, as the CIA eventually expanded their counteractive measures against Perseus.

The majority of the time, they were too busy putting stuff up on the evidence board, as Adler said they would. You had yet to take a peek, not wanting to disturb their work and instead would check the data terminal near the red room constantly, waiting for emails notifying you about what was happening back in the states.

One past email caught your eye, seeing how your nickname was the subject line. It dated to about late last year.

>>from R. Adler, to E. Black: Re: Bell

》》I appreciate your concern over Bell, Black. But, after some consideration, and do take this kindly, but I believe it is within everyone's best interests for you to stop inquiring about them. They're fully capable of handling themselves and have proved to be able to make conscious decisions. Any further messages regarding Bell will be ignored. There are more important things to concentrate on.

Reading Adler's defense against Black made you smile unwillingly. His words in text sounded polite, yet you could imagine his bitterness as he typed it out. The simple fact that Black would ask about you was a bit daunting. He didn't as much as show any concern for you in the past, and you never even got to see his face. You never really did take a liking to Black, and after what Nikitin told you, it felt like the only people to be trusted were just the safehouse members.

Leaning back in the chair, you let it turn on its own as you gazed up at the roof, wondering how everyone was fairing. They could handle themselves without you, but you couldn’t help but feel a bit hurt and lonely without them.

It’s just one month.

Two more weeks to go.

0000

The day finally came where the long awaited phone call arrived.

You just came back from the practice range when one of the agents walked over to you, with one of the safehouse phones in hand. “You're Bell, right? They’re asking for you.”

Setting down Lazar's modified sniper rifle back in its respectful padded box, you took the brick-like phone from Carson. “Bell.”

“Damn, you didn't even tell them your name?” Sims’ jaded voice came from the other side.

You grin hearing his voice. It felt like ages hearing him speak. "Well, thanks to you, now they know."

“You're welcome. I saved you the work. How’s it over there?”

“Uh, not much. Adler’s acquaintances are finalizing the evidence board, so it should be ready when you guys return,” you inform. “How’d the missions go?”

Sims gives out a drained laugh. “Fucking tiring, I’ll tell you that. They had us jumping from state to state." You could hear some muffled conversation in the background, and you could only assume that he covered the receiver. "Sorry, Bell. Some hardass wants me to take a look at something. Can't talk for long, but…"

He proceeded to give you a quick rundown on what happened the past month, talking mainly about the prison transport conspiracy. Sims wouldn't tell you what happened with the person Stitch was interested in, but he informed you that they were currently in the middle of interrogating a few individuals, trying to get information about Perseus’ next move. You didn’t have anything else to offer, sadly, and wished them luck.

"Also, just passing a message from Hudson. He wants you to look over the evidence board as a precaution."

"Yeah, got it. Anything else?" you ask, eyeing an impatient CIA agent who also wanted to make a call.

“Adler should be returning tomorrow.”

You fought off a grin. “Sounds good.”

“...You’re not going to ask about Adler?” Sims infers, a bit taken aback.

"...Why would I?"

"Just thought you would want to check up on your boy—"

You hang up, pleased with yourself. Sims was certainly going to hold it against you, but for the time being, it was a small win.

At this point it was no secret that there was something going on between you and Adler, and whether it was romantic or not was up for their consideration. You wondered how the idea even got around, and guessed it was most likely Lazar who happened to let it slip on accident. Nothing really stayed hidden around the safehouse, and if Hudson already happened to hear about it, it didn't seem like he gave a second shit.

Passing the phone back, you look at Carson dead in the eye. "Staring is rude, you know," you reprimand, before heading over to the board.

Your eyes scanned the mass of evidence. A culmination of decades of work, intertwining and connecting with one another all leading to one crime organization: Perseus. There were some pieces you had never seen before, and you gave them a quick read. A playing card was pinned right in the middle of it all; the King of Spades, the title given to Kuzmin himself. There was also mention of Naga, whom you've come to vaguely remember. There were a few yellow stickies on there, personal notes and thoughts made by the two agents. One of them, though, you had to do a double take.

Woods BFF is MIA

"What?"

Did you read that right?

The first person that comes to mind was Mason, but you thought he returned home to be with his family. It must have been a mistake then, or it was referring to someone else. But, as far as you knew, there was no one else as close to Woods as Mason.

"Hey!" You rip the note off, storming over to Ben, who looked up in alarm upon seeing your disturbed expression. "What the hell does this mean?!"

He begins to get flustered, realizing that you knew way more than he anticipated. "I can't tell you that, sorr—"

"Bullshit! I fully deserve to know what's been going on. Is it Mason?"

"I..."

Above you, the lights flicker, but you didn't let that serve as a distraction. "Tell me."

"Like I said—"

There was a loud bang, causing everyone to flinch as a result. You could see Carson's hands slowly glide across the keyboard, keeping a keenful eye on the metal shutters. Ben, on the other hand, backed away from you, withdrawing back to his table.

Dead silence.

The hairs on the back of your neck stood up in premonition, a small shiver running down your spine. Your stomach dropped— something was telling you to run.

"Uh… Ben?"

You saw one of the computers lose its signal, and then the next, the rest of them following suit. Carson sends out a string of swears, scrambling to try reboot the system.

That was when the lights turned off.

It was pitch dark. The fans that served as background noise ceased all movement, the electricity ceasing its currents.

"Carson!" Ben yells, and you feel him push past you. "Destroy the drives! Hurry!"

"Wait—"

But, before you could take another step, everything unfolded.

One of the doors was kicked open, gunfire erupting the second after. Diving behind the table nearby, you could hear the screens shattering, the fragments falling to the ground carelessly. The two agents cried out in pain for a split second, and then you never heard them again. A couple bullets went through the desk, narrowly missing you. The sirens went off, a red light beginning to flash overhead.

Someone was invading the warehouse.

What for though? To steal info? If that was the case, then you should have taken the time to memorize all of it if they were planning to purge everything.

Reaching out, you opened one of the desk drawers, feeling around. You felt something cool brush against your hand and didn't waste a breath taking it out, the object revealing itself to be a 1911. Checking the magazine, it was fully loaded and well kept.

Peeking around the corner, you see someone approaching your side of the garage. Although it was dark, you could make out minimal details of the uniform that they wore, and you freeze at the sight of it.

Shit.

You recognized that get up anywhere. Bland and lacking color, with tundra patterned pants and hooded jackets… It couldn't be.

How did they even find this place…?

The CIA mole.

Someone knew Adler and the rest of the team was going to be out. With their best members away, it would have been a perfect opportunity to attack. After all, what the hell was one lone agent supposed to do?

Jumping up from behind the table you aim for the person that neared your position but a figure from behind knocks the pistol out from your hand. It fell to the ground effortlessly, sliding a few feet away from you. About to make a dive for it, you ran forward, only for one of the invaders to bring the butt of their gun downwards to smack the back of your head. Your face slammed onto the ground, blood bursting from your nose. Something cold pressed against your temple as you tried to move,

“Wait,” a gruff voice ordered.

The lights turned back on, the backup generator revving itself into action. Black boots appeared in front of you, a few specks of blood splattered across the leather like glitter.

You were then heaved up by your arms forcibly, the gun now pointed at your left side. A gloved hand grabbed your face, and following up the arm you were greeting with quite the sight. He had a hood over his head, and a gas mask secured tightly around his face. Even if you couldn’t see his face clearly, the voice was unforgettable. You knew enough to identify him without fail.

“Ah,” you begin, giving a scornful leer. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?"

Vikhor “Stitch” Kuzmin was not amused in the slightest.

"—Or should I say ‘eye’?"

The pressure on your chin increased with such force that you thought he would dislocate it.

You could hear the rumble in his throat as he hummed to himself in thought while you glowered at him.

“So, you’re still alive?”

His appearance didn’t show much difference when comparing them to your memories. There wasn’t a lot to look at, but the most outstanding characteristic had to be the whites of his left eye with that ugly scar Adler left as a parting gift. Around his neck hung a large metal piece of the Perseus symbol, and accompanying it was a collection of dog tags, ripped off of the body of his victims. What a sadistic son of a bitch.

Stitch lets go of your face, making up his mind.

"I would leave you here, but I have other plans for you."

He waves you off, and his colleagues restrain your arms behind your back. Any attempts to free yourself were futile, and you were dragged off.

Fuck!

You should've been more prepared. That 1911 was in great condition as well, you should have just fired it the moment you aimed it. And as a result of your lack of decision making, two people were dead and you were now a hostage.

The last thing you see is Stitch stabbing a pink flyer to the evidence board with a knife.

Your thoughts raced back to the team back at the U.S.. What was going to happen to them? It was going to be a hell of a mess to return to, and the idea that there was now a mess to clean up without you there to explain it all is going to be a hell of an issue.

How was Adler going to react?

Eyes widening at the realization, you internally screamed. Stitch's goal wasn't you, as you were just a surplus of his objective to get close to Adler.

A bag is pulled over your head, and is tightened to a close around your neck. The cloth of it was poreus enough to let air in, but it felt suffocating.

With nothing to see or nowhere to run, you were tossed into the trunk of a humvee. It wasn’t long before it started up and drove away, departing away from the mess. You tried to make a mental note of the amount of turns that were taken, but eventually lost count.

After lying down in darkness for God knows how long, Stitch’s destination must have arrived, the main indicator being a swift blow to the back of your head to knock you out, the last thing you heard being the engines of an aircraft.

0000

"You seem a bit eager to return."

Adler takes the cigarette out of his mouth and places his hands back on the wheel. Zenya gave him a mocking side grin, waiting for a response.

"After what happened in Miami, I think some suburban scenery might be fair," was the response he came up with.

Naturally, he couldn't exactly tell her that he was excited to see you again after nearly a month. Adler wasn't granted to leisure to phone you, so Sims or someone else had to do it in his stead. He couldn't help but admit to himself that he had a sense of yearning to hold you again, and it was becoming a losing battle as he fended off his urges to give you a secret kiss on the forehead when no one else was around. The past weeks have been physically draining, and Adler just wanted to rest in your presence.

But, that would have been unprofessional of him. So the closest he would get to you was under the guise of emotional support. And if he just so happened to hold your cheek, hand, or bestow you one of his mini possessions (as a comfort item) in the name of "support", then it's permissible. That kiss was… an exception to the rule. And it should only happen once.

Fucking hormones. He was almost fifty years old and there was still room for those kinds of tenderhearted thoughts? You really were a piece of work.

"Is there someone waiting for you?" Zenya prods. "I heard Woods mention this 'Bell' person."

"Classified."

"C'mon Adler. This is the first time I've seen you like this."

"You'll meet them when we get there."

Zenya gives out a groan, before waving him off. "Still stiff as always. They must have a high tolerance of bullshit if they could handle you."

"You have no idea."

The safehouse comes into view. Nothing seemed unordinary, nor was there the smell of something burning. A part of him expected you to be waiting outside with crossed arms as you tapped your food impatiently, but remembered that he didn't exactly tell you he was returning today.

As for everyone else, they were still awaiting for their ticket home or the next set of orders. It was Adler's duty to return to the safehouse and prepare for the next op, having to brief others on the evidence board and compare it with what they had learned back in Florida.

In his pocket was the souvenir Woods managed to nick for you during the clean up sweep— a keychain of a tiny jar filled with sand and microscopic shells with the embellishing of "Florida: The Sunshine State" engraved into the glass. He told Hudson it was going on the evidence board under the guise of it potentially being related to the prison escort.

It wasn't. Not by a long run.

The car comes to a full stop, and Adler takes the keys out. But, from the moment he planted a foot onto the dirt, he knew something was wrong.

Your motorcycle was parked in its usual spot, and there weren't any unidentifiable vehicles around either. He couldn’t see it, but something inside of him screamed danger.

“Nice bike,” Zenya compliments with a whistle. She rushes over in excitement, bending down to survey the components. “Damn, I’m jealous. Who's this belong to?”

“Bell’s.”

“Is that who’s waiting for you? I like them already.” The small talk was pardoned with Adler’s dour expression as he sent a quick look towards the roof, and Zenya could sense his mood shift. "What's up?"

A steady hum coming from the safehouse told him that the generator was functioning. He expected music to be blasting from the radios but it was dead silent on your end.

"Stay sharp, something off."

Adler's worries continued to increase with each passing step. Zenya followed closely behind, shutting the door of the car with a loud thud. They both stopped in front of the shutters, Adler knocking on it a couple of times to let you know of his presence.

You did inform Sims, who in turn told him, that the CIA agents settled in smoothly. Though, he was sure you wouldn't have bothered them in the slightest, seeing how you're a bit reserved upon meeting new people. But on the chance something did happen…?

After a minute passed, no one came to raise the door.

"...Shit."

Pulling out his secondary, Adler gestures to Zenya to go around the right while he covered left. With his back stuck closely to the walls for cover, he took the extra care to make his footsteps light to avoid alerting any suspects inside.

Gazing down, there were imprints on the dirt. The indents were deep and easy to make out. The owners were carrying something large, and they faced outward, trailing away from the building. There were tire tracks as well, none that he recognized.

After affirming that there was no other suspicious activity around the perimeter, he made his way to the back, where the door handle was hanging off of it.

No gunfire was met upon entry. Instead, he was greeted with the sight of two men who were splayed across their work desk, dead and riddled with holes. The paper underneath them was stained with their own blood. Flipping them over, their eyes were open, frozen in horror, and skin cold to the touch.

"Bell?" Adler called out.

No response.

He repeated your name again, trying to hide his nerves. "Stop fucking around, Bell!"

Did you kill them?

Adler perished that thought away the moment it came into existence. No, you didn't do that anymore. You may be brash, but you weren't that mentally unstable.

He waited to hear you respond back, but to no avail. Adler paced around anxiously, looking for any clues. There were only two bodies, yet there were three of you. A lone 1911 laid lonely on the floor.

Zenya returns in the form of a jog. "There's no one in the house. No signs of struggle either."

"What the fuck happened then?"

An audible crunch came from below. Looking down, Adler removed his foot from the object he stepped on, a few pieces sticking to his soles.

It was a Walkman.

The one he gave you.

Before he could even crouch to investigate, a bright pink caught his eye. Adler marched forward to the evidence board. A knife was stabbed into it, holding up a pink flyer that advertised the grand re-opening of the mall in Pines, New Jersey.

TIME WE END THIS

Clenching his teeth, fury began to overwhelm Adler, knowing full damn well who caused the mess. The entire evidence board was all about him, and it just so happened that he came to visit on the day Adler was gone.

"Stitch."

The name was cased in such hostility and loathing that it nearly made Zenya hesitate to get closer. To see Adler in such a state was seldom, and she couldn’t even recall a moment where he acted in such a way before. His knuckles were turning pure white, nails digging into his palms.

What a coincidence that this menace had paid him a visit after becoming the current spotlight within the past few months— It was time to return the favor.

“He’s trying to bait you, Adler,” Zenya advised cautiously behind him.

“No shit.” He rips the knife out, pocketing it. She was right, but nothing was going to stop him from going. With you gone, it only added to the terror he was about to unleash. “See if the lines are still working."

Adler walked over to the smashed Walkman, dusting away the fragments. Scavenging out the tape, it was still intact, MIX 2 was written in his own handwriting. Nearby was a few drops of blood. It couldn’t have belonged to the bodies, since it was a good distance away.

Bell.

His fingers pressed against the cassette, thoughts beginning to go awry. He couldn’t bring himself to rummage through the mess or check the rooms— Adler already knew what had occurred.

Stay calm.

He grits his teeth, slipping the tape into his pockets before he crushes it in his hand.

Everything may have been set up just to entrap him, but if your life was at stake, it was just a risk he had to take. He owed it to you. As much as he wanted to walk right in, the last thing Adler wanted to do was make a decision that could cost your life.

What more did they want with you?

He should have brought you along.

When it all comes down to it, these were the cards that Perseus decided to play, and Adler could only hope you knew when to pick your battles. He wouldn't hold it against you if you spilled the beans. If you were safe and alive, that was all that mattered, and anything that resulted from information being leaked could be dealt with. He'll make sure of it.

But he knew better. If there's one thing about you he came to recognize, it was that you weren't going down without a fight.

Don't do anything stupid, [Y/N].

The sensation of freezing liquid was what shocked you awake. You had to hold your breath within that moment as whoever was there was pouring a torrent of water down on you.

With a deep gasp of air as the waterfall turned into a small stream, you found yourself in an unfamiliar place. There were a few shelves, stocked with boxes of miscellaneous items. In the corner were some large blue barrels wired with bombs, the red light blinking every five seconds. "N6" was spray painted on it.

While you were bound to a chair, Stitch positioned himself in front of you, gesturing for his comrade to lay off. There was a utility cart next to him, various tools and instruments laid down on each shelf. A repugnant feeling settled in at the sight of it, and you already knew what was about to come.

“Vikhor,” you greet sarcastically, “Your interpretation of a 'welcome back' party isn't what I had in mind."

There was a sliver of panic that started to bud within the pits of your stomach, but you buried it down. Any indication of weakness was something Stitch was looking for, and you refused to give it to him.

“What did you tell them?”

When you didn't respond, you were gifted a hard punch to your jaw. Still, you were undeterred, not even flinching. It was the type of shit you dealt with before, and you lived, so you'll do it again and again, annoying your captors as a consequence of their actions. They couldn’t do shit to you— you were too valuable. As Perseus had the bounty, you had information they wanted.

"Ahh, come on. Adler did much better than that," you taunt.

"I'll ask again. What do they know?"

You glared at Stitch as he crouched to look at his work. There were bits of your blood on him, and you noticed his knuckles were beginning to get raw. You could feel your already beginning to swell from that one hit you took, blood running down your forehead.

"Perseus had high hopes for you," Stitch discloses, and remains of jealousy barely detectable. "Who knew one of his most loyal subjects would turn out to be a disappointment like you?"

You laugh. "I bet…" you began, speaking in Russian. "Kravchenko thought the same of you, before sending you to the gulag."

Furious, he stood back up and grabbed the back of your head, yanking it back. The lightbulb above you swayed in a circular motion as it blinded you. You could see double images and halos (did he inject you with something while you were out?). "I should cut off that tongue of yours."

Don't trust Adler.

"J-Just like old times, huh? If it weren't for the general, we would have been at each other's throats constantly," you remark. “I wonder if he finally decided to croak. Would you guys invite me to his memorial service?”

“You ought to watch your words.”

Sense of time was lost as Stitch continued to badger you with violence and questions, but had no success in loosening up your lips. Your mind felt clouded, and the voices were already returning whispering unwanted messages and orders. You were bound to a metallic chair at your wrists and ankles, the arm rest already stained crimson, and you couldn't even feel your legs. Stitch had already broken your left arm and gave you a collection of slashes and punches just trying to get information out of you.

Even if you were, at one point, a higher position than Stitch, there was always that deadly aura that radiated off of his person that would make you stiffen at first glance. And now that he has a complete advantage, you refused to even buckle despite the punishment you were put under. Sarcasm was a great way to cloud it, but with him, it was like prodding a bear with a stick.

Know where your loyalties lie.

“Shut up,” you hissed under your breath, sick and tired of hearing manipulative voices.

Stitch grinds his teeth at your comment, before he notices a silver glint near your collarbone. Curiously, he pulls it out from your shirt.

The dog tags.

"Disgusting," he verbally recoils, "Adler made you his."

You held your tongue.

"...Good thing that he's coming here to the mall, eh? And after I'm done with you, he'll come to discover your body." Stitch lets the tags slip away from his hand, and it returns to hanging around your neck without a care in the world. Why he didn’t add it to his collection, you didn’t know. Stitch walked over to the silver table, picking up a well polished combat knife. Brandishing it, he took a moment to let its beauty sink in, looking at both sides. "I wonder what kind of face Adler will make when he sees his precious pet broken to pieces."

“Vikhor.” He was met with a dark expression. "If even one of your fingers even touches him, I will fucking kill you."

"After all these years, you're still an annoying little brat."

Your threat didn't seem to faze him.

"Is that how you talk to your superior?" you sneer, recalling the meeting years ago. It felt enthralling to act like this, taunting the man who held your life in his hands. Seeing Stitch's muscles tense at each word, hands balled into fists, you knew he could only withstand so much backlash before finally snapping.

It was a idiotic thing to do, but the fear had to be cloaked. Keeping a cool head would be the correct approach in this scenario, but teasing Stitch was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. This was the same shit you did with Adler years ago, and you were going to do it again, unintentionally or not.

“I'll never understand why the general trusted you, out of all people, to deal with him,” his deep voice projects, maintaining eye contact with you. He Tosses the blade into his opposite hand. “Look what happened. I'm the one that has to clean up your mess."

“It fits your name though— Stitch. Fixing up everything...” You give him a derisive smirk. “Just get it over with, Vikhor. Aren't you getting bored of beating a dead horse?"

“As a matter of fact... I am.”

Grabbing your face, he points the knife directly at your left eye. The edge glistened under the light, highlighting the little grooves and bits of rust in the metal. Your eyes follow it, going to the handle where Stitch gripped it tightly, before trailing up to his face, where the look of bloodlust radiated off of him. You could tell he was just waiting to put the knife to use.

“An eye for an eye, was it?”

He takes the opportunity to let the tip of the knife dig into your skin just right above your eyebrow. Stitch proceeds to slowly drag it downward, and you grip the ends of the armrest and curl your toes as you feel your own flesh being cut open. You suck in some air, preventing yourself from whimpering.

You may have been trained and conditioned to resist all forms of interrogation, but this was just testing your life endurance at this point, your sanity just on the urge of breaking. How long have you been here?

His hand prevented you from flinching away. It was excruciating, and you had to hold your breath to prevent a blood curdling scream from coming out. You could only go down the dictionary of English and Russian swears in your mind as white seared.

Stitch stops, the blade mere millimeters from entering the eye socket. His eyes surveyed you carefully, just waiting for any reaction that would grant him some kind of sadistic satisfaction.

"G...Getting sympathetic are we?" you strain.

The chill of the metal was already lost as warm blood streaked down your face. Your index finger twitches as you feel the blade graze against your eyelid. What the fuck is he waiting for?

"To think we used to work with you," he says, voice quaking with anger. His grip around the handle tightens. His control and handling of the knife was impressive, to say the least, but his inability to make you break was a whole ordeal on its own. "Such a shame to have things turn out this way."

You drew back your lips before spitting at Stitch. "Хуй тебе́."

It landed right on his mask. The brute didn't even flinch or budge, but his eyebrows were deeply furrowed, a vein popping out on his forehead. To see that you got him to such heights of vexation was an accomplishment. Using him as a doormat to let loose verbal insults and taking him lightly was no easy feat, especially with your own life on the line.

Sorry, Russ. I guess I am damaged goods.

In the last few seconds, you see the muscles in Stitch's arm tense, the hues becoming visible just as he delivers your comeuppance in an instantaneous swipe.

#bet you didn't SEE that coming #lmao so anyways ill see myself out #call of duty x reader #russell adler x reader #russell adler x bell #bo:cw #adler x reader #cod black ops cold war #black ops cold war #call of duty #fanfic #bell #russell adler #abcd briefing #having one eye in call of duty is a fashion statement now #but hey bell and stitch are twinsies now awww #text #call of duty imagine

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lockefanfic · 3 years

Text

Business Trip: Pt 43 - Crazy

You’d been with your share of women who liked rough sex - Seulgi, Chaeyoung, occasionally Momo and Seolhyun. But those girls had always been interested in kinks that were at least somewhat consistent with their personalities. It wasn’t much of a surprise that Seulgi was into rough, occasionally painful sex; likewise, Chaeyoung’s preference for zip ties and name calling didn’t strike you as being out of character with the type of person she was outside of the bedroom.

Miyawaki Sakura was either lazy and airheaded or intense and intimidating, depending on what she was doing. Before you were made aware of this new facet of Sakura’s personality you’d only seen such duality before in Sana; but Sana’s personality swings didn’t surprise you like Sakura’s did, nor was the difference between her two poles nearly as extreme as that of the Japanese police officer.

Sakura was altogether different from those girls. She was two sides of the same constantly flipping coin, it seemed. At the moment you were finding out that this duality extended to her sexual pursuits, where she flipped between being an overly friendly, sugary sweet girl to a woman with very specific, very unique kinks on a minute-by-minute basis.

“I’m so sorry about earlier,” she states, the tone in her voice sounding much more pleasant than earlier in the day, especially as it echoed against the cold shower tiles. “I was in the middle of re-reading the Fate series. Did you know the third movie is coming out this summer? I’m sooo looking forward to it. Are you familiar with the Fate series?”

Speaking proved exceedingly difficult given the ball gag in your mouth, and so you settled for nodding.

“She’s going away for awhile, don’t you worry.”

“She better be,” you answer. “I just hope she leads us to the other three members of Blackpink before they lock her up - or that Canadian officer takes her overseas. Did you have a chat with Officer Miyawaki about this?”

“I’ve told her we want time with Rose before she’s extradited and Officer Miyawaki has promised to raise the issue with her superiors, but she hasn’t quite gotten around to it yet,” Nayeon answers.

You both peer into the interrogation room through the one-way glass. On one side of the table sits Rose, her head in her hands. In her prisoner’s jumpsuit and messy hair, she looked outright miserable - a far cry from the dolled up look she sported at the event two days prior. Gone is the haughty, arrogant air that she wore about her like perfume - now she looked small, afraid, almost as if the cold reality of what was about to happen to her had just recently set in.

She hadn’t said a word since she stepped into the room. The young, nervous looking YG-appointed lawyer seated next to her rebuffed all of the questions directed to her client by telling her that she didn’t have to answer anything, as was her right. Rose’s body language, though, told you all you needed to know about her state of mind.

On the other side of the table are Jihyo and Somi Douma, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer who had arrested Rose at the event. Both of them are placing piece after piece of evidence onto the table in an attempt to get something out of the Blackpink member - to no avail so far, thanks to her lawyer. The looks of frustration on the two young officers has been steadily building, but it is tempered somewhat by the fact that much of the evidence was simply indisputable. Rose’s silence today would do nothing to keep her from spending a lot of time behind bars when the time came.

The other two occupants of the room, sitting in a smaller table by the exit, are Mina and Officer Miyawaki. The former is diligently jotting down notes from the meeting into an iPad, the latter seemingly engaged in something important on her phone - but given her known predisposition for playing video games on the job and the fact that her phone was horizontal, you decided she was likely playing a game.

“Sakura was super intense at the event,” Nayeon says, as if reading your thoughts regarding the young Japanese police officer. “When she showed up with Jihyo and Somi to arrest Rose, she had her game face on. It was almost scary. She wanted to see layouts of the building, possible exits and escape routes, dossiers on who might be there and who they might be with. She looked ready to take down every bad guy in the entire restaurant, all on her own.”

“I saw,” you agree. “She walked in there like she owned the place. Rose’s bodyguard tried to stop her, but whatever she said to him made him look like a whipped dog afterward. She destroyed that guy.”

“And now here she is at a major interrogation involving multiple international parties and she’s on her phone playing Among Us,” Nayeon scoffs. “It’s like she has an on and off switch when it comes to her job. I don’t get it. To be honest, I find it a little odd that the precinct would bury someone with her on-site skills in the record keeping department and not out in the field walking a beat.”

You take a moment to consider Nayeon’s point. She was right; surely the Tokyo PD could make better use of Sakura by constantly keeping her in the field, where she clearly excelled, instead of the records department where she was buried under paperwork she had little interest in. There had to be a reason behind it all, but you currently had more pressing issues on your mind than the Japanese liaison officer’s career prospects.

“We need to make sure she gets us that time with Rose. Preferably without her lawyer present.”

“That would be against the rules,” Nayeon says, hesitantly. She knew what you were implying and while she knew you weren’t going to hurt Rose or do anything stupid, she felt she had to tell you anyway out of obligation.

“There’s nothing illegal about me having a chat with a lovely young Australian woman I met at an event a few nights ago,” you reply with a sly smile.

Nayeon smirks, but understands your implication. “I’ll remind Officer Miyawaki,” she says.

In the room, Sakura lets out a sigh, rolling her eyes back into her head - her spaceman was likely just bitten in half by an impostor. Next to her, Mina frowns and shakes her head, a look of plain disapproval on her face.

“No, don’t worry about it,” you say. “I’ll remind her myself.”

---

It didn’t take long to find Sakura later that day. She was absent from her desk, but a nearby colleague told you she was on her lunch hour - even though at that point it was nearly three in the afternoon. While your time with Nayeon and Jihyo had informed you that law enforcement officers saw lunch breaks as a rare luxury, you also knew that Sakura didn’t conform to the usual expectations of this particular line of work. With your limited Japanese and a healthy amount of hand gestures, you were able to ascertain from her colleague that she usually took her lunch breaks on the roof of the building.

The precinct proved to be a little bit of a maze, but you eventually found your way to the roof, which, like many buildings in Asia, was open to access and was often used as a kind of recreational space for the building’s inhabitants. After your time inside the cramped interior of the building you were happy to be outside again, enjoying the fresh air and the sunny, crisp winter afternoon.

Sitting on a bench in one of the corners of the space was Sakura, legs crossed, her nose buried in what looked like a manga. The small pile of convenience store sandwich containers and empty candy wrappers that occupied the rest of the bench confirmed that she was indeed on her lunch break. The volume of the trash, however, implied she’d been there awhile, leading you to wonder just how long her lunch “hours” usually lasted.

“Officer Miyawaki,” you say as you approach her, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if-”

You are stopped mid-sentence by a raised finger. Without taking her attention from the manga, Sakura reaches for a half-full bottle of Pocari Sweat next to her on the bench, which she brings to her mouth to take a sip. Eyes working quickly, she finishes the page she was reading before turning the page and devouring that one as well. With brows furrowed and eyes narrowed with concentration, there is a clear look of complete and utter intensity on her face that you’d seen only once before - when she was confronting Rose’s bodyguard and putting him in his place.

When you’d first been introduced to Miyawaki Sakura you’d wondered just how she had managed to keep her job given her obvious laziness and what seemed to be an utter lack of interest in her duties - or even in maintaining the false appearance of an interest. But her role in the events of two nights prior, and the seriousness with which she carried herself while on-site, answered that question for you. It became clear that her superiors kept her around because when the chips were down and the game was on, she could put on a game face that almost scared you with its intensity. When that happened, she was almost a different person entirely.

The question then became why her superiors had assigned her to the record keeping department. Was it a demotion? Did they think she was too unstable or unreliable for field work? There had to be a reason.

She goes on for three more pages, consuming the art and text within the manga like they were some sort of life-giving energy source that she could not go a moment more without. You are left to stand there, awkwardly, a little taken aback by the speed and ease at which she had silenced you - but unconsciously, a little afraid of what might happen if you’d insisted on interrupting her reading.

Finally, after reaching what seemed to be a chapter’s conclusion or some other boundary within the manga, she retrieves a bookmark from her bench and marks her place before finally acknowledging your presence.

“Yes?” she says, a look of undisguised annoyance on her otherwise soft, adorable features.

“I, well, I was… um, hoping we could have a quick moment of your time, Officer Miyawaki,” you answer, suddenly unsure of your words, your tongue having turned into stone in your mouth. You’d expected a fast and easy chat - you usually had no problems charming your share of pretty young women - but your resolve had faltered unexpectedly under the piercing gaze of the young officer.

“About?” she asks, plainly, even though you knew what you wanted to talk about must have been obvious to her. What else could it have been, if not Rose? Did she just want to hear you ask for something? Did she want to hear you beg and grovel?

“About the girl, uh, the woman that Officer Dou- I mean, you, you placed in your custody a couple of nights ago,” you answer.

“Yes, and, what about her?”

“I was hoping I could have a chat- er, maybe, some time, with her. Alone, before she, they, she’s, well... taken away.”

“And what would you want to speak to her about?”

“Well, you see, um…. we’re kind of after her colleagues - three of them. They’re in this team, er, corporate espionage group - they’re called Blackpink. I, well, me, my team and I, we were hoping she could lead us to the other three.”

Sakura takes a moment to weigh your request, her large, deep eyes boring into yours. You were a little ashamed to admit you were faltering a little bit under the intensity of her gaze. While you were sure her current demeanor was borne from you so rudely interrupting her reading and not from any malicious intent, it did little to keep you from withering under her look.

Eventually Sakura’s eyes leave you, and you find yourself releasing an inward sigh of relief to be free of her gaze.

“I can arrange something,” she says as she opens her manga again. “But it will cost you. Helping you and that foreign officer during that arrest resulted in a lot of extra paperwork for me.”

You are about to say something about her job and the amount of work she actually had to do, especially given the fact that she was in the middle of what seemed to be a three hour lunch break, but an unconscious fear of being put under her gaze once more meant that your response died in your throat.

“What exactly… can I do f-for you, Officer Miyawaki?”

“Sakura is fine,” she says under her breath as she finds her place in her manga. “Meet me in the precinct showers in two hours. Cancel any appointments you may have this afternoon.”

You are left a little stunned by her demand, and what it might have meant. The possibilities run through your mind at a million miles an hour; what did she mean-

“You can leave,” Sakura states, and not wanting to risk her ire by lingering any longer, you quickly turn and leave.

---

Speaking proved exceedingly difficult given the ball gag in your mouth, and so you settled for nodding.

“Ah, that’s good!” Sakura exclaims, “I’m such a big fan. I totally ship Shirou and Saber, although I’m also a fan of Shirou and Sakura - I bet you can guess why! I like both couples, though; it really depends on what mood I’m in! Sometimes I- whoops, is that too tight for you?”

It was. The girl knew how to tie a neat, tight knot (which itself raised several questions) and the thick nylon rope dug painfully into your wrists as she tied them behind your back, but you gave your head a shake nonetheless. The black cloth blindfold she’d tied around your head was similarly a little too tight for comfort and was beginning to give you a headache - not that you were willing, or even able, to tell Sakura as such.

Even if you could speak, you weren’t sure you would stop her from proceeding. You were equal parts terrified and aroused by the sharp, unexpected turn of events this afternoon had taken, but the thought of stopping the young woman hadn’t yet occurred to you.

“Good, I don’t want to hurt you. Anyway, yeah, I’m sorry if I came off rude this afternoon. I just don’t like to be interrupted during my lunch hour. That’s when I get all my reading done! Because the rest of the day I’m so busy with work, you see. Anyway… you’re all set!”

You obviously couldn’t see her through the blindfold, but the loud click-clack of Sakura’s high-heeled shoes against the shower tiles tell you she has stepped in front of you. The next few moments of silence provide no audible clue to tell you what she is doing, but you knew she was likely giving you a good long look from head to toe, as if enjoying the sight of you sitting on a stool, gagged, bound, and blindfolded.

“It’s time to begin, I think. Are you ready?”

Her tone reminded you a little bit of any of a hundred anime voice actors, particularly those that voiced the sugary sweet and cute characters. And Sakura was nothing if not cute, although she also seemed to have a bit of a crazy side to her - a side it seemed you were about to get to know intimately, whether you were ready for it or not.

You nod, because there wasn’t much else you could do.

“Good! Let’s start!” she says, sounding a bit like an announcer for a game that involved Italian plumbers and dragon/turtle hybrids racing go-karts - and not like she was about to engage in a sexual act with very particular, very specific kinks.

So when she straddles you on the stool, her long, thin legs suddenly on either side of your waist and her small frame atop your lap, you were a little unsure about how to react to the juxtaposition between her tone and her actions. With other women you would have enjoyed the weight of her body on top of yours and the promise of impending pleasure. But with Sakura you were a little hesitant - and as much as you hated to admit it, almost a little afraid.

“So as I mentioned earlier, I’d be happy to set up a meeting with you and that Australian chick,” she says, her voice dripping with sugar even as you feel her trace random patterns with her fingertip on your jawline and chin. “But I’ll need to get something out of it.”

You are unable to manage anything more than a muffled groan, and so you settle for nodding your head once more.

“Good.”

Sakura’s hand drifts lower, her fingertip never breaking contact with you as it drifts down your neck and chest, eventually reaching the buckle of the jeans you wore. Her fingers work quickly, and before you know it she has your button undone and the zipper lowered, your quickly hardening shaft aching for its impending release from its cotton prison.

“Oh! You are quite eager for us to begin, I see.”

You nod.

“Well then, let’s see what you’re hiding under here.”

Sakura’s tone continues to be that of a cute, sweet girl. Her actions, as she frees your nearly fully hardened shaft from your boxers, are altogether the opposite.

You feel the breath leave your lungs in a rush as she grasps your cock in her small, dainty little hands for the first time and gives it a few small, exploratory pumps. It would have been utterly arousing at any other time. But now, wrists bound behind you and with your eyes and mouth rendered useless, it almost felt like your sense of touch was heightened - and it felt utterly sublime. It wasn’t long before you the Japanese police officer had brought you to full, aching stiffness.

“I see now why your team is full of those women,” she observes, a slight hint of edge appearing in her tone. “I bet they love taking turns being filled with this.”

“Mmmghmm,” you answer.

“What’s that? You fuck them on a daily basis? I bet you pump their thirsty mouths and wet little pussies just full of your cum on the regular, don’t you? Maybe those tight little asses too?”

“Yughhhm.”

“I bet they love it, too, don’t they? I bet you have them all bent to your will like the obedient, needy little fucktoys that they are. Is that right?”

“Mmmahghg.”

“I knew it. I knew all of those girls were filthy little sluts the second I saw them.”

To hear such filth come out of Sakura’s mouth - out of a girl whom you’d pegged as being adorable and cute if a little airheaded and lazy - was more than a little bewildering. Each of her words dripped with sweet sugar tone even if the actual content of her words was dirty and nasty. Two sides of the same coin. Two faces of the same girl.

“Well, I think it’s time for us to play a game. Do you want to play a game?”

For a second you are frozen as a shiver of fear crawls up your spine - you’d seen enough horror movies to know that nothing good ever followed that question. But you had to admit that it both frightened and aroused you. Part of you wanted to submit to her every whim, and part of you suddenly wanted to run away as quickly as you could.

You nod.

“Good! I’m happy. Let’s lay down the rules. Hmmm… well, there’s actually only two! Are you ready for them? Are you paying attention?”

It was a little difficult to do so, truth be told. She hadn’t stopped pumping your cock, at an almost lazy pace, with her slender, soft hands. She had begun to squeeze on the downstroke and loosen on the upstroke, causing a delicious little jolt of pleasure to shoot right to your brain every few seconds.

You nod.

“Okay! Rule number one - every time you make me cum, I remove one item of your choice: your blindfold, your gag, or the ties at your wrists. How much time I give you with the Australian girl depends on how good you fuck, I guess! I’ll make the judgement at the end. Rule number two - you don’t get to say anything aside from a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ Pretty simple, huh? You understand the rules, right?”

Despite laying down the ground rules for what would likely be a filthy sexual act, Sakura sounds a bit like a voice actor reading the script to the tutorial level of a Mario Party game. The prospect of regaining your ability to see, touch and taste her was appealing, and with the ball gag filling your mouth you couldn’t exactly voice any objections to her rules even if you had any.

You nod.

“Good! Then let’s begin!”

Without giving you much time to ready yourself, Sakura presses her body forward on your lap - and almost immediately you feel the wet heat of her pussy pressed against the base of your shaft.

Before she put the blindfold on you, the police officer had been wearing a short blue skirt and black heels along with the blue blouse that formed her uniform. Had she removed her panties somewhere along the way? Was she ever wearing panties at all?

Your brain had little time or bandwidth to answer those questions - not as Miyawaki Sakura began to grind herself against the underside of your cock, her hips swirling up and down, finding and trapping your shaft between the splayed lips of her pussy and moving, slowly at first, up and down its length. She is absolutely dripping. Her flesh is hot and warm against your cock. Were your mouth not gagged, you would have let out a long, wordless moan - but it escapes your throat as a wet, guttural sound instead.

Sakura, her own mouth unbound, lets the first outward sign of her arousal escape her lips in a long, drawn-out gasp. The entire process - binding you, teasing you, explaining her rules to you - must have turned her on immensely. The slick, warm juices that coated your cock in a thick, glistening layer with each grind of her hips were clear indication of how turned on she was. You found yourself impressed that she was able to hide her need for so long behind her sickly sweet tone.

“Mmmm, that feels so good!” she gasps. “Mmm, you’re so big, and you’re not even inside me yet!”

You nod.

And so for a few delicious minutes you are content to let the small Japanese girl grind herself harder and harder against your cock, her slick, hot pussy pressed against the underside of your shaft, sliding up and down, up and down, up and down. The small shower room reverberates with the soft squeaking of your stool on the tiles, and the soft, pleasant moans of pleasure that leave Sakura’s throat.

“Mmm, fuck, I’m gonna cum already, fuck, you’re gonna make me cum so quickly, mmmmm, your cock is so hard! Do you like the feel of my pussy? The feel of my clit on your cock? Hmmm? Do you want to be inside me?”

You nod.

You are surprised by how quickly she was coming to her first orgasm, even if the heat emanating from her splayed pussy lips as she grinds them against you, combined with the sheer amount of the juices that were now running down your balls, clearly indicated how needy and wanton she was even before she first touched you.

“D-Do you want me… oh, fuck… do you want me to-to cum all over your hard cock?”

You nod.

Sakura’s response is to orgasm.

You’d been with plenty of women before, witnessed the many forms of the female orgasm and the differences in the bodies of each woman when she finally reaches her peak. Each was unique. But even given that fact, you knew that no other woman on Earth orgasmed like Miyawaki Sakura did.

She felt a little bit like she was being jolted with electricity - every fibre of her being quivered and shook like she had a thousand volts coursing through her veins. It was almost unnerving, in a way, and from the way her small body trembled atop yours you were worried that she had hurt herself somehow.

Even the way she orgasmed was far from the norm. The more you knew about Miyawaki Sakura, the more and more you were frightened of her.

But the same things that frightened you also aroused you.

It seems to last forever, her orgasm. When her body finally winds down, the loud breaths that leave her throat and the fact that she has slumped forward onto your chest imply that she is somewhat drained by the experience.

“That was pretty good!” Sakura exclaims once she has regained her energy, sounding once more like she were some sort of video game announcer. “As per the rules of our game, you get to remove one item. What would you like it to be?”

Your options run though your head, each with their own merits. You would’ve loved to finally lay your hands on the young woman, and the thought of watching her cum obviously appealed to you, but the opportunity to taste her won out.

“Mowwffth,” you manage to mumble.

“Your mouth? You want to get rid of the gag? Are you sure?” Sakura asks, sounding the way a video game does when you decide to overwrite a game save and it wants you to be sure of your decision.

You nod.

“Okay! Away it goes!”

Sakura reaches behind your head and you feel the ball gag loosen before she rips it none-too-gently from your mouth. A drip of saliva spills from your mouth - one that Sakura is quick to lick off your chin with her tongue.

Her tongue, feeling long and particularly flexible, traces a path up your chin until it finds your lips. She crushes your lips with hers in a torrid, passionate kiss that had little affection but plenty of need, her hands quickly reaching behind your blindfolded head and pressing your head against hers as she sticks her tongue as far into your mouth as she could. Your tongue wrestles with hers, but she quickly gains the upper hand, and it is all you can do to sit there and submit to letting the young woman explore your mouth at her whim.

When she finally tears her lips from yours she lets out a satisfied sigh.

“Mmmm, that was a good choice. You’re a good kisser! And it will definitely help you when it comes to the next way you’re going to make me cum. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” you say, finally happy to be able to speak.

“Good. Get ready!”

Sakura climbs off your lap, and you lament the loss of her warm body for a split second - until you hear the snap of her foot meeting the stool you were sitting on, followed by a sharp thud of your butt hitting the floor as she kicks the stool out from under you.

You are about to groan in pain at your hard, unexpected landing, about to protest at the way she was treating you - when you hear Sakura step over your body, her crotch just inches from your face. She must have been lifting her skirt to get it out of the way, because when she presses herself against you, you find yourself face to face with her pussy.

There was no doubt in your mind now. Miyawaki Sakura was crazy.

But you weren’t in a position to complain, not with the girl’s juicy, slick, hot pussy suddenly and fiercely pressed against your face, her splayed lips immediately smearing your nose, lips and chin with her juices. By instinct your tongue darts out, almost like a defensive measure. You begin to lick her slowly, hesitantly, still caught a little wrong footed by her ridiculous aggressiveness - but Sakura was having none of that, and she quickly grasps the back of your scalp with one hand and presses it against her warm, wet folds.

“You can do better than that,” she says, her tone still that of the video game announcer, as though she were encouraging a kart racer who had fallen behind. “Eat my pussy like the hungry little fucktoy you are.”

You follow her orders, as much out of fear of upsetting her as the need to finally have your fill of the needy young woman’s body. You start by giving her long, slow licks from the bottom of her pussy to the top, ensuring to add a little swirl of the tip of your tongue around her engorged clit as you reach it. Sakura moans in pleasure as you drink of her, enjoying the pleasant, sweet bitterness of the girl’s plentiful juices on your tongue.

When you decide that the steadily rising volume of her moans and gasps, enhanced by the echoing off the shower room’s tiled walls, has reached a high point, you quickly switch up your technique, latching your lips as best you could around her clit before swiping at it in broad, strong strokes with your tongue. You begin with strokes that begin and the bottom and end at the top. When she begins to quiver and shake, you begin to trace random patterns around her taut little bud.

“You’re doing so great!” Sakura moans, “I’ve never felt anything like that!”

You are almost annoyed now with her tone of voice - not that you were in a position to complain, not while her wet, slick lips were sweet upon your tongue and lips. You continue to swipe at her clit with your tongue, using the flat of it now to ensure maximum contact with the taut bud. Sakura begins to grind her hips against you, almost crushing her pussy against your face in an effort to draw every ounce of pleasure from your tongue as she could.

What a sight it would have been for anyone walking into the precinct showers at that moment. A man sitting on the floor, blindfolded and with hands bound behind his back, while Miyawaki Sakura stood over him, one hand pulling her skirt up and another gripping the back of his skull, pressing his helpless face against the wet, slick lips of her pussy.

Sakura grinds her face against you. You almost struggle to breathe - every time you come up for air, she presses you against the hot, slick flesh of her pussy with the hand grasping the back of your scalp. It was frightening. It was almost too much to handle. But it was also intensely, perversely arousing.

“Ah, stop, I need you inside me right now,” she snaps - the first time she’d broken her tone and shown the slightest hint of losing her composure. “Are you ready?”

“Fuck yes, Sakura. I want-”

Sakura silences you with a raised finger to your lips, just as she did earlier that afternoon on the rooftop.

“Just a yes or no, remember?”

“Y...yes,” you answer, suitably chastised.

“Good. Now sit there and be a good little cock for me to fuck.”

Sakura drops to her knees, straddling you once more. With your hands still bound behind your back you are unable to lie back fully, and so you settle into a sitting position as she sits on your lap. You would’ve given anything to get your hands on her hips, particularly as she adjusted herself for penetration - but you had to admit, not being able to see her or touch her beyond what she allowed your mouth and hips to do only heightened the intensity of your other senses.

She wastes no time. You felt her slim fingers on your cock for a moment, aligning your tip with her entrance, before she drops her hips and takes you inside her for the first time.

You both sigh out loud - loud, breathy sounds that echo off the tile surrounding you. Sakura gasps as you fill her completely, your crotches finally meeting as she fills herself with your stiff shaft for the first time. For a second you regret your choice to free your mouth and wish you’d freed your arms instead, as it would have allowed you to lie on your back and thus let Sakura penetrate herself more deeply - not that you were actually upset at being finally inside the needy, mewling young police officer.

“Oh my,” Sakura sighs, “you’re so fucking big inside me! Now I see, ohh! I see why those other girls keep you around! But now it’s my turn. My turn to use you as a fucktoy. Do you like being a fucktoy for me? Do you like being nothing more than a toy cock for me to fuck myself with?”

You want to argue with her, put her in her place, spit the same vulgarities and names right back at her. But there is a sharp, edgy undertone to Miyawaki Sakura, a kind of fierceness that made you fear what would happen if you did.

You decide to let her have her way - for now at least.

“Yes.”

“Good! Then get ready!”

Any misgivings you may have had about Sakura, about her double-sided personality, about her lack of professionalism when off-site and intimidating intensity when actually in the field, even about the way she spoke so casually and vulgarly about your relationship with your team - they all flew right out the window as she began to ride you. Every muscle in her small, lean body seemed devoted to driving your stiff shaft in and out of her body, each of her movements propelling her up and down as fast and hard as she was able.

For all her faults and almost frightening instability, Miyawaki Sakura knew how to ride a cock.

You supposed you shouldn’t be surprised by the lack of build up to the way Sakura rode you. It was all you could do to grit your teeth and attempt to stay upright as her tight, lithe body rocked up and down, threatening to tip you over and onto your back, which, given your bound hands, would have been quite uncomfortable. Thankfully Sakura quickly grips onto your shoulders, helping keep you upright as she used them for more leverage, driving you in and out of the hot, wet flesh between her legs again and again.

“Oh, oh fuck, you’re so fucking big!” Sakura moans, seemingly barely able to turn her thoughts into words before she abandons the thought of speaking altogether, relying instead on a wordless string of gasps and sighs to articulate the pleasure coursing through her veins.

You grit your teeth, relishing the feel of her tight heat wrapped around your cock as she continued to ride you with fierce abandon on the shower floor. Eager to do something more than merely hold on, you lean forward, searching for and then finding her upper chest, pressing your lips against the small patch of exposed skin at the top of her blouse.

Sakura catches on to what you were doing, and the next thing you hear is the sound of buttons ripping from fabric as she quite literally tears the blouse open.

Were any other girl to rip open a button up shirt to give you access to her chest, you would have been surprised with her recklessness - but with Sakura it was simply par for the course.

Your hungry lips press themselves against the newly revealed skin of her upper chest, greedly pressing against her pale, vanilla skin, licking and kissing and tasting. Soon you find her neck, latching onto the warmth you find there, sucking hard enough to bruise her and leave marks on her otherwise perfect skin. Sakura hugs you tightly against her body, not lowering her pace at all, still riding you fiercely, her hips not ceasing for a moment in their desire to fill herself over and over again with stiff, hard cock.

The minutes pass as the tiny little police officer fucks herself on your stiff cock, the small shower space filled with your wordless moans and the wet slap of flesh hitting flesh.

The entire experience was torrid, fierce, intense. Sakura was so unpredictable, so unreadable - and that was even not counting the fact that you were blindfolded or had your hands bound. Her personality seemed to flip from moment to moment, and while a part of you missed the stability and predictability of your other partners, you would have been lying if you had said Sakura’s sheer craziness didn’t also turn you on in its own unique, special way.

When Sakura cums, her body turning into the same shaking, quivering mess she was when she came the first time, you are thankful - because you were close behind. Her flesh tightens and pulsates around you even more than you’d thought possible.

“I’m gonna cum, Sakura,” you hiss, forsaking for a moment her rule to limit your speaking to simple yesses or nos, and being thankful she was so far lost in the pleasure overtaking her senses that she was unable to pick up on that particular rule violation.

“Fucking fill my tight little pussy with your hot cum, you little fucktoy!”

Helpless to do much else, you allow yourself to finally fall over the edge, letting a deep, low groan escape your throat as your cock spasms and begins to spurt thick, hot cum inside the still-quivering Japanese girl’s wet, slick pussy. Even as your cock fills her with semen Sakura doesn’t stop, still riding you fiercely, still impaling herself with what was left of her energy, pushing your cum even deeper inside of herself with each thrust of your spasming cock.

It’s almost painful the way she slams her entire weight onto your crotch and the cold, unforgiving floor beneath it. You would’ve given anything to just hold her down by her hips and savor the feeling of your orgasm, the feeling of filling a young woman’s pussy with your cum for the first time. But what you wanted didn’t matter. You were in no position to tell her what you wanted, and she probably wouldn’t have cared even if you were.

When she finally stops it is almost a mercy. You are drained of energy like you’d never been before - utterly physically and mentally spent. Your cock still embedded hilt deep inside her, she reaches up and finally slips the blindfold from your eyes. You spend a few seconds blinking rapidly, your eyes unused to the sudden brightness.

“That was a great job! You have one hour with Rose,” she says, her face bright and cheerful, as though she were congratulating the first place kart racer and wasn’t currently impaled with a recently orgasmed cock, filled to the brim with its fresh, hot semen. She grabs you fiercely by the skull and gives you a final, fierce kiss.

“Will an hour be enough?” she asks when she finally tears her lips from yours. Able to see now, you lock eyes with her, and while her eyes are large and bright, you notice now that they are laced with more than a little crazy, brimming just below the surface.

It occurred to you at that moment just why Miyawaki Sakura had been buried in the records department of her precinct by her superiors.

She was a little crazy.

Too spent to come up with anything resembling a verbal response, you resort to following her rules once more.

You nod.

---

“I’m sure Officers Park and Douma have informed you of the charges that will be brought against you, and that your lawyer has conveyed the gravity of the situation you’re in,” Momo states, matter-of-factly. “The evidence is indisputable. Your future doesn’t look bright, Rose.”

“I’m aware that I’m fucked, yes,” Rose replies, making a dismissive gesture with her hands from the interrogation room’s table, where they are handcuffed to the thick metal bar in the middle of it. She had appeared to become even more of a mess since you saw her last at yesterday’s interrogation, with darker bags under her eyes and frazzled, messy hair. “So if I’m as screwed as you say I am, then why are you still here? Come to gloat, have you?”

“You’re here because we want to offer you something,” Momo answers.

“You? Offer me something? Hah! Unless it’s a ticket that lets me walk out that door a free woman then I’m not interested. What could you possibly have to offer me?”

Momo leans back in her chair. She had predicted that Rose would react the way she did during your preparation for this meeting. It was almost as if she had written a script for it - and it was your turn to speak your lines.

“Revenge,” you state, leaning forward on the table.

“Revenge? The fuck do you mean by that?”

“Let me ask you, Rose: how do you think we knew you’d be at that event a few days ago?”

“I dunno. Fucking cops have probably been tailing me from the second I touched down,” she spits with a dirty look towards the one-way glass, even if you knew there was no one on the other side. Sakura had made sure this conversation was strictly off the record.

“Nope. It’s because we received a tip - from one of your friends in Blackpink.”

Rose is unable to hide her reaction, her eyes going wide with surprise.

“You’re fucking lying. Why the hell would they give me up like that?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” you answer. “Maybe you pissed one of them off. Maybe they decided they didn’t need you anymore, getting caught doing shit overseas while they did the real hard work here in Japan and Korea. I don’t care. But if you help us find them, then maybe we can make sure they’re just as fucked as you are. If you’re especially helpful, maybe we recommend a lighter sentence for you.”

“You want me to rat on them? Give up my team?”

“Yes,” Momo answers. “Remember - it’s because of them that you’re going to be behind bars for a very long time, while they’re out there free as can be, living the life. This is your chance to take them down with you.”

“You must have had a safehouse or a base of operations here in Japan,” you add. “Give us the location of that base and we’ll make sure we take them down, without them being any the wiser that it was you who gave up their location.”

Rose bites her lip, staring intently at her own hands as she weighs her admittedly small range of options.

“If I give them up, you get me a lighter sentence? That’s it?”

“That’s part of it,” you answer, as Momo retrieves mugshots of the two Red Velvet members and from her briefcase and places them on the table. “We’re also tracking two fugitives from Korea that you might have heard of - Kang Seulgi and Kim Yerim. Do you or anyone in Blackpink know anything about them?”

Rose takes a quick glance at both photos, but there is no hint of recognition in her eyes.

“No, I don’t know either of those two. If it’s Koreans you’re looking for you’d best speak to the others. All my work was done overseas, as illustrated by your giant pile of indisputable evidence.”

Momo gathers the mugshots before taking a pad of paper and a pen from her briefcase and places them in front of Rose.

“We need you to write down the location of Blackpink’s safehouse,” she states.

Rose takes a last moment of thought before she reaches for the pen.

“I want your word that I’ll get a lighter sentence for this. And that they’ll never know it was me that gave them up.”

“You have it. We can’t guarantee that the judge will honor our request, but I promise you they’ll be aware of your cooperation,” Momo replies.

Rose scribbles an address down on the pad of paper before sliding it across the table to Momo. Momo takes out her phone and opens her map app to confirm its validity. Satisfied, she gives you a nod.

“You’ve made the right decision,” you tell Rose as you stand up and get ready to leave. Momo packs up her things and follows closely behind.

“Throw those bitches into a hole and let them rot,” Rose hisses as you leave the room.

In the outside hallway, Sakura, wearing a garishly pink hoodie now given that she’d torn the buttons off her uniform blouse earlier that afternoon, raises her head from her phone as she notices you and Momo have left the room. Giving Momo a polite, cheerful smile and shooting you a suggestive wink, she enters the interrogation room, presumably to return Rose to her cell.

Also waiting in the hallway, sitting on a bench, are Nayeon and a third woman, who begins to speak as soon as Sakura has closed the door to the interrogation room.

“Did she believe it? That it was Blackpink that gave her up?”

“Yes, you answer.”

“You got the location of their safehouse?”

“Yes.”

“What about Seulgi and Yeri? Did she know where they are?”

“No. I’m sorry, Irene.”

There is a flash of something resembling sadness and disappointment in Irene’s features. It is short and fleeting, but unmistakable. Soon it is replaced with the look of quiet determination that she had worn since the moment she’d joined you in Japan.

She rises from her seat. The short leggings she was wearing did little to hide the bulky tracking device around her ankle, but at least now her hands were free of the handcuffs she had on the last time you saw her.

“Understood. Let’s go - we have work to do.”

---

Author’s Note: Not my best work, I know, but I just wanted to get across how wild (in a good way) Sakura was during sex and I found it kind of difficult to get across that she was good crazy but not insane lol. Not sure how well I did or how clear everything came across as I’d never written anyone quite like her with those kinks. I always want to try writing new things and improving my writing, though. Let me know what you think. :)

#kpop fanfiction #kpop fanfic #kpop smut #male reader #pov smut #izone #izone fanfic #izone sakura #miyawaki sakura #izone smut

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sgtjbbhasmyheart · 3 years

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Drunk Texting Is(n’t) Bad for Your Health- Chapter Six (part 1)

Series Summary: Talk about your unconventional meet-cute! Bucky receives a text by mistake requesting he prove he's not Reader's sister. The easy dialogue between Reader and Bucky sparks a natural friendship, but could it lead to more? Bucky still deems himself unworthy of any form of affection or love. Reader is hellbent to prove him wrong. With the help of some (meddling) friends along the way, Bucky may get his happily-ever-after after all.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 3293

Warnings: ANGST, bad language words

A/N: Tumblr sucks. It forced me to split this chapter up because I exceeded the text block limit. That’s just how I write! Link to part 2 at the end.

A/N 2: Thank you again to everyone for showing this story so much love! And thank you to everyone for your patience and support as I struggled to put this out. As you can tell from the multiple parts, it was a doozy. 🥰 divider credit- @firefly-graphics

In case you missed the update, I will be publishing a new chapter every other Saturday from here on out. Schedule is in the Masterlist in my header.

DO NOT copy or replicate without my permission.

Monday morning rolled around, and your good mood from the weekend followed you into the office. Spending all of Saturday and the majority of Sunday texting James had lent to this early morning cheerfulness. You couldn’t help the smile on your face. You had even managed to arrive before most of your team.

You hummed a sweet melody as you booted up your computer and organized a few files for Timmons to peruse. They were statements intended for the press needing his approval about a particular prominent CEO or A-list celebrity client. The firm was not confirming nor denying any knowledge of said client’s whereabouts the previous week or why there was photographic evidence of them coming out of FlashDancers NYC. Other files included those seeking rebranding approval for existing companies looking to revamp their image.

Most importantly, today was contract signing day for Stark Industries.

You had compiled the document from a generic template the company used for all its clients, manually plugging in Stark Industries’ information in the correct spots and changing or omitting any services rendered or not. E-signing contracts were not only environmentally responsible, but they also saved a lot of your time from printing out numerous copies of a single agreement.

All you needed now was Timmons’ go-ahead to email the contract, and Pepper Potts could plug in her Jane Hancock.

Seeing Timmons enter the workroom, tweed coat draped over his forearm and attaché in hand, you rose from the seat behind your desk. You shuffled into his office after him.

He hung his jacket from the coat rack in the corner near a bank of expansive windows and placed the small, leather case he’d been carrying on the sturdy oak desk. He pulled out a stack of papers and tapped the pile against the desktop to straighten them before setting them down. Looking up at you briefly, he tugged out his laptop next.

You positioned a mug of coffee on Timmons’ desk, turning the handle just so, making it easier for him to grab. You cleared your throat gently. He glanced up at you again.

“Here’s the media statements for today,” you said, handing him a group of manila folders. You smoothed down the hem of your cardigan, smiling at the reminder of Bucky. You wished there had been a way to apologize to him again. He had left your apartment with such a pained look on his face. Maybe you could ask Peter. “And the Stark contract pdf is ready to go. I can email it over to you for final approval.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Timmons replied absent-mindedly, lifting the organized piles on the desk as if looking for something.

“Oh, okay,” you returned, nodding your head diminutively. “Do you want me to forward the contract on to Ms. Potts, then?”

“Ah-ha!” Timmons exclaimed, plucking a pen from underneath a stack of envelopes. He twirled the writing implement in his hand and peered at you, finally taking in your presence for the first time that morning.

An uncomfortable feeling washed over you as he evaluated you from head to toe. What was he looking at? Your hands tensed into fists as you continued to wait for his answer, growing impatient.

“Should I go ahead and do that, then, sir?” you asked, folding your arms across your chest like a protective suit of armor to deflect prying eyes.

“Yes, yes. That should be acceptable,” Timmons answered.

It threw you off balance. What had gotten into him? Timmons always had to have the final say on everything. It was so unlike him!

“Just so we’re clear- I will be sending the Stark Industries contract via email to Pepper Potts to e-sign,” you said, seeking clarification. You wanted to dot all i’s and cross all t’s because you weren’t going to lay your ass on the line for a misunderstanding. Especially not with something as crucial as the Stark Industries account.

“What? No, there’s been a change of plans,” he corrected.

You stared at him dumbfounded. Was he purposely trying to give you mental whiplash?

“Change of plans,” you affirmed. “Has Stark Industries decided not to use the firm, sir?”

“Oh, no. They’re still going with us,” Timmons said, rearranging the clutter he’d made on his desk.

You dropped your arms to your sides, although inside, you felt like throwing them into the air in frustration. Why was he so vague? He was usually wholly transparent with you. “Would you mind explaining it to me, please?” you asked, borderline annoyed. “Last time I checked, Stark Industries’ contract signing was still on the calendar for today’s agenda.”

“And it still is,” Timmons acknowledged. “It’s moved to an in-person signing.”

Your stomach plunged to the floor. Shit! You hadn’t printed out the contract! When was the appointment? How much time did you have? So many questions flew through your head.

How could Timmons keep something like this from you? Your heart hammered in your chest. You practically wobbled on your feet. Were you going to be sick?

I’m going to get fucking fired over this, you thought, trying to steady your breathing.

“Will you be ready to go in twenty minutes?” Timmons questioned, sitting down in the comfy desk chair and opening his laptop.

“Go?” you squeaked, attempting to recall how much you had in savings. You shook your head, trying to understand his words. Was he already asking you to clear out your desk?

“Yes. The car will be here at nine,” he said, keyboard clacking as he typed something.

“Car?” you asked, finding great difficulty comprehending the situation. Your head felt like it was stuffed with cotton.

Timmons regarded you in bafflement. “Have you been drinking?”

“What? NO!” you declared. You didn’t need that added to “the inability to perform required tasks” as a reason for your firing. “I’m-I’m just really confused, sir.”

“About what?” Timmons asked, sitting back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap.

“Well…” you started. “What do we need a car for?”

His chocolate brown eyes shone with what you imagined might be excitement. “To drive upstate, of course.” He smirked as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desktop.

Upstate? What was upstate?

Timmons’ smile broadened as realization crept across your face. “Are we-”

“Yup!” he interrupted gleefully. He was like a child in a candy store. “We are headed to the Avengers Compound with a personal invitation from Tony Stark himself!”

You blinked several times at your boss, not entirely computing what he’d said. You were usually a lot quicker on the uptake than this. Why were you having such an off-day?

“We?” you asked, shaking your head clear of the cobwebs. Why on Earth would he bring you along?

“I need someone who knows the ins and outs of these contract signings,” he said, fiddling with his pen again.

Wasn’t that his job?

“I’m just the schmoozer- the people-person,” he admitted, shrugging. “You’re the real brains behind this whole operation.

You nodded your head in agreement. He wasn’t wrong. The office would collectively collapse without you, and it felt good to hear your actual boss say it out loud.

“You better not forget it, either. Especially when my job performance evaluation comes around,” you asserted.

Timmons swiftly saluted you as if he was the subordinate. You huffed a laugh at him while shaking your head with incredulity. You took a step or two toward the office door before looking over your shoulder at him.

Timmons had turned back to his laptop screen already and started typing again. “So, twenty minutes?” he asked with an air of levity.

You faltered, nearly tripping over your feet. “Wait? You were serious about that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Timmons wondered, looking up hurriedly from his laptop.

“I need to print out the contract and make copies, for one thing,” you mentioned, almost accusatory. Maybe if he had warned you ahead of time, you wouldn’t be so defensive.

“Already taken care of,” he soothed.

“What do you mean it’s ‘already taken care of’?” you asked, raising your hands to make quotation marks with your fingers.

“I had one of the other grunts do it last night.”

You gaped at Timmons like a goldfish, mouth popping open and closed. Did you hear him correctly? Timmons did something to make your job easier? You could hug him right now! You felt like pinching yourself to make sure it wasn’t a dream.

Once you gathered your wits again, you glanced to your feet bashfully. “Oh,” you spoke, absently fingering the bottom button of your cardigan. “Thank you.” You smiled gratefully.

Timmons returned the smile with one of his own. “You’re welcome.”

“Nine o’clock, then,” you agreed, moving further toward the doorway.

“On the dot!”

Words couldn’t even begin to describe the Avengers Compound. You’d seen it on the news, sure, but that didn’t compare to seeing it in real life. It was grandiose, imposing. You felt dwarfed in size looking up to the high rooftop.

It was almost ostentatious in a way. Much like the man who designed it. Larger than life.

Tony Stark.

Tony had insisted he take you and Timmons around on the tour of the compound. You still hadn’t seen the need for a tour.

“When Tony Stark invites you to tour the Avengers compound, you don’t say no,” Timmons had said in the car-ride up when you questioned why it was necessary.

It was all superfluous, really. Like Tony was trying to woo the firm to sign them, not the other way around.

A headache was forming at the base of your skull as you waited in line at the reception desk to return your visitor security badge.

The tour of the facility seemed to have been drug out longer than it needed. Tony had appeared overeager to show off every little gadget or trinket. Or maybe he just liked to hear himself talk.

When Timmons excepted the lunch invitation after the tour was completed, you felt the urge to run down to the armory, grab a gun, and shoot yourself in the foot. You were kicking yourself for ever agreeing to come on this dumb tour.

As the line slowly dragged forward, the muffled noise of men’s voices caught your ear. It sounded like an argument. Your line of sight followed to where the altercation originated.

Standing twenty feet away was Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, clearly disagreeing.

Your breath stilled as you watched the two super soldiers quarrel in a near-stage-whisper. What could they be fighting about?

From your place in line, you saw Bucky shake his head adamantly, his chestnut hair swishing about his shoulders. He might have even stamped his foot like a child, but you were too preoccupied with the look of abject horror on his face. He turned away as if to flee, but his friend caught him by the shoulder to stop him.

Were you causing this reaction from him?

You looked to your right to see if there was possibly someone else. All you noticed, though, was an empty space. Had you hurt Bucky’s feelings that badly? Your stomach clenched. The last thing you wanted was to be on an Avengers’ shit-list.

Glancing back to the two men, you caught Steve gesturing Bucky forward with short sweeping motions of his hands. Bucky shook his head again, stubbornly.

Even at this distance, you could feel the frustration rolling off Captain America.

Like a sucker-punch to the gut, you suddenly became very aware you were eavesdropping on Captain America and his best friend.

Your cheeks heated instantaneously, embarrassed of your staring. You shouldn’t be spying on them, you admonished. No matter how much your curiosity is piqued.

It was none of your business.

You turned away from them, facing the reception desk again.

As hard as you tried not to pay attention, you could still see what looked like wild gesturing from the corner of your eye.

What if they started fighting? Shouldn’t you be conscious of your surroundings for your own safety? You fidgeted in your spot as you debated your moral compass.

Fuck it, you thought.

As you peered over to the two super soldiers, Steve shoved Bucky forward gently, causing the latter to trip over his booted feet. Bucky glared back at his friend, his hands clenching into fists. Steve shooed him further. You could barely make out the word “Go!” on his lips.

As if in slow motion, you eyed Bucky taking step after step toward you. Was he coming over here?

Once you realized what was happening, your heart plummeted to your knees as your head whipped around to the front of the line.

Bucky Barnes was definitely walking over to you.

Had he noticed you staring?

You tried to stabilize your heart rate with slow, easy breaths, but Bucky was beside you much sooner than you could imagine.

A waft of aftershave hit your nose- woodsy and deliciously masculine. Your stomach swooped.

God, he smelled good.

Without having to turn your head, you could feel his brawny mass hovering near you.

How do you play this?

Perplexed?

“Oh, my gosh! I had no idea you’d be here!” Of course, he wouldn’t believe that. This is where the Avengers lived. He’d probably think you were a stalker.

Apologetic?

“I’m so sorry Peter and I made fun of you! Will you ever forgive me?” Nah, too needy or clingy.

Or--

Before you could think of any other ways to portray the situation, you heard a large gush of air escape from Bucky. Was he nervous?

“Hey-hey, (Y/N),” he said, voice shaky.

You gazed to your left. Bucky looked as white as a ghost. Had his ego taken that big of a hit?

At that moment, you wanted to do nothing more than wrap him in your arms and tell him sorry, and everything would be okay. You couldn’t, of course. You didn’t know the guy. So you settled for the next best thing.

You smiled at him beatifically. “Hello, Mr. Barnes.”

Like a veil had been pulled, his demeanor changed instantly. He returned the smile. “Ja-” he started but scrunched his nose as if he’d made a mistake. “Please. Call me Bucky.”

“Okay, Bucky,” you replied.

Timmons turned around, ahead of you in line, and eyeballed you. You gave him a dismissive look, praying he wouldn’t butt in.

“So, you here visiting?” Bucky asked, observing the badge in your hand.

“Sorta. It’s a work thing,” you remarked, waving the plastic fob in the air. “Stark Industries has hired my firm as their PR representative. It was signing day.”

“Ah,” Bucky said, nodding in understanding.

“And I got the tour and lunch courtesy of Tony Stark,” you added.

“Oh, yeah?” Bucky’s eyebrows raised in interest. “What did you think?”

“Honestly?” You watched Bucky shake his head in agreement. “It was extremely overwhelming. How do you not get lost in this place?”

Bucky laughed. Crinkles appeared in the corners of his eyes, yet he looked so boyish. He was beautiful.

“When I first got here, I did several times,” he huffed. “Every hallway looks exactly the same!”

“Right?!” you exclaimed. “I kept thanking my lucky stars that I had a tour guide!”

Timmons rolled his eyes and pivoted, facing front.

“Steve had to draw me a map to help me find my living quarters after the third time,” Bucky confessed, running a hand through his hair.

“Oh, no!” you empathized, bringing a hand up to cover your mouth. “That must have been so embarrassing!”

“Bird brain caught wind of it and gave me shit for weeks,” he lamented.

You gave him a confused look, not understanding who or what he was referring to.

Realizing his mistake, Bucky corrected, “Sorry. Bird brain is Sam.”

“Because he’s Falcon?”

Bucky bobbed his head yes, looking a little sheepish.

“It’s clever,” you grinned. “I like it.”

Bucky reciprocated the smile, and your chest warmed. It was a feeling you usually felt while texting James. Light and airy.

Finally making it to the reception desk, you relinquished your security badge to the pretty blonde in the too-tight sweater set. She handed you a clipboard to initial and fill out your departure time.

While signing, you surveyed the blonde as Bucky stepped closer. Her eyelashes fluttered rapidly, and she bit down on her bottom lip. Was she giving him bedroom eyes?

A new kind of warmth flooded your body. It felt a lot like jealousy as it snaked its way up to your ribs and circled your collarbones, which was absurd because you had no claim to this man. You’d met him one other time. Why would you feel this way?

Shoving the clipboard back at the receptionist, you spun toward Bucky. He regarded her politely and nodded, “Ma’am.”

Her shoulders slumped, and a frown slithered onto her painted lips. Somehow you felt triumphant, but not sure why. Bucky hadn’t picked you over her.

Your heart thumped harder in your chest as you walked side by side with Bucky, nearing the exit. You were suddenly overcome with the feeling of apologizing. What had you told James if you ever saw Bucky again? Apologize profusely and ask him to coffee.

You smiled at Bucky once again as he rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. The sound of a throat clearing resonated nearby. It wasn’t until you glanced up did you register Timmons standing so close. You had nearly forgotten about him.

Trying to gather your courage, you glimpsed between the two men. Bucky was squinting suspiciously at Timmons, and it made you chuckle lightly. “Easy tiger,” you assured. “That’s my boss, Roger Timmons.”

Bucky’s blue eyes widened a fraction, and he raised a hand in hello. “Sir.”

Timmons raised his chin in acknowledgment before looking down at his watch. You took it as his way of telling you to hurry up.

Okay, it’s now or never.

“Would you like to go to coffee with me?” Bucky blurted out, cheeks coloring pink.

Your eyes roamed across his handsome face. The boyishness was back, along with a touch of uncertainty. He was sweet, regardless of what the media claimed about him. Your lips curled up into a broad smile. “You read my mind,” you revealed, then winced. “That’s not one of your superpowers, is it?”

Bucky tittered. “No, no mind-reading.”

“Good,” you said, relieved.

“Whaddya say? Coffee?”

You dipped your head in a slow yes. “It’ll have to be after work, though.” You motioned over your shoulder with your thumb. “The slave driver over there is taking me back to the office to put me to work.”

Giggling, as you heard a scoff come from behind where you were standing, you reached into your purse and pulled out a pen and an old receipt. You quickly jotted down your work address. Handing it to Bucky, you began moving towards Timmons. “I get off at five,” you called. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.” You waved goodbye.

Bucky smirked. “Don’t work too hard!”

You flashed him one last smile before disappearing through the exit door.

You had a coffee date with Bucky Barnes!

You couldn’t believe it! The giddiness swelled inside you.

You gazed at Timmons’ profile as you walked to the waiting car parked at the curb. He had that look on his face.

It was a long drive back to the city. There was no way you could endure it if he started up now.

You gave a stern look before you stated, “Whatever you’re thinking, keep it to yourself.”

Timmons threw his hands up in mock surrender. “I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“Uh-huh,” you said dubiously. Timmons smiled smugly as you both climbed into the town car.

Chapter Five | Chapter 6 (part 2)

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vivithefolle · 3 years

Note

Is there anyway you could share the entire livejournal essay about Hermione's reaction to Ron coming back in DH? The few paragraphs that you referred to in your recent answer sound extremely interesting.

[The “recent answer” that goes back to... last December. Oh my god I’m such an ass I left you hanging for so long I’m so sorry.]

Okay, okay, so here goes! KEEP IN MIND: I DIDN’T WRITE THIS. I FOUND THIS ON LIVEJOURNAL AND PICKED EVERYTHING THAT I LIKED ABOUT IT, AS WELL AS SOME COMMENTS THAT INTERESTED ME.

This “essay” was actually more of a “reading the books” thing with the person sharing their thoughts and ideas about it. The person was clearly a Snape fan, but they had sympathy for Ron too. I’ll try to formate it as accurately as I can remember it.

And now, here it is:

---

ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

[About Ron being made a prefect.] The essayist: It’s sad, but this probably is the first time Ron’s beaten Harry at something. And the last time.

A commenter: Ron's had a really difficult life, and this is the book that proved it for me. It made me a Ron fan. Just look at the interactions he has with Fred and George. This is commonplace. I know a lot of people don't like Ron, but just look at this book, this chapter especially. People have accused Ron of being lazy, unambitious, having no emotions, and being a big stupid boy. It's just not true. Look at how Fred and George needle him out of jealousy. Look at how they treat Percy. Imagine Ron having to grow up with two older brothers that will not hesitate to bother, torture and torment people that stand out or that get more attention than they do or that cross them. He saw it happening with Percy, so what's he going to learn? He'll learn to shut up unless he wants to have something happen to him. He'll learn that standing out positively is rewarded with cruelty. I can understand how Mrs. Weasley could not have fully protected him from those two. Not all the time, not while trying to also care for Ginny, keeping up with her other kids in school, and running the household. Worst of all, punishing F&G doesn't seem to do anything. Those two just don't care/they crave the attention, negative or positive. The best thing she could've done would be to give them no attention, but that's so against her nature that unfortunately she just fed the monsters. No emotions? Is it really difficult to understand that sensitivity wouldn't be encouraged in young Ron? He's got these two bullies that only want a reaction out of him. If he cries, it'll only encourage them. Any reaction is encouraging to them, but he has to go with anger. It's a survival thing- puff yourself up, make yourself look bigger than you are so the predator messes with you a little less. Look at the pride Ron's showing in his badge. The desire to do well is there. He likes the good feeling that comes with it, but he's been hard-wired since birth that it's better to be "middle of the pack". In later chapters, I know you'll have to point out the way the power makes Ron behave, so I just want to start on the defence now. It's all Ron knows. It's all he's been taught. It's a huge character flaw, but it's what makes him so human. Rowling did develop this in the book, but only accidentally. We're never going to get a good look at Ron's psychology except through these hints because it's, as usual, All About Harry. Ron's flawed, but I hope we remember that he has a reason why he's got those flaws. It doesn't excuse him, but it really explains him. So yeah... that's why I defend Ron.

...

“I’m not Percy,’ he finished defiantly.”

The essayist: Mmmm-hm. Ron feels nervous at the thought of his good fortune inspiring anger in someone and what's his first defence? "I'm not Percy"? Man, the evidence that the Twins' psychological torment has left lasting scars on Ron could not have been more obvious if he'd shielded himself and said "Please don't jinx me, Fred! ... I mean Harry. ... Shit, what'd I say?"

...

“Excellent,” said Ron, with a kind of groan of longing, and he seized the nearest plate of chops and began piling them onto his plate, watched wistfully by Nearly Headless Nick. “What were you saying before the Sorting?” Hermione asked the ghost. “About the hat giving warnings?” “Oh yes,” said Nick, who seemed glad of a reason to turn away from Ron, who was now eating roast potatoes with almost indecent enthusiasm.

The essayist: Ron’s not being very restrained with his eating, is he?

The commenter: I don't know if it's accidental or not, but this is one of those moments that I love, one of the tellings of Ron's home life via his behavior. In this scenario, he's totally a kitten who just got adopted to a house where he's the only cat. He's at a table with food, so his instinct is to eat as fast as he can or his siblings will yoink it. It doesn't help that there are many other people around, encouraging the "get the good stuff fast or you'll have to sate yourself on bread or whatever nobody wants". Ron is so much more human than Harry! How can Harry not be showing any signs of his "horrendous abuse" for eleven years? Well... I guess he sort of does when he buys all that stuff in his first year. And I guess Ron has to go back home every summer where it gets reinforced. But Harry goes back every summer, too... what the hell?

...

“What’s going on?” Ron had appeared in the doorway. His wide eyes traveled from Harry, who was kneeling on his bed with his wand pointing at Seamus, to Seamus, who was standing there with his fists raised. “He’s having a go at my mother!” Seamus yelled. “What?” said Ron. “Harry wouldn’t do that — we met your mother, we liked her. . .” “That’s before she started believing every word the stinking Daily Prophet writes about me!” said Harry at the top of his voice. “Oh,” said Ron, comprehension dawning across his freckled face. “Oh . . . right.” “You know what?” said Seamus heatedly, casting Harry a venomous look. “He’s right, I don’t want to share a dormitory with him anymore, he’s a madman.” “That’s out of order, Seamus,” said Ron, whose ears were starting to glow red, always a danger sign. “Out of order, am I?” shouted Seamus, who in contrast with Ron was turning paler. “You believe all the rubbish he’s come out with about You-Know-Who, do you, you reckon he’s telling the truth?” “Yeah, I do!” said Ron angrily. “Then you’re mad too,” said Seamus in disgust. “Yeah? Well unfortunately for you, pal, I’m also a prefect!” said Ron, jabbing himself in the chest with a finger. “So unless you want detention, watch your mouth!”

The essayist: Note how Ron’s first reaction is to side with Harry.

The commenter: Not surprising because of the best friends thing (some might argue) but I say it's not surprising considering how Hermione and Ron were treating Harry like a ticking time bomb. Survival!

...

“Hello, Harry!” It was Cho Chang and what was more, she was on her own again. This was most unusual: Cho was almost always surrounded by a gang of giggling girls; Harry remembered the agony of trying to get her by herself to ask her to the Yule Ball. “Hi,” said Harry, feeling his face grow hot. At least you’re not covered in Stinksap this time, he told himself. Cho seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “You got that stuff off, then?” “Yeah,” said Harry, trying to grin as though the memory of their last meeting was funny as opposed to mortifying. “So did you . . . er . . . have a good summer?” The moment he had said this he wished he hadn’t: Cedric had been Cho’s boyfriend and the memory of his death must have affected her holiday almost as badly as it had affected Harry’s. . . Something seemed to tauten in her face, but she said, “Oh, it was all right, you know. . .” “Is that a Tornados badge?” Ron demanded suddenly, pointing at the front of Cho’s robes, to which a sky-blue badge emblazoned with a double gold T was pinned. “You don’t support them, do you?” “Yeah, I do,” said Cho. “Have you always supported them, or just since they started winning the league?” said Ron, in what Harry considered an unnecessarily accusatory tone of voice. “I’ve supported them since I was six,” said Cho coolly. “Anyway . . . see you, Harry.” She walked away. Hermione waited until Cho was halfway across the courtyard before rounding on Ron. “You are so tactless!”

The essayist: So Harry meets Cho, makes a complete faux pas and reminds her of her dead boyfriend. Ron quickly steers the conversation away onto something more happy, i.e., Quidditch, before Cho can get too upset. Nevertheless, Ron is apparently the insensitive jerk around here, not Harry.

[If this reminds you of something, then yes, I absolutely took what the essayist was saying and elaborated on it. I confess, I am a dirty thief.]

...

“Well, I suppose he could’ve played better,” Harry muttered, “but it was only the first training session, like you said. . .” Neither Harry nor Ron seemed to make much headway with their homework that night. Harry knew Ron was too preoccupied with how badly he had performed at Quidditch practice and he himself was having difficulty in getting the chant of “Gryffindor are losers” out of his head. [...] And so they worked on while the sky outside the windows became steadily darker; slowly, the crowd in the common room began to thin again. At half-past eleven, Hermione wandered over to them, yawning. “Nearly done?” “No,” said Ron shortly. “Jupiter’s biggest moon is Ganymede, not Callisto,” she said, pointing over Ron’s shoulder at a line in his Astronomy essay, “and it’s Io that’s got the volcanos.” “Thanks,” snarled Ron, scratching out the offending sentences.

The essayist: So Ron’s getting basic facts wrong in his essays.

The commenter: This is going to look so contrived, but I genuinely believe it, and maybe after these reviews, your standards for contrived have dropped enough for me to pass the bar :3 But... he's not putting in any effort. His ego can't take another beating at the moment (even punching bags have limits). Imagine it- after the Quidditch humiliation with his friend the Star Athlete (when he really was trying) he tries to distract himself by doing school work 1. which he isn't very good at anyway, 2. with the Star Athlete of Academics/Slytherin Spectator Crowd best friend Hermione there 3. with Hermione there to set it right anyway (it sounds as if Hermione isn’t so much correcting their essays as writing them herself). If he tries his best at this and then fails at that, Ron probably would start to consider suicide. It's self-preservation at this point to put in zero effort. This kind of fail is literally "I'm not trying because I have given up."

...

She wrenched her bag open; Harry thought she was about to put her books away, but instead she pulled out two misshapen woolly objects, placed them carefully on a table by the fireplace, covered them with a few screwed-up bits of parchment and a broken quill, and stood back to admire the effect. “What in the name of Merlin are you doing?” said Ron, watching her as though fearful for her sanity. “They’re hats for house-elves,” she said briskly, now stuffing her books back into her bag. “I did them over the summer. I’m a really slow knitter without magic, but now I’m back at school I should be able to make lots more.” “You’re leaving out hats for the house-elves?” said Ron slowly. “And you’re covering them up with rubbish first?” “Yes,” said Hermione defiantly, swinging her bag onto her back. “That’s not on,” said Ron angrily. “You’re trying to trick them into picking up the hats. You’re setting them free when they might not want to be free.” “Of course they want to be free!” said Hermione at once, though her face was turning pink. “Don’t you dare touch those hats, Ron!” She left. Ron waited until she had disappeared through the door to the girls’ dormitories, then cleared the rubbish off the woolly hats. They should at least see what they’re picking up,” he said firmly. “Anyway . . .” He rolled up the parchment on which he had written the title of Snape’s essay. “There’s no point trying to finish this now, I can’t do it without Hermione, I haven’t got a clue what you’re supposed to do with moonstones, have you?”

The essayist: This doesn’t seem like a particularly open-minded and enquiring position to take, although I suppose that Hermione’s open-mindedness has always been something of an informed attribute.

The commenter: This trope among fans has got me riled up beyond belief because they use the "Hermione's word is gospel" thing to make unfair assumptions about other characters: Ron's "emotional range of a teaspoon" thing comes to mind, and right after that, Lavender supposedly being silly about believing Trelawney about her dead pet (Hermione never considered that maybe the thing Lavender was dreading was bad news from home or bad news about her pet). Regarding house elves: This is one case where the fans ought to have seen that Hermione was being very thoughtless as far as strategy. Ron has lived all his life up until this point thinking that there was no problem with house elves and she literally expects to be able to just tell him "it's wrong" and he's supposed to change instantly? Talk about your cultural insensitivity. In this case, maybe Ron knows better than you do, Hermione? You didn't even know about house elves until you were at least twelve (but more likely, she didn't know until this year). She must understand the concept of "he doesn't know it's wrong". That was how she defended Crookshanks when he was chasing Scabbers. ... Hey, Hermione thinks Ron's smarter than her cat. That's something, I guess.

...

The commenter: Competition is seriously the worst thing in the world for Ron. He's got wa-a-ay too much baggage. Do well so they'll love you. Do well so they'll notice you. If they notice you, you'll get praised. And tormented by Fred and George. Then if you fuck up, you'll have let everyone down. My brothers never let anyone down. That's the standard. Oh God, I can't live up to that. Which do I want to chose- being ignored or scorned? I could do well. Then I'll be good enough to be called "just like them"! JFC, when's it ever going to be "Good like Ron"? Chess. Literally everyone else has one thing they shine in, even Neville with his Botany and Dean with his art (and... and I'm going to ignore the fact that Hermione and Luna are the only two I can think of with non-appearance based special stuff... someone please help me out? I guess Tonks' doesn't really count as a shallow one because it makes her a master of disguise...)

...

HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

...

Ron gagged on a large piece of kipper. Hermione spared him one look of disdain before turning back to Harry.

The essayist: “Hermione spared [Ron] one look of disdain before turning back to Harry” pretty much sums up her relationships within the trio. It’s no wonder Ron’s so insecure and keeps worrying that she really fancies Harry.

...

“And you’ve been through all that persecution from the Ministry when they were trying to make out you were unstable and a liar. You can still see the marks on the back of your hand where that evil woman made you write with your own blood, but you stuck to your story anyway...” “You can still see where those brains got hold of me in the Ministry, look,” said Ron, shaking back his sleeves. “And it doesn’t hurt that you’ve grown about a foot over the summer either,” Hermione finished, ignoring Ron. “I’m tall,” said Ron inconsequentially.

The essayist: Ron’s so adorably pathetic here, the way he’s obviously feeling inferior to Harry and being ignored by his so-called friends. *hugs Ron*

...

When they left the Gryffindor table five minutes later to head down to the Quidditch pitch, they passed Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil. Remembering what Hermione had said about the Patil twins’ parents wanting them to leave Hogwarts, Harry was unsurprised to see that the two best friends were whispering together, looking distressed. What did surprise him was that when Ron drew level with them, Parvati suddenly nudged Lavender, who looked around and gave Ron a wide smile. Ron blinked at her, then returned the smile uncertainly. His walk instantly became something more like a strut. Harry resisted the temptation to laugh, remembering that Ron had refrained from doing so after Malfoy had broken Harry’s nose; Hermione, however, looked cold and distant all the way down to the stadium through the cool, misty drizzle, and departed to find a place in the stands without wishing Ron good luck.

The essayist: Hermione keeps belittling Ron and doing him down, and reacts quite strongly when he even so much hints at losing interest in her and showing attention to another woman. Can we say “abusive relationship”, anybody?

...

“Harry! Ginny!” Hermione was hurrying toward them, very pink-faced and wearing a cloak, hat, and gloves. “I got back a couple of hours ago, I've just been down to visit Hagrid and Buck--I mean Witherwings,” she said breathlessly. “Did you have a good Christmas?” “Yeah,” said Ron at once, “pretty eventful, Rufus Scrim—” “I've got something for you, Harry,” said Hermione, neither looking at Ron nor giving any sign that she had heard him. “Oh, hang on--password. Abstinence.”

The essayist: Wow, Hermione’s just being so childish here, ignoring Ron when he’s talking directly to her. Incidentally, Ron’s speaking to her like a normal friend, it’s Hermione who’s doing the blanking. Still, I’m sure this argument is all Ron’s fault for daring to go out with another girl. Hermione is totally blameless.

[Just in case: the essayist is being sarcastic, they’re pointing out the double standard of the HP fandom blaming Hermione’s immature behaviour on Ron.]

...

DEATHLY HALLOWS

...

“I think you’re right,” she told him. “It’s just a morality tale, it’s obvious which gift is best, which one you’d choose—” The three of them spoke at the same time; Hermione said, “the Cloak,” Ron said, “the wand,” and Harry said, “the stone.” They looked at each other, half surprised, half amused. “You’re supposed to say the Cloak,” Ron told Hermione, “but you wouldn’t need to be invisible if you had the wand. An unbeatable wand, Hermione, come on!” “We’ve already got an Invisibility Cloak,” said Harry. “And it’s helped us rather a lot, in case you hadn’t noticed!” said Hermione. “Whereas the wand would be bound to attract trouble—” “Only if you shouted about it,” argued Ron. “Only if you were prat enough to go dancing around, waving it over your head, and singing, ‘I’ve got an unbeatable wand, come and have a go if you think you’re good enough.’ As long as you kept your trap shut—” “Yes, but could you keep your trap shut?” said Hermione, looking skeptical. “You know, the only true thing he said to us was that there have been stories about extra-powerful wands for hundreds of years.” “There have?” asked Harry. Hermione looked exasperated: the expression was so endearingly familiar that Harry and Ron grinned at each other.

The commenter (?): Actually, I thought that Ron was proving the errors in the story. Because he’s right. The eldest brother didn’t die because the Elder Wand had corrupted him (like the One Ring). He died because he was an idiot. He died because he randomly decided to start blabbing about his new toy.

“You talk about wands like they’ve got feelings,” said Harry, “like they canthink for themselves.” “The wand chooses the wizard,” said Ollivander. “That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wandlore.” “A person can still use a wand that hasn’t chosen them, though?” asked Harry. “Oh yes, if you are any wizard at all you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand.”

The essayist: Harry’s wand has to think for and protect him because he’s too stupid and incompetent to think for and protect himself! Ollivander’s the expert, and he just admitted it. He said any halfway decent wizard can perform magic with almost any wand. The reason Harry could only work with the holly wand is because of the phoenix feather core it shares with Voldemort’s wand. That is, it wasn’t Harry doing the magic with Harry’s wand! It was the Voldemort soul piece! Once Harry was forced to use wands that didn’t have that core, the soul piece couldn’t do the work for Harry any more. He was forced to rely on his own magical powers and competence, which are clearly minimal. This is proven by his inability to do effective magic with any other wand. It’s also proven by an incident from Philosopher’s Stone. Remember when Harry was being chased by bullies and inexplicably found himself on top of the shed roof? That was the soul piece allowing him to fly like Voldy. Lily could slow her descent from a height, as if she had an invisible parachute, but that is not the same as flying, and we have no evidence she could fly. Only Voldemort and Snape fly without assistance! The evidence is overwhelming that I am right. How many spells can Harry do effectively? Expelliarmus, Expecto Patronum, Protego--that’s it. Even as a young adult, he is incapable of doing the basic healing or cleaning spells a young child should have down pat before going to Hogwarts. Of course, we’re told the Patronus spell is difficult and advanced, but who told us that? Remus Lupin, friend of Harry’s father, sycophant, and notorious liar, particularly when it comes to flattering Harry. Recall Lupin also said Snape didn’t like James because Snape was envious of Potter Sr.’s Quidditch prowess, and we know that was a lie. Given this evidence, anything Lupin says that cannot be confirmed by an independent source, especially regarding the Potters, should be dismissed out of hand. True, Hermione has trouble with the Patronus spell, and she’s super-competent. Doesn’t that prove it’s a very difficult spell? Not at all. To take an example from a different field, Beethoven was a virtuoso organist, the greatest pianist of his day, one of the greatest pianists in history, and probably the greatest improvisational musician ever. But he was only a decent violinist. Everybody has areas of weakness, no matter how good they are overall. In addition, Hermione is very gullible where authority figures are concerned. If a teacher tells her, “The Patronus is a very difficult, advanced spell that many people can’t ever master,” she’ll believe that, which may create a self-fulfilling prophecy. A couple of years ago, another DTCL member and I facetiously suggested Harry was less intelligent than his wand. We didn’t know we were right. It rarely happens, but this is an occasion when I would have preferred to be wrong.

...

If only there was a way of getting a better wand... And desire for the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, unbeatable, invincible, swal-lowed him once more... They packed up the tent next morning and moved on through a dreary shower of rain. The downpour pursued them to the coast, where they pitched the tent that night, and persisted through the whole week, through sodden landscapes that Harry found bleak and depressing. He could think only of the Deathly Hallows. It was as though a flame had been lit inside him that nothing, not Hermione’s flat disbelief nor Ron’s persistent doubts, could extinguish. And yet the fiercer the longing for the Hallows burned inside him, the less joyful it made him. He blamed Ron and Hermione: Their determined indifference was as bad as the relentless rain for dampening his spirits, but neither could erode his certainty, which remained absolute. Harry’s belief in and longing for the Hallows consumed him so much that he felt isolated from the other two and their obsession with the Horcruxes. [...] As the weeks crept on, Harry could not help but notice, even through his new self-absorption, that Ron seemed to be taking charge. Perhaps because he was determined to make up for having walked out on them, perhaps because Harry’s descent into listlessness galvanized his dormant leadership qualities, Ron was the one now encouraging and exhorting the other two into action. [...] But not until March did luck favor Ron at last.

The essayist: MARCH! That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. The first fifteen pages of this chapter cover three months, and during that entire time, Harry Potter does nothing, nothing, but sit on his ass fantasizing about the Elder Wand and trying to connect with his Voldie-soul mate. Oh, wait. He also tries to open the snitch so he can get the stone out of it. (Nothing gay about that, either.) I wish he’d succeed in that, too. Maybe he’d swallow the stone, and it would end up in his scrotum. He sure needs something that works down there. Harry doesn’t have the right to bail out on his society like this. He can’t have it both ways. He can’t have the adulation that goes with being Mr. Boy-Who-Lived-Chosen-One-Wizarding-World-Savior and abdicate the responsibilities that go along with those titles and that adulation. Look at what happens in this chapter: Harry becomes obsessed with finding and uniting the Hallows, so much so that he withdraws from his friends, bails out on the job his idol Dumbledore gave him, and spends all his time brooding and trying to connect with the Dull Lord. In other words, he acts clinically depressed. Ron and Hermione were exposed to the same information Harry was, but they didn’t become obsessed/depressed. Ron was mildly interested in the Super-Wand, but not enough to distract him from the Horcrux hunt. Hermione dismissed the whole DH story as nonsense and continued following Dumbestbore’s orders. So why weren’t they tempted?

...

The essayist: Harry opens the locket using Parseltongue--interesting that this never occurred to him before now--and two ghostly figures emerge. They’re Voldie-versions of Harry and Hermione, and they articulate Ron’s worst fears: “Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter...Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend...Second best, always, eternally overshadowed...” I’ll say it again: When you’re right, you’re right. The evidence is overwhelming that Molly Weasley treated Ron the worst of all her children. And if Rowling doesn’t want us to ship HP/HG, she needs to quit throwing them together and making them leaders, with Ron either in the background or absent entirely. JKR obviously wants us to automatically dismiss certain statements just because they’re made by “bad guys” such as Voldemort and Rita Skeeter. There are two problems with this: (1) The “lies” make perfect sense, far more sense than what we’re supposed to believe. (2) Even pathological liars sometimes tell the truth, typically when it won’t hurt their own interests to do so. For those of us who live in what cartoonist Garry Trudeau calls “the reality-based community,” the evidence is what matters, not what we’re told by authority figures. Those of us in the higher stages of spiritual development are funny that way.

...

The essayist: Well, whose fault is that, Ms. Rowling? You’re the one who’s spent the last four books making Ron dumber and dumber, depriving him of any meaningful activity, while you shoved Harry and Hermione into increasingly dominant roles.

The commenter: Are we supposed to look down on Ron now so that we can condemn him for leaving Harry and Hermione? Because if so, then that’s just unfair. Every time Ron tries to come up with an idea, Hermione criticizes him or shoots him down. And the twins have done a fine job of intimidating Ron into remaining mediocre and modest so that he doesn’t remind them of Percy, so what is he supposed to do? How is he supposed to come up with ideas when he’s surrounded by people who basically tell him to shut up and sit down?

The essayist: Just then, Hermione comes out of the tent with cups of tea, with tears running down her face and looking terrified her “friend” is going to curse her with her own wand.

The commenter: So, Hermione will snarl at Ron all day long, but cower in fear when Harry gets mad. Is she projecting herself onto Harry and assuming that just because *she’s* quick to hex people who anger her (Ron, Marietta, etc.), Harry will do the same to her?

The essayist: The evidence is overwhelming that Molly Weasley treated Ron the worst of all her children.

The commenter: And blatantly showed favoritism to Harry while snarling at Ron in the same breath. Of course, Horcrux!Tom doesn’t bring that up, because JKR would have to admit that there might be something wrong with Molly favoring Harry the way she does. The essayist: Hermione acts so crazy Harry has to put a protection charm between her and Ron.

The commenter: Yeah…sorry, it’s not “slapstick” anymore when somebody actually has to stop her from hitting Ron. When Harry feels that the situation is dangerous enough that his intervention is necessary. That’s not funny. That’s a true-crime episode. What gets me is that Hermione's tantrum lasts for days. It goes on for several pages into the next chapter. She doesn't start acting normal again until she comes up with the idea of visiting Xeno Lovegood. The essayist: Hermione tells Ron she still hasn’t ruled out attacking him with birds again.

The commenter: *flatly* So, all of the fans who cooed about how “great” it was for Hermione to show “girl power” by sending Ron to the hospital wing in HBP or breezily dismissed the scene as just tired teenage melodrama? Can put a sock in it. Hermione has clearly learned nothing, JKR clearly feels that that scene was funny, and at no point are we supposed to think that Hermione is an abuser. Even though, if the genders were reversed, fans would be calling for Ron’s head on a platter if he dared lay a finger on Hermione. No. This isn’t funny. This isn’t charming. Hermione hurt Ron so badly in HBP that he had to go to the hospital wing. And she tried to repeat the damage she caused here. Is she going to attack him with birds again after they get married? Is she going to do it in front of their children? Will it be “cute” and “funny” then? No, if a man is an abusive monster for losing his temper and trying to hurt his girlfriend, then Hermione is an abusive monster for losing her temper and trying to hurt her boyfriend. Not only did Hermione land Ron in the infirmary with the first attack, but she wants to do it again at a time when they are on the run. She will NOT be able to take an injured Ron to Hogwarts infirmary, nor to St. Mungos. In other words - she intends for him to remain injured and stick with them while camping, or else he must apparate away while injured, risking another splinching so he could be healed.

...

The essayist: Ron and Harry go back to the tent, and Harry fades into the background so as not to interfere with the lovers’ reunion. That’s a mistake. After Harry wakes Hermione, she shows her delight at Ron’s return by--attacking him? She punches him over a dozen times while yelling at him and screaming for her wand from Harry. Remember last chapter, when I talked about how immature Hermione is? Here’s your proof.

[The essayist quotes an article that I haven’t been able to find, but paraphrased: it speaks of a father who came to pick up his 4 y/o daughter from daycare, a little later than usual, and the daughter reacted by punching and hitting her father, upset at his being late. Additional read: “The parents must know that physical aggression is a common yet natural problem faced by toddlers.”]

The essayist: So there you have it: Hermione Granger, know-it-all supergirl, is so immature she acts like a preschool child when the boyfriend she’s been missing finally returns. I’m not suggesting she has a father-daughter relationship with Ron; this kind of anger is found in other relationships, too. What I am saying is that her way of expressing her anger is appropriate for a very young child. While adults may certainly feel this kind of anger and desire to hit when reunited with a loved one under similar circumstances, they don’t act it out. That restraint is what separates adults from children. Hermione acts so crazy Harry has to put a protection charm between her and Ron. I frankly found her behavior so out of control as to suggest mental instability. She engages in two full pages of histrionics before throwing herself into a chair, sitting so tensely I’m surprised the circulation isn’t cut off to her arms and legs. She remains in a bratty snit until the end of the chapter, which is another six pages. Hermione is still pouting the next morning. I’m wondering if her real problem is not that Ron left, but that she didn’t. Is she angry at him because he had the guts to admit they were blowing it and take a time out, while she just kept trailing along after Harry like a lost house elf? I think she’s definitely mad because she’s always controlled Ron and their relationship. How dare he assert his independence of her! Who does he think he is? Her equal? In an AU, maybe. This is called the Potterverse after all, not the Ronverse. Hermione’s having a bad month. First Ron runs out on them; then she saves Harry’s life, but he’s an ungrateful jerk about it; then Harry asserts his independence; then Ron comes back but doesn’t grovel sufficiently for her taste. All this mistreatment is going to give her the idea she’s just a normal character and not an Author’s Darling. While Ron was gone, he was captured by bad guys called Snatchers, who are bounty hunters for Voldemort. In getting away, he got a spare wand, which he gives to Harry. Of course, it doesn’t work as well as Harry’s “real” wand, so Harry’s still in a snit about that, and with Hermione in a snit, too, they’re a cheerful bunch. Honestly, I don’t know why Ron puts up with these two. The Hs are so spoiled and self-centered, they deserve each other, but I don’t think this is what HP/HG shippers mean when they proclaim the two as an OTP. Sane, normal Ron doesn’t deserve either one of them. Run, Ron! Run while you still can!

...

The essayist: As an interesting aside, ròn is the Celtic word for seal. In Druid lore, seals represent love, longing, and dilemma. No more appropriate totem animal could be imagined for this boy whose sense of selfhood is undermined by his longing for love from a rejecting mother and inadequate father, and who, like the selchie wives of folklore, is faced with the impossible choice of being who he truly is and being rejected, or denying the best part of himself to gain love. Ron’s intelligence and independence threaten his insecure wife (and best friend), just as the selchie’s identity as a seal-woman threatens her human husband; Ron imprisons himself by hiding who he is so the Hs can feel smart and in charge, just as the selchie’s human husband imprisons his wife by hiding her sealskin in a trunk.

#vivi answers #ask #ron weasley #hermione granger #hermione critical #hermione granger critical #harry potter #harry potter series #harry potter critical

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searchingwardrobes · 3 years

Text

Ivory Runs Red: 4/6

Just look at this cover art by @cocohook38 !!!!! Isn’t it amazing? I just can’t stop staring at it. She is so talented and spent so much time working on this, please head over to her blog and give her some love.

This chapter is sort of a bridge chapter (no pun intended) where we begin to discover connections between all the characters. Belle especially is tied to Emma in a surprising way.

Massive thanks again to my beta @demisexualemmaswan and everyone in the @cssns !

Summary: When ebony flashes gold, blood runs cold. When ivory runs red, you’ll be dead. Killian Jones had heard the old rhyme his entire life. Every child did in Storybrooke, Maine. They heard it whispered in the dark at sleepovers as children; taunted as a challenge as teenagers. Killian never believed it was actually true. Until that fateful night …

Rated M for graphic depictions of violence, abusive relationships, and major character death (I mean, it’s a ghost story ya’ll, people are dead. BUT I promise, there is a happy ending. Trust me? *peeks from around a corner*)

Length: 6 chapters, complete, updated every Friday

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three

Also on Ao3

Tagging the usuals: @snowbellewells @whimsicallyenchantedrose @kmomof4 @xhookswenchx @let-it-raines @bethacaciakay @tiganasummertree @shireness-says @stahlop @scientificapricot @spartanguard @welllpthisishappening @resident-of-storybrooke @thislassishooked @ilovemesomekillianjones @kday426 @ekr032-blog-blog @lfh1226-linda @ultraluckycatnd @nikkiemms @optomisticgirl @profdanglaisstuff @ohmakemeahercules @carpedzem @branlovestowrite @superchocovian@hollyethecurious @vvbooklady1256 @winterbaby89 @delirious-latenight-laughs @jennjenn615 @snidgetsafan @itsfabianadocarmo @lassluna @distant-rose @courtorderedcake @winterbythesea @thesschesthair @killian-whump @thisonesatellite @batana54 @it-meant-something @xsajx @therooksshiningknight @gingerchangeling

Chapter Four: Red

“Neal Gold,” Belle said, her voice trembling with excitement, “no wonder it got covered up.”

Belle struggled with an ancient tome on the top shelf in the library’s genealogy room, and Killian rushed to help her. When they set it atop the metal desk nearby, a cloud of dust billowed up. The genealogy room was hidden away in the basement too.

“I still can’t believe Graham went to the bridge,” Belle continued. He’d never seen her so giddy with excitement. “This will show everyone Killian! You aren’t crazy!”

Killian nodded weakly. He knew it was true, and he knew that Graham getting Neal’s last name from Emma was a huge break for them, but he was starting to worry. He wanted to help Emma by solving her murder, but he also didn’t want to lose her. Didn’t ghosts linger because they had unfinished business? If he, Belle, and Graham, took care of Emma’s unfinished business, then would she . . . what? Move on to paradise? Cease to exist?

“Killy, did you hear what I said?”

He shook the thoughts from his head and focused on Belle who stood over the huge book, her finger pointing to its binding.

“Um, sorry. What did you say?”

“I tried to look up Swan, Emma, but the entire S section is missing.”

Belle’s fingers ran along the torn edges of several pages. Killian ran his hand wearily down his face.

“Of course it is. So no birth certificate there either.”

“Wait a minute!” Belle exclaimed. “We know she died in 1894, and we know she was sixteen years old.”

“Which means she was born in 1878. We figured that out already. But the birth certificates from that entire year are also missing, remember?”

Belle nodded. “Yes, yes, the Gold family had money and power and were very thorough, but they may not have thought about baby announcements.”

Killian grinned. “Parents put baby announcements in the newspaper! Belle, you’re a genius!”

They ran down the short hallway to the microfilm room. Belle quickly pulled out the film for 1878 and put it in the machine. Once they figured out where the social section of the paper was located, they were able to scroll fairly quickly. And then - there it was. Just a few short lines:

David and Mary Margaret Swan are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Emma Eva Swan, on October 22nd, 1878 at three o-clock in the afternoon. She is welcomed by her paternal grandmother, Ruth Elizabeth Swan, and her maternal grandfather, Leopold Blanchard.

******************************************************

“David and Mary Margaret,” Emma whispered.

Killian tightened his hold around her shoulders and brushed a kiss against the crown of her head. “They were your parents.”

Emma nodded slowly, and he watched her facial expression under the light of the waning moon. He could practically see happy memories light up her face.

“I remember them,” she whispered. “We didn’t have a lot of money, but we were very happy. We lived on a farm.”

She dropped her head onto Killian’s shoulder and let out a contented sigh. They remained that way for a long moment, silently watching the stars twinkle overhead.

“She had a beautiful smile,” Emma told him quietly, “and he used to cup my head so tenderly whenever he hugged me. That’s all I remember, though. Their faces are even fuzzy in my memory.”

“I’m sorry.”

She turned in his embrace so she could look him in the eye. “Don’t be. I wouldn’t remember anything if it weren’t for you. Thank you, Killian.”

She pulled his head down gently so she could press her lips to his. They lost themselves in the passion of their kisses.

***********************************************************

Killian sat with Belle once again in the library’s musty basement. Books with cracked leather bindings were piled around them: genealogy records, property records, and marriage certificates. With names and the information that Emma grew up on a farm, they were able to piece together the history of the Swan and Gold families.

There was no evidence, however, of the Swan’s reporting their daughter was missing. In fact, aside from the birth announcement in the paper, there was no evidence that Emma Swan had existed at all. Everytime they got close, records were conveniently missing. Pages had clearly been torn out of several books, and years worth of Storybrooke Mirror and Portland Press articles were missing from the microfilm records.

“It’s so obvious, though,” Belle exclaimed in frustration, slamming yet another large book shut. “Neal Gold falls in love with Emma Swan, a poor farmer’s daughter. His family would never approve of the relationship, so he never plans on marrying her. She’s just a good time to him.”

“I’m still a little grossed out by how old he was,” Killian muttered.

Those records hadn’t been missing. Neal Gold was absolutely, unequivocally twenty nine years old when he met fourteen year old Emma Swan. Which made him thirty one when he got her pregnant and murdered her.

Disgusting.

“Belle? Did you hear me?”

His friend had gone completely pale, her finger frozen in the center of a yellowed page. Killian got up and leaned over her shoulder.

“What’s this?”

She flipped the heavy leather volume back to the cover with a deep sigh. Killian leaned further over his shoulder and read the title out loud.

“The Life, Impact, and Genealogy of Storybrooke’s Founding Family: The Golds. Well that’s not pretentious at all,” he snorted. Belle giggled. “By -”

He cut off, reeled back, and looked at Belle, who nodded in affirmation. “By Roderick Gaston?”

“There’s more,” Belle told him, flipping back to the page that had left her frozen.

It was a family tree, and Killian scanned it quickly. At the top was Robert Gold, the founder of Storybrooke, with his wife Milah’s name beside his. Below that, it listed their only son: Neal Gold. He married Tamara Gold in 1894, the same year Emma died.

“Well, there’s another motive for murder,” Killian murmured, “not only did he get a teenager pregnant, he was cheating on his fiance.”

“Keep going,” Belle whispered.

Neal and Tamara had three children: Bonnie, Felix, and Gretchen. The oldest daughter, Bonnie, had married Roderick Gaston, and they had two sons: Lewis and Mitchum Gaston.

“Wait - isn’t Mike’s dad Mitch Gaston?”

“Yes,” Belle told him softly, “and I met his grandfather once, too. His name is Roderick. I never put two and two together before, but the man was the worst snob. He kept asking who my people were and going on and on about how the Gaston’s were connected to Storybrooke’s finest families.”

“So this means that your boyfriend -”

“Is the descendant of Emma’s murderer.”

*******************************************************

“Where the hell are you going?”

Killian jumped at the sound of his brother’s voice. He whirled away from the back door to find Liam standing in the kitchen with the phone in his hand. Killian could hear the loud, grating beeping of the line as it went dead.

“Who were you talking to at 3 am?” Killian shot back.

Liam narrowed his eyes then slowly put the phone back onto the receiver that hung on the wall. He took his time untangling the long cord before turning back to face Killian.

“Something’s happened, little brother.”

Liam’s voice was so full of fear, shock, and sadness that Killian didn’t even bother correcting him on the little brother label.

**********************************************************

The girl in the hospital bed couldn’t possibly be Belle. Her eyes were wild and darted around the room, her hair was a tangled mass around her face, and when she saw Killian she began to scream.

“I saw her, Killy! The ghost! The blood, the blood, the blood . . .”

Orderlies ran in and grabbed her before she could lunge from the bed. She fought them tenaciously, her back arching and her eyes rolling back in her head.

“Ivory runs red, ivory runs red. He’s dead, he’s dead.” She started to laugh maniacally as one orderly managed to get a syringe into her veins. They wrestled her to the bed and strapped her down, but she continued to speak, her words slurring. “He’s dead, dead, dead.”

She arched her back one more time, mumbling about ivory and red, shaking her head back and forth. Then she began to say the rhyme they had learned as children, singing it to a morbid little tune.

“When ebony flashes gold, blood runs cold. When ivory runs red, you’ll be dead.”

Killian felt the blood rush from his head, leaving his skin cold in the sterile room as he watched Belle’s breaths even out. He knew the kinds of drugs running through her veins, God did he know. He also knew no one would believe her.

Mike Gaston was dead, and Killian couldn’t muster a modicum of grief.

#cs ff #captain swan ff #cssns21 #captain swan supernatural summer #horror #ghost story #strange lieutenant duckling #lol just trust me #happy ending of sorts

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reki-of-the-valley · 3 years

Text

Boy Like a Fading Dream

A part two of the uni AU? More like a "I wanted to characterize the Langa of this AU". Wrote it a couple of days ago but didn't want to back-to-back post, just give a few days for the first part to settle in.

Find it on AO3 here!

Context: For his skills on a snowboard, Langa landed himself a scholarship. But he hates it. He hates his studies. He hates the athletic training. He just wants to go back to the time when it was fun, racing his dad to the bottom of the mountain.

“Where’s dad?”

Langa lets his bag hit the ground with a thud as he kicks off his shoes. His mother is in the living room; she’s cutting carrots in front of some sitcom. She lifts her head to smile at her son as soon as he enters her line of sight.

“How was your day, baby?”

Langa sighs as he crashes next to her. He feels her watch him as he picks up a carrot from the bowl before snapping it in half between his teeth. He feels her gaze, just as heavy as his eyelids are.

“Tiring.”

It’s all he manages to say to her. It’s all he finds to say. Tiring. His days are always just tiring.

“Did you have fun at practice?”

Fun? Langa barely remembers what that feels like. Fun, it feels like a foreign word now. He knows he must have felt it in the past, the thrill of gliding down the snowy slopes, but now it’s anything but fun. Snowboarding isn’t fun anymore, especially when there’s no snow outside. Especially when he’s cooped up in a gym rather than out on the open mountains.

So was training fun? No. No, it wasn’t.

“It was fine,” he lies. He can’t tell his mother how much he hates it. He can’t tell her when it’s what’s paying for his education – an education he also hates. “The usual, you know.”

Nanako pats his arm, her smile sweet and ever so motherly. “That’s good, baby. I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

Langa sucks in a breath as his mother presses a kiss to his hair. I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. If only she knew how big a lie that was. He would have done anything to just quit everything right now and lay in bed for the next ten years. Everything lost its appeal. If only everything could stop just for a moment, just for a minute, just enough time for Langa to catch his breath.

“Dad’s not home yet, is he?”

Nanako shakes her head. “He’s staying late tonight. He has a project that’s due, I think, tomorrow? Something about his team not being up-to-date so he has to stay late.”

Langa sighs again as he straightens out on the couch. He grabs another carrot before getting up to fetch his bag.

“I have to go study.”

Nanako doesn’t say anything as he leaves to climb the stairs that lead to his bedroom. Langa knows she’s watching him, watching his every move, but she doesn’t say anything. Maybe she can sense his disappointment. Maybe she knows that he’s lying to her.

Langa crashes in his bed, slinging his bag at the end of his mattress where it bounced before falling among the pile of dirty clothes he’s thrown aside. His room is a mess, but he can’t bring himself to clear out his trash. He’s already in a deficit of energy when just doing his mundane daily tasks. So he crashes among his pillows and pulls out his phone.

It's automatic, the swiping left and clicking on the app. It’s become a routine, crashing in bed and opening Instagram to scroll mindlessly. Langa doesn’t actually care for what’s on his screen, he just needs something to do, something to make him forget about the emptiness that’s formed in his chest.

So he scrolls. Pictures of old friends from high school, professional pictures and reels of snowboarders, screenshots of old Tumblr posts, reels of animals being cute, Langa scrolls through them all. He scrolls, scrolls until everything on his phone becomes a big blur. He scrolls until his phone slips from his fingers, falling flat on his face.

Another sigh as he turns to his side. His phone rests against his pillow as he goes back to scrolling. Always scrolling, numbing everything he’s ever felt. Because Langa does feel. He feels a million things, but none of those feelings are good. Frustration, loneliness, exhaustion, the list can go on. He hates all his feelings, especially that hollow feeling of disappointment that has been growing over the past year or so.

A notification pulls Langa out of his mindless scrolling. He usually ignores them, swiping them away, but for some reason, this one catches his attention. For some reason, he clicks it rather than get rid of it. The flash of red catches his attention.

.MechanicStarReki. – Suggested for you

Langa squints at his screen. The name doesn’t ring a bell but the face seems familiar. Familiar, but he can’t pinpoint where exactly it is that he’s seen it. His memory of the familiar face is hazy, like that of a dream starting to fade as morning takes shape. Familiar yet so foreign.

Langa scrolls through the profile, careful to not make his presence known. Most of the captions are in Japanese and he can’t find it in himself to decipher their meaning. He knows with a little effort, and maybe a little help from a translator app or from his mother, he could read the words, but he doesn’t bother. He contents himself with the scarce English. He contents himself with the many pictures of a boy with red hair.

The last post dates back a few weeks, a set of pictures with the caption “See you for Christmas.” The pictures show the redhead hugging who Langa assumes to be his sisters. They all look too much alike for them to not be family. Langa swipes between the pictures, taking in the scene: two school-aged girls cling to the boy, identical in all ways except the color of their dresses. He’s hugging them, a wide grin stretching across his face. Langa swipes again. Another girl is shown in the picture – she must be around 15. She’s pouting, but the sun reflects against the tears that had started to form at the corner of her eyes as she hugs the boy. Her eyes are the same color as his, a deep amber color that Langa knows he’s seen somewhere. He knows he's seen the boy, but he also knows it’s impossible. He can’t have seen him, not with the location associated with the picture: Okinawa, Japan. There’s no way he’s ever seen this boy; Langa’s only been to Japan once, the summer before he started high school.

Langa moves on from the set of pictures. He scrolls down, analyzing everything that has been posted over the years. Skateboards, sketches of various types, doodles, the boy with his friends, more of his family. Langa always pauses on the pictures of him. He always squints at him as if that would help him remember where he’s seen him.

A part of Langa knows that this is obsessive behavior, that he should just let it go, but he needs to know. He needs to know where he’s seen those faded freckles against sun-kissed skin. He needs to know where he’s seen those bright amber eyes. He needs to know where he’s seen that lopsided grin. He needs to know where he’s seen this boy, this boy that feels like a fading dream.

Does he resemble an actor from one of his mother’s shows, the Japanese ones she puts on while she cooks? No, that’s not it. He’s too young to look like any of those actors. Anyway, Langa never pays attention to the actors on the screen; he only knows the story because his mother has been following the ridiculous drama for years now. So the boy doesn’t just look like someone Langa might have seen on tv.

Does he look like an athlete Langa’s watched perform time after time, desperately trying to analyze his technique in hopes of recreating whatever is being done? No, it isn’t that either. Langa never recognizes the athletes, even when they tell him they've been competing against each other for years. He remembers their boards, but never their faces. So it isn’t that.

No matter how much Langa rakes his brain, he can’t find where it is that he’s seen the grin, the bright eyes, the freckles. Maybe the boy really is a figment of his imagination, a face given to a faceless dream that comes back every so often. Maybe he’s caught a glance of someone who looks like him in the street, or maybe it’s just a mere coincidence that the boy Langa’s made up looks like him, a mixture of a bunch of features that gave someone real. Or maybe Langa is delusional from his lack of sleep.

Langa drops his phone as his door is pushed open. He knows his mother knocked, but when he gets lost in his own little world, nothing else exists. Nothing exists until his bubble bursts.

“Langa sweetheart?” Nanako is standing in the doorway. She's looking at him, a slight frown pulling at the corners of her mouth. Her usual worry is evident in her features. “Is everything alright?”

Langa shifts, pushing his legs off of his bed to sit up. He nods at his mother, his words failing him. He hates how he finds himself unable to speak.

“Are you sure?” She shifts her weight to the side. Worry. “I’ve been calling you to set the table for the past 10 minutes now.”

Langa blinks at his mother before apologizing. He hadn’t heard her, he says. He had gotten lost in his own little world. He’s sorry, he’ll be down in a minute to set the table.

“Langa.” Nanako’s voice pierces through him as he fishes his phone out from under his pillow. “Are you sure nothing’s bothering you?”

Langa almost cracks. He almost tells her. He almost admits that he hates everything he’s doing. He almost admits that he hates going to school. He almost admits that he hates training. He almost admits that the thing he hates most is himself. Almost, but he doesn’t. He wouldn’t be able to survive the disappointed look on his mother’s face. He knows she would understand, that she’d tell him he’s allowed to quit, that she would support him no matter what, but he also knows she would be disappointed.

So he just smiles at her, that closed-mouthed smile he’s been practicing for years.

“I’m just tired.”

Nanako nods before making her way to him. She holds him tightly against herself, the warm embrace of a mother. And for a moment, Langa doesn’t hate himself.

“If you’re tired, I can bring your food up. You don’t have to eat downstairs if it’s too much.”

Langa shakes his head. Dinnertime is the only time of the day where he can spend time with his parents. Between classes and training, he’s barely ever home. It’s the only time where things feel normal, like they were back in the day when Langa was young, doing homework at the kitchen table while his mother cooked, explaining to him what he had to do. It’s the only time where he feels like they’re a family again.

“Just give me a minute and I’ll be down.”

Nanako sighs as she steps away from him, nodding. A small, tired smile pulls at the corner of her mouth as she turns back to him, halfway through the door.

“You promise you’d tell me if something was bothering you?”

Langa nods, promising, but the promise is hollow, his fingers crossed behind his back. It’s broken before even being uttered because Langa knows that he can’t make that promise. There’s just no way that he can promise such a thing. He can’t bring himself to tell anyone about how he feels. But still, he smiles and nods at his mother as she makes her way out of his room, down the stairs, back to the kitchen. He smiles until he can’t bear it anymore and crystal tears fall from his eyes, fall right onto the picture of the grinning boy in his phone, the phone he's been gripping so tightly.

#oh yeah Oliver is alive for this one #Given that I want to make Langa miserable I had to give him back one happy thing #and his dad seemed like a good thing to give back #And without a dead dad he can stay in Canada #Sorry for the lack of concrete Renga #Given that I like this AU but don't actually have a plot for it it'll be a bunch of snippets #and snippets means that there will eventually be concrete renga content #but I had to establish this 'background' first #Also it's 2021 all the kids are miserable in one way or another because I'm mean and have been feeling like shit lately #I really hate the titles of these but I don't have the energy to think of something good #renga #snowgear #lanreki #langa x reki #reki x langa #langa hasegawa #langa #hasegawa langa #reki #kyan reki #reki kyan #nanako hasegawa #hasegawa nanako #sk8 #sk8 the infinity #lils writes

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fallenfurther · 3 years

Text

Homecoming - Together

Chapter 4 - The boys visit their father

Chapters 1 , 2 and 3.

A short one from Jeff's point of view. Enjoy!

*******

His whole family was relaxing in his private garden. Scott and Virgil sat beside him at the table, a pack of old playing cards between them with a game of rummy pretty much abandoned. It was a good thing they weren't keeping score as almost all their attention was on Alan. It was Alan's turn to share what had happened over the past eight years and he was currently standing before them, full of enthusiasm, as he recounted his mission to Europa. Gordon was perched on a cushion with his legs crossed, occasionally butting in with his own comments. His youngest still radiated energy, just as he’d done as a child, and Jeff could see the joy in Gordon's eyes when talking about the Pendergasts. He was going to have to look them up later to see what all the fuss was about, just as he'd done with Cavern Quest. Alan started to build up as he reached the climax of the rescue. Jeff had yet read the report for this rescue so wasn’t sure how much was being exaggerated, and although he knew they would be okay, his heart still raced at the drama. The sense of relief that washed over him when Alan informed them of their safe landing was immense. Alan really did remind him of himself, and brought back the memories and thrill of his own first trips into space. It hadn’t helped that Alan threw his arm into the air to show off their trajectory as they’d burst through the ice, face full of excitement. He'd hoped the young man would go to college, but with his eyes set on space and with access to a rocket, it might be hard to convince the boy otherwise. There was a round of applause and a bow at the end of the story, before Alan settled into the floor next to Gordon.

"So, Gordon, did you ever get to join WASP or did you go straight into the family business?"

Gordon had once had his eyes set on WASP after finishing his Olympic career. Jeff regretted that he wasn't there to see Gordon take gold, but they had shown him the footage. Gordon had been pulled into a hug as tears of pride fell from Jeff’s eyes. He'd re-watched the footage multiple times since, as well as the other home footage they had supplied over and over when he felt alone in his room. The boys had been his motivation to survive and they were still his biggest motivation now. They had all turned into respectable men despite his disappearance and he was so proud of them all.

"Actually, I did. Only for the training year though. They did say they would welcome me back if I ever got bored of International Rescue. It was definitely the right thing to do. WASP taught me so much when it came to the sea, currents and challenges of being in an underwater craft. That training set me right up for piloting Thunderbird Four, helping me work as a team and focus on learning the best ways to rescue people. They're a really cool bunch of people and I'm still in contact with them."

"That's good to hear, son."

Jeff wanted to place a hand on Gordon's shoulder, but he was on the wrong side of the table. He'd always worried about Gordon, who'd struggled with paying attention at school. Jeff had spent hours trying to convince him to study and do homework. If it didn't line up with his interests, Gordon never wanted to do it. The school teachers always compared him to his brothers, who had all been good studiers and never needed prompting, yet Gordon would always surprise them when given free rein on the topic. If he could make it about the sea, he would, and that was when Gordon would shine. The diorama of the coral reef and pollution levels had surprised his teachers, especially when Jeff had confirmed that Virgil had only helped by giving Gordon verbal painting suggestions. Knowing Gordon had still pursued WASP meant everything to Jeff. He'd only wanted the boys involved with International Rescue out of their own desire, and not pressured by a feeling of duty. Gordon had joined WASP, seen what it would have been like to work for the organisation and decided he wanted to be part of the family business. The man had still stayed true to his own hopes and dreams.

"Hey, Dad, I was…" Scott started before a beep came from John's wrist, who was sitting quietly on the bench in the shade next to their grandmother. The familiar voice of EOS filled the garden.

"Sorry to interrupt, John, but there is an emergency that requires International Rescue for the greatest chance of success."

"What's the situation?"

"A building site explosion has caused some steel framework to collapse against the skyscraper across the road. There is a high probability people are trapped and there is a risk of further explosions as the cause of the first is currently unknown. Further explosions could lead to more damage to the surrounding buildings. I believe Thunderbird One and Two are both required."

"FAB, EOS." John turned to the group, determination on his face. "Ready to go?"

"What are we waiting for?" Alan jumped to his feet, fist in the air. "Thunderbirds are go!"

The scraping of chair legs filled the air and Scott placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Duty calls, Dad. See you soon."

Jeff’s boys were running back into the facility with a wave goodbye over their shoulders. The pounding of their feet slipped away leaving the air still and the garden eerily quiet. Neither occupant spoke, waiting for the rumble that they knew would follow. It did just that. The roar of those great engines had faded in Jeff’s memory over the years, just as various other sounds of Earth had slipped from his mind. They were things he was experiencing again. This was Jeff’s chance to live again. Yet his boys couldn't stand down International Rescue when they visited as a family, so they always landed the craft in the field beside the facility. The downdrafts created by Thunderbird Two swept over the facility and his wind chimes clattered as the ship came into view. The quieter Thunderbird One was beside the green giant. Thunderbird Two picked up speed while Thunderbird One turned and sped away with a bang in the opposite direction. The green craft was soon out of sight, her roar fading away to nothing, and the slowing chimes and empty chairs the only evidence that they had ever been there. The rough scratching of a chair moving closer to him made him turn away from the sky before the space elevator came into view.

"They'll be back, don't you worry."

The smile on his mother's face was warm, familiar and filled him with comfort, even if it didn't chase away his worries. His boys were gone again, barely recovered from their last rescue. They had all been here. It still felt like such a rare treat, just as it had ever since Scott had left for the Air Force.

"It was never meant to be this way." Jeff sighed. His mother placed her hand on his and her cool blue eyes met his.

"This is your dream. Your boys are flying the Thunderbirds and saving people."

"Not like this though. I never planned for International Rescue to be needed as much as it is."

"Well, you couldn't have predicted just how successful and necessary International Rescue would be. They've risen to the challenge amazingly, Jeff."

"I know, Mum, but at what cost?"

Jeff ran his hand through his hair as he leant back and gazed at the sky. There was a small black dot that he believed was the elevator whisking John away. That's what the world did now. They called on International Rescue and snatched his boys away. Before, the rescues had been a few a month, leaving them plenty of time for relaxing and being together, especially when Alan and Gordon were home from school. He could see the exhaustion in his sons, the fact that there never seemed to be enough hours in the day for them to sleep. Alan seemed the least affected and appeared to have the most spare time, but Jeff had heard the yawns when they played Cavern Quest together.

"A cost they are willing to pay. Now, let's see if you've still got it in you to beat the master at Blackjack."

A bag of tokens landed on the table as his mother slid the discarded cards into a pile up and started to shuffle. Jeff smiled, though not entirely happy at the obvious distraction tactics, as he tipped the familiar coloured tokens on the table.

"If I remember correctly, you're in my debt at the moment, sure you want to deepen it further?"

There was a glint in his mother's eye as she met his own and her lip curled up.

"Just put the usual million on the table and we'll end the day with you owing me."

Jeff started stacking the counters into the required piles, happy to accept the challenge though he did wish his mother would let him listen in on the rescue. Hearing their voices would settle him a little, though Mum probably thought their daredevil antics would be too much for his old ticker. His heart worked fine. He'd just wanted his boys.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #homecoming #jeff tracy #alan tracy #scott tracy #virgil tracy #john tracy #gordon tracy #grandma tracy #playing cards #visiting

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comic-book-jawns · 3 years

Text

A Proper Sleepover

“Hiya!”

Jamie’s head popped up a second later in the middle of the elaborate blanket fort that had taken over their studio apartment since she’d last seen it, heading out the door for her birthday dinner, after which Jamie had asked if she could walk around town for a bit — which hadn’t been asking a lot, considering it was a beautiful May evening in Vermont.

To say that Dani had always wanted to go to a sleepover was, in a sense, misleading. Growing up she’d had sleepovers at Eddie’s once a week if not more. But given the very fact of how often she was there, sleepover wasn’t quite the right word for it.

The O’Mara’s was like her second home — or maybe it was her own home that was the second home, if she were to judge a home by what a home was supposed to be like. Eventually, the O’Mara’s had grown stifling, of course, but it had never been cold.

In any case, it had not been the site of her first real sleepover, her only real sleepover. That had been at Ashley G’s house in seventh grade. Ashley wasn’t her friend. She didn’t have many friends aside from Eddie. But Ashley was rich, so she’d invited all the girls in their grade to sleep over in her gigantic basement.

Dani hadn’t slept at all, though. She’d been so excited to be included for once that it hadn’t occurred to her until she’d arrived that they would all be sleeping in one room, which meant if she had a nightmare, as she often did, everyone would know.

Fortunately, she’d been spared that embarrassment because she’d quickly become far too anxious to even try to sleep. There’d been the teasing about when she and Eddie were going to get married, if he was a good kisser. And, sure, it was uncomfortable, but she’d been expecting it.

What she had not expected was the near paralysis brought on by sitting in a tight circle with her pajama-clad classmates. Every time she would manage to find a perfect, if scoliosis-inducing, position in which to sit — one in which she was not touching anyone. Everyone would move around, and she’d have to start all over again.

At the time, she’d written it off as her not being used to touch. Her mother was many things but a hugger was not one of them. Eddie tried, but it always seemed to make him uncomfortable, especially as they’d gotten older. Eddie’s mom was the only person who’d ever hugged her with any real frequency. But even by then, it had begun to feel a tad smothering, if welcome nonetheless.

So, at the time, that’s what Dani had attributed her discomfort at the sleepover to. And, at the the time, she’d known it was a lie. So, despite the invites that she’d later received from girlfriends of Eddie’s friends when Eddie had suddenly become popular in high school, Dani had never gone to a sleepover again.

But the desire had never gone away. It had always felt like yet another experience she’d missed out on. So, she’d made an off-hand comment to Flora during their “sleepover” at Bly — which, incidentally, had been her and Jamie’s first “sleepover,” technically speaking. Jamie remained unaware of Dani’s early morning “check-in,” but evidently she’d done some recon of her own that night.

“So... do ya... ” Jamie scratched the back of her neck. “Never actually done this before, but - ”

“Jamie, it’s perfect!”

Dani was already struggling to see her through blurry eyes.

“Yeah?”

She could still make out Jamie’s cheeks getting redder, as her smile got more lopsided. Dani closed the door, which she’d only been able to open halfway on account of the outer rim of blankets and dropped the bag she’d been holding, containing a new novel for Jamie she’d just bought from the local bookstore.

Then, she bent double to enter the fort. The blankets gradually ascended as she got closer to the middle, not unlike a circus tent. But Dani stayed bent over like a linebacker and ran straight for Jamie. Wrapping one arm around her lower back and the other around her thighs, Dani lifted her and twirled around, smiling proudly as Jamie immediately giggled.

She managed to make it around about 1.5 times before falling over onto a pile of cushions, at which point she too burst out laughing. As they recovered, Jamie cleared her throat.

“Right, down to it, then.” She sat up and reached over to her left. “Ya need to strip.”

She turned back to find Dani smiling coyly.

“So you can put on these!” She held out her Blondie T-shirt, which she’d first given to Dani to borrow on her birthday, and pajama bottoms. “Honestly, Poppins!”

Dani blushed but grinned shamelessly as she took the clothes.

She’d been treated to breakfast in bed — “I apologize in advance,” Jamie had quipped as she’d handed her the plate. Dani had insisted it was delicious, and Jamie had explained that they had a dinner reservation, after which Dani would get her present, so until then, the day was reserved for whatever Dani wanted to do.

Coincidentally, they had not set foot outside their apartment until well into the afternoon.

*****

“You’re the one the one that I want!”

Dani woke up reclined against the cushions, her view of the TV partially obstructed by Jamie who was leaning forward, hugging Dani’s knees on either side of her. As she watched, Jamie stretched her right arm out to grab a handful of popcorn, threw it her mouth and wrapped her arm around Dani’s knee once more, never taking her eyes off the screen.

Jamie had rented three movies from Blockbuster. They’d started with My Side of the Mountain, a childhood favorite of Dani’s that Jamie had found herself loving as well.

Next was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a relatively new movie they’d heard good things about. Jamie had said as the credits rolled that “playin’ truant” was for “tossas” and if Ferris were really cool he would’ve dropped out like she had, and Dani had whacked her with a pillow, instigating a pillow fight that had served as a quality intermission.

Grease, which Jamie claimed she’d picked purely for Dani’s benefit to check romcom off the sleepover bucket list, had been the closer. Dani had nodded off sometime after Danny and Sandy’s reunion at school and smiled now as she watched Jamie watch them celebrate their decision to change everything about themselves in spandex.

She wrapped her arms around Jamie’s stomach and pulled herself up, resting her chin on Jamie’s shoulder.

“Hey, you,” Jamie said softly.

Her eyes remained on the screen as the song wrapped.

“You could’ve turned something else on.”

“Well, I didn’t know when you’d wake up, did I?”

“Mmhmm.”

Dani’s smile was more of a smirk now.

“Tryna say something, Poppins?”

Dani sighed.

“Oh, just that I’m... hopelessly devoted to you.”

Dani giggled as Jamie scoffed.

“Ya better not be.”

“No?”

“Well, not... ” Jamie cleared her throat. “Not hopelessly, anyway.”

Dani smiled and leaned in to kiss Jamie’s reddening cheek.

“Deal.”

Even from this angle, she could see Jamie smile shyly. Dani knew she was almost ready. She’d half-wondered if that would be her present — Jamie saying it. But she wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. All she’d really wanted for her birthday was to be with Jamie. After all, it hadn’t exactly been a sure thing.

She’d secretly been kicking herself since the night of Jamie’s birthday, several months ago at this point, when she’d joked that she was sure Jamie would be able to “think of something” for hers. She hadn’t offended Jamie — Jamie was the one who’d joked about it in the first place — but she had broken her cardinal rule. She’d talked about the future.

Of course, Jamie had already figured out when her birthday was, so there was nothing Dani could’ve done differently, really. But still, she’d been haunted by the thought that that conversation would be all Jamie would have, that it would haunt her too if they never got the chance to celebrate it.

So she’d never brought it up again. But, at last, the day had come, and it had been better than she ever could’ve imagined.

“Oi, what’s this?!” Jamie gestured at the TV. “S’not even real words!”

Dani laughed, facing forward again. “We Go Together” had started up.

“So this is where you draw the line?”

“Well, the other songs - ”

“Yes?”

Dani’s smirk was back. Jamie closed her mouth and cleared her throat, before chuckling.

“We gotta get you to a show.”

“Huh?”

“A musical.”

Jamie laughed again.

“You and I both know that you’ll love it.”

Jamie’s shy smile was back. Dani’s tone had not left room for rebuttal. Jamie finally turned her head to look at her.

“Thank you.”

Dani smiled widely and leaned in for a kiss. She’d broken her rule again. But she supposed she’d just made another one. She wouldn’t give up on hope.

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matsufucker · 4 years

Note

👀👀 would u think abt writing smth for the bros (or jus Choro & Kara) reactions to finding out a very tough/edgy friend of theirs has a crush on them? 👉🏼👈🏼 their just v mean looking but with friends they're kind of soft and tbh just touch starved? 😩 ur writings abt the bros slap💖💖💖

Thank you for the sweet words anonny. 🥺

Here’s Karamatsu + Choromatsu reacting to an edgy crush!

Karamatsu:

Before becoming friends with you, Karamatsu would probably be a mix of “oh dear they’re a bit scary, I hope I can impress them!” and “oh damn… that’s kinda attractive, I wanna be like that.” so he would pull out all stops to try to impress you. He would try to shower you in his classic flowery words.

When he finds out that you’re soft he’s all over that like white on rice. Could you be any cooler? Not only are you tough and cool, but you’re a softie?! And you love physical affection? Wow wow wow! It becomes his goal to try to see your inner layers, he’s already enamored.

You’re touch starved? This is the FREE HUGS guy we’re talking about here. He would give out hugs whenever you wanted! He might linger a second too long at times…

Might integrate casual touches in conversation, he usually uses a lot of hand gestures, but an occasional hand on the shoulder would be thrown in if you’re comfy with that.

When he finds out about you having a crush on him, he considers that it may be too good to be true. He knows that he can be the butt of jokes sometimes, so how could he be sure that this isn’t just another prank? (Especially if one of his beloved brothers told him.)

Ultimately he would listen to the rumor and follow his heart, this romantic loser will do anything for love.

Initially he plans to flirt and up his Karamatsu antics to gauge out your reaction. If he does it when you two are in a more private setting, maybe he’d be able to see your true reaction without your tough façade.

If he manages to fluster you, this will egg him on to just pile more and more of his nonsensical wordplay until you literally can’t understand what he is saying. How the hell does one react to “your company is like a divine blue oasis I can seek refuge in to wash all of my sins away??” Hello?

(If you throw a compliment back you’ll do 1000 mental damage to this poor boy. He’ll be caught completely off guard and sputter before throwing another theatrical line back at you.)

He’ll set some dramatical plan in action to ask you out.

The king of extra will carry his guitar around on his back and the next time you encounter him, he’ll usher you to a place where he can serenade you. He’ll pull a bouquet of flowers out of seemingly nowhere, kneel onto one knee, and start playing.

He’s actually pretty good at the guitar, his chords aren’t too crazy, just some simple chord progressions, but his singing ties it together nicely. His vibrato is a bit too much at times, but you don’t care since you have this goon literally pouring his heart for you.

As the song slows down, Karamatsu swallows thickly and stammers “Y/N, would you like to go out with me?” He strums the final chord with a bit of emphasis and smiled, but his eyes were darting nervously onto your face.

When you say yes, he jumps onto his feet and asks “really!?”

Once you confirm your answer, he’s ecstatic. He nearly throws his guitar to the side as he rushes to hug you.

“Thank you for making me the happiest man alive!” he cries with shimmering eyes. He’s already trying to make plans of romantic get aways, perhaps Paris for a first date, or the finest restaurant Akatsuka has to offer? You have to calm him down and you two plan out a more realistic date.

The gears of love have begun to turn. :)

Choromatsu:

Honestly he will be initially pretty intimidated by your appearance and how you act. There’s a part of him that admires you for your toughness. He always tries to act like the straight man but is brushed aside for being “lame” and “Chorofappyski,” so he wishes he could be tough like you.

His first interaction will probably be pretty curt with you, but over time he’ll loosen up and chat politely with you. He’ll soon realize that you aren’t really some scary punk, but a tender soul? He’s a bit surprised but he’s relieved, he find this news extremely comforting and will be more relaxed with you.

If you’re touched starved and it shows, he would actually be happy to accommodate. He typically doesn’t like being too touchy with people he doesn’t know, but you’re an exception. He would be too nervous to initiate touches, but if you wanted to give him a hug, lean against him, etc, he’d let you!

Honestly at this stage of friendship he would be content. Choromatsu would look at your relationship and be thankful that he wasn’t foolish enough to pass judgement on you based off your appearances and got to know you. He was really happy to have you, a scary looking marshmallow, in his life. He would undeniably have a crush on you, but there’s no way you would like this rising NEET otaku, right?

“Y/N has a crush on you! It’s so obvious!”

Wait. Did he hear that right?

If it was one of his brothers, he’d tell them to knock it off, they’re just friends! If it was anyone else, he would deny it. No way, why would a person like them like him?

But the thought has been planted in his mind and he can’t think straight. What’s gonna happen? He likes you but what does he do? Maybe he should just act like he didn’t hear anything. Yeah, that sounds good, you two can keep being friends, he likes being friends, right?

Would not bring this up in conversation ever, he would take this time to see if there were any signs of you having a crush on him. (If he does see one, he’ll convince himself that it’s not true tbh. If you blush and do the classic arm touch flirt? He’ll think “it’s because they’re friendly, not because they like me!” His mental gymnastics are incredible.)

If you confess to Choromatsu, he’ll be surprised and flush red.

“Me? Are you sure?” he’ll be too caught off guard to even process the joy he feels, his face screams anxiety until he confirms that you actually like him. Then the corner of his lips will turn sharply into a “v” as he gushes that he’s actually liked you for a bit, but he never expected to get this far! The next time you two hang out, should it be like good old times or an actual date?

If you don’t confess, Choromatsu will overthink things until it started to affect how he interacts with you. He starts to act a bit more stiff and distant, the usual hugs that you two shared regularly now felt like hugging a board. Choro will keep up this attitude until you finally confront him about it.

He feels awful that he made you worry about your friendship, he’ll confess that he heard from someone that you had a crush on him and that he wasn’t sure how to proceed, he likes you but he doesn’t want to ruin an already amazing thing.

After you chastise him for not telling you about this problem, you tell him that the rumor is true, but there’s no pressure to return the feelings.

He nearly interrupts you, rushing to say “no no! I really do like you, it’s just that—” and he turns red at how casually those words tumbled out of his mouth. He clears his throat before continuing with “I do like you, I just don’t know if I deserve you?”

You have to tell this goon that if you like him, and if he likes you, what’s wrong with that? And he deserves so much more than he allows himself to!

After this reaffirmation, Choromatsu’s tension disappears from him and he nods.

“I’m sorry for making you worry, do you still want to…” he pauses, swallowing thickly. “…go out with me?”

You hug him and say yes, silly, you liked him, it was apparently so evident that other people were picking up on it! You go in to hug him out of habit, and you’re delighted when the hug is just like you remembered it, comfortable and without an ounce of stiffness.

#srry if it's a bit ooc! i am not tough so i had to guess #also srry if the matsus are ooc #i'm still learning how to be painful and i love to make choro a sweaty nerd #osomatsu san #ososan #osomatsu-san #karamatsu #choromatsu #headcanons #imagine #osomatsu san imagine #x reader #reader insert

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themysteriousphoenix · 3 years

Text

Through the Universe - An Era AU

The wall was dark, dingy, and annoyingly solid. Tina looked around her at the brick walls, the dirty, stone floor, and the lack of a door. The man at the MInistry said, very clearly, that she was to walk through the Leaky Cauldron and through the door at the back of the pub. Well, she had done that, but the alley showed no sign of a door, only a few old wine barrels and liquor crates.

Sighing, Tina rolled her eyes at her luck and was about to make her way back into the bar to ask for directions. The man at the bar had been eyeing her curiously when she walked in, and she hated the thought of going back out there, especially after this long. They would know she had been in this alley, alone, staring at a wall for several minutes. It was hardly a good first impression. She leaned back against the cool bricks, the cars moving by on Charing Cross Road still a constant background symphony. She pulled out her muggle mobile, a gift from her sister, Queenie, when she had moved out of their shared apartment to live with her boyfriend. They had become all the rage among the wizarding world over the past few years, the instant information was quite helpful, especially for Aurors. She illuminated the screen and saw that she had been here for eight minutes. That would never do, she had to figure this out on her own or figure out how to make a hasty exit.

“Alright, Scamander?” a voice asked from just inside the pub door. It must have been the landlady, she had been wiping down tables after the lunch rush when Tina came in a few minutes previously.

“Good morning, Hannah,” a quiet voice replied. It was soft and melodic, and the voice seemed to be coming toward Tina. She bristled slightly and prepared herself for embarrassment, but as the source of the voice appeared, he seemed to be embarrassed enough for the both of them.

“Oh, hello,” he said in surprise as he rounded the corner, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was back here.” His rust-colored hair fell across his forehead in tangled curls and he glanced up at her briefly before looking away toward the wall. “Um, after you,” he said, gesturing toward the wall and stepping back away from Tina.

Tina tried to smile but, instead, she ended up biting her lip and felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “I, uh...I don’t actually know how to get in,” she said, preparing herself for the laughter that was bound to come. He surprised her, though, as he looked up at her with wide eyes.

“You’re American.”

“Yes.”

The man looked at her for several beats before he started and cleared his throat. “So sorry, er, here.” Pulling out his wand, he seemed to be counting bricks before tapping a random red brick quickly and stepping back. The wall seemed to unfold before her, the bricks stacking upon each other and rotating to form a wide, arched doorway in the wall. The sun shone through the opening, illuminating the back room and the stranger beside her who was watching her with amusement.

“Your first time in Diagon Alley, I take it?” He was grinning down at her, his blue-green eyes sparkling in the light. Tina was looking around in awe at the blatant use of magic before her. This was something she had never seen before, everything back home was so secret, so locked up and shoved away as if their whole world was something to be ashamed of. This was stunning, colorful, and absolutely magical.

“Yeah…” Tina breathed, her eyes finding their way back to the sights before her. “I, honestly, don’t even know where to start.” She heard the man beside her chuckle at her wonder before he stepped through the doorway, turning toward her and beckoning her closer with his hand.

“Here, let’s let the doorway close,” he said as Tina crossed the threshold. She turned as the bricks behind her unfurled to create a solid wall once more. “Well, welcome to Diagon Alley,” the man said, looking down at her.

“It’s amazing,” Tina stated as she grinned up at him.

“You don’t have anything like this back home?” he asked, curiously, as he began to walk forward along the cobblestone path.

Tina shook her head, following at his side. “No, definitely not. We have some hidden wizarding shops and a few that lead from one to the next, like a no-maj strip mall, but nothing like this.” Looking around, Tina smiled at a child who was walking by, an owl cage hanging from his small hand. “Even hidden, the shops would never dare to have this much magic on display.”

“Well, Britain isn’t as strict as all that. A lot of wizards don’t know how to blend in anyway, there are a few too many muggle sightings every year, but,” he shrugged, “what can you do?”

Chuckling, Tina looked forward down the path. She saw ancient storefronts on both sides of the streets, the winding cobblestones leading toward a large, marble building at the end. Along the way she saw robe shops, book stores, piles of cauldrons in every shape and size imaginable, and even shops full of various creatures, some of which she had never seen before.

“Oh! Thank you for helping me get through the doorway, uh…” Tina realized with a start that, though she had spent several minutes with this man, she hadn’t asked his name.

“Newt.”

“Newt. Thank you, Newt.” She turned to him with a grin, “I’m Tina.”

“Hello, Tina,” he said with a smile, and Tina giggled in response. “I suppose you are just here looking around, then?” he continued curiously.

“Oh, yeah. I’ve heard of this place but I wanted to see for myself. I have always heard that it is pretty impressive.”

“Did it live up to your expectations?” Newt inquired.

“Oh yes!” Tina said, excitedly, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“If you think this is impressive, you ought to see the magical streets in Beijing. They are even older and more colorful than this,” he said, his head swinging around to look into the windows of a shop that housed dozens of owls, pigeons, and tropical birds of all sizes, all in cages that lined the windows and the shelves inside the door.

“Wait, you’ve been to Beijing?” Tina asked after a few moments, her eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“Oh, er, yeah. That’s kind of my job,” he said, “I travel around the world and study magical creatures.”

“You study...wait. Hold on. You do what now?” Tina asked, her eyes wide as she placed one hand on his forearm. He stopped and turned toward her.

“I’m a Magizoologist.” Newt looked like he was struggling to find a balance somewhere between pride and embarrassment, but Tina’s look of stunned awe made him smile, settling on pride.

“That’s so cool!” Tina smiled up at him, her grin infectious, “What is it you do, exactly?”

Newt began speaking enthusiastically as they walked, pausing his stories of traveling occasionally to point out something interesting in a storefront. Tina couldn’t help noticing that he was quite attractive. His features were soft, yet he held a secretive strength within him. He was interesting to talk to and, even though Tina was only on assignment in Britain for three weeks, she was finding that she wouldn’t mind spending more time talking with him. She hated to think of their short time together ending so soon.

Eventually, they reached a nondescript, blue door and Newt paused. “Well, this is me. I mean, not me, exactly, but...my publisher. I have a meeting in a few.”

“Oh, well...um, It was nice to talk to you, Newt. I really enjoyed meeting you.” Tina flashed him a quick, closed-lipped smile, disappointment evident on her face.

Newt turned and placed his hand on the doorknob as Tina turned away, crossing the street, wandering back toward the main part of town. He stilled and, after a moment of hesitation, released the knob and turned around. “Tina!”

Tina whipped around, her short hair waving in the breeze. Newt was approaching her quickly, jogging across the street to catch up to her.

“Tina…” Newt pursed his lips before plunging ahead, “Do you want to meet me later?”

“What”

“Dinner. Will you meet me for dinner later? I-- I talked so much about myself with you, I’d love to hear more about you. I mean, that is if you…”

“Yes!”

“Excuse me?”

“I’d love to, Newt,” Tina’s smile widened and she giggled quietly. “Very much.”

“Oh! Oh...good. Yes. Um, here.” Newt pulled out a small, silver mobile phone. It was quite old and out of date, but Tina had quickly come to understand that he was a simple guy, one who didn’t need anything flashy or complicated. He handed the small phone over and Tina bit her lip to control her giddiness as she typed her number quickly and saved it in his contacts.

“Tina Goldstein,” Newt said quietly, looking up at her.

“Yep, that’s me,” Tina said, pulling her long cardigan closer to her body to shield herself from the wind.

“Well, I’ll see you later, then, Tina Goldstein.”

“Yes, you will.” Tina smiled once more at him, slowly backing away as she waved at him. “Have a good meeting.” Newt waved and turned, looking back over his shoulder once on his way back to the door and flashing a quick, lopsided grin at her. She practically skipped back down the cobblestone path, a smile plastered to her face as she traveled back the way she had come. She felt her phone buzz in her back pocket and she pulled it out quickly, looking at the screen with anticipation.

Meet you at Rosa Lee’s at 18:00?

Tina did the math in her head, figuring out the Standard Time equivalent, then typed a response.

Looking forward to it. :) See you then!

Wiping her screen clear, she placed the phone back into her pocket and followed the rough path back to the town center, her eyes scanning the storefronts for the tea shop, a smile never leaving her face.

#fbweek2020 #Newtina #newt x tina #newtina fanfiction #newt scamander #tina goldstein #fanfiction #fantastic fanfiction #fbawtft #fbatcog #alternate universe #era au #ashley writes

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