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elm-writes-stories · 9 months

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Cuphead: Isle of Shadows (Rewrite)

*Hey everyone, I'm back with another episode for the rewrite of Cuphead: Isle of Shadows. This is published on August 7, 2023. If you guys like this episode, don't be afraid to heart, reblog, and comment! That would be greatly appreciated. Warning: blood, violence, gore, and slight cursing. Enjoy!*

Episode Nine: Take A Gamble

On the east side of Inkwell Isle City, Bowlboy lingered through the abandoned side.

He had been on the run from the Night Stalkers since he got back from injecting Mugman with…whatever that stuff was. He never wanted to hurt either Mugman or Cuphead, but he wanted to be a part of them…doing reckless things with them. Of course, he wasn’t liked by the brothers.

Bowlboy tried to find a place to hide, but he soon realized that there was no place to hide. As he was walking through the abandoned side of the city, he felt a paper under his feet. He picked it up and dusted the soot off, squinting to read the headlines and the picture of the red cat turning the wheel.

“Tremaine Outbreak! Are the red cats responsible for it?”

Bowlboy tilted his head in confusion. He heard someone lurking in the shadows behind him as he whirled around. He scanned his surroundings until he saw a hooded figure running towards him.

Bowlboy screamed and ran away from the figure deeper into the east side of the city. The hooded figure chased after him.

“Wait!”

Bowlboy didn’t listen as he tripped on the metal pipe and collapsed on the cracked cement. He groaned in pain and noticed the hooded figure approaching him.

“Don’t kill me, please!” Bowlboy cried innocently. “I don’t want to die!”

“I ain’t gonna kill ya,” the hooded figure said while raising his white gloves. “I just need answers.”

“A-Answers? For what? Who are you?” Bowlboy questioned fearfully.

The hooded figure took off his hood to reveal King Dice under the hood. Before Bowlboy could gasp in happiness, King Dice shushed him.

“Look, I’m going against the boss by doing this. But this was for his best interest. I need answers from you,” Dice said. “Did Hunter really tell you to go after Mugman?”

Bowlboy nodded his head.

“Are you sure he told you that?”

“Yeah, I have it right here,” Bowlboy said while pulling out a tape-recorder from behind him and pressing play.

“Put this inside of Mugman. Not Cuphead. Mugman.”

Dice blinked in confusion. “I knew we weren’t talking about the same person the other day. Hunter has been acting strange lately. I tried telling the boss…but he ain’t listenin’ to me. He liked Hunter way too much to the point where Hunter became Devil’s number one.”

Bowlboy blinked in confusion. “Why do you care to be the Devil’s number one?”

Dice shifted his glance at the small bowl. “Because—Because—ugh, nevermind. It’s cheesy.”

“Aww, it can’t be that bad of a reasoning, right?” Bowlboy questioned.

“It’s none of your concern—” They heard a creak under them. Before they could move, the silver platform under them gave way and both Bowlboy and Dice fell into the hole underneath them with screams.

They couldn’t see temporarily while they tumbled down the slope and into the caverns until they finally landed onto the ground.

Dice groaned in pain and blinked his eyes open. “Ugh, w-what just happened. Where are we?”

Bowlboy shook his head and looked around. “Huh, I didn’t think there were caverns underneath the city.”

Dice looked around to notice glowing mushrooms around them that lit up their path straight-forward. “Caverns, huh? Strange…I wonder why no one knew about the caverns here.”

Bowlboy shrugged his shoulders.

Dice and Bowlboy moved forward through the caverns, their eyes scanning their surroundings.

“Maybe the way out of this place is that way,” Dice determined, pointing at the door ahead of them.

Dice opened the heavy door and pushed his way through, his eyes widened when he found out that they entered a bedroom of some sorts. The lights were on everywhere with pictures and posters all over the walls.

“Well, someone is a bit disorganized,” Dice said with a judgmental gaze around the room. “I mean, it looks filthy.”

Bowlboy looked over at the posters of dancing red cats dressed like demons and words that scared him to his core. “Someone has been making posters about the red cats.”

Dice glanced at the posters with confusion written on his face. “Wait a minute, what’s going on there?”

“There’s always been this hate against red cats for so long,” Bowlboy recalled.

“But why?” Dice questioned. “Like why just the red cats specifically? They could’ve made it more broad and said that all cats are from the Devil, but why the red cats?”

Dice found newspaper clippings and squinted to read it through the other papers.

“Red cats are responsible for the Tremaine outbreak?”

“What?” Dice questioned with a laugh. “Okay. Okay, what on earth is going on here?”

Dice looked at the other paper clipping with some sort of a graph with faded colors. He realized the paper had statistics number to show which species of cats to be more aggressive. Dice looked and saw that the red cats tend to be more aggressive than the rest of the cats. Hunter’s name was on the statistic.

“Since when did Hunter become a scientist?” Dice questioned with a brow raised. He looked at the date and blinked in surprise. “Wait, this was taken before the Tremaine outbreak fifteen years ago.”

“Do you think Hunter had been planning something that had to do with the red cats?”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it one bit,” Dice responded. “He already had you inject Mugman with Tremaine…but the question is…why? Why Mugman? Was it to get to Cuphead? Was it because of something completely different? He’s planning something. I don’t know what it is. But…he’s planning something.”

“Look!” Bowlboy picked up the strange device with darkened goggles and weird antennas forming out of silver cap where the goggles were attached.

Dice grabbed the device and put it on to look through the dark goggles. What he didn’t expect was the orange silhouettes that showed everyone infected with Tremaine. He took it off for a moment.

“What the—?” Dice couldn’t even get a sentence out. He found brown gloves with weird buttons on each hand and wires. He put those on out of curiosity and put the helmet back on to look through the goggles.

Dice had no idea what he was doing when he pushed a button, but when he pushed a button on his right hand, he heard someone collided against the wall. Dice tried to find who was it by pushing another button on his other hand to browse who made the sound. He gasped once he saw an orange silhouette of Beppi, weeping in the corner.

“Make it stop. Make it stop,” Beppi groaned in pain.

Dice felt his heart tug for a moment. He decided to test out whatever it was and pushed the same button on his right hand, causing Beppi to smashed his shoulder against the wall.

“STOP! PLEASE!!” Beppi cried while grabbing his head.

Dice blinked in confusion and noticed the option list down below at the corner. He managed to get there with some struggle and noticed one of the options were to go into Beppi’s head. Dice clicked on that with the button on his left hand and it took him into Beppi’s mind. Through the goggles, Dice could see Beppi being laughed at as a child while the little clown covered his ears.

“Make it stop. Make it stop!” the kid version of Beppi cried.

Too freaked out to continue, Dice shoved the helmet and the gloves off, breathing heavily from looking into someone’s mind.

“What is that thing?” Dice uttered. “D-Does it control people with Tremaine? Does it make their pain worse until they reached to their breaking point? What is going on here?”

Bowlboy found a VHS tape and looked to see television in front of them. “Hey, what’s that?”

Dice turned to see a black screen at the corner of the room. “Wait…what is that?”

Bowlboy found a VHS tape player and inserted the tape in. The television flickered on and it showed a black and white film reel.

“What the heck?” Dice uttered and watched the film reel that showed the black and white pictures.

~.~

Jack couldn’t believed he got the job at the infamous Mason Corporations.

Out of all of the jobs Jack applied for, only one shady corporation gave him the job. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it’ll pay the bills and take care of both his wife and his child. It offered more money than what he could imagine, so why not? Despite his small argument with Porkrind about why working at Mason Corporations seemed like a bad idea, Jack decided to take the opportunity.

Jack worked there as a scientist next to Murray, the cup with a small blue nose. The red cat and the cup scientists were excited to be each other’s coworkers until they started to work there.

There was a new chemical that they were supposed to enhance, which was called Tremaine. Hunter, their boss, told them that Tremaine was supposed to enhance military soldiers to fight, but that couldn’t be further from the truth when running experiments. Their first test subject was a small rat picked up from the sewers.

Jack injected Tremaine into the rat, thinking it would strengthen it or make it more mortal like everyone else. However Jack watched intensely as he could see red irises and yellow eyes in the rat. The rat screeched in pain and rattled in his cage.

Both Murray and Jack witnessed this and looked to see that the chemical improves. So, they went to talk to Hunter about it.

“Mr. Manson,” Jack began the conversation.

Hunter turned to look at Jack.

“We’re sorry to bother you, sir, but I don’t think this Tremaine you speak of is working,” Jack replied. “It doesn’t strengthen the test subject.”

“It causes the test subject to suffer within it, letting it become a monster,” Murray added.

Hunter cornered a smirk. “It’s supposed to do that.”

Murray and Jack looked at each other in confusion and then back at Hunter.

“Now, let’s move up a little, shall we? Let’s say…a person,” Hunter replied.

Murray and Jack blinked and nodded their heads obediently.

“Yes sir,” they both said.

Hunter gave them a nod and moved on to focus on his other projects.

“This isn’t what we signed up for,” Murray whispered to Jack.

“Quiet, Mr. Manson could hear you,” Jack warned his friend.

“We didn’t sign up to make people suffer,” Murray stated.

“M-Maybe Tremaine won’t have terrible effects on people.”

“Jack, did you not see what it did to that rat? Who knows what Tremaine is going to do to a person?” Murray pointed out to the red feline.

Jack bit his lips.

“Look, I know you got family to feed. So do I. But I don’t think doing this is a good idea for a job,” Murray replied. “And something’s up with that Manson guy. I don’t think…I don’t think he’s normal.”

“You realize that they got recordings everywhere, right?”

“I’m just sayin’.”

Jack sighed deeply. “We need to find out why Tremaine causes other people to suffer. What are the ingredients in it? Why does it cause people to suffer? We need to know.”

“I’m with you till the end,” Murray replied with determination. “As much as I don’t think this is a good idea to stay here to find out sensitive information, I’ll stick by ya.”

“What about you? It might be risky and it might get you killed—”

“I ain’t too worried about it,” Murray responded with a mischievous smile. “Let’s do it.”

For months working for Mason Corporations, Jack and Murray tried to find sensitive files in a secret file room they weren’t allowed to go in discreetly while working on the chemical. One day, they finally found a file that had the ingredients to Tremaine.

“Here we go,” Jack said while taking a deep breath. He opened the file and looked through the history of its usage. His eyes widened in shock and fear.

“What’s wrong?” Murray said while looking into the file. He scanned through it. “Ash…? Brimstone…? Demon’s blood…?” He blinked in confusion. “Wait, where does Hunter get those ingredients?”

“There’s only one place I know where he could get that stuff,” Jack uttered in pure disbelief. “I guess his ‘special’ scientists were sent down to the Underworld to collect the ingredients.”

“They would’ve been blown up by the Devil by now if that’s the case. No…Hunter must have brought something from the Underworld,” Murray responded. “But how?”

Unbeknownst to them, Hunter saw them looking through the file involving the ingredients of Tremaine. The tiger growled lowly and disappeared into the shadows.

Since Jack and Murray knew about the ingredients of Tremaine, they were trying to find a way to have the chemical not cause suffering among the test subjects. They tweaked the ingredients by excluding demon’s blood, ash, and brimstone and including the juice from an apple, water, and drops of human tears.

Murray would sometimes bring his baby son, Mugman, to work when no one else could watch him while his wife, Lily Rose, took his other son, Cuphead to her job. Baby Mugman would watch his father mixing the ingredients together in fascination, who was noticed by Hunter watching from outside of Murray and Jack’s lab.

Murray noticed Hunter eying on his baby and kept his son close with a small withering glare at Hunter. Since he noticed Hunter watching Mugman, Murray had an old friend who recently retired from the military that he could call and have him watch baby Mugman and baby Cuphead until either Lily or Murray could pick up their kids first.

Jack never took his daughter, Cassidy, to work mostly because it’s risky.

Other than through occasional worries of being spotted by Hunter and his ruthless employees and getting small amount of glares from people because of his species, Jack had been getting great pay to take care of Shayna and Cassidy for a couple of months until one day.

It was the first of the month of September when Jack came to work and stumbled into a room full of giant tubes of the original Tremaine. He witnessed the Tremaine being drained into the water pipelines on the east side of Inkwell Isle City.

Jack gasped in horror and hurried to find a way to stop Tremaine from getting drained further. He found the wheel valve turned and rushed towards to turn it back. A sudden flash interfered with his eyes. Temporarily blinded by the sudden flash, he kept turning the wheel, eventually saving little Tremaine left in the big tubes. However, Jack knew he was too late to save anyone at the east side of the city.

~.~

The east side water pipelines had Tremaine flowing within, blending into the water. Most citizens drank the water from the sink without knowing it. Objects, humans, and animals alike turned feral and tore each others flesh like wild animals.

The blood marked the streets on the east side of the city. The bee police force were there, but has been torn to shreds when encountering them. It had gotten bloody on the east side of the city with the blood, intestines, hearts, lungs, and guts scattered across the cold black roads that Rumor Honeybottoms, the chief of the police force, stepped in with extra help in the form of the red genie, the three-headed dragon, the mad scientist on his robot, the huge carnivorous flower, and the red lady shape-shifting into a blimp.

The flower’s face contorted into a machine gun and fired bullets in the forms of seeds, planted onto the ground and grew weeds and plant-eaters to hold the attackers back.

The mother and her blonde child cowered back from the child’s father, his irises red and his eyeballs yellow.

“Papa, please! Don’t kill us!” The blonde-haired child cried. Before her father could kill both her and her mother, the golden arrow flew by her father and one of the small blue stars smacked him in the face. Soon, the child and her mother lifted onto the back of the cloudy centaur, firing arrows with the golden bow.

The centaur took them to someplace safe and placed them on the ground, shape-shifting into the red-dressed lady. The little girl looked up at her with adoring eyes.

“What’s your name, sweetie?” the lady asked with a soft smile.

“S-Sally,” the child replied.

“Hilda,” Hilda introduced herself with a bright smile.

“GET OFF!!!”

Hilda turned to the familiar voice belonging to the orange-petaled flower fighting against the ones infected with Tremaine.

Hilda looked at young Sally. “Get you and your mother safe. Hurry!”

Hilda flew up to the sky and grabbed the fluff of clouds to shape-shift into a bull with gold horns. She managed to ram into the infected and get them off of the flower.

“You know I can handle them, right?” The flower stated.

“Really? The famous Cagney Carnation seems to be in distress to me,” Hilda teased while transforming back to her normal self.

Cagney, the flower, slammed his hand down into the ground and stabbed the incoming infected person charging at Hilda with a deadpan stare at her. He smirked when Hilda seemed shock at the fact that he got the person without looking.

“And Ms. Hilda Berg needs to pay attention to her surroundings so that she doesn’t get herself killed,” Cagney teased back.

“Awww, always lookin’ out for me, eh, Cagney?” Hilda flirted with a blush.

“You know it,” Cagney flirted back with a blush on his face.

The red genie appeared in between them with a smirk. “As much as I love to listen to you two flirt, we got a much bigger problem. We need to know what’s causing the people to insane!”

The three-headed dragon landed and blew fire at those infected with Tremaine, protecting a single frog mother protecting two little frog boys.

The mad scientist controlling the robot shot laser yellow beams at the people attacking a young clown and a young girl with a candy cane in her mouth.

The young pirate was fighting the ones infected near the port on the shore. The young sea creature with purple hair of a dead octopus noticed the young pirate boy. With a gasp in shock, her eyes turned red and shot red beams towards the pirate boy. The pirate boy dodged it and watched the infectees turned to stone. Once he looked back, he saw the sea creature gasping at her being noticed and dove back into the water. He hurried over and saw her swimming away.

“Wow…” the pirate boy muttered in admiration.

The dark blue bird with the house on him swooped in and used his wing to get the remaining individuals who were not infected with Tremaine to get on the roof of his birdhouse such as a young brown rat, a young pirate, three young vegetables, and a young slime ball. He flew away with them to get to safety away from the dangerous side of the city.

Rumor Honeybottoms flew in and used her wand to lift up the concrete to find something flowing in the water system. “It’s coming from the water system! We need it to redirect it away from the city!”

The remaining bee cops nodded their heads and hurried to redirect the water into the sewers so that it would never reach to the city again.

The water that had Tremaine inside of it went down the drain, leaving the special force breathing heavily in exhaustion from fighting those infected with Tremaine.

Rumor saw there were more of those infected with Tremaine as she raised the walls with her wand, trapping the infectees within so that they wouldn’t go after anymore citizens.

Unbeknownst to them, Hunter had been watching them all from the sidelines with a small smirk at them all.

~.~

It was only two days after the incident that the newspapers were written frantically all over the city.

“Tremaine released into the east side of the city!”

“Mason Corporations behind the Tremaine incident?”

“Who’s the real villain behind the Tremaine incident?”

Jack hoped for those answers to the questions just as much as the press.

Murray was dumbfounded after the incident, his fear suppressed by trying not to worry too much about it.

It was on the day that Hunter was about to speak up. Was Hunter behind this? Why would Hunter do this? Was this planned the entire time?

Hunter had microphones against his face while journalists were asking questions left and right. Jack and Murray were on stage behind Hunter and listened. All of them didn’t seem that hard to answer and rather…easy to explain…but there was two questions he would never forget was asked during the interview.

“Is the situation under control? Who should we blame?”

“This situation is under control,” Hunter said. “This chemical was released by a former employee of mine. His name was Jack Cat. He and his species caused this Tremaine outbreak.”

Jack widened his eyes at this shocking answer.

“Jack turned the wheel to release the chemicals into the water system and we had to shut it down before it was too late. I’ve studied his species for years…I’ve concluded that they can be usually be aggressive, but I would never have thought that the red cats could go this far,” Hunter stated.

The rising anger gripped Jack’s heart. The urge to speak and defend himself took over and Jack didn’t hesitate to follow that urge.

“You know that’s not true!” Jack shouted at Hunter with a growl.

Murray saw his friend charging towards Hunter and held Jack back. “Jack, no, you’re only going to prove his statements—”

“I’ve been framed!” Jack growled at Hunter, tears streaming down his cheeks. “You’ve just put my species in danger. You’ve just put my family in danger and you know it, don’t you?”

Murray was able to hold his friend back and tried to calm Jack down. “Jack, take it easy. You’re only going to make yourself look worse.”

Jack looked to see the journalists winced back in fear, afraid that he will attack either Hunter or any of them. The red feline softened his gaze and looked up at Hunter. Then he glanced back at the press.

“Please…I’m innocent,” Jack begged the press before being manhandled by the cops.

“Hey, let him go!” Murray shouted at the cops. One of the cops shoved Murray back against the wall, breaking off his handle for his cup head.

Murray groaned in pain while watching his friend being dragged off stage by the cops.

“Please, I’ve been framed! You gotta believe me!” Jack cried.

Murray watched in horror, tears edging out of his eyes.

~.~

Fifteen Years Later:

The television flickered off, revealing Jack’s past with Murray and Hunter to both King Dice and Bowlboy in the strange room.

“Odd…” Dice uttered while tilting his head.

“Poor Jack,” Bowlboy replied in pity.

Dice looked around the room some more to find answers to questions. He found another VHS tape. “Hey, what do you think is in this one?”

Bowlboy shrugged his shoulders and pulled the VHS tape out of the VHS tape player. Dice inserted a different VHS tape and saw something completely shocking.

It was a camera to the jail cell with this supposed Jack Cat sitting inside of it. Jack had been quiet…too quiet. Dice and Bowlboy watched someone walking towards the cell…was that this Murray guy? They watched Murray lock picked the jail cell and leading Jack out of his cell.

Dice tilted his head in confusion when the television flickered to another camera to see Jack and Murray in some sort of a secret lab, working on a cure for Tremaine. Both Bowlboy and Dice looked at each other.

“This is even more odd,” Dice responded.

“There are so many secrets here,” Bowlboy pointed out.

Dice took a glance back at those goggles and the gloves. He put them back on and decided to test something. He toggled through individuals already infected with Tremaine. Beppi was definitely one of them along with the…wait…Baroness Von Bon Bon? How in the world did they get the baroness out of Sugarland? She seemed to be withering and decaying once she left Sugarland.

Dice toggled again to find Mugman. What was about Mugman that was so important to Hunter? Dice was about to find out. He pressed the button to get into the memory and found memories of when Mugman and Cuphead were toddlers and were always together. Before Dice could dig further, he heard someone walking to the room.

Dice took the goggles and the gloves off, setting them down on the table. Bowlboy switched the television off and hid in the shadows as King Dice shut off the lights in the room.

“Youse got a lot of nerve kidnapping us!” Ribby’s voice growled.

“Yeah!” Croaks’ voice agreed.

Dice gasped in recognition. Ribby and Croaks? The owners of the Fly Trap? Quickly, the die put on his hood over his head, watching three assassins pushed both Ribby and Croaks through the room.

One of the assassins noticed Dice under the hood. “Help us, would ya? These two are getting hard to handle.”

“Hey!” Ribby shouted in offense. “We was doing fine until you showed up!”

“We’ll pound ya if ya don’t let us go!” Croaks snarled.

Dice joined to “help”, but he wasn’t sure where they were taking the frogs. The assassins took them through another door that Dice didn’t notice before. Once they opened the door, they pushed the frogs through the door while King Dice followed. Dice looked behind him to see Bowlboy sneakily trailing from behind him.

Dice followed the assassins into the underground prison where the people he saw on the video during the Tremaine Incident were all there.

Cagney pounded against the glass that seemed unbreakable. “Hey! What are you going to do to us?!”

Dice couldn’t answer that since he didn’t know himself. He looked ahead to find more the red genie looking onward solemnly. The mad scientist was tinkering his robot inside of his glass cell while the small brown rat was tinkering his vehicle in the cell next to the mad scientist.

The three headed dragon tried to blow fire at the glass to no avail surprisingly. When that failed, the three-headed dragon frowned and cradled their young baby in the cell with them.

Dice could see Hilda sobbing from the corner of the cell. When he looked to his left, he could see the blue slime big ball punching at the glass with his red boxer gloves. The Root Pack containing of Ollie, Chauncey, and Sal Spudder crying in the cell from Ollie’s stench. Rumor Honeybottoms didn’t have her wand and her arms were crossed in the cell, glaring at the assassins holding Ribby and Croaks hostage.

Sally, the blonde woman who was the little girl in the video, was dead in her cell…or was she dead? When Dice approached Sally’s cell to see if she was really dead, Sally perked her head up, her eyes red and her pupils small. She crawled over to the glass and clawed on it, scaring Dice away from the glass with a gasp. Once he left her and trailed behind the assassins, Sally blinked and her eyes returned to normal. She wiped the drool off of her mouth with a cocky grin.

Dice looked to see the bird with the house on his body, taking care of the little bird crying in the cell. Then he approached Beppi and the Baroness, acting irrationally with Tremaine in their veins. They’ve succumbed to their demonic selves, which scared Dice to think about for some reason.

Soon the assassins shoved the frogs into their own cells.

“HEY!” Ribby barked at the assassins before the glass closed behind the brothers. “Get us out of here!”

Dice blinked in horror and found the name-plates above the cells with each other of their names. The last two cells were across from one another, both were empty. Dice looked at one of the empty cell in horror…it…it had his name on it. Then Dice looked across at the other empty cell and widened his eyes in more shock.

“The Devil.”

“What’s wrong?” one of the assassins asked Dice, unaware that it was the King Dice noticing this.

Dice cleared his throat. “Um…why are we capturing King Dice and the Devil? Aren’t they…working with us?”

“We thought the boss explained to you,” the other assassin stated. “To all of us. Were you not listening?”

“No…absolutely not,” Dice responded.

“King Dice is great with magic and his control of his cards. The Devil is the ruler of the Underworld. Once Tremaine inside all of them, the boss will have complete control of everyone, even the Devil. Heck, even the world once he rules Hell.”

Dice widened his eyes in fear. Hunter wants to rule Hell? And raise hell in the world? “Wait, why does he want to be the New Devil?”

“He thinks he could do better than the original Devil. Why else do you think?”

Dice blinked in shock and confusion. “So the deal…he’s going to—”

“Don’t read too much into it. Just do as the boss says,” the assassin ordered while the assassins were walking out.

“O-Okay…well, I’ll just patrol here,” Dice replied, watching the other assassins exit out.

“Uh…look, I ain’t a fan of the Devil, but that is insanity on the whole new level!” Cagney pointed out with a growl. “Does he really think Devil is going to hand him over his throne just like that?! He’s the freaking Devil! Does he really think Devil is going to roll over and let him take over Hell and dominate the world?!”

Captain Brineybeard, who was in the cell next to the empty one belonging to King Dice, blinked in shock. “Wait, do ye reckon that Hunter might be trying t’ gain powers from the Davy Jones?”

“Davy Jones? Who’s that?” Cagney questioned from the other side of the prison.

“It’s what pirates call the Devil,” the genie, with the name Djimmi the Great plastered on the sign above his cell, explained. “The thing that Hunter is not seeing is that Devil is immortal like some of us here. Except the Devil has roamed this world way before any mortal and immortal beings exist along with the Most High. He cannot be controlled no matter how hard you try.”

“The Devil isn’t stupid,” Hilda joined the conversation. “Should we warn King Dice and the Devil?”

“Hey, I’m not worried about the Devil,” Cagney responded. “Literally, I can’t wait to see Hunter burn to crisp when he attempts to take over Hell.”

“Well, we can’t let anyone know of Hunter’s plan…wait a minute,” Rumor looked at Dice under the hood. “Usually, assassins patrolling us would tell us to shut up…”

“Because I’m not one of them,” Dice said while taking off his hood to reveal himself to the prisoners.

The prisoners gasped in shock.

“The King Dice,” Sally gasped in shock.

“Eh, we don’t have to worry about warning him now,” Cagney responded with a shrug.

“What are you doing here? Do you even know where we are?” Djimmi interrogated.

“Uh…I’m just as confused as you are,” Dice responded. “I think we’re underground on the east side of the city I think.”

All the prisoners gasped in fear.

“The east side? Where Tremaine happened all those years ago?” Dr. Kahl, the mad scientist approaching the glass, uttered.

“We was livin’ there when we was tadpoles!” Croaks gasped.

“We were livin’ peacefully there!” Sal stated.

“I ‘ave met Cala Maria thar when I was a young lad!” Brineybeard pointed out.

“I deffelobed ein loffe of machinery zere!” Werner Werman, the rat in the cell, stated.

“I have a safe home there,” Goopy Le Grande, the blue slime ball, responded.

“I lost my father there,” Sally uttered sadly.

“Wait, wait, we’ve quarantined this place,” Cagney pointed out.

“It’s the place anyone least expects,” Rumor uttered in horror. “What have we done?”

Djimmi glanced at King Dice. “Can you get us out? Can you help us?”

“Look, man, I-I don’t know—”

“Dice…”

Dice turned to see Bowlboy behind him.

“There’s someone on the other side of that door,” Bowlboy said while pointing at the fortified door.

Dice looked at the door and at the prisoners. “Who’s at the other side of the door?”

“We don’t know,” Djimmi responded solemnly. “It was a man who Hunter tortured so often, but we never knew his name.”

“That’s horrible,” Ribby uttered.

“I vouldn’t vant to pe zat guy,” Werner stated.

Dice turned back to the door and took a deep breath. “Here goes nothin’ then.” He walked up beside Bowlboy, facing the door. He could hear someone sobbing from the other side.

Dice turned the knob on the door and found out the door was locked. “Dang it. How are we going to get in without a key—?”

Bowlboy took out they key to the door from his pocket.

“I’m not gonna even ask how you even got the key.”

Bowlboy smirked at Dice. The small bowl unlocked the door with the key and opened it.

~.~

The door opened with a creak and Dice peeked into the room. In the dark room, the light shined from the door and up towards the man, who stopped sobbing. His shoulders tightened and looked away from them.

“I’ve already answered everything for you,” he said, sniffling. “You’ve killed my wife…my kids…my best friend. What more do you want from me?”

“Whoa, hey, easy there, we don’t want anything from ya,” Dice reassured the cup stranger.

The cup stranger couldn’t look back, but Dice could tell that he was trying.

“The ingredients to the cure? I’m tellin’ ya, I don’t remember. Your boss took half of my memory away,” the stranger growled. “You can beat it out of me all you want…but I don’t remember.”

“Easy there, we’re only trying to help—”

The stranger snorted. “Sure, you’re only trying to help. I guess you’re new to this whole Night Stalkers cult.”

“What? No! I’m not a part of them at all!” Dice responded while taking off the black robe and dropped by the cup stranger’s feet. “See? I’m only using that as a disguise.”

The cup stranger gasped and struggled in his chains. “Who are you then?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard of me. I’m King Dice,” Dice replied with a smile.

The cup stranger didn’t respond.

“You know…from Roll the Dice…”

The cup stranger still didn’t respond.

“He must be living under a rock,” Bowlboy assumed.

Dice sighed. “Nevermind. Let’s get you outta here.”

Bowlboy got out his lock picks and picked the locks around the stranger’s ankles and wrists. Once that was done, the stranger immediately sprang up to his feet and grabbed Dice by the purple coat, slamming him against the wall. Dice was face-to-face with the stranger, noticing that the stranger only miss one eye and he was missing a handle.

“Whoa! What the—?! Hey!” Dice yelled. “I’m trying to help you!”

“How do I know you’re not lying to me about being part of the cult?” the stranger growled.

“He’s not!” Bowlboy testified for Dice.

“If I was a part of the cult, you wouldn’t be out right now,” Dice pointed out to the stranger.

“Really now?” the cup stranger growled. “Maybe you’ve developed this tactic to get me to trust you so easily. You might stab me in the back.”

“What you’re saying is making no sense,” Dice said with a groan. “Why would I let you out only to put you back?”

“I don’t know. You tell me, Mr. King Dice,” the stranger snarled. “Let’s see what your true intentions are.”

“W-What?” Dice watched the stranger’s eye turned violet. “Hey, what are you—?”

It was sudden that his vision became violet and he could no longer talk.

“Kingsley! Kingsley!!!”

Dice’s vision was cleared and he groaned in pain. He was back to being a kid in an isolated cabin. He was dressed in disgusting rags and was bruised. Dice saw a silhouette of his father, causing him to widened his eyes in horror.

“Kingsley Dice, you better get your butt here right now! Daddy needs to get a look at ya!”

Dice blinked while breathing heavily, frozen in terror until his next memory flash into the lively casino. Dice looked and saw the Devil himself trying to get his father’s soul. However, his father saw him and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Take my son’s soul instead. He’ll be a good boy to you.”

The Devil quirked a brow. “You’re willing to trade your son’s soul for your own?”

“Yes!”

The Devil’s lips formed into a smirk. “Well, well, I guess mortals never change.”

In a snap of the finger, Dice could feel the chains tying him to the Underworld in both his wrists and his soul.

He watched his father walking away out of the casino.

“Don’t worry, young one,” Devil reassured Dice while walking away. “I’m sure your dear ole daddy will die in the worse way possible.”

Dice shed tears.

Make it stop! Make it stop!

Dice blinked and now he was an adult like he was before. He realized he had his own show back. Before he could put on a grand smile in front of faceless audience, he looked down and saw Cuphead hugging his leg. Then he looked ahead and saw Mugman sitting on the seat, watching both him and Cuphead. It was then the violet glow around faded away in an instant.

Dice blinked and gasped as if he had been suffocating for so long. The cup stranger’s eye no longer glowed violet. He let go of the die, who stumbled by the doorway, breathing heavily as if he hadn’t breathed in a while. He looked up at the stranger in horror.

“What the hell did you do to me?!” Dice questioned breathlessly.

Bowlboy looked over at Dice in concern and then looked back at the stranger, who seemed to be just as shocked as Dice was.

“You saw my boys?” the cup stranger uttered, a tear rolling out of his eye.

“Y-Your boys?! What did you do to me?!” Dice shouted at the stranger.

The stranger looked down at Bowlboy, who tilted his head in confusion. He came over to Bowlboy and grabbed the bowl’s wrist gently. Automatically, Bowlboy’s eyes turned violet, which caused Dice to wince back. Surprisingly…it was a quick process and Bowlboy’s eyes turned back to normal, who was breathing heavily and shivering.

“You both saw my boys!” the stranger gasped in shock.

“Cuphead and Mugman?” Bowlboy questioned.

“That’s what Elder Kettle calls them,” the stranger said with a relieved smile and tears streaming down his cheek. “M-My boys are alive. My boys are alive.”

Dice watched the stranger breaking down crying in happiness, confused until it clicked. “Wait a minute…are you…the father of Cuphead and Mugman?”

The stranger looked up, smiling through the tears. “Uh-huh. I can’t believe my boys were alive.”

Dice looked closely at the cup stranger and he could finally recognized him from seeing him on the television. “Wait…Murray?”

Murray, the cup stranger, got up on his feet and wiped the tears. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard that name.”

Dice widened his eyes in shock.

“I-I need to see my boys. I need to know where they are!” Murray urged and hurried out of the room.

“Murray, wait! There’s something going on with Mugman—” Before Dice could finish his sentence, they heard footsteps coming towards the underground prison. Right before the prisoners could warn them to hide, the door busted through and revealed it to be Hunter and ten more hooded assassins.

Murray drew his brows at Hunter with his fists clenched.

“You know, Dice, I never thought you were going to stoop this low. Apparently, this is a new low for you,” Hunter growled.

Dice looked at the lever next to him and then back at Hunter. “You were going to betray the Boss, are you?!”

“Knock him out! Get him to his cell!” Hunter ordered his men. He looked at Murray. “You and I have unfinished business to discuss.”

Murray clenched his teeth and growled.

Dice placed his hand on the lever and pulled it, freeing all the prisoners from their cells.

~.~

Immediately, Cagney started to attack the hooded assassins with the help of Hilda and Goopy.

The three headed dragon, Grim Matchstick, blew fire at the ceiling above them as soon as the dragon got out of the cell. The ceiling collapsed, crushing the two empty cells that had both Dice’s and Devil’s names engraved on it. Murray was blinded by the sunlight and hid in the shadow. The bird, Wally Warbles, used his wing to get everyone on board. Werner, Dr. Kahl, Dr. Kahl’s robot, and Wally’s son got on Wally Warbles. Sally, The Root Pack, and Goopy got on Grim’s back. Beppi and Baroness Von Bon Bon tore into the assassins, scurrying away to find a way out.

Brineybeard got out of his cell and saw Cala Maria sulking in her own cell until it was opened. She was smaller than she usually was with her green mermaid tail and purple dead octopus hair. She looked up to see Brineybeard offering his hand to her. She smiled and grabbed his large hand. He picked her up and carried her out of her cell.

Everyone hurried out of the hole Grim created while Dice watched them all crawling out of the hole and escaping.

“Dice?” The familiar voice uttered.

Dice glanced over to see Devil standing there with Hunter next to him. Henchman and Stickler stood behind Devil, their eyes widened in shock at him.

“B-Boss, let me explain,” Dice stuttered, gaining Murray’s attention along with the frog brothers, Cala Maria, and Brineybeard.

Devil drew his brows together with a snarl, pointing his pitchfork at Dice. “I should’ve known you would turn on me sooner than later.”

Dice breathed heavily. “Please, let me explain—!”

The Devil shot the fireball from his pitchfork at Dice.

Dice was ready to accept his fate before Brineybeard tackled him away from the fireball. Brineybeard collapsed with Cala Maria in his arms along with Dice. Ribby and Croaks joined along with Bowlboy and Murray.

“Are ye alright?!” Brineybeard questioned.

“Hey-o, is the Devil your boss?!” Ribby interrogated.

“This is not the time to question,” Cala Maria pointed out. “We need to go now!”

“The lass be right! We needs t’ run now!” Brineybeard agreed with the sea monster in his arms.

“How do we get out? We can’t even fly,” Croaks pointed out.

They saw the silhouette of the Devil coming towards them.

It was sudden they felt something underneath them as they looked down and realized the large mushroom grew up towards the hole.

The group soon realized that it was Cagney growing a mushroom once they reach out of the hole. The mushroom tilted to the side.

“Scatter!” Cagney screamed for the group.

Dice pulled Murray by the arm to hurry onward while Ribby and Croaks ran in a different direction. Brineybeard carried Cala in his arms and followed Murray and Dice.

Cagney hurried away from the hole to catch up with Hilda and Bowlboy in a separate direction.

The Devil came out of the hole with Hunter by his side and Henchman and Stickler catching up them. The Devil watched Dice running away with Murray, Captain Brineybeard, and Cala Maria. With a growl, Devil aimed his pitchfork at them and fired another fireball.

The group dodged it and looked behind them to find Devil flying after them.

“Oh no, he’s going to kill us. He’s going to kill us,” Dice replied while breathing heavily in panic.

On cue, Ribby drove the car big enough to fit Brineybeard, Cala, Murray, and Dice in with Croaks on the passenger side.

“Get in!” Croaks shouted at them while opening the back door for them to hop in.

Dice and Murray entered the back seat of the car with Brineybeard jumping in after them with Cala Maria in his arms.

Cala decided to peek out of the window to find Devil chasing after them. With her brows drawn together, her eyes turned red and shot out laser beams. The Devil didn’t have time to react when the laser beams hit him and he was automatically turned to stone.

She smirked and put her head back into the vehicle. “Step on it!”

Ribby slammed his foot on the gas pedal and drove into the forest.

“I need to find my boys,” Murray uttered.

“Your boys?” Croaks questioned.

“Cuphead and Mugman,” Dice clarified for Murray.

“Wait, yer the father of those two?!” Ribby questioned with a gasp.

“We know yer lads, mate! We’ll take ye t’ ‘em if we knew where they be,” Brineybeard stated.

“Ooh! We know where they are!” Ribby exclaimed excitedly. “Hang on, we’ll take you to yer boys!”

With that said, Ribby sped up into the forest, getting away from the city.

Back to the Devil, he managed to burst through the stone with his flames and looked up with a snarl. He picked up his pitchfork and now he had no idea where the traitor and his new group of friends went.

“Ugh, he has the gall to betray me!” Devil growled.

Hunter shook his head. “A shame that is. I guess his greed got the best of him.”

“He’ll pay for this!” Devil snarled. “He’ll pay for all of it.”

Hunter smirked. “I know a way to make all of them pay for their wrongdoings towards you.”

Devil turned to Hunter in confusion at first. Then he grinned mischievously. “Do tell.”

Hunter smiled evilly.

To Be Continued...

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alexys618 · 5 months

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Shouldn’t I be proud for where I am now? It’s been a year and almost 5 months but somehow I still feel like I’m not where I should be.

I’ll probably never really get over you or us

I mean, we have two kids together. They are constant reminder of us.

I started to date again and sometimes I really wish he was you instead I thought I was ready to move on. I thought I deserve to move on.

He’s older his kids are grown and he’s not you I wanted something different I found out I was pregnant a few days ago and the first person I thought of was you and now I feel ashamed because I no longer wanted children here I am again pregnant but this time it feels wrong. I don’t think I can keep this baby but I don’t believe in abortions either. I don’t know what I’m gonna do and I’m so afraid of this coming out and hurting you, but why does it matter you took everything from me I had to start completely over, I lost my apartment. I lost what I thought was a home and you and us the kids and I were homeless for five months. I finally started working again I finally started putting myself out there again. I went to therapy I thought I healed from us, but again, how can I ever truly heal from someone who doesn’t realize all the pain that they’ve caused me

I’m now pregnant by a man who doesn’t want this child, but wants to be a part of my life how do I fall in the one to two percentage of getting pregnant? He got a vasectomy done. But here I am still pregnant and the reason why I thought of you right away because this baby will be born in August, and we always talked about having an August baby. Been broken up for almost a year and five months and realistically, I know that’s not enough time to fully heal, after all the abuse after all the trauma, but I thought I was OK but finding out I was pregnant made me feel like I was betraying you. It doesn’t even make sense how my brain thinks the way that it does you are not the man that honors me the values me we can’t even coparent now, but somehow you tell me you’re not over me but you can’t do the things I need you to do as a man, so yeah I wanted to move on. I wanted to try because I can’t wait. I can’t wait for you. I can’t wait for you to wake up one day and apologize for all the pain, I can’t wait for you to realize that it’s always been me. I’m not this toy that you get to play with when you want to so here I am three kids later single no car paying 1600 in rent for an apartment that looks like i should be paying only 950.

I’m dating somebody I’ve only known for four months but God magically wanted to give me a baby again after everything that I’ve been through this year I don’t know whether this is actually from God or karma. but how can a baby be karma?

I thought I accepted where we are now I thought I had peace knowing that you can never give me the closure that I thought I needed but now I feel like I’m back to square one you told me the other day that you weren’t over us while I have another man’s baby inside of me But in the mist of you telling me you’re not over us. We are arguing about decisions when it comes to our boys sometimes I think you miss me, but I don’t really think you actually miss me. I think you miss the thought of having somebody always there the thought of somebody taking care of you and the fact that we share two kids together will always be connected and because since we met when we were children, it’s hard to let go, but once I were to tell you that I’m carrying somebody else’s child, you won’t tell me anymore that you’re not over me and it’s not like you’re doing anything now so have me back in your life it’s not like you apologize or genuinely apologized where are you have changed? I think you like to feed me breadcrumbs to keep me on the back burner, and the mist of hoping that I don’t ever move on. How is it OK you were the one that was abusive, mentally and emotionally but it wasn’t always like that you were trying charming your inspiring you were the man of my dreams. I thought I was gonna have the career, the house the dog, the happy family, but you sold the façade And I’m still here picking up the pieces. I lost my best friend and now I’m in a situation where you’re the only person I wanna talk to you when I can’t talk to you because you will shame me. You will be mad at me for trying to move on you would slut shame me. I can’t bring another baby in this world but I can’t have an abortion. How can I bring a baby in this world knowing the father doesn’t want this baby? Why am I worried about breaking your heart when you broke mine repeatedly and didn’t blink twice. I am lost. There are no words.

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catachyler · 8 months

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Ad astra per cringe.

So, I saw on Twitter a post about a writing marathon for october: SBI Whumptober 2023, which requires to write some piece of work for 31 specific prompts for each 31 days of october. About something hurtful and sad, which I don’t like in general in whatever form of art. And I was like: Oh! I wanna do that! Even though I’m awful at writing, I’m awful at english and I have too much stuff to do. I literally have to change my entire life or, I’m afraid, I’m gonna die. Even though I’m not allowed to do that.

And I saw that post on 29 of september even though it was posted in august, so for me to participate means that I have to write a piece for a day. A piece of creative writing on english on some angsty theme. For the record, English is not my native, and excluding school years, I never actually learned it. For gods sake, Kate, what are you doing?!

I was thinking for a day, and then eventually decided to try. So.. It’s been two days and I already gave up. *sad face

One of the coolest things in all of that, is that somehow I came up almost immediately with a dozen of ideas for this marathon (or whatever it should be called), even though it has to be about hurting someone. The second cool thing is that I realized that I actually really like writing. It’s hard practically, but it’s really fun to make something, to create; and mind here, I have to create several different worlds with several different characters, they all are somehow distiguishly different even though they are based on the same group of people each time. I feel alive when I create. I like it. But it’s hard.

For me to make some work takes from 5 to 6 hours even if it’s not more than 1000 words. My active vocabulary is significantly less than my passive one. Since december I managed to read seven books (not counting study ones) and from all of them, I only got like 600 unknown words (part of them actually known, just with some unknown connotations and whatnots). But writing is struggling. I know that I know the right word but I don’t remember it at all! So about 2 or 3 hours of my writing actually goes to googling the right words. *very sad face

And also, I realize (besides that I need to take english grammar course asap) that I really need some feedback. That’s another one of many downsides of not having friends, there is no one to ask for feedback.

Oh, I also popped on to read other participant’s work and I couldn’t not understand a half of them. I mean, I opened one work, and the first three lines of dialog contained like 6 words that I never saw in my life. Do I know the wrong English? I do remember how I was struggling watching Techno at first because he used to use some fancy words (fancy for my illiterate ass), but I definitely improved since then. Or am I?

Oh, and also probably instead of writing this post I should work on my next piece for the Whumptober. But I really stuck with today’s prompt which is “Self-esteem issues / Dehumanization” (ironically I should know about this stuff a lot). I try to think about something and it just blank. My brain is blank. And talking about blank, I don’t understand Lovejoy. And it makes me very sad. Everybody is so hyped and happy about them, and I don’t understand them. Probably that is a good theme for another post.

Anyway (gods, I so long to use ‘anyhow’ instead, but I can’t, I can’t). Today I allow myself to not write, but I should do all those ideas that I have for other days. They will be crappy, but without practice, you can’t improve. Ad astra per cringe.

*/ I google just one word: “long for/to”, was trying to find a synonym for “wish”. And now I realize that phrase contains “so long”. I so long to hear your voice again.

#I hate tags

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keepingupwithpotters · 3 years

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here comes the sun (derogatory)

This is a lil something for lovely @efkgirldetective 's summer of jily 🌅

watching the sunrise/sunset + I've been saving all my summers for you

James tries not to glare at the rising sun like it has personally offended him, he really does, but it’s hard to admire the slowly appearing slivers of fire in the sky when they are counting down the minutes until Lily has to leave.

He chances a glance at his watch. Well, technically the last day of summer had ended six hours ago. It doesn’t count until sun has come up though, right?

If he can get his logical thinking skills back, he’d remember it had been many years since the last time he had actually watched sunrise on the 31st of August and not Lily Evans. The soft wine of dawn is a light reserved for memorizing her. To think there are nine months ahead of him with no chance to gaze upon her is agonizing so he starts his studious once-over again, trying to commit every little detail to memory with tenderness and care.

His eyes stutter this time after they leave the freckles on her nose. He was too busy grieving over how they wouldn’t be there the next time he sees her to realize her lips had swollen remarkably after their shared pack of sunflower seeds. As the need to taste the salt from her lips rises, he finds himself scowling at the discarded bag at their feet this time.

It also had been many years since they opted for their childhood snack on their last day. Ever since they discovered they can now buy booze from the little shop by the beach, their farewell had been filled with drunken shenanigans that usually ended in the sea. It seems they are both feeling nostalgic today, their childhood leaving a briny taste behind in their mouth.

The naive desire to spend time with your friend until the last possible moment has persisted on, finding them on a bench with chipped white paint by the sea once more. They’d call it tradition on the days they feel sentimental, or when they find themselves in need of an explanation on why their friends should leave now, albeit this has only happened once.

James marvels on the friendship she had built with the Marauders once again, the rhythmic sound of waves blurring the lines between his memory and dreams. Because he did dream about it; laughing with Lily Evans until the four o’clocks close, feeling her knee touch his thigh as they sit around in a crowded circle… The sweet smell of the flowers clings onto the day, he tries to use it to quell his melancholy and anchor to the moment.

James knows, and knows well, why he’s feeling down and glum, but he can’t for the life of him figure out what put Lily in such low spirits after everybody left. He remembers regretting, for a brief moment, that they are all mates with Lily now because he can’t get her to himself alone, he also remembers feeling relief after they disappeared. He even remembers Sirius’ suggestive wink after he said goodbye to Lily, a gesture, James hopes, only he saw.

He feels the need to speak before he starts panicking about whether Lily understood what that wink meant or not.

“I heard your folks yelling about selling the beach house.”

That’s certainly one way to delve straight into the root of the problem, he thinks. More like his problem actually, he still doesn’t know what Lily’s problem is.

He can see he startled her with this one. “It’s not my parents really,” she sighs after a beat, “Tuney is the one behind this bright idea.”

He doesn’t have to look to feel her displeased face as she adds, “Well, it’s probably one of Vernon’s economic advices. You know how she latches onto anything he says.”

The little information he has learned does nothing to dissuade his fears, except for giving him a peace of mind that at least it wasn’t Lily’s idea.

“And,” the impatience creeps in slowly, “what’s the verdict?”

“What? You’re telling me you haven’t eavesdropped until the end of the big spectacle?”, she teases in good humor.

“I had to leave my honored duty after Petunia’s voice reached a certain decibel, I’m afraid.”

She grins devilishly. “That means you haven’t heard my voice reach even higher levels.”

And just like it came, the smile leaves her face suddenly. “We won’t be selling the house Potter, don’t worry. They’re just gonna have to leave the swans out of the wedding plan.”

“Not the swans,” he gasps dramatically, desperate to bring the smile back to her face.

He can see her fighting a slight tilt in the corner of her lips, still salty, when she says, “Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

They are silent once again, with James much more relaxed this time. He can even feel himself starting to enjoy the new colors up above, heart filling with tangerines while he tries to figure out if “we” means he is invited to the wedding.

His peace is disturbed with Lily’s “And what about– “. She takes a deep breath before continuing. “And what about your plans for the next summer, hmm? A road trip? Can’t believe I first heard about it from Sirius and not you.”

Does he feel a sense of hurt in her voice? A lot of things start to make sense at once; her inexplicable withdrawal after the guys had left, her silence when they talked excitedly about their summer plans… He doesn’t want to let himself hope but it’s such a fickle feeling that it founds a place under the indigo sky anyway.

“It’s not a definite plan yet.” He hesitates before he rushes through, “I don’t even think we’ll be doing it to be honest, it’s not really our type of scene.”

She actually does look amused this time. “What? Three months spent all over Europe is not your idea of a fun summer?”

“Nah, Evans. You know I’ve been saving all my summers for you.”

He would blame his sleep deprived brain for this later on, saying it wasn’t his fault if being awake for 21 hours made him insane. (He’d also be thanking his lucky stars for it, building a shrine for that bag of sunflower seeds)

Then he sees her smile while looking at the sun and all the worries about blundering are erased, the warmth of her joy filling his insides more than the gold of the new day. After all the sun is rising, Lily Evans is returning next summer, and there is hope in the sky. They will be together once again on the 1st of June because the sunsets on the first day of summer are for remembering.

(He just needs to tell Sirius there is a slight change in the plans for their summer trip)

#summerofjily #jily #jily fic #james potter #lily evans #james x lily #jily fanfiction #senem writes #besties i have no idea why i chose sunrise #its been like three years since ive last seen it 💀

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mypoisonedvine · 4 years

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Ties That Bind, Debts That Burden | Curtis Everett x reader

for @stargazingfangirl18 and @navybrat817‘s august challenge! my prompt was the gif!

summary: you didn’t expect the man who bought you to be so kind. you didn’t expect to fall for him, either.

warnings: death of a parent character, kidnapping, implied noncon/mentions of noncon, sexism, sexual slavery (mentioned), dub con (but not in the way you’re expecting), implied age gap (everyone is over 18!! as always!!), semi-public sex, breeding kink, loss of virginity, pain kink (slightly)

word count: a bit over 4k (and I wrote it all in one day... hey that rhymes!)

[this is another one of those things where the fic itself is dark due to the subject matter, but the character in question is not ‘dark’ in the traditional sense. so, curtis is a good dude, it’s everyone else that sucks; this is a dark fic tonally, but not sexually per se]

Life in the tail section was ruthless. It was all about survival, and survival was about being stronger than others. You weren’t strong. What you did have was your father, and he had kept you safe all your life, even before the two of you had lived in this terrible place. He was a sort of leader; people looked up to him, and as a result, they obeyed his wishes to stay away from you. Even so, you could sense that a lot of the men in the train were just waiting for their chance to take you. Women who didn’t have significant skills to offer, women like you, were seen as a commodity with only one purpose. Less like wives and more like slaves, they were traded, sold, and bartered for like clothes or rations. It made you feel sick, but most of all it made you terrified for what would happen when your father couldn’t protect you anymore. He was strong, but old, and so tired. You hated to see how hard he had to work so late into his life, just so that you wouldn’t have to suffer.

When he died, it almost didn’t feel real. Even though it was sort of expected with the way his health had been declining for months, it was nothing you ever could’ve imagined. A world without your father meant a world you were truly alone in… and only now did you confront the real cruelty of life in the tail section.

You woke up to being dragged by your hair; you screamed and kicked, but there was little you could do as you were thrown down onto the floor. Your worthless fighting was muted as rags were used to bind your wrists and ankles, and a gag silenced you. You looked up to see you were surrounded by men, with one-- you were pretty sure his name was Jamie, you’d seen him around before-- standing up and hovering over you.

“Her father is finally dead!” he announced to the crowd with a dirty smile that was missing a few teeth. “I got my hands on her first, but I’m willing to sell her to any reasonable bidders.”

“Five rations,” one voice quickly jutted in.

“Five-- what the fuck are you talking about, man? Everyone’s been drooling over this little tart for years and you offer me five rations?! Get a grip,” Jamie spat.

“Twenty,” another called out.

“Getting warmer,” Jamie laughed. “Come on, boys, she’s never known a man before. This is truly a priceless opportunity.”

“Thirty!”

“Thirty-three!”

“Best I can do is thirty-five.”

“This is preposterous,” Jamie scoffed. “She’s a virgin, and look how cute she is when she cries! If nobody’s gonna make me a suitable offer,” he growled, suddenly grabbing you by your neck and putting his face right against yours, “maybe I’ll keep you for myself, hm?”

You sobbed and tried to squirm away but it was beyond useless, your bound limbs overpowered easily as he held you down and licked a stripe up the side of your face, just to hear you scream behind your gag.

“I’ll take her,” a deep voice boomed suddenly. “A hundred rations.”

“A-- what?” Jamie stammered.

You tried to look around at who it was but you couldn’t see very well in the dark.

“It’s more than enough,” the man continued. “Hand her over.”

“Curtis,” Jamie greeted awkwardly, and your eyes went wide with recognition, “I… didn’t take you for the bartering type.”

That was an understatement. You knew Curtis, like some of the more chivalrous men of the back car, was a long-standing boycotter of this sort of activity. He didn’t even seem interested in the women who wanted to sleep with him, let alone those who were being sold against their will. Seemed like his patience had worn out, and he was finally giving in to his biological needs, no matter who would suffer cruelty along the way. Just your luck that it would be you for sale when he gave up on his morals.

“I didn’t take you for the type to stall when he’s offered a great deal,” Curtis replied coldly. “Now give me the girl and take your payment.”

Something must have changed hands, but you were too busy staring at the corrugated steel floor and hoping it was all a dream that would end any moment.

You lurched back as Jamie picked you up again, tossing you to Curtis who caught you awkwardly.

“Have fun with her,” Jamie encouraged, “make sure it’s loud enough so we can all hear; a little consolation prize for the rest of us.”

Curtis said nothing as he turned and dragged you to his bunk, ignoring your muffled pleas. When he set you down, he kneeled beside you and put a hand on each shoulder to brace you.

“I’m going to take off this gag, and your ties,” he offered, “but you need to stop crying, okay? Everything will be alright. I won’t hurt you.”

You weren’t sure you believed that, but you tried to steady your breathing. Maybe if you did what he said, he would be gentle with you…

You nodded slowly, and he untied the gag. Your sore mouth appreciated the reprieve as you wiggled your mouth around to stretch your lips. You had sort of assumed that whoever bought you would leave the restraints on, so that you wouldn’t fight back. But Curtis was so strong and healthy, he didn’t even need to bind you: your body tensed up again at that realization.

“Shh, shh, calm down,” he requested as he worked on the knot around your feet, “you don’t need to be afraid of me.”

Finally your limbs were freed, though that freedom was wasted on exhaustedly falling to the cold steel floor.

“Use this rag to clean off a little,” he instructed, handing you a cloth that had been soaked in water, “and go back to sleep for the night.”

“You… you’re not going to…?” you murmured, confused.

“I don’t believe in enslavement,” he shook his head. “Your father was a good man; he did a lot for me, even when I had nothing to offer him in return. He told me to pay him back by keeping you safe after he was gone.”

You hadn’t realized your father knew Curtis so well. You’d seen him around, sure, but he was more a stranger than anything.

“Thank you…” you whispered, your voice hoarse and ragged.

“You need to rest,” he whispered back. “You can sleep in my bed-- someone’s already claimed yours, I’m sure. I’ll be on the floor beside you if you need me.”

Your cheeks burned with guilt. “Curtis, don’t do that. You spent so much on me... I don’t want to be any more of a burden.”

“Don’t worry about that now,” he soothed, “we can talk in the morning. Get your sleep.”

After washing yourself hastily with the rag (focusing most on wherever Jamie had touched you), you slipped into the sheets on his mattress, finding him different from the ones you were used to, but comfortable in spite of the unfamiliarity.

Curtis settled in on the floor, and in the near-darkness you could just make out the silhouette of his face as he closed his eyes and relaxed against a roll of tattered clothes as an improvised pillow. You’d always thought he was handsome, and the impression you’d gotten was that he was patient, and honorable, but kept to himself. You could remember just a few nights ago when you never could’ve imagined this being your new life. Although you did wonder if Curtis was simply waiting for the morning to claim you, in the meantime you decided to take him at his word and just be thankful that someone seemingly kind had bought you instead of Jamie or his fellow bidders.

Two weeks later...

If anything, it was odd how little Curtis had asked of you. He didn’t even really talk to you. Even your father expected you to help him with anything you could; sometimes it was just keeping him company, listening to him. But Curtis all but avoided you. All that said, his presence was rarely needed to keep you safe. People respected your father, but they feared Curtis. He wasn’t violent-- well, he wasn’t violent typically. Nearly a week ago he had gone to fisticuffs for you after a man had tried to grope you. The weird thing was that you hadn’t even realized Curtis was nearby: one moment you were alone and being pulled into a stranger’s oppressive form as he purred in your ear, the next Curtis had appeared and shoved him off of you. That seemed to get the point across that Curtis’ things were not to be touched.

Feeling guilty, you decided to do whatever chores you could think of while he was away from his ‘room’ (which was, of course, not a room at all but a bed draped with a canopy of tattered fabric in order to create some privacy). You waited for his return with a little smile on your face, sure he would be grateful for your service and maybe would start to warm up to you more.

“Hi, Curtis,” you greeted with a peppy grin when you saw him approaching, jumping up from where you had been sitting.

“You washed my clothes,” he noticed instantly.

Your smile fell when you realized that he wasn’t happy. “Did I do something wrong?” you asked sheepishly.

“You are not my slave; I cannot make that more clear,” he frowned. “Never do a chore on my behalf again.”

“Please, Curtis. You’ve done so much for me, just let me prove my usefulness.”

“You want to be useful? Stay out of harm’s way.”

“Oh, I see,” you sneered, “you don’t want me to do your chores because I am your chore. Is that all you see me as? A debt you are repaying to my father?”

He seemed confused by that question. “What else could I see you as?”

“A partner!” you protested. “A woman!”

He grabbed you suddenly, pulling you into him by your wrists. “Stop talking like that. I won’t hear any more of it. Just stay quiet and take care of yourself.”

He dropped you as you began to cry, crumpling into a ball on the floor.

“Don’t cry,” he frowned. “Why could you be crying, when all I told you was that you don’t have to do anything?”

“I suppose I should be thankful that you’re not sadistic,” you explained with a shaky, weak voice, “but you’re still plenty cruel to me, I hope you know that. You ignore me completely-- and no one else will talk to me, because they’re afraid to upset you. I’ve never been so alone.”

He sighed and sat down beside you on the floor. “I never meant to…” he trailed off. “I bought you to save you from them. Not because I had any purpose for you.”

“I have no purpose,” you stated plainly, moving from sad to stoic. “Don’t you hear how sad that sounds? Can you blame me for being upset when you’re telling me straight to my face that I’m useless?”

He seemed to at least see where you were coming from with that, looking to the side with an oddly guilty look in his eyes.

Suddenly, he reached to pull up his shirt and you gasped when you saw a cut along his side.

“I fell,” he explained, “and scraped against something.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” you comforted to the best of your ability, “I hope it’s not giving you too much trouble.”

“It’s not, but I’m worried it’ll get infected.”

You thought for a moment. “I could… help you clean it?”

“Sure,” he nodded, “that would be nice. Thank you.”

“It’s nothing,” you shrugged as you grabbed a rag to dampen. “I’ll be right back.”

You cleaned his wound in silence, carefully washing away the dried blood, even when he sucked in breaths through his teeth as you touched the sensitive places. The task at hand distracted you from your previous outburst; this was exactly proof of why you needed things to do, you’d go crazy otherwise.

“I don’t think it’ll need stitches,” you informed him as you put the rag away and rolled his shirt back down. “We’ll just clean it again tomorrow and I bet that’ll be enough.”

“Good,” he nodded.

The day was winding down to a close already, and you looked around to see a lot of the people nearby starting to prepare for bed, if they weren’t already on their mattresses with their eyes and ears covered to block out the distractions of those still awake.

“I think you should take the bed tonight, since you’re injured,” you offered. Up until now, you’d been alternating nights on the floor; it was the only compromise you two could come to.

“I couldn’t ask you to sleep on the ground two nights in a row,” he shook his head.

“You’re not asking me to. I’m telling you that I will.”

“I won’t take the bed.”

You crossed your arms and grinned stubbornly. “Then we’ll both be on the floor.”

“Fine,” he sighed with defeat, “I’ll take the bed, but only if you share it with me. I can never sleep well when all I can think about is how cold and uncomfortable you must be.”

You were surprised to hear that, because you had always felt the same way on the nights you were in the bed. Seemed both of you were getting worse sleep than you let on.

“F-fine,” you stammered, realizing how little space the two of you would have to work with on the mattress, “we’ll share it then.”

“Might help with the cold anyway,” he shrugged as he stood up, removing his outermost layer of clothes before slipping behind the curtain that surrounded the bed. You swallowed, as if you hadn’t realized until now that you were going to be in bed with him so soon.

You removed your jacket as well; even though you normally liked to sleep in something less bulky than the dress you were wearing now, you figured he would protest if you were in any state of undress while sharing a bed with him.

As you pulled the curtain aside, you found him already on the farther side of the bed, facing away from you. He was so far off the edge that he surely would’ve fallen if there wasn’t a wall on the other side.

“Curtis, you’re twice my size and you’ve left nearly two-thirds of the bed for me,” you chuckled, slipping into the covers with him and noticing how much space was still left between you. “Relax, won’t you?”

“Alright,” he relented, laying back a little as his shoulder brushed against yours.

“Goodnight, Curtis,” you mumbled as you settled in and got as comfortable as could be reasonably expected, letting your eyes fall shut. Sure, it took awhile, but with a forced relaxation you were able to drift to sleep and stay that way for quite some time.

At some point, you awoke to the softest noise beside you. At first you thought it was just your dream, but then you heard it again-- Curtis was breathing strangely, and you jumped up when you heard a strained noise of pain.

“Curtis!” you hissed into the dark. “Are you hurt? Is everything alright?”

“What?” he stammered, jolting away from you.

“You were--” you started to explain, but then you realized he was palming at his trousers; specifically, he was stuffing his cock back into them. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, “I didn’t-- sometimes you just-- I never meant to--”

“Are you feeling… frustrated?” you asked him softly, moving a little closer to where he was pressing himself back against the wall.

“It’s fine,” he assured you, “I’m fine.”

“Let me help you,” you pleaded. “I wanted to help you so much, but there was nothing I could do. Let me do this, please. I want you to feel good…”

“Your father, I promised him--” he began, but you interrupted.

“Don’t talk about my father,” you requested. “You kept your promise. I’m safe. Let me thank you for all you’ve done.”

Your hand reached out and made contact with his heaving chest through the thin layer of his shirt, beginning to trail down over his stomach and finally to the hard outline inside his trousers.

“W-wait,” he stuttered quietly, even though you felt him quietly sigh with relief as you palmed at his erection.

“I don’t want to wait anymore,” you whispered-- so quiet even you could barely hear it-- as you leaned in and your nose brushed against his cheek. “I wanted you for so long, Curtis, did you not know? Wanted to touch you… wanted to make love with you…”

He let out a long-held breath as you reached into his trousers and wrapped your arm around his length. It was so hot in your palm; it warmed you in the most intoxicating way.

“R-really?” he murmured.

“Of course I did,” you answered, moving your hand and slowly stroking him. God, the poor man must’ve been so pent-up: he was bucking into your touch already, his cock so hard that you wondered if it was hurting him. “Every woman on the train lusts for you. To have you so close and not be able to do anything about it, it was torture.”

“Nothing compared to what it was like,” he groaned softly, “to want to have you for so long and feel horrible for it.”

You began to pump his cock faster, seeking more of those beautiful noises he was making. The way his length flexed against your palm made arousal tingle all throughout your body.

His hand slipped to the back of your neck, his fingertips brushing up against your hairline and making you shiver. He whispered your name and you felt like putty in his hands, so distracted by your own need that the pace of your strokes faltered briefly.

The two of you stayed like that for a few moments longer-- foreheads pressed together, shivering and shaking and panting in each other’s arms-- before a rush of adrenaline gave you the confidence to speak.

“I want it inside me,” you whispered against his ear. “Please, Curtis, I want you inside me.”

You swung your leg over to straddle him, pushing yourself up off of his chest. He whispered your name with shock as you lifted your tattered dress and pulled it over your shoulders.

“Touch me,” you begged. “Didn’t you want to? I wondered if you did. I wondered how your hands would feel…” you trailed off as you grabbed his wrists and guided his hands to your waist. They were strong and rough, and so hot against your skin that you thought you might just burn up right there. He moved them on his own then, sliding them up to your breasts which he gently grasped. You sighed a little and melted into his touch.

His thumbs teased your nipples, which were already hard and alert. You tried your best to suppress your moans, aware that many other passengers were sleeping nearby. Secretly, the idea that they would hear Curtis pleasuring you was almost titillating. You hoped it would make them all jealous.

“You’re so soft,” he whispered, “and… smooth…”

“Did you long for me?” you asked, your curiosity getting the better of you.

“Yes,” he finally admitted, “yes, I wanted you. I want you now.”

You reached down and grasped his cock again, guiding it to your wet, swollen opening. He made a noise that sounded something like a whimper and a groan as the head of his cock moved through your folds.

As you sunk down, you tried to ignore the burn of his cock stretching you open, though a pained whimper escaped your lips.

Curtis’ hands gripped your hips tight enough to bruise as you slowly took more and more of him into you. His head fell back with a groan, lost in the way your walls gripped him tighter than he thought possible. In that moment, he wanted more than anything to hold you close and never let go.

You shivered as your hips met his, feeling full in a way you could’ve never imagined. It still stung as he forged a new path inside you, moulded you to his shape, but you didn’t mind because it was him.

You were so weak that you struggled to lift yourself on top of him, but he gently guided you to lessen your load. Your body adjusted to him rather slowly, and every time you rocked your hips made you hiss with discomfort along with the sparks of pleasure burning through your gut. Even when it hurt, you wanted more; if nothing else, the noises of his restrained ecstasy spurred you on.

Leaning down, you laid yourself on his chest so that you could hear him better, and him you. His arms wrapped around you and you felt small; normally, feeling small meant feeling weak, vulnerable, scared… but in his arms, it was wonderful. You felt vulnerable, yes, but protected.

Your name tumbled from his lips like a whispered chant as you moved on top of him, and you whispered his name back. The way his cock rubbed against your insides felt so good that you couldn’t even remember that it hurt before, but then again, you couldn’t remember anything from before right now and you didn’t want to.

Your moans got louder and louder, though they were still relatively quiet, but either way they were like music to his ears, sweet and soft and all for him-- just like you.

“S-stop,” he groaned, “you have to stop.”

“Why?” you gasped, feeling a little guilty for not instantly obeying, and yet too lost in pleasure to stop moving your hips.

“If you don’t stop, I’ll come,” he explained breathlessly, “and you could get pregnant.”

You bit your lip, feeling your face warm with an emotion you were sure you hadn’t experienced before. “What if that’s what I want?”

“Fuck,” he sighed.

“What if I want you to come inside me? What if I want to have your baby?” you continued.

You managed to suppress your yelp as he grabbed you and flipped you both over until you were on your back and he was hovering over you.

“Is that what you want?” he asked with a low growl.

“Yes,” you gasped, “Curtis, it’s all I ever wanted.”

“Fuck,” he moaned, pulling back and thrusting into you again. He lifted your legs to rest on his shoulders, nearly folding you in half as he fucked into you so deep that you could scream. You didn’t, but you wanted to. “Gonna fill you up so good… you’re gonna be so full,” he promised, “you’re gonna be mine.”

“I already am,” you promised, “I always was.”

He leaned down to dominate your lips with a searing kiss, fucking you deep and slow but with an increasing ferocity. Each thrust was harder than the last until the most prominent sound was the slapping of skin, your arousal so prominent that it was beginning to leak and drip down your thighs and ass.

“Tell me who you belong to,” he growled, right against your ear.

“You,” you moaned, “I belong to you, Curtis.”

“Fuck yeah you do.”

You gripped his arms tight as you felt your walls spasming with your orgasm-- it was unlike anything you’d felt before, even though you’d touched yourself plenty of times up until now. Already you knew you were going to be addicted to this feeling. Poor Curtis; you were going to be begging him to fuck you day and night if this was how good it felt.

The tightening of your body around him, and the way you bit down on your lip to keep from screaming with pleasure… it was all too much for him to hold back any more, and with a stuttered groan he spilled himself into you.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him into another kiss. He relaxed on top of you as he reciprocated, both of you basking in the glow of the moment.

“Don’t pull out yet,” you pleaded as the kiss ended, “just hold me a little longer, won’t you?”

“Of course,” he smiled softly, placing one small, delicate kiss to the tip of your nose.

“Did you really want me for so long, like you said?” you pressed, remembering what he’d said and fearing it was just a sweet nothing in the heat of the moment.

“You have no idea how long,” he sighed. “I dreamed of this; of you being mine.”

“Was it everything you imagined?”

“And more,” he assured with a soft laugh. “Best hundred rations I ever spent.”

#how did this turn out so fluffy??? lmao #curtis everett x reader #curtis everett smut #chris evans x reader #chris evans smut #ehhh that's enough tags right?#shamelesshoesforchris

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thebvbbletea · 5 months

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Look, I'm so in love with Mhok this episode. This episode make us realize how important Day is for Mhok. He's taking care of Day not only because he is his caretaker, and not only because he start to like him. But because he's genuinely care about Day.

When Day confessed to Mhok at the bar that he like August, we can clearly see that he look disappointed. He is disappointed, but Day's happiness is his top priority. That's why he still try to cheer him up with that sunflower that he secretly bought.

And then August come. We seen that terrified look on Mhok's eyes. He's not terrified because he's jealous or afraid that August gonna take Day away from him. No. He's terrified that August will overheard their conversation and he will do or say something that will hurt Day furthermore.

Mhok also immediately try to hide that sunflower. Knowing so well that Day can't see the sunflower, it means he try to hide that sunflower from August. He didn't want August to have false perception about him and Day. And once again, it's because his top priority is Day's feeling and happiness. And not his.

I usually think Sea's acting is better than Jimmy. But this episode prove that I was wrong this whole time. The amount of emotional change in Jimmy's eyes from this episode part. 4 16:08 - 18:18 is crazy. And it's really hard to act only from the eyes without the body gesture and face expression. Both of them is a great actor and I love how they could potray Mhok and Day's dynamic so perfectly.

#jimmysea #jimmy jitaraphol #sea tawinan #mhok #day #mhokday #last twilight #DOC JIMMY. I OWE YOU A BIG APOLOGIZE

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whumpingcrow · 3 years

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Pt.21 "The 'Welcome Home' Committee"

CW: nightmares/PTSD/flashbacks, dehumanizing language/themes, collar mention, aftermath of emotional abuse/gaslighting, tourettes/ticcing, self deprecating whumpee, drugs/alcohol (explicit), discussion of past noncon/dubcon, whumpee expecting noncon/dubcon, injury/blood mention, brief sensory deprivation mention, food mention (let me know if I missed anything!)

Tyson was holding Elias close against him in their shared bed, mind almost entirely occupied with the thought of how happy he was that Elias was home safe. He couldn't be sure, but it looked like he was enjoying the way Tyson was stroking down his back gently, his body arching into the touch. Tyson watched with interest, trying to tell if he was aware of his reaction, if he was asleep. It didn't matter, he decided, he had his Elias in his arms, twitching and stirring and alive, so it didn't matter if he was awake and aware or not. Tyson was observing him closely for any signs of a nightmare just in case he was asleep, but the last time he saw him have one it wasn't evident until he woke up, gasping and searching the dark for a threat, so he was sure he wouldn't be able to tell until it was too late. When he wasn't keeping a watchful eye on Elias, he shifted his focus between the bedroom door and the window, paying extra close attention to any car or person that passed by.

Tyson was ready this time, the doors were locked and the hall light was on, he had a baseball bat hung up on the door. Elias had to feel safe, he would show him that it was ok to be home, that Tyson really wasn't going to let anything bad happen to him, not again.

Still, even with all of the new safety precautions, it wasn't too long after the sun started to rise that Elias bolted out of Tyson's arms and out of bed, his shoulders hitting the wall hard as he stumbled into the corner.

"No! No, no, no! Please God, please!" He cried, arms wrapped around his shaking body as he slowly slid down to the floor, anguished sobs retching him forward. "I'll be g-good! I'll be good!"

"Elias!" Tyson rushed, hopping out of bed and approaching him carefully. "It's ok, you're ok!"

"I told them no! P-please, don't h-hurt me please!!" He had his eyes squeezed shut, arms pulling his legs to his chest to protect his body. Tyson watched him flinch away from injuring hands that were only there in his imagination. Tyson hadn't even tried to touch him yet. "I swear I'll be better!"

"Baby, listen to me," he tried, dropping his voice low to try and counteract Elias's hysteria, "it's me, it's Tyson. No one's gonna hurt you."

Elias shook his head furiously, ducking away further into the corner. He was sobbing and begging incoherently now, his panic manifesting into cries of "please, please d-dont, I'm so sorry, please!" and the like.

Tyson had an idea of what to say to try and calm Elias, but even thinking the words made him bitter. When Allen had first gotten back from August, Tyson and Leo had to adopt some of his heinous language in order to keep Allen calm. Tyson remembered how quickly it worked, how it could make Allen drop his hysteria in only moments. They used it only when they had exhausted all other options, because both Leo and Tyson were upset at how much it felt like speaking to a dog. But it was different with Elias, Tyson couldn't encourage him to stay in the same mindset he'd been forced into, so he wouldn't use the same language August used, he refused to. He tried again, in his own way. "Eli, everything's ok. Look at me, please."

"I c-c-cant!" He sobbed again, thrown back into hysterics. "I won't, August! I'll be good!"

Tyson wanted to put a hole through the wall. Fucking August. He broke Elias, he made him unable to sleep through the night, made him too scared to remember Tyson. It was repulsive, to see the aftermath of such a monster on the person he loved. He thought back to Allen, how fast he was able to calm down at those two, dangerously sweet words. But would Elias even react the same? What if it just made it worse? All of those fears and more ran rampant through his head, but he was running out of options, and Elias wasn't calming down, so he really didn't have another choice.

"Angel," he murmured, extending his hand slowly, trying to coax him to open up a bit, "you're alright. You're...you're a good boy, Eli."

It worked like a charm, and Tyson cringed at the effectiveness. Elias relaxed, uncrossing his arms and leaning forward. He looked so scared still, head turned to the side so he wasn't looking at Tyson, inching out of the corner slowly. His ragged breathing was evening out a little at a time. "I...I...?"

"Yeah, there you go. Good." He smiled softly at Elias in the pale blue morning sun, moving to lean against the wall with him. He was relieved when Elias rested his head against his shoulder, sighing deeply as he did. Tyson looped his fingers around his thigh, squeezing gently. "I've got you, darling."

Elias whimpered, ticcing in small twitches against Tyson. "I'm s-sorry." He breathed, muted by his guilt, barely audible.

"No, don't be, Elias. Are you ok now? Are you back with me?"

"I think so." As he spoke, he turned to look up at Tyson, blinking hard to clear the tears from his eyes. "Hm...Ty." He breathed. "My Tyson."

"Yeah. Yeah, love, that's right." He searched Elias's face for a moment, taking in the remnants of fear leftover from his nightmare. "Do you...you wanna talk about it?"

Elias didn't say anything for a long time, looking away from Tyson and instead out the window as he pondered the question. It was windy, the palm trees just outside were swaying against the breeze. He realized that it must've been early morning, and a twinge of guilt for waking Tyson up like that hit him. He didn't know if he wanted to talk about it, about August or the strangers or the pain. But Tyson deserved to know, and he was asking like maybe he wanted to hear what happened. So Elias turned his attention back to Tyson and started talking.

"I don't understand what I did wrong. I don't know why he stopped… pretending to care about me." The weight of the sentence made him feel tired all over again, and he was frightened to be admitting to his confusion. He was an idiot, to not even know what he did to be punished. He knew that it was well deserved, but that's about where the understanding stopped. "I mean...I know I messed up somehow, but I can't remember what I did. He just stopped c-caring."

"You didn't do anything, Eli. It was all him."

"No...Ty, he cared about me, at least a little. He went through all that trouble to...how could I not be good enough for him? What does that say about me?"

"It says that you're too good for a scumbag like that. Maybe he just finally realized that."

Elias froze. He didn't believe it, of course, but the words made something glimmer behind his tears. "Too...too good?"

"Yes, love," Tyson cooed softly, taking his hand, "he knew that people like him don't deserve good people like you. He must've just dropped the facade."

"So who am I...Am I good enough for you? Not too good?" His voice was desperate, borderline hopeful, if Tyson dared to believe that.

"Mhm. You're perfect." He chuckled softly, squeezing his hand ever so gently. "And I want you so badly. Good or not."

Elias finally broke a smile, a genuine, almost carefree, grin as he looked up at Tyson in adoration. He was still shaking, but his breathing was back to normal and he felt more grounded. Usually August would force him to ride out the fear from the nightmares on his own, then punish him later for keeping him awake with his whimpering. "Sorry I woke you up like that." He added it, just for good measure, because Tyson didn't hurt him, he wouldn't, but he was still nervous. He wondered when that would stop.

"You didn't, baby. Besides, it's morning anyway." He stood up, pulling Elias up with him. "Also uh...Allen's been asking about you. If you're ok with it he wanted to come check on you later."

"T...today?" He mumbled, sinking back onto the mattress and watching Tyson pick a shirt out from the closet.

"You can get settled in first, I don't want to overwhelm you-"

Elias could laugh. Settle in, what a joke. Ten months in France made this place he used to call home feel distant and strange, how could he possibly settle in? "Today's fine. I just wanna...wanna wake up and stuff first."

"You sure? You've only been home a day."

"I'm sure," he smiled at him to really sell it, and Tyson nodded approvingly.

Elias washed the dishes as they waited for Allen to show up, Tyson was tidying up in the other room. Supposedly Leo was coming too, and Elias was heavy with fear. He'd be sent away before they got there, surely, given substances to shut him up. Or maybe Tyson would allow Elias to be used, maybe he'd watch.

Elias was afraid at the dreadful excitement he felt at the idea. He was sick to his stomach with anxiety at the possibility of something like that happening, but he couldn't see past the obsessive need to be touched, to be used. He finished the dishes, ducking off to the bathroom to make sure he looked ok. His pale hair curled into small waves in front of his face, it felt unnatural to not find any dried blood in it. His wide eyes and flushed face were still tainted with injuries, but there was nothing he could do about it besides wait for them to heal. Besides, the people who used him usually liked him bruised up anyways, they usually kissed his injuries with patronizing softness or pressed on his bruises to watch him squirm. He fixed his shirt, then realized all at once that he was too sober for this, that he couldn't be used this aware. Couldn't be good. He began to frantically search through the cabinets for anything that might make him feel better, pills or even mouthwash. His eyes fell onto a pill bottle on the top shelf of the mirror, his hands fumbled over it quickly. Tiny, colorful pills spilled into his hands, it was recognizably molly. He didn't know why Tyson had it, but it was August's favorite to give Elias, and so he knew it well. He threw two pills back, chasing them with water from the sink, and then returned the bottle back to its spot. After he started to feel it just a little, he looked back into the mirror and fixed himself up a little more, forcing a smile at his reflection, just to see how it looked. Something was off, he didn't look right, he was worried that if he looked anything less than what he was used to, he would fall apart. The ground dropped from under him just a little when he realized what it was: his bare neck. He needed his collar, people were coming, he had to have it. Fucking stupid, he thought, spent months wishing you could take that thing off and now you suddenly want it again? Stupid fucking idiot.

In one of the drawers he found a silver chain, he inspected the little pendant dangling on the end, at the way the blue jewel in the middle caught the light when he turned it. He almost wanted to put it back, it was too nice for him, but he decided that it was better than nothing. He slipped it over his head, it was loose, but it would work fine. He looked so much better already.

"Elias, you ok in there?" Tyson was asking from the hallway. His voice was tight with anxiety and Elias instantly reached for the door handle and stepped out.

"I'm ok," he smiled at him, his grin lopsided so that his chipped tooth was showing just a little. "I was just getting ready."

Tyson tilted his head at him, smiling softly. "You look nice. How do you feel?"

Elias offered a lighthearted shrug, shuffling forward and standing up on his toes to kiss Tyson's nose softly. "M'ok. I cleaned the kitchen."

"I saw!" He took Elias's hand in his own and pulled him closer. "Thank you, for that. Very helpful."

Elias beamed at the praise, and Tyson was reminded again of Allen, how he lit up like a damn Christmas tree when someone said anything close to a compliment or approval, and it was quickly becoming evident that Elias was going to be the same. It was disgustingly cute how reactive they both were, how their lips twitched into a sick smile, their eyes fluttered helplessly. So beautiful, so tragic. He got this way through horrible mistreatment and brainwashing violence, but he looked so genuinely ecstatic that Tyson wasn't sure if he ever wanted to stop.

"Uh...they're waiting outside. We can let them in when you feel ready."

Elias took a breath, forcing himself to nod. He reminded himself to keep his composure, allow himself to be movable and soft and pretty. He was trembling all over, in excitement or fear he wasn't sure. Tyson rubbed his shoulder gently, still giving him a moment. When Elias finally seemed to come to terms with being around other people, he looked nervous all over again, but this time with a hint of eagerness behind his eyes. Tyson wondered how often he was allowed to see other people when he was with August. He said that August had kept him hidden away, but what exactly did that entail? When Allen was with him, he came back not used to light or sound because August had been keeping him depraved of those luxuries. Elias didn't seem like that though, he just seemed...skittish, too vigilant and too self hating to be around others. He spoke and carried himself like he knew he was less than them, and it bothered him just to be near them. And yet, at the same time, he looked exhilarated at the idea of putting himself into that position at any second. Finally, he looked up at Tyson with a wavering smile and nodded at him to tell him he was ready.

Allen looked way too good, Elias was completely baffled at how healed he seemed, like nothing had ever been wrong with him. How had he been with August and healed, how was he not broken forever? Elias didn't think he would ever be able to get there himself, all of this damage was irreversible, he couldn't imagine himself with a flushed, healthy face and a carefree grin. Or an ability to walk into a room with seemingly no issues or qualms, just existing. How could he do that?

He was also the first person to talk to Elias, which made him a little breathless at how unexpected it was. He stayed far enough away when he waved at him, politely saying "hey, Elias, how are you doing?"

Elias flinched, looking to Tyson for permission to speak, but he was given only a glance, and he was left confused and too scared to answer. Instead he just nodded his head once as a response. He looked down to see his knees were visibly wobbling, he didn't realize he was also squeezing his hands into tight fists at his sides. He couldn't force himself to relax, even though he wanted to, the molly in his system felt like metal in his veins, forcing him rigid and stiff.

Tyson quickly realized that Elias was more overwhelmed than he had hoped for, that all of his promises that he would be ok and he was sure they could come were quickly falling apart. He was standing so straight, like he'd collapse in on himself if he let his muscles relax at all. His legs were shaking with the effort of standing, Tyson wanted to scoop him up and hold him close to his chest, take away the strain of being upright, relieve him in any way he could.

"How are you settling in, pal?" Leo asked him, watching his head drop down instantly as he was addressed. He inched toward Tyson just a little, glancing up at him yet again. This time, Tyson caught his eye and realized what the look was about.

"It's ok," he whispered, rubbing his shoulder gently to reassure him, "it's alright, Eli, you can talk to them."

Elias was thankful for the permission to speak, he wanted to interact with them so bad he was buzzing, he wanted to speak to them and be heard and acknowledged. It had been so long since he'd been around people who understood him, who he could have conversation with. He worried for a split second that he might've forgotten how. "It's different. France is very different."

Leo chuckled at that, nodding his head. "Yeah, I would imagine. It's beautiful though, I hear."

Elias nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, the beach is my favorite."

Tyson was smiling at him, at how eager he was to speak, how even though he had been through hell there, he still found something beautiful in it. Elias had been trapped with August and made to do awful things that Tyson wasn't even sure the extent of yet, and still he had picked out a favorite place.

"Well I hope you didn't get too used to the food there, cause you'll have to deal with my cooking tonight." He smiled teasingly, and once Elias heard Tyson laughing, he realized it was a joke. Someone was joking with him, like an actual person. He smiled brightly at him, shaking his head.

He didn't have a response though, smiling at him seemed to be enough. Leo followed Tyson into the kitchen, leaving Allen and Elias to be alone in the living room. Allen had sat down on the couch, and Elias occasionally looked up from his spot in the center of the room, wondering if he was supposed to follow Ty. It seemed too late now, and besides, he knew in the back of his mind that he belonged here, to be observed as a centerpiece, touched if anyone felt the need for it. He wondered if, he hoped that, Allen felt the need for it. Or anyone at all, really.

"Wanna come sit with me, Elias?" Allen checked suddenly, watching as Elias straightened up to look at him, eyes wide. He quickly nodded before stumbling over to the couch, hesitating a moment before sinking down to the floor on his knees. Allen looked rather bewildered at the motion, his face flushed and mouth parted in surprise. The movement was familiar to Allen (August was consistent, he'd give him that), but it was shocking to see it from this perspective, made him want to push Elias out of the way and take his place. It took him a good thirty seconds to gather his thoughts, and when he did he felt sick to his stomach as he looked into Elias's fearful puppy dog eyes. "Oh...you don't have to..." He started to choke out.

Tyson froze when he came into the living room to see Elias like that, down on his knees with his head bowed pathetically, right in front of a flustered, uneasy looking Allen. They'd only been gone for five minutes, what had caused this? He may have grabbed Elias's shoulders a little too hard when he hoisted him back upright, causing a confused mewl to escape his throat.

"Don't sit down there like that, Eli," he scolded, "you sit on the couch, like everyone else."

"B...but I..." Elias shook his head in weak protest before shutting himself up, cringing at the stern look on Tyson's face. He was frustrated, if they wanted him on the couch why didn't they say so? Why did they want to confuse him so much? Was it to make him fail, make him easier to punish?

Tyson nodded at him once, turning and making his way reluctantly back to the kitchen. Elias huffed to himself, his shoulders drooping sadly.

"Hey," Allen said softly, grabbing his thigh gently, "it's ok. I remember when I got back I didn't use furniture for weeks. Tyson knows better now, he won't let you do that."

Elias looked at the hand on his leg. Thank God, he thought. He smiled softly at Allen, nodding along to his voice. So that was it, then, Tyson wanted him on the couch. He could look pretty on the couch, August sometimes enjoyed that.

"I know Tyson can get a little...upset, sometimes, but he means well. He just gets discouraged when he can't help."

Elias nodded eagerly again, eyes still on Allen's hand on him. Was his hand tight, or was he just imagining it? It was warm, it fit comfortably around him, and Elias found himself leaning against his arm in response to it. "Thank you," he whispered, "you've always been so kind to me."

"Well of course. What you're going through it's...well, kindness is definitely something you could use right now." Allen was smiling at him, in a way that no one had smiled at him in a long time. It was pure and friendly, not malicious or dangerous or full of lust. It was foreign, it made his chest feel hollow and sad. He didn't deserve to be looked at with such fondness. He would have ran and hid, if the smile didn't also make him feel so nice and warm all over. That made him even more upset, he didn't want to like it, not when he wasn't supposed to be receiving it in the first place. That was like enjoying a gift that had someone else's name on it, and he felt guilty for it.

Allen must've noticed his anxiety, and he pulled his hand away slowly, fingers slipping off his leg one at a time. Elias looked away from him entirely. He wanted to be back on the floor, he wanted his collar, he wanted to be hurt or touched, he wanted to be higher than he was. Most of all, he wanted to know what the hell everyone around here was expecting of him. August had rules, and even outside of those rules, Elias had gotten pretty good at reading his body language so he could guess what August wanted from him. Here was so different, he didn't know what was and wasn't allowed, he didn't know what Allen wanted from him when he grabbed his leg, or what Tyson wanted when he randomly left the room without a word to him. It was all so jumbled, made Elias feel so lost. The molly made it easier for Elias to speak, to listen, but he was still miserable and confused.

"What's wrong, Elias?" Allen asked in a hushed voice, like their conversation was ultra secret, like Leo and Tyson weren't allowed to know that it was taking place.

"It's just hard." He whispered back, folding his hands neatly in his lap. "I don't know what anyone wants anymore. When I try to guess I just look fu-fucking stupid. It's confusing."

"Have you tried asking?"

Elias gawked up at him, like the idea was bizarre. "Asking...?"

"Yeah. If you're not sure, just ask." He said this like it was simple, it couldn't go wrong. "Try it, ask me what I want."

Elias blinked at him, clearly bewildered. "Uh...wh-what do you...want?"

Allen smiled at him, nodding approvingly. "Right now, I want to sit on the couch and talk to you, and I also want dinner, but I'm waiting for it to be finished."

"O...oh." Elias breathed, looking back down at his hands. He guessed that was easy enough, the world didn't crumble around him. He couldn't hide his amazement, he couldn't believe Allen could easily say he wanted things, he must've not been taught that it was against the rules. Or maybe it was just something he outgrew, once he was away from August. Elias didn't think he'd ever outgrow it.

"What about you? What do you want?"

The confused, almost mangled, whimper Elias let out was telling enough, Allen wasn't supposed to ask him that. He was only just now realizing that it was ok to ask others that question, he obviously wasn't ready to answer it.

"Oh I don't... I c-cant..." He stammered, shaking his head vigorously. This was a test, one he could pass. He knew better than to say he wanted anything, he'd been proving that since he came back. He remembered when he accidentally begged Tyson to touch him, using the word 'need'. He must've told Allen, and now Allen was trying to get him to slip up again. He wouldn't, he would be good. He could be a mindless pet with no wants or needs.

"It's ok," Allen reassured him, his hand was on his thigh again, this time a little higher, "you don't have to answer. I get it."

Elias was breathless, he couldn't tell if it was from the question or Allen touching him, but he couldn't seem to breathe deep enough. He couldn't have wants, but still, the warm palm on his leg was enough to make him tremble. If he were allowed to want, he would want someone to lay him down and touch him everywhere, make him feel good because he hadn't felt good in so long, stroke his hair, call him 'good pet', call him 'bunny', tell him he was beautiful and perfect. If he were allowed to want, he would want that so bad it would make him cry.

"Shit, Elias, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to upset you," Allen was rushing. Elias's cheeks were wet with his tears, his face was blank and sheet white. Tyson must've heard the commotion, and it wasn't long before he was in front of him, kneeling down to be at his level.

"Hey, Eli, what's going on, love?" He asked him gently, his hands on his shoulders. They weren't grabbing him as tightly now as when he put him on the couch. "Why are you crying?"

Elias wiped his face, shaking his head quickly. "I'm s-sorry!" He whined. "I don't know I j...just..."

Tyson shook his head dismissively, pulling Elias against his chest and rubbing his back. "It's ok. Everything's ok." Tyson held him close as his shoulders shook, allowing him to tire himself out a little. Once he seemed calm, Tyson pulled away from him, stroking his cheek gently as he did. At some point Allen had gotten up and left them alone in the room together, and Elias couldn't help but feel a little relaxed that he wasn't around to watch him fuck up any more. "You alright?"

Elias nodded, sniffling miserably. "I'm sorry."

"No worries, love. Go ahead and get cleaned up, dinner's done."

Elias obeyed instantly, standing up and heading to the bathroom wordlessly. He looked so rough around the edges, washed out from crying and in desperate need of an actual good nights sleep. He debated skipping dinner and going to lie down instead, but then he remembered how much he ached to talk to everyone, be around them, so he changed his mind. He never again wanted to be alone in a separate room when there were people around, it wasn't ever an enjoyable experience. Once he was decidedly more put together, he joined everyone back in the kitchen, setting himself in a chair between Tyson and Leo, mouth glued shut and eyes focused on the plate of food in front of him.

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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Note

For the meet ugly prompts, 02 indruck?

Here you go! I went SFW on this one and interpreted the prompt kind of broadly. It's set in the same world as this Sternclay prompt

Fun fact: there is a fire lookout in the Monogahela, but the structure I describe is based on more elaborate ones elsewhere

02. I bought a house three months ago but I’m finally moving in and discover you’ve been squatting because you’re homeless

Only in Duck’s life would “dream job” and “months alone in the woods” be equivalent.

The Bickle Nob Fire Lookout is a coveted position, and Duck is pretty fucking flattered they chose him as the ranger for July and August. He took the high clearance off-roader to get here, he’s got his bags full of everything he needs not to die of boredom (or anything else) and his schedule of supply drops. He’s as ready as can be and so fucking excited when he opens the door of the wide-windowed cabin.

Then he jumps back, startled to find a skinny, silver-haired man asleep on the floor.

“Uh, sir? This site is off-limits to visitors.”

The man wakes up in a series of catastrophic movements; he bangs into the wall, tangles in his blanket, and nearly stumbles out the window when he manages to stand.

“I, I’m sorry, I didn’t foresee anyone coming here.”

“Department spent all of June arguin’ about whether it was worth allocatin funds for this, so that’s why the place was empty. Fire up North two weeks ago scared ‘em enough to send me up here.” Duck explains with a casual smile; after all, even if he’s way off the trail, there’s no reason to assume this guy is out to cause trouble, “if you got lost hikin, I’m happy to radio down and ask for someone to come get you and take you back to your camp.”

“Nono, I, ah, I’m not lost. One needs to have a destination to be lost.”

“O-kay. Uh, well, whatever you’re lookin for, I’m afraid this ain’t it. This buildin is for the fire lookout only.”

“I promise I’ll be very unobtrusive. I even have my own supplies, you won’t have to worry about me in the slightest.” The man smiles,opening one of his two bags to show it crammed with shiny packets of food.

Duck shakes his head, “Can’t do it, sorry. I’m serious though, if you need a ride into town I can get a hold of someone who can help. Maybe, uh, you could find whatever you’re lookin for there?”

“No” the man sags, but begins zipping up his bags, “I do not think I will find it there. I am sorry for intruding.” He steps out the door, turning towards the deeper woods on the western slope.

“You need a map?” Duck calls. The man doesn’t so much as look over his shoulder.

Duck unpacks as much as he can, checks the weather station and notes the readings suggest those thunderheads on the far horizon are coming his way. By dinnertime, they’re right on top of him, rain pattering on the roof and thunder rattling the windows. He’s scanning the trees when he spots a metallic flash, not of lightning but of silver hair. His mystery visitor is huddled under a tree, wind forcing the hood of his raincoat back over and over again.

The rules and regulations in the forest are there to keep the environment and visitors safe. If something doesn’t violate those basic requirements, Duck sees no reason not to bend them.

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

“I really cannot stress how grateful I am that you allowed me back in.” The visitor, who introduced himself as Indrid, finishes packing their scant trash into the can, “I promise that as soon as the storm passes I’ll leave you be.”

“Yeah, about that.” Duck scratches the back of his neck, “you really don’t got anywhere to call home, do you?”

Indrid opens his mouth. Duck stares, pointedly, at the holes in his white shirt and the worn shoes sticking out from frayed jeans.

“....No, I do not.”

“In that case, you stay here the next two months, on two conditions: one, you don’t get in the way of me doin what I’m here to do. Two, you don’t tell anyone I let you do this. Deal?”

“Yes, yes absolutely” Indrid shakes his hand, bouncing up and down a bit, “thank you so much. You will barely know I’m here.”

This turns out to be completely true and utterly false.

Indrid does keep to himself most of the day; he draws, reads, lays in the sun outside the cabin and generally stays out of Ducks way while he’s working. But he’s also the person who sits and jokes with him during meals, who eagerly follows Duck’s hand when he points out interesting birds or plants, and watches intently when Duck reads his instruments.

He never thought he could live in a fifteen by fifteen foot space with another person and not have a full head of grey by the end of it. Indrid Cold is the exception that proves the rule, Duck certain he’ll never be able to be cooped up with anyone but Indrid ever again.

It helps that he still gets his quiet time; Indrid will got out for walks, even watches for smoke so Duck can do the same. They use the wild foraging guide and Duck’s knowledge of local plants to bring back extra food. Indrid was particularly pleased when he located some wild blackberries. When Duck reminded him to watch out for bears near the berry patch, Indrid simply smirked and said there was only one bear on the mountain who could get him.

Duck’s daydreaming of what Indrid might do if caught on his way back from a dusk walk. And, more urgently, how he can convince Indrid that he wants to sleep outside tomorrow night. So it takes two tries of the front door before he notices it’s locked.

“Indrid?” he knocks, “you in there?” Stepping back, he finds the windows hastily covered by his bedsheets and blankets. He knocks harder, “that’s real fuckin dangerous, if there’s a fire we won’t see it. ‘Drid! Open the damn door!”

He continues banging, unanswered, as the moon--two days from full--rises above.

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

Indrid covers his ears to block out Duck’s increasingly worried shouts from outside. This is the right choice, the best of a bad bunch; it will keep Duck and anyone else nearby safe. The ranger will probably turn him away come morning, rightly furious at his irrationality. Indrid resolves not to argue with him; he’ll slink back into the trees, just like he did the last time someone threw him out for his transgressions.

It starts in his chest, his heartbeat climbing to marathon speeds in spite of him holding still. Then his skin prickles, silver hair sprouting from every follicle, followed by his back bowing in pain and his jaw elongating with a crack. From there the adrenaline kicks in, flooding his body so the transformation doesn’t render him unconscious (and therefore helpless) with pain. When next he raises his head, a werewolf with glowing, red eyes looks back at him from the darkened windows.

Beyond the covered windows, someone howls. Then he scents it, another of his kind coming dangerously close. He has to go out, he can’t leave Duck out there with something that will rip him apart, surely he likes the human enough for his mind to see him as a friend, not prey-

CRACK

The door splinters off its hinges; he growls, ready to defend his home. A deeper growl answers him as a larger wolf, black-furred and yellow eyed, stalks across the threshold.

“What. the. Fuck?” the newcomer snaps, “I told you, you can only stay if you don’t fuck up my work and locking me out comes real fuckin close to that!”

He cocks his head “Duck?”

“No, I’m the fuckin president of the united states.”

“I, I’m so sorry.” Indrid drops to all fours, then flattens to his belly just to be safe, “I didn’t know, I just wanted to be sure I wouldn’t hurt you.”

Duck points to the broken door, “you coulda just done that from the opposite side and I woulda been dinner.”

“No I, I know that if I confine myself I tend to be...calmer. I don’t get overstimulated and then agitated.”

“You coulda just told me. Lockin me out is real rude.”

Indrid whines, crawls close enough to nose at him.

“You don’t gotta do that; I ain't assertin dominance or some shit, I’m just a little annoyed.”

He whines again, “please don’t make me leave.”

“I won’t.” Duck’s voice turns softer.

“And you will not get angry at me for not being appropriately grateful for your leniency?”

Duck frowns, “Aw jesus, did you come from one of those old-school packs?

“Yes” Indrid grumbles, hating himself for how easily he fell into manners he loathes, how deep the teachings of his home run.

Duck eases him up so they’re both sitting, then noses the side of his face, “We don't do that around here. Least, I don't. I don’t spend a ton of time with most of the other Weres when they’re wolfed-out, but they ain’t big on tradition and hierarchy the rest of the time.”

“Ah. That’s, that’s good.”

The other Were stretches, stands and pads about the room, removing the make-shift curtains, “You gotta teach me how you’re so fuckin accurate on when the moon is full enough to make us shift whether or not we want to; I thought I had a day left. I, uh, I was gonna ask you to sleep in here while I ‘slept under the stars’ so you wouldn’t know.”

“You’re not afraid of hurting someone?”

“Nah, especially not this far out. Sometimes I hunt deer, but whatever strain of this I got doesn’t go feral unless some shit goes majorly wrong.” He drops the blankets on the floor, “don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like huntin tonight. Or stargazin. I’m beat from work.”

“Agreed. Transforming against my will always makes me tired.”

Duck lays down on the floor,yawns, “In that case: sleep tight ‘Drid.”

Indrid tries to do just that. But every time he catches Duck’s scent he wishes he could move closer to him, then remembers that would be rude, and continues in that back and forth until he’s wide awake. It doesn’t help that his Were form runs cold; he’s shivering in spite of it still being close to eighty degrees.

His ears flick at Duck’s footfalls. Then a warm, bulky frame curls around his freezing, lanky one.

“This okay?” Duck carefully drapes an arm over him.

Indrid sighs, feeling safer than he has in a year, “better than.”

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

“I’m a seer.”

Duck looks up from his breakfast, mouth full but question clear.

“Last night, you asked me how I knew we’d transform. Seeing the future makes it rather easy.”

“Damn, that does sound handy.”

“In many ways it is. Though it carries some, ah, some downsides.” Indrid steers his thoughts towards safer paths, “If you’d like, I could use it to help you with the fire lookout.”

The ranger grins, the expression twice as warm as his fur the night before, “That’d be fuckin great.”

Indrid smiles back, keeps his eyes on the windows so as not to look longingly back at the rumpled sheets. They awoke this morning in a heap, Duck’s modesty preserved only by a blanket and Indrid’s hair stuck in all directions. He’d been ready to apologize for not moving away before dawn, but Duck simply reached out, stroked his hair down, and asked if he wanted coffee.

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

“You’re right, you can see more animals this way.” They’re perched, fully transformed, on the rocks outside the cabin. Indrid knows how to use his night vision for hunting, but Duck is teaching him how to use it for more peaceful matters.

“Yeah, long as you stay put most animals get up the nerve to nose around some.”

They’d transformed side by side, Duck banging his head in the process. Indrid licked near the bruise and made soothing, sympathetic sounds when Duck whined and cursed his luck. Back home, being demonstrative was frowned upon; here, Duck seems to always be casually bumping their bodies together.

When they go to bed several hours after moonrise, they curl up side by side without hesitation. It’s so very easy to tune out his visions when Duck is near and Indrid falls asleep while the ranger is still whispering about the birds they can hear.

He wakes up an hour later in a panic, disasters of visions past tearing through his mind.

“‘Drid? What’s wrong?” Duck noses the base of his neck.

“Nothing. Just a bad dream.” He closes his eyes, tries to focus on Duck’s scent, his breath, the wind in the trees, but still the ghosts of his memories lurk in the corners of his vision.

“Can I try somethin?” Duck murmurs. Indrid thought he’d gone back to sleep.

“Of course.”

Teeth tenderly and ever so carefully clamp the fur and skin of his neck. He goes limp in one breath. He was high status enough that no one ever did this to him, but goodness does he wish they had

The ranger let’s go, “Do I need to do it again?”

“Please.”

Duck obliges and Indrid whimpers, melting shamelessly in his arms.

“Thank you. I think I can sleep now.”

“Any time, ‘Drid. Uh, before you, uh, go to sleep there’s somethin I wanna ask you. Since you need a place to stay, do you, uh, wanna stay with me? In Kepler.”

“You’d really like that? You, if this is out of pity-”

“It ain’t.”

There were no futures where it was. Indrid wanted to hear the words all the same.

“Besides” Duck nuzzles him, “we already know we make damn good roommates.”

Indrid can’t help it; he howls, brief and joyful, safe in the knowledge that Duck will be ready with a laugh and a kiss in reply.

#indruck #indrid cold/ duck newton #meet ugly #taz amnesty #werewolf au

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keanureevesisbae · 3 years

Text

Protection Chapter 4

Summary: Mia is deeply hurt by August, only she is the one with a slight problem now: her heater is broken.

August Walker x Mia Makaruku (ofc)

Wordcount: 3.7k

Warnings: None

A/N: I hope everyone had a lovely few days! please let me know what you think about this chapter. I love to read about it 🤗

Masterlist // Previous chapter // Next chapter

That Saturday I had my second to last game and I scored not one, not two, but three goals. Some even said I might’ve set a record for the fastest going goals in the history of female soccer. That might have something to do with me being still so damn mad at August.

I mean, I know I said I was going to accept his hot and cold attitude, since there would be a kind man underneath that harsh exterior, but after being hurt like that, I just figured that I couldn’t accept it anymore. He was harsh and borderline mean to me.

I don’t understand him anymore, but what I do know is that him being like that to me, is probably not going to change. Maybe I’m being a baby and totally overreacting, but I decided that it is best for my own wellbeing if I not talk to him anymore and so far, it’s working. Despite August always being home, I only bumped into him once and that for being next door neighbors.

Yesterday we both stepped into the elevator, but since I know him a bit, I was just sure he wouldn’t start a conversation with me.

I was right. However, I had to go against all my own impulses and you can almost say reflexes to not start a conversation with him.

August told me he doesn’t do apologies, so I shouldn’t be expecting one from him.

When I wake up that Sunday, a day after my game, I’m hit with a painful cold. Normally, Bobo sleeps on top of my blankets, but now he is securely curled up underneath them. Why is it this cold in here? I slip on some thick socks (that feels like two large ice cubs) and rush to my thermostat.

Only to discover it’s not working?!

‘Shit, shit, no,’ I whine. I really can’t use that right now. I mean, I can’t ever use it, but right now I really don’t want it. I check the card that hangs next to the thermostat and it informs me I can call the mechanic at nine on a Sunday.

It’s seven now, which is absolutely fantastic.

While my body is slowly freezing up and my nipples are the evidence of the cold temperatures (I’m really happy I’m all by myself now), I go to the bathroom to check if my shower can provide me with some warmish water. I grab the shower head and I wait until the water turns even slightly warm.

It doesn’t.

Great, so even a shower can’t keep me warm. I desperately need a shower, my sore muscles need some relaxation. I turn off the water and I walk to my bedroom. After I put on a bra and some more layers, I jump around, desperately trying to keep myself warm, but it’s useless. It’s what? Minus a billion degrees in here? I’m never gonna warm up, even if I wanted to.

I look over at the wall, the one that separates my apartment from August’s. I could do it, you know. I could just go over there and demand I can stay over at his place. I mean, that’s what he does and considers normal.

I can do that too. I can demand some shelter for a few moments. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Right?

Nah, it’s not. I’m too damn proud to do such thing.

The two hours go by really slow, but at least I got myself a good work out in, because I was desperately trying to keep warm. and I curled up underneath my blankets, but it was of no use. When I finally can call the mechanic, the shithead on the other line told me he couldn’t come in until three in the afternoon. Six whole hours in this freezing cold? That is something I simply cannot do. I want a hot shower and just chill in my sweats all day. I deserve that after last night’s game.

I grab some clothes, my shampoo and skincare products and pick up Bobo, who feels like a hot water bottle, but is not enough to keep me warm. I close the door of my apartment and with my elbow I knock on August’s door. It takes awhile before he opens the door, but when he does so, he frowns and looks visibly confused.

Probably because I’m holding Bobo and have a big bag with me.

‘What do you want?’

Always the gentleman. I should’ve thought this through, but I think the frostbite has reached my brain before I could do so. ‘I have a problem,’ I say. ‘My heater is broken and the mechanic comes at three.’

He leans against the doorframe. August looks different and I think it’s because of the grey sweatpants. I never really pecked him for a guy who wore something like that, matched with a thick hoodie. ‘Okay?’

Demand shelter, Mia, you can do it. ‘You should give me shelter,’ I say. Okay, that was’t exactly what I was aiming for, but it’s a start. ‘I cannot handle six hours in the freezing cold and I also don’t have hot water, so I can’t shower. Before you ask: ‘Why would I do this?’, remember, I did the same for you and I paid for the court side tickets.’

‘Tickets you bought before you even knew you were going to take me with you,’ he retorts. He sighs deeply. ‘Does the animal has to come as well?’

‘The animal is very sweet,’ I tell him and almost on cue Bobo starts to hiss. ‘Okay, maybe not to you, but please… Just let me stay here for six hours. If you do so, I might forgive you for being a total ass to me last Wednesday.’

‘I wasn’t an ass to you,’ he says, but when I cock my eyebrow, he looks kinda caught. ‘Okay, I maybe was an ass to you sometimes.’

‘All the time,’ I interrupt in.

‘Not the entire time. Just the ending,’ he tells me. ‘Okay, okay, please, come in, Mia and the creepy cat. Make yourself at home.’

At first I’m afraid he is being sarcastic (I mean, we’re talking about August Walker and it didn’t sound like it came from the heart), but when he actually steps aside, I realize he is serious. ‘Thank you,’ I say with a smile and I walk into his pretty boring apartment. I’ll let it slide for now, because he just moved in. I place Bobo on the ground and he struts through the apartment, avoiding August. Being here feels like I’m being wrapped up in a warm blanket.

August walks passed me to the kitchen and I decide to walk after him. ‘Are we going to talk about Wednesday?’ I ask him.

‘No.’

Figured. ‘Come on, August. Just… We should talk about this, to clear the air.’

‘I don’t want to talk.’ He places his hands on the counter and I don’t know where I’ve got the guts from, but I dare to step closer to him.

‘I bet there was a reason why you were like that this Wednesday,’ I continue. ‘You can talk to me, you know?’

‘I don’t want to talk about my feelings, especially not with you,’ he barks out.

Weirdly enough, this doesn’t hurt me, because I think he doesn’t mean it. ‘August,’ I whisper, ‘please. I just want to know why you continue to hurt me, when I’m nothing but nice to you, minus maybe the pedophile comment.

He clenches his jaw. ‘You want coffee?’

Why is he ignoring me? ‘Sure,’ I say, because I can actually use a cup. ‘Can’t you just try to be nice to me, without it being sandwiched in between insults? I’m not forcing you to go skipping with me in a park and make flower crowns with me, while feeding the ducks. I’m just asking you to cut the insulting crap and be nice to me.’

August actually turns his back to me and I let out a sigh. What was I even thinking?

‘I can try.’

Did I just hear that correctly? ‘What?’ I ask. ‘You can try?’

‘I can.’ He pours in some coffee for me and hands me a mug.

‘Thank you,’ I say with a gentle smile. I carefully place my hand on his underarm and he looks up, nearly snapping his neck in the process. ‘I really want to get to know you,’ I say to him in a soft tone. ‘But only if you allow it, okay?’

He nods. ‘Yes, okay,’ he says.

‘You want to get to know me?’ I ask with a chuckle.

‘Weirdly enough: yes.’

I roll my eyes. ‘August.’

‘Wait, wait, wait, I can do better,’ he says. ‘Yes, I want to get to know you too.’ He cocks an eyebrow. ‘Better?’

I laugh. ‘Yes, much better.’

◎ ◎ ◎

Since August’s shower provides me with hot water, I might overdo it by standing underneath the warm water for at least half an hour. Yes, I’m that type of guest. I quickly dry my hair, put on some moisturizer and get dressed, before I walk to the living room.

‘Did you clean up in here?’ I ask August, noticing the place is a whole lot cleaner than it was before I took my shower. ‘Are you trying to impress me, August?’

He scoffs, placing his feet on the coffee table. He looks like a mocking kindergartner, it’s almost endearing.

‘Where is Bobo?’ I ask him, when I sat down next to him and look around.

‘In my bed,’ August answers with a shrug.

That caught me a bit off guard. My cat is in his bed? ‘And you don’t mind?’ I ask. ‘Or are you too afraid to shoo him away?’

He doesn’t want to—I can see it in his eyes—but he smiles. ‘Maybe a bit of both. Besides, he was hissing at me, so I was too afraid to get him off the bed.’

I chuckle. I shiver a bit, as I’m slowly losing the warmth from the shower. August stands up from the couch and wanders through the place. Only to come back with a blanket. He drapes it over me and I’m genuinely surprised. ‘What is this?’ I ask him, though I know exactly what this is.

‘You were cold,’ he says, ‘so I got you a blanket.’

I feel my cheeks heating up. ‘You can be very nice, did you know that?’

August looks at me for a few milliseconds, before he averts his gaze. I realize this may have been too much of a compliment. ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘You want to watch some tv?’

‘Sure.’ He grabs the remote and turns on his television.

Was August watching the sports channel?

The only channel that broadcasts the women’s national football league?

‘Did you watch the game last night?’ I ask him.

‘I might’ve,’ he admits, his cheeks a little red. Oh my, my brooding neighbor August Walker is blushing!

‘Next week I have my last game, before the winter break. You want to watch? It’s free and I can arrange a nice spot for you. Special VIP treatment.’

‘Really?’ he asks. ‘Even after I was an absolute asshole to you?’

It’s nice of him to acknowledge that. ‘Even after that.’

‘I would like that.’

Are we having a moment now or is this me hallucinating? August looks into my eyes and doesn’t turn away. His light orbs are obviously hiding so much and it breaks my heart to think he has been through so much. ‘What are you thinking about?’

August shakes his head. ‘Nothing.’

‘Liar.’

He smiles. It makes him look beautiful, approachable and absolutely breathtaking. ‘I was thinking about giving you a compliment about the game last night and whether or not I should add an insult to it.’

I laugh. ‘Well, you can ditch the insult. I’m not sure if I can take it right now.’

‘You are by far the best player on your team,’ he says. ‘Maybe this is an insult to your teammates, but I think you would be the only female player that could actually beat the best male players.’

I bite my bottom lip, as I feel my stomach twists and turns. ‘That’s really sweet,’ I admit. ‘I bet you don’t want me to give you a hug as a thank you, right?’

August leans back in the couch. ‘Why would you want to hug me?’

That’s not a no, which is an improvement. ‘I barely got hugs when I grew up,’ I say. ‘I don’t know if you are aware of my sob worthy backstory. It’s pretty much all over the internet.’

‘I might’ve looked up some bits, he admits in all honesty, which I appreciate. ‘Lots of foster families.’

I nod. ‘I mean, it was mostly me. The families were nice enough, but I was simply afraid, because I knew that there was a chance I would leave again. What if I attached, you know? Saying goodbye would be harder.’

He nods, almost as if he understands.

‘However, my soccer team was pretty much the same team for years. I grew attached to them and hugs were totally normal. It was a way of communicating, really. Since that moment, I appreciate them. It’s a way to let someone know I appreciate them. If that makes sense.’

August nods again. ‘Back when I grew up, I never got hugs.’

For some reason, I see a young and pouty August in front of my eyes. Desperate for some human contact, only to be deprived by it.

‘I just never was in a setting where hugs were acceptable. Not when I was younger, not now.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t apologize for stuff you had nothing to do with,’ he says and he sounds like the same old August I have come to know. He lets out a deep sigh, one that nearly sounds like a growl. ‘You can give me a hug.’

‘That doesn’t sound very sincere.’

‘I am very sincere,’ he says. ‘I mean it.’

This is adorable, I think to myself. ‘Well, you have to know that once I hug you, you are in it for the real deal. I may or may not hug you every chance I see you.’

August laughs. ‘Then I just have to live with that.’

I push the blankets off of me, before I nearly jump him. I wrap my arms around his broad shoulders and while he is slightly awkward, he places his hands on my back and actually engages in the hug. ‘You are very huggable,’ I say.

‘You too.’

I pull my face back, so I can look at him. ‘Remember,’ I say, ‘you can put your walls down around me. I would even really like that, to get to know you.’

August moistens his lips, before he whispers: ‘I would like that as well.’

◎ ◎ ◎

After the mechanic fixed my heater and left, August and I ordered pizza. Now, we sit on my couch and watch some YouTube compilation of me playing soccer. That wasn’t even my idea.

It was August’s idea.

Ever since our hug, I notice he is trying his best to be nice and to me, that’s what matters the most. While I don’t understand his struggle, I do appreciate the effort.

I just shouldn’t be attracted to someone who hurt me twice within a week of knowing me, but I can’t help but feel a little something deep inside of me, when I look at August sitting this relaxed on my couch.

‘You want my crusts?’ I ask him, holding out my plate to him.

‘Of course.’

I can’t help but scoot a little closer to him, so I can hand him the plate a bit better. Maybe it’s because I’m touch starved, maybe it’s because I never had this much male attention (insults or not) before. It’s just really nice being around a man, especially August. I didn’t want to admit it, but I enjoyed every moment of him being overprotective of me in the stadium and how he wiped my hands clean in the restaurant.

That never happened to me before.

‘You want my last piece?’ August asks me, holding up his slice.

‘Are you sure?’ I ask, already taking it out of his hands.

‘Postive.’

Before I take a bite, I say: ‘You can have this crust again, though.’

He smiles. ‘I was hoping for it.’

We eat in silence, staring at the television, but I’m not even paying attention. My mind is full of thoughts about August and the questions I want to ask later on when we get to know one another better. ‘Here is my crust,’ I say.

‘You know, Mia, you eat shockingly fast.’

I scoff. ‘I do not.’

‘You totally do,’ he argues. ‘And you are also the world’s messiest eater. I don’t know how you do it, but you got sauce on your forehead.’ He leans over to my coffee table and grabs some napkins. ‘Sit still, will you.’

‘I am sitting still!’

‘You’re not. You are fidgety.’

I roll my eyes. ‘First I’m a fast eater, then a messy one and I don’t sit still. I was about to offer you some dessert, but now I’m not so sure, since you are being so damn mean to me right now.’

‘I’m not mean to you,’ he says, his voice all of the sudden a lot lower. He places his hand in the back of my neck, before gently cleaning the corners of my mouth and my forehead, letting out a tsk in a process. August is so close right now, I’m nearly going cross eyed. His rough thumb slowly caresses the delicate skin in my neck. I can feel his warm breath against my lips.

‘You want dessert?’ I ask him after I cleared my throat. ‘I have some chocolate pudding. We could eat that.’

August nods. ‘Yeah, I would like that,’ he says, letting me go. ‘Let me help you.’ He stands up as well, holding the plates in his hands. Together we walk to my kitchen and I start preparing the pudding for the both of us.

However, I still feel his hand in my neck. Back when I was in high school in the Netherlands, I was never really in favor of the boys. Besides, I moved a lot and I was pretty much invisible. There was this one time, where it took the teacher almost three weeks to notice me.

Being touched like that, it is a rarity in my dating history. Sure, I’ve had a few kisses, but other than that, I never engaged in anything. Now I’m twenty five and I want it.

So badly.

I look up, only to discover August was already looking at me. ‘What?’ I ask him.

He shakes his head. ‘Nothing.’

We eat the pudding in silence and when it is eight ‘o clock, he decides to leave. We may barely spoken to one another and when we did, it was pretty shallow, really. But I do feel like I got to know August better and he is willing to open himself up to me.

I walk him to the door and I say: ‘Are you willing to hug me goodbye?’

‘I’ll probably see you tomorrow, Mia,’ he says. ‘It’s not like I’m leaving anytime soon.’ Then he seems to realize what he is missing out on. While he rolls his eyes, I spot a grin on his face and he spreads his arms. ‘Come here.’

I let out an excited squeal and I jump up, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. He laughs and wraps one arm around my waist, holding me against him.

‘You happy now?’ he asks.

I pull back my face. ‘Delighted, August Walker.’

He places me back on the ground. ‘See you tomorrow?’

‘You bet. Now you’ve hugged me. let me in your place and allowed Bobo in your bed, I think I’m gonna be over all the time.’

◎ ◎ ◎

The entire Monday morning I spend baking. I want to thank August for yesterday and I figured to see if the saying “nothing says loving like something from the oven” is true. I think it might be. I know I always appreciated when mister Toriello made me a pie.

I walk out of my apartment to knock on his door, only to discover his door is slightly ajar. I push it open and peek inside. ‘August?’ I ask with the steaming pie still in my hands. I walk inside, but he isn’t here. Maybe he is out and didn’t close the door right, however that seems so out of character. Leaving his door open like that… That’s weird.

I place the pie on his kitchen island and find a piece of paper to write something on it.

I place the note next to plate and I want to leave the apartment, but my eyes fall on something. It’s one of those yellowish files, you see in programs like NCIS. I know you shouldn’t peek in other peoples stuff and usually I don’t do such thing.

However I can’t help it right now, as the file is like a magnet that pulls me in.

I pull out the file and it confirms my suspicions. That was my name indeed I saw from afar and this file has my DMV photo attached to it with a paperclip.

Why does August have this? I mean, I don’t even know what he does for a living, but why would he have this? What kind of job would require all this information about me?

Oh my, is he a stalker? I know that’s not a profession, but still…

I open the file and see an entire timeline of my life. The car accident, transcripts of my interviews with specialists, my football career. He is even up to date on my Instagram account… I even see he figured out the name of the man who was gawking at me during the game.

What is this?

‘What are you doing here?’ I hear August’s voice behind me. I look over my shoulder and see him standing in the doorway. He looks tired and a bit sweaty. What has he been doing? ‘What do you have there?’

I turn around, as I hold up the yellow folder. ‘Is there a specific reason you have my entire life compiled in one file?’

#august walker #august walker x ofc #august walker x asian ofc #august walker x oc #august walker x mia makaruku #henry cavill #henry cavill x ofc #henry cavill x oc #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fandom #henry cavill x asian ofc #henry cavill x mia makaruku #august walker x soccer player #mia makaruku #asian ofc #fic: protection

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smolsmolsmol · 3 years

Text

Jin - When he suddenly become a child

Paring: Jin x reader

Genre: Fluff, Humor

Type: One Shot (#001-Magic Shop Series)

Plot: You take care your boyfriend who ate some weird candy from Taehyung and it turned him into a child.

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“Wake up, Jin!” You shouted once you entered his house.

“Where are you jinnie?” He FaceTimed you last night and said he had no practice today so you two planned to have a date today.

“Where are youuuuuuu. Kim Seok Jinnnnn?” You shouted again.

“Here” a cute little voice replied.

“Huh? What was that?” You looked around, tried to find where the voice came from but you saw no one.

“Jinnie?” You asked again.

“Here!!” the same cute voice shouted.

“Where? The bedroom?” You walked into his bedroom, again you saw no one.

“Is this a prank or what? Come out, it is not that funny.” You said.

After a few seconds, the bathroom door opened and revealed a little kid who wore an adult pajama, which now looked like a dress to him because he is too smol.

“Yah! Who are you? Why are you here? How can you get in?” You kneeled down and looked at the child carefully.

“Oh my god! Now that I look at you, you look awfully like Jin when he is a child. You like a mini Jin. Are you Jin child? Oh my god! Did he cheat on me and knocked someone up?” You gasped.

The child rolled his eyes and said. “I am Kim Seok Jin.”

“Excuse me, what was that? I am afraid I didn’t hear you right.” You refused to believe what you heard.

“I AM KIM SEOK JIN, THE WORLDWIDE HANDSOME, THE OLDEST OF BTS.”

The child no longer controlled his temper and shouted on your face, though it did not sound really angry because his voice were way too cute.

“Wah hahahaha, very funny kid. How can the oldest of BTS be a…what…five or maybe six years old child?” You laughed. “Come on, tell me who you are and how you get in then I will help you to find your parents.”

“Is me y/n. I am the real Kim Seok Jin.” Jin sighed.

“Ok ok, proof it then little kid.” You replied.

“Ok but if I can proof it, you can’t call me little kid or treat me like one anymore.” Jin determined to prove that he is the real one.

“Deal. Little kid.” You smiled. Jin rolled his eyes again and started.

“I am Kim Seok Jin, born on December 4, 1992 in Gwacheon. Debuted in June 13, 2013 with six brothers, Namjoon as the leader, Yoongi as the rapper,”

“Wait!” You interrupted him, “I know and almost half of the world knows it too, it can’t prove that you are my Jinnie!”

Jin blushed when you called him ‘My Jinnie’, even though you two dated three years, he still blushed every time you mentioned he is yours.

“You got a point there. How about I say something that only we know?” Jin asked.

“Yes, little kid.” You patted his head and replied.

“We dated three years ago, I asked you to be my girlfriend on 18 August, the day I hurt my ankle. Honestly, I planned to ask you next week in a more romantic way but the way you take care of me makes it hard for me to wait one more week.” He smiled when he walked down the memory lane.

“In our first year, you told me you will knit a scarf for me but now we are in our third years, I am still waiting for the scarf.” You chuckled, you did knitted one for him but it knitted badly so you never gave him.

“You once burnt the frying pan but the food is still raw, just like how Namjoon did before.” He laughed.

“Yah! It was an accident! I…I don’t know how I can do that but I swear my cooking skill is not that bad.” You lied, your cooking skills sucks. All you can cook is egg, boiled egg, egg roll etc. But who cares, you have Jin, the chef of the BTS.

“You are more horny after your period, and you always complain you have to buy one larger size clothes because your bra size is 3…”

“Ok ok, that’s enough! Don’t talk sexual things to me when you look like a kid.” You interrupted him before he could talk more.

“Now, do you believe me?” Jin looked at you with his big round eyes.

“Yes, I believe you Jinnie. But what did you do to become like this?” You nodded and asked.

“I don’t know, last night I felt a little bit unwell after we FaceTime so I went to sleep, but when I woke up... I became like this, a six years old me.” He shook his head and pouted.

“Did you eat something weird?” You asked.

“I don’t recall. I had dinner with all the boys. We drank a little, had some ice cream and Tae gave all of us. Oh!” He yelled.

“What?” You asked anxiously.

“He gave all of us a different color candy, said he bought it from the new store near the dorm. We all ate it, could it be the reason that I became like this?” He exclaimed.

“Maybe, should we call and ask them?” You asked while helping him to sit on the couch.

“No!” he yelled.

”What if I am the only one who become like this? They will definitely make fun of me, especially Kookie.” He pouted.

“Well, should we just wait for tomorrow to see how it’s go?” You asked and patted his head again.

“But what if I miss the golden time back to normal?” Jin worried.

“Then should we just asked tae about the address, we go there directly and asked the seller?” You softly asked while still patting his head.

“Yes! Lets ask tae tae!” Jin happily smiled.

“Ok, wait here.” You asked him to sit still and brought the breakfast to him.

“Jinnie, eat some breakfast while I call tae. ok?” You talked softly like how normal people talk to a child.

“No. I don’t want this, I want some ice cream.” He pouted.

“Jinnie, you can’t eat ice cream as breakfast.” You said.

“Yes, I can.” He looked at you and crossed his arms.

“No, you can’t.” You told him like a mother told his child.

“Yes, I can!” He raised his cute voice.

“No, you can’t. You need a proper breakfast and ice cream is not one of it. You never like this before.” You patiently said.

“I am a kid! A kid eats ice cream for breakfast!” He threw a tantrum when you rejected him.

“Oh my god, Jin. Now you act like a child, a real child. I have to call tae right now.” You ran to get your phone and dial Taehyung number.

“Noona? Good morning.” Taehyung's sleepy voice echoed throughout the whole room.

“Tae, did you give some weird candy to Jin last night?” You asked without greeting him.

“Huh? Yes, I brought all of the members some candy from the new open store near our dorm.” He replied while struggling not to fall back into sleep.

“Where is the store?” You asked once again.

“I’m not sure. You know I am not good at remembering the place.” Tae sheepish smiled.

“Well, meet us at the dorm three hours later , we need your help.” You ended the call.

“Ok, so now we asked tae to help. Can you please eat your breakfast, otherwise I won’t bring you there.” You turned around and told Jin.

“Well, I can go there by myself.” Jin mumbled.

“Oh really! I wonder how many hours it takes to get there with your tiny little feet?” You smiled.

“I have a driver license in case you forgot.” He yelled.

“A six years old boy to drive a car? I don’t think your legs are long enough to step on the brake, your arms are not long enough to reach the wheel. Little kid.” You held your laughter, tried not to ignite his anger.

“You are meanie, y/n” he muffled his cry.

“Come on, Jinnie. We can have ice cream tonight. Please eat your breakfast then we go to the store to solve your problem. Can you do this for me, sweetie?” You kneeled down and smoothed his hair.

“Ok, just because I really want to get back to normal.” Jin finally ate his breakfast after some childish argument.

“It’s gonna be a long day.” You sighed, went to his room and pack some essential things for Jin to go out.

After some moment, Jin ran into the bedroom. “I finished! Hehe.”

“You are a good kid.” You replied but gasped when you looked at Jin. Some food stains were visible on his face and clothes.

“Why? Jin! Why?” You exclaimed.

“I am a kid, what do you expect?” Jin put his tough out.

“God, I don’t even know you were that kind of kid. Come, you need to bath before going out. I will prepare the bath for you.” You stopped packing and went inside the bathroom.

“Can I have a yellow duck?” He whispered.

“You don’t have any duck.” He was upset when he did not have a toy bath with him.

“But you can have RJ, let me see which one can put in the tub while you go inside the bath and start bathing, is it ok with you?” You asked.

“Yes.” “Do you need any help?” You asked again.

“No, I can bath myself. Find me a toy is enough.” You left to look for any RJ toy that can be put into the water.

After 15 minutes, Jin came out from the bathroom.

“Come on, let me dress you up.” You asked him to come forward.

“I don’t want to wear this one, it's too big!” He complained and refused to wear the clothes you prepared for him.

“Jinnie, we don’t have any clothes that are suitable for your current size, this one fit you the most. Please just dress it so that we can go straight to your dorm and ask tae for help.” You tried to reason him.

After some struggle, he finally properly dressed, just when you two were ready to leave the house.

“Wait!” He shouted. You turned around to see what’s the matter.

“I don’t have any shoes.” He looked at his tiny little feet.

You kneeled down and sketched your arms wide. “Come, let me carry you.”

“I hate this, I hate this. I will kill Kim Taehyung once I get back to normal.” He mumbled when he walked into your arms.

“I am a well grown up man. But now I eat messily, need a duck when I bath and need to be carried all the time.” He kept mumbling and you placed his head to your shoulder.

“y/n, you smell so nice and you are so soft too. This will be the only thing that I enjoy in a situation like this.” He still mumbled.

You couldn't help but to think how life would be if you two stay forever, will you two get married and have kids, will you two be a good parent to them, when will both of you be ready.

“What are you thinking?” He asked. “Nothing.” You whispered.

He looked at you and pinched your cheek.“Stop daydreaming, you have a kid to take care of.”

“Yah, it hurts!” You smacked his little hands and he laughed.

“Jin.’’ “Is Jinnie.” “Fine, jinnie.” “Yes?” “You don’t laugh like a windshield wiper when you are a kid.”

“y/n! You are a meanie!.” He shouted to your ears and you smiled.

After a few minutes' drive, you two finally reached his drom. Once you opened the door, you saw all six members were chilling on the couch.

“Damn, Taehyung. I only asked you to come.” You said.

“Well, nice to meet you too y/n. I am so sorry that we aren't allowed to chill in our own home.” Yoongi teased you.

“Yoongi, you know I don’t mean that.” You panicked.

“I am kidding, who is that kid btw?” He smiled and asked.

“Huh?” You are confused.

“The kid you are carrying y/n noona.” Jimin said and pointed your shoulder.

You suddenly dumbfounded, you did not think of how to introduce this kid is Jin.

“Kim Seok Jin.” Jin replied and signaled you put him down.

“Kim Seok Jin? The same name of our Jin hyung?” “You are so cute buddy, how old are you?” “You look a lot like Jin, are you noona and Jin hyung kid.” “Do you want some mint chocolate ice cream?” “Or do you want some banana milk?”

All the members threw random questions to Jin at the same time.

“Shut up.” Jin shouted.

All the members stopped talking and looked at the kid.

“I am the real Kim Seok Jin, World Wide Handsome Kim Seok Jin, BTS’s Kim Seok Jin!” They all looked at you and you nodded.

“Noona, this is not funny, How can he be Jin hyung?” Namjoon asked you.

“Hey buddy, I understand you adore our Jin hyung, but he is not here right now. Would you like to come and sit on the couch while waiting for him?” Hoseok kneeled down and asked.

Jin rolled his eyes and smacked Hoseok's head with his little fist.

“I am the real one, After I ate alien tae candy last night, I became like this.” He sighed.

“Oh my my my, it actually works? I thought she was only joking.” Tae whispered.

“Tae, do you know where the store is located? We need to ask the seller to fix it.” You asked.

“Um...I don’t.” Tae softly replied.

“What do you mean you don’t know.” Jin lost his patience and yelled at him.

“I lied, I brought it online.” Tae replied with guilt.

“Kim Tae Hyung, how many times did I tell you not to buy something that is weird or no certification from the internet? Look what you did this time.” Jimin yelled at his best friend.

“Sorry guys. But I have the seller's contact, let me ask her how to fix it.”

@Vantae: Hello!

@MagicShop: Hi! My beloved friend, how can I help you?

@Vantae: Do you remember I brought seven candies from you last week?

@MagicShop: Yes!

@Vantae: One of my friends turned into six years old. Any way to fix it?

@MagicShop: Oh, so your friend ate the “Back to Youth”, the pink one. It is normal that people turn into a kid.

@Vantae: Is there anyway he can get back to normal?

@MagicShop: Just a moment, let me see.

@MagicShop: You brought one day effect, which means it only lasted 24 hours.

@Vantae: Thank god! He will kill me if he knows he can’t switch back.

@MagicShop: If he likes, he can buy the lifetime effect one.

@Vantae: I don’t even dare to mention it to him. Anyway, are you still up for tonight?

@MagicShop: It has become my regular routine now, taetae.

@Vantae: Good, then see you.

@MagicShop: See you!

Taehyung smiled and put his phone back in his pocket.

“Guys, the effect lasted 24 hours. Jin hyung, you will be fine soon.” Tae said.

“Aw, Jin hyung will soon be back to his old and grumpy self.” Jungkook said.

“I am not old and grumpy!” Jin yelled and kicked Jungkook's legs with his tiny little feet.

“Can’t Jin hyung just stay like this?He is too adorable and I don’t have to be the not so tall member.” Jimin smiled.

“Do you really feel good by comparing your height to a kid.” Yoongi rolled his eyes and said.

“Thank you taetae, now things are settled. Do you want to stay here or do you wanna go home?” You asked him.

“I want to go home. They all look and treat me as a child, I don’t wanna stay here! And jungkook, please stop filming me!” He whispered.

“Sorry hyung, but you are just too cute not to take photos of.” Jungkook laughed and filmed little Jin in different angles.

“Namjoon, can we borrow some of your clothes? It is uncomfortable for him to walk around with adult clothes. I will buy you a new one after everything settled.” You asked Namjoon for some kid clothing cause you knew he sometimes collects kid clothing.

“Sure! I packed you a set and no need to return and buy me one.” Namjoon smiled.

“Please, give me two sets, in case he eats messily again.” You asked.

“No problems!” Namjoon's heart warmed by your request. He knew you always took good care of Jin but he never knew you are so detail minded.

“I am sorry, Jin hyung” Taehyung felt guilty for making his hyung like that.

“It's fine, I’m not mad at you. Just make sure you don’t do that again.” Jin said and Taehyung smiled happily after knowing his favourite hyung forgave him.

“Did any of you feel weird after you ate the candy? I felt nothing.” Hoseok asked.

“I feel nothing too!” Yoongi replies.

“So I am the unlucky one?” Jin cried in your arms and you tried to calm him down.

“Shh, is ok. Tae said it only lasts 24 hours, you just need to bear it for a couple more hours then you will get back to World Wide Handsome again.” You patted his back tried to calm him down.

“Am I not handsome right now?” Jin asked while still crying in your arms.

“You are a world wide cutie right now.” You smiled and patted his head.

“Jesus, I never saw Jin hyung like this.” Jungkook whsipered.

“Noona, here you go!” Namjoon backed with a bag of clothes.

“Thank you, Namjoon! Guys, we will be going now. I will contact you guys if anything happens.” You thanked Namjoon again.

“Do you want me to carry you or do you want to walk by yourself?” You asked Jin who tying the shoe that namjoon gave him.

“I can walk.” Jin replied.

“Cool, Hold my hand tight then.” He wrapped all his fingers around your three fingers.

“You ready?” You asked and he nodded.

“Ok, let’s be a good boy and greet others goodbye before we go.” “Bye guys! Don’t have too much fun without me!” “Goodbye everyone.” You also greeted them.

All the members answered back. “Bye noona, bye hyung.” “Drive safe and take care of Jin hyung please.” “Call us if you need help!” “Goodbye mini Jin!”

“Damn, I want to have a kid too.” One of the members said.

“You can have one with your girlfriend if you both are ready.” Someone replied.

“Yeah, but I am too old for that.” All members turned to him.

“Oh my god! You are definitely too old for this, you look like a grandpa now. Tae, what kind of candy you gave him last night?” They gasped.

Finally you two back to his home after few minutes' drive. “So what do you want to do now?” You asked Jin.

“Spider-Man Movie!!” He exclaimed.

“Ok, please prepare the movie and I go prepare the ice cream.” You said.

“Give me the strawberry flavour !” He shouted while running to the living room, you chucked.

Jin fell asleep halfway through the movie, you carefully picked him up, put him into bed and cleaned his face with a wet towel.

After everything settled, you went back to the living room and cleaned the mess. You ordered dinner for you two, after a few more hours, the food was delivered so you woke Jin up.

“Jinnie, wake up. The food is here.” No response.

“Jinnie.” You called him again but still got no response.

“Should I kiss all over your face to wake you up? Sleeping beauty?” You swore you see his mouth slightly curled up.

“Maybe not kisses but tickling.” You said and tickled his neck and belly.

“Stop! y/n! Haha…I am wide awake now...hahaha...stop!” He laughed and tossed around.

“Good, come out when you are ready, sleepy head! Don’t take too long, the food will turn cold.”

After the diner, after the bath, you can finally take some rest. Two of you laid on the bed and you tried to get some sleep.

“Stop poking me Jin, go to sleep.” You mumbled.

“I am scared.” He whispered. “Of what?” You asked.

“What if I can get back to normal?” He mumbled.

“Don’t worry, it won’t happen. Even if it happens, I will walk through heaven and hell to find someone to fix you. I will use all your money to hire the best people to develop the medicine that can fix you. I will join any religion or even cult group as long as they can fix you.” You replied and you mean every word.

“Stop all the nonsense, y/n. Let’s just sleep.” Jin never thought you can sacrifice yourself for him.

“Btw why use my money!” He said and hugged you.

“Well, you are richer than me.” You hugged him back and he placed his head on your neck. Two of you finally fell asleep.

Ring...ring...ring…

“Morning.” Jin tiredly said.

“Is me, Tae! Did you switch back to your normal self?” Taehyung called.

“Huh?” Jin wide awoke, he rushed to the bathroom.

“Oh my god! I am Kim Seok Jin again!!” Jin laughed and jumped around.

“You are Kim Seok Jin even when you are six years old, hyung. Anyway, congratulations hyung!” Taehyung chuckled.

“Thank you, tae! No, why do I need to say thank you to you, you are the one who put me through all of this. Bye!” Jin ended the call.

~Knock Knock~

You knocked the bathroom door, “Welcome back, Mr. Kim.” You smiled happily.

“Hello to you too, Miss y/l/n” Jin pulled you into his arms and kissed you like no tomorrow.

“I missed you.” He said and pecked your lips again.

“I miss you too.” You pecked his lips too.

Both of you smiled and stared at each other and no one said anything because you two always understood each even no one said anything.

“My girl, my love. I swear someday you will be Mrs Kim.”

“My boy, my love. I swear someday I will give you mini me or mini Jin.”

After some hugged and kissed, you two went back to sleep. Jin back hugged you and kissed your hair.

“I owed you a date.” Jin pouted.

“Is fine. Thanks to you, I have an unforgettable day.” You smiled.

“So who do you like the most? Me or mini Jin?” He asked, you turned around and faced him.

“To be honest, I like mini Jin more, his voice is cute as well as his tiny hand and feet. Oh! the way he leans on my shoulder is awfully cute too.” His face blanked after hearing you say you like his little version more.

“But I love this Jin more.” You poked his nose and giggled.

“And I love you too.” He smiled and kissed you.

#bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts fanfic #seokjin imagine #seokjin scenarios #seokjin fanfic #jin imagine #jin scenario #jin fanfic

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allie1804-fan · 3 years

Text

Kerensa

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5 , Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Mooning

All Keanu could think about on his journey was Kerry. Leaving her felt like it gave him physical pain and he was reminded of the description in Jane Eyre of a cord of communion between Jane and Rochester that might snap but never does despite their distance and time apart.

"I sometimes have this queer feeling with regard to you -- especially when you are near to me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame, And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land, come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.”

Once back at home, for the first month he was at least busy with some press interviews for the movie he’d shot before the Cornish one. He’d be off promoting it in September – an in-person tour this time after the many done via zoom in Covid times. He also had meetings for new work offers, about his screenplay which he had completed in Cornwall and for Arch Motorcycles. And he caught up with friends and family who he’d not seen since before the Cornish shoot had started back in February.

4 weeks later, he still hadn’t messaged Kerry other than to say he was back safely, keeping to the promise, to her at least, not to moon but it was another thing when it came to talking about his stay in Cornwall with friends and family. Kerry’s kindness, Kerry’s critical skills, Kerry’s own brilliant writing was never far from being mentioned. Alex Winter was the first to call him on it and point out his clearly lovesick state!

He’d shared his script with him and there were annotations on it in an unknown hand.

“Yeah that’s Kerry’s pointers, did I mention her?”

“Uh, yeah! – you barely talk about anything else Ke!”

“What? – I do so”

“God, Keanu, how old are you?”

“57” he huffed.

“Yeah and that my friend is quite old enough to know when you’re in love, not to mention old enough to do something about it!”

“And what precisely do you recommend, given she lives 7000 miles away?” Keanu asked sulkily, not denying that he was indeed in love.

“err, hey, what about talking through your options, asking her how she feels, thinking of ways to make it work if she’s on board?”

“I don’t know, when I kissed her …”

“you kissed her?!”

“Uh yeah” he huffed “I just got caught up in the moment and so did she and then she said to stop because it was gonna hurt too much. She basically implied she couldn’t move and I couldn’t move so that was that”

“But you never asked what if or talked about a compromise, you just left?”

“Yeah god-damnit, I just left and we said we’d stay friends”

“But you’re still mooning after her, right?”

Keanu swallowed thickly and nodded, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

“God I’m a dumbass aren’t I?, I feel something I’ve not felt in years and I just wave the white flag and walk away”

“You said it!”

The conversation stewed in Keanu’s mind over the next couple of weeks until he had a meeting with his PA to discuss travel arrangements for his next film’s promotion in September. The UK was the last stop of the tour and a plan started to formulate in his mind. By the end of July, he chanced sending a message to Kerry, just to touch base. He had thought about just doing a surprise visit when he got there but decided not to ambush her and tested the water in a message first.

“Hey, how are you? Everyone here said they could see your Cornish sea air did me some good when I got back.”

She messaged back shortly after saying she was well and glad they could see how great Cornwall was.

After that, they would message every few days, just little things usually, often about his script and she also sent a copy of her latest short story that was being reviewed by a publisher. Then by late August, with the premiere approaching, he got specific.

“Love your latest story, how’s the publishing prospects looking? Maybe you can fill me in person when I’m over for the premiere – I’ll be there in 2 weeks?”

He was nervous about taking a chance by suggesting a meeting, but he told himself he needed to see it through and if it turned out she could only consider him as a friend, then at least he could try to move on, not be stuck in a limbo of love as he was now.

She messaged right back, even though it was already midnight there

“What you’re coming over?, that’s great”

“Yes – for the premiere of my new film. I’ll be staying over for a few days in London to do that and a couple of talk shows.”

“Oh sorry, I’m in town next week but not then – I have to be here for a cottage letting, sorry to miss an opportunity to meet up”

“I could come to you? Would that be ok?”

“But it’s so far out of your way”

“Yeah but I have time, no commitments back home for a while. So would it be ok, to visit?, I’d love to see you and my buddy Scout, how’s he?”

“Great, he’s great - still full of beans. He’ll be pleased to see you”

“Hey what do you do with him when you’re out of town?”

“John has him, remember him? from the hotel?”

“Of course”

“Right – well OK, I’ll make the arrangements and be there on Friday 9th."

After that exchange, the seed of another idea grew in his mind. He made contact with John and asked him if he might be available to have Scout for some extended dog sitting, a week maybe and then he contacted the airline and the New Inn in Tresco, praying that he wasn’t going to end up there alone.

@fortheloveoffanfic @omg-imagine @iworshipkeanureeves @toomanystoriessolittletime @ladyreapermc @paperplanesandwallflowers @patric9

#keanu fanfic #keanu fanfiction #keanu ofc

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sassyduckqueen · 3 years

Text

Miraculous: Rise of Anatis 48

Welcome to the battle of the fathers. First, we have Tom aka Weredad. Though through out the chapter, he's referred to the beast. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter :D so next up will be Guitar Villain. Should be fun to write :D

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Chapter Forty-Eight: Weredad (1/2)

"Girl, I'm glad you don't hate me," Alya sighed on the video chat. Marinette let out a sigh.

"Of course, I don't hate you but I really hope you've thought about what everyone said," She replied as Alya played with her hands. She looked hurt and guilty, causing part of Marinette to tell her that it's ok and all was forgiven but all wasn't. Alya went too far this time and many people got hurt. Marinette had apologized to Luka about the whole thing but he told her it was ok and that he should have been more firm too. Luckily, Juleka didn't blame either of them. She was still annoyed at Alya's actions, which was understandable. Even Nino had ripped into Alya. She did get akumatized over the whole incident. However, it wasn't because she felt like she was wronged but because she had come to regret her actions so she didn't become Lady Wifi. Instead, she became Deplora, an akuma that had the ability to make people say all of the things they regret doing. She kind of looked like a mourner which was strange. She went after Juleka but only so she could apology, which had surprised Marinette. However, she was very easy to defeat.

"I have," She mumbled, nodding before looking at Marinette. "I know I got akumatized again but I'm gonna do better I swear,"

"That's good, Alya," Marinette smiled as she heard a thump. She yawned and stretched, causing Alya to chuckle. "I'm gonna get going. Gotta get some sleep,"

"No worries, girl," She smiled. "See you later?"

"Sure," She smiled, waving at the camera. "Bye, Alya,"

"Good night, Marinette," Alya grinned before she hung up. Marinette got up and climbed up to her bed. She climbed on top of it and reached up. She opened her skylight before pulling herself out of it and onto her balcony. Anatis was stood by the edge and was glancing out to the city.

"Hey," She stated, making him look back at her. "Haven't seen you here for a while,"

"I'm not intruding, am I?" He asked, making her smile. "I can go if you want,"

"No need," She smiled, walking over to him. She noticed he looked a little tired and sad. "Are you ok though?"

"Yeah... I just..." He muttered before sighing and pushing his fingers through his hair. "I guess I'm not really ok... Juleka got akumatized again. I know it was a few days ago but it still haunts me... and I ripped into Alya. She ended up getting akumatized again. While I don't regret telling her off, I feel like it's my fault she was akumatized,"

"Hey, that isn't your fault," She gasped, taking his hands in her. "Alya knew what she was doing when she lied to Juleka and she got akumatized because she felt guilty. You told her how it is and showed her that actions have consequences. Besides, I think it worked. Alya's been trying to make it up to everyone. She actually took down the interviews with Lila. I think she still thinks Lila is been honest but she told me that she took them down as they put Lila in danger. Of course, Lila isn't happy with that but she hasn't showed it in front of Alya. I think she's really trying to change and that's because of you,"

"I... thank you, Marinette," He smiled, making her smile back before he gasped and pulled away as if he realized what he had said. "I am so sorry, Marinette. I don't mean to just throw this all on you. I'm a ter-"

"Anatis, it's ok," She smiled, gently pushing his hair back. Anatis's cheeks went a little bit pink as she grinned. "Want some cookies? I made some earlier,"

"Sure," He smiled, causing her to smile back before she walked over to the skylight. She climbed in part of the way but stopped and looked over to him.

"You can come inside you know," She grinned before disappearing into her room. He smiled a little before following. He climbed off her bed and down to her chaise longue, sitting down as he waited for her. A few minutes later, Marinette climbed back through, holding a plate of cookies. Anatis smiled as she walked over and held out the plate to him. He took one and began to eat it.

"Amazing," He mumbled, smiling. "What would I do without you and your cookies, Marinette?"

"Probably buy some from a bakery?" She grinned, making him chuckle as she picked one up and began to munch on it as well.

~A Few Days Later~

"That's Marinette's room!" Anatis gasped as Gigantitan threw his lucky charm, which happened to a giant plastic donut, right into the bakery. Lady Noir looked at him in surprise but then she remembered that he visited Marinette quite a bit. He looked panicked and fearful, making her heart flutter a little before she grabbed his arm, causing him to look at her. "We have to help her,"

"The best thing we can do is defeat Gigantitan and cast the miraculous cure," She informed, making him take a deep breathe and smile at her.

"You're right," He nodded, making her smile before he took out his yoyo. "And I've got a plan,"

"That's the spirit, Annie," She grinned before the two of them charged into battle. It didn't take them long but soon the two of them had defeated Gigantitan and Anatis threw up the donut, casting the cure. Relief flooded through him as the cure restored Marinette's room but before he could jump up there and see if she was ok, Gigantitan turned back into August and fell back to Earth. Lady Noir caught him and gently cooed at him, making him smile before her ring rapidly beeped. He gently took the baby from her arms and told her to get going as his mother approached. "Thanks, Annie. I'll see you later,"

"Bye," He smiled, waving at her before turning back to August. "Let's get you back to your mama then I can check on Marinette,"

August giggled back and made grabby hands at Anatis before he walked over to his mother and handed him back to her, thanking him for saving her baby. He simply replied that he was doing his job. He waved to August then threw up his yoyo and swung off. He landed on Marinette's roof and looked around. He felt his panic begin to rise as he didn't see her around.

"Marinette?!" He gasped, afraid that his miraculous cure hadn't worked on her. What if she had been killed? Could the cure even bring back the dead? He frowned but heard footsteps. He turned around and let out a sigh as he saw her walking over to him.

"Anatis?" She questioned, a little surprised. She went to say something but he walked over to her and pulled her into a hug, completely catching her off guard. She gasped as she realized he was shaking. She wrapped her arms around him. "Anatis, it's ok... I'm ok,"

"You could have been killed," He whispered, looking at her. She couldn't but blush at the gentle look in his eyes.

"Hey, I'm here and I'm safe," She smiled, gently placing her hand on his cheek. His eyes widen in surprise at the action and she quickly pulled away her hand, going red. "S-Sorry.."

"No... I'm sorry...I'm not acting professionally so forgive me. I just... I can't bear the idea of you been hurt...I needed to know you were ok..." He mumbled, looking to the side before looking at her as she blushed a little before he pulled away. "I'm sorry if this seems creepy and I know you don't really know me but I care about you a lot, Marinette,"

"Anatis, you do realize I consider you my friend," She stated, making him look at her with surprise as she took his hand. "So I don't find it creepy and I know it's hard to get to know you with the fact that you're a hero and all but I care about you too. You've saved my life more times then I can count and you were one of the only two people to believe me about Lila... so thank you for everything you've done for me..."

She suddenly hugged him, surprising him before he hugged back, closing his eyes. A gasp suddenly pulled them both out of their little world, causing Marinette to jump back as she saw her father staring back at them with huge eyes.

"Well, I never," He gasped, climbing out. "Whoa,"

"Papa! It's not what it seems!" She gasped as he climbed out. "Anatis was-"

"Making sure Marinette was safe," Anatis gasped, holding up his hands as his earrings beeped. He gasped, touching his earrings. "I have to go... um... bye?"

"Wait," Tom gasped, gently grabbing his shoulder. "Why don't you come have Sunday brunch with us tomorrow?"

"Papa!" Marinette gasped, going bright red.

"Um... I don't want to intrude..." Anatis mumbled, making Tom laugh.

"You won't be intruding at all," He smiled. "So tomorrow at 11 o'clock. Don't be late! I'll make some macarons!"

Anatis went to say something but his earrings beeped again and Tom had already climbed back into the house. Marinette gasped and went bright red before turning to Anatis as his earrings beeped again.

"I'm sorry, Marinette. I have to go," He gasped, taking out his yoyo and swinging off. He would have stayed longer but as soon as he swung down to an alleyway, his transformation dropped, causing him catch Tikki. He took out a cookie from his pocket and gave it to her. She smiled and began to eat it before noticing him frowning.

"Luka, what's wrong?" She asked as he began to walk back to the Seine.

"Mr Dupain invited me to brunch tomorrow..." He mumbled, making her look at him in surprise. "I think he thinks that Anatis is Marinette's boyfriend so he invited me..."

"You don't seem happy about it," She mumbled, making him sigh. "Don't you love Marinette?"

"I do but I can't... what if this puts her in danger?" He asked, frowning. "I love Marinette too much to ever want to put her in danger,"

"I see," Tikki nodded. "What are you going to do?"

"I'll go there tomorrow and explain," He mumbled, getting a nod of Tikki as they reached the boat. "I just hope they understand,"

~The Next Day~

Luka took a deep breathe as he walked towards the bakery. He intended to transform closer to the bakery but he stopped when he saw some roses on sale. Deciding to get one for Marinette, he walked into the store and brought a pink rose. He paid the florist and left before moving into an alleyway and glanced around. Tikki flew out of his pocket.

"Why a pink rose?" She asked, making him glance at her.

"Ma told me that pink roses mean I admire you," He replied, glancing at it. "I admire Marinette a lot. She isn't just a pretty face to me. She's brave, kind and gentle,"

"That's really sweet," Tikki smiled as he smiled back before he took out his phone and glanced at the time. It was ten to eleven. He took a deep breathe before calling on his transformation. He walked over to the bakery and noticed it was closed before moving to the side door and rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, the door opened, revealing Marinette. To his surprise, she was dressed in a different outfit. Instead of her usual clothes, she was dressed in a cute summer dress and ballet pumps. Her hair was done in a loose bun with a strand down and she had a light blush on her cheeks.

"Um... hey..." She mumbled, taking his hand and pulling him in. "I'm really sorry about all of this. Papa insisted I wear something nice and-"

"You look lovely," He smiled, making her cheeks go red but before he could stay anything else, her father rushed over and pulled him into a bear hug.

"Welcome to our home!!" He declared as Sabine came over.

"Tom, let the poor boy go," She gasped, making him drop Anatis. He said a quick apology before putting him down to face Marinette. He rushed over to Sabine and watched them like a little child on Christmas day.

"Um... this is for you..." Anatis mumbled as he held up the rose, causing Tom to grin. Marinette blushed and took it, smiling a little before the two of them kissed each other on the cheeks as a greeting. Tom turned to his wife with an excellent grin.

"Oh! He brought Marinette a pink rose! How romantic! Marinette loves pink!" He gasped, gesturing towards them. "You already know each other so well!!"

"Papa! Everyone loves pink," Marinette gasped, holding the rose. "It doesn't mean anything... right?"

"Um... pink roses actually mean I admire you so th-that's why I got it... I think Marinette is really brave and I admire her for that..." Anatis mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck as Marinette went the same shade of pink as the rose. Anatis gulped as Tom looked like he was about to explode. "B-But I don't really know her that well..."

"Love at first sight!" Tom sighed, making Marinette sigh. "How romantic!"

"Papa!" Marinette gasped, looking embarrassed but Tom rushed over and dragged them both over to the table.

"Have a seat, kids," He grinned, moving over to the kitchen. "I'll bring out the first course,"

He hummed to himself as he began to prepare the food. Marinette gasped and covered her face with her hand as Anatis played with his hands before turning to her.

"Um... Marinette?" He asked, making her look at him. "I... um... I need-"

"Volia!" Tom declared, putting down a dish. It had some food on there that were heart shaped. "Sweethearts' vol-au-vents! For two of course!"

"Papa, you're embarrassing us!" Marinette gasped as she noticed Anatis look around nervously.

"Nonsense!" Tom declared, grinning. Anatis gave him a nervous look before picking up one of the hearts and eating it. "Tell me, Anatis, is been a superhero a steady profession?"

"I'm sorry what?" Anatis gasped, glad he had swallowed the food. At the same time, Sabine said Tom's name and Marinette covered her face again, groaning.

"What?" He asked, looking at his wife before turning back to Anatis, looking for an answer.

"Um... I don't actually get paid for it..." He admitted before looking at Tom. "Besides, been a superhero is really dangerous,"

"Exactly!" Marinette gasped, seeing where he was going. "I should definitely get a more stable boyfriend,"

"Nonsense, sweetie," Tom grinned, making both Anatis and Marinette frown. "Anatis won't be a superhero all his life! Once Hawkmoth is defeated, he won't need to run round on the rooftops with a yoyo saving people,"

Marinette just stared at her father with a mixture of shock and irritation.

"I know!" He gasped, clicking his fingers and making Anatis jump as he raised his voice. "He could work in the bakery with me! I could train you, young man,"

"Um-"

"Papa! Anatis doesn't want to be a bakery!" Marinette gasped as Anatis nodded, agreeing with her.

"See?! He would love to! Everyone loves bakers!" Tom gasped before holding up his hands. "The Dupain-Anatis Bakery! Doesn't that sound great?! Oh, I can already see little bugs running around the house!"

"Papa!" Marinette gasped as Anatis went bright red.

"Oh and hamsters! You do like hamsters right? Marinette loves them!" He gasped, getting a little bit in Anatis' face. He looked a little nervous before letting out a breathe when Tom looked back at Marinette. "What did you want to call your future one?"

"This is a nightmare!" Marinette gasped.

"That's right! Nightmare!" Tom chuckled before pulling a face. "A bit of a funny name, isn't it? Oh well. I'm bringing the Souffle,"

He grabbed the trays before moving them into the kitchen and took something out of the oven before presenting it to them. Anatis blinked as he saw it was heart shaped.

"Volia! Hmm?" Tom grinned but Sabine cleared her throat.

"Why don't we let Anatis tell us what he wants to do?" She suggested, causing Marinette to look up. "Anatis? Is there anything you want to do?"

"Um... I really shouldn't talk about my hobbies or dreams..." He muttered, frowning before sighing. "Which brings me to something else. Mr Dupain, Mrs Cheng... Marinette... here's the thing. You're really nice people and it's very kind of you to invite me for brunch but... um.... Marinette, you're an awesome girl and I admire you a lot but... I can never date you... not as Anatis... I'm really sorry, Marinette..."

"Anatis..." She mumbled as Tom and Sabine gasped. "I know and it's ok. I've tried to tell Papa that you're in love with someone else..."

"Right..." He mumbled, glancing to the side. He let out a sigh before glancing at her. "I'm really sorry, Marinette,"

He noticed how Tom was looking at him. He honestly looked like he wanted to strangle him. He gulped a little before turning back to Marinette.

"Um... I should go..." He mumbled, getting up. "Thank you for having me..."

He headed to the door and walk out it before going down the stairs, letting out a sigh as he did. Marinette frowned a little but not because Anatis had to reject. She felt sorry for him as he had always been honest with her but her father didn't let either of them explain and just assumed he was her boyfriend, which he wasn't. Not that she wouldn't love him to be. Of course, she had thought about it. She sighed and turned to her father, causing him to looked up at her. She shook her head and walked over to the stairs, causing her father to gently grab her arm.

"Sweetie, are you ok?!" He gasped, causing her to nod. "You don't have to pretend,"

"Papa, I'm not pretending. I've known Anatis is love with someone else for ages," She gasped, shaking her head but she could see in his eyes that he didn't believe her. She sighed and pulled her arm from his hand, causing him to take the rose. "I'm gonna go to my room,"

She headed up there and flopped on her chair, letting out a sigh. Plagg flew out of his hiding place.

"So how did it go with Bug boy?"

"Well, Papa embarrassed us and then got annoyed because Anatis said that he couldn't date me," She sighed, making him blink. "So as expected, he rejected me but this should haven't happened in the first place!"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I tried to tell Papa that Anatis isn't my boyfriend," She sighed, shaking her head. "And if he had listened to me in the first place, Anatis wouldn't have to gone through this but now my papa is annoyed at him because of his own assumption!"

Plagg went to answer but before he could, Marinette's whole room was in engulfed in a purple smog, making her gasp and call out to him in panic. He went to fly over to her but a purple smog wall separated the two of them.

"Marinette!!"

~Outside the Bakery~

Luka sighed as he sat against the wall of the alleyway. As soon as he was out of anyone's view, he detransformed and gave Tikki a cookie. She was sat on his knee as he sat with his arms resting on his arms. She gently put a paw against his arm, making him look up. He knew rejecting Marinette as Anatis was for the best but it still hurt him to do so.

"You can always confess to her as Luka," She mumbled, making him frown.

"I can't even write a song to tell her how I feel," He mumbled, looking down. "Besides, why would she like me as Luka? Luka isn't a superhero or interesting. I can't even talk or make sense... I love her, Tikki... I love her so much but she doesn't love me. Sure, she likes me but only as her friend..."

He sighed and wiped under his eyes.

"It's not that I'm ungrateful for her friendship... it's just... I wish I could tell her how I feel but every time I've tried something goes wrong or I don't make sense..." He sighed, making Tikki frown a little but before either of them could say a thing, people began to scream. Luka jumped up and rushed out of the alleyway, gasping as he saw a purple smog going up into the sky from Marinette's room. Luka gasped and took a step back as the smog lifted, revealing a giant stalk with thorns. He rushed back into the Alleyway, causing Tikki to fly up to him. "Tikki! Spots on!"

He transformed and rushed back out, heading straight into the bakery. He ran up the stairs and into the apartment. Sabine was sat on the floor, looking at the giant plant in shock. He rushed over to her and helped her up.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs Cheng," He mumbled as she dusted herself down. "This is my fault..."

"Of course not, Anatis," She gasped, placing her hand on his shoulder. "It's Tom. No matter how much I tell him, he always takes things too far,"

"I'll get Mr Dupain back to his senses and save Marinette... I promise," He replied, though the promise is more to himself then Sabine. Sabine glanced at him before placing her hand on his arm again.

"I know you will, Anatis," She smiled, making him nod. "Will you wait for Lady Noir?"

"I can't afford to," He admitted, making her nod but frown a little. "She'll understand. She's cool like that,"

"Marinette mentioned you were in love with another girl," Sabine asked, causing him to look at her. "Is it Lady Noir?"

"No, Lady Noir is great but she's my friend..." He muttered, making her nod. "The girl I love... I've been in love with her since I first met her... she's the song that keeps playing in my head..."

"You really love this girl, don't you?" Sabine asked, making him blush a little.

"Yeah, she's amazing," He smiled before frowning and shaking his head. "Don't worry, Mrs Cheng. I'll save Marinette,"

"I have faith in you, Anatis. You're a good person," She smiled, making him smile. "Never apology for your feelings,"

"Thank you, Mrs Cheng," He smiled before moving over to the bottom of the stalk. He jumped up through the gap and landed on part of it before taking out his yoyo. He threw it upwards, causing it to wrap around one of the thorns before he attached it to his belt and pulled on it, causing him to fly upwards. He glanced down a little and saw the city disappear as he pass through clouds til he came to where his yoyo was. It was wrapped around one of the thorns in a circle area. He undid it and jumped down, landing on the lower curve before glancing around. He literally could see nothing but clouds and sky, which was beautiful but he needed to focus on saving Marinette. He looked up and saw a platform made from the stalk. He threw his yoyo up and wrapped it around one of the other thorns, pulling himself upwards and landing on the platform. He glanced around but saw no one there. "Marinette?!"

No one answered as he walked forward before he looked up and saw more of the stalk. It rose up a good few feet and had formed a ball at the top. He realized Marinette must be in there. He frowned as he began to walk over to it.

~Inside the Ball of Thorns~

Marinette gasped as she climbed over more thorns and stalks. She was certain that her father had been akumatized due to Anatis' rejection. She jumped down and looked around before cupping her hands over her mouth.

"Plagg!" She called out. Her voice echoed as she looked around. No answer. "Plagg!!"

Again, no answer. She frowned and moved her arms around her waist as she looked around.

"Marinette?!" Plagg's voice suddenly echoed, making her gasp and look around. "Marinette?! Where are you?!"

"Plagg! I'm over here!!" She called, rushing towards where she heard him. However, the more she tried to find him the harder and more confusing it got. Marinette stopped and glanced around. "Plagg! I can't find you!!"

"I can't find you either!" Plagg called back as he floated around. "It's a magical prison and I think it's trying to stop me from finding you,"

"There has to be a way out of here," Marinette muttered as she glanced around. "There has to be,"

~Meanwhile~

"Marinette?!" Anatis called, looking around. Suddenly, a number of vines aimed at him, causing him to jump out of the way and using his yoyo to protect himself. The platform shook as something heavy landed on it, causing him to look up. The beast in front of him had black and brown fur with green pants that were ripped and vines wrapped around his wrists, ankles and waist. He also had a huge moustache and bright yellow eyes. "Mr Dupain?"

"How dare you come back after what you've done!" He snarled, jumping up and diving towards Anatis. He gasped and rolled out of the way, causing the beast to hit the area he had been standing. He straightened up and let out a growl.

"I'll always be here to save Marinette!" Anatis replied, causing the beast to charge at him and try to punch him. Anatis dodged it and used his yoyo as a shield.

"She's safe from you and all the boys who will break her heart!" He growled, throwing a fist at Anatis. He jumped over him and out of the way.

"I didn't want to break her heart!" He shouted back. "But-"

The beast used part of the vine to hit him before he could finish his sentence, knocking him of the edge. Anatis managed to grab the edge before he fell and pulled himself up but the beast grabbed him and threw him across the platform, causing him to fall hard on it before the beast jumped at him. Anatis managed to dodge him, causing him to growl and throw more fists. He jumped out of the way and landed on one of the thorns but before he could jump to another, a vine wrapped around him, causing the beast to pull him.

"No, you don't! I forbid you to rescue her!" He growled, spinning him around before slamming him into the ground. "You don't deserve to save her! From now on, no else but I will protect her,"

Anatis groaned but pushed himself up before facing the beast.

"And are you gonna protect her all her life?" He asked, glancing at him. The beast growled and charged at Anatis, forcing him to use his yoyo as a shield.

"Exactly!" He growled, slamming his fists on it, breaking through and grabbing Anatis, throwing him into the stalk. "I'll keep her safe from sadness, hardship and anything else that can hurt her,"

"But you'll be hurting her!" Anatis shouted back, making the beast charge at him. He charged back and jumped over him, wrapping his yoyo around him. "You'll be the one to cause her the most pain by isolating her from the world! Do you really want that?! Do you really want be the same as the girl who made her become Princess Justice?! Do you really want to leave her alone and scared in a prison of roses?!"

For a second, he thought he had gotten through to him but the beast broke out of the yoyo's string and grabbed him, throwing him against the ground.

"She will never be alone!" He snarled as Anatis got up, holding his side. "Someday, a prince will come! A prince worthy of her, daring enough to face me, who will brave the many faces and pick the magic rose for her! He will be worthy of taking her from my guard!"

"She doesn't need a prince to do anything for her!" Anatis growled, surprising the beast. "Marinette is brave enough to pick that rose for herself! She isn't some price to be won and I wo-"

A number of vines slammed into him, cutting him off before he jumped out of the way. He took out his yoyo, spinning it as he faced the beast.

"Bring it,"

~Back in the Ball of Thorns~

Marinette let out another sigh as she stopped trying to push the giant vines. It was doing no good as they wouldn't budge. She wiped her forehead with her arm before glancing around. If she couldn't get out that way, she had to find another way. She glanced around, frowning. She couldn't rely on becoming Lady Noir as the prison was keeping Plagg from getting to her and it appeared that no one could get inside the prison, meaning Anatis couldn't get to her plus she doubted her father would let him anyway so it was down to her. She glanced around again before gasping as she noticed a golden beam of light. It appeared to be highlighting something. She looked closer and gasped as she saw a rose on a pedestal in the middle of the beam.

"That's the rose Anatis gave me," She muttered before stepping closer. A sound echoed, making her frown in confusement and look around before she noticed a vine swinging towards her. She jumped down, causing it to miss her before she got back up and looked back at the rose. More vines were swinging, making her frown before she clicked. It was an assault course. She smirked and clicked her neck. "Ok,"

She took a deep breathe and began to run through the swinging vines, sliding over some and ducking under others. She had to be careful and made sure to keep her balance but she managed to get by. All she had to do was running across a vine that resembled a bridge and climb up to the rose. She let out a sigh before pushing up her sleeves and grinning.

"I can do this!" She gasped before running across the vine as the place echoed.

~Outside of the Thorn Prison~

Anatis dodged the vines that the Beast was directing at him before jumping up. A vine wrapped around his waist and slammed him into the stalk repeated before dropping him onto the floor. The beast walked over to him, causing Anatis glanced up at him.

"I w-won't stop trying to save her..." He gasped, pushing himself up before a number of vines attacked him again, repeatedly slamming into him before pulling him against the stem and wrapping around him so he was tied to it. The beast growled as he glanced up. "I won't give up on trying to free her..."

"I forbid you to do so!" The beast growled before lifting his fist and repeatedly slamming into Anatis' face until he had a closed up eye and bloodied lip. The beast pulled back the vines, causing Anatis to fall to the floor.

"I'm not... giving... up..." Anatis gasped, trying to push himself up but the beast grabbed him by the neck and lifted him up. Anatis glanced at him with a weakened expression as he tried to get free and punch the beast. "I... won't... never..."

"You're not worthy of my daughter," He growled, beating him more til he was practically unconscious before dragging him over to the edge and holding him over it. Anatis weakly opened his good eye as the beast smirked. He intended to drop him off the edge. A purple mask appeared around his eyes as Hawkmoth ordered him to take Anatis' miraculous. The beast smirked and reached for his earrings, taking one of them off. The other one began to rapidly beep as Anatis' costume began to slowly disappear.

~Inside the prison~

Marinette jumped across one of the vines and grabbed onto a couple of thorns, using them to climb up to the rose. She got close enough to it and reached it, grabbing it. She plucked it out, smiling as she did but it turned to dust in her hand, releasing the akuma. As soon as it was destroyed, the sound of cracking and the prison broke apart, causing her to fall. She managed to grab onto a large vine but she screamed as she fell.

"Marinette!" Plagg called as he flew over to her. "Buy boy's in big trouble!"

"No time to wait then," She grinned. "Plagg! Claws out!"

She transformed into Lady Noir and jumped off the vine. She could see her father falling as well as Anatis but his costume was slowly disappearing. Lady Noir brought her arms to her side, causing her to fall faster before she put them out again, slowing her down.

"Mr Dupain!" She called, making him look at her. "I need Anatis' earring,"

"O-oh right," He muttered, holding it out to her. She took before diving over to Anatis. He looked like hell but luckily on part of his costume had disappeared. She ignored what she could see and fixed his earring onto his ear, causing his costume to reform. He slowly opened his eye as he felt her hand on his cheek.

"Lady Noir... Marinette..." He muttered, making her smile a little.

"She's safe. I got her to safety," She stated, causing him to nod. "We need your lucky charm,"

"K-Kay..." He muttered, throwing out his yoyo. "L-Lucky charm..."

Luckily for them, the ladybugs created a huge boat, catching the three of them. Anatis slumped to the side, causing Lady Noir to grab his yoyo and throw it out, catching the akuma and releasing the purified version before she glanced around. She turned to Anatis who was trying his best not to loose unconsciousness while her dad looked like he was able to freak.

"Annie, hold onto that pole," She ordered, causing him to do so. "Mr Dupain, do the same,"

"R-Right," He nodded as she summoned her cataclysm, destroying the lower part of the boat. She grabbed the sail, a pole and some rope before creating a makeshift glider. They glided to the ground, causing Tom to cover his eyes as they landed in front of the bakery. Sabine rushed out as soon as they did, embracing Tom as Lady Noir picked up a piece of the glider. She let out a sigh and turned Anatis to hand him the pole but caught him as he flopped against her, clearly tired and hurt. She smiled gently before throwing the pole into the air.

"Miraculous Ladybugs!" She declared, causing the pole to burst into the cure. It swarmed over the city and the bakery before swarming around Anatis, restoring him back to normal. He blinked and pulled away from her as he went bright red.

"S-Sorry," He gasped as he looked to the side before his eyes widen. "Marinette!"

He turned to run into the bakery, followed by her parents. Lady Noir let out a sigh and jumped up onto her balcony before sliding into her room. She slid down the banister of her stairs that led to her bed as she dropped her transformation, causing Plagg to hide when her parents and Anatis rushed in. Her father hugged her, causing her to gasp.

"Papa, I can't breathe," She gasped, causing him to let go of her.

"Sorry... it's just... I was so worried," He gasped, holding her shoulders. "You were so heartbroken because of..."

He glared at Anatis, causing him to flinch and look away.

"Papa, stop. I wasn't heartbroken. I was annoyed because you didn't listen to me," She replied, causing her father to look at her. "But even if I was, Anatis is allowed to have feelings for people and he can reject or accept whoever he wants. I'm just glad he's my friend,"

"Marinette..." Anatis muttered, glancing at her. "I'm sorry..."

"You don't need to be," She smiled before turning to her parents as Anatis's earrings beeped. He sighed before climbing up on the roof and disappearing through the skylight, causing Marinette to turn to her father with crossed arms. "Papa, I hope you don't hold this against him,"

"I won't, sweetie," He replied, nodding as she let out a sigh. "I'm sorry again,"

~Later that Night~

"Hey, bug boy," Lady Noir called out as she saw Anatis. He was sat on the edge of a building, looking down. "You ok?"

"Not really," He muttered, sighing as she sat next to him. "Today sucked so much,"

"Well, you did go up against one hell of a beast," She pointed out but he sighed, still looking down. "Hey, you can tell me,"

"You remember that I mentioned I'm in love with a girl..." He muttered, making her nod. "I had to reject her today..."

"Oh, that- Wait! Marinette is that girl!" She gasped, looking at him. "But... why did you reject her if you're in love with her?!"

"Because of Hawkmoth," He sighed, making her frown. She never considered that. "As far as she knows, I'm in love with some girl but she has no idea it's her. I keep on telling myself it's better that way since I'd want her to know who I really am underneath the mask. Maybe if the circumstances were different, I would have told her today but it isn't... it would put her and her family in danger... I can't... no, I won't do that,"

"Annie..." Lady Noir whispered before hugging him. She pulled away and glanced at him.

"Besides, it's not like I intended for this to happen. I was just making sure she was ok after Gigantitan's attack and her father saw me hugging her and jumped to a conclusion. I couldn't reject his offer as I had to go since my timer was about to stop," He sighed, looking down. "I tried to let her down as gently as possible,"

"I'm sure you did," She nodded before glancing at him. "But why don't you just confess to her in your civilian form?

"Because I suck at words," He sighed, resting his chin on his hand. "And it's not like I haven't tried but every time I do, something goes wrong,"

"Ooh," She nodded, deciding to ignore that she somehow knows Anatis' civilian form. "So you have been trying to keep our deal?"

"Yeah but things keeping on getting in the way," He sighed, leaning his head on her shoulder. "I'm sorry to moan like this,"

"No worries, bug a boo," She smiled, gently patting his head. "Personally, I think Marinette is a very lucky girl to have your attention and your reasons are very noble. You clearly care for her a lot,"

"I do..." He muttered, sighing. "I can't tell you why but she means a lot to me and I just want her to be happy, even that means having to let her go,"

"But you deserve to be happy as well,"

"Not if it puts her in danger," He replied, looking sad before smiling a little. "But don't worry about me, Lady Noir. I'll be ok,"

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

Next Chapter: Chapter 49

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wefoundloveunderthelight · 3 years

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The Love Cruise - by GleefullyCaptainSwan

Read on AO3: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Or on FF

Tagging: @teamhook @kmomof4 @stahlop @lfh1226-linda

Chapter 4: Captain Jones

“Do you think Barbados is ready for me?” Ruby stood, showing off her tanned body in her new bikini.

“Girl, I don’t think anyone is ready for you in that. Where’s the rest of it?” She spun around and Emma fanned herself, teasing her friend.

“Why are you wearing so many layers?”

Emma tugged her cover up tighter around her waist. “Not everyone can flaunt it like you can. I look like they lock me in the closet during the day and my body never sees the sunlight.”

“Oh stop, you’re sexy as hell, Emma. I’ve seen more than a few guys turning their heads when you walk by, though usually you are running away from them so they can’t catch you.”

“Whatever, I told you I’m not interested in finding a guy on this damn cruise.”

“Not even that guy, Graham, that asked you to dance?”

Emma scrunched her nose and shook her head. “He’s cute, and a great dancer, but, eh, I don’t know.”

“You know, he’s going to be with us today?”

“What? How do you know?”

“Because I talked to him after dinner and he’s on the same excursion we are.”

“If you’re so interested in him, why don’t you hook up with him?”

“I would if he wasn’t asking about you half the time.”

Emma groaned. “Can we just go? I don’t want to talk about men all damn day. I want to enjoy the beach, the sand, the ocean in Barbados. We are in fucking Barbados, Ruby. Together. When we are back in Boston and it’s raining, will we have these men to keep us warm? No, but we will have each other.”

“Ho’s before bro’s?” She giggled as Will walked into their room.

“Do I get to be a ho?”

“You are by far the biggest ho, William!” Emma laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Are you still mad at me?” She planted her lips on his cheek and he groaned, wiping the pink smudge off his face.

“I’m not bloody happy with you, but what’s a bloke to do? You’re my best friend and I can’t stay mad at ya.” He put his finger up to her face, “But don’t do that shit again. That girl won’t stop asking me about rum recipes now.”

“You didn’t seem too upset when she kept telling you how talented you were at the bar last night.”

“Wait, what did I miss?” Emma looked between the pair on either side of her.

“One of the bartenders let him make our drinks at the piano bar. You should have seen him playing it up, flipping bottles, acting like a goddamn bar hero. He was on his game.”

“I’m fucking talented as hell, that had nothing to do with that lass.”

“You were showing off.” Emma teased. “You do like her.”

“I do not.” He resisted, less forcefully than he had the day before. Emma was sure he liked her, but she was also sure that he was probably feeling guilty about liking her also.

“You know it’s ok to like another girl, Will.” Emma slid her hand onto the back of his head, pressing his forehead to hers. “Ana’s gone. You deserve to have some fun.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Why are you ladies always pushing me so hard to move on from Ana? What if I don’t want to move on?”

“You don’t want to move on because you’re too afraid to open yourself up again and maybe get hurt.”

“Besides, we love you, Boo.” Ruby added, wrapping her arms around them both.

“No Boo. You both promised, not here.” His mouth turned up in a grin. “But I love you guys too.”

~*~

“Absolutely not.” Regina stood with her arms crossed in front of her.

“You can’t work 24 hours a day, we get to leave the ship for a few hours, are you really going to deny this simply because I’m going?” Robin whined.

“Yes.” She said matter-of-factly.

“Ok enough of this, we’re going.” Killian gestured to Robin before turning around and pointing at Regina, “And you’re coming with us. Captain’s orders.”

“You can’t do that.”

Killian shrugged, “I just did. I’m not going to have my Cruise Director burned out 4 days into our voyage, we are going to imbibe in some alcoholic beverages in Barbados.”

“Fine, but it is under duress.”

“At least that will be two of us on this bloody cruise under duress.” He winked at Robin and the three of them left the ship in search of a good bar.

Being the Captain did have its perks, they were directed to apparently the best bar on the beach they could find and an hour later, sitting with their feet in the sand and a bucket of beer, the three of them found themselves engaging in nonviolent conversations.

Regina was laughing, “Wait, so you were just going to leave him there?”

“Of course, I was, he was about to start a riot.” Killian said as he felt tears well up in the corners of his eyes, his body shaking from his laughter.

“Do you remember what I said to the guy?”

They both looked at each other and spoke in unison. “The only way you'll ever get laid is if you crawl up a chicken's ass and wait.”

“Which one of you got punched first.” Regina eyed them with curiosity.

Robin raised his hand. “I ended up on the pool table. Killian tossed one of the guys into a stool. By that point, the manager threw us all out.”

“That was the last time we insulted the Captain’s son again.”

“You two really are idiots.” Regina quipped as she took another sip of her beer.

“But we had you laughing.” Robin winked.

“Only because I was imagining you getting your ass kicked.”

Killian nursed his beer, watching the two of them doing what he could only describe as violent flirting, until he started to feel like a third wheel.

“I’ll be back.” He announced, heading inside toward the bar, and discreetly paying the tab. “If they get anything else, just put it on the same card.”

Killian exited the bar and walked through the small town, browsing the shops until he followed the path toward the beach. He saw groups of travelers lounging on the sand or sailing on the water, most likely passengers on his ship.

He toed off his shoes and walked barefoot through the sand, looking up he saw her, laying on a towel, an oversized hat perched on her blonde locks, reading a book. She was gorgeous. Her friend, a tall brunette he had seen her with earlier was wearing a very tiny bikini, arching her back and taking in the rays to her already sun kissed skin.

There were others with them, the man she was laughing with earlier stood nearby talking to a shorter woman. A taller man with wavy hair was sitting just off to the side of Emma, he glanced at her often, but Emma seemed not to take notice, her head buried in the words in front of her.

He continued to walk along the wet sand, observing the woman who had captured his attention when she looked up, glancing at the waves out beyond him. He looked away quickly, reaching down to pick up a shell he nearly stepped on. When he looked up again, she was gone.

~*~

Emma was reading the same line over and over again in her book, trying to avoid the gaze of Graham, who was seated to her right. At first, she thought he was looking at Ruby, God knows if she were a hot-blooded man, she would be. But when she caught his eye, he smiled at her and attempted to make conversation. Emma froze and immediately buried her head in her book.

It’s not that she didn’t think he was attractive and extremely nice; she just didn’t know what to say to him. She knew he was a Sheriff in some small town in Maine and that her brother thought he was quite impressive, which made her not want to talk to him even more than she had before her brother started pointing out all the things they had in common.

She peered up from her book, a feeling washing over her like she was being watched. She peeked to her right, but Graham was talking to David and Will was finally having a real conversation with Belle as they bounced a volleyball back and forth between them.

Her eyes scanned the beach when she saw him picking up shells near the water. He seemed to look her way and then turned back toward the ocean.

“I’m gonna go dip my toes in the water.” She announced suddenly to Ruby who was currently lying ass up on the towel beside her.

“Have fun.” She replied lazily.

She jogged toward Killian who was facing the ocean now and skipped up behind him. “Are you considering throwing yourself in because if you are, I actually do know how to swim, in case you need saving.”

He turned suddenly and his bright smile made her heart skip a beat.

“Swan, fancy meeting you here.”

“Did you go on an excursion today?”

“No, I hung out at one of the bars a little way down the beach.” He pointed behind him.

“Drinking alone?”

“Oh, no I went with a few friends.”

“I didn’t realize you came with people. Or did you meet them here?”

“My buddy…” He paused. “Um, my buddy and I came together.”

“Did you ditch him?” She asked looking around for his friend.

“He is entertaining a lass back at the bar, felt like a third wheel. Have you been on the beach all day?”

“My brother dragged us all sail boarding, so I’m gonna be really sore tomorrow considering all the times I fell into the water, but it was a really good day.”

He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling as the sun beat down on him. “That sounds like you had a lot of fun.”

“Do you maybe want to get a drink later tonight?” She blurted out, wondering where that blast of courage came from.

He looked at his feet and she panicked. “I uh, I think I need to tell you something first.”

“Oh?” Suddenly there was screaming behind her on the beach and she turned to see Ruby yelling and running toward a group of people. “Oh, shit, I gotta…” She turned and ran toward Ruby, looking down the beach to what was causing her so much stress. August was lying on the ground, holding his leg.

“Oh God what happened?”

“We were playing volleyball and the old man slipped, I think he twisted his ankle.” Will said in a slight panic.

“I’m ok guys.” August groaned, “I think I just sprained it.” He stood up and then stepped down, immediately falling back down to his knees.

“Ok Mate, you’re gonna need help back to the ship, you’ll need the medic to take a look at that ankle.”

She was shocked when Killian sprung into the middle of the group, helping August to his feet. “Should we all go?” Ruby asked August.

“No, you guys stay here, have fun. I’ll just go back and make sure everything is ok.” August waved them all off.

“I’ll go with him; the sun is starting to burn my skin.” Emma announced and Killian made eye contact with her, a smile forming on his lips.

Emma stood on the other side of August, wrapping her arm around him to help support his other side. “Come on dad, let’s get you to a doctor.”

“Very funny, Emma.” He chided her and Killian laughed.

“You sure you don’t mind going back to the ship?” She asked Killian.

“Absolutely, it’s important that all the passengers are taken care of.” Emma looked at him quizzically but continued walking toward the pier.

~*~

Killian knew he should have just told her he was the damn Captain when they first met. He tried to tell her at the beach and then her friend got hurt and as Captain it was important that he took the man back to the ship, his passengers health always came first over innocent flirting with one of the women on his ship.

Once they made it to the infirmary, he spotted Tink at the back of the bay. He waved her over and she jumped into action.

“Jones, have you started combing the ship for injured passengers now?”

He laughed nervously, avoiding eye contact with Emma. “I believe we have a twisted ankle.” He helped get the man up on the bed.

“Name?” Tink questioned as she pulled up her iPad to search the passenger list.

“August Booth.”

Killian backed up against the wall and watched as she examined his ankle. He observed Emma asking questions, checking to ensure that he was going to be ok and he slowly backed out of the room. He’d tell Emma later about being the Captain, right now she had more important things to tend to.

~*~

“So, it looks like it’s just sprained.” She ran her hand over his ankle again and Emma couldn’t help but notice the way August watched the nurse in awe.

“Well, does that mean I have to spend all my time down here in the infirmary now?” He joked innocently.

Tink laughed, “Well only if you want to.” She teased and Emma suddenly felt like she was invading a private moment.

That’s when Emma noticed that Killian was no longer in the room. “Oh, did you see where the guy who helped us went?”

Tink looked up and laughed. “Jones? Pretty sure he probably went back to the bridge.”

“The bridge? What bridge would that be?”

“Of the boat, did you hit your head or something. That’s where the Captain usually is when we are getting close to leaving port.”

“Captain?”

“You are talking about Captain Jones, right? The guy you came in with?” She pointed haphazardly toward the wall of photos behind her before turning back to August to wrap his ankle.

Emma walked up to the wall and immediately recognized the blue eyes in the largest photo in the center. Her heart was racing as she read the inscription under the portrait.

Captain Killian Jones

Holy Shit!

~*~

“Ok spill.” Emma turned to look at Ruby who was staring at her from across the room as they got ready for dinner.

“Spill what?”

“Who is he?”

“Who is who?” Emma turned back toward the mirror; confusion littered across her face.

“The hot drink of water you found on the beach; you know who I’m talking about.” Ruby glared at her with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

“What, the guy who helped August? Good Samaritan, I guess.” She shrugged nonchalantly.

“Bullshit, I was watching you before all that happened, you went directly to him on the beach.”

“What, are you spying on me now?” She accused.

“Out with it.”

Emma sighed. “He’s just some guy I keep running into. That’s all.” Emma put on her shawl and headed to the door, effectively ending the conversation.

“Ok keep your secrets.” She said with her eyes narrowed, joining her in the hall as they headed to the dining hall.

Their dinner passed by quickly, the saying was true that time would fly when you were having fun, as Emma was starting to enjoy sitting down to eat with her friends every evening. Even the newcomers were starting to fit in with everyone. Will and Belle had warmed up to each other. They were sitting quietly at the end of the table, Will trying to demonstrate how to flip a bottle without dropping it. Belle would giggle and follow his every move and he would reward her with a new blush to his cheeks.

Her brother and Mary Margaret had become inseparable, however the small kiss he gave her after dinner was a new development. August left dinner early stating that he needed to head back to the infirmary for a checkup on his ankle, though Emma was sure the visit was more to do with the cute blonde nurse than his ankle.

After dinner, the remaining group decided to relocate to the piano bar on the deck above them for a night cap. The music was enjoyable, and the bar wasn’t crowed which allowed them to spread out into different areas of the room.

“I think he likes you.” Emma set her drink down and looked over at her brother who was sitting beside her.

“Who?” David looked toward the bar and she spotted Graham looking in her direction. “Oh, he’s nice. I guess.”

“You guess? Emma, he’s a really nice guy. Did you know he’s a Sheriff in the town that Mary Margaret and Belle are from?”

“Small world.” She said softly, taking a sip of her drink and peering around the bar.

“Waiting for something better?” He questioned.

“Why would I be waiting for anything? I already told all of you that I’m not interested in finding anything here.”

“Emma, it’s been 7 years since Neal ran off, don’t you think it’s time you stop punishing yourself and think about what might be out there for you and Henry?”

“Punishing myself?” Her annoyance was rising.

“That’s not what I meant. Not really, I mean, not exactly. I just feel like you punish yourself for Neal leaving. It wasn’t your fault. You deserve to be happy, sis.”

“I love you Dave, I do. And I’m really happy that you seem to have found something on this ship that you are interested in, but please, let me handle my own happiness.”

“Alright, I’ll back off.” He said with a grin.

He went back to his date and Ruby slid up beside her. “Is he trying to get you to sleep with Graham, because if he is, do you want company?”

“Ruby!” She exclaimed, “how much have you had to drink?”

“Enough that I would take him right there on the bar.”

“Dare.” Emma smirked at her, knowing that Ruby never backed down from a dare.

Ruby’s mouth went from wide open to a firm line of determination, getting up from her seat and sauntering over to the bar. Emma looked around at all her friends, each of them distracted with other people and she took the moment to sneak out without notice.

She found herself wandering the lido deck in the dark, her drink from the bar still in her hand as she sipped it through the straw with the tiny umbrella attached. She told herself she wasn’t looking for him but that didn’t stop the disappointment she felt when she didn’t find him either.

~*~

“Everything is under control, Captain. You don’t have to stay up here if you would like to rest.”

“Thank you, Smee. I guess I just wasn’t ready to head to my quarters.” He stared out at the deck of the ship below him, there was a small group of passengers wandering her planks. A wave of blonde hair caught his attention, her hips swaying back and forth in the night breeze. “On second thought, I think I’m going to retire for the evening.”

Perhaps now was as good a time as any to confess to her who he was. He bounded down the stairs and shoved open the doors to the Lido deck. He headed in the direction she was last seen, but the deck was empty. Disappointed, he realized she may have already gone back inside.

“Captain Jones.”

He spun around to see her standing against the wall of the ship. “Ah, I guess I’m busted.” He said with a sigh. “Let me guess, Lady Bell clued you in? I swear to you I was going to tell you on the beach today.” He said honestly. “But then…”

“Then August’s old man body turned to wood and he required medical assistance.” She joked.

“Yes, that. Forgive me for being less than honest?”

“Only if you tell me why you didn’t just tell me the first day.”

“That’s fair. My friend Robin pretty much convinced me to take this job, I was less than thrilled about the theme of this cruise, and well, I was just happy to talk to someone else who seemed to be forced to be here as well.”

She shook her head in understanding. “So, you’re really the Captain huh?” She walked closer to him, her fingers trailing the sleeve of his shirt as she traced the stripes on his arm.

“Aye.”

“I should have known when you rattled off all those facts about the ship. No one else would have paid that much attention.”

“Actually, you all should pay attention to that information.” His tone serious.

“Yes, Captain.” She smirked with a mock salute and he swallowed hard.

“I won’t put up with any sass on my watch.” He teased as they fell into step walking along the deck.

“So, how’d you become a Captain?”

“My brother convinced me to join the Navy when we were just lads, the sea became my mistress as soon as I met her. I was captivated by her tempestuous nature. On the surface she could be rough and demanding, but beneath the surface she’s calm and inviting.”

“So your brother is a Captain too?”

“He was, yes.” He paused, leaning on the rail for support. “He not with us anymore.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“He was the best Captain to ever sail the seas. He’s out there somewhere.” He pointed to the horizon. “He’s a better man than I’ll ever be.”

“Well considering you are the Captain of the ship I currently find myself on, I hope you’re the best Captain we can ask for.”

“I wouldn’t even have had the chance to Captain such a vessel if not for my brother.” He looked over at her unsure of why he was suddenly freely sharing information he would rarely share with another.

“Did he teach you?”

“He taught me everything I know. How to be a good Captain, a good sailor, and a good man.”

“When did he pass?”

“Two years ago. We were at sea, on a mission, there was a fire, I was in the engine room when it exploded. We were taking on water and I needed to seal off the leak. I sent everyone out, I expected it to be the last good deed I ever did. But he found me, dragged me out of the pits of that ship and got me on the rescue boat.”

“Wow.” Emma was staring at him in a shocked silence.

“He went back in for the rest of his crew.”

“Because you don’t leave a man behind.” She said seemingly with a sudden understanding of their earlier conversation.

“Aye.” He nodded but didn’t continue.

“That must have been really tough.”

“One of the worst nights of my life.”

“Looks like you made the most of it though. Look at you now.” She smiled softly.

“Perhaps.”

“Wow, you’re worse than me with the martyr stuff.” She laughed and he wanted to crawl into the void where her laughter filled the air and stay there forever. “I think you should try being a little easier on yourself and trust me, coming from me, that says a lot.”

“I’ll take that under consideration.” He smiled and she glanced around.

“I should get back before my friends send out a search party.”

“We can’t have that on my ship.” He smirked.

“I’ll see you around, Captain.” She said as she walked back toward the door, turning back to offer him a shy smile before she disappeared into the belly of his ship.

Perhaps this cruise wasn’t the worst idea Robin ever had after all.

#TLC #The Love Cruise #stacy's fics #killian jones #emma swan #emma x killian #captain swan #captain swan au #captain swan fics #captain swan modern au

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