#i guess i ought to give shit a try again i mean i did read creepypastas once when i was a teenager and enjoyed it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stardewtales · 3 years

Note

Your shane x reader are some of the first I read when i got into sdv, and they still hold a li special place in my heart <3 I love the way you wrote shane, jas, and the farmer (you kept the farmer rather neutral, but you still gave her moments of personality, rlly great stuff!), anyway, I'd love any shane related stuff you would do, but if your looking for a request, the reader teaching him abt farming/gardening (planting hot peppers together eee) i think would be rlly cute-ok bye lysm!!!

A/N: hey lovely!! If you're still around, thank you so much for this. I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to get to your request, but here it is! Hope it lives up to your expectations xx

Shane can feel you hovering behind him.

"What is it," he groans, not bothering to turn around.

"Sorry," he hears you say. "Just, be careful with the roots, please? I don't want all your work to be for nothing."

Well, he can't exactly fault you for that. If anything, he's ashamed because he was distracted while you showed him the whole thing about the roots.

He turns to look at you. "Would you, uh... mind showing me again?"

His stomach twists as you smile at him, thoroughly amused. "Sure thing. Here, let me get in there..."

You kneel beside him, knees firmly planted in the dirt beside his. You proceed to show him how to dig around the roots instead of into them for a second time that afternoon. For a second time, he finds it hard to focus with you so close, but he fights that a little harder this time.

"Here," you hand him back the trowel, "give it another shot."

He can't miss the way the look you give him is so damn encouraging. You've given him plenty of variations on that look by now, with various degrees of concern thrown into the mix. He proceeds to try digging up the pepper plant again, the sun boring down on the back of his neck as he does it.

"Am I getting it right, now?" he asks, glancing up at you quickly.

"Couldn't do it better myself," you nod exaggeratedly, and he fakes throwing dirt at you in retaliation.

It gets a laugh out of you, clear and joyful. It stirs something inside him, the feeling that's been nagging at him sort of often these days. It hits him like a ton of bricks in that moment that this is the feeling he used to chase all the way down the bottles, the sort of rush he used to think would make up for everything else.

He must've made a face when he realized it, because your brows furrow in concern.

"Are you o-" you start, but you're cut off short by a girlish squeal further down the field.

Him and you both shoot up, surveying the surroundings.

"Jas?" you half-shout, concerned.

"I think I need some help," her voice pipes up sheepishly, and the two of you finally spot her, fallen on her butt among the sunflowers.

You huff, relieved, and tell him you've got it with a brief touch on his arm before you leave in Jas's direction. Now that he knows she's not hurt, he can go back to making sense of his thoughts, yet he barely registers the lingering feeling of your fingers on his forearm.

He kneels and gets back to work, distraught. His first instinct is to worry. The therapist Harvey connected him with cautioned him pretty early on about the way some addicts replaced one addiction with another, and that all good things should perhaps be enjoyed in moderation while he was on the road to recovery.

You're the best thing in his life by far, but he failed to keep you at arm's length a long time ago now. He's not dense enough to be unaware that he's developed some pretty strong feelings for you. But this particular feeling is new-ish, and he doesn't quite know what to make of it. As his fingers dig up the pepper plant out of the ground and he gently removes chunks of dirt from the roots, Shane hopes really hard this doesn't mean he's allowed himself to veer all the way of the right path he's been trying so hard to stick to.

He hates to think about it, but maybe he needs to cool off on seeing you so often so he can at least get a grip. He can't even recall the last time he went a day without seeing you. Sometime in the spring, probably? It's the very end of summer now.

After he's transferred the plant to the wheelbarrow, Shane stands up and looks around. You're still helping Jas uproot some sunflowers, even though her initial job was just to collect the stray seeds. Officially, he and her were there to help you wrap up the summer crops so you could transfer some to your greenhouse. In reality, he was helping you; Jas was causing more trouble than she was helping, but you didn't seem to mind at all, more than happy to show her over and over how to handle things properly.

He didn't know how you did it. It's like you had an endless well of patience, and he knew he ought to have reached the pit of it by now. And yet, he had not. There were depths to your kindness that reached far enough that even after dealing with him through his recovery, you still had plenty left for Jas in all her fumblings and ill-advised adventures.

For the rest of the afternoon Shane managed to clear his mind and just keep working somewhat efficiently. Marnie came around just before dinnertime to get Jas, who was too exhausted from running around by then to protest. Marnie had also let him know she'd save him a portion of dinner for when he came home, but to take his time, which he'd made sure to thank her for.

It wasn't long until Jas left before you and him moved on to replanting the uprooted plants into the greenhouse. He liked that part more than the digging up; liked the hazy warmth of the greenhouse more than the blaring heat of the field. The two of you worked mostly in silence, both exhausted, him perhaps more than you.

After you planted the last of yours and he was halfway through his own last plant, he heard you clap your hands together to shake the dirt off your gloves, before you fully shrieked.

"What's wrong?" he quickly turned towards you.

"Your neck!" you replied, walking over to him. "Did you not put on sunscreen like I told you to?"

Shane instinctively reaches for the back of his neck, and while the sunburn doesn't hurt yet, he can feel the tell-tale heat coming off of it.

"Ah, shit. Think I missed a spot."

You tut at him, shooing his hand off so you can take a better look.

"You big idiot," you chastise him affectionately. "You're lucky I have an infinite amount of aloe in the house from last summer."

**************

As Shane steps out of the shower and into your steam-filled bathroom, he can already tell he'll be sore from all this work. He doesn't know how you do this every day. He tries to get a look at himself in the mirror, but it's too fogged up. Probably better that way, he thinks.

He's used your shower plenty of times before, and he's glad that at the very least it doesn't feel as awkward as it used to. While he was still in the pits of getting sober, you'd graciously let him stay over on your couch so Jas didn't have to see him struggle when it got too hard. He still doesn't know why you did that, or how to repay you for it.

After putting on his clothes, he steps out into your living room, where you're waiting for him with a huge tub of the goo you intend to smear on his sunburn. You've showered too, and made him do it after you because otherwise you claimed he'd just wash off the aloe later, which was probably right.

"C'mere," you beckon him over to sit on the arm of your couch.

He chuckles. It's funny to him, how bossy you get when you're trying to take care of him. Nevertheless, he does as he's told and dutifully sits down like you instruct him. And waits.

Nothing happens.

"You okay back there?" he asks, looking over his shoulder.

You raise a brow. "Aren't you gonna take off your shirt? How am I supposed to get this on you otherwise?"

He feels a bubble of panic rush up. He's in better shape than he used to be, but he's still not much to look at, and he doesn't like the idea of you finding that out like this. "Is that really necessary?"

You sigh, and he knows there will be no convincing you. He feels the tips of his ears burn as he lifts his shirt over his head, dropping it at his feet and taking precious care not to look back at you. "Happy?" he mumbles.

"Hmhm," you hum quietly behind him.

You bring your aloe-coated fingers to his burning skin, and instantly he feels consumed by ice-cold flames. He was not prepared for you to touch him quite so gently, to work the gel into his skin in tiny, careful circles. His throat runs dry as he's reminded of his earlier conclusion that he needs to take some time away from you, for both of your sakes. If the way his body is reacting to this isn't proof, he doesn't know what would be.

You let him know you're done, and he promptly puts his shirt back on. He wishes he hadn't when the stickiness gets a hold of the collar.

"So, just a heads up," you start, screwing the jar of aloe vera shut, "I'm gonna be really busy tomorrow I think. So maybe hanging out in the evening when I'm done would be better?"

He's taken aback by the way this is coming up faster than he anticipated. Still, No time like the present I guess, he thinks to himself.

"About that," he clears his throat, "I think it might be better if I spend some alone time for a while."

He watches you still. You look up at him slowly, visibly confused. "Have I done something wrong?" you ask, and it kills him. "I'm sorry if I have, I know I can be a little overbearing sometimes," you start to ramble, but he cuts you off.

"No, no, none of that," he tries to reassure you. "It's just, uh, how do I say this," he scratches at his head, genuinely at a loss. "Remember how I told you my therapist said I should, like, maybe be careful about things I enjoy a lot? And about... strong emotions?"

You nod, but he can tell from your slight frown you're still confused.

"Well, it's kinda like that. I feel really good when I'm with you. Maybe a little too good. Strong stuff. But I don't wanna depend on you to feel... good. I wanna keep this healthy, yeah?"

You ponder his words, and he can tell he hasn't really gotten his point across. "I mean, I think I get where you're coming from, maybe? But Shane, I think it's okay for you to have a support system. Is it really so bad if being with a friend makes you feel good? I think that's how most people feel."

He shakes his head, huffing. "No, it's not like that."

"Then what is it like?"

His eyes meet yours, and he feels weak. "Please don't make me say it," he whispers.

"Shane," you reach out to touch his shoulder, "You're worrying me."

He swallows. Before he knows it, it tumbles out of him. "I have feelings for you. I have for a while. And lately it's gotten a little out of control. So I need some time away from you to get over it, okay? I don't want things to be weird. I need you too much to have things be weird. So I need to figure it out before it gets there."

You stare at him, and he sees so many emotions run across your face that he gets dizzy.

"You... what?" you say quietly after a while.

He feels heat rise from his chest all the way to his ears, like some twisted type of nausea. "Forget it, alright? That's not the point I'm trying to make. I just..." he breathes, "I'll see you in a few days, yeah?"

He doesn't wait for a response. He goes for the door right away, in a real hurry to leave this place where everything is so blatantly yours, down to the smell of your lotion lingering in the air from your bare legs.

But you don't let him leave. He feels your hand on his arm, a real grip this time, and the next thing he knows you're reaching for his neck and bringing his mouth to meet yours. Shane thinks he's forgotten how to make his blood run, how to make his lungs breathe, how to make his limbs move. You're pressing your lips on his with a fervor he didn't even know you had in you. Then, with an instinct of its own, his body kicks back into gear, and he feels himself wrapping his arms around you, bringing you closer yet as he pours all the energy he has left into kissing you back.

It's desperation that compels him, because he never imagined this would ever happen outside of his mind, outside of his daydreams. He's not even convinced he'll ever get to do it again, so he's making this one count.

He genuinely has no idea how much time has passed when you break away from him, panting. You're not saying anything, just searching his eyes with yours.

"Please say something," he eventually breathes.

He watches as you swallow, then exhale loudly. "I don't want to see you in a few days only. I wanna see you now and in the middle of the night and every moment of every day. I don't want you to go and get over me, because I don't think I'll be able to get over you if you do, Shane. So don't leave me. Stay. Please."

Your words fluster him a great deal more than he already is. "Okay," he nods, in a half-daze.

"Yeah?" you make sure, still catching your breath.

"Yeah," he confirms. "Anything for you. Of course."

#shane x reader #shane x farmer #stardew shane #sdv shane #stardew valley x reader #stardew valley shane #stardew valley #sdv

1K notes · View notes

janetbrown711 · 3 years

Note

"Why should you get to be angry? It's my life you're messing with" Yakko?

Yakko was still angry, even though it had been over a week since Max had visited.

His siblings' hostility towards Max was really getting on his nerves. Sure, Max caught on pretty early and no one was hurt, but still. It threw everything off- though what that 'everything' was, Yakko wasn't sure.

All he knew was that there was this... pulse, or energy. Like a magnet- Yakko had wanted to touch his face. Why? Max had almost not stopped him- what did that mean?

The fluttering, the blushing, the magnetism, what did it mean???

And why was it every time Yakko felt like maybe he'd figure it out, something or someone always interrupted. Even when Max wasn't there- Yakko would just be trying to sort things out in his head or reading a book, but either his sibs, or his classes, or his parents, or something else distracted him.

That didn't stop him from trying though, as he and Max still continued to write to each other daily, already setting up for Max to visit again tomorrow. He constantly read and reread Max's letters- absorbing every word to craft a perfectly witty yet sincere response. He valued Max and his friendship, he didn't want to ruin it.

And hey, he could tell he was improving. Over the letters he managed to never bring up his grandmother even once- and most of his conversations with Max avoided her too (for the most part... he was working on that). At least he knew other topics now.

However, he was still peeved at his siblings for their attempts to ruin it. Sure Max was clever enough to catch it- but if he hadn't? What if Max had never wanted to see him again after that? What if he had gotten hurt? It was totally irresponsible. He thought Wakko and Dot were better than that.

So- yeah. He was mad, though perhaps angry was too strong. He had mostly buried his anger deep within himself when his father pulled him aside and told him not to get mad at his sibs and that they just needed time, but the anger still resided deep in his chest. Reading the letters did calm him a little though, so that was nice.

However, the day before Max was to come over again, as Yakko went to reread through the letters he found the box that he stored them in to be empty. He searched through every possible drawer and every possible location in the entire castle before admitting what his gut instinct had told him.

His letters were stolen.

And he had a theory on who the culprit could be.

.o0o.

Yakko found his younger brother in his old room, the one nearby the room once belonging to their grandmother, with the private letters all sprawled out before him as he read over them.

All attempts to keep this a civil conversation were thrown out the window in that instant.

"Wakko, what the hell are you doing with my letters?!" Yakko did at least attempt not to shout, but he caught his brother off guard, as he nearly jumped to the ceiling in surprise.

"Y-yakko- I-i thought- I'm just-" Wakko scrambled to gather his mind.

"These letters are none of your business! Why on earth do you have them?!" Yakko approached, angrily taking the letters back.

"I-i thought you read them all- I thought you didn't need them- I-i just-" Wakko fought Yakko, pulling on the letters.

"These are private letters full of private emotions, Wakko. You have no business- I haven't even read this one! What is wrong with you?!" Yakko yanked harder, causing Wakko to let go.

"I-i just- Max is just-"

"Max is just what? Being my friend? Being the first person outside of my family that's ever connected with me?! God forbid I have a life outside of you two!" The elder brother fumed.

"H-he's just trying to take you away! You can't see it because you're like- in love with him- or something!" Wakko bit back.

Yakko froze.

"What did you say..?" Yakko's eye twitched.

"Y...you're like- in love with him. He's just trying to take you away- he's just like grandma!" Wakko argued.

"Max is nothing like grandma." Yakko snapped. "Max has made me the happiest I've ever been in my entire miserable fucking life! You should know that after snooping around my private fucking letters!" Yakko shouted, his voice cracking slightly as he felt himself begin to tear up.

"I just- god-! How could you be so selfish? Why can't you just be happy for me?!" Yakko demanded to know.

Wakko opened his mouth to utter some kind of reply, when without warning, their mother burst through the door.

"What on earth is all this shouting about?" She demanded to know. Wakko attempted to blink away his tears, which unfortunately caused them to fall so instead he picked up what letters he could before storming out without another word.

"Yakko. Tell me what happened. Now." She locked eyes with Yakko, deciding it best to give the younger brother a moment to himself.

Yakko sighed, wiping his tears from his eyes as he sat on Wakko's old bed. Lena was quick to join him, slowly rubbing his back.

"He took my letters. he's been reading them- all of them." Yakko explained bitterly. Lena slowly nodded.

"I just- those are private thoughts between the two of us- it's not just my privacy, it's Max's too. I-it's like Wakko has no respect for either of u-us," Yakko hiccuped a little.

"Now Yakko, you know that isn't true. Wakko thinks the world of you," Lena reminded softly. "He's just... confused. And scared."

"Oh yeah? He can join the club then," Yakko sniffled.

"Look... I know you're going through a lot with Max right now: new emotions, new situations, and the like, but... you've been plenty selfish too, especially in neglecting your siblings, Yakko. They've tried getting your attention several times but they feel as though you won't give them the time of day," Lena held one of his hands.

"I-i haven't-..." Yakko's instinct was to protest but as he reflected upon the past few months, he recognized the truth behind her words.

"Shit..." He muttered.

"Now, I'm not going to make you cancel Max's visit for tomorrow, but do know that after he's gone I want you to spend some good quality time with your siblings, alright? I'm sure Max will understand your situation plenty," Lena said softly yet firmly.

"Y-yeah... I guess I've been pretty wrapped up, haven't I?" He chuckled weakly.

"It's alright dear, so long as you do your best to recognize the mistake and make up for it through your actions," She kissed the top of his head. Yakko sighed and leaned his head on her shoulder.

The pair stayed like this a moment, before Lena decided she had waited long enough and it was time for her to seek out Wakko. However, as she started to head through the door, Yakko stopped her.

"Mom?" He asked.

"Yes?"

"Do you-... Am I...?"

Yakko bit his lip as he tried to think of what to ask.

"How do you know if you're in love?"

Lena chuckled softly.

"Hard to say, as it truly is different for everyone... But from what I remember... it's a sense of comfort and peace; being at peace with who you are and who they are to the point where you constantly want to be with them for that peace... if that makes any sense." Lena shook her head.

"Then again, when has love ever made any sense?" She snickered.

"Uh-huh..." Yakko pondered her words.

"I'm sorry dear, I'm afraid that's something you'll have to figure out on your own," She explained. "I'm afraid I have to go to your brother now though, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah- that's... yeah," Yakko nodded and Lena headed out, leaving Yakko to sort out this new information.

.o0o.

Wakko hated shouting.

It made him feel small- like he was four all over again. God- why did he always just make things worse? He never backed down, even when he said something stupid.

He hid in one of the storage closets near the tower. It was dark and cramped, but it was where he felt he ought to be. After all, he didn't want to be seen.

He gripped the letters in his hands tighter. He didn't know why he took them that time- it was dumb. He was already caught- Yakko already knew he was a thief.

But it was to protect him against Max-

Max.

Just that name made Wakko's blood boil and angry tears increase.

He hated Max.

He hated him a lot. Yakko wouldn't see it- he was under his siren spell somehow. Wakko thought taking those letters would show him some kind of clue to unraveling it, but instead, it just showed how messed up and lost Yakko was. It hurt to read each word and Yakko's notes on the letters- the little question marks and underlines and occasional heart. Wakko hated it.

Wakko hated Max.

He hated him very, very much.

He was taking his brother away- his brother would never ignore him unless there was something very sinister forcing him too- which Max clearly was.

R...right?

Wakko continued crying.

However, after a while of crying in the dark a soft knock interrupted his tears as the door slowly opened to reveal his mother, who slowly sat on the ground outside the closet and opened her arms. Wakko hesitated a moment, before practically leaping out into her loving arms.

"There, there Wakko..." She soothed as he sobbed in her arms.

"I-i w-was just- i-i just-" he couldn't get his words out.

"I know darling, he shouldn't have shouted so much," she stroked his head.

"I-i just..." Wakko attempted to breathe enough to calm himself.

"I know... you don't trust Max yet, and it's scary seeing Yakko connect so quickly, I know," She moved him so she could see his face, wiping the tears from his eyes.

Wakko sniffled. "H-he's just trying to take him away."

"That's not true, Wakko. Max is just spending time with him- Yakko is just getting... a little caught up is all," Lena sighed.

"B-but he never ignored me like this before he met him," Wakko frowned.

"I know Wakko... he hasn't done his best with balancing everything out..." She said. "But... you haven't made it exactly easier either."

Wakko blinked at that.

"What I mean is... you haven't given Max a shot yet. You rejected him without giving him a shot to prove himself to you," Lena said.

Given him a shot..? Was she insane? She would never suggest he "give grandma a shot" so why was she suggesting to give Max a shot? Because he "seemed" friendlier and more charismatic???

"Wakko, look. Whether or not you like it, Yakko really really likes Max. The least you can do is give him a day to prove himself, alright?" Lena made him look at her.

She looked so desperate for him to believe her, it made him sad. She was clearly under Max's spell too.

It became clear to Wakko he had been underestimating Max. If he wanted him gone for good and to free his family from his influence, he was going to have to take drastic measures.

"Maybe..." he mumbled for her sake. Lena smiled softly and kissed the top of his hat.

"Yakko will really appreciate it," She said.

"Yeah, okay," Wakko looked at the ground.

Yakko will appreciate it when he's free of Max's stupid curse- all of them will be.

"I have to go back to work- will you be okay?" Lena asked. Wakko nodded. Lena slowly stood, helping Wakko up as well, before giving him another hug and a kiss on his hat.

"It's gonna be okay Wakko, just give him a chance," She said.

"Okay," he said, giving a weak smile. Lena gave a similarly weak smile back before hugging him once more and walking away.

'Give him a chance.' Oh please- Wakko would give him a chance alright.

Wakko stormed right back into that storage closet, climbed up to the tallest shelf, and pulled down the highest key, before storming right on down to the tower- quickly and furiously unlocking the massive lock just to be sure, and-

Yes, they hadn't bricked it off quite yet.

Wakko now had the perfect to keep Max far away from his family for the rest of his life.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 The End

#my fics #animaniacs #wakko warner #yakko warner #queen angelina ii #angelina warner #it's finally done!!!#sorry for the wait #and the shitty chapter-#this took a shit long time to write-#but hey! we got hella angst coming up #so look forward to that ;3 #(which should be coming out a lot sooner fingers crossed)#if you read this i love you #and again so sorry for the wait

80 notes · View notes

dracosathenaeum · 3 years

Text

Soulmates ii

Summary: You could only spend so much time running from the inevitable.

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Reader

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2,455

PART 1 | PART 3

Draco sat in his usual spot of the astronomy tower; he found himself spending more time here than he had before, it was the only place in the castle that he could truly be alone. He had spent every evening for the last week locked up in the tower, thinking about what you had said.

From when he was a child, his father had told him to cherish his soulmate, that ‘no matter how dark us Malfoy’s got, no matter what situation we got ourselves into, our soulmates were the backbone of the Malfoy’s, our better halves.’ His mother and father were happy, they found a life with one another, a happy one. Maybe he was delusional to think the same was possible for him.

He didn’t even know you; you’d never even spoken before that quidditch match, how could you hate him already? Was he that hard to love? Did you really despise him that much? Thoughts of why he wasn’t enough of you plagued his thoughts the entire week he avoided you, he just didn’t know how to fix what was never there.

He wasn’t about to give up though, he had spent a lifetime waiting for you, he would change your mind no matter what. That was also part of the reason he had spent all that time alone, he needed a plan, a plan to make you see that he wasn’t the cold-hearted monster you thought he was. He was fine with the rest of the world thinking that of him, but not you. He didn’t even know you, but you were supposed to be the one person who was on his side.

You felt guilty to say the least. Calling someone unlovable, (whether or not they actually were) was cruel, your friends made sure you were well aware of that. Perhaps you had gone a little hard on him but surely everyone could see where you were coming from, there had been bets going on since first year about 2 people’s soulmates. Harry Potter’s would be the luckiest and Draco Malfoy’s would be the unluckiest, so why was it you.

After all of this, no one could blame you for being surprised when he started sending you letters. Well you assumed they were from him, the cursive ‘M’ on the green seal was enough of a clue. If you weren’t feeling shit about yourself before, you definitely were once the letters started arriving. They came at breakfast every few days, but as the weeks drew on, they turned into one each day. You never opened them, shoving them straight into your pockets to stash away in your drawers, too afraid to open them, afraid of what they would say.

Your friends saw you do this each morning, yet no number of disapproving looks would change your mind. You just weren’t ready to be tied to Malfoy for the rest of your life. You didn’t want any part in his life, everyone knew what the Malfoys were like, and how much they valued their precious reputation. You just weren’t suited for it, the morals the old family kept so dear disgusted you.

So why did he keep trying? If you were in his position you would’ve stopped trying weeks ago. You weren’t sure what was keeping you from opening the letters. The guilt over him overhearing you those weeks ago? Or that you’d avoided him for so long that it was just second nature to you. The whole school knew you were soulmates, but everyone knew you were avoiding him like the plague, they gave you looks of pity when they walked past you in hallways, you wondered what kind of looks they gave Draco. Not that you cared.

As you made your way to the library, you heard rapid footsteps approaching; afraid it was Draco, you start to pick up your pace, refusing to turn around for a second. “Gods, Y/N slow down. I’m not a quidditch player like you, this is not fair.” Whoops, it was just Liam. Smiling sheepishly, you turned around to apologise to the sweating boy, maybe you ought to whip him into shape on a broom sometime soon, he was not looking good.

“I’m so sorry! I thought you were Draco! But seriously, you need to work on your stamina, if not for you own sake then for Mina’s…” Liam sent you a glare and a vulgar gesture which you admittedly deserved.

“Y/N listen, I know you don’t want to hear it, but Draco came up to me during study hall and he asked me to pass a message to you, he seemed pretty upset, and yeah I am talking about THE Draco Malfoy. Even I’m starting to take pity on him, just listen to his message?” All your friends were traitors, you decided. You knew they all wanted you to give him a chance, but you thought they would understand that if it ever did happen it would be on your own terms, and many many years in the future.

“Fine, what does he want?” You could never win against your friends; you had learnt that the hard way in second year…

“He says he’ll leave you alone but only if you meet him in the astronomy tower at 7pm tonight. He really seemed desperate, I think you should give him a clear answer at least, instead of just straight out avoiding him. I mean you have been a bit of a dick to him, no matter how bad he may be. Soulmates are supposed to be a support pillar for each other through thick and thin, you need him just as much as he needs you. Consider it please? For you own sake if not his.” Tom gave you a sad smile before turning and walking away. Typical, he had just dumped a heavy burden on you and ran away, some friend he was. Your thoughts were more confused than before, even though you didn’t think that was possible.

Draco was an awful human being, you had seen what he was from first year, you had heard the rumours, everyone had. So why was the universe so keen for you to be with him? Why couldn’t you have had someone ordinary and nice as your soulmate. You had questioned yourself over this a hundred times in the past month yet every day you woke up with his name still on your wrist. Maybe your only option was Draco, every day you woke up with nothing changed, was a day closer to accepting the reality that you really didn’t want.

18:00

Draco was shitting himself, truly shitting himself. Maybe he shouldn’t have said he wouldn’t try again after this, what if it didn’t work? What if you said no? What if he fucked up his last chance and you truly didn’t want him at all? He had imbedded crescent marks into both of his arms at this point, pacing back and forth across the dusty floor, reciting what he would say to you. It would have been a lot easier if you had read your letters, but he understood why you hadn’t, he understood that he needed to change to have you. He’d do anything.

19:00

Draco should’ve guessed you weren’t going to show. Of course, you wouldn’t. You hadn’t responded to any of his letters so why would this time be any different. But he’d gotten used to it by now, sitting and waiting in the tower hoping you would’ve read his letters and would give him a chance. But just like the past 3 weeks, it was just him in the tower.

You on the other hand were sat in your common room with your friends, ready for a night of card games and firewhiskey. Everyone knew exactly what you were doing but no one said anything but still gave you a disappointed look every minute or so. You were used to them at this point, besides, the firewhiskey helped to numb everything.

20:00

He had nowhere else to be, an extra hour or two was nothing, and he would kick himself if you showed and he wasn’t there.

You were too sober to be where you were. You were used to your friends being all coupley with each other, you had been since last year yet right now you would rather be anywhere than right there. You found yourself slipping from your common room, just wanting to take a walk and get away from the disapproving stares aimed at you and affectionate actions they gave each other. This sucked.

20:59

Draco had held onto hope this entire time, hope that you would give him this one chance. God if this is how people felt when they lost all hope, he understood why people hated villains, he didn’t want to feel ever again if this was what it was like to care and to have hope.

Shaking his head at his own patheticness, Draco pulled the door handle, ready to leave and just drown in the prefect’s bath that was waiting for him. What he hadn’t expected was for you to be on the other side, pushing the door open as he pulled causing you to fall straight into his arms.

You truly didn’t think you’d end up going to meet Draco, but your legs had ended up taking you up to the astronomy tower after you had spent an hour walking around pretty much everywhere else in the castle. You didn’t think he’s still be there; you were almost 2 hours late after all. You didn’t know what you were doing standing outside the door and not opening it. He wasn’t inside so what was holding you back. You took a deep breath before pushing the door open… and falling straight into someone’s arms.

[#A/N: I really considered ending it here but I was feeling nice ;)]

You scramble out of his arms, running your hands over where his hands had been, but Draco must’ve mistakenly thought you were cold as the next thing you knew, his robes were being draped around your shoulders.

“Thank you but I don’t need it, here take it back.” Your hands moved to remove it from your shoulders, but he brought his hands up to stop you before you could. “You’re just in your pyjamas and I have a jumper on, just wear is please?” You just dopped your arms back down to your sides, a little grateful for the warmth the material brought you, and you really tried not to focus on the scent surrounding you.

“I didn’t think you’d still be here.” You broke the heavy silence that fell between you too, the remnants of alcohol in your body leaving you a little more open than usual.

“I didn’t want you to come and for me not to be here, I was serious about that one chance y/n. I promise I’ll stop trying if you just hear me out.”

The guilt that had been subdued from the alcohol was back looking at his solemn expression. This was the first time since the first incident that you had spoken to him, second time overall in your life, yet talking to him didn’t cause you as much anxiety as you had initially imagined. Maybe your friends were right, maybe you owed both Draco and yourself a chance.

“5 minutes.”

“That’s all I need, thank you.” His shoulders practically sagged in relief, tugging on your heart strings more than you would ever admit.

“I know what you think of me, what the whole school thinks of me. We both heard what you said that day but I’m really trying, can’t you see that? I’ve spent my entire life living in one way and it’s hard to suddenly change everything in my life, but I’m more than willing to do it for you. I just want to make you happy; I want to be happy. Whether we like it or not, we’re bound for life, can’t you give me a chance? A clean beginning? I can show you that I can change, that I’m not the unlovable monster you think I am. I might be a Malfoy but let me prove my worth to you.”

“That’s just it Draco, I don’t want you to have to change, because you think I’ll give you a chance for it. It literally has no meaning that way. You are who you are, it’s literally in your blood! You have been despicable these past 6 years, if you’re going to change then change for yourself and not for me. Your attitude towards non-pure bloods, your hatred towards Harry Potter and every other non-Slytherin, your superiority complex; it’s all a part of you don’t you see? That’s not something you can change overnight.” He was biting his lip so hard it started to bleed but neither of you did anything about it, just stood in tense silence as you waited for a response.

“Okay.”

“Okay? This isn’t ‘The Fault in Our Stars Draco’, you’re going to have to give me more.”

“What is ‘The Fault in Our Stars’? Anyways that’s not important, I meant; okay, I’ll change for me. If that’s what will make you happy.” Your jaw dropped, how was everything you were saying going in one ear and coming out the other, wasn’t he supposed to be one of the top students next to Hermione?

“You’ve literally missed the entire point. I don’t want you to change because of me, I want you to change because it’s the right thing to do, I want you to change and actually believe in what you’re changing for. I want you to be a better person for yourself and not for someone or anything else.”

“How- how do I do that?” he looked like a child whose ice cream you had just stolen.

“Figure that out yourself Draco, I’ll give you a chance when you can prove that to me.”

“But you just said this doesn’t happen overnight, how can I make you see that I mean it?”

“I don’t care if it takes you a few months or a few years, I can’t be with you as you are now Draco. And I don’t want you to fake who you are around me. If I’m going to be with you, I want to love you for you, and right now, I just can’t.” With that you turned to leave the room, completely forgetting about the robe draped over your figure until you got back to your room. You balled it up in your hands and shoved it in the same draw you kept his letters in, out of sight out of mind.

PART 3

#A/N: The first part of this got so much love and I just wasn't expecting that, thank you to everyone who’s read these!! I hope the next part will satisfy youu. This was supposed to go up like 2 hours ago but I got distracted playing among us 👀

TAGLIST: @bbeauttyybbx @pipppaaaaalouisee @theslytherinprincessworld @fangirl-3d2y @tttyrus @scriptingslytherin @justmimithings @purpleskymalfoy @minigigglybabi @malfoyquinn @secretaccshh @obbrssession @whatwoulddracodo @thatoneniceslytherin @thehumanistsdiary @mariah-can-dream @futureofanthropology @ccabian @tobarmaidswhodontcount @potatothingsz @xuckduck @dreamyginny

SOULMATES TAGLIST: @landocalrission @sunsetsofanemoia @yucksiedoodles @hey27 @frau-moon @slytherinbaddiee @celestialpuff

#draco #draco malfoy #harry potter #soulmates #redemption?#draco x reader #soulmatesau #draco x y/n #Draco Malfoy x reader

498 notes · View notes

rubecso · 3 years

Text

I liveblogged that Greg Ellis video and now you can suffer with me

So I did not intend to watch the whole of Greg Ellis’ rant, but I guess I’m a masochist. I ended up liveblogging it so here, you can get the highlights without having to sit through 37:55 like I did. ETA: Holy shit, it got privated in the time it took me to copy this out. I might be one of the last people to watch it. What did I do to deserve this honour.

holy shit I'm on the video that Greg Ellis did in Cullen's voice and the like-dislike ratio is 124:1.4k

What the fuck this is 37:55 long?????

How did he bitch for 37:55??????????

HOLY SHIT 56 seconds in and he's talking about a 'mob of social justice warriors' wtf????

guys my soul has left my body

"Integrity is earned in turmoil, not simply asserted in comfort" what the fuck is this hasfdk;lsfdajlksfda;lksfda;sfda

HE IS TALKING ABOUT TWITTER DRAMA LIKE ITS A FANTASY WAR I CAN'T

"Join us on this most magnificent morality quest" WHAT

"Help us banish the reputation savages ((savagers?)) and cancel culture hedonists"

sfdsajklsfda this keeps getting weirder what the fuck

"Intellectual glitterati" he can't keep doing this

he can't keep making it weirder

i can't take it

i just can't

he's literally reading an Intellectual Dark Web manifesto in the voice of his character with Dragon Age background music and a bunch of hamfisted references to the dragon age world and general fantasy tropes

HE'S TALKING ABOUT THE CHIVALRIC CODE

"How can men and woman, who are profoundly different from one another, be equals? ~~Chivalry~~~"

I can't he's still voice acting he's acting this like he's actually voicing an emotional scene in the game i fucking can't

THE FUCKING MUSIC RAMPING UP UNDER HIS DRIVELLING BULLSHIT

"Join me, for this new adventure. Like. Follow. Subscribe."

If you aren't listening to this please please just imagine all this said with the upmost sincerity. Like, if you've done Cullen's romance picture it as the voice he used for the really emotional scenes.

Oh fuck I'm gonna listen to this whole thing, aren't I?

He's... he's talking about Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean

In Cullen's voice

Why is Cullen talking to me about Johnny Depp

He's talking about some time when him and another voice actor tried to hold an event where I guess they could try and launder their image after supporting JK Rowling?

Anyway this leads to him saying: "None of the mob showed up. Why..... WHY???"

THE PREGNANT PAUSES

THE INTERSECTIONAL MOB

OH god another "WHY???"

His voice quavering with OTT emotion

Fuck he really does want to be JBP, huh?

He's literally just bitching about people not showing up to his events now

“THE CANCELLATION OF CULLEN RUTHERFORD”

I CAN'T THIS IS JUST TOO FUNNY

OKay now he's just playing a propaganda film he made about the BLM protests??

Okay back to the cringe now

"In response to one angry mobster, Greg stated that every life has value~~~~~~..."

Okay I have now heard Cullen Rutherford say "All lives matter" with 100% sincerity

"We are living in an era of woke capitalism, in which companies pretend to care about social justice to sell products to people who pretend to hate capitalism."

Okay but like... you know that the 'capitalism' part of that is the problem and not the 'social justice' part right?

"Vile and LIBELOUS messages followed. They were posted online by a SELECT FEW..."

ooooooooh he's on to bitchiing about Mark Darrah this ought to be good

"Not to defend Greg or Cullen from the libelous and ridiculous aspersions...."

DUDE YOUR CHARACTER DIDN'T NEED DEFENDING WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT????

Okay my chances of ever not hating Cullen have dissolved now, sorry this is all I'll hear when I hear his voice now

"And giving these negative nnnnnnincompoops exactly what they demanded..."

He literally drew out the 'n' in 'nincompoops'

"This post... had 6 likes. One of two comments.... was posted...." *dramatic reveal voice* ".... by MARK DARRAH"

"Mark Darrah... is the worst kind... of corporate coward. He has :’( no code..... of honour :’("

there are 10 minutes left i'm going to die

OKAY i have now heard Cullen Rutherford, commander of the inqusition, say the words "Go woke, go broke"

"One doesn't challenge The Maker.... without consequences"

I think the Maker here is Bioware?????

"Greg and Cullen were summarily lumped together.... and generalised!!!"

DUDE CULLEN IS NOT REAL

YOU CANNOT LUMP HIM IN WITH ANYONE

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

HE DID IT AGAIN

HE PUT "THE CANCELLATION OF CULLEN RUTHERFORD" TWICE

"The racist trolls came out of the woodwork to cancel Cullen, once... and for ALL!"

"I stand... for HUMAN... RIGHTS :’’’’’’’’’’’’(“ IT'S A VIDEO GAME CHARACTER

"BLACK.... LIVES... MATTER.” *long pause* “AND THEY DON'T MATTER MORE..... THAN ANYONE.... ELSE’S."

Yes. Correct. You are correct. Well done.

*insert the ‘You’re Correct Horse’ video*

"I love.... I ~~~~~love~~~~~~.... everyone "

"So yes.... alll... LIVES... DO... INDEED.... MATTER.... TO MEEEEEEE~~~~~~”

"This moment of history is harsh and merciless.... and in this moment.... I'm choosing.... LOVE"

HE'S LITERALLY JUST REPEATED THE 'WOKE CAPITALISM' LINE FROM EARLIER WORD-FOR-WORD

"Mobbing.... is social murder!"

"And by definition.... people cannot survive their own murder!"

(Again, just imagine his voice breaking with ~~~~~~~emotion~~~~~~~ on that line)

"How do we move from hateful to grateful????"

(The worst part is I know that this shit is going to be convincing to some people and that makes me actually sad)

"Exercise from the neck-up, during this.... PANIC-DEMIC!"

HE'S QUOTING CULLEN I FUCKING CAN'T

"As fans eagerly and patiently await the release of Dragon Age 4, and hope for the inclusion of their ~~~~beloved~~~~~~ Cullen"

*vomit*

okay now he's just telling Cullen's backstory?

I'm guessing this is going to lead somehow into the whole "DON'T BE MEAN TO ME FOR THE SHITTY THINGS I DID IN THE PAST!!!!" thing?

Okay no he just... said it and then moved on?

"Only time.... and the Maker... will tell”

THAT’S IT

what the fuck i am going mad help

this video should come with a warning I got sucked in and trapped for half an hour

#dragon age #greg ellis #fandom drama #anti cullen #I know this isn't really about Cullen as a character but I want people who have that tag blacklisted to be able to avoid this #cullen fans please don't hate me for saying I hate cullen #I promise I don't hate people who like him #I just never liked the character #it's not like a moral stance or anything #anyway I think Greg Ellis owes me reparations for the psychic damage I took watching that video

292 notes · View notes

taizi · 3 years

Text

a little room to grow

@natsumeweek 2021 day 5; freedom/possession

read on ao3

(previous part)

Hinata takes one look at them and says, “Holy shit. Get in here, Natoris.”

So they must look pretty bad, then.

Takashi is uncharacteristically quiet, going right to the sofa and gathering Hinata’s cat up in his arms.

Hinata watches him for a moment, turns and stares directly into Shuuichi’s face, and then heads into the kitchen to snatch up a takeout menu that she keeps permanently stuck to the front of her fridge under a huge Cinnamoroll magnet.

“Sit,” Hinata says with a jerk of her chin towards the table. She tucks her cellphone between her shoulder and her ear and unfolds the paper menu with a business-like snap. “I’m ordering enough junk food for all three of us, and then you’re going to tell me why you look like that.”

Shuuichi sits.

Hinata lives with her single mother, who works thirds, and her aunt, who doesn’t work but often has somewhere else to be. It’s unlikely either of them are going to make an appearance tonight.

The TV is on in the living room, playing what sounds like Sailor Moon. Takashi is watching it just because it’s already on, but he’s slowly becoming more invested the longer he sits there—Shuichi can tell from the way his hand on the little cat in his lap slows its petting, the way his round brown eyes become fixed on the screen. The sounds of traffic and rain outside are muted, the outside world hardly existing past what little pieces of it make it through the open window in the kitchen.

It’s peaceful here. It’s almost home, even.

Hinata puts the phone down, sits across from Shuuichi, and crosses her arms on top of the table. Her silence is expectant.

Shuuichi says, “I don’t think I’m going to university.”

His friend inclines her head, an invitation to go on.

“The university my father wants me to go to is almost an hour away from here,” Shuuichi says, clenching his fists. “And it wouldn’t be possible for Takashi to transfer there, because someone in the school district administration is a cousin of his or something. Word got around about his behavior, and they don’t think he’d be a good addition to their student body.”

“Takashi’s relatives haven’t had anything to do with him since he was five,” Hinata says hotly. “What the hell do they know about his behavior? He’d be the best thing to happen to that school in the last hundred years.”

Shuuichi, who completely agrees with her, says, “You’re biased.”

“I’m right.” She taps her fingers anxiously against the table. “Let me guess, your dad—”

“Doesn’t see the problem. Told me I was going anyway.” Shuuichi barks a tense, humorless laugh, sitting back and pushing a hand through his hair. “Could you imagine? Me, leaving Takashi in that house, with those people? With no one but ghosts to talk to?”

It was inevitable that Hinata would find out about Shuuichi and his brother’s ‘gift,’ given how much time they spend together and all the odd things Takashi says on a daily basis. The most remarkable thing to come of the ultimate reveal was the solid three months she spent relentlessly trying to bribe, coerce and blackmail Shuuichi into using his paper magic to send her notes during school hours, because they were put in different classes in their third year.

Now, she frowns deeply, and says, “No. That won’t do. So what’s the plan?”

“I’m working on it,” Shuuichi replies.

“I would be okay,” Takashi pipes up. Shuuichi looks up to find his little brother standing by the table with wide, grave eyes. He’s tugging anxiously at the cuffs of his sleeves. The worry on his face doesn’t belong there. It doesn’t fit someone his age. “If you had to go.”

Shuuichi pushes his chair back and lifts his arm. Takashi rounds the table and allows himself to be tucked against Shuuichi’s side snugly.

“Maybe you would, but I wouldn’t,” Shuuichi says. “I’d miss bugging you too much.”

“I mean it,” Takashi says stubbornly. “I don’t want you to get yelled at anymore.”

“I mean it, too,” Shuuichi replies. “Dad can yell all he wants. You’re stuck with me, squirt.”

Saying it out loud settles something anxious that’s been rattling around in his chest. Knowing what he has to do makes it easier to focus on the steps that come next. For now, he tilts to the side so that he can rest enough of his weight on his little brother that he starts to sag underneath it.

“Nii-san! Stop, you’re heavy!”

“What was that?” Shuuichi says loudly, tilting farther, half out of his chair at this point. “I’m heavy? Is that what you said?”

The doorbell rings, and Hinata says, “No no, I’ll get it, don’t let me interrupt your intricate bonding rituals,” which is a cue that they should stop messing around and go help her carry in the frankly staggering amount of takeout bags a weary-looking delivery boy is wielding on the porch.

“Munchkin, will you get some glasses and the iced tea?” Hinata asks. “Let’s eat in front of the TV like slobs.”

Takashi slides back into the kitchen, skidding a little too far in his socks and knocking the paper towels off the counter, and Shuuichi snorts. It feels like the first time he’s smiled in a year.

Hinata touches his arm. “Hey,” she says seriously. “I’m going to visit Isamu on Thursday, and I’m staying for about a week. You two should come with. Stop thinking about all this stuff for a bit and give yourself a break.”

“I don’t want to bother you guys—”

“Try not to be an idiot for once in your life,” Hinata says with an exaggerated air of total exhaustion. “You know it wouldn’t be a bother. Besides, Isamu has a little sister Takashi’s age, and she’s into all kinds of weird stuff. They’d probably get along like a house on fire.”

Shuuichi thinks a week in the country sounds pretty good, actually. He’s mulling it over when Takashi comes running; with a stack of colorful plastic glasses in one hand, a pitcher of tea in the other, and a box of Koala March tucked into the crook of his elbow.

“Can I have these, nee-san?” he asks brightly. He looks nine years old again instead of ninety, all that worry from earlier finally unseated.

“Oh, I guess,” Hinata says with deep reluctance, as if she didn’t buy them specifically for Takashi in the first place. She doesn’t even like chocolate. “Dinner first, though! Put those koalas where I can see them!”

She cares about Takashi like it’s effortless. Like it just makes sense to make space for him in her home and keep his favorite snacks in her kitchen. Considering the place they came here from, it disarms Shuuichi completely.

“We’ll go with you,” he says without thinking.

“Of course you will,” Hinata replies immediately. “I was only asking to be polite. Now eat your food.”

And that’s how they wind up in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto, of all places. It’s unmistakably beautiful but Shuuichi only gets a brief moment to appreciate the scenery before Hinata is dragging him—and by extension, Takashi—out of the station to the street outside, where a familiar face is waiting.

She releases Shuuichi in order to fling herself bodily at Isamu, who doesn’t so much as bat an eye. Hinata is much taller than her boyfriend, which Shuuichi thinks is just typical of Hinata, but Isamu doesn’t care. She could be seventeen feet tall and weigh a thousand pounds and he would still find a way to hold her.

“Hey,” he says over her shoulder, lifting one hand to wave at the Natoris. “Hug train is pulling out of the station, get yours before it’s gone.”

Laughing, Shuuichi says, “I’m good. Takashi?”

“No, thank you,” Takashi says politely.

“Your loss.” Hinata sniffs, and busies herself with picking up the bags she’d flung to the ground. “Is your sister at home?”

“Mhm,” Isamu says, taking one of Takashi’s bags and slinging it over his own shoulder. “She’s shy. I’m amazed she agreed to meet you guys at all. Bribery was involved.”

Takashi shuffles, glancing sideways at Shuuichi.

“I’ll bet you two-thousand yen that you’re best friends by the end of the day,” Shuuichi says at once, to make the situation a win-win. That always works.

Sure enough, Takashi holds out his hand. “Deal.”

They shake on it solemnly.

Isamu gives Shuuichi a deeply approving look and says, “I’ll have to remember that one.”

Tooru and Takashi are actually best friends within about an hour and a half.

Once the Natoris have been settled into a large guest room and wandered around on a cheap tour of the estate, and Hinata has dumped all of her stuff in her boyfriend’s bedroom, Isamu drags Tooru out of hiding to eat a late lunch with them.

Tooru shuffles into the chair across from Takashi and makes her polite introduction, and then mumbles that she only has a couple of friends so she isn’t sure what they ought to talk about. Takashi blithely replies that he doesn’t have any friends, because he can see yokai and people tend to think that’s strange. Shuuichi and Hinata are both frozen, holding their chopsticks halfway to their mouths as they wait to see which way this is going to go, but Isamu just takes an unhurried sip of tea.

And then Tooru lunges across the table to seize Takashi’s hands, shouting, “You can see yokai? You have to come meet my grandpa!” and all but drags him out of the kitchen, their lunches left untouched.

“You might never get your brother back,” Isamu says mildly. “That’s okay, there’s enough space here for two little weirdos.”

“So you believe in ghosts now?” Hinata demands.

“I don’t believe in things I can’t see for myself,” Isamu replies. He waits a beat, rolling a thought around in his head like a marble, and then adds reluctantly, “But if three people I trust can see them, maybe that’s just as good. I already apologized to gramps for thinking he was just a delusional old man.”

“You did not say that to your grandpa,” Shuuichi says, horrified.

“I didn’t say it, I just said I was sorry for thinking it.” Isamu sits back in his chair, frowning at his plate. “Tooru never needed any proof. She believes him just because she loves him. I think there’s value in that. Figured I’d give it a try.”

When Shuuichi tracks the kids down later, they’ve multiplied. Sasago and Urihime are supervising as Tooru, Takashi, and two little boys of a similar age chase each other around the garden, a half-dozen little yokai running underfoot.

Takashi spots him and brightens, breaking away from the game to jump up onto the porch and slam into Shuuichi’s side. Shuuichi ruffles his hair, because it’s already a windswept mess, and it makes Takashi wrinkle his nose in annoyance.

“Taki-ojisan wasn’t feeling well, so he’s taking a nap,” Takashi explains. He’s flushed from the sun and grass-stained. “We had fun, though. All of his yokai friends had lots of things they wanted to say to him so we played telephone. Mostly they were teasing him, which didn’t seem very nice, but it made oji-san laugh a lot.”

“And who are those two?” Shuuichi asks, nodding at the unfamiliar boys.

“Tooru’s friends from school. They were coming by to see if Tooru wanted to go to the river with them, and she introduced me.” Shyly, Takashi adds, “They’re nice.”

“Hey!” the russet-haired boy calls over. “Are we going swimming or what?”

“Can we, please?” Tooru asks, folding her hands together.

His brother gazes up at him with eyes that are big and hopeful, a look that has worked for him for years. Shuuichi shakes his head ruefully.

“As long as you stay with Tooru, and don’t let your phone get soaked,” he says sternly. “And you know to answer when I call, right?”

“Right,” Takashi says, without attitude, because that’s one of their most important rules. “Can I take Urihime with me? She’ll throw Satoru in the water if I ask her to, Sasago won’t.”

“For that reason alone, you’re taking Sasago,” Shuuichi replies.

It’s a noisy circus troupe of kids who finally leave, armed with towels and a bag of snacks pilfered from the kitchen and an entourage of rowdy spirits that only one of them can see.

Shuuichi leans against the gate, watching them go. He’s wary of the unfamiliar yokai, but with his shiki nearby and clearly unbothered, he doesn’t see a reason to break up the strange congregation. Over the years, he’s had to get used to the way Takashi attracts these things. They come to him like moths to a flame.

Most exorcists hate yokai, but Shuuichi doesn’t. How could he? His little brother is a medium, and some of the only people he can count on to babysit for him are his familiars. Yokai are so much a part of his life that to hate them would be to fill his heart with hatred, and he doesn’t have room in his heart for all that. It’s too full of other things.

Hinata joins him by the door.

“You know,” she says carefully, “I was going to bring this up later, but…the university that Isamu and I are going to is only a half-hour away from here. And the schools here are really good.”

Shuuichi stands in the sun, watches his little brother laugh with children his own age, and exhales.

#natsume yuujinchou #natsuyuu #natsumeweek #natori shuuichi #natsume takashi #taki isamu #the squad has finally arrived :') bless #my writing #natsuyuu fic #second hand

35 notes · View notes

yourneighborbakugou · 3 years

Text

To Love’s End, Part 3 / Bakugou x Reader

Read Part One / Part Two Summary: When love isn’t enough to mold fate together. Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x Fem!Reader Warning: angst, fluff, death Word Count: ~4.7k Playlist: Beautiful Japanese Piano Music Quirkless AU! Feudal Japan AU! A/N: I’m sorry this chapter took me so long to release. Thank you for patiently waiting and for reading!

“Shit!” You say cursing under your breath when you realize you’ve overslept. You rise from bed, slide into your Kimono and head towards the maids quarters. Last night you slept like a baby all thanks to Bakugou and now you’re paying the consequences. You adjust your kimono as you enter the hall filled with other maids. Finding Uraraka at the front, you squeeze your way through to hear the duty announcements from the housekeeper.

“Good morning, sleepyhead. Did you see him last night?” Uraraka whispers as you both try to focus on what duties you had for the day. “Come on, spill the beans.”

Some maids shush you both but you pay no attention. The smile you’ve been holding in all morning finally breaks. You’re grinning ear to ear and Uraraka knows that can only mean one thing. You bit your bottom lip replaying last night's scene in your head. The housekeepers' voice is fading and the only thing you could think of were Bakugou’s lips.

“Do what you want, women.” Bakugou interrupts you mid-sentence, getting up to enter his room. He takes a seat at this table and motions to the box on it. “There should be some bandages in there.”

Closing Bakugou’s door with a thud, you turn to face him. You’re so nervous you end up standing by the door fidgeting with your fingers. Shyness has always been your weakness.

“I don’t bite, you know.” Bakugou says, raising an eyebrow. You tuck a strand of loose hair behind your ear as you step towards him. The cut on your cheeks becomes visible and Bakugou takes notes how it has since healed. The bandages around your hand were also gone.

“Can you take your yukata off so I can clean the wound?” Avoiding his eyes, you look around his room not wanting to admit how hot your face felt. Despite the awkwardness in your actions, you take in the small glimpse you were able to get of Bakugou’s room. It was tidy, clean, and very simple. There wasn’t much in the room besides a picture neatly tucked in the edges of the wall frame next to his bed. A family portrait looks like.

Bakugou nods and starts to take off the top of his yukata. Sitting adjacent to him at the kotatsu (low table), you wait for him to finish. He struggles unfortunately and hisses from the sting of the cut. You quickly move closer and help hold his yukata sleeve as he pulls his arm out. You knew Bakugou was in tip top shape but to see his abs up close and personal like this? It had your knees weak; good thing you were sitting.

When the bandages are completely off, you see some fresh red blood oozing from his wound. The alcohol in you suddenly have you thinking about how many times he’s come home injured but you didn’t know. This was truly the first time you’ve seen him return injured. The fading alcohol in your body gives you a push of courage to ask.

“Have you come back injured before?“ Taking a clean cloth, you start cleaning his wound. Bakugou is hyper focused on how close you were to his body. Your sweet scent tickles his nose, you smelt so good.

When Bakugou doesn’t answer your heart aches thinking of all the times you’ve watched him return home, smiling like a doofus not knowing he was probably hurt. How come he never told you? Did he not trust you to help him? Or was it that you weren’t worthy? A million questions race through your mind and he knew from your demeanor. You were now mindlessly cleaning the blood around the wound, sometimes wiping the same clean area twice.

“Sometimes, but never this bad.” Bakugou grabs your hand to get your attention. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

“It would’ve been nice to know.” You replied fast. “I could’ve helped.” You peer through your lashes, again letting the liquid courage give you one last boost before it fades away completely.

“Oh yeah? Guess I have to get injured again to find out then hmm?” Bakugou says, smiling softly. Your heart won’t stop pounding. Damn him. He always knew what to say, always making you feel flustered, always feeling butterflies.

Bakugou lets your hand go to continue your work. Keep your calm, Y/N! You place the bloody cloth into a pile on the side, thinking of anything to say to carry the conversation.

“Did it hurt?”

“It was the lease of my worries.” Bakugou then mutters something you didn’t catch when you turn to grab the ointment from the box--something about needing to come back home. Come back home to who/what you wandered.

Two fingers dip into the small jar of green paste, an ointment the doctor made from a mixture of herbs. With steady hands, you begin rubbing the ointment over Bakugou’s torso with care. Your fingers left trails of warmth wherever they touched. Shit, he needs to calm down.

The room fell silent, too silent for your comfort. You decide to ask Bakugou about the family portrait. “My parents.” He again was brief in his answer, can’t say you were surprised.

You yearn to know more about him beyond his duties but didn’t want to pry. Instead you nod and continue your work. Leaning in, you rub more ointment over the deeper parts of the wound. Bakugou hiss here and there but for the most part gave you no trouble. Finishing, you wrap clean bandages around his torso. His chest was mere inches from your face making his smokey caramel scent tickle your nose, he smelt so good.

Bakugou is glad you’re occupied with the bandages that you don’t see the way his eyes and nose crinkle or the way he blows out his cheeks. You cautiously tape the bandage tightly at the ends, grinning at the accomplishment you’ve done. You haven’t bandaged wounds in a while but it wasn’t half as bad as you thought.

“You're all done.” You say, adjusting to sit away from Bakugou. You clean your hands on a clean towel before bundling all the used materials while he adjusted his yukata to wear properly.

“Not bad, women. But, I think Camie did a better job.” Bakugou teased, throwing his head back and leaning on his arms. His steady eye contact and raised brows study your response and chuckle when your shoulders tense. He doesn't miss the way your eyes sadden for a second before changing your demeanor. Was his joke too harsh?

“Camie is a very talented lady. She’s one of the finest court lady here at Yueei. I could never do as good as lady Camie.” You stammer, stretching your palms forward, smiling to hide the hurt.

Your palms are now on full display for Bakugou, he takes the opportunity to take hold of them. Before you can object, your elbows are now resting on the table, hands are cupped and you see Bakugou resting his chin on them. Your heart picks up seeing Bakugou admiring you so close, you can't think straight.

“B-Bakugou what are you doing? What if someone comes in and sees?” You try to move your hands away from him but he protests by turning his head, cheek now resting on your palms instead.

“One more minute.” Bakugou closes his eyes, cherishing every second he’s got left. He was being so soft with you right now you almost feel like you don’t know him. As much as Bakugou is capturing the last few moments you have together, so were you. Without thinking, you lean in more to him. His blonde hair tickles your nose as you do and then you feel him tense, you freeze too.

Bakugou lifts his face and turns to you. Your noses brush each other and a bolt of electricity rushes through your body leaving an intense heat in its wake. Your breath hitches when Bakugou moves intently forward, face tilted and lips slightly parted.

“Earth to Y/N!” Urakaka whispers loudly as she nudges you, bringing you back to reality. “You did kiss huh?”

“You ruined the moment, Urakaka.” You pouted, playing with your fingers.

“Well while you were having day dreams of kissing Mr. Knight in shining armor, Housekeeper said you’re unfortunately doing yard work again.”

You groan. You really hate yard work. All the maids then began to disperse to their assigned duties. Urakaka waves you goodbye after mocking you with kisses. You playfully shush her and tell her to leave you alone.

Yard work. This means Camie was still angry and now you have to walk across the palace to grab your tools. Existing the hall and into the corridor, you see the King accompanied by Camie and Ibara. They must be on their way to see Bakugou and Kirishima.

The days roll by one by one and soon you’ve lost count of how long it’s been since you’ve seen Bakugou. If it wasn’t for Kirishima and Ibara, you wouldn’t know at all how he’s been. As the morning sun peaks through the window, you rise from bed to get ready. As shitty as the last few weeks have been not seeing Bakugou, you’re thankful Ibara has helped get you out of yard work. You can only imagine how that conversation could’ve gone.

Ibara has always been kind to you. Since the day she arrived and to the day she chose you to serve her. Truth was, life at the palace was tough for Ibara at first. Ibara was the newest member to a handful of court ladies, all who were fighting for the same goal: Marry a wealthy and influential man who can benefit their family bloodlines. Ibara was different from most court ladies you’ve seen in your time at the Yueei though. Ibara never looked down on the maids/servants and never abused her powers. You admired Ibara for that. So much actually, that you wanted to befriend her--not for the benefits of what a personal maid will give you but to have another friend you can talk to.

The day Ibara asked you to be her personal maid, it felt like a proposal. Ibara took you out for a delicious meal in the city and even gifted you the prettiest tsumami kanzashi hairpin/comb you own-- orange sakura flowers with a green wisteria tassel.

Walking past your bed to the door, you spot the tsumami kanzashi on your kotatsu. You ought to wear it at least once. The lunar festival was coming up, maybe then. Maybe you can show Bakugou.

The light outside illuminates Bakugou’s room early in the morning. It’s been a few weeks since he’s seen you. He lost track of time being stuck in his room all day and with Kirishima occasionally only visiting and with Camie as his daily visitor he wasn’t thrilled. That damn shitty hair, did he not care about him? Well, Bakugou can’t complain too much since he himself hasn't gone to see Kirishima either. The sun had just risen and boredom already crept in. Sitting up on his bed, Bakugou mindlessly flipped through his book in hand.

Great--he’s bored from the book now too. Bakugou exhaled sharply, frustrated. How much longer until we can leave? Turning his attention to the kotatsu instead, memories from your last visit come to remind him how much he longs to see you. The image of you with him felt so right.

Bakugou lifts his face and turns to you. Your noses brush each other and a bolt of electricity flashes through your body leaving an intense heat in its wake. Your breath hitches when Bakugou moves intently forward, face tilted and lips slightly parted.

He sees you close your eyes, ready to accept his kiss. Fuck. How are you doing these things to him? He’s never wandered about kissing any one or being with anyone. He encountered many suitors prior to Yueei, each easily dismissable but you? A King’s maid--a beautiful, captivating, mysterious maiden with a heart of gold. You had him chasing the treasure in your heart.

“Can I kiss you, Y/N?” His lips graze yours, nose tickling your cheeks.

This was the first time he’s called you by your first name. If your heart wasn’t having trouble beating before, it was now. With palms clutched on your thighs, you nod. Bakugou doesn’t waste another second with your consent.

He pulls you into a kiss, one hand cradling your head. His kiss was gentle and invigorating. Your lips meld together like it’s made for each other, and you let him pull you in more.

Bakugou is the first to pull away for air. He couldn’t hide his smile if he wanted to and you caught sight of it all.

Fuck.

There he goes again, daydreaming about you.

Bakugou stands and starts to change out of his yukata into a kimono. It’s been a few weeks since the incident and he’s healed nicely. If it wasn’t for the King’s order, he'd be at the training grounds right now. He really misses training. A thought then occurred to him.

Was today laundry day? He pondered before deciding to sneak out to the wash house where he normally would wait.for you. After a few minutes of waiting outside the wash house and seeing no one, Bakugou decides to walk to the courtyard to check if you were there instead. When he reached the courtyard, white sheets were already neatly hung. Stepping back inside the entrance, he leans his head against the wall and lets out a disappointing breath. He missed laundry day with you.

Suddenly, droplets of water hit Bakugou’s cheeks, then it began to really pour. Shit, the sheets! Bakugou rushes into the courtyard and freezes when he sees you have already beat him to it. You’re cursing the weather as you grab the sheets you just cleaned earlier into the nearby basket.

Grabbing the last sheet on the line, you puff your cheeks in disdain of the rain. Stupid stupid rain! You turn around to place it in the basket when a familiar blonde man catches your eyes. Bakugou’s kimono was soaked and his hair laid flat on his forehead. You watch him pick up the basket and walk away towards the covering. Still processing that he was there in front of you, you remained unmoved until you watched him return and grab your wrist to follow. Both your kimonos, drenched at this point. You place the wet sheet into the basket, eyes still trying to figure out if Bakugou was truly in front of you or if you were imagining things because let’s be honest you haven’t seen him in weeks and all you do is daydream about him.

“Baka.” Bakugou lets go of your wrist to shake off the water in his hair. His word brings the realization that he is in front of you and that you weren’t hallucinating. Gently patting the water off your kimono, you take a good look at him this time and you instantly regret it. His white kimono was soaked, revealing the bandages underneath. Bakugou faces you when he is done shaking off the water on his hair and he doesn’t like the worried look on your face. Looking down to see what you were staring at, he understood.

“It’s healed.” Bakugou says, tapping his torso for you to see. “The damn doctor keeps insisting I have bandages even though I haven’t bled in a week.”

You nod in response, finding the courage now to smile at the fact that he’s doing so much better.

“You didn’t wait for me.” Bakugou says as he takes a step closer to you. You hear the disappointment in his tone but don’t take it personally. Bakugou took a sheet that hadn’t been fully soaked and tossed it over your head, helping you dry your hair.

“Wasn’t sure I was going to see you.” You replied jokingly, making sure to add a big grin at the end to let him know you were teasing. Your joke earned you a chuckle from him.

“Guess that makes two of us.” Bakugou says before turning away to look at the rain and placing the sheet back in the basket. “Tch. The day I sneak out of my room is the day it rains.”

“Wait--Bakugou you snuck out? You’re going to get in trouble. Go back.” You pulled the bottom of his sleeve.

Bakugou looks over his shoulder and you’re peering through your lashes at him with the cutest pout.

“I do what I want. It’s fine.” Before you can object, your attention turns to the yell across the courtyard.

“Bakugou?!” You both look across the courtyard and see Camie searching for him.

Of course, she’s looking for him. He’s not in his room. You can only guess what’s going on in her mind right now. Hopefully she hasn’t figured out that he’s with you.

“You should go. Your lady is looking for you.” You say as you nudge him to go but he doesn’t move a muscle. Instead, he turns to face you, towering over your figure.

“My lady?” He questions, tone harsher than he meant but eyes never wavering from you. Camie's calls become louder through the nearby corridor.

“How can my lady be looking for me when she’s already looking at me?” Bakugou says, grazing his thumb over the healed cut on your cheek, relieved to have another moment with you before he has to go. Vermillion orbs stares into your soul whispering his deepest wish, hoping you’d understand him.

Another call from Camie indicates she was around the corner. Hearts still not content yet, Bakugou selfishly steals another moment with you for himself. Gliding his thumb over your bottom lips, memories of your first kiss clouds his thoughts. He remembers how you wanted to reciprocate his kiss, the way you leaned into him, the way you let him hold you. He wants to kiss you so bad.

“See you around.” Bakugou lets go and rushes to enter the corridor, just in time to cover the entrance from Camie seeing you. “Bakugou what happened? You’re soaked!”

Your knees feel like jelly, unsure how they are supporting the weight of your heart at this moment. When you’ve regained your strength, you sneak a peek through the crack of the door to see Bakugou again. Camie is drying Bakugou’s hair with a towel and your heart aches despite being flustered a few seconds ago. Grabbing the basket, you make your way back to the wash house, not wanting to see or hear what was going on in the corridor.

Bakugou swat Camie’s hand away from the towel and begins walking away drying his own hair.

“His Majesty asked me to come get you!” Camie yelled at Bakugou’s back.

“I can go myself.”

Camie watches him disappear at the end of the corridor and stomps in frustration. The glimpse of you with Bakugou when she found him fueled her anger more. Camie needs to get rid of you. Obviously the King would not agree to let you go based on her words. You’ve been at the palace longer than she has. The only true power Camie has over you was your court lady, Ibara, and she knew just the right buttons to get you punished.

“Your Majesty, you were looking for me?” Bakugou stands at the door of the King’s war room after making a quick detour to his room to change.

King Sasaki, Bakugou and Kirishima are sitting, sipping tea as they talk business.

“It’s been a few weeks since we last spoke. I’m glad to see you both are healing nicely.” King Sasaki says, sitting tall and firm across Bakugou and Kirishima. “I had some soldiers investigate the leads you provided and we found something.”

Bakugou and Kirishima look at each other, intrigued at what leads King Sasaki found. Kirishima thinks back to that day of the assinanation attempt.

The trek back to the palace wasn’t far, another few hours. The countryside of Japan is lush green stretching as far as the eye can see.

“Can’t wait to go back and relax with Ibara.” Kirishima says, crossing his arms behind his head as he rides his horse, Red.

Bakugou huffs riding next to Kirishima; He’s had enough of Kirishima talking about how much he misses Ibara.

“Do you miss L/N?” he nudges Bakugou with his sword.

Bakugou quickly swats the sword. “Shut up, Shitty Hair.”

“Oh come on Bakubro. I see the way you stare off into space. I know that ‘look’ very well.”

“Yeah? And what the fuck does that mean?”

“Means I know you miss L/N. It’s the same look I have when I think about Ibara.”

Bakugou can’t deny it at this point because Kirishima was right. Bakugou missed you. Leaving the palace a few days ago after you got hurt didn’t sit well with him.

“Bakubro, I know I said it before but—“

“Stop.” Bakugou cuts Kirishima off. “It’s not your fault so stop apologizing. We would’ve gone training that morning whether or not you had nagged. Besides, we caught the bad guy and no one was seriously injured. L/N included.” Bakugou looks at Kirishima and his calm expression quiet the guilt in Kirshima’s head.

Suddenly, both their horses neighed and resisted moving forward. Something ahead of the crew invoked enough fear in the horses.

“What’s wrong boy?” Bakugou says as he coos at this horse, Zero and rubs its neck.

“Something feels off.” Kirishima sits tall grabbing hold of his sword. Bakugou nods to the crew and all 5 of them grab hold of their swords, instantly regretting not wearing their masks after they had lunch.

Silence…..Nothing but the wind flows by.

WHOOSH!

An arrow is shot towards Bakugou at lightning speed! But it’s not fast enough. Bakugou shifts his body slightly and grabs the arrow as it flies by his cheeks, grazing him. Enemies then appear out of the nearby bushes, swords drawn.

They have some false courage to be ambushing in broad daylight. Nonetheless, this doesn’t look good. King Sasaki placed Bakugou in charge and now he needs to protect his men.

“What do you want?” Bakugou takes his sword and gets off his horse. He slowly approached the enemy soldiers, keeping his men guarded behind him. There’s at least 20 men that he can see and 1 man who seems to be the general leading the group.

“Samurai Bakugou, we’re here to kill you.” The enemy leader speaks.

“Who isn’t now-a-days? Give me your best shot, extras.” Bakugou sneers. Kirishima and their men quickly get off their horse to battle.

Enemy soldiers roar with determination to assassinate Bakugou before running full speed towards Bakugou and his men. The ground shakes as enemy soldiers approach.

“Let’s all get home in one piece.” Bakugou says, shifting his body in defense.

“You heard the man! Let’s do this!” Kirishima grins, ready for a fight.

Bakugou faced multiple men head-on with his sword before eventually making his way to the enemy leader. Their swords clash with strong swings before he is led away from the group. With Bakugou alone, the enemy general tried to defeat Bakugou with no avail. Their swords clash one more time--this time Bakugou overpowers the enemies strike, causing him to fall on the ground.

“Who sent you?” Bakugou says, one foot pining the enemy down while he angles his sword to the enemy's throat.

“Like I would tell you.” The enemy snarls at Bakugou before spitting at his shoes.

“Dishonorable death you’ve chosen.” Agitated, Bakugou applies pressure with his sword to the enemy's throat.

“Bakugou!” Kirishima calls out, huffing as he tries to catch his breath after slaying the last enemy soldier.

“Find our horses and gather our things. We must make haste home before enemy reinforcements arrive.” Kirishima says to the 3 men who nodded and went off. “Damn it, Bakugou, Where did you go?” Kirishima hurries off in search of Bakugou.

Kirishima doesn’t get far though. He spots an enemy soldier who was still alive, limping away to escape. Before he can move to slay the soldier, an arrow hits in the shoulder. He yelps at the impact before pulling it out.

“Hiding in the shadows to attack is an unmanly thing to do.” Kirishima says as he throws the arrow to the ground. His eyes widen at the sight in front of him.

“Running is a dishonor.” A mysterious cloaked man plunges his sword into the enemy soldier, killing him.

“You had one job.” The man says as he wipes the blood from his sword with his dark cloak. The yellow pin shaped like a hand catches his eye and Kirishima takes a mental note of it.“It is an honor I must say, to finally meet in battle the great Samurai Bakugou Katsuki and Kirishima Eijirou.”

“Who are you and why do you want Bakugou dead?” Kirishima gripped his sword and shift his feet.

“An eye for an eye. Surely you understand, Samurai?” The cloaked man takes a step forward, pulling down his hood to reveal light blue hair; his face littered with scars.

“Tell me, Samurai. Why do good men do bad things?” The mysterious man inches forward.

Kirishima has fought many worthy opponents and knows a capable soldier when he sees them. This blue-haired man was dangerous.

“Cut to the chase.” Kirishima growled.

“Tsk Tsk Tsk. Why the rush?” The blue-haired man raises his palms. Suddenly, another dozen or so enemy reinforcement soldiers begin to line up behind the man.

“I’d like to really know how well you fight, Eijirou. I’ve heard so many great things.” The blue hair man says, grinning evilly.

Bakugou nudges Kirishima in the arm to get his attention. Kirishima stares wide at Bakugou for a second, recalling that he was currently having tea with the King. Bakugou doesn’t miss the way Kirishima’s orbs were warped in fear, just like the day he got injured. Bakugou silently cursed himself for not being able to protect Kirishima in that moment.

“I’m so sorry, your majesty.” Kirishima says as he bows to King Sasaki.

“It’s alright, Samurai. Please, have some tea. It’ll calm the mind.” King Sasaki motions for them to drink.

“We found some leads, all thanks to your sharp eye Kirishima. The yellow hand pin you saw on the enemy general’s cloak resembles the pin of a rumored coup I heard about far south of the land: the League of Villains, or LOV. They’ve been deceiving people, promising them goods and fortune for their loyalty.”

King Sasaki further explains his suspicions. He believed the LOV is working with a lord who’s been revolting against the throne--Lord Ujiko. For decades now, Lord Ujiko has been causing trouble for the King; it's not surprising they partnered with such a coup. Lord Ujiko was a smart man though; he’d never exposed himself publicly for such a wicked scheme. King Sasaki fears Lord Ujiko was on the brink of revolting. The yellow hand pin found on the enemy's cloak can only be made using rare-earth minerals that are native to a region south of Japan--a region Lord Ujiko oversees.

“The evil that plagues this country is far from over. In a week all the lords will meet to celebrate the lunar new year. Lord Ujiko will be here. I am no longer sure of who I can trust. I need you to be my eyes and ears. We must continue to stay vigilant and keep the peace in the land. Do you understand Samurai’s?” King Sasaki says to Bakugou and Kirishima who nod in response.

To be continued….

Read Part 4 here!

Taglist: @cayofdreams

#bakugou x reader #Bakugou Katsuki #bnha bakugou #feudal japan AU #bakugou angst #bakugou fluff #bakugou series

80 notes · View notes

veliseraptor · 3 years

Note

Hey just wondering, do you have any draft or work in process or any plan for your next Loki fic? If so can you give us a little sneak peek. Or if you don’t, do you think you’ll write more about him in the future? I know you probably get this a lot and I’m sorry if it’s annoying or if it sounds rude or anything. I’m just wondering and also I’ve been binge reading your stories about him and got addicted so there’s that. But seriously I’m sorry if my message comes off as rude or annoying, that’s not my intention. Anyway hope you’re having an amazing day

I genuinely hate to sound like a broken record, anon, since you are being very polite about this! Which I very much appreciate! But the answer remains more or less the same: I don’t know. I have (counts) 38 different Loki-related WIPs in various stages of completion sitting on my hard drive. I haven’t been working on them actively lately because, to the dismay I’m sure of many of my followers, another fandom has devoured me whole. I’m really enjoying the experience, but it has left me with relatively little brainspace for things that aren’t that thing (or, I guess, other danmei novels and adaptations thereof?? idk okay).

At some point I would like to finish at least some of those stories, because I do not like leaving things unfinished. But I just don’t know when - or if! - I will. It just depends on if I get that emotional investment back. At the moment it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen imminently, but who knows. And maybe I’ll go back and reread what I have written of some of these, go “where’s the rest, op” and feel encouraged to write more.

All that being said - since you were so nice about this, I will give you a (3000 word) excerpt from one of the WIPs - Dead Superheroes Walking, which is the one about the characters who died/were dusted in Infinity War on a road trip through the Soul Stone.

---

“Anyone for a game of twenty questions?” Sam asked, after they’d been walking for maybe ten minutes.

“Really?” Bucky said. “Twenty questions?”

“I don’t think ‘I Spy’ would work too well. Not a lot of interesting landmarks. Or hadn’t you noticed that the landscape keeps repeating?”

“I am Groot,” said Groot.

“And I have no idea what that means,” Sam said.

Sam was right, Wanda realized. The landscape was repeating. It wasn’t obvious, at first, but there was only one tree, over and over; only one rock placed near to it. The sky was a flat and even orange.

A faint shiver ran down Wanda’s spine. Bucky stopped, though, visibly disconcerted.

“What the hell is this place,” he said.

“Does it matter?” Sam asked. “We’re not exactly going anywhere else. All right, I’ve got it. Twenty questions, yes or no answers only.”

“I am Groot?” said Groot. Sam eyed him.

“I’m not going to take that off the count,” he said.

“Is it alive?” T’Challa asked.

“Yep,” Sam said.

“Guess that rules us out,” Bucky said. Sam snorted, and T’Challa cracked a small smile. Wanda stared down at a small, triangular rock in front of her feet.

“All right,” Bucky said. “Is it an animal?”

“Yes. Two questions down. Wanda?”

She bent down and picked up the rock. It left red dust on her fingers, and when she pressed her fingers together it crumbled like chalk. She half expected the dust to vanish, but the red stain on her fingertips stayed.

“Wanda?” Sam said, more gently.

“Sorry,” she said. “Is it a person?”

“Nope,” Sam said. “That’s three.”

She wiped her hand off on her clothes. This place wasn’t right - she could feel it in her bones, deep down where her magic ought to be. But nothing had been right in the last few days. Very few things in Wanda’s life had been right. Why should her death be any different?

It only seemed unfair that the others should be here, too.

They sky did not change, but they stopped walking eventually - less because any of them were actually tired than because it seemed like they should. Or maybe because they were tired of walking and wanted some change, even if there was very little change to be had. The road went on. The landscape didn’t alter.

And no one else appeared.

“It can’t just be us,” Sam said. “Other people died. Where are they?”

Nobody had an answer for him, unless the tree’s “I am Groot” was an answer none of them could understand. Wanda thought it might be something to do with the fact that they’d all died when Thanos had snapped his fingers, but she stayed quiet, staring off at the horizon and only half listening to Bucky and Sam going back and forth at each other.

“I see something,” T’Challa said abruptly. They all turned and followed the line of his arm.

“I can’t see anything,” Sam said.

“Give it a sec,” Bucky said. “He’s probably got a hundred extra yards visibility on me. Maybe 150 on you–”

“I am Groot,” Groot said. Wanda strained her eyes, some part of her wishing - hoping–

“Is that a dog?” Sam said.

A moment later Wanda saw it too, and slumped. It did look like a dog padding towards them - or at least, it certainly wasn’t a person.

“That’s not a dog,” T’Challa said.

“Fox, I think,” Bucky said. “What the fuck is a fox doing here?”

“I don’t think it’s a fox, either,” T’Challa said. He shifted, like he was thinking about getting into a fighting stance. Wanda stepped forward, reaching for her powers, but nothing was there.

What would be the point, anyway? You can only die once.

The fox - and it was a fox, Wanda could see that now, though black instead of red - slowed as it began to draw closer. It sat down, still a ways away, and cocked its head, looking at them.

“This is weird,” Sam said. T’Challa was still frowning.

“What is it?” Bucky asked him. T’Challa shook his head.

“I’m not certain.”

The fox stood, stretched, and changed, unfolding into a person. Wanda sucked in a breath, staring at the man now walking toward them: dark-haired, pale, lean and taller than Bucky or T’Challa. A vague sense of familiarity nagged at her, but she couldn’t say from where.

The man stopped, still several paces from them, and cocked his head just as the fox had. “Well,” he said, a faint rasp in his voice. “This is new.”

Wanda stared at him, trying to remember where she recognized him from. “New?”

“Yes,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else. But then, this time is different.”

“Wait,” Sam said abruptly. “Shit. Are you-”

“Mm,” he said, still looking at Wanda. T’Challa’s eyes were narrowed, too, and Sam’s. Bucky looked blankly at them both.

“What?”

“It’s always nice to be recognized,” the stranger said dryly.

“Loki,” Sam said. “That’s fucking Loki. Right?” Wanda’s eyes widened, but he - Loki - just shrugged one shoulder.

“So I am. Or was. I’m not certain of the appropriate tense.” His gaze swept across them, indifferent, disinterested.

“You’re dead, too,” Wanda said. Loki glanced at her, eyes focusing briefly before they slid back into dullness. No, exhaustion.

“Or something,” he said.

“‘Or something?’” Sam said. Loki’s eyes flicked in his direction.

“This doesn’t feel like death,” he said, “but I remember the feeling of my neck breaking in Thanos’s hand fairly clearly, so…” Wanda flinched, and she thought she saw Sam’s eye twitch. She remembered Thor coming roaring down from the sky, thunder and lightning in his voice, and understood. She looked down.

“What do you mean that this doesn’t feel like death,” T’Challa said into the silence.

“I know a little of what death tastes like,” Loki said after a moment. “This isn’t it.”

“What does that mean,” Bucky said, looking agitated and uncertain.

“I am Groot,” said Groot, and Loki glanced at him, something briefly flashing across his expression before it was gone. Pain, Wanda thought.

“Not entirely accurate,” he said, “but not entirely inaccurate, either.” There was a brief pause.

“You can understand him?” Bucky said. Loki shrugged again. “What did he say?”

“It’s irrelevant.” Loki’s eyes moved back to Wanda. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you were simply the high cost of victory?” Wanda looked down, somehow feeling ashamed of her failure. Loki let out a quiet huff. “Pity.”

Bucky, oddly, snorted.

“Thanos gained all of the Infinity Stones,” T’Challa said. “Then…” He trailed off. “I am not entirely certain what happened then.”

Loki made a sort of hm noise, glancing at T’Challa sidelong. “So you didn’t die in battle,” he said.

“If so, I do not remember it,” T’Challa said.

“I am Groot,” Groot said to Loki, whose head swiveled violently toward him, eyes sharpening.

“Gamora,” he said, and there was a wealth of hatred and fear in that word. “You are a companion of hers?”

“I am Groot,” Groot said emphatically, and Loki blinked, then pressed his lips together and exhaled in a short burst.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

“Can you maybe translate what he’s saying,” Bucky said irritably. “Since all the rest of us can hear is the same three words over and over.”

“He says that Gamora claimed Thanos meant to use the completed Gauntlet to halve all life in the universe,” Loki said. “If you know that he achieved his goal, then presumably you were part of the unlucky half. Though that does not explain why you are here. Or else does not explain why I am.”

“And who’s Gamora,” Sam said, with such exaggerated patience that it demonstrated anything but.

“An old acquaintance,” Loki said. He sounded distracted.

“I am Groot,” Groot said, and this time Wanda could hear the near pride in his voice. Loki didn’t respond. He was scanning their number again, Wanda realized, more closely.

She bit her lip, then raised her voice and said, “Thor’s alive.” His gaze snapped to her, and she made herself hold it though her instinct was to look down. “At least, he was when I...he drove an axe into Thanos’s chest. It didn’t work, it was too late, but…” She trailed off.

Loki glanced down, his eyes half closing, and Wanda thought she caught a brief flicker at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile, and a barely audible, “ah, Thor.” Then his eyes were back on hers and he said simply, “thank you for informing me,” with a lack of feeling that made Wanda frown.

“You haven’t asked who any of us are,” Bucky said.

“So I have not,” Loki said. “I am not certain it is precisely relevant.”

“Excuse you,” Sam said. Loki glanced at him, that tired indifference returning.

“I approached because I was curious. I wasn’t intending to stay, nor would I think you were inclined to encourage it.”

T’Challa was studying Loki with curious intensity. “Were you going somewhere?”

“No,” Loki said, and then paused and adjusted, “perhaps.”

“I am Groot?” Groot said, and Loki’s lips pressed briefly together.

“It means perhaps. And don’t be crude.”

“I’m with him,” Sam said. “What does perhaps mean?” Loki looked briefly annoyed, and Sam said, “come on. We’re all dead here. Or - not. Which still begs the question as far as I’m concerned of what we are.”

Loki’s eyes went back to her, and Wanda shifted. “What?” She asked. “Why do you keep looking at me?”

“You haven’t noticed anything strange, then?” He asked. “Felt anything?”

Too many things, Wanda thought, but she didn’t think that was what he meant, and now they were all looking at her. Wanda hesitated.

“I don’t have my powers,” she said slowly. Loki made a derisive noise.

“Of course you don’t,” he said. “Do you need them to sense what’s around you? Midgardian magicians. Norns.”

Wanda glared at him, but took a breath and tried to turn inward, like she was going to use her power. It still wasn’t there, but this time, without distractions…

She jerked and saw a satisfied glint in Loki’s eyes, just for an instant. “There,” he said.

“Wanda, what is it?” Sam asked, looking suspiciously at Loki.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But it feels like…” She searched for the right words. “Like a heartbeat,” she said finally, even if that wasn’t quite right.

Bucky’s expression was a mixture of horror and alarm. “A heartbeat?”

“So that’s what it feels like to you,” Loki said thoughtfully. He seemed more engaged now than he had been at first, and somehow even though it shouldn’t matter that felt like a good thing. Maybe because nothing else was.

“It’s not actually,” Wanda said quickly. “That’s just sort of what it feels like - to me, anyway. It’s...different for you?”

Loki shrugged. T’Challa shifted.

“I know what she means,” he said. “Though I wouldn’t have described it like that. But there is...something.”

“Interesting,” Loki said, glancing at T’Challa and looking him over with slightly more interest. “To answer your implied question, I would call it a...resonance.”

“A resonance with what,” Sam asked.

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be bothering to talk to you,” Loki said. “But partly it is that which makes me think this is something other than simple death.”

“What is there other than ‘simple death,’” Bucky said tightly.

“That is the question, isn’t it,” Loki said. “Maybe nothing. Maybe I am wrong. But if I am not…”

“If you’re not, what,” Bucky said, even tighter.

“Then it begs the question of why, doesn’t it?” Loki rolled his neck in a slow circle, and Wanda could have sworn she heard something crack. “At least, such was my thought. But maybe it is just desperation.”

He didn’t sound desperate. He didn’t sound much of anything.

“Why not stay with us,” Wanda said abruptly. Everyone else turned to stare at her, Loki included, and she straightened, turning toward her friends. “I mean it,” she said. “Why not? We’re all here together. And if he’s right and there’s a why, a reason...wouldn’t it suggest that’s true for all of us, including him?” She paused, and added, “and besides - what can he do to us, anyway?”

Loki barked a laugh. “That is a fair point,” he murmured.

“How do we know this isn’t some kind of trick?” T’Challa asked, his eyes narrowed.

“You don’t,” Loki said. “But I will say that you vastly overestimate my interest in you. Well, the majority of you. And your witch has a point: what is it you think I will do?”

“I don’t know,” T’Challa said. “That’s what worries me.”

“And ‘our witch’ has a name,” Sam said a little sourly.

Loki shrugged. “As you will. It makes little difference to me.” He moved around them and started to walk away.

“I am Groot,” Groot muttered, and strode after him, long tree-legs catching up in a few strides. “I am Groot?” He said to Loki, who checked himself and looked at him, his face tightening.

“Was, yes,” he said. “Why?”

“I am Groot,” Groot said definitively, and Loki shook his head.

“Call back your child,” he said, with a sharp gesture at Groot.

“Child?” Sam said, eyebrows shooting up.

“He’s an adolescent Flora Colossus,” Loki said, as though it were obvious. “And he is not following me. I don’t care who you were friends with.”

Thor, Wanda thought. Groot didn’t know any of them, but he’d known Thor, at least a little, and Loki was Thor’s brother, and Groot was, apparently, a teenager, among strangers who couldn’t understand him, who had just died.

Wanda’s chest ached. “If he wants to,” she said, “I don’t see why he shouldn’t.”

“I’m not interested in playing nursemaid–”

“I am Groot,” Groot said, and Loki gave him a hard look.

“No, you are not,” he said. “I’ve met grown Flora Colossi and you aren’t it. You’re barely more than a sapling. Maybe - what, four years old?”

“You know what,” Bucky said, “I’m with Wanda, actually. And the, uh...Groot. This place is weird. I think we should stick together, and it seems like he knows more about this place than any of the rest of us do.” His eyes settled on Loki. “And it’s not like we have a whole lot to lose, right now.”

Sam gave Bucky a long, skeptical look and then glanced at T’Challa, who shrugged.

“You assume I am interested in putting up with the lot of you,” Loki said flatly. He looked tense, Wanda thought. Like he was expecting some kind of trap. Wanda tried to summon a smile.

“You said you came over because you were curious,” she said. “And if you’re right, and there is some reason we’re all here...isn’t that something else to be curious about?”

“I am Groot,” said Groot, and Loki glanced at him, jaw twitching.

“I’m dead, you twig,” he said. “If not now, then probably soon. And if I did need protecting, you wouldn’t be much help.”

Bucky snorted, poorly muffled. Wanda bit her lip so she didn’t smile. Groot’s expression was hard for her to read, but it looked to her eyes like a glare.

Loki exhaled loudly and looked away. “Fine,” he said. “If you are inclined...I suppose there’s no harm in traveling adjacently.”

“Traveling where?” Sam asked. “You make it sound like you have an actual destination.”

“I have a...feeling,” Loki said, though something about the brief pause before he spoke made Wanda think there was something he wasn’t saying. The question was if it was important or not. “No more than that.”

“Well,” T’Challa said after a few moments of hesitation, “that is more than I have, at the moment. And so far as I know we weren’t going anywhere in particular, so…”

“I guess that settles it,” Wanda said. Loki eyed her like he suspected her of having some ulterior motive. She decided to pretend not to notice. “So which way are we going?”

#anonymous #conversating #fic excerpt #i know this is an unsatisfying answer! i know it!#i just don't have a better one #this does remind me i should write up an actual faq at some point maybe

45 notes · View notes

hetacon · 3 years

Text

Prom Queen: Chapter 4

First || Previous || Next

______________________________

Word Count: 1,800

Pairings: Endgame Prinxiety, Platonic LAMP, more could be included at a later point

Warning: Swearing, small food mention, let me know if there’s anything I missed!

______________________________

Summary: “Hey Virgil, tell us about yourself, yeah?” one of the girls asked, the guy she was just talking with fixing his gaze on to Virgil too.

(Make sure to read all the way to the end if you want my thoughts so far! Let me know if you want to be added to the taglist for this story, my art, or writing! Enjoy the chapter!)

______________________________

Virgil started to spend more time with the popular kids after they got back to school, something he never thought would be happening. They were gossipy and didn’t really appeal to Virgil as overall people but Roman was their friend so he started to get to know them for the sake of his best friend. He didn’t even really know them honestly, they almost never talked about themselves or their interests or anything in terms of personal information, the conversations almost consistently focused on the drama going around the school that day. There was something new every time they went over. For a solid month, he and Roman would go chat for a minute or two before going off to find Patton and Logan.

That was actually what they were just doing that day when one of Roman’s friends got Virgil’s attention.

“Hey Virgil, tell us about yourself, yeah?” one of the girls asked, the guy she was just talking with fixing his gaze on to Virgil too.

Virgil looked over to Madison if he remembered correctly, trying to hide most of his shock at the fact that she even addressed him. Not many of Roman’s friends acknowledged him much when they would go over but Virgil guessed they’d taken some interest in him. He had been coming over with Roman for quite a good while now, it figures they’d notice his presence at some point. He had to respond quick though, this chance couldn’t go to waste. “Uh, ok, what do you want to know?”

“What kind of music do you listen to?” Well, an odd question to start off with.

Virgil shrugged a bit. “Eh, just what everyone else listens to, you know? Not really anything in particular. It’s not like I really look for songs to listen to by anyone specific.”

Roman nudged him with a snort. “Since when has this ever been the case? If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you’re emo through and through,” he said, a certain fondness to his look. Virgil bumped his shoulder with a laugh back, fixing him with a playful glare.

“And what if I can like things that you don’t expect of me, huh?” Virgil asked with a slight tease. Roman simply raised an eyebrow but shrugged, letting the argument go without much more of a struggle. Roman wasn’t wrong though, he still listened to everything that he had before, none of it had changed despite what he said. Definitely none of what people usually listened to. He was never one to follow trends with music or otherwise and Roman unfortunately knew that.

“Do you do anything interesting?” one of the people joining the conversation asked.

“Things here and there, not exactly much. School is a drag, takes up way too much of my time to actually let me focus on anything even remotely interesting,” Virgil said calmly, trying to look casual. He hoped it was working, he felt like a nervous wreck. With a few laughs and a “Fuck yeah it is!” he mustered up the courage to add in, “I draw if that counts for anything.”

“Oh yeah? Mind if we take a look?”

Virgil nodded and rummaged through his bag, finding a leather bound book. This one happened to be his more serious one, he had another that was far more personal stashed away. Only Roman, Patton, and Logan ever saw that one, and not even in its full entirety. The personal one had gotten a lot more use than the one currently in his hands. Virgil slid the book over the table and he watched as it was opened to a page of really messy scribbles in the shape of a distraught person’s face. He’d remembered drawing that one, he was in the middle of history sophomore year having a panic attack but was too nervous to ask to step outside.

“Woah, this is cool man,” Tyler said as he looked over it, others nodding in agreement. They proceeded to flip through the pages for a bit while they took turns asking him more questions.

With so much talk, Virgil noticed Roman jump up suddenly, tugging at Virgil’s sleeve frantically. “Pat and Specs!” he explained before packing up his things frantically. “So sorry guys, I need to talk to them before we have to go to class! I’ll catch up with you tomorrow!” he shouted out as he started speed walking, Virgil in tow. Virgil barely managed to collect up his stuff before he was at Roman’s side, seeing the slightest crease between Roman’s eyebrows. As relieved as Virgil was to be away from all of the questions and potential judgement, he noticed Roman was in a big rush. He couldn’t really place why.

“Hey, you uh.. You ok? What’s up?” Virgil asked, relieved as Roman slowed down a little as they turned a corner.

“I just want to get to Pat and Specs, they’re our friends you know?” Roman asked with a bit of an edge before sighing. “Sorry, I just didn’t expect you to uh.. Hit it off so much with them, I usually just say a quick hello really,” he explained.

“Really? You think so?” Virgil really hoped he was impressing the popular kids, they were Roman’s friends after all. If he was having luck with them, he wasn’t going to lose Roman that easily. He couldn’t possibly do that, not when he’d already put so much at risk.

“Yeah but anyone who doesn’t like you how you are is insane,” Roman said lowly. Virgil thought he saw Roman’s jaw clench for a second but he quickly looked ahead of them as Roman glanced over.

Virgil was tackled in a hug by Patton, causing him to smile as he hugged back. He didn’t smile for long though as the bell rang, causing Roman to sigh. He looked over, laughing a little awkwardly. “Ha, sorry Ro, didn’t mean to make us so late.”

Roman shrugged. “It’s ok, just means we’ll have to get here as soon as possible tomorrow!” With that, he and Logan started to talk as they headed to class together.

Virgil watched as Roman walked away from him and Patton and he frowned slightly before Patton was nudging his shoulder and nodding his head to the direction of their classes.

Virgil nodded back and started walking, burying his hands deep into his pockets. He really wished he had his usual hoodie to pull over his head and hide from the world. His bangs would have to do, giving him a good look at the sickeningly sweet pink he’d decided on a month prior. Who let him do that again?

“Hey, you ok?” Patton asked, silently offering Virgil a cookie. Snickerdoodle today, Virgil would’ve usually loved it.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Virgil told him. “I’m not hungry, thanks though.”

Patton looked at him with a worried look for a second before sighing, taking a bite of the cookie himself. “Alright Virge, if you say so. Who knows, maybe some rest is all you need, make sure you go easy on yourself!”

Virgil agreed, looking ahead of them.

He went home that day and went through the motions in a haze, glad when he finally got out of his disgustingly bright outfit. He stared blankly at the wall when he got a text from Roman.

“Hey, sorry I was so tense where we left things off.. I promise you didn’t do anything, that was all me.”

“What was up with that?” Virgil texted back.

Roman’s response took a minute before it popped up on Virgil’s screen. “I don’t know, I just didn’t expect them to really take such an interest in you. They can be a bit... Stuffy. Like, all the time, I much prefer hanging out with you, Pat, and Specs.”

“I mean, they’re your friends right? They asked me questions, I answered.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Some of your answers surprised me though lol, you are truly a dark and stormy knight after all!”

“Hey, I’m allowed to expand my tastes, aren’t I? You got me into some of your dumb musicals after all.”

“They are not dumb, take that back you jerk!”

Virgil snorted, hugging his pillow to his chest as he typed out another message. “Oh yeah? Make me, you pompous thespian drama queen.”

“I just might!”

Before Virgil could respond, Roman shot him a quick text reading “Shit, GTG, I need to run a few scenes before I sleep! Until tomorrow~!”

“Go chase your dreams of ‘professional make believe’ as Logan would say, night.”

As an afterthought, Virgil tacked on a red heart before blushing harshly, cursing into his hands. He really did that, no taking that one back now was there?

Either way, check in time. Roman was still his friend, they just had a normal conversation like two human beings ought to be able to have. While he seemed a little off-put by some of the changes Virgil was talking about, he didn’t seem to take it as a serious offense so a plus there. The clothes were horrible, Virgil still hated his hair, but he was doing this for Roman so he’d suck it up. Roman’s friends were starting to like him, they liked his art so that was good. Luckily they latched on to something he couldn’t lie about.

Just as Virgil was about to go to bed, another notification popped up on his phone, this time from an unknown number. Virgil stared at it for moment, his brow furrowed. He opened it though and read it.

“Hey Virgil, this is Madison! Got ur number from Roman’s phone lol, hope u don’t mind sweetie!”

Well, he kind of did mind but putting that aside-

“Hi, did you need anything?”

“Not rn but I might! Just wanted to have ur number just in case. Anyways, I’m going to bed, see u tomorrow!”

Virgil nodded to himself before he got one more text.

“BTW loveeeee ur artwork, keep up the good work bby!”

This was certainly... Bizarre. He didn’t expect to ever have the number of a popular girl in his phone but he never knew high school would be this insane. He’d survive this though, for Roman if nothing else. And if not, he just might lose Roman forever and never be able to forget about it for as long as he lives! Ok, breathe Virgil, breathe...

Things would work out, Virgil was going to make sure they did or die trying. Nobody, Roman included, could think to stop him now.

______________________________

More Prom Queen content huh? Anyways hey hey hey guys! How’d you like the newest chapter?

To be honest, I’m not sure how to feel about this one. I feel like all of my writings sound like they’re in an echo chamber. Like as if the events are completely isolated and don’t fit into an expansive narrative and existence. I have no idea if that makes a bit of sense, it might just be my depression tbh? It’s been kicking my butt more than usual.

But Virgil is finally getting noticed by the popular kids, woohoo! This obviously can’t go wrong! We shall see what Virgil will be getting up to with time!

As always, feel free to leave comments or send me asks and whatnot if you want to talk with me about the story! I’d love to hear from you guys!

______________________________

Taglist: @artissijules, @virgils-paranoia, @its-the-cat-queen, @myyoutubecorner, @marshmallow-the-panda, @anotheregofanficblog, @tssidesfamily, @shapa-likes-art, @isabelle-stars, @falsemood, @katlikethesword

#sanders sides #prinxiety #virgil sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #multichapter #prom queen #stan writing

47 notes · View notes

mediocre-writerr · 3 years

Text

we’re going down [leah rilke]

bring us through: leah rilke book

chapter 2: we’re going down

*not my gif*

The private jet was fancier than any plane I’ve ever been on. Seats where your feet weren’t cramped like a bunch of sardines in a sardine can. A smell that doesn’t smell like someone just ate the whole Taco Bell menu before they came on.

It was clean and polished. No spot had a stain, like it was brand new. Perfect as one would say.

Here’s the thing about perfection though: everyone has their own version of perfect.

Here’s the thing about me: I didn’t know that until much more recently.

There were many trials and tribulations with my family, especially when it came to perfection...or well perfection in my dad’s eyes. But somehow, some way, we always came out stronger. There was one time where my mom didn’t get the job we needed to really help our financial situation, and my dad got so angry that she wasn’t perfect that she had to go live with my aunt for a couple months. But when she came back with a new better job, my dad celebrated her. We went to a fancy restaurant in the city and ate the most expensive food on the menu. Then my older sister didn’t marry the guy my dad wanted her to and he disowned her for a few months. Until she came back with more money and a grandkid for our parents. He threw the baby a huge baptism party, spending loads of money buying them a house and the necessities for a baby.

My mom not getting a job? Fixed with a big celebration dinner. My sister not marrying the man my dad wants? Fixed with a huge baptism party and buying them a house.

I’m valedictorian, on the verge of going to the most prestigious school in Texas on a full ride: Rice University. And then right when everything in life seemed to be perfect, I messed everything up. There was no way coming back up from this one.

I was just sitting at the kitchen table during dinner. Eating mom’s classic country fried steak and mashed potatoes with gravy. Occasionally, participating in awkward conversation about how good the food is. I felt like I slept-walked there, barely able to recall the argument before dinner, the yelling, the screaming. Remembering for the thousandth time in the past week, that she was gone.

I sat there awkwardly, waiting for the other foot to drop. That I was just going to get kicked to the curb like everyone else who didn’t follow what my dad has planned for their life. But as my younger brothers went upstairs for bed I recognized something on my dad’s face that I had never seen since they found out. His face dressed in a big smile, like he was just told he’s going to Disney World.

As if on beat, he leaned in closer to me from across the table. And I knew that things were about to go for a crash-landing. His unusual happiness at my disobedience was going to wreck havoc into my life.

He cleared his throat hesitantly as my mother joined us back on the table. His breath smelled like his usual bourbon, “So Raleigh,” he said, crossing his fingers together with my mom’s, “We have a fun surprise for you.”

As if on cue there was a knock on the door. My father gestured for me to go get the door. I opened it revealing Shelby and her parents. I stopped short in my place, both of us frozen with confusion written all over our faces. But her parents had an unfamiliar expression: genuine happiness?

I cleared my throat, trying to piece everything together, “Hi Mr and Mrs. Goodkind. It’s a pleasant surprise. My parents are at the kitchen table.”

I open the door wider for them as the two of them say their hello’s and walk inside, “What’s going on?” I ask Shelby and she shrugs.

“I have no idea,” she whispers back, “But it can’t be good.”

The two of us sat across from our parents, as they stared at us with grins on their faces. But it’s as if the grins had a double meaning to them, “We wanted to talk to the two of you about something. We know the two of you are as thick as thieves, I mean you never shut up about each other.” Mr. Goodkind laughs, trying to ease the awkward tension, but it misses by a longshot.

Me and Shelby laugh along awkwardly, as we look at each other with a side glance. They said fun surprise. Not we’re kicking you out onto the streets. But we knew, from the way that our mom’s wouldn’t look at us or from the way our father’s faces grew more and more stern by the second, that something was about to go down.

My dad fetched something from his office. Two envelopes with our name scrawled across it, with a pamphlet in his name. The pamphlet in big bold letters saying: Dawn of Eve.

“We want you to have this,” my dad says, “It’s a gift for the two of you.”

We slowly opened the envelopes revealing a plane ticket to Hawaii, along with an itinerary, “It’s a retreat,” my mom blurted, “A beautiful month trip to Hawaii with other girls around your age. You’ll love it. Find your true self. Growing.”

Mrs. Goodkind chimes in, “Aromatherapy messages, swimming with dolphins, workshops!”

“A chance for the two of you girls to discover who you’re really ought to be.” Mr. Goodkind says.

And at that point I knew. It wasn’t just any retreat, it was a retreat to get our shit together.

I closed the overhead container, like closing the container would shut out the memories too. Looking for a distraction, I opened up Instagram on my phone scrolling through various posts of people back home and celebrities flaunting off their life.

Everyone seemed to have taken their seats. The brunette with a book sat in the back away from everyone else, holding onto the book like her life depended on it. The ‘put on your seatbelt’ sign flashed above us, as a video began playing on the screen in front of us.

“Right now, hundreds of girls just like yourselves, board charters just like this one, are on route to our retreat in Kona, Hawaii.” the middle-aged lady said.

But I wasn’t quite focused on that, but rather the girl in the back all by herself. She was staring blankly at the seat in front of her, not paying attention to anyone in the plane or the video.

“The Dawn of Eve literally waits for no man.” the lady says, causing me to catch my attention.

I looked at my best friend who was captivated by the video. I give her a look and she just shrugs. The air on the plane was tense as we lifted off into the air. It seemed like nobody wanted to be here. So Shelby did what she did best.

“I’m gonna start an icebreaker to get to know everyone.” she states, starting to get up from out of her seat.

I pull her back down as fast as I could, “Shelb, really? We’re not on a mission.”

But she just pulled out of my grasp standing up. I let out a sigh, even though everyone would hate this idea, what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t support her? “So, in the interest of bringing us all together I would like to propose a little ice breaker.”

I could literally feel everyone’s eye roll in the room. An asian girl with bangs stood up suggesting ‘Never Have I Ever’. But of course peppy Shelby shot down her suggestion. She was never one for those types of games. Especially with all of the secrets she keeps hidden inside.

“Alright I’m gonna start with an introduction and play matchmaker,” she says walking up and down the aisle.

I was trying to pay attention to Shelby, but for some reason I kept looking back at that beautiful brunette. Who did not seem to be interested in anything Shelby was saying. Her nose still knee-deep in that book of hers, curled onto her side, reading like it was life or death.

“And this is my best friend Raleigh Fuller,” my best friend says, snapping out of my trance. She looks at you with the look as she follows your gaze to the girl in the back, “We’re from Dillon, Texas.”

She grabs my hand, dragging me all the way towards the back, sitting next to the girl, “You two will be paired up together. Have fun you two.” she says to me with a wink before walking back down the aisle.

The brunette didn’t acknowledge me though, but rather kept reading her book. I cleared my throat, awkwardly, trying to gain her attention.

“The Nature Of Her? By Jeffrey Galanis.” I said, squinting at the book cover across from me.

That seemed to have caught her attention, “You’ve read it?”

“No. I actually never heard of it, but it seems like it’s interesting. If you’ve been having your nose stuffed in since I accidentally ran into you.” I say jokingly with a small smile.

The flight attendant came by with a cart full of chocolate cake. We both thank him softly, before indulging in the richness of the cake.

She didn’t respond after that all she did was stick her nose in her book again. But it seemed like she wasn’t even reading the pages. After three seconds she’s already flipping onto another page.

I cleared my throat, scratching the back of my neck. I mean what am I supposed to say? The girl clearly didn’t want to be bothered. It’s like the writing in those pages were magical. The old me would just sit back in the leather private jet chair, feeling sorry for myself about her completely ignoring me. Probably thinking something like: wow, I guess I’m really not cool. Or spit out a random fact since that’s all I know like: competitive art used to be in the Olympics.

But that past me was probably dug next to the old Taylor Swift’s grave. The lyric that goes: “I’m sorry the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now...why? Cause she’s dead.” Yeah that’s how I’m feeling on the inside, so instead I say, “You know it’s kinda rude that we’re supposed to be having a conversation, but you’re completely ignoring me.”

She let out a laugh and took one glance up from the book. Finally being met with her bright blue eyes, “Does it look like I want to be bothered right now?”

“No, but it looks like you’re reading the same page over and over again. Like it’s the only thing that can keep your heart beating,” I said, “What’s so interesting about that book anyway?”

She studied me for a brief moment. Her eyes leave the pages of that book for more than five seconds.

Finally, she said, “Look, it’s one of my favorite books. But I don’t think there’s a rule against rereading your favorite book over and over again. That’s like me telling you that you can’t read Wuthering Heights over and over again.”

Now it was my turn to stare at the girl.

She was right. She may have been a closed off book, but so was I. I used to be one of those people who would kill to ask thousands of questions about what that book was about. Or why she loved it so much. I would love to join in and lead on Shelby’s icebreakers. But now? Sometimes, I don’t even want to talk to Shelby.

I wanted to apologize for my comments. These days, I can’t control my own emotions or what I want to say anymore.

I’m sorry, I imagined myself saying, I’m sorry that I was a complete pain in the butt. I didn’t mean to judge you and how invested you are in that book. My parents found out my deepest darkest secret. And instead of accepting me with open loving arms they decided to send me to a retreat. A retreat in which I’m pretty sure is a conversion therapy camp, but they don’t want to say that out loud. So they call it a fun surprise for me and my best friend. While the girl I fell in love with is just gone. I used to be this bright bubbly girl, but now I’m not. So, please forgive me for my behavior since you probably don’t want to be here either.

That’s a little TMI, don’t you think?

I open my mouth and start to utter those meaningless two words when my best friend came rushing past.

“Shelby? Where are you going?” I ask, surprised at how fast she was moving.

“I got chocolate cake in my teeth.” she mumbles, covering her face in her hand and I immediately got the message.

“Ah got it.”

Shelby rushed back into the bathroom and I turned to the brunette in front of me again. The closed-book of a girl, opening my mouth once more ready to mumble the two most overused words. But the plane started shaking, jolting us back and forth. The two of us look at each other, tilting our heads to the side.

“Hello everyone. We’re experiencing a little turbulence.” The plane continued to jolt and it seemed like more than just a little turbulence, “Actually a lot of turbulence!” the pilot yells.

The lights flashing on and off. The brunette just shoved her face back in the book. This could be our last moments on Earth and she’s still reading that book! I get up from out of my seat, banging on the bathroom door.

“Shelby! Open the door!” I yell.

My blonde best friend came bursting out and she fell onto her knees on the floor. Praying to the God she still whole-heartedly believed in. I fell down on the ground next to her, holding her in my arms as she prayed. I didn’t pray, but rather sat there thinking that this was the end.

#leah rilke #leah rilke imagine #leah rilke x reader #leah rilke fanfiction #leah rilke book

39 notes · View notes

binniedeactivated · 4 years

Text

saint. || soobin (2.10)🌪*finale*

a/n: congratulations for making it to part 2 finale! I appreciate anyone who has made it this far in reading this series! ily<3333 enjoy!

🖤┊𝔰𝔞𝔦𝔫𝔱 . ೄྀ࿐ 𝖕𝖆𝖎𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌: 𝖘𝖔𝖔𝖇𝖎𝖓 𝖝 𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖊𝖗 𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖗𝖊: 𝖘𝖒𝖚𝖙/𝖆𝖚 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖙; 2k

parked outside your house in the car was yeonjun, and you were more than glad he was on his phone and barely paying attention to you. you sighed, thinking about soobin’s words when he told you to be good for him. you made a promise to yourself that you’d be better until he comes back.

you entered the car and sat silently until yeonjun was done scrolling through his feed. you figured maybe you could use this time to mentally prepare yourself for school today. trying not to become too stressed, soon exams will be over and you could go back to having a regular mental capacity again.

“i don’t know. if i entered someone else’s car I’d at least greet them”. yeonjun mutters with his eyes still pasted to his phone. you slowly narrowed your eyes at him. “since when do you care if I greet you?”. you ask. he shrugs his shoulders. “common courtesy. manners too”. he replies. you huff your breath ignoring him.

“are we going anywhere?”. you ask.

“yes”.

“so can we go? we’re just sitting here”.

“why are you in a rush? you have nowhere to be at 6 o’clock in the morning”.

you cross your arms. you know what soobin said. but yeonjun wasn’t making things any easier too.

“you’re annoying”. you retort.

“and you’re some angel?”.

“I never said that”.

“sure as hell was acting like it when you told soobin yesterday”.

“are you not disrespectful? you don’t how to speak to people. that’s your problem”.

“surely we aren’t talking about problems when you’re 18 years old and need someone to teach you how to have sex”.

you glare at him, completely oblivious to soobin even mentioning such things to an asshole like him.

“that’s your problem”. yeonjun twisted, using your words against you.

“I don’t know why soobin is even friends with you. I hate you”. you grumble. yeonjun nods before starting up the car.

“good”.

you kept your mouth shut until you both were at the diner again. you really wanted to hit him for what he said. but you ought to be good for soobin. yeonjun gets out and slams the door behind himself like the rude person he was. you entered and sat across from him. he was reading the menu and asking the same waitress questions he already knew the answer to, he just wanted to flirt. you roll your eyes and pluck up your own menu preparing to order.

after she finished taking your orders she gave you this snarky ass look almost as if to say, “how does it feel to have your man taken?” . you wanted to assure her that you didn’t know and that yeonjun is completely on the market but you didn’t care enough. you felt yeonjun chuckling to himself at the entire situation.

trying to air out the drama you try to ask questions instead. you place your elbows on the table,

“how do you think today is going to go for soobin?”.

“he’ll be fine. he should get out within two days if those dumb ass officers reach a verdict already”.

“why two days? it takes that long? the boys don’t have a story”.

“for some odd reason they want this to be soobin fault so the officers been desperate to frame him. it going to take them longer than usual because the want to connect invisible dots”.

you sigh,

“this is ridiculous”.

“as fuck. he’ll be alright though”.

you sit back and think further until your food was sitting in front of you. you dragged your utensils out of the napkin preparing to eat with soobin weighing heavily on your mind.

“here you go with that shit again”. yeonjun insults taking a grossed out glare at your food.

“yes I can eat what I want. worry about your food and I’ll worry about mine”.

“I’ll worry about whatever the fuck i want to worry about”.

“worrying about me will get you nowhere”.

“yep, because you’re nothing”. yeonjun stated before forking a piece of fried egg into his mouth. you wanted to hit him so bad but you held back for soobin and soobin only. you ate your food quickly so you both can hurry out of there before yeonjun got hurt from going to far with his insults.

sooner or later you were at school attending a mass. it kind of bummed you out because it would be dull without soobin whispering and talking to you as if he weren’t supposed to be praying. one of the sister’s used their fingers to beckon you to the confessional. you had to admit you were kind of scared, it’s been a long time since you confessed to some things. maybe this was the life of a normal catholic teenager.

“good afternoon father benjamin”. you say kind of anxiously.

“good afternoon. is there anything you want to confess?”.

you took a deep breath. “i don’t even know where to start”.

“take your time”.

“this is kind of embarrassing but... i’ve been feeling more sexual than usual lately and i’ve been worried about exams and--someone trying to be framed for a crime they didn’t commit. i guess i’ve been too focused on my own life rather than praying that things get better for me”.

“first and foremost you must understand that sexual feelings are normal at your age. but it’s best to learn how to control them early on so they don’t spiral out of control”. you nodded, knowing you were in way too deep at this point.

“I understand”.

“your lack of prayer is your reason for your lack of peace. you are trying to handle all of your emotions on your own when our heavenly father doesn’t want that”. you nod once more feeling kind of guilty.

“and your job is to never stress over things such as friends with crimes. I understand it can be difficult to deal with but sometimes people are only who we think they are”.

“what do you mean?”.

“do not become too invested into someone you don’t entirely know about”.

you bit the inside of your cheeks thinking and nodding. “thank you father benjamin”. “you are forgiven, my saint”.

you thought about the priests words until mass was over, trying to figure out what he was getting at. you did completely know about soobin, right? he’s changing for the better?

all of the kids from mass were spilling back into the school building and attending their classes regularly. but it was hard to not lock eyes with yeonjun who was being guided into the principal’s office with two officers at his side. just the thought that the situation had to do with soobin made your heart race expeditiously.

the officers closed the door behind them and yeonjun was sat down in a wooden chair, completely confused with whatever was going on.

“good afternoon choi yeonjun. you’re not in trouble at all but these gentlemen are looking for some of the people you may have connections to”. the principal spoke while still maintaining his serious demeanor. yeonjun looks back at the officers, “what happened?”. one of them stepped forward.

“there was an incident at the Premiere hotel just weeks ago. we looked at the security footage countless times. we would like to show you so you can identify these people if that’s okay? everything you do here--even your name is extremely confidential”.

yeonjun hid his nerves well. he shrugged. “yeah I guess that’s cool”. the officer nodded and pulled out a camcorder and turned it on, flipping it so that yeonjun could see. for starters it would be hard to figure out who anyone was, yeonjun thought. the camera quality was bad and it didn’t get the best angles. but it was easy for yeonjun’s brain of course. he spotted 5 males walk into a hotel room together. shortly after there was another male who appeared to be bringing a girl in the hotel room before leaving just minutes after.

yeonjun wasn’t stupid. he knew the 5 males were michael, minho, seongjun, kevin and beomgyu. he knew that soobin was the male bringing mia into the room. so he spoke accordingly.

“those 5 males, from what I can make out looks like--minho, michael, seongjun, kevin and beomgyu. I believe that female could be mia”.

“and the male to her left?”.

yeonjun shakes his head. “I’m not quite sure”.

“this seems fairly easy for you. are you sure you can’t identify him?”.

“the name on the credit card used that night says it belongs to someone by the name of choi soobin. do you think he has anything to do with this?”.

“could this be him in the tape?”. they back and forthed. yeonjun shakes his head again.

“I don’t think soobin had anything to do with it i mean, those guys are also thieves. and I can’t identify the male in that tape”.

“are you being honest?”.

yeonjun gives him a dumbfounded expression. “why would i lie to a cop?”.

“people do it all the time buddy. especially with footage like this”.

“welp, sorry to break it to you but your trash ass security footage has nothing to do with my integrity”.

with folded hands the principal gives him a look,

“choi yeonjun I think you need to be a bit more respectful”.

“pfft. that isn’t the first time I’ve heard that line”.

“we’re not here to frame you, or anyone just yet. we just want information”. the other officer informs.

“thank you--as if I didn’t know that already I already gave you the information that I think to be true. if you want me to list random names of people in this building so you can have a solved crime then we can just say the principal did it and this can be over with”. yeonjun quips calmly.

“we understand that and we thank you for giving us the information we needed. Principal West I think we’re done here”.

“try not being hostile next time bud?”.

the officer closes the camcorder and the principal stands to shake both of their hands before helping them to the exit.

yeonjun not rolls his eyes in that moment but he also was rolling his eyes to you for the whole day, each time you asked him about what happened. you didn’t understand why he couldn’t just tell you. he was calling you difficult but at this time he was being the difficult one. after school you slid into the passenger seat of his car yet again. you took a deep breath before you spoke.

“yeonjun I’m only going to ask you just one more time and it’s only for the sake of me making sure soobin is okay. what happened with the police?”.

yeonjun starts up the car and switch gears.

“I thought I told you to mind your fucking business already?”.

“It’s just a question I don’t understand why you have to act rude and belligerent”.

“stop making me repeat myself and maybe I won’t act belligerent next time. stay in your place”.

“what are you talking about? If it has anything to do with soobin then it is my place to know”.

“if you do know what the hell are you going to do about it? you have no power or authority”.

“you’re annoying I swear to god”.

“and I apologize that god has to hear your dumb ass voice swearing to him once again”.

it took everything in you to keep still. the only thing that was keeping you calm was the fact that you both were on your way to see soobin. your heart danced until you were finally able to meet his gaze and he kisses you like he always did. yeonjun rolls his eyes, “any updates for today?”.

“they took the last of them in for questioning. they’re discussing the verdict today and I should know tomorrow”. yeonjun nodded before smirking.

“soobin is going to be a free man?”. soobin laughs,

“stop acting like i’ve been locked away for years”.

“I have to talk to you about something though”.

“what is it?”,

yeonjun hinted that you were still in the room.

“can you give us a second princess?”. soobin requests, and you did so politely. you thought you felt his eyes on your ass while you were walking out, either that or you were going crazy.

“you guys are fucking revolting”. yeonjun comments, watching soobin’s eyes indeed-- on your ass.

“she’s so sexy I want to eat her pussy again”.

“hold on, again?”.

yeonjun pretends to make gagging noises, “you can’t be serious”. soobin laughs at how dramatic he was.

“what do you need to talk to me about?”.

“the police came to the school today and asked me to identify the people in the security footage of the hotel that night”.

soobin’s eyes expanded and his heart nearly stopped.

“what?”.

“don’t worry, the camera shoots at like 20 pixels. it would be hard for anyone to identify, but i told them that I didn’t recognize you. I only identified the boys and mia. the only thing they do have on you is the fact that your credit card was swiped to pay for the hotel room”.

soobin throws his hands on top of his head,

“fuck”. he breathes.

“don’t even worry about this one. we’re going to get you a good lawyer and we’re going to fix this shit and make those motherfuckers go to jail for the rest of their lives alright?”.

soobin gradually nods, “fucking bad timing though”.

“don’t worry I think they are asking other people. it’s going to take them a while to collect data with the footage they have”.

“good. that’s good”.

“yeah it is actually”.

“how was my baby today?”. soobin asks on another note.

“you’re asking me that as if she isn’t annoying on a daily basis”.

“you two just can’t fucking get along for shit huh?”.

“hell no. and i don’t want to get along with her that’s your job”.

“it’s also your job to take care of her until i come back”.

“don’t remind me. it’s already a drag that I have to take her home”.

“you’ll be fine dipshit. make sure she’s in the house safely”.

“yeah whatever”. yeonjun says on his way out.

“tell her to kiss me goodbye before you guys leave”. soobin calls out shortly after. yeonjun glares at you in the waiting room.

“yo dumbass, go say goodbye to Al Capone”.

you scoff and do as you were told. you didn’t want to waste your energy on yeonjun especially if you were here for soobin right now. soobin kisses you again, adding a bit more tongue this time sinking your heart like so. when he pulled away you secretly wanted more.

“be good for me okay?”.

“hm. what do I get if I’m good?”. you reply, feeling kind of risky. soobin smirks,

“we can see how long you last on my face”.

at this point you were beyond flustered and soobin knew it. he chuckles softly,

“get home safely and make sure you study. yeonjun has my credit card if you need anything”.

you thank him and give him an okay before you left. you thought you could’ve been exaggerating things but what soobin said made you kind of wet. him eating you out was amazing but you could only imagine sitting on his face.

“a kiss shouldn’t take that long”. yeonjun complains as soon as you enter the car. you roll your eyes yet again. he starts driving.

“I didn’t know I was on a schedule”.

“you’re not. you’re on my time”.

“why do you always feel the need to speak? like seriously”.

“because I can and I will. whose going to stop me?”.

“I hope someone does soon because you’re really out of hand”.

“am I?”.

“yes”.

“I don’t give a fuck”.

“you should”.

“you should give a fuck about a lot of things”.

“I didn’t ask so mind your business”.

“I don’t have to”.

“you’re so self centered and low it isn’t even funny”.

“you’re so pathetic and inexperienced it actually is funny”.

you glare at him once again, god-you hated him.

“you’re annoying and I hate you, I hope you know that”. you say with a little more projection and attitude.

“you’re annoying and you’re also a bitch I hope you know that too”.

that was it, you had enough. you used all the strength you could muster to slap yeonjun across his face. with a clenched jaw he narrowed his eyes at the road ahead.

“don’t call me that”. you uttered and anger. the car jerked to the side of the road so hard you didn’t even feel it come to a stop. you didn’t have time to blink before yeonjun was grabbing you by the collar of your shirt. he was breathing heavy and his face looked more serious than you’d ever seen it.

“don’t fucking hit me”. he growled.

“stop being so disrespectful then”.

he pushes his face closer to yours.

“I can do what I want. what are you going to do about it?”.

the both of you found yourself breathing heavy and more than angry with the other. you hated yeonjun for all he was and he hated you with the same token. but it only took one swift glance at his lips for you to give in. he presses his lips on yours and you give in, kissing back like you had no care in the world. the two of you fought for breath before going back for more. his lips were kind of forceful yet soft. and he thought yours were too innocent to get enough of. he pulls you onto his lap while you were kissing him. his hands wandered your thighs and you let them in the heat of the moment. you didn’t know what you were doing but you couldn’t stop.

his hands grope your ass and you grinded down on his lap, resulting in your breathing becoming shaky. you were already wet from soobin’s words so it didn’t take long for you to start throbbing in your panties. you quivered when you felt yeonjun’s hand sweep past your clothed clit.

and that’s when it hit you--what were you doing?

you let the kissing come to a halt, “yeonjun we can’t do this”. he stares into your eyes also snapping back into reality. “you’re right, what the fuck are we doing?”.

you felt your heart still beating at a fast pace while you crawled back to the passenger’s seat of the car. hoping and praying that this all was just a dream. you didn’t mean for it to happen. maybe you were just desperate. you bit your lips.

“we can’t tell soobin about this”.

#choi soobin #choi yeonjun #choi soobin au #choi beomgyu #choi soobin smut #txt #choi soobin au txt au

131 notes · View notes

hermannsthumb · 4 years

Note

Idk if you doing requests or not rn buut, feriowind has been posting a bunch of vampire!Hermann and I needs some modern vampire Hermann and professor Newt...

uwu ily

SO I feel like I should open by saying a WIP fic with this concept by @coloredpencilroses exists and I Love it, so read High Stakes for something much better than this lol (and leave a nice comment). HAPPY OCTOBER!!!! warning for very mildly implied sexy stuff. EDIT: and of COURSE I forgot to tag @theloccent for my extremely belated fill for the “Vampire” square on my bingo card :/

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

Newt has always been an extremely persistent type. He considers it, naturally, one his greatest strengths—no theory goes untested, no question goes unanswered, no experiment goes…well, unexperimented. You don’t get more PhDs than you can count on one hand if you’re not persistent. You don’t get a date with the hot new engineering professor down the hall if you’re not persistent, either, but Newt is finding this venture is taking a little more effort than usual. That’s fine, though. He likes challenges.

Dr. Gottlieb was hired by the university at the start of the semester, after the head of the engineering department—who’s nearing her seventies—finally decided she’d had enough and announced her retirement somewhat last minute. He is, frankly, unlike anyone Newt’s ever seen before, a weird combination of cheekbones, wide lips, and a turn-of-the-century old-fashioned air that carries over into everything from his wardrobe to the stiff way he carries himself. He wouldn’t look out of place in a black and white photograph, Newt thinks. Or maybe even the illustrations of a Dickens novel. That’s not why Newt’s into him, though—well, not the only reason why.

In the entire month and a half Gottlieb’s been here, he hasn’t spoken a single word to anyone his contract doesn’t require him to; when he is forced into conversation, he scowls and snaps and mumbles his way through before making a polite excuse as to why he needs to leave the room right now, immediately. No one knows anything about him other than the bare minimum—that his name is Dr. Gottlieb, he lectures in engineering, and he exists. Shit, Newt doesn’t even know his first name. The little plaque outside his office just says Gottlieb.

The mystery just makes Gottlieb all the more alluring to Newt.

Anyway, his continued failures in winning Gottlieb over aren’t a result of a lack of trying. On Gottlieb’s first day, Newt stopped by his office to introduce himself. He didn’t bother knocking. Maybe that was his first mistake. “I’m Newt,” he said. “My office is a few doors down from you. You’re the new department head?”

Gottlieb looked stricken, but he nodded. “Yes,” he said. He didn’t say anything else.

“Cool,” Newt said. “Anyway, I’m technically in the bio department, but I teach a few interdisciplinary courses with engineering, so I requested they stick me over here to get a bigger office.” He cracked a grin. “I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

“Hm,” Gottlieb said.

Newt tried again the next day.

“Your office is so dark,” he said, conversationally, because it was—lights all off, books stacked up everywhere, maroon drapes drawn tightly in front of the single small window. Dark and stuffy. “Feel free to stop by my office whenever you want a break from it. I have a corner one, so I have two windows.”

“I requested this office,” Gottlieb said, not looking up the article he was marking up.

Newt became desperate by his third attempt and did something that’s left him burning with shame even now, weeks later, and that would probably warrant the immediate transfers of sleep-deprived engineering majors out of all his courses if word ever got out it was him: he deliberately broke the department coffee machine. “Man, I can’t believe that thing is busted again,” he declared to Gottlieb. “Good thing I have a Keurig in my office.” Newt had gone out and purchased a Keurig immediately before destroying the coffee pot. “Seriously, come by whenever you need caffeine.”

Gottlieb blinked at him, long and slow, and Newt had the strangest sense that he knew exactly what happened to the coffee pot. “I never drink… coffee,” Gottlieb finally said.

For all Newt’s troubles, the list of things he knows about Gottlieb has expanded by two pitiful points: that his accent is English and posh, and his voice is low and sexy. Helpful.

It’s a chilly day in late October when Newt finally decides to enlist the aid of his interdisciplinary undergrads. Some of them—he learned after poking around their registration records—have a seminar with Gottlieb, and they seem his best bet at learning anything. A spouse—a first name—Newt would take Gottlieb’s favorite color, even. “So,” he starts class, unwinding his scarf off his neck, “that Dr. Gottlieb sure is weird, huh?”

In Newt’s firsthand experience, undergrads love to gossip about their professors, and his certainly don’t disappoint. Gottlieb’s classes are all held in the basement of the engineering building. All run well into the evening, after the sun’s set—most not finished until nine—and Gottlieb hustles out of the lecture hall the moment he can. He walks with a cane and a slight limp. He always dresses like that. He’s never mentioned any sort of family, and wears no wedding ring. He’s scary good at math. No one knows his first name.

“You’ve been an invaluable help,” Newt tells them all seriously.

He mulls the new information over in his office later as he grades some tests. So Gottlieb is a bit of shy, reclusive, genius. No surprise there. Well, his apparent hatred of sunlight is kind of weird (if unsurprising, given how pale he is) but maybe he just has sensitive eyes or something. Who is Newt to judge? At least he knows how to improve his next plan of attack—he just has to ask the guy to come over and sit in a dark room in silence with him. That’s probably Gottlieb’s dream date, actually.

There’s a knock on Newt’s office door. Newt looks up and drops his pen: it’s Gottlieb.

“Uh. Hey, dude!” he squeaks, unsure of how to proceed in this entirely unfamiliar territory. Gottlieb, willingly interacting with him? Willingly leaving his office? “Is there…can I help you with something? Did you want that coffee after all?”

“Most definitely not,” Gottlieb says coolly. He’s standing far enough back from the door that not a single sliver of lamp light from Newt’s office hits him, instead shrouded by the shadows of the dark engineering department. Newt didn’t realize how late it had gotten. “My students informed me that you were interrogating them about me.”

It’s not a question. Newt is struck by a wave of nervousness that he doesn’t quite understand—maybe it’s the sour expression Gottlieb is giving him, something in those dark brown eyes that are piercing through Newt. He feels, foolishly and briefly, like cowering under his desk. He swallows. “Yes,” he says, and adds, stammering, “I mean—I wasn’t interrogating them. I was just asking a few questions.”

“Why?” Gottlieb says.

“Uh,” Newt says. “I guess I was…curious, about you?”

He works up the guts to look Gottlieb in the eyes; he sees Gottlieb’s eyebrows jump the tiniest fraction of an inch. “You’re attracted to me,” Gottlieb says, another non-question, though Newt hears a flicker of surprise.

“Yeah,” Newt admits.

“I see,” Gottlieb says. Then, to Newt’s surprise, he suddenly smiles. “I’d like if you invited me over for dinner, Dr. Geiszler.”

“Dinner,” Newt says. He feels strangely dizzy; but, shaking himself, he quickly gets over it. “I mean, dinner! Yes! Shit! When?”

“Tonight, I should think,” Hermann says.

Tonight is Friday, which means they don’t have work tomorrow. By the time they make it off campus it’ll be almost ten—way later than people eat dinner—and besides, Newt already had a sandwich at around seven. Is dinner a euphemism? Is Gottlieb propositioning him? God, why didn’t he wash his sheets with the laundry this week? “Tonight,” Newt says. He stands up abruptly and grabs his leather jacket with trembling fingers. Why is he trembling? Nerves, he guesses. He’s about to hook up with total hottie Dr. Gottlieb, he’s allowed to be nervous. “Fuck yes. Let’s go now.”

Gottlieb is not impressed with the messy state of Newt’s apartment, and even less impressed with the state of Newt’s refrigerator and freezer. “Dinosaur chicken nuggets and canned Lime-A-Ritas,” he says with a sniff. “Hm. You ought to be getting more vitamins, Dr. Geiszler. I’m certain you’re deficient in something.”

“You sound like my dad,” Newt snorts. He throws his car keys on the counter and shrugs off his jacket. “There’s some leftover Chinese on the second shelf if you want it—just some lo mein. Or I could put a frozen pizza in the oven. Or I guess we could order something too?”

Gottlieb shuts the fridge door delicately. “How kind of you to offer,” he says. He doesn’t sound like he means it. Newt is suddenly struck by how bizarre a sight he is in the midst of Newt’s chaotic kitchen: buttoned up to the throat with his stupid shirt and blazer, prodding at the fraying lime lizard-shaped rug by the sink with the end of his ornately-handled cane. Out of time and out of place.

“It’s Newt,” Newt says. “Please don’t call me Dr. Geiszler, it makes me feel ancient.”

“Hm,” Gottlieb says.

“And what,” Newt says, deciding to test his luck a little, “uh—what should I call you?”

Gottlieb considers him. “Hermann,” he says.

The name rings a bell in the back of Newt’s head. He swears he’s heard it somewhere before—an article, maybe. A book. Has he stumbled across Dr. Gottlieb’s research before without even realizing it? He’s on the verge of asking what publications Gottlieb’s been featured in when Gottlieb suddenly snags hold of his hand; then, raising it to his mouth, he kisses it. His lips are as cold as his skin. “Would you like to show me to your quarters, Newton?” he murmurs.

Newt shivers; he nods.

“Hermann Gottlieb,” Newt says aloud later, while Hermann redresses himself. “Now I know where I’ve heard that name before.”

“Yes?” Hermann says. He’s lacing up one of his Oxfords.

“I worked with his research in one of my dissertations,” Newt says. “Another Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, I mean. He was a brilliant mathematician from—God, 1830-something. German. His work was groundbreaking for the time, or shit, for our time, too.” He remembers seeing a portrait of that Hermann Gottlieb in one of his sources; the whole of the similarities between him and Newt’s Hermann Gottlieb (the dark eyes, the mouth, the cheekbones) are a little too much to be entirely coincidental. “You must be related to him, right? Like, he’s your great-great-great—”

“Yes,” Hermann cuts him off quickly. He turns to Newt and smiles. “A distant ancestor, certainly. I believe you are the first in some time to have made that connection.”

“Always thought he was cool,” Newt yawns. “Man, I’m tired.” The romp with Hermann had been fun, if not unexpectedly exhausting, and a little…out of the ordinary. The dude apparently has some sort of weird biting kink that left Newt’s neck stinging a little bit, but it’s cool, Newt doesn’t mind. It was like boning a vampire or something. Kinda hot. “Do you need me to show you to the door, or can I just stay here? I’m serious about spending the night though. I really don’t mind.”

Hermann fiddles with the laces of his other shoe, then, slowly, draws the whole thing back off. “If it’s not an imposition,” he says, and smiles again, shyly. “Though, I warn you—I’m a bit of a late sleeper.”

“Good, so I am,” Newt says. “Could you toss me the sweatshirt hanging on that chair? You can grab one for yourself too, if you’re cold, I’ve got another hanging in the closet. No, not--yeah, that door.”

They dip under the covers and get cozy, Newt taking on the task of big spoon, because Hermann is a cold sonofabitch and could use a little insulation. The last thought on his mind before he drifts off to a comfortable sleep is how strange it is he can’t feel Hermann’s heartbeat—though, he realizes, it’s probably just muffled by their clothing.

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #Anonymous

69 notes · View notes

sleepy-weezypeezy · 5 years

Text

Direct Quotes: Richie’s Bisexuality in the Book

Richie and girls

• Looking at a dirty magazine with girls in it and getting turned on.

as Richie Tozier was sneaking a look at the half-undressed girls in a copy of Gem he had found at the bottom of his father’s socks-and-underwear drawer and getting a regular good boner

—

• His attraction to Beverly.

Richie liked Bev a lot. Well, he liked her, but not that way. He admired her looks (and knew he wasn’t alone—girls like Sally Mueller and Greta Bowie hated Beverly like fire, still too young to understand how they could have everything else so easily . . . and still have to compete in the matter of looks with a girl who lived in one of those slummy apartments on Lower Main Street), but mostly he liked her because she was tough and had a really good sense of humor. Also, she usually had cigarettes. He liked her, in short, because she was a good guy. Still, he had once or twice caught himself wondering what color underwear she was wearing under her small selection of rather faded skirts, and that was not the sort of thing you wondered about the other guys, was it?

And, Richie had to admit, she was one hell of a pretty guy.

[...]

“Hi, Richie,” Bev said, and when she turned toward him he saw a purple-blackish bruise on her right cheek, like the shadow of a crow’s wing. He was again struck by her good looks … only it occurred to him now that she might actually be beautiful. It had never really occurred to him until that moment that there might be beautiful girls outside of the movies, or that he himself might know one. Perhaps it was the bruise that allowed him to see the possibility of her beauty—an essential contrast, a particular flaw which first drew attention to itself and then somehow defined the rest: the gray-blue eyes, the naturally red lips, the creamy unblemished child’s skin. There was a tiny spray of freckles across her nose.

[...]

She leaned against Richie’s shoulder for a moment and Richie had just time to reflect that her touch, and the sensation of her lightly carried weight, was not exactly unpleasant.

[...]

Her eyes, that fine clear shade of blue-gray, turned up to his. They were coolly amused. She pretended to primp her hair and asked him, “Oh dear, am I being asked out on a date?”

For a moment Richie was uncharacteristically flustered. He actually felt a blush rising in his cheeks. He had made the offer in a perfectly natural way, just as he had made it to Ben … except hadn’t he said something to Ben about owesies? Yes. But he hadn’t said anything about owesies to Beverly.

Richie suddenly felt a bit weird. He had dropped his eyes, retreating from her amused glance, and realized now that her skirt had ridden up a bit when she shifted forward to drop the ice-cream cone in the litter barrel, and he could see her knees. He raised his eyes but that was no help; now he was looking at the beginning swells of her bosoms.

Richie, as he usually did in such moments of confusion, took refuge in absurdity.

“Yes! A date!” he screamed, throwing himself on his knees before her and holding his clasped hands up. “Please come! Please come! I shall ruddy kill meself if you say no, ay-wot? Wot-wot?”

“Oh, Richie, you’re such a fuzzbrain,” she said, giggling again … but weren’t her cheeks also a trifle flushed? If so, it made her look prettier than ever.

[...]

“Sure,” she said. “Thank you very much. Think of it! My first date. Just wait until I write it in my diary tonight.” She clasped her hands together between her budding breasts, fluttered her eyelashes rapidly, and then laughed.

“I wish you’d stop calling it that,” Richie said.

She sighed. “You don’t have much romance in your soul.”

“Damn right I don’t.”

But he felt somehow delighted with himself. The world seemed suddenly very clear to him, and very friendly. He found himself glancing sideways at her from time to time. She was looking in the shop windows—at the dresses and nightgowns in Cornell-Hopley’s, at the towels and pots in the window of the Discount Barn, and he stole glances at her hair, the line of her jaw. He observed the way her bare arms came out of the round holes of her blouse. He saw the edge of her slip strap. All of these things delighted him. He could not have said why, but what had happened in George Denbrough’s bedroom had never seemed more distant to him than it did right then. It was time to go, time to meet Ben, but he would sit here just a moment longer while her eyes window-shopped, because it was good to look at her, and be with her.

[...]

Bev spotted daisies growing on the riverbank and picked one. She held it first under Richie’s chin and then under Ben’s chin to see if they liked butter. She said they both did. As she held the flower under their chins, each was conscious of her light touch on their shoulders and the clean scent of her hair.

[...]

She scolded Richie all the time they were picking them up again, and Richie joked and screeched in many Voices, and thought to himself how beautiful she was.

—

• The full story of his ex-girlfriend Sandy and his vasectomy.

“Well,” Richie was saying, “I could make this long and sad or I could give you the Blondie and Dagwood comic-strip version, but I’ll settle for something in the middle. The year after I moved out to California I met a girl, and we fell pretty hard for each other. Started living together. She was on the pill at first, but it made her feel sick almost all the time. She talked about getting an IUD, but I wasn’t too crazy about that—the first stories about how they might not be completely safe were just starting to come out in the papers.

“We had talked a lot about kids, and had pretty well decided we didn’t want them even if we decided to legalize the relationship. Irresponsible to bring kids into such a shitty, dangerous, overpopulated world . . . and blah-blah-blah, babble-babble-babble, let’s go out and put a bomb in the men’s room of the Bank of America and then come on back to the crashpad and smoke some dope and talk about the difference between Maoism and Trotskyism, if you see what I mean.

“Or maybe I’m being too hard on both of us. Shit, we were young and reasonably idealistic. The upshot was that I got my wires cut, as the Beverly Hills crowd puts it with their unfailing vulgar chic. The operation went with no problem and I had no adverse aftereffects.

[...]

“Sandy and I lived together for two and a half years,” Richie went on. “Came really close to getting married twice. As things turned out, I guess we saved ourselves a lot of heartache and all that community-property bullshit by keeping it simple. She got an offer to join a corporate law-firm in Washington around the same time I got an offer to come to KLAD as a weekend jock—not much, but a foot in the door. She told me it was her big chance and I had to be the most insensitive male chauvinist oinker in the United States to be dragging my feet, and furthermore she’d had it with California anyway. I told her I also had a chance. So we thrashed it out, and we trashed each other out, and at the end of all the thrashing and trashing Sandy went.

“About a year after that I decided to try and get the vasectomy reversed. No real reason for it, and I knew from the stuff I’d read that the chances were pretty spotty, but I thought what the hell.”

“You were seeing someone steadily then?” Bill asked.

“No—that’s the funny part of it,” Richie said, frowning. “I just woke up one day with this . . . I dunno, this hobbyhorse about getting it reversed.”

“You must have been nuts,” Eddie said. “General anesthetic instead of a local? Surgery? Maybe a week in the hospital afterward?”

“Yeah, the doctor told me all of that stuff,” Richie replied. “And I told him I wanted to go ahead anyway. I don’t know why. The doc asked me if I understood the aftermath of the operation was sure to be painful while the result was only going to be a coin-toss at best. I said I did. He said okay, and I asked him when—my attitude being the sooner the better, you know. So he says hold your horses, son, hold your horses, the first step is to get a sperm sample just to make sure the reversal operation is necessary. I said, ‘Come on, I had the exam after the vasectomy. It worked.’ He told me that sometimes the vasa reconnected spontaneously. ‘Yo mamma!’ I says. ‘Nobody ever told me that.’ He said the chances were very small—infinitesimal, really—but because the operation was so serious, we ought to check it out. So I popped into the men’s room with a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue and jerked off into a Dixie cup—”

“Beep-beep, Richie,” Beverly said.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Richie said. “The part about the Frederick’s catalogue is a lie—you never find anything that good in a doctor’s office. Anyway, the doc called me three days later and asked me which I wanted first, the good news or the bad news.

“ ‘Gimme the good news first,’ I said.

“ ‘The good news is the operation won’t be necessary,’ he said. ‘The bad news is that anybody you’ve been to bed with over the last two or three years could hit you with a paternity suit pretty much at will.’

“ ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’ I asked him.

“ ‘I’m telling you that you aren’t shooting blanks and haven’t been for quite awhile now,’ he said. ‘Millions of little wigglies in your sperm sample. Your days of going gaily in bareback with no questions asked have temporarily come to an end, Richard.’

“I thanked him and hung up. Then I called Sandy in Washington.

“ ‘Rich!’ she says to me,” and Richie’s voice suddenly became the voice of this girl Sandy whom none of them had ever met. It was not an imitation or even a likeness, exactly; it was more like an auditory painting. “ ‘It’s great to hear from you! I got married!’

“ ‘Yeah, that’s great,’ I said. ‘You should have let me know. I would have sent you a blender.’

“She goes, ‘Same old Richie, always full of gags.’

“So I said ‘Sure, same old Richie, always full of gags. By the way, Sandy, you didn’t happen to have a kid or anything after you left L.A., did you? Or maybe an unscheduled d and c, or something?’

“ ‘That gag isn’t so funny, Rich,’ she said, and I had a brainwave that she was getting ready to hang up on me, so I told her what happened. She started laughing, only this time it was real hard—she was laughing the way I always used to laugh with you guys, like somebody had told her the world’s biggest bellybuster. So when she finally starts slowing down I ask her what in God’s name is funny. ‘It’s just so wonderful,’ she said. ‘This time the joke’s on you. After all these years the joke is finally on Records Tozier. How many bastards have you sired since I came east, Rich?’

“ ‘I take it that means you still haven’t experienced the joys of motherhood?’ I ask her.

“ ‘I’m due in July,’ she says. ‘Were there any more questions?”

“ ‘Yeah,’ I go. ‘When did you change your mind about the immorality of bringing children into such a shitty world?’

“ ‘When I finally met a man who wasn’t a shit,’ she answers, and hangs up.”

Bill began to laugh. He laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Yeah,” Richie said. “I think she cut it off quick so she’d really get the last word, but she could have hung on the line all day. I know when I’ve been aced. I went back to the doctor a week later and asked him if he could be a little clearer on the odds against that sort of spontaneous regeneration. He said he’d talked with some of his colleagues about the matter. It turned out that in the three-year period 1980–82, the California branch of the AMA logged twenty-three reports of spontaneous regeneration. Six of those turned out to be simply botched operations. Six others were either hoaxes or cons—guys looking to take a bite out of some doctor’s bank account. So . . . eleven real ones in three years.”

“Eleven out of how many?” Beverly asked.

“Twenty-eight thousand six hundred and eighteen,” Richie said calmly.

Silence around the table.

“So I went and beat Irish Sweepstakes odds,” Richie said, “and still no kid to show for it. That give you any good chucks, Eds?”

—

Richie and boys

• Conscious of looking queer in public.

Alarmed, Richie put an arm around Bill’s shoulders (after taking a quick glance around to make sure no one who might mistake them for a couple of fagolas was looking).

“You’re okay,” he said. “You’re okay, Billy, right? Come on. Turn off the waterworks.”

“I didn’t wuh-wuh-want h-him t-to g-g-get kuh-hilled!” Bill sobbed. “TH-THAT WUH-WUH-WASN’T ON MY M-M-M-MIND AT UH-UH-ALL!”

“Christ, Billy, I know it wasn’t,” Richie said. “If you’d wanted to scrub him, you woulda pushed him downstairs or something.” Richie patted Bill’s shoulder clumsily and gave him a hard little hug before letting go. “Come on, quit bawlin, okay? You sound like a baby.”

—

• Checking out Bill’s shoulders and back and describing him as handsome.

Looking at Bill’s back, which was amazingly broad for a boy of eleven-going-on-twelve, watching it work under the duffel coat, the shoulders slanting first one way and then the other as he shifted his weight from one pedal to the other, Richie suddenly became sure that they were invulnerable . . . they would live forever and ever. Well . . . perhaps not they, but Bill would. Bill had no idea of how strong he was, how somehow sure and perfect.

[...]

Bill was here, and Bill would take care; Bill would not let things get out of control. He was the tallest of them, and surely the most handsome.

—

• His relationship with Eddie and his love for him.

Richie came bopping down to the stream, glanced at Ben with some interest, and then pinched Eddie’s cheek.

“Don’t do that! I hate it when you do that, Richie.”

“Ah, you love it, Eds,” Richie said, and beamed at him.

[...]

“Oh—you mean it was your idea, Eds? Jesus, I’m sorry.” He fell down in front of Eddie and began salaaming wildly again.

“Get up, stop it, you’re splattering mud on me!” Eddie cried.

Richie jumped to his feet a second time and pinched Eddie’s cheek. “Cute, cute, cute!” Richie exclaimed.

“Stop it, I hate that!”

[...]

“They’ll all pinch my cheek and tell me how much I’ve grown,” Eddie said.

“That’s cause they know how cute you are, Eds—just like me. I saw what a cutie you were the first time I met you.”

“Sometimes you’re really a turd, Richie.”

“It takes one to know one, Eds, and you know em all.”

[...]

“This wise man,” Richie said, “told me this: ‘No matter how much you squirm and dance, the last two drops go in your pants.’ And that’s why there’s so much cancer in the world, Eddie my love.”

[...]

“Put him down,” Beverly said. “He can stay here.”

“It’s too dark,” Richie sobbed. “You know . . . it’s too dark. Eds . . . he . . .”

“No, it’s okay,” Ben said. “Maybe this is where he’s supposed to be. I think maybe it is.”

They put him down, and Richie kissed Eddie’s cheek. Then he looked blindly up at Ben. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Come on, Richie.”

Richie got up and turned toward the door. “Fuck you, Bitch!” he cried suddenly, and kicked the door shut with his foot. It made a solid chukking sound as it closed and latched.

“Why’d you do that?” Beverly asked.

“I don’t know,” Richie said, but he knew well enough.

—

How IT manifests itself to Richie

• Sees himself as the werewolf, who is partly a man and partly a monster that can’t help the way he is.

The movies were great. The Teenage Frankenstein was suitably gross. The Teenage Werewolf was somehow scarier, though . . . perhaps because he also seemed a little sad. What had happened wasn’t his own fault. There was this hypnotist who had fucked him up, but the only reason he’d been able to was that the kid who turned into the werewolf was full of anger and bad feelings. Richie found himself wondering if there were many people in the world hiding bad feelings like that. Henry Bowers was just overflowing with bad feelings, but he sure didn’t bother hiding them.

[...]

Richie chanced a glance behind him as he flung himself onto the package carrier and saw the Werewolf crossing the lawn toward them, less than twenty feet away now. Blood and slobber mixed on its high-school jacket. White bone gleamed through its pelt about the right temple. There were white smudges of sneezing powder on the sides of its nose. And Richie saw two other things which seemed to complete the horror. There was no zipper on the thing’s jacket; instead there were big fluffy orange buttons, like pompoms. The other thing was worse. It was the other thing that made him feel as if he might faint, or just give up and let it kill him. A name was stitched on the jacket in gold thread, the kind of thing you could get done down at Machen’s for a buck if you wanted it.

Stitched on the bloody left breast of the Werewolf’s jacket, stained but readable, were the words RICHIE TOZIER.

—

• IT chooses to taunt him with Beverly and Eddie.

“You hear me, Richie? Bring your yo-yo. Have Beverly wear a big full skirt with four or five petticoats underneath. Have her wear her husband’s ring around her neck! Get Eddie to wear his saddle-shoes! We’ll play some bop, Richie! We’ll play AAALLLL THE HITS!”

—

The final verdict? Richie Tozier is bi as fuck.

#richie tozier #reddie #beverly marsh #bill denbrough #eddie kaspbrak #sandy (it)#stephen king's it #bi richie #bi richie tozier

2K notes · View notes

fizzingwizard · 3 years

Text

Episode 30, the alleged halfway mark, at last!

I’m fresh out of jokes so let’s hop right into the review!

Pictured above: Characters who supposedly exist in this series

More under the cut as usual

So last week I listed the things episode 30 needed to do to make me not hate it. They were: 1) Sora had to stay with Taichi and be part of the action, 2) the other characters had to feature here and there to progress their storylines even if the main focus remained on Taichi, and 3) WarGreymon’s appearance needed to be dramatic.

Well... guess who didn’t get Bingo this episode -_____-’

I am... seriously... mind-boggled. This is bizarre. Yes, we all understand that evolutions just aren’t the big deal they were in 99 Adventure, BUT this episode DOES try to convince us that WarGreymon IS a big deal. It just fails at it spectacularly, in my opinion at least. As for the rest: Sora stays with Taichi, but he tells her to take the helpless Digimon to safety and then we don’t see her do anything but stand around waiting for Taichi. Most of the other characters don’t even get a cameo, let alone story progression. Taichi reflects on them briefly at one point but it’s unbelievably stupid. Only Koushirou has anything to do and he is STILL JUST STARING AT HIS COMPUTER.

My expectations for episode 30 weren’t super high, given the current storyline, but I’m honestly slackjawed by how BORING this episode was. They really seem to have decided to rest the entirety of the show on Taichi, and much though I love him, I just don’t think he CAN carry it by himself. Not only has he long been unbelievable as a grade school kid even for shonen anime standards, he doesn’t crack jokes, he doesn’t show personality... all he does is fight. Like, the show isn’t ALWAYS like this - I’ve legit enjoyed it a various times, and I know why - it was always when the team was together and we learned things about them and the fighting was balanced out. So I never know from one week to the next how I’m gonna feel about the new episode. But I do think this is the episode I hate the most to date. :/

We had a promising start with Garudamon still actively fighting several Megadramon at once, simultaneously barbecuing Sora.

Fortunately it’s magic so she’s not dead, nor has she fallen to death.

Taichi and MetalGreymon continue fighting the Allomon on the ground.

The mysterious Lopmon looks on with a judgmental glare, wondering why he isn’t currently being carried like a baby. Walking is hard, he wants to be carried. Taichi do your job

Taichi: cmon lopmon you have to learn to do things on your own

Lopmon: no I want to play video games

Taichi: well then I refuse to buy you any more games. if you want them you’ll have to get a job and earn the money

Lopmon: daaaad! youre ruining my life! uggh!

Koushirou keeps an eye on the misbehaving satellites.

Taichi and Sora debate what to do. It’s difficult to protect the forest Digimon while fighting at the same time, so Taichi tells Sora to bring them to safety while he fends off their enemies on his own. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS PLAN. Since it’s a shonen anime, I normally wouldn’t whine about this but... it was just last episode that we were shown Taich cannot cope with the combined attack of that many enemies at once on his own. He needed Sora’s help. Why he now thinks he can do it is a mystery.

Taichi can maybe handle the Allomon and Megadramon on his own, but last episode Tankmon also appeared, and this time, lo and behold, in comes Parrotmon. Sorry Taichi but you brought this on yourself.

Meanwhile Koushirou communicates with “someone from the Internet” and learns that the satellites are all rerouting to converge on the same location:

The freaking International Space Station!

Which will then surely explode! And cause lots of trouble both in space and on earth!

^Pictured: Koushirou’s “oh shit” face

^Pictured:MetalGreymon’s “oh shit” face

MetalGreymon proved to be weak to the lightning Parrotmon emits. If there’s a reason, they don’t explain, but I like the idea that he’s particularly weak to it because he’s a cyborg and the electricity disrupts his... circuits :P Then Parrotmon gets hit with a beam of dark energy and evolves!

Into Klosmon? Krosmon? IDK, IDC.

^Pictured: Taichi’s “oh shit” face

They get their butts handed to them. Taichi and Agumon fall unconscious. Rather than take the chance to deliver the finishing blow, Klosmon or whatever politely waits for them to wake up.

Taichi’s consciousness is swept into a white empty world...

where he finds the Crest of Courage looking weirdly sentient... or maybe that’s just me...

MetalGreymon just looks possessed

Taichi: Are you alive?

Agumon: Yeah... you okay?

Taichi: Yeah... uhh... well... sort of...

Not being dead = I’m still ok

So here’s where the episode really loses me... After visiting the blank world, Taichi is suddenly able to recall what happened after Devimon ate him.

This makes little sense since he seemed pretty KO’d at the time, but okay, find, he woke up long enough to see WarGreymon and now he’s remembering it, sure why not. But I hate that they did this whole “ohh he doesn’t remember!” thing and then solved it like this. Presto! Now he remembers! It’s maaaagic!

And as ADORABLE as the two of them holding hands like this and resolving to keep fighting is... I just can’t be impressed by a battle with Parrotmon. Or Klosmon or whatever it is now. There’s a reason most shows save dramatic moments and big epiphanies for battles that actually progress the storyline. It makes a much bigger impact. This just feels like someone saying “Woohoo it’s Tuesday!” and then you ask “what’s special about it, is it your birthday or something?” and they say “Nope I just felt like being excited that it’s Tuesday!”

I mean points for optimism and all but it doesn’t make a very good story.

Taichi helps Agumon walk x’D They are planning to keep fighting even like this.

And I get that the “never give up!” attitude is essential to the shonen anime protagonist, but when you literally can’t walk by yourself anymore, it’s important to take care of your health is ALSO an important message this show might consider teaching kids once in a while -.-”

In spite of his unsteady legs, Agumon’s still able to evolve again and powers up to fight Klosmon.

It uh... doesn’t go well.

The one cool thing here is the way Taichi sets about attempting to make MetalGreymon evolve. Although we already knew the children play an important role in evolving their partners, Taichi seems to really understand it now, and focuses deeply. It’s a much more active role than we’ve seen before - it seems like more than the usual “encouraging thoughts and emotional ties” spurring the evolution.

At least he’s still super cute.

So we have already seen the Crests many times, I knew that... but my theory was that, in order to reach the final evolutionary stage, they would need the help of the physical Crests. So that’s what I thought Mimi was doing with those crystals.

But Taichi is indeed about to call WarGreymon. So... I have no idea what use Mimi’s gonna find for those crystals x’D I suppose she’ll make herself and Palmon matching necklaces. Or sell them on the black market.

From her super safe hiding spot, Sora watches in awe, wishing she too were a real character on this show and not just an inconvenience as far as most of the writing staff are concerned

I love WarGreymon’s shield.

BAM. He appears. It’s dramatic. But only just.

WarGreymon defeats Klosmon and explodes the forest... Uhhh, weren’t we supposed to be protecting it?

Taichi and WarGreymon then join Sora and the forest Digimon and uh... that’s the episode.

Oh yeah, we get one more hint that Lopmon is more than just some random idiot. Lol. This episode hinted at Lopmon, reminded us that Hikari’s been abducted, and told us that the International Space Station might explode, and then addressed none of those.

The message on the bottom says that the next episode will be on January 10, meaning there will be no episode next week as per usual due to New Year’s holidays.

Next week’s episode:

Turns out Lopmon is one of the holy Digimon or something. Honestly not a surprise, I mean, it’s Lopmon. Should have occurred to me earlier.

Also we got what I think is our first named mention of Millenniumon and it looks like Hikari might find out somethig about him. So that’s cool. The rest of the episode seems to stick with Taichi and Sora’s group... The only thing I can say hopefully is that, since WarGreymon’s appeared, MetalGarurumon ought to be not too far off. So that should mean we at least get a Yamato-centric episode in the not too distant future.

Okay, a couple weeks ago I said I had some stuff to say but would wait till episode 30 to do it... so stop here if you don’t want to read me ranting :P It mostly amounts to what I complained about in the beginning: This season is just so hyper-focused on the fights and seems to treat the team aspect as an afterthought. Which makes no sense to me. Honestly, I don’t mind the excessive fighting - that’s common in shonen anime and grown up me can’t expect to be interested in the same stuff that interests 8 year old boys.

I don’t even mind the idea of Taichi’s role as main character getting an upgrade - like, in 99, he was the main character, but it was felt a lot less. Better balanced with the others’ roles, I mean. I think it’s totally okay to make Taichi a more central character and the plot focus in the new season - it wouldn’t be my choice, of course, but that doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad. But the way they’re going about it just doesn’t make sense to me. Even Taichi isn’t interesting half the time. He just fights.

Like I said before, this isn’t the way the show always is. There have been some highlights. I truly loved a few episodes, and the show does seem to have fallen into a pattern of being good for a while and then degrading into something like today’s episode. I don’t know why: budget? pandemic? or is this really, legitimately, what the show producers want to show kids? I guess, in the end, this show really may be about selling toys and selling toys only. (But, if that’s the case, I’m even more surprised that they don’t make a bigger deal about all the evolutions...)

A lot of things I liked the most happened in the very beginning - the first three episodes in particular. The characters interacted with each other. Their feelings and actions influenced each other. Fighting happened, a lot, but it wasn’t the only thing happening. I was pretty excited then. I didn’t expect to love this show like I love 99 - that’s just not possible, I’m too old and 99 is too special to me for me to trust my judgment - I was just happy to see the Adventure kids back and entertaining a new generation.

But since then it’s been a roller coaster with few highs and a lot of lows. Although it’s hard to imagine how the pandemic would have changed the storyline, episode 4 was where they paused the show for Japan’s lockdown-but-not-really, and once they picked back up the tone just seemed kind of different from the first three episodes. Not right away - I think the intro episodes for the rest of the team were pretty reminiscent of “Digimon Adventure” - but that makes sense, they had 4 ready to go and probably had made headway on the next few episodes before they closed down the studio. Anyway, that’s just a guess, since it seems like everything’s been affected by the pandemic, but with a few exceptions we have all been back to work more or less normally since June...

The thing is, there are lots of fighting shonen anime - tons of protagonists who never give up and never fall in spite of how hurt they get, and who get unlimited “evolutions” in return for their tenacity. That’s all fine. It’s the genre. But the thing is...! The thing is, those other shows, they all tend to have humor, to care at least marginally about character relationships, and understand that that’s how you build up a main character: just winning fights alone doesn’t cut it. So I just don’t know what to make of this new Adventure show. It’s FINE when the team is together. We get cool character moments and insights and even some joking around. But they KEEP SEPARATING THEM. This time they didn’t even have more than a single episode together before they were all split up again! I wonder if it’s because they’re having trouble getting all the voice actors in due to pandemic-related issues and budget issues etc. If so, HUGE bummer. Of all the years for Digimon Adventure to get a reboot... why did it have to be this miserable excuse for a year...

Le sigh.

But there’s nothing we can do about it. I’m just going to like what I like and hope for the best in the future. I really would love for the new Adventure to be popular with kids and keep that cast going. I don’t expect it to compete with the lids of Kinmetsu no Yaiba or anything. I just hope that, when we hit the final episode, we look back and say that the season was overall worth the reboot. I hate the thought of looking back and saying “well, that sure was dull.” It’s just an insult. 99 Adventure wasn’t the most unique storyline in the world, but it had a lot of uniqueness IN it, and what made it special was its treatment of the team and the child-partner relationships. The reboot doesn’t need to be exactly the same, but it shouldn’t be forgettable.

That’s why us being at the 30 episode mark concerns me. At this point we know how the show is paced and what’s it like. We can’t really argue that we just don’t know enough to make a judgmenet yet. It’s hard to believe things will suddenly change. If they do, assuming the change is for the better, I’ll be thrilled, but I’ll also feel sad that we missed out on so many chances for cool things to happen in the first half.

#digimon adventure 2020 #digimon adventure:#digimon adventure reboot #digi spoilers #digimon #fizz watches digimon 2020

18 notes · View notes