#i was writing this ask and was like “hmmm some of these arguments sound familiar!” | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

egcdeath · 3 years

Text

act natural

pairing: steve rogers x reader

summary: sometimes, you just have to share the bed.

word count: 2.4k

warnings: fluff, sharing a bed, idiots in love, cheesy

a/n: this is really just an excuse for me to write a lot of self indulgent bants, but it’s also a part of @stargazingfangirl18’s soft!dark challenge, and i decided to write something soft and use the prompt of only having one bed! (p.s. i like did not edit this at all so if a few words are used a lot pls forgive me)

Dinner at the safehouse was finally wrapping up after a long day of getting your ass beat by an angry android and a few enhanced teenagers. You and everyone else around you seemed to be more than exhausted from the extensive day of revisiting deeply repressed traumas, and petty arguments between teammates over who was truly at fault for every predicament you found yourselves in.

You took a long and final swig from a beer bottle, glancing up to Bruce and Nat as they stood up and pushed in their chairs, retiring for the night.

“Thanks for hosting us, Laura,” Natasha offered, grabbing her plate from the dinner table, and dropping it off in the dishwasher.

“Of course, guys. Any time,” she gave a half smile to her friend, then looked back at the table, where everyone else had taken the memo, and found themselves somewhere in the process of leaving the table, or grabbing their dishes, “but before you all go, I wanted to warn you that someone else is gonna have to share a room tonight.”

You glanced over at Steve, who was on your left, and Tony, who was sat at the head of the table. You and Steve shared an awkward chuckle at the thought of being in the same bed, not even considering the similarly uncomfortable situation of sharing a bed with Tony.

“I think I’ll be rooming alone. These two lovebirds can share,” Tony chided before either of you even had a chance to think of a response. You looked back over at Steve, whose cheeks were currently dusted with a light shade of pink, and the bigger man quickly looked away from you.

“Tony, you know we are not- you know what, nevermind,” you huffed, deciding the argument was not worth it.

Tony shook his head as he dropped his dishes off in the dishwasher. “So no objections?” he asked teasingly, eyeing you both with a smirk on his way back from the kitchen. “Why am I not surprised?” You could’ve sworn you heard Clint and Fury laughing to themselves before excusing themselves from the table, and dispursting though the house.

Besides the slight humiliation of being teased for your situation, you weren’t too concerned about the act of spending the night, or next few nights with Steve. You and Steve were friends, or something like that. Just a few pals with crushes that you refused to admit to each other (or yourselves).

Pushing this thought aside, you grabbed the neck of your empty beer bottle, along with a few pieces of silverware and marched off to the mechanical cleaner yourself. You dropped off the things that needed to be cleaned, tossed your bottle in the recycling bin, then went to turn away when Steve grabbed your arm, automatically catching your attention.

“Is this okay with you?” He asked, letting his vice grip on your arm go.

“It’s fine. I’ll see you upstairs,” you muttered before speeding off, and heading upstairs where you strolled into the only vacant room, with the door wide open, and both your own and Steve’s duffle bags on the floor.

You made a mental note to thank whoever brought them in (probably Laura), and dug through your bag to find something even slightly comfortable to sleep in, eventually settling on an oversized shirt and your favorite cotton shorts.

You had just barely finished changing in the tiny closet when you heard the soft click of the room door, notifying you of Steve’s arrival. You slid open the closet door, and made a beeline for the bed, flopping onto the left side, and reaching for your phone as a distraction.

“Do you want me to sleep on the floor?” Steve asked, searching through his own bag until he found the only clean comfortable pair of pants he had in there, that just happened to be a jokey Christmas gift donned with a red white and blue color scheme, and graphics of mini shields on it.

“What the hell, Steve. Of course not,” you set your phone down so that you could get a better look at him. “We probably have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.” You could live with that excuse, especially considering that it would not be very becoming of you to tell your crush that missing an opportunity to sleep in the same bed as him feels like a federal crime.

He stood up from his squatting position, squeezing into the tight space of the closet so that he could change into the corny pants, and finally get out of his clothes from the day, “I just didn’t want to make things weird.”

“Well, they won’t be as long as you stay on your side, okay?” You said petulantly, setting two pillows across the middle of the queen sized bed and attempting to ignore the excited butterflies in your stomach.

“I will,” Steve responded, exiting the closet slipping into the right side of the bed cautiously, and looking at the wall that was facing him.

You glanced over at Steve, and when you caught wind of his shirtless torso, you couldn’t help but to look away with a warm face,“this is so awkward now,” you said after a beat. “Why couldn’t you have roomed with Tony?”

“Tony is the worst bed mate ever. Total blanket and pillow hog,” Steve chuckled, attempting to ease up some of the tension.

“You’re no saint either. I’ve heard you’re a cuddler,” you bantered back, allowing yourself one more glance at the man. Steve seemed to be having the same thought as you at the same time as you, as your eyes briefly met.

It was uncomfortably silent in the room once more, and you reached over to your nightstand to turn off the bedside lamp, “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Night, Steve,” you turned your back to the border of pillows, fell into a fetal position, and squeezed your eyes shut, hoping that you’d be able to find some sort of peace after such a bizarre day. You tried not to dwell so much on the horrors you’d been forced to face earlier, and instead relied on the rhythmic breathing coming from the man next to you to ground you.

----

You weren’t sure when exactly you fell asleep, but a jolting of your bed, and a bit of a commotion coming from somewhere in your room pulled you away from your unsettling dreams.

Blinking yourself awake, you uncurled your body, and rolled over to look at Steve, whose legs were thrown over the edge of the bed while he panted heavily.

“Steve?” you slurred sleepily, “you ‘kay?”

“’m fine,” he yawned.

“Well you woke me up,” you mumbled, throwing your head back against a pillow.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I was having a shitty dream anyway.”

“Really? I was too,” Steve refused to look at you, staring blankly at the wall.

“So tell me about it,” you hummed.

“It’s just… I keep thinking about how I missed out on so many things from the past. I could’ve been happy, living out my days in a semi-peaceful and familiar world. Not anything like this.”

You sat up as you listened, pushing aside a pillow from the border you’d constructed to move closer to Steve and set a reassuring hand on his back.

“I guess I just wish that I was there. With everyone and everything I used to know.”

“But it’s not all bad, right?” you offered, and Steve shrugged before looking down.

“I’m sorry. I really am. I know that I’ll never truly understand that, but there’s nothing any of us can do about it now. You’re here now, and you have no other choice but to make the best of it. I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but if you spend all of your time in the present lamenting about what things could’ve been in the past, you’re just gonna be miserable forever,” you rambled sleepily, words slurring occasionally.

“Your experience is so unique, so I could be getting this all wrong, but there are plenty of good things here in the now. I mean, a world without the internet? I don’t know if that’s a world worth living in,” you chuckled softly, and were joined in your quiet laughter by the man on the other side of your bed.

“Seriously, though. I know you can’t control your dreams, but maybe your subconscious is letting you know that it’s okay to let go. Of like, the past. It might just be time for you to move on and be happy. I’m sure that Peggy and everyone else from your past would’ve wanted that for you too.” In the dark, you saw the silhouette of Steve’s head nodding.

“You always know what to say, huh?” he asked, kicking his legs back over onto the bed while you scooted back over into your previous space.

“I’m like half asleep right now, Steve. If you asked me to repeat half of what I just said, I would not know what to say,” you giggled.

“You wanna talk about your dream?” Steve asked in a concerned tone.

“Mmm, I actually just wanna go to sleep. As crazy as that may sound,”

“Is there anything that I can do to help you not have another bad one?”

“Hmmm,” you pondered, becoming a bit more lethargic by the moment. “Spoon me?”

“As you wish,” Steve happily obliged, grabbing one of the pillows from the middle of the bed and adding it to his stash of pillows.

You threw a pillow from the border between your knees, and received a strange look from Steve. “What? I heard it’s good for your back.” He still didn’t seem convinced. “Stop being so judgy and cuddle me already,” you murmured, turning your body so that you could lay on your side.

Steve scooted closer to you, and you pressed your back to the front of his chest. He tossed an arm over you and somehow managed to pull you even closer to him. You swore you hadn’t been this comfortable since you left the womb, and you nearly purred in response.

“Can I make a request?” he asked.

You simply nodded.

“Can we just… talk until we fall back asleep?”

“That’s really cute,” you mumbled into your pillow.

“You just have a relaxing voice!” he defended playfully.

“You are such a dork,” you giggled. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Just tell me about… I dunno, anything.”

“That was so helpful, Steven.”

“My bad. Tell me about your favorite… mission?”

“Mm, probably that one time you and I had to go undercover for like a month to bust that arms dealer.”

“Which one?”

“Some dude in the Midwest. Can’t remember his name.”

“Oh yeah, yeah I know who you’re talking about.”

“It was fun being your life partner for a month. We were really good at being domestic.”

“Hmm, now that I think about it, we really were. Do you remember that cookout?”

“Of course I do,” you laughed at the memory. “Everyone else was getting so drunk, but you just… couldn’t. They were like Joseph, you’re such a beast, and shit. And who would’ve guessed that you, the old timer would be such a beast on the grill.”

“Well, who would’ve guessed that you were so good at cornhole?”

“Was I really that good? Or were you just really bad? Like really bad, especially for someone whose skill set revolves around having good aim,” you teased.

Steve scoffed and laughed, shaking his head at you.

“How didn’t those people recognize us? I just don’t get it.”

“You’d be surprised how much a beard and dyed hair can change your look.”

“I guess,” you sighed softly, and set a hand on top of Steve’s. “Does this feel counterproductive to you? We’re just sitting here giggling. We’re probably getting less tired.”

“I guess I am less tired. But I’m also not thinking about the impending robot apocalypse.”

“Well now that you brought it up, I’m thinking about the impending robot apocalypse. You better fix this, Rogers.” Emboldened by what must’ve been the butterflies in your stomach falling asleep, you began to roll a bit in his arms so you were facing each other, kicking away the pillow between your legs in the process.

“How can I make it up to you?” Steve asked, raising a brow.

“You’re the man with a plan, right? Think of something,” your lip quirked slightly in a smirk.

Steve leaned in just the smallest amount, before a lightbulb seemed to go off in his head. “I got it. We can do one of those one word stories until we fall asleep.”

Well, that’s not exactly how you thought this moment was going to go.

“Okay, I’ll start then,” you nodded, pressing your head down against a soft pillow, and looking up at Steve, “once.”

“There,” Steve added.

“Was.”

“A.”

“Death-bot,” you giggled.

“Okay, Y/N. No. No more stories. We can just listen to each other breathe now until we fall asleep like before since you wanna ruin the mood.”

“What mood? And you listened to me breathe?”

“What else was I gonna listen to?” he furrowed his brows, “it’s too late for this anyway. We can talk in the morning.”

“All you had to do was tell me that it’s way past your bedtime, and I would be understanding. But goodnight anyway, Stevie,” you cracked him one last smile, not budging from your position as you closed your eyes.

It was silent for a few minutes before Steve whispered up out of the blue, “you still awake?”

You slurred something into the pillow, much more asleep than awake.

“Well, I really like you a lot. Maybe one day I’ll get the guts to tell you that when you’re not completely out of it.”

You grunted as a response, and Steve couldn’t seem to wipe the grin off his face, not while he was falling asleep, and certainly not during his rather pleasant dreams.

——

You just couldn’t seem to catch a break with your wake up calls. While you and Steve seemed to sleep through the rapping against the door, and the door itself opening, you both seemed to become aware after the artificial shutter of an iPhone camera flooded through your ears.

“You guys just looked so cute, I wanted to archive this moment for the rest of time. And I’m sure the team will be glad to see that you got along well last night,” Nat teased as your eyes widened and you shot up. “Breakfast is ready downstairs, by the way.”

Well, you two were going to have a great time explaining this one.

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n #avengers fanfiction #captain america fanfiction #captain america x reader #chris evans x reader #siris5ksoftdarkchallenge

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hyuckssunchip · 3 years

Text

Reputation

Pairings: Johnny x Reader, ft. nct 127

Words: 4.3K

Warnings: Language (there is almost always language in my writings), angst, some fluff

Request: Angst 42 and 48 ➵ “You promised.” “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t leave.” / @jungcherie

(im so sorry i took so long.... i turned a drabble into a story... oops)

Johnny Suh had a reputation that was unmatched.

There was no other way to put it.

And a reputation like his left trails of tears.

A pool of tears that you were currently drowning in.

It was obvious Johnny was dangerous, perhaps that’s why you were drawn to him. While every single one of your instincts had you fighting and rejecting him, you were desperate for him all the more.

It was March 13th that you lost your first will.

“Y/N, right?”

You turned around to find a familiar face towering over you.

“Yeah.”

It was that stupid smile that had you.

“Hey, we have have Communications together. I was wondering if you wanted to do that project together?” He scratched the back of his neck like he was embarrassed. “I just know that you’re insanely smart so... Sorry, wait, that sounds like I’m just talking to you for your grades.”

You giggled nervously, a habit that you did when you were uncomfortable.

“Look, I just... do you? You know, wanna do the project together? I mean, I’m a pretty smooth talker so I can do the presentation. I get good grades too...”

Stupid smile.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. There’s actually a little party at my frat tonight, you maybe wanna come? Get to know each other before we drown in work?”

Fucking stupid smile.

“Yeah. I’d like that.” You blushed at the idea, cursing at yourself for being so obvious.

Parties weren’t really your thing.

But at the time Johnny Suh was.

Your ears were pounding because of the insanely loud level the music was at. You were actually shocked that no one had called the cops with a noise complaint, but the fact that they were on frat row made more sense.

“Y/N. You made it.” A arm was flung over your shoulder and, thankfully the lights were both dim and flashing enough that he couldn’t see the way that you blushed at the action.

“Yeah. Is it always this loud?” You asked, still not so comfortable with the atmosphere.

“What?” Johnny yelled, pointing at his ear, indicating that he couldn’t hear you. Of course he fucking couldn’t. Then he jerked his thumb to the right, nodding at the backyard, which was seemingly empty.

With his hand placed on your back, he guided you outside, your head already thanking him from the escape of noise pollution. It was far better outside of the house.

The two of you collapsed onto the swinging chair, sighing as you cleared your head.

“So parties aren’t really your thing?” Johnny leaned closer, noting the look of relief that you had donned the moment you exited.

“It’s not that I hate them... I’m just not a fan. I mean a bunch of sweaty, horny drunk people grinding on each other. I just like smaller things.” You explained, staring up at the dark sky, shivering slightly at the cool breeze.

“You didn’t have to come.” Johnny suddenly looked guilty, “I didn’t mean to force you into coming, I just... thought I’d invite you.”

You quickly backtracked, “No, you didn’t force me. If I didn’t want to come, I wouldn’t have.” You ignored the voice in the back of your head that begged to differ.

“Right.” He grinned, as if he could read your mind. “You’re not great at lying, but I’m gonna pretend that I believe you.”

You felt your cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

“Were you playing beer pong?” You asked suddenly, causing him to look at you in confusion.

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

You laughed, looking away from him, “You have quite the reputation Mr. Suh, even someone like me knows the extent of your skills.”

Johnny smirked, liking how easy you were making it for him. “Is that so? Is that the only skill of mine you’ve heard about?”

You raised your eyebrows, hating the turn that your mind took. “W-what kind of other skills did you have in mind?” You stuttered out.

Suddenly it felt like you were caged in, his arms tense around your frame, causing you to lean back against the back of the swing.

“Tell me what you’ve heard.”

You averted your eyes, unable to take his heavy gaze. His eyes had turned dark, full of lust, and you tried desperately to forget the effect they were having on you.

As if sensing how uncomfortable you were getting, he backed off, dusting off some invisible dirt on his shoulder. He cocked his head to the side with a sly smile, happy with a new challenge.

Things weren’t going to be as easy as he thought they were, but that’s what made it fun.

“No that’s so stupid. Are you kidding me? Robin could absolutely never beat Batman. Is that even a question?” Your hands were waving animately, far too much for an argument about fictional superheroes.

“Sure. I’m just saying that Robin could totally catch him off guard, like out of the blue, you know.” Johnny slurped on his drink shrugging his shoulders like he didn’t care.

“No. Absolutely not. First of all Robin doesn’t have the guts to do something like that and second of all Robin doesn’t have any powers. How on Earth would he beat him?”

“Umm... Batman doesn’t have powers either.” He made a duh face at you, which you chose to ignore.

“Yeah, well he’s got money, and that’s basically a super power.”

“Let’s be real, Batman isn’t even really a real superhero. He’s just a hero. Period.”

You huffed, rolling your eyes at the argument. “That’s a whole different story.”

“I’m just saying.” He sang back teasingly.

“And I’m just saying that this is stupid. How did we even get here?” You laughed, trying to remember how this conversation came about.

“Uh, you made the bold choice of saying that the Batman vs. Superman movie was shit. Very controversial by the way.” He frowned at the memory.

You let your bag fall heavily on the library table, earning you a few glares as studying students dug into their books.

You sent an apologetic look before sliding into your seat. “Let’s just get this presentation done. Our presentation date is the 23rd and I don’t even have a clue of what to write it on.”

“Well the topic is influencers that change your life. Do you have anyone in mind?”He asked, flipping through his notebook, which didn’t really have anything but drawings in them.

“Not really, is there anyone for you? I mean influencer is kind of vague isn’t it? We could pick like an athlete too, or a musician. Those are technically influencers right?”

He nodded, resting his chin on his hand. “Yeah. Influencers don’t even have to be famous do they? Like they can just be someone in your life that made a huge impact on you. Like your parents or something.”

“Yeah, I guess. But that’s kind of hard when you’re working in groups. Like you’re not gonna want to talk about my grandma, you know. Like you don’t even know her. It’s probably just easier to use a famous icon.”

“Okay, so who?” He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling like it would give him inspiration.

“Hmmm... maybe we could do someone like Michael Jackson. Like he may not have affected us personally, but he affected the way that the music and performance was seen afterwards. That’s influential and life changing right?”

“I guess.” He cocked his head, “We could at least start with brainstorming ideas for him and then if we feel like it’s not working we can change it.”

“Cool. I guess we can start with that then.”

And you did. You spent every afternoon for the next week and half with each other in the library, and a little more outside of it.

“That one’s the big dipper.”

You grinned following his finger, but had more difficulty finding exactly what he saw.

“How do you know it’s not the little dipper?” You teased, squinting in to the dark, the scattered stars really just looking like paint splatters to you.

“Because that’s the little dipper.” He laughed, moving his index finger slightly to the right.

“Oh.”

Johnny leaned back into your space, smiling at you look of concentration quickly falling as you gave up.

“Where’s the North Star?” You asked turning to face him, but sucking in a harsh breath when you found your nose just centimeters from his.

Johnny lowered his voice, whispering and pointing without even turning away, “Right there, it’s the tail of the little dipper.”

It took more effort than you thought to pull away, eyes searching for it.

He leaned back, resting his body weight on his hands. “See it? It’s the brightest one.”

“No,” You pouted scooting forward, as if that would help you see it. “Oh, wait! I see it!”

Johnny couldn’t stop himself from grinning as he saw your face light up.

“Wow.” Suddenly your tone turned more mellow, still in awe. “I’ve always wanted to find the North Star.”

Johnny’s chest rumbled with laughter. “Why?”

“Well you know. They say if you get lost, just follow the North Star home.” You turned to face him, eyes sparkling with excitement, but the sound of your voice had gone quiet, almost somber. The smile on your face faded into a sad smile as you all but whispered your next words. “Now I can go home.”

Johnny frowned next to you, not liking the sudden turn in mood. He sat up, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and pulling you against his chest.

“What makes you think that you’re not home right now?” He mumbled on the top of your head, staring straight out in the dark.

“I don’t know. I can just feel it, you know? Like I’m just constantly uneasy.” You sighed, digging your face into his jacket. “I think I’ll be able to tell when I get there.”

There was something in Johnny’s chest that suddenly ached, and he felt a sharp drop in his stomach at the thought.

“Maybe you’ll only ever know once you’ve left home.” He muttered, “Then you’ll know that this is actually what it feels like, and it’s so much worse when you leave.”

You stilled against him for a moment before relaxing, mulling over the thought. “That’s so sad though. Why do we only know we’re happy once we’re sad?”

Johnny shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. Why does God make us hurt to only to help us heal?”

The sound of the wind passing through trees was the only thing that comforted you at the thought.

“I don’t want to have to heal, I don’t want to hurt in the first place.” You whisper out, feeling the most vulnerable you had in a long time.

“I’ll never hurt you.” He rubbed at your arms soothingly, feeling a lump in the back of his throat, but he pushed it away not liking the unfamiliar feeling.

“Promise?”

“Of course.”

You let your eyes fall, enjoying just the silence and comfort of each other’s arms and minds.

You woke up wrapped in Johnny’s arms, although it was an unfamiliar feeling you welcomed it with open arms.

Lost in your thoughts for the time being you were suddenly reminded of the conversation you had a couple nights ago.

Was this home?

You had never felt so safe before and it scared you. But you weren’t one to run.

“Good morning.” Johnny mumbled out beside you, his morning voice raspy to the ear.

“Morning.” You whispered back, letting his arm flop over your waist.

“Do you like pancakes?” He asked, letting his eyes fall close again.

“Pancakes?”

“Yeah. Taeyong makes some bomb ass pancakes.”

You giggled, “Yeah, I like pancakes. Especially bomb ass pancakes.”

But he didn’t move and it was only after you tapped him questioningly did he speak up. “Do you think he’ll bring them up if I yell loud enough?”

You smacked his chest. “Stop it. We should go down.”

“In a bit.” He answered, nose buried deep in the crevice of your neck.

A few minutes later you heard the clinking of kitchen tools from downstairs and you stirred. “Johnny?”

“Hmmm...”

“Johnny. Let’s go.”

“Five more minutes.” He mumbled, but he let you out of his grasp anyways.

“Fine. I’ll meet you downstairs.” You paused as you passed by the mirror, eyes tracing over the marks on your neck that Johnny had left the night before. You blushed, realizing that you didn’t have anything to cover it up with, but quickly moved on, attempting to find your shorts that were discarded in the frenzy of last night.

“Check under the desk.” Johnny said, sitting up and watching you.

Sure enough that’s where they were, although you weren’t really sure how they managed to get there.

You shrugged on the last of your clothes, turning to find Johnny doing the same. It took him less than three steps to get to you, landing a soft kiss on the top of your head.

“Let’s go.”

Taeyong was undoubtedly the closest of Johnny’s frat brothers to you. He had this really calming and sweet aura about him that just made you want to be friends.

“Good morning Y/N. Blueberry or chocolate?” He asked grinning as he took his eyes off the pan for a second.

“Blueberry please.” You slid onto the bar across from him. “Do you need any help?”

Johnny rubbed your lower back comfortingly, “No, you don’t want to get in his way. That’s when he loses his temper.” He whispered the last bit to you, but Taeyong obviously heard it, sending a sharp glare at him.

“Only when there are incompetent people in my kitchen.” Taeyong muttered back.

Johnny ignored the comment, shaking his head at you, “I’ll have chocolate.”

“You’ll get what you get.” Taeyong piped at him, still not over Johnny’s teasing, who grinned in response.

Both of them knew that Johnny was getting chocolate, Taeyong was really bad at being mean.

“Where’s the others?” Johnny asked, sipping on a cup of coffee.

“At school, as they should be because they are college students.” Taeyong answered, sliding a plate towards you. “Enjoy.”

You thanked him and bit into a piece, almost moaning at the taste. “Damn, Johnny told me they were good but I didn’t think it would be this good.”

Johnny swiped a piece from your plate. “What are you talking about? I told you he made bomb ass pancakes.”

Taeyong slid a plate towards Johnny.

His grin widened. “Thank you. You’re my favorite Taeyong ever.”

“I’m the only Taeyong you know.” He put his hands on his hips. “I should be the favorite.”

Johnny sent a wink in his direction before stabbing a piece.

“So I was thinking, that little bakery next to the park, do you wanna go? They just opened and I’ve been dying to try it.” Johnny asked around a mouthful of pancake.

“Yeah, sure. That sounds good.” You felt your stomach flutter, you were sure whether it was the pancakes or Johnny, but you had a pretty good guess.

“Sweet, we can swing by your place first if you want to get a change of clothes or something.”

You nodded, “Yeah, sounds good.”

“I’m glad that sounds good.” He teased you with a smile.

“Sorry, but it just sounds good. What else do you want me to say?” You pushed back, opting to add another piece into your mouth.

“I don’t know, maybe-”

“Okay, sorry to interrupt your little flirt fest, but can you start that after I leave?” Taeyong asked, making a few pancakes for himself.

“Sorry.” You giggled, sending him a genuine apologetic look.

“I’m not sorry.” Johnny said, shrugging.

You smacked him lightly.

“I’ll take away pancake privileges for a month.” Taeyong quipped, focusing on flipping the pancake.

“Sorry.” Johnny mumbled out under his breath, not one to admit defeat easily.

You laughed at the sight of a pouty Johnny, enjoying the view for the time being.

Waiting for Johnny had become a routine, but honestly you didn’t really mind it. Hanging out on the couch, you had met and befriended quite a few of his frat brothers.

Currently you were sprawled out on the couch with Jungwoo, who was retelling a very interesting story about his trip to the grocery store last week that involved a cereal box and a banana. Although it was a bit of a reach, you nodded and smiled at the right times, not really following the order of events, or really the importance of them.

“What does the fact that you were wearing- and I quote - ‘an incredibly sick pair of joggers’ have anything to do with your story?” You asked, tilting your head in teasing confusion.

“Oh, it doesn’t. I just thought you should know.” He replied matter-of-factly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Right. And I’m so better off now that I know.” You taunted him, voice dripping in sarcasm.

Jungwoo shot you an annoyed, and yet hurt look, before finishing his story. “And that’s how Johnny found out he was allergic to shellfish.”

“Okay. What the fuck? I’m literally so confused.” You cut him off before he could recount his story again. “I don’t really need to hear it again though. Thanks.”

He whined before laying his legs over yours, giving up.

For a few moments, things were quiet as you checked the time. It had already been thirty minutes, where was he?

You rolled your head to the side, finally focusing on the whiteboard that had what scribbles of writing over it.

“What’s the tally for?” You asked, scrunching your nose at the whiteboard that was situated on the far wall of the room.

“Hmmm? The tally?” Jungwoo glanced around looking slightly nervous which had you even more curious. “It’s just a game.”

“Game? What game?” You laughed turning back to see the strikes adorning the board. “It looks like Johnny’s winning.”

“Uhh...” Again with the nervous glances.

You giggled, “You’re losing, aren’t you?” The spot under his name had the fewest tallies and you figured that’s why he was being so shy about it.

Jaehyun entered the room, seemingly in a very important conversation by the way that he was speaking animatedly.

“The game’s over on Friday and Johnny’s gonna win.”

“That’s so stupid. He hasn’t bagged any since Y/N, how is he still gonna win?” Yuta complained all but scowling at the floor, neither of them had yet to notice your presence.

You frowned at the mention of your name, not liking the term ‘bagging’ to be in such close proximity with your name.

“Oh, Mark has a new strike, looks like he finally got Claire into bed.” Yuta continued snorting, “Took him long enough.”

“Wait, what the fuck? How the hell did Taeyong get two strikes?” Jaehyun, squinted at the board.

Yuta snorted, “He had a threesome last night. Can you believe it? This close to the end? It’s like he’s actually trying to compete now.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” You muttered, effectively catching their attention.

“Y/N.” Jaehyun breathed out, eyes wide and darting between you and Jungwoo who was obviously trying to get them to stop talking. “Hey... what’s up? When did you get here?”

“Ummm.... no. What the fuck is going on?”

“What do you mean?” Jaehyun cocked his head, doing his best to pretend like he wasn’t panicking.

“No, I don’t want your bullshit. Just tell me what this game is.” You were using anger to hide your fear. You could feel the pounding of your heart in your head, a throbbing sensation that gave way to a sinking feeling of realization.

At that moment, when his eyes finally met yours. Not Jaehyun’s, not Yuta’s, but Johnny’s as he walked in the room with that fucking stupid smile you felt your last will got out the window. It was at that moment that everything came crashing down.

“Y/N, please can’t we just talk?” Johnny chased after you, begging you to turn around.

“You promised.”

Johnny’s heart dropped at your words, and his chest started closing in in fear. The burning feeling in his throat had him choking, panicking in belated realization.

It wasn’t just the words that you said, it was the way that you said it. So defeated, so broken. So betrayed.

“You promised that you wouldn’t hurt me. Do you remember that? Did you even mean that?” You felt the tears brimming, and you fought the best you could to keep them down. But your wobbling voice let him know.

“Of course I meant it.” He answered breathlessly. “You know me, I don’t say things that I don’t mean.”

“Do I? Do I know you?” You huffed out. “Because I really thought you were someone different.”

“No, I- I’m still me. I’m still Johnny. I just...”

“You just what? You just lied about our entire relationship? If it was even that, because I was just another tally to you wasn’t I? Just another tally on a stupid whiteboard for a stupid game.”

You choked back the tears that were burning in your throat, not bothering to wipe at the ones that managed to escape.

“You know what hurts the most? I actually thought you liked me. I actually thought that you meant all those things that you said to me.”

“I did mean it. I meant every single word, and I still do. Nothing was a lie, my feelings were real. Please just listen to me, I can explain.” He stepped closer, but you took a step back, keeping the distance.

“Explain what? I already heard everything for myself. What are you gonna say, that Jaehyun and Yuta were lying? Hmmm? That it wasn’t a game? That that’s not the reason that you approached me?”

“I...” He couldn’t find any words, because you were right. Every single word that you said was right. He struggled to catch his breath, panicking. “Please don’t leave me.”

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t leave.”

“I love you. I need you. I can’t- I can’t imagine life without you.”

“That’s not enough.” You clenched your jaw, face going slack. It was as if you were losing the will to even be heartbroken over this.

“Please, I-I’ll do anything, what do you want me to do?” He begged, eye brows nearly touching as they furrowed.

“I don’t want anything from you, just stay away from me.” You mumbled out, avoiding his eyes.

“Baby, please.”

“Don’t fucking call me that, I’m not yours, I never was.” You snapped at him, backing away.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled under his breath and he wasn’t sure if it was meant for you or himself.

“So I’m kinda going rogue here. I know you already hate me, but try not to hate me anymore than you already do.”

Johnny didn’t look anywhere except for you.

The professor seemed to humor him, allowing one of his favorite students to continue with an amused smile on his face.

You on the other hand did not.

You stared at Johnny with a straight face, trying your best to not look flustered.

“The whole point of this assignment was to find someone that changed our lives. But my partner and I struggled to find someone. It’s not that we didn’t have great people around us, its not even that we don’t have people that we admired. It was because no one we came up with really seemed genuine to us. But I found someone. I finally found someone that I could trust, that I let in. But I did something really stupid and fucked it up- excuse my language.”

You watched him stand behind the podium, looking smaller than he ever did.

“You know, before I met you I didn’t think that my life needed changing. I thought I was doing just fine. But then I realized that I wasn’t. I was struggling to even feel normal, to feel like I was living for something. Y/N you helped me find home. Remember when I said that you only understand that you were already home until you lose it? Well I feel it now. And it feels like shit.”

You sucked in a sharp breath, a feeling in the back of your throat burning.

“Y/N. You’re the person who changed my life. And I don’t even deserve that. But I’m here, standing in front of you like a fool because I’m whining about losing the best thing that ever happened to me.”

For a moment you thought he was done, because the silence was deafening.

“Even if you sill hate me after this, I want you to know that you mean more to me than anything else. You are the person that changed my life. You are my person, and I want so badly to be yours.”

There was a beat of silence as he ended abruptly, taking a seat on the other side of the room, eyes still locked on you.

Your professor stood up with a clap. “Well, thank you Johnny for that... interesting presentation.” A wide smile was still on his face despite his word choice. “I guess we should end on that then. Second batch of presentations is on Friday, please be prepared.”

The students of your class stood, shuffling out the exit, voices murmuring to each other.

You sat on the bench outside your lecture hall, watching as Johnny made his way nervously to you.

“You’re an idiot.” You told him as he approached you, bottom lip wobbling against your will. Eventually you broke. “But you’re my idiot.”

Johnny felt a drop of relief in his stomach as he felt like his heart would burst.

“You’ve totally botched our presentation by the way. If we fail it it’s on you.” You shoved him away teasingly.

Johnny grinned, throwing his arm over your shoulder.

“Yeah? Well, I think we did better than you think. I think that things are gonna turn out just fine.”

(sorry, i was supposed to write a full angst, but i couldn’t help myself.)

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hua-fei-hua · 3 years

Note

(can’t remember if I’ve already sent in an ask for this but I meant to) aries cancer and leo for the zodiac writing asks!!

asfsdf forgetful adhd strikes again

aries: when have you felt the most confident in your writing? when have you felt the least confident?

hmmm i think peak confidence was like 2018 which i know sounds like a long time ago, but that was the last time i had a major wip that was getting steady attention. i felt really good about my writing then because it was a mulan au, so the basic skeleton of a story was already laid out before me, and i was pulling a lot from chinese culture, which, as a halfie living in a predominantly east asian community, is something i’m very very familiar with, so i could focus a lot more on the beauty of the writing itself. i think i wrote some truly quality stuff for that au, to the point where this has reminded me that oh my god i still have that annotated version of the fic to finish up hahaha.

as for the least confident omg so it’s a really funny story. so basically in my senior year of high school, i almost had this guy i barely knew be my fake boyfriend for a night (for revenge purposes, long story), and he was the head drum major of our school band. after finishing up the aforementioned mulan au, i wanted to work on this school band au, but the plot i had in mind meant i had to ask around for some particular details. long story short, i asked my almost-fake-boyfriend to ask the head drum major of one of our sister schools (who happened to be the girl he liked) to ask her some questions for me, and we got into an argument that ended in him saying, “who would ever want to read something you wrote” and i was destroyed for the rest of 2019. that’s basically why i had a fic/fandom hiatus for all of 2019, but that was a long time ago now.

these days i do my best to feel neutrally about my writing, because if the reception to a particular piece doesn’t go exactly the way i imagined, i’ll start getting insecure again hahaha.

cancer: how do you write emotional scenes? do you ever feel what the characters feel?

mmmm not necessarily! being grey-aro, i haven’t held romantic feelings for anyone since before i started taking my writing hobby seriously, so it can be a little difficult to project the newly-falling-in-love feelings onto characters. i do keep a very regular diary, but to look back on those times is also omg Deeply Cringe(tm) because watching people fall in love embarrasses me.

that being said, i do feel very strongly as i write about emotions like embarrassment, anger, hurt, and joy!!! i like to sit with an emotion when i’m writing it, kind of pick apart where it’s coming from and how i’m feeling it, and then i’ll give it to the characters.

leo: what things will show up in every book you write? do you ever feel like a one-trick pony?

my favorite themes in writing have been “lying,” “consequences,” and “searching,” with the final one showing up in the majority of fics i plan or publish, and all three showed up in the mulan au i mentioned earlier!! the night sky, stuff like the moon and stars, show up pretty often too, although they’re not always symbols. a lot of the time i’m literally just sitting there like “you know what i LOVE? tHE MOON AND STARS”

as for feeling like a one-trick pony? not at all! i find that there are a lot of ways to explore the same idea, even by the same person especially since those themes are so broad.

hehe ty for the ask!!!!!

zodiac writer’s ask uwu

#asks #sometimes it's kind of funny to think about most of my active mutuals rn were not around for the Fake Dating Shebang aka #the fake boyfriend escapades #like the bnha mutuals i still have lived through it so a lot of them are like 'oh yeah that happened'#i don't talk abt it as much bc it's not as important to me anymore which is good it's good to move on #anyway i feel like there's almost no way to become a one-trick pony in writing #even if you use the same four tropes in the same four fics context will change EVERYTHING #and every writer will have their own spins on how to fit them together #i hate the mentality of 'oh someone else wrote this premise/au already so i won't add my take'#like no yeah maybe that person put their own unique spin on a take but that COULD become a trope in it of itself! that's where tropes come #lyrebirds-writes

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emjs-good-out-here · 4 years

Text

I haven’t been able to write anything in recent weeks, but suddenly got a little flash of a scene the other night while thinking about Kitty’s relationship dynamics, so here’s 500-and-odd words of her being an insufferable little shit interacting with her ghoul.

Ducking under the police tape, Cam moved into the apartment, pace slow and cautious. He barely dared to breathe, focusing intently on the sounds of his surroundings, trying to pick up on the slightest noise of somebody else present in the home. Sure enough, after a moment, he heard it. Footsteps- leisurely moving across the adjoining room- and the sound of a drawer being opened or closed. Damn it, someone was here.

Rounding the corner to confront the intruder, he flicked on his flashlight, and illuminated...

"Kitty?"

The familiar redhead was perched on the arm of a sofa, looking completely at home, despite there being no reason why she would be there at all. Some kind of envelope or folded piece of paper was in her hand, though she glanced up from it as he burst into the room, her voice flat as she met his eye with a complete lack of surprise. "Cameron."

"Jesus, you scared the shit out of me! What are you doing here?"

"After hours property viewing." A brief sparkle of mischief flickered across her eyes, but she said no more, and it faded once again as she turned her attention away from him, and back to the paper in her hand.

"Riiight. You know that this is a crime scene, right? You can't be in here!"

Interestingly, rather than serving as a warning, or causing her to see the error of her ways- as perhaps he had intended, his words only seemed to amuse her. Her eyes moved back in his direction with a sharp glint, as a smirk tugged at her painted lips. "Aww, babe... no. I can't take a walk on a sunny afternoon. Can't enjoy my own signature cheese souffle. Can't have an argument without getting at least a little bit turned on... But I can and I will be in here." Distractedly, she murmured: "Give me a little light?"

Almost unconsciously, he redirected his flashlight, illuminating the thing in her hand, then frowned at his own action. He'd started to notice stuff like that more and more lately- that the more he was around her, the more he seemed to want to indulge her every whim. Was that because of what she'd done to him, or was she just starting to grow on him? He wasn't entirely sure. But it made him happy to make her happy.

When he spoke again, it was with a slightly softer voice. "Someone saw you breaking in. What would you have done if it wasn't me that had come to investigate?"

"Hmmm..." Kitty tilted her head to one side, lifting manicured fingers to her chin in an over-exaggerated show of deliberation. "I guess that I would have... seduced a cop? Maybe played dumb? Climbed out of a window if I was desperate? Ooo, or just, y'know... made them forget that they even saw me in the first place? The possibilities are truly endless, dear."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're incredibly frustrating to talk with?"

Folding the paper in half with a satisfied nod, she slipped it into her jacket pocket, then regarded him with a bright grin. "Constantly. But that seems like a 'you' kind of problem, if you ask me."

#oc: Kitty Briars #Em-J Writes #this might end up being part of a longer thing if I ever get the energy and inspiration to write it #anyways it's always fun to write kitty #and I've been enjoying fleshing out cam recently #where the blood bond makes heather idolise kitty #it makes cam pretty protective of her #which she just finds funny cos it's like 'babe I'm far more scary than you'

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bcbdrums · 5 years

Note

I finally get to get YOU this time!! *evil laughs* 56 & 34

I’m not sure how well I did answering the prompts, but I sure had fun writing it. I really challenged myself not to do the cliché thing and go with something less familiar to me. I imagine this fic occurring shortly before “Graduation.”

34. The feel of fingers brushing by accident.

56. Someone accepting the bad parts of you without judging.

—

[As the Images Unwind]

“I want to watch my movie first,” Drakken said, watching with an anxious eye as Shego popped a VHS into the player.

“Nope. Mine first.”

“But Shego…”

“Nuh-uh. I go to karaoke with you, you watch movies with me. My rules,” she said firmly.

“But…we watched yours first last time!” he pleaded.

She walked back to the sofa and plopped down, using the remote controller to fast-forward through the previews. “And you fell asleep in thirty minutes! You always fall asleep, and we never even get to my movie. So, mine’s first.”

Drakken fidgeted with the edge of the blanket he had wrapped around his shoulders and looked down at his striped pajamas and fuzzy slippers. He did sort of plan to fall asleep on movie nights…

With a sigh he sat down and crossed his legs, wiggling around until he was perfectly cozy. Shego—wearing an oversized green t-shirt that fell off her shoulder and pink pajama pants—picked up the oversized bowl of popcorn from the coffee table and set it between them.

“It’s not another…scary one, is it?” he asked, looking at her anxiously.

She shot him a grin. “For an evil genius like you? Nah.”

Drakken blinked. His face slowly morphed into a scowl. “You’re mocking me, aren’t you.”

“Of course not. You’re gonna love this. It’s ready now, stop talking,” she said as she hit stop, and then play.

———

Drakken was gullible.

One of the major perks of her job was the freedom to torment her boss, and she took unending pleasure out of doing so.

For two week’s worth of movie nights, she had naturally chosen movies she was interested in. And all were full of explosions, action, and blood. Drakken cowered and whimpered the entire time if he even made it through them, and while she was annoyed, his continued belief when she lied and told him her movies wouldn’t be scary were worth it all.

She had started seriously taking advantage of this particular weakness of his after his kidnapping at Area 51. For four days she had him convinced that a mole on his back was actually an alien parasite, and only revealed her deception when in a panic he had been about to take a laser to it in a mirror.

He had been red-faced in embarrassment and anger while she rolled on the floor with laughter. His upset made it all the better, and she actively looked for more ways to get his blood pressure to rise.

———

“Aaahhhh!”

Drakken’s cry of fear sounded next to her ear only a moment before the hard, painful crash of his cheekbone against hers. Popcorn flew up in front of her eyes, hitting her face and lap on its way down as his arms wrapped so tightly around her she couldn’t breathe.

“You said it wasn’t scary!!” he shouted in terror, and she leaned away from the pain of the volume.

“Let go!” she choked out, gasping for breath the instant he moved. His blanket had fallen on her and she stood up, shaking popcorn off of it and out of her hair. “Look at this mess!!” she shouted back at him as he slunk back into a corner of the couch.

“You said it wasn’t scary,” he whimpered.

“Yeah, and you’re gullible,” she moaned, pausing the movie. “I’m going to make some more popcorn.”

She picked up the empty bowl, wasted popcorn crunching under her feet as she stomped away toward the kitchen. Drakken stared for a moment and then scurried after her.

“It’s my fault. I’ll do it,” he said.

———

Shego was capricious.

What shoes should she wear, what color should she paint her nails, should she go to Greece or Sicily on her next vacation… And why on earth was she asking him?

Drakken had put two popcorn bags in the microwave, like he had before the movies started. But thirty seconds into the cycle Shego started complaining.

“Make three bags, this movie’s long.”

Drakken was still shaking from his fright—so much blood—and ignored her as he made up a fresh batch of his butter sauce on the stove.

“Helloooo in there, Dr. D.? I said make three bags.”

“Maybe I’m not that hungry…” he grumbled.

“Yeah, well you have to help eat it so I can keep my waistline,” she said, reaching over his shoulder and stopping the microwave.

“I’m only making sauce for two bags,” he said with a frown, stirring in the minced garlic.

Shego had opened the microwave and was tossing in a third bag of popcorn alongside the two slightly puffed ones.

“Then make more,” she said, closing the microwave.

Drakken stopped stirring and turned to her. “You can’t start it over or the first two bags will burn. Take them out and do that one separately.”

Amazingly, she didn’t argue and made to follow his instructions. But upon touching the hot bags she drew her fingers back with a hiss.

“Eh. Two’s enough,” she said, pulling the unused bag out and continuing the microwave cycle.

Drakken rolled his eyes and went back to his sauce. He began softly humming as a tune came to his mind.

“Do we have stuff for milkshakes?”

“Why don’t you look?” he said, and continued his humming.

Shego opened both the fridge and freezer and began perusing the contents. “We’re out of strawberries…”

“Go figure.”

“Hmmm… I want…piña colada.”

The microwave beeped, and Drakken took out the hot steaming bags and began emptying them into the bowl. His butter sauce was perfect and would be ready to mix in in seconds. And then he fully registered what Shego was asking.

“If we stop to make milkshakes now, the popcorn won’t taste as good.”

“It’s too hot. I want something cold to go with it.”

Drakken pursed his lips, but decided it wasn’t worth the argument.

“All right. You mix the sauce into the popcorn. And only use a pinch of salt!”

“Sheesh. I won’t mess it up, Chef Ramsay.”

Drakken moved quickly, pulling out everything for a piña colada milkshake. He preferred blueberry himself, but he really wanted to taste the popcorn at its best and so would make the sacrifice on his milkshake flavor this time.

He started pouring the coconut milk into the blender when—

“Actually on second thought…I’m in a blueberry mood.”

Drakken clenched his teeth together tightly. He set the coconut milk down and looked over at the giant bowl of popcorn that Shego was lazily stirring with a wooden spoon. He reached over and grabbed a handful and shoved it in his mouth and began humming again as he chewed. The garlic ratio was perfect…

“Hey, what are you doing?”

He poured the coconut milk back into the can and ignored her. Wonderful would be the day when she could just make up her mind…

He ignored her as he got started on a double portion of blueberry shakes. At least he would enjoy that.

“What are you humming? It sounds familiar?”

Drakken smirked.

Shego picked up a single piece of popcorn and chewed on it slowly, waiting.

“It’s from an Italian opera. Rigoletto.”

“Have you sung this at karaoke?”

“No. It’s…too hard for me,” he admitted at the cadence.

Shego’s brow rose. “Oh. What’s it called?”

Drakken’s smirk grew. “La donna e mobile.”

She ate another piece of popcorn. “Uh, translation please? Why is this bowl only half-full…”

Drakken faced her, crossing his arms. “It means ‘the woman is fickle.’”

Shego’s eyes widened for a long moment before narrowing in fury.

“I know you don’t mean to imply that about me.”

Drakken clasped his hands under his chin and batted his eyes, mimicking her voice. “'Should I bring the green bathing suit or the green and black? Never mind, I don’t want a $5,000 vacation to Fiji after all even though the airline tickets are non-refundable.’”

He barely had time to react as she shoved the bowl of popcorn in his face, throwing his hands up just in time. He clutched it close to him and bent forward, saving most of the freshly dressed snack as she stalked away.

“Do you still want blueberry?” he called after her.

He cringed at the curses she shouted back at him.

———

Drakken was immature.

He was as bad as her brothers, every one of them. His only redeeming quality was that he was evil.

Well, that and he actually listened to her when he was about to do something stupid. Most of the time. And he took actual security measures in their lairs.

But his hissy-fits and dramatic meltdowns would be enough to drive her over the edge, if she didn’t have a luxurious salary and a contractual license to mock.

Drakken came in a few minutes later with the popcorn bowl under his arm and milkshakes in hand. She didn’t wait for him to sit before pressing play on the movie again, leaning from left to right as he carefully picked his way through the spilled popcorn in front of her.

“Just step on it,” she said.

“Only if you clean it up tomorrow.”

She crossed her arms and focused on the movie, ignoring the blue man to her right who was again cowering.

Onscreen the hero had just gunned down multiple terrorists in blood-spattering furor whilst performing several acrobatic stunts that looked challenging even for her. The hero—a very well-muscled actor—then kicked down the door where the foreign diplomat was held hostage only find that he was too late. The terrorists had sliced the man’s throat and disemboweled him, leaving his dead body chained to a pole and the bloody evidence on the floor around him in a five-foot radius.

Shego grinned and shoved a handful of popcorn in her mouth. Now this was entertainment.

“Shego!”

She turned to see Drakken hiding under his blanket, only one eye peeking out through a small hole he had created.

“Can we…please watch my movie first?” he asked, his voice shaking.

She frowned. “This isn’t as fun without someone to analyze the strategies with.”

“I know, and…I want to. But please… I promise I’ll stay awake.”

He had started to emerge from his blanket-nest, and she took in his wide eyes, tense shoulders, and trembling lower-lip.

“Are you actually afraid of this?”

He pulled the blanket over his shoulders again. “They…mutilated him,” he said with childlike horror.

Shego closed her eyes in annoyance. “Oy. Fine. We’ll watch yours first.”

Drakken leapt out of his nest and hurried over to the VCR, his face brightening instantly. Shego shook her head and sipped at her milkshake—oh, was it delicious!

How a man his age who committed so much violence himself could be afraid of a little fake gore was beyond her. But he was immature in everything.

“You know Doc, one of these days you’re going to have to grow up.”

He stuck his tongue out at her over his shoulder.

“Excuse me if I prefer my movies more light-hearted.”

Shego looked at the video jacket he tossed aside. The picture was of a couple embracing.

“Oh no, if this is some sappy romance I’m going to bed.”

“It’s a heist movie, Shego. You’ll like it. The romance is just a subplot.”

Shego sat forward and crossed her legs on the sofa. “What’s with you and the romances anyway? It’s not like you ever go in for that stuff in real life.”

Drakken crossed his arms and held his chin up as he returned to the sofa. “I had something special with DNAmy, if you recall.”

“Pshyeah, for like a day. And you cried like a baby when she dumped you and you…you didn’t even really like her! You were only interested in her lair.”

“I did so!” Drakken frowned. “And she liked me too. She saved me from her lizard beast, risking her life for me. Something you failed to do, and you get paid for it.”

“What are you talking about? I save you all the time.”

“Not from that monster. You bailed out of the hover car and left me to crash!”

“Can’t come back to save you if I’m dead. Besides, it was wayyy more fun watching you whine while Amy talked about her actual boyfriend. I mean, you totally fell for her stupid smiles and fake flattery and… Oh man, she played you so hard!”

Drakken’s smugness melted away entirely, and he burrowed into his blanket again and sipped from his milkshake. Shego’s belittling continued until she was laughing, and finally he exploded.

“A real friend wouldn’t make fun of my romantic misadventures, Shego!”

“That wasn’t a romance. It was a schoolyard crush!”

Drakken huddled away from her in the corner of the sofa and pressed play on the remote.

“Shut up.”

“Big baby.”

The movie thankfully opened with an immediate jump into action, an elaborately plotted theft of priceless jewels setting up the main character and his motivations. It silenced Shego for several minutes, but it wasn’t long before the love interest was introduced and she was back to complaining.

“This is boring.”

“It’s a romantic subplot,” Drakken said, eating a few pieces of popcorn.

“It’s the whole plot. The heist is just the thing they have in common!”

“Well it’s your fault for lying to me about your movie not being scary.”

———

Shego was dishonest.

It wasn’t just the movies, which come to think of it, had been scary every week… But it was anything and everything as it suited her whims, as long is it gave her what she wanted.

It had started small, when she told him that no, his new lab coat didn’t make him look fat. But then after Dementor made fun of him at the next HenchCo convention and he questioned her again, she merely smiled and shrugged. As if his reputation meant nothing!

The worst was when she had claimed to be on vacation but instead was giving Senor Senior Junior lessons in villainy. He had been furious. She was using his money to aid other villains, helping them to be successful when she should have been helping him.

He gave her a sidelong glance as he shoved more popcorn in his mouth. She was frowning at the movie.

He was beginning to wonder if she actually thought he was evil. She said he was whenever he asked, but she never said it convincingly…

“Um. Shego?”

“This movie is stupid,” she burst out suddenly.

He blinked. “I picked it for—”

“You’re just gonna fall asleep. I’m switching back to my movie.”

“No!” he shouted, clutching the remote to his chest and frowning deeply.

She raised an agitated brow at him.

His ire had been raised by the thought that she may not think him evil, and that she had been laughing at his ‘immaturity’ as she called it. He didn’t consider being in touch with one’s feelings immature.

“My movie!” he insisted.

She stared him down for several seconds before giving up in a grunt of disgust and slumping on the sofa. Drakken sighed in relief and continued eating popcorn, with his oh-so-delicious butter recipe.

———

Drakken was stubborn.

And it was so much more than movie night, and karaoke night, and bowling night. He insisted on plots to take over the world that had been proven to fail in the past.

The brainwashing shampoo was one of them. He still had the entire back-stock of it taking up half of a storage room, ‘just in case’ he said every time she brought it up. The memory of their other failings with mind control made her shudder. She hated mind control.

But the worst were the killer robots. Robots had been his Achilles heel since before he was evil, and he was still coming up with new schemes for them. After the Smarty Mart stockbots failure she was sure he had a screw loose.

Shego realized she was tensing up and began taking slow, deep breaths. He wasn’t worth getting this worked up over. But everything was getting on her nerves after his crack about her being indecisive.

Whenever she got this worked up over his idiotic ideas she would usually up and leave for a vacation. But she had already used up all of her time for that month, and didn’t want to dip into next month just yet.

Onscreen, the main characters were in their second ‘witty flirting’ phase of the relationship. It was completely shallow, and she wanted to gag.

“Yeah…I’m done with this. I’ve seen exactly five minutes of criminal activity and twenty-five minutes of romance.”

“Shego, I promise it’s a heist movie. They’re just establishing all of the characters.”

She leaned over the popcorn bowl and grabbed for the remote, but he dodged her and stuck his tongue out at her, holding it high above his head.

“You lied about the scary movie. We’re watching mine first!”

She lunged again and the popcorn bowl slid down his blanket like a slide and under the coffee table. He rose up on his knees and held the remote farther away.

“I’m not sitting through another an hour and a half of this. Give it here!”

“No!”

She tackled him against the arm of the sofa and reached for the remote a third time. His back cracked as her full weight fell on his chest and he huffed as the wind was knocked out of him, but he still didn’t yield.

Nose to nose, they exchanged furious glares for several seconds before she slowly backed off of him and smirked. He only had a moment to look worried before she shot a small green blast into his stomach. He yelped in pain and the remote went flying as he grabbed at the stinging wound, and she caught it deftly.

“Finally,” she said, switching the cassettes back with a satisfied smile.

Drakken frowned deeply at her back as he rubbed his injured belly with one hand and pulled his blanket up with the other. He was in for a painful night.

———

Shego was cruel.

Drakken had long since gotten used to the pain of her glow, but he was still taken by surprise each time she used it against him. For everything he did for her, she seemed worse than ungrateful. She seemed to relish in using him and then making him suffer in the knowledge of it.

For years he’d chalked it up to her villainous personality. They were evil, after all. But they were supposed to take over the world together, and her behavior was sometimes…counterproductive.

He’d realized that not even their contract mattered to her when she’d left him in prison twice. She was more than willing to join other villains if it satisfied her drive for mayhem, and she was even willing to prevent him from certain victory. And more than that, she made fun of him while doing so.

Peace officers and vigilante teenagers may thwart his plans, but that was nothing compared to Shego’s many betrayals, always issued with a smirk.

And yet…here he was, insisting she join him for movie night.

Screams of agony and the retort of machine guns sounded from the TV speakers, but he didn’t watch. He curled up in the corner and closed his eyes, sleep the only possible escape.

“'Fraidy cat,” he heard, as he drifted off.

———

When Drakken next opened his eyes his attention was arrested by soft jazz music. He peered out from behind his blanket and saw Shego was exactly where she’d been when he willed himself asleep to hide from her movie, but now she was watching his movie. The popcorn bowl was back on the couch, and nearly empty as she lazily scooped a handful out.

He slowly straightened up, wiping the sleep from his eyes, and she gave him a brief glance.

“Thought you didn’t like romantic movies,” he said hoarsely.

“Shut up. I’m tired,” she said quietly.

Drakken settled down and focused his attention on the moving picture in front of him. His eyes slowly widened as he absorbed the present action and felt a blush rapidly creeping up his cheeks. The so-called romantic subplot was still in the lead and the main characters had arrived at…third base? Home run?

He considered asking Shego for the correct slang, but was far too embarrassed, digging his fingers into the scant remains of the popcorn instead. He would wake up to an actor’s naked butt under a soft-filter moving very suggestively and miss all the real good parts of his movie.

He reached idly for the popcorn again, mostly burned kernels now, and felt around for some something of more substance. His search stopped suddenly when he felt the delicate brush of small fingertips against his, and he froze.

He glanced at where his and Shego’s hands met briefly before looking up and meeting her eyes. Inexplicably, heat rose around his pajama collar and he pulled away in a hurry, wiping his fingers against his flannel.

Shego smirked. “What’s the matter Doc? Too much action for you?”

An ill-timed moan from the actress onscreen made him blush further and he stared away into the dark corner of the room.

“Your fingers are greasy from the butter,” he argued. “How did you eat that much popcorn anyway?”

“I told you to make three bags,” she said, and he saw her shrug out of the corner of his eye.

A sudden strange licking sound forced his eyes back to the screen in curiosity, but the movie wasn’t the source. He turned to see Shego licking the remnants of butter and garlic from her fingers in a way that…something told him was far too slow and deliberate.

“Hnghh… Can you not do that while…while that’s going on?” he snapped, gesturing at the screen.

She froze at his outburst, the tip of her middle finger still touching her puckered lips. She looked confused for a moment, and then her face flushed in anger.

“You creep!” she said, shoving him roughly off the sofa. His tailbone hit the ground hard and he rubbed it as he cowered under her verbal abuse. “At least I don’t wipe my greasy fingers on my pajamas! Ugh, you can be so gross.”

He climbed wordlessly back onto the sofa, wondering why he had let himself get so distracted. The movie action had shifted—thankfully back to the main plot—and he curled his knees to his chest and forced himself to focus.

He wished he hadn’t been asleep for so much of it, seeing how when it did spend time on the crimes it was in great detail, and he could have been taking notes for potential future plots. The movie was more than half over now, and as it went on he failed to understand Shego’s complaint. Yes the romance was prominent, but the villain was wooing the woman over to the wrong side of the law. Surely that was a redeeming quality?

“This is so fake,” she said suddenly.

Apparently not.

“Those two would never last in real life. How two people can be so attracted together when they have so many flaws is ridiculous.”

Drakken leaned his head back and glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t care how much money he wastes, he keeps secrets from her, and he’s not really in it for evil. He’s just bored. And she has an anger problem, she has no trust, and she’d clearly cheat on him if she thought he was cheating on her.”

Drakken hadn’t been paying attention to any of those things and considered them. Yes…okay, she had points. But the fictional couple were clearly in love. Surely they could get past those things?

“People with so many flaws like that will never stay together,” she concluded, crossing her arms and leaning back to mirror his tired pose.

“We stick together,” he said quietly. His eyes suddenly widened. Where had that come from?

He turned his head to find her watching him, apparently analyzing his statement.

“Yeah, but we’re not a couple, Doofus.”

He sat up again, crossing his legs under him. “One could say…we’re better than a couple. Because we don’t have any…ulterior motives keeping us together.”

Shego sat up and turned to face him, likewise crossing her legs. She looked curious now.

“After all. No sane man would maintain a woman as changeable and deceitful and heartless as you,” he said, tossing a few pieces of popcorn into his mouth.

He looked back at her and his eyes widened. That had been the wrong thing to say.

“I’m…what?” she hissed.

“You’re…well…well you’re mean, Shego!” he said, going all-in.

“Puh. And you think you’re some kind of saint, here? Well I’ve got news for you, Dr. D.” She rose up on her knees to glare down at him, hands on her hips. “You’re the biggest sucker that ever walked the earth, and you’re bullheaded and childish. You’re nothing but an overgrown two-year old! You’re lucky I stick with you!”

He held his metaphorical ground against her and met her gaze full-on.

“Why?”

“…What?”

He frowned. “Why don’t you just leave like you’re always threatening to? If I’m such a…pathetic loser, if my personality doesn’t jive with your image, why are you here?”

He regretted the words as they flew out of his mouth, but for some reason he couldn’t stop himself. And he realized when he finished and they were left staring at each other it was because…he really wanted an answer. He knew he wasn’t perfect. He knew he should have a stronger constitution at the sight of blood and that he was far too trusting and that his drive to succeed sometimes bordered on insanity, but…he couldn’t change all at once!

Second passed, and he couldn’t read Shego’s expression.

“Well?” he probed, his heart pounding in fear. Certainly this night would end with him having driven her off once and for all. He was surprised then when she turned the question around on him.

“Why don’t you fire me then, if I’m too evil for your taste?”

He blinked twice and sat back against the sofa again, feeling heat under his collar again. He actually knew this one.

He kept her around because, really…he didn’t care. No matter how much she manipulated and belittled him or wasted his time and money or even blasted him with her green glow, he was…happier with her than without her. The brief severance of their contract after the ‘Warmonga incident’ had shown him that in painful clarity.

He swallowed nervously. “I…I guess it doesn’t…really bother me.”

She sat back on her heels and shook her head at him. “Then why are you making such a big deal out of it?”

He frowned at her. “You’re the one making a big deal. If I’m…such a baby, why don’t you quit?”

In a very rare occurrence, he found himself winning their battle of wills as the tension began to fall out of her shoulders. She didn’t say anything, but continued to look at him as her anger faded into a mix of perplexity and entreating.

She seemed to want him to understand something, but from the look on her face it seemed she didn’t understand it herself. And then his expression opened up as revelation suddenly struck.

For all of her insults and complaints against him…could it be that his weaknesses didn’t really bother her, either?

She apparently arrived at the same conclusion as she bit her lip and turned away, a faint blush on her cheeks. He felt a strange and unfamiliar warmth blooming in his chest as he stared at her, her eyes fixed on the TV again.

“Agh, we’re missing the last heist!” she complained.

He looked at the run time on the VCR and saw that there were only five minutes left in the movie. He settled down and watched as the criminal pulled off an impossible feat, somehow escaping with a rare jewel that had been inside a sealed room, and one that his love interest had made known she wanted.

“I knew it was just about the romance,” Shego complained as the screen showed the woman running after the man, apparently ready to abandon her life for his.

“I like happy endings…” he grumbled, still not quite sure where their oddly halted fight left them.

He felt around in the popcorn bowl again for something more than kernels. He finally arrived at one large perfectly popped piece and was about to take it, when Shego found it too. He looked up at her as they were in the same situation again, her fingertips feather-light against his and the contact sending cool tingles up his wrist.

He didn’t yank his hand away this time when their eyes met, and he found her expression unreadable. He didn’t like it. Why was she looking at him like that? What did it mean?

Then without warning, she leaned closer to him and fluttered her eyelashes, lowering her voice to a sultry tone.

“Come here often?” she teased.

He whirled away with a frown, his face growing hot yet again. What was wrong with her? What was wrong with him?

“I’m going to bed,” he said, gathering up his blanket and stomping away to his room, missing the final passionate embrace of the couple onscreen.

Shego rolled her eyes and turned back to the TV, dropping the last piece of popcorn in her mouth and then licking the butter from her fingers.

“Maybe sometimes I like happy endings too…” she muttered.

-fin-

#kim possible #drakken #shego #drakgo #dragko #drakken x shego #shego x drakken #fanfiction #fanfic #writing prompt #bcbdrums

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puffdragongirl · 5 years

Text

In Name Only - Team Really Royalty Reveal

Set several weeks after the events of Catch

After another endless day of squinting at notebooks, Ryuu closes the door to the pharmacy and turns blindly towards his quarters. He had been expecting a challenge – even looking forward to it – when he was granted the position of Wilant’s Head Pharmacist. He had imagined most of the difficulty would come from dealing with staffing the largely empty roster or interacting with the members of the frosty Northern court. What he hadn’t been expecting was the entire wing to be a disorganized mess of cabinets full of questionable contents, drawers crammed with mysterious vials, and spotty, near-illegible notes. Many days the sheer chaos of the pharmacy he’d inherited made him want to throw the poorly-kept logbooks out the window and retreat under his desk to scream into his pillow, but somehow Obi’s supportive humor and Shirayuki’s unflagging determination had managed to keep him sane long enough to get most of the supplies identified, labeled, and properly catalogued in the imminently sensible Lyrias style.

Speaking of Obi and Shirayuki, the only thing keeping Ryuu going tonight is anticipation for their weekly shared dinner. Although Obi still spends a good part of his time helping out in the pharmacy, his conscription to helping out with the paperwork surrounding Prince Zen’s permanent relocation meant he often took meals in the Prince’s office rather than the pharmacy. Not to say meals with Shirayuki alone aren’t enjoyable – they are. He just always feels that something is missing. He didn’t realize the missing piece was Obi until the fiasco with the sprained wrist a few weeks back had kept him away from paperwork (“Pens are different than knives, Miss Kiki!” he had exclaimed when Kiki had inquired about his apparent ambidextrousness, which did not extend towards writing with his left hand, “I had more pressing things to worry about at the time than writing legibly.”). Despite frequent whining about not being allowed to climb things occurring every day of those two weeks, the knight’s presence back at their lunch table those two weeks made everything feel right again. Ryuu tries not to think too hard about what the warm and fuzzy feeling being with Shirayuki and Obi means (They are not his parents. They aren’t.), but he does make a point to never miss their weekly meals.

As he approaches his rooms, the scent of roasting meats and savory spices grows stronger. Getting to eat delicious food is another benefit of sharing a meal with Obi. Pushing open his door, he follows his nose directly to the kitchen, where Shirayuki is setting places at his table while Obi stirs a steaming stirfry at the range. They are deep in conversation, although he only catches the tail end of it.

“And Master wants what, from us, exactly?” Obi asks, flipping the contents of his wok in the air to keep them moving.

“He asked if we heard anything about it in our travels,” she replies, setting a pitcher of water on the table before settling in her chair, “Apparently, one of the rumors was that the heir went North.”

“Hmmm…” Obi hums, face contemplative as he adds some last-minute seasonings to the dish, “I can’t recall hearing anything of the sort.” He thinks for a few minutes more, then shoots a sly grin across the counter, “Then again, I didn’t spend as much time with the gossips as you did, Miss.”

Shirayuki sputters, color blooming in her cheeks as she protests, “Look here, I don’t believe for a second that guards don’t gossip just as much as-”

“Gossip about what?” Ryuu interrupts, resisting the urge to smile fondly. Months on the road with the two of them taught him they would bicker and tease each other endlessly given the chance.

“Little Ryuu!” Obi calls, raising his spatula in greeting, “Dinner is almost ready!”

“Oh, Ryuu!” Shirayuki echoes, sending an unrepentant Obi a look but dropping the argument for now, “You’re just in time; we could use your help with this.”

As Shirayuki explains the situation, he wanders over to the counter, grabbing a mug from the table and filling it with water. He leans against the counter as Shirayuki speaks. It sounds like any other story of greedy nobles at first – a “missing” heir, with younger half-siblings looking to take their place – but something about the story sets him on edge.

“…So essentially, it is rumored that there is a son from his first marriage that would have the claim on the title, but no one has seen him for many years or is sure that he ever really existed.” Shirayuki frowns as she recaps the background, “I’m not sure why they didn’t try to figure this out sooner, especially since it sounds like the child would have been young when he went missing…” She shakes her head, and gets back on track, “Anyway, now that the previous title holder has passed, they need to figure things out as quickly as possible. The widow sent a petition for her child to be declared the official heir, but Zen wants to look into the claim of the older child first, to make sure the widow’s claim is valid.”

“What was the last name again?” Obi asks when she finishes, shuffling the pan absently to keep the stir fry from burning, “Ga-something, right?” He turns off the heat and starts piling the steaming dish on a serving platter, “Galirat? Galiro? Gabirin?”

He makes several more attempts at the name, and a chill runs down Ryuu’s spine, but he pushes his worries down. It had been years, nearly a decade, and it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be…

“Gaboriault,” Shirayuki corrects, and somehow, what he feared is true, and it feels like his whole world has dropped out from under him.

His mug drops from suddenly nerveless fingers, but he barely registers the clatter of porcelain breaking against the floor. The room spins and his ears ring as panic threatens to consume him. There are gasps, voices asking if he is okay, wondering what is wrong, but he doesn’t hear anything over the pleas racing through his mind. No, no. Please no. Please don’t make me go back, not when I’m finally happy, finally me.

Overwhelmed, he flees, leaving the broken pottery and the alarmed calls of Obi and Shirayuki behind.

It shouldn’t surprise him that it doesn’t take them long to find him. He is curled up under his desk, leaning against the back wall with his knees pulled tight to his chest. After several years of growth spurts, he is perhaps too tall now for it to be a perfect fit, but he is comforted by the familiarity of the small space all the same. Barely ten minutes have passed before he hears the pharmacy door open, and although their words are too quiet to make out, he would recognize their voices anywhere.

Even colored with distress, he finds their familiar back-and-forth comforting. Shirayuki first, her concern evident in the wavering tone and rapid pace of her words. Obi next, voice deep and steady as he soothes her, but touched with the slightest hint of strain. Their voices separate, and he hears the quiet sound of footsteps echo through the room. One set, still somewhat unfamiliar given he has only heard them a handful of times despite their long acquaintance, draws close to his desk, and the fabric separating his nook from the world parts to reveal Obi’s face peering in at him. His mouth is set in that way that means he is worried, and Ryuu can’t quite meet his gaze, upset with himself for worrying them.

“Over here, Miss,” Obi summons Shirayuki to the desk and before he knows it, somehow all three of them are wedged in the space, with Ryuu pressed securely in the middle. Although he can feel their concern, they don’t speak, content for now to have found him. He soaks in the comfort to their presence, and eventually unbends enough to explain.

“You probably guessed this,” he begins, staring hard at his clenched hands, “I am the ‘missing’ son they are looking for.” He can’t help the bitter laugh that spills from his lips, “Or maybe it’s better to say, the one they are hoping not to find.”

“They told me my mom… died right after I was born,” he continues, and now that the words have started, the story just tumbles out, “I’m not sure if my father really cared about her, but I know he didn’t wait long to remarry.” Ryuu didn’t have any memories without his father’s second wife, and his half-brother was only a year or so younger than him, so his father couldn’t have waited more than a couple of months to remarry. “She was…ambitious, to say the least, and resented that her children couldn’t inherit because the orphan a dead woman was still hanging around.”

“My father was always very busy, and more often than not was in Wilant or Wistal on some kind of business,” Ryuu could probably count on one hand the number of times he had spoken with the man, “He never really had time for any of his children, so the housekeeper and maids looked after me.” He pauses for a moment, then admits quietly, “I’m not sure I even remember what my father looked like.”

“Oh, Ryuu…” Shirayuki breathes, and her hand reaches out to wrap around his tightly-clasped fists. Obi says nothing, but his arm does settle across the stiff line of Ryuu’s shoulders. Neither of them miss the implication that, even if Ryuu wasn’t neglected, precisely, he was never really cared for either.

“It wasn’t so bad,” he offers, weakly, “I spent most of my time with the gardener, and that’s how I found out about plants and herbs.” He will always remember her patient explanations of which plants were used for food, and which for medicine, and the best times to harvest them both. He tells them how, once his questions had outpaced her knowledge, she started to bring him books from the library. “And one benefit of growing up…where I did… was the size of the library. There were books in the collection I didn’t see again until the library at Lyrias.”

“One day, she brought me the old gardener’s notebook,” he can still see the notebook, carefully kept despite the decade or so since the man’s departure from the property, “I found an old advertisement looking for apprentice pharmacists in Wistal Palace inside.” The yellowed paper had slipped from its place tucked between two pages detailing a particularly grueling insect extermination. It had seemed like a salvation, a way to escape the indifference of his father, and the resentment of the woman who could have been his mother. “I knew it was crazy, but it seemed like the only way out.”

He finishes his story, describing how he packed a bag with his clothes, the pocket and gift monies he had gathered over the years, and the notes he had compiled from the gardener and the library books; the way he researched the roads to and from Wistal from some maps his father stored in his office; and finally, the way he left in the dead of the night.

“I would call it running away, but that place was never really a home to me.” Drained by the telling, he leans back into the arm still around his shoulder, and fiddles his fingers against the grasp still warm against his hands. They sit in silence for a moment, then he asks, “Are you…going to tell Prince Zen?”

The pharmacy is dark, but he sees them turn to each other anyway, communicating in that silent way of theirs. What must be only a few minutes, but feels like hours, passes, before Obi moves to face him.

“Let’s start with this,” Obi proposes, “What is it that you want to do, Little Ryuu?”

“I don’t want to go back there,” he admits, the words leaving him in a rush, “I like it here. I like the pharmacy, even if it’s a mess right now. I like having dinner together, and traveling to get plants, and complaining together about how terrible fancy parties are…” He scrambles away from them, or at least as far as the cramped space allows, and bows his head, “My home is here, with you. With the both of you, wherever you are. Please…please let me stay with you.”

There is a beat of silence, then a slender hand is reaching for his chin, tilting his head to meet watery green eyes and a wobbly smile.

“Of course you can stay,” Shirayuki assures, her eyes taking on that familiar glint of determination, “If I have anything to do with it, I hope we can stay together always.” Her gaze drifts to Obi’s, and she admits, “All of us; no matter where we go, it feels like home because we are together.”

“You heard her, Little Ryuu,” Obi grins, and reaches a hand out to ruffle his hair, “And you know wherever the Miss goes, I follow.” His grin softens to a soft smile, “I guess you’re stuck with us both for the long haul.”

If the three of them spend the next quarter hour hugging, at least two of them crying at any given moment, at least no one outside the family would ever know.

The next day, Obi reports to Zen that none of them heard anything about the missing Gaboriault heir during their travels through the North. Indeed, given the ways of the North, where rumors were just as often born of boredom than grains of truth, they suspected the heir, if there had ever really been one, was long gone by now, and wanted nothing to do with the title. However, if you were to listen carefully to conversations on quiet days in the pharmacy, when only the three of them were around, you might hear the occasional reference to Ryuu, Lord and Master of the Pharmacy. And that was one title that Ryuu was happy to bear, as long as it stayed between the three of them.

#obiyukimadness19 #championship round #really royalty reveal #I mean #this is more happy family feels #featuring somewhat OOC Ryuu?#but hopefully the obiyuki comes through too #obiyuki #shirayuki #ryuu #obi #ans #puff writes

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fandom-of-the-day · 5 years

Text

it was real and it was beautiful

Chapter 3 on AO3

The monster stumbled into the safehouse, swaying with each step.

Seeing the monster, Quentin fought back the visceral reaction he had every time he saw it. That was Eliot’s face. Before he knew, he was able to block out what the Monster looked like, pretend it was another weird magic thing or a shapeshifter or something. But that illusion was gone the minute he found out Eliot was alive in there. That body was Eliot’s body. Q tried not to remember all the ways he knew Eliot’s body. That monster was violating him and there wasn’t anything Q could do about it. All he could see is Eliot when he looked at the Monster and he hated the Monster for it.

Eliot was trapped in there and the only way Q knew how to save him was to help the Monster get a new body.

“I almost got his by one of those...what do you call them? A big moving box.” The Monster said this offhandedly, as if he were commenting on the weather or another everyday, normal occurrence.

Quentin wondered for a minute what the hell a moving box was before it hit him. He felt the blood start to drain out of his face. Shit. The Monster had almost gotten hit by a bus. Eliot had almost gotten hit by a bus. The Monster had left the safe house for who knows how many hours and had done something that nearly got Eliot killed. An urgency started to form in Q’s gut. Something even stronger than what he’d felt before.

Q couldn’t stop himself from speaking. “You have to be careful!”

The Monster looked at him, like he was trying to determine if he was a threat. He had been extremely warm to Quentin, a weird imprint that must have come about after Q offered to stay with him.

“Why would I stop if it makes me happy?” The Monster spoke like a child, and not for the first time, Quentin wanted to scream. The Monster was an actual child. A murdering, all powerful child. Who had stolen Eliot from him.

“We found a lead!” Julia rushed into the room. She touched his back gently before looking at the Monster. She held her book out towards him gently. He took it carelessly and barely glanced at the pages.

“What do these words tell me?” He tossed it to the side.

Julia winced. “There was an ancient tomb that the locals said was a source of great healing magic. If the gods sealed part of your body away, this sounds like a good place to start.”

It was grasping at straws, but what else did they have?

“Hmmm.” The Monster finally glanced at the content of the book. Then he vanished.

“God, I’m thankful you found something.” Q sighed. Even if it was a longshot, if it panned out it took them one step closer to saving Eliot.

Julia grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the living room. She was saying, “Who knows how long we have until he gets back. We need to use this time to see if there’s a way to stop him.”

She sat down on the couch and opened one of the dozens they had laying around.

Quentin plopped down beside her. “We need to figure out a way to get him out of Eliot. Maybe other methods besides this building a body one.” He picked up a different book, Magicians and Zombies. He tossed it back in the pile. “We can worry about stopping him later.”

The Monster was starting to get careless. Every second Eliot’s life could be in danger and they couldn’t afford to waste time. The had to free him soon.

“Well we can’t exactly look up ways to stop him while he’s standing over our shoulder. We tried that. It didn’t work.” She wasn’t saying he ruined the plan, but he knew what they all thought. They had a perfect opportunity to permanently banish the Monster and he’d stopped that plan. But that plan was created when they thought Eliot was dead. Q could not stand to think about what would have happened if he didn’t jump in front of Eliot when Alice threw the stone’s blood at him.

“Come on, Q. You know we need to do this. Stop wasting time.” Julia said. She didn’t sound unkind, but Quentin sat back in shock at her words.

Wasting time? That was the lastthing he wanted to do. Now more than ever he felt the seconds as they went by. He wasn’t wasting time.Eliot was the priority here. He was the one on a time table. If they didn’t save Eliot soon, who knows what the Monster would do. They could worry about stopping the Monster once Eliot was safe.

Before he could say anything more, Julia grabbed his arm. “Wait!”

He looked at her expectantly. But she jumped up and hurried to the next room. Q followed her. She rushed over to the book and then pulled out her phone.

“That’s what I thought!” She exclaimed.

“Mind telling the room what it is that’s going on?” Seriously, what could she have found in such a short time?

She opened up the book first and pointed to a paragraph. “It talks here about an ancient tomb. The name sounded familiar but I couldn’t figure out why. Then I realized I saw it on the news a few months ago. That tomb was excavated and the artifacts brought here! We can get there in half an hour if we take a cab.”

“You mean we sent a monster halfway across the world and it turns out the next possible stone could be here?” What kind of luck was that?

“I wouldn’t wait around for him to get back.” Julia threw on her coat and made for the door. Quentin followed her out.

It was a quiet ride over as they both pored over their phones, searching for any details on the exhibit that would help them. It wasn’t open to the public yet, which meant they’d have to sneak in. They could probably manage that easily with magic, but what were they supposed to do when they found the room? What were they even really looking for? He hoped he’d know it when he saw it.

Sneaking past the guards was surprisingly easy. They almost didn’t need magic at all. Perhaps after the bank heist everything was easy to break into. There were no super secret magician wards here.

It took over an hour to find the right room. They quietly shut the door behind them and stared into the poorly lit room. The artifacts were scattered all over the room, but the casket sat at the center, it’s closed lid undisturbed. Q and Julia looked at each other and they both knew; they were going to have to open that.

“Quentin.”

They both jumped back. Quentin bumped into a crate and the vase sitting on top of it fell to the floor, breaking. Shit, he’d really just broken a thousand year old artifact.

The Monster was smiling at them. “You found it too!” He exclaimed. “I found the tomb but it was empty. I was sad so I found some playthings. Then they told me it was here!” His speech was slurred as he spoke.

“Are you drunk” Julia asked.

“This body hearts tequila.” The Monster took a swaying step. “When I’m happy. When I’m sad. When I’m bored with how long this is taking.” Could godlike creatures get drunk? He knew Eliot was certainly capable of it.

“And do you have any idea where we can find the next stone here?” Julia asked.

He placed his hand on the casket. “Why don’t we just ask someone who was there.”

Watching a resurrected mummy write in hieroglyphics was not the weirdest way Quentin had ever spent his afternoon. For a moment, Q felt productive. Watching the mummy and piecing together his writing was something he could finally do. Of course it turned out Heka’s burial site had also been looted, so the stone was still gone. They were no closer to finding it than before. He had needed this to be a win.

He glanced over at Julia. She had been helping every step of the way, even if sometimes it was done reluctantly. She didn’t agree with his priorities and didn’t seem to understand why they needed to focus on saving Eliot first. She didn’t understand how important this was, yet she was still here. He felt grateful to her, but also frustrated. They needed to save Eliot. Letting him die wasn’t an option.

After dealing with the mummy, the Monster whisked them back to the safehouse using his magic. Funny name for this place. A safehouse. There had not been a moment in this house when they were all safe.

They had two pieces, but no leads on how to get the third. And who knew how many there were total? The weight of the day and their task sat heavy on him. Had he really put all this effort into today, into getting into the museum and decoding the mummy’s words, only to be no closer to saving Eliot? Each second they were closer to something bad happening, he could feel it. They needed to save Eliot fast.

The Monster had disappeared again, off to look for more clues on Heka Quentin was sure. Everytime he left now Q felt a pang of uncertainty. Is this going to be the last time he sees Eliot? The Monster was getting careless and the only person in danger from that was Eliot. At least when he could see the Monster, he knew that Eliot was alive in there.

He only had a moment to his thoughts before Julia was pulling him by the arm. “We need to read.” Unlike before, she left no room for argument. Q wasn’t going to waste time either. If she wanted to look up ways to stop the Monster, fine. But he was not going to be distracted from finding the next stone or a way to save Eliot.

Usually when he and Julia worked they could either do so in comfortable silence. They could do this for hours unless one of them was in a stupid mood and decided to annoy the shit out of the other. That had made up many of their college experience before Brakebills. But the silence they had between now was awkward and uncomfortable. Somewhere in the past few days a tension had started to grow. They didn’t agree on the next steps to take, so they both sat on the couch, reading different books with different views. Quentin tried not to grow bitter at Julia’s refusal to acknowledge that saving Eliot was the most important thing and should be their number one priority. Even if she kept saying that, she was also doing what she could to help and that was more than any of their other friends.

He couldn’t handle the silence any longer. “Look...I just. I just need to focus on one thing right now. That’s all I’m saying.” He couldn’t say more. That would be saying too much.

Julia looked up at him, surprised he’d broken the silence. “Q.” She started, but he interrupted.

“There’s just been so much going on and I think we always do better when we focus on one problem and not try to solve everything at once. Like with the keys we kept to the quest, right?” Well not fully, but close enough. He just wanted her to know he couldn’t focus on stopping the Monster. Not until they had Eliot back.

“We need to know what to do when the Monster gets his body back.” Julia pointed out. She wasn’t wrong.

“Of course we do. But we can’t do that until we save Eliot.” They’d have to worry about stopping the Monster eventually, but it was pointless to come up with that plan until they knew Eliot was safe. “We also need to find Heka and this stone.”

“We’re going to find the stone.” Julia put her hand on his arm reassuringly.

The sound of rummaging drew their attention. Someone was going through the drawers in the next room and if Q wasn’t so used to people coming and going from the penthouse apartment, he’d be more concerned. As it was, he stood up and made his way over to the next room, opening the door to see the Monster digging though drawers. Julia was right behind him.

***

Julia watched as the Monster pulled the drawers aparts. His movements were wild and frantic, so unlike anything she’d seen from him before. Since the start of the day she’d been noticing his uncoordination, but he’d still acted slowly and methodically. Now he was frantic, his movements rushed.

“What are you doing?” Quentin asked loudly.

The Monster was shoving things to the side, digger into more drawers until he found a bottle of pills. He held it up triumphantly before Q snatched it away.

The Monster barely had to lift a finger to send Q crashing against the wall. Fear crept into Julia as she ran to Quentin’s side. She knelt down beside him, looking for injuries.

He panted against the wall. “Those pills can kill you!” He said, his voice trembling with emotions.

The Monster started to pick up the scattered pills from the floor. “I’ll take a new body.” He said apathetically. His frantic movements, his sudden drinking, the pills, all of it suddenly made sense. Eliot had struggled with addictions and now his body was giving the Monster those cravings he’d started to fight.

“You kill Eliot,” Q spoke as he stood up against the wall, “you can forget about us helping you.”

The Monster dropped the pills. He stood up and walked menacingly towards them. Julia felt the fear grow stronger. While she might be indestructible, this creature could kill Q without a thought.

“Eliot, Eliot, Eliot.” He didn’t blink as he came closer. “Why do you care about him so much.”

“Because I do.” Quentin stared at the Monster, never breaking eye contact. “You kill him and we’re done. I swear to god I am serious. I will abandon you and I will die trying to burn you to the ground.” Q wasn’t speaking as if he were afraid. He was staring at the Monster and his words were so passionate, Julia knew he meant everyone . Oh god.

She started to see what was going on.

“That’s cute.” The Monster was in Q’s face now. He placed a hand on Q’s neck. “But I’m strong.” Another hand. “And you’re weak.” He squeezed.

Julia was terrified. She had not magic and nothing she could do would save Q.

“Break my bones.” Q started talking through the Monster’s grip. His voice was hoarse. “Strangle me. Too tired to care anymore.”

“Q…” Julia couldn’t breath. She couldn’t do anything.

He wasn’t done. “You hurt him, you take one more pill, and you can build your body on your own.”

For a second, Julia thought this was it. Her body was frozen in place and she was going to watch her best friend die. The Monster’s grip tightened on Q’s throat. Quentin never flinched.

After what felt like an eternity, the Monster let Quentin go. “Fine. I’ll take better care of the meatsuit. You don’t have to be such a baby about it.”

The Monster took a step back and turned to walk away. It was like the scene had never happened. Except Q’s neck was red and his words were ringing in Julia’s ears. They needed to talk.

She took a step towards Q, but he turned to her and gave her a look. If she had known him any less than half her life she would have wilted back. As it was, she took a step closer and gently touched the side of his neck.

“It’ll probably bruise.” She spoke softly.

Quentin shrugged. “Oh well.”

She struggled to know what to say. There were so many things he’d revealed in the last few minutes and they each felt important. They needed to be addressed and he needed to know she was there for him. But she could see from the look in his eyes that he was not going to address the last things he’d said. She was scared. She’d known him all her life and had seen him in bad episodes before. But somehow she had missed how bad this one was. What kind of friend was she? She’d known he wasn’t doing well but hadn’t taken the time to actually ask him how he was. She shouldn’t made time.

A voice in the back of her mind reminded her that she had known, but had also seen he wasn’t willing to talk right now. She ignored it to focus on what she could do right now.

“Q, we’re going to save Eliot.” God, that was the other thing. It finally made sense, Q’s desperation to save Eliot. She had thought it was because Q considered him a friend, and of course Q would do anything for his friends, but this was different. This was so much different. She heard it in what he didn’t say. It made sense now. It was like the final piece that was missing was found.

“I know.” He said weakly. All his conviction from earlier was gone.

“How long have you…” She trailed off. How was she supposed to ask him this?

Quentin pulled back from her quickly. “How long have I what?” His voice was hard, his eyes narrow and flitting around. He wouldn’t make eye contact.

She folded her arms across her chest. “Q. What Eliot means to you, I get it.”

He let out a derisive laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s stop wasting time, we have books to read.” He turned his back on her. “Since we’re the only ones actually looking for a way to do this, I’m not going to waste my time talking about something that doesn’t matter.”

She walked behind him back to their workspace. Doesn’t matter? Of course Q’s feelings mattered. And Eliot clearly mattered to him, more than she had even considered. “Well,” she spoke slowly. “They might be more willing to help if they knew more of what was going on.”

Q looked up at her. “They’re all working on their own little quests right now, right? Alice is doing god knows what, Kady hasn’t been around but to eat every few days, Penny’s playing a disappearing act, and Margo was sent Fillory.”

Julia and Q froze at the same moment. She watched as his eyes widened in horror along with her own. “Margo.” They breathed out.

Shit. She didn’t know Eliot was alive.

#queliot #queliot fic #the magicians #the magicians fanfiction #the magicians fanfic

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ariesbilly · 5 years

Note

i know its probably out of nowhere but that conversation in season one between fp and fred outside the bar when archie shows up in the whyte wyrm - what happened there? i feel like a rekindling is a possibility

theres so much goddamn shit to unpack in that scene you think the fact that 2 seasons of terrible characterization and writing have gone by means im over it? absolutely not.

FIRST OF ALL we have fp spotting archie IMMEDIATELY and calling fred up to come collect his boy. A GOOD DAD!

AND THEN you have fp joking and shit but as soon as archies serious about accusing him of going after fred and his company??? BITCH FPS WHOLE MOOD CHANGES BECAUSE HE WOULD NEVER!

“you think ive been waiting all these years to get back at your old man? no, kid. life’s too short” I! HE! OKAY! wow fp i dont know... you may not have been plotting your revenge but it sure as hell sounds like SOMEBODYS BEEN ON YOUR MIND ALL THIS TIME! DONT KNOW WHO! HMMM. also do you think that line about life being too short haunts him now since fred was shot and almost died.... i know it haunts me. just some thoughts!

OOF and then fp immediately locking his eyes on freds truck as he’s pulling up and does NOT turn away even when hes still talking to archie. my god he’s in love...

AND THEY FIGHT. LIKE GODDAMN EXES. freds standing there with his hands on his hips (in his pockets? hes in a Stance™ i know that much), “so, what? you’re a serpent now?” HE LITERALLY FINISHES FPS SENTENCE. HE CUTS HIM OFF CUZ HE ALREADY KNOWS WHERE THIS ARGUMENT IS GOING AND THE OF THEM ARE SITTING THERE WITH THIS SARCASTIC BANTER LIKE ARE YOU SERIOUS? HELLO??? THEY DATED. THIS SHIT IS SO FAMILIAR WITH THE TWO OF THEM

AND THEN!!! fp sincerely asking fred if he really thinks fps capable of what he’s being accused of and fred has to look away because no! he doesnt believe that! because he knows fp!

and from there its just the two of them having a genuine honest open moment with each other. fps so concerned about fred and the state of his business EVEN AFTER WE ALREADY KNOW HE’S BITTER ABOUT BEING FIRED! and fred lays it out as blunt as possible, and fp doesnt even HAVE TO BE ASKED, OKAY! HE TAKES IT UPON HIMSELF TO HELP FRED BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL HE’S GONNA LEAVE FRED HANGING!

and the delicious buttercream frosting on this cake of a scene is of course fp reaching out to pat fred for literally no goddamn reason hes just so compelled to touch him and... thats real. i feel that. this... touch starved gay god help him. telling fred he’s gonna pull through? because he always does ??? my heart! that scene truly wrecked me also the fact that while all this was going down fp clearly mustve saw archie hop out the truck and leave but he was having a moment with his boyfriend he didnt want to be interrupted can you blame him?

like they deadass had this beautiful scene together, that couldve been the building blocks to GREAT development and reconciliation, but beyond fp showing up to the construction site after we literally get nothing of the two of them again until fucking 21 episodes into the second season thats.... truly some bullshit i have never forgiven idk why ras is so afraid to give them an actual relationship like sorry but fred and fp have THE most compelling relationship and history of anybody on this goddamn show (and yes i will absolutely fight everybody on that) and the fact that it gets paid dust ??? im annoyed.

#wasnt expecting to do a full blown analysis tonight but here we are #fredsythe #briana answers things #Anonymous

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kurt-nightcrawler · 6 years

Text

Demon Angel Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Warnings: swearing, mention of sex, and Scott is kinda rude??

A/N: Idk where this series is going. I just wanna keep writing bc I’ve procrastinated far too long and ya’ll liked it a lot

tags: @gummiwormsandonedirection

“Kurt huh? I can see it. I kinda like the whole devil and angel vibe.” “Jubilee! Hush!”

“Just saying, he’s single. So is Warren. Literally all of my friends are single except Jean and Scott, and they’re dating each other!” “Whose Scott?” “Glasses.” “Oh. Okay.”

“So what is he like?” “Who, Kurt?” “Him, Warren, Scott, and Peter. I kinda need to know…”

Jubilee let out a laugh, “You seem interested in them. Is it cause you got a crush?” “No! No. I just need more friends.” Jubilee let out a fake gasp, “Am I not enough for you?” “You’re great, it’s just…”

Your eyes trailed over to Kurt. He was talking to Jean. You eyed his tail. You had a tail, but always hid it. He never hid it. Then again, he didn’t have angel wings.

“(Y/N)! (Y/N)! Earth to (Y/N)!”

“What?” “You zoned out. You okay?” You shook your head, “I’m fine. Just a bit nervous I guess.” “Don’t be! You’re doing great! Anyways I gotta head to English with Professor Xavier. I’ll see you later, kay?”

“Wait, you’re just gonna leave me?” “You said you needed to know what the rest of our friend group is like. You gotta spend time with them.”

“But I’m socially awkward!” You groaned in response. Jubilee smirked, “Good luck!” And left you to your own devices.

“Great. Biology with...” You looked for the teacher’s name of who’d teach your class on your schedule. “Dr. McCoy? Sounds… fun.” You quickly made your way to McCoy’s room.

You were early and in the classroom were a few students and Dr. McCoy. You scanned the classroom for anyone who looked friendly or at least familiar.

“Hey, (Y/N).” “Hey, Scott.” Scott didn’t respond. His nose was buried in a Star Wars comic.

‘Well this is going great.’ “Jubilee told me you’re dating Jean.” “What about it?” “I dunno. I’m trying to find something to talk about. I wanna have some more friends and-”

Scott put his comic book down, “Look, (Y/N). You don’t seem half bad. It’s not that we don’t like you, it’s just our group has been through a lot. Together. You can’t expect us all to welcome you in and trust you completely.”

You were getting enraged by Scott’s speech. “I’m not asking you to. I just wanted to make small talk. You don’t have to be a dick about it.” “All I said was, it’s going to take time for everyone to easily welcome you to the group.” “Personally, I think you’re the only one who doesn’t like me.” “Warren only pays you any attention because he thinks you’d be a good fling, Kurt is nice and innocent to everyone, Jubilee is friends with almost everyone in the building, and you’ve never had any time with Jean, Ororo, or Peter yet.”

“Fine then. Be a dick about it.” You got up and moved to a different spot in the classroom.

“Hey, angel.” “Oh. Hey Warren.” “Why’d you move seats?” “I got into an argument with Scott. I don’t think he likes me too much.”

“I don’t see why. You’re nice, got right amount of family issues, fucked up but not too fucked up, and you’re into nerd stuff, but also some mainstream crap too. You fit well in our group.” “He said I need to take time and can’t force myself into your friend group. Which I figured, but I was just trying to make small talk with him! He got kinda upset for no good reason.”

“Scott’s been through some stuff. He doesn’t like change or letting new people in... But I’m sure he’ll warm up to you eventually.”

“In the mean time, you’ve got me. And Kurt.”

“Hmm?” “I think he’s got a thing for you. Or maybe it’s the angel wing thing. He’s really religious so he likes angels a lot.” “What about you? What are you into? All Jubilee said was you’ve got wings like me too and we should date.”

“I dunno. I hang around Kurt. I listen to music. I go for flights. I’m honestly pretty boring and Scott doesn’t like me either. Wanna hook up?”

...

“...”

Did he seriously just ask you if you wanted to hook up?! Sure,he’s hot, and he’s probably great in bed, but you’ve known Warren for like, a day at most!

“I’ll take that as a no-” “Hold on bird boy.” He gave the nickname a dirty look. “Ask me that again in a month. Once I’ve gotten to know you, and then I’ll answer.”

“A month, hmm? Alright. I can do that.”

After class you were desperate to find Jubilee.

“Hey girl! How was it on your own?” “Jubes, your friends are whack. Scott hates me and Warren asked if I’d hook up with him and we ended up talking some more so I said I’d give an answer in a month because we’ve only just met.”

“yOU WERE GOING TO GET LAID BY THE ANGEL?! AND YOU ASKED TO WAIT?! I mean, sure you just met him, but HE IS LITERALLY A GOD AMONG MEN! Even guys wanna get with him!”

“I just met him! I want to explore my options, see if he’s what I like-” “You wanna explore, that option? Hmmm?” Jubilee smirks and elbows you, motioning at Kurt.

“Shut it! I just think Kurt’s cool is all.” “O-kay, girl. If you say so.”

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derpcakes · 6 years

Text

Time to write up KnK movie SIX, aka Golly Gee That Was a Tonal Shift! feat. Azaka (Also Shiki Does a Whole Fight Scene With a Butterknife and It’s Lowkey the Best Part of the Movie)

-Seriously the opening to this movie is downright surreal in contrast to the rest of them... the peppy piano music over the opening title? Azaka’s first person narration where she tells us about herself and it feels like the voiceover should be over a scene of her running to school with toast in her mouth or something? Azaka looking over her shoulder and winking at the camera??? In a bold experiment with style, ufotable has decided that this movie will be framed as a vlog post

Azaka: That’s all for now my lovelies! If you want more supernatural mysteries like this, make sure to hit that like button!

Shiki: who are you talking to

-In this opening narration Azaka also cheerfully informs the audience that she’s in love with her older brother and has organised her whole adolescent life around trying to get him to feel the same way, including moving away so they don’t grow up together and the psychological instinct that prevents incest doesn’t kick in

-Touko never does anything--least of all HELP anyone--without a personal motive. So I’m 99% sure Touko hired Azaka just to see what sort of entertaining disaster would happen by giving this child fire powers

-Touko if the city burns down I am holding you responsible

-(Touko knows this,and probably has twelve fake passports and three fake bodies ready to disappear into the night and have her office replaced by a hardware store within hours of this happening)

-Anyway, Touko forces Shiki and Azaka into a Get Along Shirt and sends them to investigate a school together. Because of course Azaka loooooathes Shiki for getting between her and her brother, because the Universe heard me happily talking about how movie 5 didn’t have a love triangle

This is actual dialogue between Shiki and Azaka:

youtube

-Look I’m honestly mad because “I can see someone I care about becoming embroiled in crazy supernatural shit thus I vow to become EVEN BETTER at crazy supernatural shit to protect them” is definitely not a bad character motivation, in fact it’s really quite heartwarming, but here it’s framed a) as comic rather than with any dramatic weight, and b) through incestuous romantic desires and envious rage rather than...... god, anything else would have been fine, really. There are perfectly valid reasons to see Shiki as threatening and someone you don’t want your cherished relatives near, but this potentially interesting moral conundrum of whether or not we should trust the series’ protagonist (which could have made a really tense argument between the siblings as well as a poignant question to the audience) is set aside in favour of love triangle shenanigans that none of the characters beside Azaka herself even seem to take particularly seriously. It’s a weirdly shallow (and as I said weirdly comedic) departure from what’s become the norm in the character drama in these movies. And because this weirdly shallow, weirdly comedic relationship melodrama is given so much focus thanks to this film being an episode of Azaka’s vlog, it makes the other conflicts and character dramas--including those of the villains--feel shallow to match, since there isn’t enough time and weight spent on them to flesh them out properly.

-If I seem mad at Azaka it is because I’m mad at her wasted potential, lack of depth, jarring out-of-nowhere cuteness and ultimate lack of satisfying motivation or character development. And you know what’s wild?? This problem sounds as familiar as Azaka looks. It serves as foreshadowing for a lot of the problems ufo adaptations will have with Rin in future days. Though at least incest-played-as-a-character-quirk wasn’t one of those problems....

-Someone in power at ufotable has a Type and I’m here to waifu-shame them

-Was there anything I liked about this movie, I hear you ask? Well, as jarring as the sudden appearance of Celtic folklore was in a story world that has so far been pretty rooted in Japanese magic and philosophy, I admittedly dig the memory-stealing fairies. I especially enjoy how they can only steal that which is truly remembered (and thus they can’t steal something a person has themselves forgotten or lost to the back of their subconscious)--it was a fun bit of magic-logic, treating something as conceptual and ethereal as memories like physical objects

-I knew not to trust the teacher dude because he looked just like Kuzuki. This isn’t even about archetypes anymore, this is about character designs giving the twist away.

-Oh also, I liked the dog, and I liked how nothing bad happened to the dog

-Shiki is a cat-like person who gets along with dogs... truly both Yin and Yang represented within her

-Though this also represents Shiki getting along with an animal better than she is ever destined to get along with Azaka.........

-Like this was the perfect opportunity for them to sort their stuff out and come away bonded but they were bickering (well, Azaka bickering at Shiki, Shiki not caring much) the whole time they were together, and doing separate investigations and action scenes the rest of the time. If you’re going to introduce a character conflict like this the least you can do is give me some closure on it. As it is their relationship is basically in the same place as when the story started, just as Azaka’s relationship with Mikiya is in the same weird place as when the story started, with only the teensiest bit of self-reflection that ultimately means nothing at all

-I just. I go out of my way to not watch anime comedies where one of the jokes is a little sister in love with her big brother and then you go and insert one into the urban fantasy mystery series I was watching while minding my own business

-ANYWAY

-Shiki fighting that dude with the dinner knife was very cool

-HMMM so how ‘bout that after credits scene??

-Bloody Araya sowing the seeds of discord even after he’s dead. I totally forgot about that snippet we saw of the dude in the alley. I think I must have assumed it was Enjou. But sure does look like the third magical nasty is in place to go after Shiki...

#the big knk watchalong

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thebarsondaily · 6 years

Text

To Catch A Dream

for @amagicalshipper

Title: to catch a dream Author: @notesfrome Rating: T Summary: Liv goes for a vacation with Noah, leaving Barba to come to a rather significant realisation and conclusion about what he feels for her. A/N: I haven’t written Barson in yonks, and it really felt good to write something about one of my most favourite OTPs ever again. I tried to make it very festive and Christmassy but unfortunately, the muse wasn’t talking to me that way. Nevertheless, I hope @amagicalshipper (and everyone else) will enjoy this!

It was the week before Christmas, and Olivia was not in New York. It had been a hell of a year, and she had decided to take some time off – a rarity for her - and go on a holiday, just her and Noah. They needed this time together, to be family. It was surprisingly easy for Fin and the squad to convince her to leave her work phone and her badge behind – which indicated how worn out she was by the year.

Barba walked into the squad room on the first day of her absence, his eyes drifting subconsciously to the closed door of her office. It seemed different without her in the room, even with everyone else doing what they usually do – Fin on his computer, Amanda getting a snack by the vending machine, and Carisi being a pest as usual.

“Hey, Barba, what’re you doing here?” Carisi chirped, swivelling around in his chair.

Barba rolled his eyes. “What kind of inane question is that? The last I checked, I am the ADA for SVU.”

“W-ell…Lieu is not here for the week, so I didn’t think you’d…” his voice trailed off at the glare on the lawyer’s face.

“Is that supposed to make sense, Carisi? I’m here because we have an ongoing case that’s currently on trial? And speaking of which, I hope you’re ready to testify?”

“Someone’s in a Grinch mood today,” Carisi muttered to Fin under his breath, and then he cleared his throat. “Of course, Counselor.”

“Good,” Barba said snappily. “Sergeant Tutuola, I need the full verbatim transcripts of the suspect’s statements for me to prepare my closing statement. Have them sent to my office within the hour.” Without waiting for Fin’s reply, he turned and left the office, feeling irritated and inexplicably off, for some reason. He pulled out his phone as he walked, and scrolled to Olivia’s name. He was in the midst of typing out a message when he stopped.

She was supposed to be on leave, and having quiet time with Noah. It didn’t seem appropriate to text her on work matters, and to be honest, he didn’t need to, it was all under control. He deleted the contents of the message, and stared at her name, his thumb hovering over the keypad.

He could send her a message, a personal one…but as close as they were being colleagues, and as much as he would call her his friend (his best friend, even), they had never been the sort to send each other messages just because. It wasn’t something they do.

Decisively, he locked his phone, and slipped it into his pocket. He had a trial to attend to; and there was still work that needed to be done. Texting Olivia Benson was not on the top of his priority list.

Which was why it was strange, that he found himself occasionally scrolling to her name whenever he looked at his phone that day.

Barba stood up, buttoning his suit jacket, drawing in a breath before he launched into his closing statement. His confidence was sky-high – Carisi did really well in his testimony, and he was certain that they were going to win this case. As he delivered his arguments, and although his attention focused on the jury, he found his eyes drifting, on occasion, to the spot behind his chair, where Olivia usually sits.

With a slight jolt, he found himself realising that he didn’t remember a time where she wasn’t sitting there as he presented his closing statements. Because she was always there, her eyes trained on him, fueling his fire, silently pushing him to win.

The realisation didn’t deter him from his focus, however, and he finished his arguments with a resounding bang, the final nail on the coffin of the scum that they were putting away. And he was proven right a mere three hours later, as the jury returned from their deliberations with a guilty verdict.

As he shook hands with the survivor and her family, as Fin clapped him on the back on a job well done, he found himself thinking of her, thinking of the way she would nod at him and touch him on the shoulder, a satisfied smile on her face.

Good job, Barba.

He smiled briefly to himself as he reminisced, and on a whim, he pulled out his phone, and typed two words.

We won.

Her reply came through less than five minutes later.

I know you will come through.

Smirking slightly, he tapped out a reply to her.

Surely you never doubted me, Liv? As if there’s ever going to be any other outcome, but that.

His phone pinged mere moments later, with two words on the screen.

Smart ass.

As his fingers swiped across the keyboard, typing out his reply, he could almost see her face as he read her words, that slight eye-roll, the corner of her mouth quirked into a smile. By the end of the day, his phone was filled with messages from her – messages that were mostly unrelated to work.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe they were the kind of friends to send each other chatty, random messages, after all.

“Sorry I’m late, Mamì,” Barba dropped a kiss on his mother’s cheek, and settled into the chair across from her.

Lucia smiled at her son fondly, touching his hand briefly. “It’s all right, Rafi, I am used to it.”

He frowned at her slightly. “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, you’re succeeding.”

“I am doing no such thing,” Lucia declared. “I only worry about you, you work too hard.” She eyed him carefully as he signalled the waiter for a scotch, picking up the menu. “Is the lovely Lieutenant Benson driving you crazy again?”

“No, fortunately, she is not,” Barba drawled, picking up the scotch that was just served to him. “She’s on vacation, with her son, so I’ve not seen her in the last three days.”

She nodded, and was about to say something when his phone emitted a soft beep.

“Mamì, is it all right if I…?” He gestured towards his phone, and she shook her head. Frankly, Lucia would prefer it if Barba puts away his phone whenever he’s having dinner with her, but she knew that his job demanded him to be available at all times. She watched as her son read the message on his phone, a smile spreading across his face as he rapidly tapped out a reply, before slipping his phone back into his pocket.

“That’s not a work-related matter,” she observed, as he looked at her, his expression slightly sheepish.

“No, it’s not. Sorry, Mamì, but I’m with you now,” he said, taking another sip of his scotch.

She tilted her head slightly, studying him as she smiled. “Was that Lieutenant Benson?”

Immediately recognising the tone in his mother’s voice, his forehead wrinkled into a slight frown. “Mamì…don’t start. Liv and I, we’re not…”

“I like her, you know. She challenges you,” she interrupted, ignoring him.

Barba huffed slightly. “Honestly…” his phone beeped again, and his eyes drifted towards his pocket, but he restrained himself, making no move to retrieve his phone.

“Oh please. Rafi, do go ahead.” Lucia picked up her wineglass. “I’m sure you’re missing Lieutenant Benson.”

He was taking a drink, while reading Olivia’s message, and he sputtered once he heard his mother’s words. The automatic denial bubbled up in him, but before he could voice it, he stopped, as the realisation hit him.

I miss her.

Across from him, Lucia gave him a knowing smile.

Barba accepted the coffee from the barista, and took a sip gratefully. It was near lunch time, and this was only his second coffee for the day. Saying that he had felt deprived for the entire day thus far was an understatement.

Taking another drink, he was reminded that this was the exact spot he said goodbye to Olivia four days ago; where she had smiled at him and tossed him a wave, telling him she’d see him in a few days’ time. And he remembered that he had felt a little pang that he couldn’t quite explain.

He could explain it now, of course. He had felt thrown by his realisation yesterday, to put it mildly. He hadn’t realised what a constant she had been in his life. He was so used to having her with him, and not seeing her had somehow shifted his world. Not much, he admitted, but enough so that everything felt different, felt off.

His phone vibrated them, snapping him out of his preoccupied thoughts, and he answered it without looking at the screen.

“Barba.”

“Rafael, it’s Liv. Carisi said we ran into a snag with the Jensen case?”

Hearing her voice brought an involuntary small smile to his face, even if she was asking about work. “Liv, you’re supposed to be on vacation,” he chided.

“I’m sitting by the beach, watching Noah building a sandcastle, so I’m most definitely on vacation. Anyhow, what’s wrong with the case?”

“Nothing is wrong, Carisi’s being dramatic,” Barba answered, rolling his eyes. “There was a small inconsistency with the sister’s statement, but we sorted it out. I don’t want know what was Carisi doing, calling you and making a big deal out of it.”

“Hmmm,” she murmured absent-mindedly. “Actually, I called him for an update, and then he said I should call you.”

“Liv,” his tone was reprimanding, and she read his mind immediately. Her laughter sounded over the phone, merry and oh-so-familiar.

“I know, I know. Vacation. Which would be over in two days’ time.”

“So make the best out of it,” he said, finishing his coffee and tossing the empty cup into a nearby trashcan. Casting a glance towards the coffee cart, he contemplated another one.

“I will. I gotta go, Noah’s calling me. Glad everything’s all right with the case.”

“Go,” he shooed, tucking his phone between his ear and shoulder as he searched for the change to get his third coffee.

“I’ll see you soon, Rafael. And go slow on the caffeine.”

He smiled as he heard that, she really did know him so well. And he knew that she also knew that he would ignore her advice, and get that coffee anyway.

“Counselor, you’re looking cheerful.” He turned around to see Carisi and Rollins walking towards him, with the former grinning away. “Talking to Lieu, were you?”

Barba raised an eyebrow as they joined him. “I would tell you that’s none of your business. And why did you tell Liv we ran into trouble with the Jensen case when we actually didn’t?”

Carisi shrugged. “She asked for an update, and I just told her the truth.”

“Embellished truth.”

“Truth nonetheless. And besides, I know you miss Lieu. Aren’t you going to thank me for asking her to call you?”

“Detective, now that is really none of your business,” Barba snapped, feeling a rare flush rising in his cheeks, and praying fervently that they would just think it was the cold air.

“But you do, don’t you?” Rollins chimed in, looking just as annoying as Carisi.

Barba scoffed haughtily, and then he turned and walked away. They could think what they wanted to, but he wasn’t going to admit anything to those two. He certainly wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of being right about him.

Because it was true, of course. He missed her.

Barba was pouring his first coffee of the day, in his office, and as he had been doing for the last few days, he typed a quick message to Olivia. It had become some sort of routine, one that he was quite comfortable with.

They exchanged a few messages, the first ones about work, and then drifting off to a story about Noah seeing a Santa Claus on the beach, and getting confused about “why isn’t Santa in North Pole, preparing all my presents”.

As he was in the midst of typing a response, his phone rang. Smiling, he answered it, knowing it was her on the other end.

“I thought it’ll be easier if I just called you,” she said, and he could hear Noah’s voice in the background. “Is that Baba? I wanna say hi to Baba!” There was a slight scuffling noise, and then Noah’s voice sounded in his ear, bright and cheery. “Hi Baba! It’s me, Noah!”

“Hola, amigo,” he answered, amused.

“I saw Santa Claus! On the beach! Mummy says Santa is having a holiday before he starts working hard on Christmas Eve.”

“Did you say hello to Santa?”

“I did! And…and…”

“You’re getting ice cream all over your hands, Noah,” Olivia’s voice sounded.

“You should go finish your ice-cream, amigo. You’ll tell me the story when I see you, okay?”

“Okay, Baba! Will I see you for Christmas?”

He was about to answer in affirmative when he stopped himself. It seemed to be a bit too presumptuous, even if he did want to say yes. He was saved from answering as Olivia’s voice came back on the line.

“He’s certainly excited about Christmas.”

“Every child is, Liv.”

“Mmm-hmm. So, will he see you for Christmas?” She asked, her voice casual. “He bought you a present, and he wants to give it to you on Christmas day. You could come by during lunch time? We could have it together.”

His heart skipped a beat, but even so, he refused to think of it as more than anything her words portrayed – a casual invitation to a friend. “Sure, I could do that.”

“Oh good. I’ll make something simple. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re well supplied with scotch,” she teased.

“Well, that is very kind of you, Liv,” he drawled. “What time is your flight reaching tomorrow, anyway?”

“Eight o’clock. I just hope the flight will tire Noah enough so he’ll sleep. It’s a chore getting him to sleep on Christmas Eve.”

He laughed. “Good luck to you, then.”

“Why, thank you. Anyway, I’ll see you on Christmas day, I’m looking forward to it.”

“Miss me, do you?” The words were out before he could stop himself. There was a pause, and he felt his heart dropped when she didn’t say anything. It was a mistake; he shouldn’t have said it, but he was seeing her in his mind, her smile, the light in her eyes, and it just came out. Just as he was trying to think of other snarky words to add to that, to diffuse the situation, her voice floated over the line.

“Actually, yes. I really miss squabbling with you.” Her voice was jokey, but there was something in it, a tone that he couldn’t quite place, a tone that told him that it wasn’t just about the squabbling. It stretched between them, the connection, their connection, or perhaps the truth – the truth of the feelings they have for each other.

Seven days apart from her, and he realised that he missed her, really missed her. Seven days was nothing, in the scheme of time and distance, but this was the way he felt.

“Me, too,” he answered finally, and he could almost see her smile. As she rung off, her warm goodbye still reverberating in his ears, Barba came upon another realisation. It came out of nowhere, the thought entering his head, almost unbidden, but it was so clear, so true, and so obvious, that he wondered what took him so long to see it.

He didn’t just miss her; he was in love with her.

It isn’t too grand a gesture, Barba thought, for him to be at the airport, waiting for her and Noah. He didn’t want to wait until Christmas, because he wanted to tell her now and then, all that he had realised, in the eight days that she had been gone.

He saw Olivia as soon as she emerged from the arrival gates, holding Noah in one hand and pulling her suitcase with the other. A rush of emotions swept through him as their eyes met, with her looking exactly like the way she did eight days ago when she said goodbye, looking like she had never left.

“Rafael!” She called, and maneuvered her way through the crowd, reaching him in a matter of moments. Noah immediately ran to him, calling his name, and he placed his hand on the boy’s head, but he kept his attention on her. “What’re you doing here? I certainly didn’t expect to see you here.”

As excellent as he was with words, Barba had never been good at this – enunciating his emotions, feelings, so he settled for the plain and simple truth.

“I missed you,” he said, and just in case it wasn’t clear enough, he repeated himself. “I really missed you.”

She looked at him intently for two seconds, and then she reached out and took his hand, linking his fingers with hers. A beatific smile spread across her face, and he felt his heart lifting. “I missed you, too.”

He took a step forward, still holding onto her hand, and then he leaned closer, and kissed her. He could feel her smile against his lips, as she curved one hand around the back of his neck, pulling him closer as she kissed him back.

They were interrupted by an innocent voice, chiming above the hubbub of the airport. “Baba, why are you kissing Mummy?”

They broke apart, and Olivia looked at him, and then at Noah, her cheeks slightly flushed. Barba knelt down, so that he was eye-to-eye to Noah, and then he told him the truth. “Because,” he said, “I love your Mummy.” He looked up at her, and her face told him all that he needed to know.

“Oh,” Noah said. “I guess it’s okay for you to kiss her, then.”

His eyes met Olivia’s, and they both broke out into laughter, as Barba stood up, and took Noah’s hand in his. He stretched out his other hand to her, and she took it without hesitation, fingers curling around his.

He missed her, he loved her, and he never wanted to be apart from her again. And she felt everything he did, because she loved him, too, as much as he loved her.

#barson #olivia benson #rafael barba #& secret santa exchange #secret santa exchange 2017 #gift 1 of 1 #from notesfrome #to amagicalshipper #submission

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onkey-bedtime-stories · 7 years

Text

EUNOIA - chapter 2

Chapter 1

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

“I met Donghae yesterday.”

That’s how Taemin greets his sister on a random phone call one afternoon. As hard as she tried to be chill about it, Eunsook cannot help but shake in panic, intrigued by his words. She ran to the closest bench she could find and put her camera safely on her laps.

“You know that we’re adults, right? We don’t need to inform each other anymore like when we were kids and used to match our scenario to lie to Mom and Dad.”

The tremble on her lips seemed readable from the other line, making Taemin snickers on his bed.

“And since we’re adults it means now we lie to each other instead to our parents? Wow. Just wow, Lee Eunsook.”

“As I remember you were the one who banned me for weeping around on anyone whom acquaintance with him. Am I right?”

“You are. You’re always right beside this particular choice on men.”

“So?”

“I just let you know that yesterday I met Donghae.”

“Just let me know? You think I didn’t know how sneaky you are telling me stuff just because you are childishly curious on how I would react? Well, try harder, baby boy.”

“My smart lady. I always knew you went to Milan not for nothing.”

“Ha. So funny.”

“Do you want me to tell you what happened or I need to wait for another year until you gather up your guts to ask me how it went?”

“Actually, I don’t really care. That wouldn’t change anything, would that?”

“It depends, though.”

“On what? On how I handle stuff? On how bad my mood right now? Or maybe, just maybe, on how bad I weep last night?”

So she still cried miserably at night?

Taemin sighed and Eunsook regrets raising her tones, unveiled her unstable mind unconsciously. However, she didn’t lie when she said she doesn’t really care since she would still be broken hearted and desperately wants to turn back time hoping she could fix any mistake they did during their relationship. Or more like what mistake she did.

“Donghae asked how you are doing.”

“You can tell him that I’m fine, having a really nice summer escapades and eating lots of good food. Really, I think I will gain at least five pounds by the end of the trip.”

“Unless it’s not really Donghae who asked.”

“I know.”

“No you don’t.”

Eunsook scribbled on the ground with her shoes, making random pattern on it, “Yes I do, Tae. Because he texted me two days ago and I kept writing and deleting my rant until this morning on how I’m doing now after he decided not to be in the same page with me anymore. Believe me I know, because this is the first time I didn’t reply on him right away after I saw his name appeared on my screen.”

Taemin doesn’t say anything and just listened to the sound of the wind, trying to not make everything more complicated for his sister.

“Maybe he overestimated me.. thinking that I would be just alright after everything. Having a blast in Netherlands, enjoying summer, going shopping and meeting my best friend after a long time. You know I always this ‘his strong woman’ or.. or ‘his only iron lady’ you know.. So this trip, couldn’t it be better than that?”

“Don’t resent anyone. You’re the one who said to me that this is the best way for both of you to be happier.”

“I told you maybe.”

“Anyway, I said that you’re fine. A little tired and overwhelmed but you’re good now.”

“Should I thank you for giving the wise back up and being the best brother in the world?”

“Not really. Because I told Donghae as well how you’re calling me every day at 3 AM mopping around threatening people you’d kill yourself if tomorrow you’re wake up and everything is not only in your dream.”

“You should have added the part I didn’t eat anything for a week and ran into the emergency room when my coworker found me passed out at the toilet.”

“Ah, if only you did a proper briefing before.”

She’s really grateful for the fact that she might really have the best brother in the world. Taemin never fail making her laughed. Though he had this ice prince exterior, his heart is the warmest, far from all the cold and mischievous image people around him familiar with.

“Now that I told you what to do, can you fix that when you met him again?”

“Let see. I got studio schedule again tomorrow and he will be the producer assistant the whole week. Yeah sure, I will tell him everything until the IV shot part.”

“Good boy.”

“I know I am.”

“And stop texting or calling Minho behind my back. It’s embarrassing.”

Now it’s Taemin turn to burst into laughter. It’s still stuck in his head how he decided to call Minho instead of his wife because Taemin couldn’t stand the idea of being yelled or interrogated by Junghee. That girl can speak two hours nonstop without giving break the other person.

“I’ll go to sleep now, it’s almost midnight here. Be good, sister.”

“Don’t wet the bed.”

“I’ve had my diaper on, no need to worry. I love you!”

“I love you, too!”

The second she put the phone down, Eunsook feels lonely again. Actually, she prefers having endless argument with anyone rather than swimming in her own thoughts. Inevitably, she checked the phone again. Rereading the text Jungsoo sent two days ago.

‘Good morning, sunshine! How’s the vacation?’

Ah, sunshine. It was nice to be sunshine for someone, a thought cross Eunsook’s mind. It was. She was sunshine. Night star. Moonlight. Making her questioning herself, is it not enough being her for he needed her to be something else? Was she not beautiful enough for he had the urge to always comparing her to something else?

“Eunsook?”

She lifted her head up and found a face she expected the least.

“Kibum?”

The latter smiles and tell the other guys walking with him to leave first. He then casually sits next to Eunsook, looks like a supermodel he is, swiping his hair back. When he looked to his left, Eunsook almost stoned, left him chuckles nervously again, a habit he developed whenever Eunsook’s around him.

“What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you joined this group tour with the guy poking his umbrella to the sky!”

She squinted her tiny eyes, which in Kibum’s mind was too cute to handle.

“Oh, I was walking around doing some sketches taking photos and then my brother called so I gotta sit here and listen to him ranting about unimportant stuff.”

“You like taking photos?” Kibum almost jumped from his seat when he turned to face Eunsook completely.

“Just for fun. I love looking back to all the pictures I took while traveling. Give me lots of nice nostalgic feeling and of course a smooth slap on my head to work harder earning more money for the next trip.”

He cracks to her words, “That is actually hella true. May I see the camera?”

“Of course, Mr. Photographer.”

She smiles so bright while handing the camera, Kibum flustered involuntarily turned his ears all crimson red, “You always use 35mm film?”

He lifted the analog camera a bit.

“Mostly. Or Polaroid. One time I had the 120mm camera but nowadays it’s so hard to find the film.”

“Oh, you have no idea. It’s also freaking hard to find a place that can develop it. Tried to do it by myself, but I ruined it. There it goes all my memory in Hongkong. Gone in flash.”

Kibum cursed himself for convincing himself that Eunsook is the only girl in the world that makes a frown look that beautiful and amazing on a face. Before he embarrassed himself, he checked the camera again in his hand.

“By the way, this is nice camera. My friend had another type from the same brand. Where did you get this?”

“Actually, I bought it accidentally. It was from Porto. We were lost when tried to go back to the hostel and we found this street while wandering around with my friends.”

“Porto? As in Portugal?” she nods, “AH! I know that place! They sell cheap black and white films!”

“You really are a photographer, aren’t you?”

She cannot help but teasing when Kibum got so excited just on the thought of knowing the place she found the treasure. At this rate, not only his ears that rushed by blood.

“Only when I need money to pay my rent.”

“Hahaha!” she slapped his forearm lightly, he flinched silently, “And what brings you here?”

“We just finished a session with local teens. They’re quite having this too-cool-for-school attitude but fashion spread’s always interesting, isn’t it, Miss Designer?”

Eunsook secretly took out her imaginary good-deeds-book. Wits and jokes, checked.

“Anyhow, what are you doing after this?”

“Hmmm, nothing.”

“Fancy grabbing some sweets?”

“What kind of sweet?”

The way her eyes almost popped out her skull brighten Kibum’s day faster than when he received the first print of his magazine, “Pancake, waffle, crepe, anything you prefer as long as it can help with my sugar level.”

“Pancake sounds good.”

“Pancake it is! Let’s go!”

Kibum made a mistake almost embraced her by the shoulder then quietly pretending to push her to walk faster before the circumstance became more awkward.

Her phone beeps once again, she shook her head when she caught a text message arrived on the screen.

‘Eunsook, are you alright? Seems like the vacation is really great, am I right?’

This time she didn’t wait anymore.

‘Indeed, it’s the best summer escapade! I’m okay, by the way.’

***

“I told you not to touch her!”

Kibum massaged the back of his neck for the ten times, too tired for this silly confrontation.

“So, you said it’d better if I just left her alone there at the café while it was drenched outside instead of offering her a ride?”

“I’m tired of your excuse, you sweet mouth! You should hadn’t dragged her to the café at the first place!”

“I’m the one who tired of your accusation! For God’s sake, Kim Junghee! I was just being nice! We lived under the same roof and I’m not allowed to cheer up someone I know who looked upset?”

“Not with such an agenda behind!”

“What kind of agenda are you talking about?!”

“Oh, don’t you dare testing me!” Kibum’s jaw dropped a few centimeter, disbelief with the whole sentence he just heard, “If you’re just being nice, you take her home right away after both of you finished your afternoon snack!”

“That’s the plan! But she said she needs more films for her camera! Am I wrong if I offered to accompany her looking for some?”

“Ha! You just saw your chance to slide in! What a little sneaky head!”

Kibum restrained himself not to raise his voice, he just didn’t want Minho finished his shower and found his best friend yelling to his wife.

“Look. It was raining. I offered her a ride to go back. She asked if I knew a place to buy films! I drove her there and it was still freaking rain. I got called by the people at work on the way. I said I’d get drop her off first at home before I headed to the studio. She said she could grab a taxi. Since I considered it’s not polite to let her do that, I asked her to come with me. That’s it!”

Junghee stomped on the kitchen floor so hard, “You could just drive her first!!!! You have no idea how stressful I was when I couldn’t contact her?!?!”

“Who knows her phone was dead?! She didn’t say anything to me! Had I know I would give her my phone to call or text you! At any rate, if she did find it necessary, she would ask me to make that damned call!”

“Stop it right there, it’s not Eunsook’s fault!”

“Neither mine!” he rolled his tongue inside his mouth trying to control himself, “I know she’s your best friend, Junghee, but she’s not a kid! She’s a grown up and let her be one!”

“Don’t talk like you know her!”

His fist getting harder on his side, “I didn’t. Look. I know you care about her. A lot. I understand. I’m aware that she’s somehow became more vulnerable after everything happened, but you shouldn’t treat her like this! She took the flight here to heal herself if you kept hogging her, when will she be able to heal?”

Kibum got his point but Junghee is too busy protecting her friend she doesn’t even try to swallow all the words from him.

“I don’t need you lecturing me how I treat my friend! Just.. just keep your hand away from her!”

“What if I refuse?”

“What did you just said?!”

Kibum hesitated to say something more, so he just stood there, lips sealed together, his eyes drilling a hole through the air. Junghee flustered and doesn’t know what to do, she expected him to give some counter attack harsher than before. Not a serious answer like that.

“Listen, leave her alone or I would never speak to you again!”

She left him standing by the island counter and paced to her room upstairs. When she passed Eunsook who just went back inside the house after called her partner in Milan at the porch, she purposely darted her eyes away. The latter confused but knowing that her best friend has such a temper, she decided to let it go.

A small smile formed on her face when she saw Kibum’s by the kitchen.

“Is everything alright?” Kibum turned his head and just shrugged, “Kibum?”

Eunsook sensed something’s wrong by the flat expression on his face.

“Nothing.”

She’s the least person he wanted to encounter at the second, he tried to avoid her but the look she gave him just made everything more uncomfortable.

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty much.”

“Hmm.. I don’t think so.”

“No, really.”

“Come on, you can talk about it.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“Eunsook, I’m okay. Let’s just shake it off, I’m tired.”

He told her the truth, actually. Kibum’s just exhausted and he needs his time to compose himself after the heated conversation with Junghee.

“What’s wrong with you? Is Junghee okay?”

“Why don’t you just ask your best friend, huh? She’s the one who started! Why should I am the one who feel guilty here?!”

It seems like that was his final giveaway. His pitched showed up, startling Eunsook a little bit. The stern look he put is not making it easier for her. Inside, Kibum wants to kick himself on the shin for being such an asshole just now, helpless under the invisible spell Eunsook sent him.

And feels guilty he is, indeed. She had nothing to do and he just exploded ridiculously in front of her. So he dropped the glass he hold to the sink recklessly, the loud clank on its metal surface dropped a frown on Eunsook’s face, and just went to his room, leaving strange stagnant on the air for her.

Confused and a little disappointed, Eunsook just swallowed back all the sentences she prepared to thank him for the nice afternoon they shared.

***

Thirty minutes passed with Kibum paced back and forth behind his closed door. Sometimes he sat at the edge of his bed, tapped his foot on the floor restlessly, and stood up again, repeating the monotonous anxiety attack.

Seriously, he felt awful not only because he snapped on a girl that supposed to be his current major crush until this morning, but also because he realized how helpless he was in front of the girl. And all those feeling had taken him sunken deep on ocean of guilty.

Junghee might be right, the way he treated Eunsook just now could cause huge mess. This is the first time since almost forever Kibum does care about his image in front of other. Suddenly he’s afraid she might think he’s the biggest jerk on earth who had this hot and cold attitude, once a very nice and kind guy then yell on her face for something she didn’t even know just for the reason he lose control on stupid stuffs.

He doesn’t want that.

“Why are you so stupid, Kim Kibum…”

He threw himself on the mattress and kept staring on the ceiling for solid ten minutes before he jolted to the door, took one deep breath, and carefully pushed it forward.

The living room is empty, leaving only small aquarium at the corner being the source of light. However, when looked across the room, dim light seeped through small gap between the floor and the door of Eunsook’s room.

She’s still awake.

“Eunsook?”

The soft knock on the door didn’t reciprocate. The drumroll banging inside his chest became louder each second passed in silent.

“Lee Eunsook? Can I come in?”

He waited again but nothing happened.

Is she mad at me? Shit.

Various scenarios flashed on his mind and not any single of it makes him comfortable. He might regret it later, but his guts are so much makes sense more than anything.

Slowly he opened the door, but the scene welcomes him is way more unpredictable.

On her bed, Eunsook’s sleeping like a five years old, blanket tucked until her chin and hair splattered here and there but somehow framed her soft jaw as if someone did it on purpose. And Kibum, Kibum just stiffen right on the threshold, hand glued to the handle.

How come a girl can turn someone defenseless without doing anything?

She just breathes, her shoulder moves in a slow rhythm. Kibum knew he’s crazy but he swear in such distance he can see how her eyelashes intertwined each other hiding the beautiful eyes she had, kissed her cheeks in silent melody. If he had camera in his hand, he would had already taken hundreds picture of her sleeping.

Creepy, he knows.

But in Kibum justification, everyone should be creepy once in a while when they’re in love, shouldn’t they?

Ah. In love?

Kibum gripped his chest for a moment and decided to turn of the light before he closed the door cautiously.

“Forget it, Kim Kibum..”

***

Chapter 3

#onkey #jinkibum #eunsook #kibum #onkey fiction #onkey fanfic #onkey scenario #shinee fanfic #shinee fiction #shinee scenario #eunsook fanfic #eunsook scenario #bumsook fiction #bumsook #shinee #onew #key

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dioskourixx · 6 years

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In The Blood Ch.9

“So...how was you guys’ Spring Break?” I asked. Raven, Sophie, and I had met up for lunch in between classes the first day back. Himchan and Yongguk were kind of AWOL, so it was as good as time as any to talk with just us girls. Sophie was the first one to respond, speaking in between small bites of her pepperoni Hawaiian pizza.

“Mine was great actually. I had so much fun in Tennessee. Oooh! You guys should definitely come with me next time! My uncle wouldn’t mind at all. And the animals are just so darn cute! The horses are so big now since last time I saw them. Oh! And I got to see a couple of the ducklings hatch. It was so cool!” Rae and I laughed softly at our bubbly friend.

“Well then,” Rae started as she picked around her spaghetti. “Sounds like you had a rather busy and adventurous break. I’m glad you had fun. I just mostly shopped around Washington and slept in. You know, catching up on my beauty rest and what not.” She chuckled as I rolled my eyes at her last comment.

“Wait a minute. I thought you and your parents were going to go to New York. What happened?” I asked, remembering how excited she seemed for the shopping trips she was bound to have in the big city. I heard her groan.

“You know that my dad is a history geek right? Always spouting off random facts and whatnot. Well, for some reason, he felt like New York was just a place for people to become mindless zombies of sales, and figured Washington would be more enlightening and beneficial. I, of course was not happy. Mom was kind of neutral.” This time Sophie spoke up.

“Well if it’s history he was seeking, you could've tried to persuade him by mentioning the Harlem Renaissance. Lots of history and art with that argument.” Sophie sipped her drink in a matter of fact manner as Raven groaned into her hands, muttering to herself that it would’ve been genius.

“Ugh! Enough about me,” Rae declared as she stopped wallowing in self pity. “How was your Spring Break Haze?”

“Not much, actually. I mostly just sketched and read.” I could already see the disappointed looks they were giving me.

“Don’t you do that on a regular basis, Haze? Is that all you did?” Sophie was the first to speak. I took another bite of my food before I told them that I also went to see a movie.

“The one you and Yongguk were supposed to go see?” Raven asked. “How’d that go by the way?” I looked down at my plate.

“I didn’t go with him.”

“Oh really?” It was Sophie’s turn. “So, you went by yourself?” I bit my bottom lip.

“I went with Ethan actually.” Immediately there was eyebrow wagging and “ooohs” from both of them. Raven spoke up after having her fun.

“How’d that happen? How did it go??” So, I ended up recounting the whole thing. Starting with meeting him coincidentally at the sandwich shop and him tagging along with me to the sci-fi movie.

“....then he walked me back to my dorm and he kind of...kissed me.” A confused Raven looked back at me.

“So? What’s the big deal? He’s kissed you before hasn’t he? On the first date? Unless this kiss was more on the hot and heavy side. If that’s the case then I need details miss.” I scoffed at her.

“What? Of course not. It wasn’t like that. It was on the forehead.” This time Sophie spoke up.

“Then, what’s so special about this kiss Haze? I’m confused.”

“I’m not sure Sophe. It just felt different. His demeanor was different. Instead of being shy like how he was the whole night, he seemed more...confident. More bold. I’m honestly confused myself. I can’t really pinpoint him just yet.”

“Well aside from all of that, it seems like you two are getting along well.” Sophe said in between small sips of her coke.

“Yeah...it seems so.” I caught a small smile play on Raven’s lips at this revelation as she took another forkful of pasta.

I saw Yongguk the following day in class. As we prepared to start taking notes on the lecture, my phone let out a soft buzz from my back pocket. Fishing it out, I saw that I had received a text message from Ethan.

“Good morning Beautiful :)” I felt the familiar smile I seemed to get lately find its way on my lips. I quickly typed out a “good morning” back, turned my phone on mute, and set it down on my desk. The teacher had just started talking about the midterms we had taken before Spring break. Apparently she wasn’t finished with the grading, but promised to finish soon and have the grades posted by the end of this week. My phone’s screen lit up briefly, before it faded to black once more. Another text message.

“How’d you sleep?” I responded with a simple “fine,” and asked him the same. The teacher began lecturing as I placed my phone back on my desk. Yongguk proceeded to get his pen out, ready to take notes and I followed suit, taking a sip of my morning coffee I bought before class. The teacher’s voice droned on as I tried to pick out the key concepts of the lecture. About ten minutes passed by before my phone lit up again. Ethan.

“I slept fine.” Before I could type out a response, another message popped up on my screen.

“So...I sort of have a problem. Maybe you can help me.” Now this definitely piqued my interest. My fingers started dancing across my keyboard before I had time to stop myself. I mean, I was in class after all.

“What kind of problem?” I placed my phone down on my desk, once more, only this time it was face down. Hopefully, by me not seeing my phone brighten whenever I get a text, I’ll be less inclined to respond immediately. I will say, that I managed to go a good twenty minutes before I couldn’t help but to snatch my phone up and read Ethan’s next message. I managed to jot down a few notes before then though. One glance at Yongguk’s paper though, told me that I missed a good bit of key points. Bright Screen.

“So there’s this really pretty girl that I want to invite for dinner this week, but I’m a little nervous. :/” A small burst of giggles left my lips as I read the message. Is he being serious?

“Well, why are you nervous?” I typed back. I went back to try to take more notes. God knows that I missed a huge portion of the lecture. The screen lights up again.. Only this time, I ignore it. The information seems really important, and I already don’t have sufficient notes as it is. No. I need to focus. That message will be there at the end of class, but for now, I need to take notes.

I’m not exactly sure, how many minutes ticked by, as I struggled not to let my curiosity of what Ethan sent back, win. Concentrate Haze. Stop looking at the damn phone! It was only a minute after chastising myself, that I rolled my eyes in annoyance towards myself and simultaneously picked up my phone to read Ethan’s reply.

“Well, it’s because I want to cook for her, and I don’t want to mess it up. Plus, I’ve never cooked for a girl before. What if she doesn’t like it?” Why was he being so...adorable right now?

“Lol. I’m sure she will be happy with the fact that you’re even trying to cook for her. Girls tend to appreciate the effort given. As for what to cook...what does she like to eat?” I exchanged the phone in my hand for my pencil as I was about to take notes...again. That is, before I saw what time it was. There was only seven minutes left. There was absolutely no point in trying to jot down the remainder of the lecture. I just hope Yongguk pulled through this time around. Bright screen.

“I’m not sure. :/. Let’s say that you were the girl I was planning on cooking for...hypothetically speaking, of course, what would you want to eat?” I didn’t have to ponder for long.

“Pasta and salad. It’s simple, easy, and hard to mess up.” As I sent my last message, everyone around me was packing up their belongings and headed for the exit. I followed suit, placing my notebook with my half assed notes and barely used pencil inside of my backpack. Once Yongguk and I were on the outside, safe from the herd of students, I turned to Yongguk wearing what I imagine looked like a sheepish expression.

“Soooo….Any ch-” Yongguk began shaking his head in amusement and laughed at me.

“I already know what you’re about to ask me and the answer is yes. I do have good notes this time, and yes you can copy them down.” I let out a relieved breath.

“Thanks Yongguk. I was somewhat distracted today.” A wide smile found its way on his lips as he nudged me in the arm.

“Yeah, I noticed. Was it this Ethan guy? You know, I’m not sure if I can approve of him, if he’s already hindering your school work young lady.” I playfully rolled my eyes at him.

“Come on. I’ll treat you to breakfast while I copy your notes.”

“Deal. But I’m buying.” he proclaimed. I shrugged at his offer.

“Fine by me. Let’s go ‘Dad.’” I said with as much sarcasm I could muster up.

A few moments later, I was nibbling on a piece of French toast while copying the final page of Yongguk’s notes. Yongguk sat across from me, grumbling about the amount of people that asked for his tutoring help. After a while, I guess he figured out that I wasn’t wholeheartedly paying attention to him. It wasn’t until he brought up the movie he had missed, as I finished writing the last bit of notes, that I finally looked up at him.

“I’m sorry I had to miss it,” he said, but I just waved him off. It wasn’t really a big deal after all.

“It’s fine Gukkie. I ended up going with someone else, so we’re good.”

“Oh, so what you mean is that you replaced me with some second rate being. Alright, who was it?” I shook my head at his silliness.

“I went with Ethan, actually.” I looked down at my plate of French toast, as I waited for Yongguk to say something.

“Oh really? Wait, I thought you said he was going to be out of town until the end of the break. How’d that happen?”

“I’m not sure, actually. I was just as surprised as you are. We met as I was getting food before the show. It was pleasant coincidence.”

“Hmmm...Pleasant huh? Sounds like I’m already getting kicked to the curb.” I couldn’t help but laugh as he started to pout.

“Oh shush you big baby. No one is kicking you to the curb as you like to put it. Like I said, it was a coincidence.”

We continued to talk as we moved on from the subject of Ethan. I was in the middle of laughing at some corny joke Yongguk had told, when I noticed him stiffen in his chair. My giggles died off my lips as I regained my composure. I started to ask what was wrong, until I heard a familiar voice behind, saying my name. I turned back to see Ethan standing behind me, looking casual in his plain jeans, but still handsome.

“Ethan. Hi. You remember Yongguk don’t you?”

“Of course. Nice to run into you again.” he said smoothly. Yongguk gave a quick nod.

“Yeah...you too.” Yongguk started packing his belongings and stood up from the table. Before I could ask where he was headed too, Yongguk spoke first.

“Haze, I’ll see you later, okay? I gotta get this tutoring schedule in order and stuff. I’ll text you alright?” But before I could respond, he had already started walking towards the doors that lead to courtyard outside.

“So,” Ethan began. “When’s your next class?” I looked at my phone for the time and realized that time had gone by quickly and that my next class started in half an hour.

“Then can I walk you to class? I’m not busy with anything.” He looked at me expectantly.

“Sure. I’d like that.”

With ease he picked up my bag after I had packed it and carried it while we walked.

“So, how was your break?” I asked after walking for a couple of minutes.

“It was alright,” he stated. “A little weird though. It felt like I was being watched most of the time.”

“Watched?” I asked, clearly puzzled. He laughed at my worried face.

“My dad was in the military and sometimes his PTSD and paranoia consumes him. He was very...watchful during the break. Another reason why I left earlier. But enough about that...How about dinner? At my place? I’ll cook.”

I pretended that our little text conversation hadn’t happened earlier and feigned surprise. I let out a small gasp.

“You cook?” Ethan gave me a sideways smirk before he answered.

“Sweetie, I’m full of surprises. Stick around long enough, and you might get to see them all.” Okay. To say that I was unnerved...again, would be an understatement. I don’t understand how he can go from cute, shy, and dorky to...well, this. I found myself flustered before I was able to respond.

“Oh really? I might just have to take you up on that offer.” Ethan flashed his white teeth in his signature smile.

“Good. You won’t be disappointed. Now, come on. We gotta get you to class,” he says while slightly picking up the pace.

#In The Blood #Fanfic #supernatural #Yongguk #college au

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