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cutegirlmayra · 3 years

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Here's a prompt idea: Eggmans latest device accidentally turns Amy back into Rosy. But to the Rosy before she met Sonic and the others so she has no memory of her friends and is pretty scared and runs off. So Sonic has to slowly regain her trust and friendship and is reminded why he's glad to have her around as a friend. Just some sweet fluff (eeeeeeeee! I love da fluffy)

PROMPTS ARE ON SHUTDOWN, DO NOT SEND ME A REQUEST. I have too many, please follow the rules of the blog and wait for a grand announcement T-T I also want to focus on Fanfiction for a little bit so please, please have mercy on my soul \(TD\T)

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Pajama Blogs Ep.1 - Timestamp 1:01:06 (x)

Prompt:

In the thick of the battle, where Eggman has once again blurred the lines of time and stolen two Chaos Emeralds that have been locked into place by a case of glass on either side of his raygun, the team desperately try to avoid getting zapped into another dimensional self or even a past form.

"Wo-hohoho!" Eggman's infamous laugh triggered the large jumping moment of his stomach before he peered down at what he considered the squabbling, pint-sized forms of his nemeses. He beamed a grin of mischief and looked to the blue streak that had foiled every carefully laid out plan since... well... the dawn of his reign of terror upon this world.

"Not this time..., Sonic!" he reared the gun skyward, showing the effort as it jostled the machine a moment as he had implanted the device onto his Egg-mobile, "This time, I'm going back to before you were ever the hero! Back when you a slobbery, good for nothing, vulnerable little child!"

Sonic looked up to see what he was talking about, the device's nozzle being adjusted like a temperature or safe-lock setting, and being too far away to gauge what the actions meant, he just braced himself and ran forward. "Come on!" he called to his friends, Tails, Knuckles, and-

"Sonic! I'm coming too!" Amy rushed out behind the three, as Knuckles and Tails turned around from flying and gliding in the sky by Sonic to see her.

"W-what? Amy? When did you get here?" Sonic looked over his shoulder, but as he did so, Amy looked up and saw Eggman smirking, finally getting the bulky, heavy gun angled down and flipped two switches that started making the device glow and charge up.

"Look out!" Amy threw her hammer to Sonic, who tossed it to the side with a spinning kick.

"W-what?" He didn't understand before turning to see the beam and skidding to a halt. His eyes were overwhelmed with the bright color of neon red before Amy expertly jumped and twirled through the air in an acrobatic-like maneuver.

Seeing this, Eggman's face dropped from his insane joy to one of disappointment and surprise as she narrowly summoned another hammer and it intercepted the beam.

Lightly tapping the edge of it, the beam suddenly bent and 'flipped a U-ie' and looped itself back to sparking and hitting her hammer. Since her hand was attached, it sparked and moved to consume her frame in seconds within the bright red light, before she fell down to the ground, her silhouette showing her head coming up as she was trying to push off the ground... The hammer fell with a few flops before shrinking in size and turning into a typical Japanese hammer toy for toddlers.

Tails looked up to Eggman who grumbled and moved the gun, looking down off the side of his Egg-Mobile, as though not sure if his device was really going to succeed or not, but curious what it may do.

"Amy's younger than Sonic... if he put a date in that's too far back..." Tails's eyes shook as he felt his body pulse back in shock at that thought... "No..." his eyes arched and he looked down to Amy, flying as fast as his twin-tails could take him. "Ammmyy!!!" he called out.

With Tails's added cry, Sonic's eyes stopped shaking and he blinked back into the reality of the situation. He also ran to her as Knuckles glided down from hovering in the air to be in front of Amy, glaring up at Eggman to keep an eye on him while Tails and Sonic went to Amy's side.

Tails fell by her but as Sonic went to reach out for her, grabbed his reaching arm with both hands, pulling it away, "No, wait, don't-!" he warned, "The ray traveled from her hammer to her body, it's probably still able to. I bet it's transferable with touch, did you see the way it looped back after Amy tipped its line's edge with her hammer?"

Sonic looked to Tails, then Amy, seeing the shadow of her looked as though struggling to rise up, possibly... was she in pain?

"You expect me to do nothing? Tails, I can't just... sit here and watch!" Sonic used his hands to express himself, turning them up to their palms and bouncing them a bit with the gravity of his words reflecting his heart. He looked with arching eyes back to Amy, who slowly began to shrink as her voiced struggles turned more and more higher in pitch... until...

The light blasted off, as though a paper-wrap being torn and blown up and then...

Tails and Sonic peered over the fabric of red, then Eggman continued to lean with a mouth forming a curious, small 'o' before having to grab the other end of his tilting Egg-Mobile just to stabilize himself and not fall over. Due to the size of the raygun attached to its front, the weight balance wasn't good, and as the gun's tip slid with the weight Eggman was leaning on--it almost flipped fully over!

His leg came up to counterweight it, but why am I spending so much time describing this funny scene when I'm clearly breaking up the tension of what happened to Amy Rose?

"Amy..?" As the sparks were gone, Tails finally let go of Sonic's hand.

It was the free then to reach out and lightly grip the edge of the now large dress, and slowly draped it to the side as it gently skimmed over light pink quills.

It was a small ball, almost the size of a melon, before it softly stuck out a long, protruding nose.

Tails's and Sonic's eyes widened, not having seen that since... well, before she hit puberty.

"Is she..?" Sonic began, looking to Tails before the little creature yawned and stuck out a hand, patting the ground and sniffing, before finding the edge of the dress again and grunting in annoyance at someone removing its blanket.

It found it and kept trying to toss the warm, lightweight fabric ontop of itself, again, pulling its long nose and pointed muzzle back into its curled ball and bringing its hand back under as well.

Eggman flew around at all sides, trying to see over and past the two heads but Knuckles kept on him and zipped to every direction he tried to look as well, "Oh, no you don't!"

He was growing irritated, taking the gun and bopping it to spark it to life again, charging. He figured, if it did work, might as well fire on the rest of them!

"We're gonna have to start up a nursery." Orbot was looking through large, exaggerated, almost like a space telescope with a small, looking-glass end for his eyes to peer through binoculars back at Eggman's HQ.

His view showed Tails carefully wrapping the large dress over the small, trying to sleep child and looking to see the hammer. He picked it up and placed it on top of the now wrapped dressed over the curled baby hedgehog and shrugged to Sonic, not sure how he was going to reverse this.

Sonic's anger was now full, he turned with a shaking fist, squinting in his fierce sense of justice up to Eggman who continued to bonk, kick, and jostle the gun to get it up and going before looking down to see Sonic's fury. "Eggman!"

He winced, his mustache drooping at his tone.

He lifted a foot back up to the rim of his Egg-mobile, "It's... grk... jammed!" he suddenly was flung back as the gun went crazy and shot everything in random directions.

The ray hit a flower and turned it into a sapling, a great oak to a sprouting twig, and a Butterfly passing through into a Caterpillar...

"Well, at least I know it works. Oh no!!" His glasses 'tink'ed down slightly as the gun rotated up and then fell as though backwards... facing Eggman.

Orbot screeched through his vocal box, "Doctor!!!!"

After a ray of light, Tails walked up the hill with Eggman carrying the large Egg-Mobile and raygun attached to it on his shoulders and half his back. The two looked back as though waiting for Sonic to drop the young Eggman off at his base for Orbot and Cubot to deal with. Unfortunately, they begged Sonic to help them, and he conceded as he raced back with Cubot and Orbot under his armpits--since they were just a small iron bar for a body anyway--and a toddler Eggman whacking the side of Sonic's face and laughing. He was still bald, but no mustache.

The three headed to Tails's lab, Vanilla and Cream trying to take care of the two with Orbot and Cubot who were like rattles in his grip. "H-Help!" Cream approached, leaving Vanilla to finish clothing Amy in her old attire.

"There!" Vanilla pulled down the iconic, puffy green shirt as the little girl looked it over. "Hmm, ain't that wonderful? Looks like you kept your old clothes, boxed up in a storage part of your closet. It was titled 'Future Family', isn't that sweet? Like hand-me-downs." she cupped her face as though that was so sweet, but when she looked down, Amy was gone. "Oh!" she immediately covered her mouth and started looking around, "Amy? Amy, dear..?"

"Now, Mr... uhh... I guess you're just Eggchild now, huh?" Cream went to pick up Eggman who kicked and squirmed in her grasp. "Momma?" She saw her mother frantically lifting up pillows on the couch, as though she lost something and gently put them down with a sigh.

"Where could she have gotten off to so quickly?"

Back in Tails's workshop, the door creaked open a bit as Amy stumbled in and hid in the scrap metal, not sure who these people were, but listening to them as they spoke.

"Apparently, my theory was false." Tails began, turning to Sonic and Knuckles, who had his arms folded while Sonic's was relaxed by his sides.

He was trying to remain calm, after all, the two little things were in Vanilla and Cream's care. He was resting easy for now, hoping to get this solved soon.

Tails showed the dial on the raygun, pointing to it as he had dislodged it from on Eggman's Egg-Mobile, "These aren't dates or times, they're molecular ages..." he explained, then looked up at Sonic, "In other words, based on whatever stage of life it's set to, anything hit with this thing will turn into that form during that cycle of its life."

"But... then why doesn't Eggman seem to remember anything?" Sonic gestured a hand out.

"Yeah, we asked him, and even then... he's not talking." Knuckles frowned, but Sonic shook his head and put a hand on his shoulder, making him look at him funny.

"Knuckles, Knuckles, Knuckles... he's not old enough to talk yet." Sonic teased, patting his shoulder a second before smirking at him, "However, if his mind was the same, he'd certainly have acted angry, right?"

"Exactly," Tails nodded, as the two turned their attention back to him, but Knuckles growled in annoyance at Sonic's slight belittlement of his statement. "It's still got the Chaos Emeralds, wielders that manipulate time and space attached to it." He turned their sights back to the dial, "Which means..."

"It's taking them back to that time, too. Not just their body." Knuckles finished for him.

As though not expecting his intelligence, Sonic and Tails turned to look at him stunned, and Knuckles looked back at each of them, "What!?" he exclaimed, unfolding his arms to have them gesture angrily out at them, "I'm not stupid! I can connect the dots!"

Amy didn't quite understand what these older kids were saying, but had to find a way out of here.

She looked around and found the garage switch! That should open the door and get her out of here with these weirdos!

Even though... of the weirdos...

She looked to Sonic, her eyes slightly shining.

Was pretty handsome...

"So, that's good news, right?" Sonic spoke up, "If we can just turn that thing in the right way, we should be able to get Amy and Eggman back to their normal ages, right?"

"A simple fix." Tails nodded, "Better than most outcomes, haha!" he then looked to the symbols. "Thing is..."

Knuckles and Sonic leaned in, waiting for Tails to finish as he lowered his head.

"I... can't tell what Eggman's code for figuring out the placement means..."

Sonic put his hands on his hips and leaned forward as Knuckles arched his back and face-palmed himself.

Everyone just kinda sighed or groaned.

"Great! We gotta go through trial and error?!" Knuckles spat out. "How long will that take?"

"And more importantly," Sonic walked up to Tails, standing beside him, "Is it safe?" He angled his head in a tilt back, as Tails shook his head.

"We shouldn't try it on Eggman or Amy just yet. Give me some time, I should have it figured out in a jiffy." Tails responded light-heartedly, still showing it was possible and not too terribly difficult, but Knuckles threw up his fists.

"Time!? How long do you expect us to babysit these-!?" Before he could finish his sentence, Sonic gasped and pointed to tiny fingers reaching for the Garage door's button.

"Look!" he cried out, as the three turned and Amy flinched, jumping into a spin to lightly tap the button and scoot under the rising door. "H-hey!" Sonic dived and reached out for Amy, but she was quick and small, meaning he got trapped by the rising door and had to wait to scoot under it. "Darn," He smiled, finding this kinda fun. "Hey! wait! Don't get hurt!" he called out, which stopped the fleeing Rosy girl, who turned back and put her hands over the other and up by her chest, surprised that... anyone would care about her like that.

Who were these people?

Sonic, crawling out to where his torso was at least through the slit, smiled kindly to her with eyes that showed only care and... even a bit of playfulness.

She narrowed her eyes... that was strange, but she blushed and took off again.

Sonic closed his eyes and let out a chuckle, getting up on his knee as the door slowly... but surely began to rise up enough for him to fully stand. "I'll take care of our little rascal, Tails. You just get that machine decoded." He flung back a thumbs up, and Tails nodded.

"Leave it to me!" he seemed determined.

"H-hey, what, are you saying I have to look after Eggman?!" Knuckles stomped the ground as he stepped back, flabbergasted by what this might entail for him...

Tails just looked to him and laughed, "Vanilla and Cream have Orbot and Cubot to help them out, why don't you go with Sonic? She's a slippery one, he might need all the help he can get!"

"I can handle her on my own," Sonic folded his arms, not even looking to see where Amy had run off too, a bit overconfident. "It's just one hedgehog, and you're forgetting something." he winked, holding up a pointer finger and wiggling it with a shake of his head. "I'm irresistible!"

Knuckles scoffed as Tails placed the raygun down and covered his mouth as he chuckled.

"Yeah, well... how much trouble can a little girl get into, yeah?" Knuckles drooped his arms a little, hunching his back as he walked towards Sonic. "It's better than whatever I'd have to do wiping Eggman's butt!"

"He's not that young." Sonic lowered his eyelids and tilted his head, putting his hands on his hips and then raising an eyebrow, "You... do know the different development stages... right?"

Knuckles flinched, "How am I supposed to know anything about babies!?"

"Toddlers." Tails corrected, "And they can be quite intelligent. They use mimicry to learn and grow. They're always watching." Tails held up a finger, as though instructing Knuckles, "You two be on your best behavior. Who knows, if we change Amy back, she might have picked up a behavior or two from you." He shrugged, making Knuckles wince as Sonic winked secretly to Tails, in on the prank.

"Yeah, Knuckles," He put an arm around him, making him even more uncomfortable, "You'll have to be the outstanding role model for Amy from now on, until Tails figures out the dial settings, anyway." he grinned, totally fooling and freaking out Knuckles, which he was gullible enough to believe.

"Oh, man... I-I-I don't know how to be one of those!" he worriedly admitted out loud.

"Don't you worry, buddy, I'll show you the ropes, no problem!" he gestured out a cocky shrug, "It's easy! Just remember your typical moral code and be sensitive to the child's needs! Nothing to it!" he gave him his signature thumbs up and wink before dashing off, "See ya, Tails! I'm off to find Amy!"

"Don't play too much..." Tails mumbled, but Sonic was already gone. He looked to Knuckles, chuckling as he held a hand over his stomach for a moment with the action. "It's okay, Knuckles. Just... entertain her for a bit until I can figure this out. It shouldn't be too difficult, just like Sonic said, it's all about being on your best behavior." he closed his eyes and shook his finger as though that's all that was required.

Knuckles mimicked the action, holding his own finger up, "Be on your best behavior... got it!" he waddled off, keeping the finger out, "Best behavior... just be on your best behavior..!"

Tails, flying over to make sure Knuckles was gone... suddenly burst out laughing.

Sonic stopped to look behind him and see that Knuckles was a fair distance away, then smirked again, "Heh, now that he's out of the way... Hmm..." he put a hand up over his eyes to block the sun, looking happily over the area to find a speck of pink. "Now... if I was a confused little hedgehog... where would I be hiding..?" he found a patch of long-leaf, bushy plants that were moving near the jungle. "Ah-ha!" he took off as Knuckles called out to him.

"H-hey! Wait for me!!! Ohhh, Soniiiccc!!" Knuckles picked up the pace, "Man, I gotta make a good first impression, don't I? Am I... intimidating? Amy's probably never seen an Echidna before if she's a toddler again, yeah? Oh man... I'm gonna suck at this!" he hurried up the hill to catch Sonic, as he slowed down and started to fake wandering through the brush.

He stuck out a foot and felt the ground out, putting his hands behind his head, "Huh? Now,... where, oh, where could that darling little hedgehog be?" He teased, putting his hands down and by his hips, facing his back to where he could clearly see and hear her moving through the bushes, crawling to try and get away and stay silent.

But she was anything but stealthy. He looked over his shoulder and chuckled, then dramatically began his performance. "Oh shucks, I really thought we could hit it off and be friends, too." He put a hand up to his forehead, speaking loudly. "I guess she doesn't like me... how sad, I think I might... be alone..." he faked a sniff, putting his hand down to his chest, "For the rest of my days... Poor, old Sonic." He shrugged and shook his head out, then smirked and narrowed his eyes behind him when he heard the shuffling stop.

'Got'cha.' he let the smirk reach the corner of his muzzle, 'Your bleeding heart is still too good to pass up someone who you feel is in need. No matter what age you are, you're still a bit of a saint.' he flopped down to be more at her level, but acted as though he was whining and complaining, "Ohhh!!!! What ever will I do!" he lifted his head to call up... then opened an eye to see if she was coming.

Just as planned, a tiny little hand gripped the back of one of his two spikes on his back.

He smiled kindly and looked back to her with great care to not seem threatening, "Well, hello there." he suddenly saw her look up and blush, then take off. "Huh? Hey, wait, where are you going?" He didn't bother to reach for her, just watched her.

"Ah, faking shy, eh?" He gave her a fond look, before Knuckles tumbled down to the ground with a bent and twisted body, looking completely out of his element in his worry of having to re-introduce himself to Amy... as a kid. "You're really banged up about this, aren't you?" Sonic teased, seeing his apparent struggle.

Knuckles got up and rubbed his head, on his hands and knees now, "Shut up..!" he countered, "Besides, what makes you so chill about meeting Amy again at this age? Aren't you a bit concerned she won't like you like she does now? O-or did now, o-or..." As he tried to figure out the tense, Sonic just rolled his eyes up and started crawling on the ground towards where Amy scampered off to. "Hey! Quit leaving me behind!!" Knuckles shouted out as Sonic lifted a foot up and tapped his mouth shut.

"Quiet, will ya? You'll scare her off." Sonic watched as Knuckles blinked, then nodded as Sonic removed his foot, "You really have never talked to a girl before... have you?"

"What's that supposed to mean!?" His anger spiked, but he was shouting in a whisper now, his fist up by Sonic and his teeth now pointed, eyes white in fury, and insulted with an anger mark showing through. "I was alone on an island my entire life! What's your excuse!?"

"I grew up around orphans..." Sonic muttered, looking around casually with his eyes for any sign of movement of where she might be.

"H-huh..? You did?" Knuckles blinked his eyes again, amazed.

"Yeah, you guys." Sonic teased, smiling back at Knuckles. "Tails, Amy... I was always being admired by those younger than me... it made me appreciate people like you and Eggman." he turned with a mischievous look in his face to Knuckles, pulling an eyelid down and sticking his tongue out, "I never had to be anything for you two."

"Why you..." Knuckles twitched an eyebrow in annoyance, but Sonic then lifted up a pointer finger, reminding Knuckles of what Tails had said.

"Just remember, tender love and care." He then grinned a beaming smile as though this was fun for him, and trekked back through the foliage as Knuckles held up his own finger again, repeating.

"Be on your best behavior... Tender love and care... got it... Ah! Hey! You're going off without me again!" he crawled after Sonic... but really, he was just following his lead.

Amy flopped a few long, dangling leafs off of her as she finally made it through the jungle floor's flora and looked up at the giant temples and structures before her.

She had never seen anything so massive and brilliant, tall and imposing... she looked behind her to hear Knuckles bumping into Sonic, and him telling him to 'watch it' and realized that those two strange boys were still after her.

She puffed up a cheek, 'Don't they ever give up!?'

She took off towards the steps of the temple before shying back and growing scared... one wrong move... and she could slip and fall all the way down the steps...

She rubbed her head with both hands, already scared of that possibility before gasping as Knuckles and Sonic came out of the bush.

"Huh? There you are!" Sonic called, very friendly, "Hey, where ya going?"

She immediately shivered, what did these men want with her..?

Sonic saw this... and immediately lost the nature.

He got up, "Hey, we're not here to harm you." he lifted his hands out to show her that it was okay, to not get worked up and calm down.

She scooted away, looking back up the structure and then to Sonic and Knuckles.

Sonic's eyes bent sweetly, "There, see? We can just talk and play, alright? We're not as scary as you may think-"

Knuckles bulldozed out and knocked Sonic down, the two tumbling as Sonic flailed a bit in the tangled wrestle of sorts, Knuckles having vines all over him.

"Ahhh!! It's a snake, get it off of me!" it clearly wasn't...

Amy was freaked out and all of Sonic's 'calming' energy escaped her and was pointless as she started the climb up the temple.

"Oh no!" Sonic pushed Knuckles off of him as he kept 'fighting' the vines he thought were snakes. "Amy!" he called out.

She paused... looking back at him, she wondered how he knew her name.

He raced over to her and held out his arms, "Amy, jump down, you'll get hurt!" he reached out further, showing how sincere he was. "Amy..." His eyes carried a look as though he wanted to protect her...

Her own eyes sparkled and shook... someone... someone truly wanted to be there for her?

Her hand moved a little off the next step she was going to climb, as though to trust that Sonic would catch her, but then...

"Got it! Haha! Take that, snakes!" Knuckles flopped the snakes off of him and then looked to see her on the temple steps, "GAHH!!! My ancestorial shrines!!!" He gripped his hands to his cheeks, then ran over and held up a fist, looking stern and fierce in his face as his brow was sharp and angled down. "Get off of there, you're far too small to be climbing that!" he shouted, as Sonic scolded him immediately and narrowed his eyes to him.

"Knuckles!"

"What!? .... ohhh..." Knuckles lowered his fist and loosened the features on his countenance. "Eh-heh... too much?" Some awkward sweat at knowing he had made a mistake dripped down the side of his face as Amy kept climbing. "Gahhh!!! She's gonna fall!" Knuckles worried, before jumping up and hitting his spikes on his fists to the temple's wall, hurriedly climbing up that way, "Ura-ura-urah!" he was like a red stream train that terrified her.

"Knuckles, stop it! You're scaring her!" he was making it worse, so Sonic scaled up the temple after him, running along side where he was drilling his fist in to keep scaling the large structure, "What happened to 'best behavior' and 'tender love and care'?" Sonic quipped back, but Knuckles just tsk'ed.

"You think your way is working any good? Pfft! She hasn't come to you yet, either!"

Sonic frowned, tilting his head as though he had something to prove now.

"Fine." He dashed up in front of Knuckles to stop him from climbing as ancient dust sprayed onto his face, making him cough and stop fully in his tracks.

"Hey!" he hacked, "Grr... what was that all about?" He didn't seem to understand... Sonic's gentleness towards the situation.

Amy kept climbing, her whole body having to pull itself up over each step before she looked down and panicked, seeing how high she had already gotten and the cold chill of the atmosphere that made her flinch back and cling to the stony, yet smoothened over through time steps.

She closed her eyes... and then... a hand reached out to her.

"Amy..?"

She blinked her eyes opened and looked up, amazed to see Sonic had made it to the steps above her and was reaching down, that same care in his eyes...

'This handsome boy... what does he want with little old me?'

"It's gonna be okay, Amy." Sonic's voice seemed to raise the rising heat on her cheeks. "You're gonna be alright, just hang on. Take my hand, I know it's scary, but you don't have to go back down alone. I'm here now, and I won't let you go. I promise."

His words... the expression on his face...

Every bit of her wanted to trust him.

Her mouth opened and then closed, her head turned away and her eyes shut as well. "I..." she could barely speak in her fear, "I can't."

His eyes blinked and lightened up a bit in curiosity, "Why not, Amy?" He was still being supportive, just wanting understanding.

"You..." she shivered... was she still afraid of him?

"You'll fall, too."

It was moments like these that melted away whatever cool guy attitude or ego Sonic thought he had. His eyes bent in absolute consideration for her... even in her own fears, she always thought of others and was more worried about pulling him down with her than her own safety.

"That's what I've always admired the most about you, Amy." He beamed a smile that when she looked to it, was like the very sun on top of the ancient ruins... like a sun god.

"Even in such a tiny body... your heart is as huge as can be."

With that, she went to take his hand... but then there was a tremor.

"W-woah-woah!" Sonic held on as only a foot and a hand was now on the steps above her, and her little body was being tossed about a bit, desperately trying to hold on. "Knuckles!" Sonic cried out, as Knuckles was charging from below, finally grabbing her ankle.

"Got her!" Knuckles grinned and snickered somewhat, "Hehehe, now you can't get away. You grab her from above and we'll glide down, Sonic!" He shouted out, making Amy flinch as she started hitting his head down.

"No, no, no!" she cried out, tears on the corners of her eyes, "Bad man, bad man!"

"B-bad man!?" Knuckles, getting repeatedly stomped on, looked confused, "We're trying to save you!"

"She means you, Knuckles!" Sonic gritted his teeth, "You have no tact, man!"

"Screw that! What does a tack have to do with this!?" He didn't seem to understand the term...

Sonic shook his head, then allowed himself to fall a bit down before catching himself again, kicking Knuckles with Amy as she watched a protective and caring arm go around her waist. "Get off, you brute! You're horrible with kids!"

"Brute!?" Knuckles was suddenly kicked down and fell, "AHH!!!!" he glided and looped around to another part of the wall. "WHAT WAS THAT FOR!?!?"

"Tsk, some heroic first impression, huh?" Sonic sarcastically stated,... as Amy's eyes began to fall in love with this strange blue hedgehog...

He helped her kick the bad man down...

He held her but wasn't trying to rip her off the stony mountain building...

"Who..." she softly let out, her little, high-pitched voice so cute as Sonic looked to her.

"Hmm?" he waited, still and comforting, for her to finish her question.

"Who are you, mister?" Her sweetness also came with some bitter aftertaste to him... as his eyes bent... wishing she knew all the history they had together...

His mind wandered to dates where he would carry her shopping list, and how she would spin around and give a cheery open-smile to him... "My hero!" she would chime out.

His eyes danced in those memories... barely remembering her as Rosy the Rascal, but mostly... as Amy Rose.

He smiled and closed his eyes, 'heh'ing as he then opened one and gave her a charming smile. "I'm Sonic!" he put a bit of gusto into it, "I'm Sonic The Hedgehog!"

"Hold her still!" Tails's voice suddenly flew into earshot as Sonic broke out of his dynamic introduction and looked down to see Tails flying up in a spiral. "Herrrree I goooo~" he lugged the heavy raygun up all the way and then fired it towards Amy.

The next day, Amy was knitting something on her porch, tapping her toes against the wooden porch before sighing and looking to the sky...

"...I was always on my own, then... longing for someone sweep me off my feet... I had no idea... that what I really needed was..." She paused when her hair flew to the side and she covered some of her face from the wind, then smiled as Sonic had raced by.

Her smile rose and she giggled, leaning forward and getting up off the step to grip a beam and lean her head lovingly into it.

"Was someone to believe in me... And support my adventures... no matter what."

And she was happy.

#sonamy tag #sonamy #cutegirlmayra #sonicxamy #amy rose #classic amy rose #rosy the rascal #sonic the hedgehog #sonamy prompt #me writing #me prompts

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chancelloramidala · 3 years

Text

Staring at the Sun ➤ Evan Buckley

Chapter Five: Growing Pains.

Masterlist.

Marceline Pierce was trying her very hardest to move on from Evan Buckley. It sucked because yeah, maybe this should’ve happened long ago when it was obvious that he didn’t return her affections, but hey at least she’s learning.

She got tired of waiting, of being filled with sadness and jealousy whenever Abby was brought up (especially whenever the subject of "Abby made me a better person!", god that made her blood boil) or whenever she was around.

It made Marceline feel… ugly if that made sense. She didn’t like those feelings brimming at the top of her surface and sort of gave up on her feelings for Buck.

She went on a few dates, finding that the men, women, and non-binary folk she met were just trying to find a one-time thing. And in most cases, Marceline was fine with that, nothing too serious and just a little fun for one night, but she craved something more than a quick interaction like that.

She wanted to get to know someone, figure out what they like and dislike, what they’re allergic to, what drives them to be a good person, and many other things. Marceline wanted a human connection that lasted longer than one night, one that would be reciprocated instead of one-sided.

And that’s how she met Elena Chavez. A beautiful Argentinian-American woman who's easy on the eyes and had the ability to make Marceline actually laugh without trying too hard. They’ve been on a few dates, namely four, and kissed for the first time towards the end of their third.

It was strange for Marceline to be dating again after several years of remaining single and then the several months quietly pinning over a goddamn oaf, but she was proud of herself. She realized that Buck was just never going to love her back in the same capacity she did and decided that she deserved better, even if it wasn’t with him like she initially hoped.

Even if something crucial was just… missing.

Nicolette was ecstatic to see her moving on from Buck. She even helped set up many of Marceline’s failed dates, but she was glad that Marceline was leaving her options open to people other than Buck. Nic has spent the better half of her days listening to her best friend go on and on about her unrequited love for Evan Buckley, and watched her cry when he attended her get-well-soon party with his new girlfriend.

Plus, it helped Marceline think Elena was actually there for her when she watched the other woman interact with Gemma and Nic. Because if there was anything you had to know about Marceline Pierce was that her friends and somewhat co-parentship to Nicolette and Gemma Pierce were an added deal into dating her.

And after the sixth date, Marceline worked up the courage to introduce Elena to another set of important people in her life: her team. Even if they didn’t know they were that important to her.

“Hey, guys, uh,” Marceline cleared her throat at the table whilst Bobby laid out the food with the help of Chimney and Buck. “Can I talk to you?”

“Hm?” They all turned their attention to her, and at that moment she kinda wanted to disappear.

“So,” she pressed her lips into a thin line as she recalled the dialogue she made up last night. “I know I haven’t been the most… open person here with my personal life, but I do consider you to be people I hold very close to my heart.“ she paused for a moment, her green and brown eyes glancing around the table to find they were all looking at her with soft expressions and a small smile tinged on their lips. ”So, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to introduce you all to my girlfriend?”

“Of course,” Bobby nodded without any hesitation and smiled softly at Marceline for taking a step at opening herself up to them.

“Aw, so the Ice Queen does have a heart.” Chimney jokes, thus earning a smack to the back of his head from Hen. “Hey, hey, I was joking, I’m very excited to meet her, Mars.” He winked at her as he rubbed the back of his head and shot Hen a playful glare.

“Great,” then she checked the watch on her wrist, “she’ll be here any moment. She’s bringing a pie.”

Marceline then led Elena towards the table after she arrived, and gestured to each person as they introduced themselves. “This is my dysfunctional team, El,” she said with a small firm.

Elena smiled brightly at everyone and waved, “It’s great to finally put faces to the names, Mars talks about,”

“Please, sit,” Bobby gestured to the table, specifically at the open spot next to Marceline.

Chimney, ever so the man to break the ice eyed the tin towards the end of the table. “So, what kind of pie did ya bring for us?”

She grinned as pink tinted her cheeks. “I baked you guys some peach pie,”

Bobby was instantly intrigued. “You made it yourself?”

Buck laughed, “We’ll you’ve already sold, Bobby huh?”

“Yes, I’m a baker and owner of Delicate Taste Buds downtown.”

Then, for the majority of the meal, Elena and Bobby exchanged their favorite dessert recipes with Marceline smiling softly at the woman next to her. It didn’t go unnoticed that the two women were holding hands at this point. Their clasped hands could be seen on the table when Elena talked about herself and grew nervous, wanting to make a good impression for the 118. So Marceline carefully reached over and put her hand on Elena’s, and gave it a gentle squeeze

Hen and Chimney whispered conspicuously to one another, smiling at Marceline and Elena’s display of affection and talking about how cute the two women were.

Buck sat there, nodding and listening to Elena talk about herself, and would add his own inquiries every so often. Then his eyes would flicker to Marceline who seemed to be only staring at the woman beside her with this soft, gentle gaze that matched how he felt he looked at Abby.

Evan Buckley never thought he’d see Marceline Pierce like this. So entranced with another being. But perhaps he wasn’t looking hard enough, to begin with.

Because if Henrietta Wilson knew the long, pining gazes of Marceline Pierce, it certainly wasn’t directed to Elena Chavez. While Buck, Bobby, and Chimney were busy talking with Elena, they never caught Marceline staring at Buck with heartbreak in her heterochromatic eyes.

The facade of warmth she thought she was holding together for her own sake slipped whenever she even spared a look to Evan Buckley.

Eventually, Elena had to go stating that she had errands to run and a business to manage. The team gave Elena and Marceline some time to say their goodbyes as they cleaned up from their meal before smirking at the woman as she walked up the twisting stairs.

“What?” she asked, dubious as to why the hell her coworkers were acting so goddamn weird. “Do I have something on my face or…?”

“We’re just happy for you, that’s all.” Bobby cut in before Chimney or Buck could make a fool of themselves.

“Oh,” Marceline replied, dumbfounded at how her team seemed to enjoy Elena’s company. “Well, don’t be too happy,” she mumbled under her breath as she walked over to the sink since it was her turn to wash the dishes.

As she rolled up her sleeves, Buck slid beside her with a red rag in hand. “You wash and I’ll dry?”

For a moment, she eyed the other man strangely, knowing very well that they had a drying rack for this very purpose but whatever, to each their own. “Sure,” she mused before turning the water on.

Silence washed over the two firefighters by the sink, one passing a wet plate or fork the other’s way as they dried it with a dishrag. But just because it was quiet, didn’t mean it was uncomfortable. Marceline and Buck were in sync with each other’s movements, the only sound coming from the splashing of water from the sink or the small squeak from the cloth against a plate.

This gave Marceline a lot of time to think about where she was in her life right now. And the more she thought about it, the worse she felt. In the end, no matter how hard she tried to get over Buck, he would still tug on her heartstrings and linger in the back of her mind, and that was in no way fair to Elena. Even if she was the perfect person to be dating, Marceline had too much shit to work through and Elena didn’t deserve to be used as a distraction of sorts.

(In short, her efforts of shoving her feelings for Evan Buckley into a box locked away deep within her wasn't going so well.)

After they finished washing and drying each and every dish in the sink and the epiphany she was having, Marceline took a blue rag nearby and wiped her hands before turning to Buck. “I think I’m going to break up with Elena,”

“What?” Buck was absolutely floored to hear this because he thought Marceline was head-over-heels with Elena.

She shrugged lamely as she threw the towel onto the counter after she finished drying her hands, “She’s a great person, but… I lack that spark with her, you know?” she turned her head to look at him, curious to know if Buck would understand.

Buck tilted his head to the side for a moment, pondering at the word spark. Because if anything, he’d think that he has that special spark with Abby. She brought the best in him, Buck 2.0 which was the best Buck, so that had to mean something, right? “Yeah,”

But then Abby’s mom died and that spark he thought he had with her started to dwindle when she walked past the glass doors and into the airport.

@skyslowalking @beelarson 4 u <3

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷ AUTHOR’S NOTE: we in season two now bitches

21 notes · View notes

kbstories · 4 years

Text

impression//expression

“It’s not like Kirishima had come all this way to U.A. to immediately break the promise he made to himself upon arrival.

It’s just that Bakugou is as feral as they come, and the moment Kirishima recognizes it’s fear he felt crawling up his spine that day, he makes it his personal mission to face it head-on until it’s gone.”

(Or: Being friends with Bakugou Katsuki is anything but a linear experience. Kirishima Eijirou would have it no other way.)

Tags: Kirishima POV, Developing Friendships, Kamino Arc, Kidnapping & Aftermath, Hurt/Comfort, Bakugou Gets A Hug

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Content warning for kidnapping, aftermath of violence. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9.

***

Nitro!! (Baku 💣💥)

i’m gonna die (sent 19:08)

no seriously i’m this 👌🏻 close to losing it bro (sent 19:08)

aizawa’s voice is so zzzz and it’s like sir,, i’m begging,,,, (sent 19:09)

a little bit of energy. just a little bit (sent 19:09)

A nudge to his side, somewhat urgent.

shit brb (sent 19:10)

“Dude.”

Kirishima keeps his voice down to a hiss, shooting a glance at Aizawa’s turned back just in case. Hidden behind his pencil case, his phone shows Bakugou has read his messages – near-immediately, as always – before Kirishima locks the screen. His own face is reflected on sleek, innocent black.

Next to him, Kaminari is looking at him like he’s lost his mind. “Don’t dude me, dude”, he whispers back. “Texting in Aizawa’s class? D’you have a death wish?”

Next to Kaminari, Mina leans over her desk, clearly curious and uncaring of her notes crinkling quietly under her elbows. “You? Kiri, paragon of wholesomeness and sunshine, breaking the rules? Lemme guess, it’s because of Bakugou.”

Next to Mina, Sero joins the fray with a muted headshake. “So brave yet so reckless. Truly inspiring.”

“You can say that again. That guy’s scary, man.” That’s Kaminari again. He leans in conspiratorially, nodding at Kirishima’s phone. “You got Blasty’s number? How? He almost bit my head off when I invited him to the 1-A chat.”

“Uh, yeah? We’re besties. But guys…”

If they were anywhere else, Kirishima would let out a whine. All he wanted to do was keep himself awake by texting his bro, is that such a crime? Especially since Bakugou’s the only one of ‘em who is actually allowed out there, where the fun stuff is happening. It’s downright cruel to have a new challenge dangled in front of their eyes like the juiciest steak only to be dragged away to the equivalent of plain steamed broccoli. Or something.

Point is: Kirishima’s bored enough he could cry and Aizawa, bless his insomnia-plagued soul, is making it about a thousand times worse with his monotone mumbling while he continues to write whatever-the-fuck in chalk to illustrate his point.

Three mouths open simultaneously in what Kirishima knows will be a too-loud bout of teasing – a frantic gesture of his hand to shut up, shut up, shut up has identical grins bursting on his friends’ faces.

Grins that disappear the instant the familiar sense of Aizawa’s quirk washes over them. Uh oh.

Aizawa doesn’t even have to say anything. Not even a brief pause registers in his lecture yet Kirishima snaps to attention so hard his buttcheeks clench as he furiously scribbles down what’s on the board. Some sort of… diagram? (It’ll make sense later, Kirishima hopes. And if it doesn’t, there’s always his equally draconic tutor-slash-best-friend he can poke into helping him eventually.)

After a semester at U.A., everyone in 1-A is whipped enough that not a single word is breathed between them for a good fifteen minutes. Aizawa talks, they take notes.

Then the adrenaline wears off and Kirishima finds himself drifting once more, fingers automatically flicking the home button. There, over Crimson Riot’s confident grin, three new messages.

Nitro!! (Baku 💣💥)

pay attention (received 19:14)

ffs (received 19:14)

hope aizawa murdered your ass (received 19:16)

No surprises there. Well, the fact that Bakugou has deigned to reply just before a training exercise kind of is, and he even triple-texted which makes a sappy part of Kirishima’s brain think he must’ve rubbed off on him over the past months. The day Bakugou Katsuki discovers emojis can’t be far off now and it will be Kirishima’s greatest achievement to date.

He bites his lip to suppress an amused noise at that. Ignoring the incredulous stare from Kaminari to his right, Kirishima types.

Nitro!! (Baku 💣💥)

haha! i lived bitch (sent 19:32)

minus the bitch askdjfhsk sry (sent 19:32)

i’m just tired af lol (sent 19:32)

how’s things on ur end tho? (sent 19:34)

no asses left unkicked i’m sure (sent 19:34)

👊🏻💥💥 (sent 19:35)

Kirishima gets about a solid second to feel good about furthering his pro-emoji agenda before his phone is snatched away by rigid, white cloth. Wide-eyed, his gaze is met by a flat expression that exudes more exhaustion than any human should rightfully have to feel.

“Kirishima”, Aizawa says, as calm as ever. “How kind of you to lend me your attention.”

Lord have mercy. Whichever hell Aizawa is about to unleash on him, Kirishima will be in it for a while. And when that’s over, it’ll be Bakugou’s turn to have a field day with it.

Somehow, Kirishima is actually looking forward to that last part.

Then, a voice rings out in their heads. Aizawa jumps into motion. The villains strike.

Afterwards, all Kirishima can do is stand there and watch the forest burn. His phone is silent, held between fingers that won’t stop trembling no matter what he does. He unlocks, checks, locks, only to do it all over again a few minutes or seconds later.

Around him, everything is spinning out of control. Reality is too loud, too bright, already overwhelming where it waits to be acknowledged beyond the soothing green interface of his chat with Bakugou.

The messages are still there. Marked read until they aren’t, and Kirishima stares at that subtle difference like it’s the last thing tethering him to the ground. Blue tick, his best friend is fine. Grey tick–

Bakugou let Kirishima take a photo of him, once. Kirishima had complained about his profile picture being that creepy default silhouette, especially once they started texting on a daily basis. So Bakugou sighed and leaned over the tiny table of the café, his chin propped on one hand and his coffee in the other. He’d kept still just long enough for the shutter to go off and called him a clingy bastard right after.

In the soft morning light, there’d been something warm in his typical glare. It’s still there, tucked away in the top left corner of the screen. Fond, red eyes, looking straight at Kirishima ever since.

Higher and higher, the flames reach for the sky with greedy, cobalt fingers, bright enough to take the stars with them. And Bakugou?

Bakugou is gone.

Nitro!! (Baku 💣💥)

hey (sent 23:01)

it’s a long shot but (sent 23:03)

are u there? (sent 23:03)

these are going thru so ur phone is on and i thought (sent 23:08)

idk (sent 23:08)

please respond man (sent 23:37)

please (sent 23:58)

katsuki? (sent 00:40)

Nitro!! (Baku 💣💥)

fuck (sent 3:24)

Bakugou Katsuki

um (sent 6:13)

the pros asked for ur number to track it and stuff so i gave it to them (sent 6:13)

turns out almost nobody has it?? so like (sent 6:20)

if u want a new one after all this it’s on me (sent 6:21)

pls don’t be mad haha (sent 6:21)

fuck that actually (sent 7:05)

be as mad as u want baku (sent 7:06)

u can do whatever ok? when u come back (sent 7:09)

free pass. i won’t guard this time (sent 7:09)

just come back (sent 8:00)

they’re looking for u so u gotta come back (sent 8:02)

Baku 💣💥

sry i just (sent 19:55)

ok still going thru (sent 19:55)

that’s good right? (sent 19:57)

i need it to be good (sent 20:05)

yeah (sent 20:06)

Baku 💣💥

it’s saturday (sent 2:33)

please be ok (sent 4:46)

i miss u (sent 5:00)

Baku 💣💥

we’re on our way katsuki (sent 12:45)

just hold on we’re coming for u (sending…)

wait (sending…)

oh (sending…)

Bakugou is quiet.

When all is said and done, injuries patched up and police statements given, Kirishima waits and Bakugou looks… tired. Small. Glancing back at the precinct with eyes a little too wide, a little too hesitant to truly belong to him.

Whatever he’s searching, if he finds it or not – Kirishima can only guess as Bakugou’s shoulders slump further and he mutters, “Let’s just go.”

In retrospect, he was probably talking to his parents. The Bakugous came for their son in a car as expensive as they come, white with chrome highlights and an interior clad entirely in tasteful, beige leather; it’s an aesthetic that’s the antithesis to Katsuki’s. Their expressions are full of love, though, brows drawn in concern carefully left unspoken. His father opens the back door for him first, going for his own in the front, while his mother ruffles Bakugou’s hair within the one-second-window he allows for the touch before shrugging it off.

“Welcome back, brat. We missed ya.”

Familiar phrases laden with far too much weight. From the outside in, it’s just that: Mildly exasperated parents picking up their kid after some school thing that dragged on into the night, or perhaps a late hangout with a friend. No one acknowledges the nightmare-ish three days they’ve left behind by the merit of time passing and the world spinning on and nothing else – the countless people injured or dead, an entire district torn asunder in a conflict much bigger than any of them, especially Bakugou.

Bakugou, who shuffles onto the backseat without saying much of anything. It’s only after Kirishima trails after him and Bakugou’s eyes meet his own over his shoulder that Kirishima realizes that’s what he’s doing.

Then Bakugou’s gaze softens and he kicks the door of the car open wider. “Um”, Kirishima pipes up, the noise of keys clinking together drawing his attention to one Bakugou Mitsuki. “Is it okay if I…?”

She snorts and ruffles his hair, too. “Kid, after what you did tonight, a ride home is the least I can do for ya. C’mon.”

Kirishima bows politely, a mumble of “Thanks, ma’am” waved away immediately. A moment later, Kirishima’s hand is being grabbed and he’s dragged inside. “Get a move on”, Bakugou mumbles, staring pointedly until Kirishima rights himself and digs for the seatbelt with his free hand. The click of the clasp snapping in is oddly loud in the ensuing silence.

It doesn’t last. The moment the engine purrs to life and the lights go off, a heavy guitar riff screeches from cleverly hidden speakers in perfect surround sound and Kirishima jumps. He’s the only one in the car to do so.

“Whoops, my bad”, says Bakugou’s mom as she turns the music down the slightest amount, her smirk – so familiar and yet not – clearly visible in the rear-view mirror. Next to her, Bakugou’s dad chuckles and shakes his head.

Bakugou himself is turned towards the window, the hand against his chin barely hiding the tiny smirk there. Kirishima lets him have it. Anything that’ll replace that lost expression from earlier is good in his books.

“So. Eijirou, right? Nice to finally meet ya.” Mrs. Bakugou checks in with him via the mirror. Her hand rests on the gear selector. “Where to? We’ll bring you home first. I’m sure your parents are worried.”

And oh fuck, Kirishima hasn’t even thought that far ahead yet. When he snuck out of the house a lifetime ago, all his mind was able to process was getting to Bakugou, saving Bakugou, bringing Bakugou back. As much as both his mothers are angels in their own right, they’re also easily worried and twice as buff as him. There haven’t been many occasions which called for them to throw down for their son but they totally would if given half the chance.

If they catch wind of even a fraction of what Kirishima got up to tonight, someone will have to pay. Kirishima’s willing to bet his most prized, limited-edition Crimson Riot figurine that that someone will end up being all of U.A., nationally famous pro heroes or not.

Before any of that can make it out of his mouth, Kirishima’s hand is squeezed and… Oh. Bakugou’s still holding it. Their skin isn’t touching; Kirishima’s sleeve has been pulled down to prevent that.

(It’s one of those things Bakugou does, tracking who and what gets in direct contact with his sweat and how to neutralize it in time. It makes Kirishima’s chest ache that, despite everything that happened, he is still aware of small things like that.)

“He’s crashing at ours tonight”, Bakugou tells his parents rather gruffly. Still looking out the window like there’s nothing unusual about that at all, and Kirishima gapes at him in complete and utter surprise. Bakugou’s grip only tightens.

“Got a problem with that?”

Just like that, Kirishima finds himself able to process speech. “Nope! Not at all. Uh, that is– Mrs. Bakugou, Mr. Bakugou, can I?”

Bakugou’s parents look similarly caught off-guard. To their credit, they merely blink and look at each other, shrugging. Again, it’s the mother who speaks. “That’s Mitsuki and Masaru to you, kid. Let’s go home, then.”

And that’s that. They set off, the car’s movement a quiet thrum that’s drowned out by complicated drum solos and vocals barely scraping past outright growling. Any other day, Kirishima would’ve been ecstatic to finally get to meet the Bakugous. He’d hoard bits and pieces of knowledge about them – such as the fact that Katsuki’s taste in music runs in the family, what the hell – like a dragon does gold coins. The notion that Bakugou invited him to their first sleep-over ever would be the biggest treasure on that pile, for sure.

Because Bakugou Katsuki is anything if not cautious: with his quirk, with his time, with his trust. Because, after days of pacing his room and worrying himself sick and crying until exhaustion took him out, their plan worked.

They pulled it off, Bakugou is back and alive, and Kirishima’s allowed to stay by his side a little bit longer.

He’s here because Bakugou wants him to be and that… feels better than Kirishima can properly put into words. So, no, he doesn’t boast about it, he doesn’t have the energy to – but Kirishima notes and appreciates it nonetheless, relief forming a ball of warmth and light that radiates within him like a tiny sun got stuck between his lungs and his heart. Bit by bit, it melts the tension off Kirishima’s bones until all he can grasp is the steady presence of Bakugou’s hand in his and how heavy his eyelids feel.

Kirishima could sleep for a week straight and still crave a nap afterwards. Probably.

There’s something he has to do before he crashes, though. With a gentle squeeze, he frees his hand to grab his phone and winces at the dozens of unread messages and missed calls that greet him. Both the group he has with his family as well as the one for 1-A have been running hot most of the night, reducing his battery to a pitiful 12%.

Opening up the chat with his moms, Kirishima scrolls to the bottom of the increasingly worried barrage of texts and hesitates, his fingers hovering over the keypad. Once he starts typing, he’ll have about a minute before shit really hits the fan.

💪🏻Kirishima Power 💪🏻

guys i’m so sorry!!! (sent 21:58)

i know ur worried and stuff and i swear i’ll explain later ok?? (sent 21:58)

just wanna let u know i’m safe!! staying over at baku’s tonight (sent 21:58)

he’s here and safe too (sent 21:58)

🙏🏻🙏🏻 (sent 21:59)

He pauses then, reading that last part over and over again. Safe. Safe, safe, safe. A smile cracks Kirishima’s lips apart and it remains there, steadfast through the flood of new messages rolling in.

Bakugou’s room is both everything Kirishima expected it to be and at the same time… not.

It’s huge, for one, the typical bed-wardrobe-desk setup expanded by a couch and a beanbag, a TV with a variety of game systems hooked up to it, a handful of shelves filled to the brim with books and manga and oh, a whole freaking drum set taking up a corner by itself. The walls are plastered with band posters and signed set lists and – less blatant but still there – the odd All Might merch Kirishima knows Bakugou would strangle him for mentioning, so he doesn’t.

What comes out of his mouth is: “Dude! I didn’t know you played drums. That’s so cool!”

Everything is kept in the triad of black-orange-green Kirishima recognizes from a certain hero costume. A few discarded shirts aside, it’s really tidy. So much so that Kirishima feels ashamed of the state of his own room just by seeing this.

The feeling is compounded by Bakugou picking up those shirts and throwing them in the hamper first thing, a quiet tch indicating he’s annoyed by it. Kirishima isn’t up to outing himself as an unrepentant walking mess in comparison – instead, he makes a beeline for the bookshelf with the manga, eyes drawn to a row of covers he’d recognize in a heartbeat.

“Wha– I’ve been looking for these for ages! They’re sold out every time I try to catch up on ‘em.”

A short glance at Bakugou is answered with a shrug and an eye-roll: It’s Bakugou-speak for do whatever the hell you want. Kirishima pulls out the volume he stopped at and leafs through it.

It’s meant as a distraction for Bakugou, a space for him to drop the put-together façade and breathe without people constantly fussing over him. It’s honestly what Kirishima would rather be doing right now (exploring his best bro’s room be damned) but it’s not what Bakugou needs. Well, what Kirishima thinks he needs.

It’s hard to get a read on him without the constant snark and pointed glares. With some dinner in their bellies and Bakugou’s parents now safely downstairs, the expression that fits nowhere on the Angry Bakugou Face catalogue is back. Kind of uncomfortable and so… absent.

Kirishima is really starting to hate that expression.

It’s entirely accidental that Kirishima actually gets into reading. One chapter turns to three, turns to five, and the troubles and worries whirling ever-tighter in his chest ease for a bit until–

Woosh. A soft, balled-up something knocks against the back of his head. Kirishima startles and almost drops the manga, a vaguely alarmed noise stopped short by the sight of Bakugou in sweats and a well-worn, black shirt. His hair is wet. Wild as ever. At Kirishima’s feet: A similar outfit including a towel.

“Bathroom’s that way. Leave your clothes out by the door, I got special detergent for the nitro. Shampoo and shit’s in the shower, there’s a toothbrush for you by the sink. Use it.”

Kirishima opens his mouth.

Bakugou sighs. “It’s just a fucking toothbrush, Kiri. Wreck it for all I care.”

Kirishima closes his mouth. He nods. His phone is quickly dug out of his pocket and set aside, then he slips out to shower.

A good fifteen minutes later, he opens the door to let out a gust of steam and sees his clothes are gone. The hallway is empty, half-lit by the light coming from downstairs. The Bakugous have been as nonchalant about their spontaneous guest as Bakugou himself; even so, Kirishima tries not to linger or make too much noise as he sneaks back to Bakugou’s room.

“Baku. I’m back.”

Bakugou gives him a grunt of acknowledgement from where he’s fitting some sheets over the couch, folded out to provide a decently sized bed. There’s a pillow and a pile of blankets next to him, wrapped in fresh linen as well. It’s unlikely he’s stopped doing stuff since Kirishima left and if he is about ready to crash in five to ten minutes, he can’t imagine how Bakugou is doing right now.

Y’know, the guy who just survived being kidnapped by Japan’s newest and most notorious villain menace. No amount of pretense can make that simple fact undone.

Kirishima pads over to help, the offer to take over already on his lips but– Too late. The last corner is already being tucked in and laid flat with grim-faced efficiency. Left with nothing else to do, Kirishima sits down on the very edge, eyes downcast and fingers fiddling with the hem of his borrowed shirt. There’s some sort of band logo on it, an English word written in that typical death-metal-font that looks like someone dumped a bunch of white sticks in a pile and called it a day.

It’s soft. A little loose and frayed around the edges.

“Hey, Baku?”

Taking the blankets, Bakugou dumps them in Kirishima’s lap. “Mh?” He makes to step away and Kirishima doesn’t think, just reaches out and catches the back of his shirt.

“Dude, seriously. Just… sit down for a minute. Please?”

And Bakugou… listens. He stops, he frowns at Kirishima for a moment like he’s trying to figure out what his deal is, he sighs like he’s been presented with the world’s most aggravating puzzle – and then he tells Kirishima to scooch. “What? I’m not gonna sit on the fucking floor”, he says.

Kirishima can’t keep the relief off his face as he gladly makes room on the couch, leaning against its arm and tucking his legs in. Once Bakugou has settled, cross-legged with an elbow propped on the backrest, Kirishima throws the blanket over both of ‘em. Might as well get comfortable while they still can.

“Okay.” He steels himself with a long, slow breath. “I know you hate this kinda thing and we’re both tired and… stuff. Still, though: Are you okay?”

Bakugou gives him a look, which– Okay, fair. It’s a dumb question with an obvious answer. Kirishima doesn’t back down, though, humming to buy himself some time to rephrase.

“Like… It’s fine if you’re not. Okay, I mean. And if you’d rather go the fuck to bed and not think about this for a while that’s fine, too. But that was pretty rough and you’ve been, um, quiet. And stuff. So, I’m kinda worried. Y’know?”

Kirishima pauses. A bit lower, he mumbles: “And I missed you. So yeah.”

At some point, he dropped his gaze to his hands, limp and useless in his lap. Kirishima swore not to be a coward anymore but it’s hard, to speak and ask about things in full awareness he has no fucking clue what he’s doing.

All he wants is for Bakugou to be okay. That’s all that matters, at the end of a day like this.

“I’m not”, Bakugou says, tentatively. Like he’s making up his mind as he goes. “I’m not gonna waste your time with ‘I’m fine’. I’m not. This shit’s fucked up.” And again he sighs, sounding so fucking tired Kirishima’s heart squeezes in sympathy.

“I haven’t slept in three fucking days; my shoulders are killing me from using my quirk and sitting chained to that stupid chair and whatever the fuck else. The League scouted me specifically because they thought I’d make a good villain and fuck them for that. Fuck them. But it’s just… It’s whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

Whatever Kirishima expected, it’s not that. He looks up and into Bakugou’s eyes and–

He can’t mean that, can he? Kirishima searches his face for evidence to the contrary, traces the tension around Bakugou’s mouth and the exhaustion smudged under his eyes and the line between his brows, growing deeper under Kirishima’s scrutiny. It all reads defeat. It hurts.

They won, right? A childish voice within Kirishima can’t help but cling to that even as he looks back down. They won, and things are supposed to get better when you win.

“People got hurt. People died, Kiri. Heroes, too.” Bakugou takes a shaky breath, a hand going to his hair and rubbing it roughly. “Fucking… Best Jeanist was there and nobody at the precinct wanted to tell me if he’s alive or dead or what. All of Kamino Ward is fucking gone and All Might–”

Bakugou’s voice cracks right down the middle and it hurts. Like there’s a beast tearing through Kirishima’s chest to rip out his heart and throw it to the floor, stubbornly beating as it bleeds out.

Kirishima wants to say something. Anything. All he can hear is Bakugou’s breathing but it’s all wrong, off-rhythm and thread-bare and upset, and any doubt what that means is erased as Bakugou’s hand clenches on the sheets and he sniffs, wet on the exhale.

“Baku–”

“Don’t. Kiri, don’t–”

He’s always been like that, ordering him around and demanding things when politeness dictates to ask for them instead. His tone is as close to pleading as Kirishima’s ever heard from Bakugou, though, and it twists him up inside to the point he feels distantly nauseous.

“Don’t look.” Bakugou isn’t supposed to sound like that. Not now, not ever. “Okay? Don’t f-fucking– Don’t look at me right now.”

“Okay”, Kirishima says. “I won’t.” His own voice is a mess as well, trembling all over the place. “I won’t, Nitro. I won’t.”

You’re safe, is what he wants to tell him. It’s okay, you’re safe now. That’s not what Bakugou is asking of him. Kirishima can’t stop himself from crying because it’s always been hard not to when the people he loves are doing it, but… He tries. For Bakugou, he’ll always try.

Through eyes heavily clouded by tears, he sees Bakugou’s hand tighten, knuckles going white and bloodless. Painfully tense, and Kirishima can’t stand the sight of that, either.

He shuffles a little closer to place his hand over that fist, careful to only touch the back of Bakugou’s hand. Kirishima whispers, “I’m here”, and Bakugou audibly swallows. He lets him slip his fingers in-between his own.

Holding on, just as he did in the car and when they met in mid-air, that desperate instance that decided whether he would make it out alive or not.

Bakugou holds on even as he breaks for good and his shoulders shake with his sobs. As he continues to breathe in gulps of air that sound strangled and desperate, through tears that leave a pattern of uneven dots on the blanket. By morning they will be gone without a trace: The sun will come up, the world will continue to travel around it, and time will reveal the road they walk on as they walk it, step by step by step.

Just because it’s meant to pass doesn’t make this moment any less real. Any less important. Kirishima sits there and listens to his best friend cry. He remembers days spent without him and the mad dash to save him. He thinks of dumb questions and obvious answers.

It’s hard to tell if this is one of them, so he gathers all his courage and asks: “Katsuki. Can I hug you?”

Just like last time, Bakugou doesn’t say anything. He laughs, a watery, humorless thing – and he pulls at Kirishima’s shirt to crush him to his chest. His arms wind around Kirishima’s neck, Bakugou’s face pressing against his hair where Kirishima won’t be able to see him.

It’s fine. Kirishima’s great at hugs; he can totally work with that. Clenching his eyes shut, he adjusts his grip around Bakugou’s waist so he can rub his back, following the bumps of his spine. Up and down, over and over. Bakugou goes boneless in their embrace, not about to let go anytime soon and neither will Kirishima.

Eventually, Kirishima tucks his head against Bakugou’s shoulder, blinking sleep from his eyes. Safe. He doesn’t fight the sharp-toothed smile on his lips. Bakugou mumbles, “Fucking sap”, nearly drowned out by their collective sniffling.

It sounds a whole lot like thank you. Kirishima’s smile only grows.

>>Chapter 5

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha #mha #bakugou katsuki #kirishima eijirou #kiribaku #bnha fanfiction #hi kamino still makes me emo: the manifesto #this fic is also on AO3!!#reblogs appreciated c:#my stuff

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the-darklings · 4 years

Note

Kat im begging u 🅱️lease feed us that good vap! Hector food 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 i will give u anything ( sorry if this sent like 10 times the ask button wasnt working)

𝙑𝘼𝙈𝙋𝙄𝙍𝙀!𝘼𝙐:【01】| 【02】| 【2.5】|【03】|

The girl giggles.

Stupid, reckless female.

She’ll be dead within an hour.

She no doubt believes that a night of passionate sex and pleasure is worth the price of her blood. It might be. If the one with his arm around her wasn’t the one they call the Devil.

You’ve heard stories about him only—the brutality, the debauchery, the recalcitrant loyalty towards Camorra, towards the vampire king.

The man known to you only as Hector is a legend in his own right but for all the wrong reasons.

Running into him, here in this city, had been an accident. You’ve been tracking another target. A violent necromancer who was getting a bit too pompous for his own good and reckless when practising the Unholy Arts. The order from the High Priest had been clear: removal.

You were on track before the heat in your blood had flares at the shabby bar where humans mixed with the supernatural—often with deadly, bloody results. Still, humans who wandered into these gatherings knew full well what they were doing, and you felt little pity for those idiotic enough to accept food and drinks from fae and goblins. For those who thought that bargains could be struck to their advantage. Who sold their blood to vampires for a pretty jewel or pleasure. Some humans had gotten lucky, of course.

There’s been plenty of stories about higher vampyr taking brides and grooms, bestowing immortality upon them. Sharing with them the sin of bloodshed.

The golden vampire prince and his silky voice offering you the world tickles the shell of your ear and your glower, shaking the silky, seductive memory away.

The Devil of Camorra with his large frame sticks out even in the shadows. He has the presence of a hulking monster but it’s not fat his bones carry. There is deadly sort of grace about his muscular build and those broad shoulders.

The girl laughs again at whatever the vampire says and you wonder what Camorra’s most loyal vampire—the vampire they say answers to Giovanni only—is really doing here in this shithole of an alleyway. Aside from seducing young virgins desperate for affection and a promise of immortality.

Hector pushes the female against the wall and she laughs again, her fingers snaking up his chest and the vampire whispered something in her ear that makes her stifle a moan. Your fingertips brush against the serrated edge of your holy blade as you stalk through the shadows, silent.

“You can come out, you know,” a rough, cold voice slices through the dark alleyway but you linger in the shadows. “While I don’t mind an audience usually, in this case, the more the merrier.”

There is a smugness attached to that harsh voice as Hector’s head slants and his mercury eyes glow in the dark as they look towards you. The colour is so piercing that for a moment they remind you of the silver your blades have been forged from.

You step into the dim light and his nostrils flare, his body swinging towards you. Such destructive, terrifying intensity in his gaze. He’s handsome in a brutal way. In an awful way that you imagine scares away most. He’s acid to D’Antonio’s honey—

“Well, well,” he voices with a taunting twist of his full lips. The female moves but Hector’s arm snaps out, his long inked fingers wrapping around her throat and the girl yelps in fear. Your grip on the blades constricts before loosening. Hector’s lips twitch again, knowing, curious. “With that overbearing fucking scent, you must be the one they call the Vipress. The Holy Hunter. Aren’t I lucky boy? Princeling’s newest obsession in the flesh, huh?”

You’re not sure what to make of the fact that he knows you because—

Because what? D’Antonio told him about you?

The Devil’s eyes drag over your figure purposely and his lips quirk. “I think I can see the appeal.”

“Let the girl go.”

He chuckles; a rumbling, deep sound. The type that chills one’s blood. He’s the type of creature you would pray to the gods above you won’t meet without a crucifix or holy water on hand.

“Or I tear her pretty throat out and we bathe in her blood,” he suggests lightly and his grip on the girl tightens. She’s not giggling anymore. You can barely see her against the shadows of the wall but the wet, spluttering sounds of her fear fills the humid night air. “Virgin blood. Impeccable. You, however,” he pauses, his nostrils flaring again and he hums, his eyes narrowing. “Smell fucking divine.”

“You do that and I kill you,” you inform him calmly, raising one of your blades and rotating the glinting, familiar metal between your fingers in a warning. “Maybe I’ll send your head back to Giovanni D’Antonio as a calling card.”

He exposes his teeth and you watch those fangs intently. The motion is purely predatory but your expression remains impassive. “Do you really think—”

Your blade slices through the air with blinding speed, silencing him.

The Devil of Camorra catches it before it manages to sink into his chest but the runes scorch through his skin and he drops it with a hiss, his grip on the girl faltering as he snarls in your direction.

He manages to catch your other arm, his grip bruising and surprise reflects in those quicksilver eyes. No doubt at the speed with which you cut the distance between you. You jerk backwards on your heels, another blade slipping free and feel something cold and unmoving wrap around your throat as your arm snaps out.

Your dark shadow, your Jardani, is stronger.

But you are faster.

The girl scrambles away with a sob as you stand at a standstill with the vampire before you. His fingers tight around your throat and your holy blade burning against the ink of his powerful neck. He reeks of potent sort of strength and although no pure blood runs through his veins, his power is unquestionable. The Holy Text on your back seems to blister anew. These damn fucking vampires. First the handsome prince and now this asshole.

The tall vampire in front of you seems amused at your predicament—at the stalemate. “I’m going to eat you up,” he tells you, almost cordial, and you push the blade deeper against his skin. The skin sizzles but the vampire only grins wider, his fangs gleaming. His thumb scrapes against your pulse, his cold Camorra rings caressing your skin.

The audacity of him.

“You haven’t lived long enough to stomach me,” you hiss under your breath, and swiftly bend your fingers till the blade in your other hand touches his skin. “Lux sancta.”

The Holy Text carved into your back flares with pain as does the light through your blades, burning away everything in your path as it explodes outwards.

The vampire growls loudly, tearing himself away from you. The flash of light is brief but the Camorra’s Devil doesn’t manage to mask his pain completely as he stares at his charred hand. It will heal due to his power but it will be slow. Holy Light does not leave injuries lightly.

The look on his face is as murderous as it is ravenous. “If it weren’t for my orders—”

He swallows and flexes his burned fingers, working his jaw at the agony he no doubt must be feeling. His eyes are no longer that pale, icy blue. They burn with that familiar rusted red and he grins; cold and harsh.

“I’ll see you very soon, sweetheart.”

A damning, pitiless promise.

Shadows engulf him. You stagger ahead and promptly collapse face-first onto the ground, your knees caving in.

Sweat drips down your brow, your back in agony and you recall the High Priest’s warning that you are not ready. That you need another Remaking before you are ever allowed to consider evoking the Holy Text.

Too weak.

But not in that dream, you recall through your feverish delirium. Not with the green-eyed prince.

Darkness swallows you whole, and then there is nothing.

#oc writing #oc x reader #john wick oc #vampire au #supernatural au #original writing #c: hector #BACK TO THE SQUAD NEXT PART!!! this was more of a set up for a few ideas about V herself and her power....really #me trying to make an actual plot out of this incoherent mess?? mayhaps because i'm incapable of writing something without a novel of lore #s: my lady

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calmlftv · 4 years

Text

girl, put your records on. - m.c.

description: you are the owner of a popular local bakery, and lately, life’s been a little bit hectic. thankfully, the cute record store owner next door seems to know the perfect solution!

word count: 2.5k

warnings: n/a!

w/n: here’s part 1 of my record store!michael au! this is probably the cutest thing i’ve ever written so i hope u enjoy it 🥺

taglist: @spicycal @castaway-cashton @irwinkitten @n-ctarinenga @thesubtweeter @ashisonthefloor @ashtonsos @loveroflrh @bestyearssos @treatallwithkindness @bestyearslftv

****

The lock clicked as you tugged the door open, being sure to let it fall shut behind you and double checking the lock before you continued into your bakery, disabling the alarm while you made your way to the back, flicking on the light switches on your way.

It was around 3 a.m., your usual time to come in with your messy bun and leggings, the old and flour covered apron being pulled on over your jacket. Tying it around your waist, you walked over to the office, propping open the door and grabbing the thick binder of orders you had stashed on a shelf. It made a loud thud when you tossed it on a workspace, the shiny silver reflecting the bags under your eyes as you hovered over the papers, eyes scanning the details and photos you had printed for every order you have.

This bakery was your pride and joy; you started it while in high school, selling your baked goods to other students for a dollar a piece as you struggled to pay for your car and groceries for your family. It quickly became a second job as you perfected your recipes, locking them away in a dusty old trunk under your bed when you would leave for the day. While still in college you got your first lawn sign, planting it outside your home on the main street of your town, and you quickly made enough to buy a second building; it was set to be demolished but you refused to give up on it, keeping up with your studies and home business until you essentially paid for the building four times over.

Your opening day for your building was beautiful, some friends from school helping out between classes until it got its feet under itself. Customers from your high school start up came by, new faces jumped in line, and before you knew it, you found people waiting outside our doors at 6 a.m., waiting to be let inside to get their breakfast pastries or pick up their orders early on.

It was amazing. You were humbled, you were happy, you were keeping a roof over your own head and paying your hard working employees.

Along with this though, you were stressed.

Well, maybe more than stressed. “Overwhelmed” seemed like a better word to describe how you felt.

Business was booming, and you had more orders in the works than you had ever imagined having. Recently you had put together the binder you were going through, making it easy for your bakers and yourself to stay on top of the orders that kept pouring in every day. Along with that, you had bought and installed more space and fridges for your kitchen, and now you were coming in much too early to prepare display case items. You worked your tail off in the morning, so your workers didn’t have to; they had enough on their plates.

Getting your stress out in a healthy way was something your therapist always pushed you towards, so you finally took his advice. You mixed together the cookie dough for the day in the big stand mixers, you kneaded dough for your bread and doughnuts by hand, every ounce of muscle you put in shedding a layer of stress from your shoulders.

Evidently, your neighbors enjoyed your baking as much as you did, especially the sweet record store employees to your right. You dropped off extra goods when you could, but lately it’s been baskets, one dropped off right next to their cashier as soon as the doors were unlocked, and you were sure it was always a different variety of them every day; no matter the kind, you always made sure to attach a cute little note to each basket, thanking them for their work and reminding them of the discount they get at your store should they ever need their sweet tooth filled.

On this day in particular you snuck out the back door as usual and dropped off your basket of goodies, the cashier being someone you hadn’t seen the last few days. He was blonde and had a pair of black glasses on, a light blue denim jacket and black t-shirt adorning his chest as you quickly dropped everything off and made it back to your shop.

And somehow, within the few minutes you were gone, all hell had broken loose.

“Darling,” your head baker and assistant manager said, immediately pulling you aside to chat. “There’s been….some accidents.”

A sigh passed through your lips and you tugged up your hair into a ponytail, immediately jumping into fix-it mode. It took hours of your blood, sweat, and tears, but you finally settled in with a piping bag in your hand, very carefully fixing some of the accidents that had occurred. From the front entrance you would hear your bustling employees boxing and ringing up customers, the occasional bit of laughter filter through to your ears.

Everybody was happy. And that was all that mattered to you.

It was a much quieter time of the day when the bell dinged, your associates up front cheerily greeting the new customer while they cleaned up the display areas, a curious laugh escaping one of them as you set your piping bag down. Another hand cramp was taking over, and you needed a break.

“Hey, Cupcake?”

The familiar nickname from your front shop workers made you raise your head, meeting their eyes from the doorway that marked the end of the kitchen.

You smiled at the young high schooler - Tilly - standing in the doorway, her warm smile being your response. “There’s someone up front asking for you.”

You nodded and jumped up, happy to have a distraction from your sore hand. When you got closer to Tilly she dropped her volume considerably.

“He’s cute, Cupcake, you need to get his number.”

A chuckle escaped you as your cheeks turned pink, shaking your head at the well meaning associate and patting her shoulder.

You were expecting a gentleman, maybe someone returning the basket from your record store deliveries.

However, you weren’t expecting the cute man that came with it.

It was the cashier from that morning, a basket in his hand and a beanie now pulled snugly over his head as a blonde fringe was pushed to the side. You hadn’t noticed in your rush earlier but his eyes were gorgeous, the most stunning mix of greens and blues that you had ever seen; that, combined with his seemingly nervous shifting, you were melting before you even spoke.

“Hi,” you greeted, walking up to him with your signature warm smile. You had hair falling out of the ponytail, strands and baby hairs flying almost every which way as you did your best to tame them. “I’m Y/N, the owner of this little shop.”

The man smiled in return, showing his teeth as he held out a hand, which you in turn took. “Hey,” he greeted just as warmly. “I’m Michael, I own the record shop next door.”

“Oh, good to meet you, neighbor!” You said cheerily, knowing it was your own fault for not getting to know him sooner. Your eyes drifted to your basket, his pale and slender fingers seeming to drum a beat on the bits he was holding. “I see you got my gift this morning.”

Michael blushed, handing you the basket. “Yeah, we did,” he said kindly, letting you take it and place it on the front counter. Tilly almost immediately scooped it up, happy to bring it to the back and clean it - and gossip with the others about Michael, no doubt.

The gentleman cleared his throat. “Uh, we really appreciate you bringing things by,” he thanked. “But, um, I just wanted to...I um-”

He was flustered obviously, a pink tint on his cheeks as he met your eyes. “Sorry if this is awkward or an over-step, but I uh, I just notice that you bring us things when you’re really stressed, and we’re totally happy with it, but the baskets every day kind of...have me...worried.”

The fact that a complete stranger can tell when you’re stressed, and took notice of your habits, made you blush, your hands connecting in front of you. Michael was full on blushing now, his cheeks more red than the light pink that they were. He had reached back to rub a hand on the back of his neck, a couple of cloth bracelets sitting on his wrist.

“Um,” you stammered, also flustered but for different reasons. “You know...I have been kind of stressed lately.”

The man’s eyebrows shot up, surprised that he was right as you chuckled lightly. “Um, we’ve had a boat load of orders just slam into us. Lots of different things, too, and this morning when we were taking some cakes out to finish them, a couple of them got dinged up and we’ve been fixing them all morning.”

The way you were wringing your hands was probably more than enough evidence of your stress, the very thought of everything you had to complete filling you with a small amount of anxiety as you talked about it. However, Michael stood and nodded along, a reassuring look on his face as he leaned against a display case. He seemed like a great listener, something that made you smile.

“That does sound stressful,” he agreed, his hand shoving in his pocket while his other pulled out his phone. “I’m, uh, not sure it’ll help, but if you ever want to talk…” He turned his phone around a new contact information page pulled up as he sheepishly smiled. “Maybe we can go get coffee together and talk about it?”

You couldn’t hide the smile that tugged on your life, the nod following quickly after. “Yeah! Yeah, um, I’d love that,” you said, joy leaking into your tone as you took his phone and entered in your information.

“Great! Cool,” Michael said, watching you type in your personal and work phone numbers so he can reach you through both. When he took his phone back you were both beaming. “I’ll, uh, call or text you, then, and we can set a date? I know the owner of the shop just down the road, so we can definitely go there.”

You nodded, your beaming smile still on your face as you tucked some of the loose hair behind your ear. Michael matched your smile and thanked you for the goodies again, bumping into a couple of customers as they were entering because he was still looking at you.

While another associate helped those customers, you quickly ducked into the back, Tilly and everybody else surprising you at the doorway, making you laugh.

“Come on, everybody, my love life isn’t that exciting. Get back to work!”

Michael sat in his office, leaning back in his chair as he thought about the interaction he just had with the cutest woman he’s ever met. His phone was in his hands with a blank text on it, the girl's name in the recipient line as he tried to figure out what to say.

He wouldn’t ever say it was normal for him to be asking cute girls on dates like that; in fact, with most of his interactions with women, he was too nervous to make any sense, but somehow, that girl had given him a weird sense of confidence.

Ultimately, he kept it simple, letting her know he was excited about the date and asking what times would work for her. Immediately after it sent he opened his group chat with his boys, letting them know he had some news.

Immediately he had a response from Calum.

So...meeting tonight?

Michael affirmed the text and then quickly put it away, getting through the work day while he texted the baker girl next door. When he finally got to lock up he couldn’t get to Cal’s fast enough, knocking on the café door rhythmically and beaming when his best friend opened the door.

“Hey mate,” Cal greeted, letting him step inside before quickly pulling the door closed. Michael quickly went to their usual table, Duke lifting his head from his bed by the counter.

“So,” Cal said, moving to the counter to make Mikey some tea. “What’s this big news announcement?”

Michael chuckled and shook his head, watching from his seat at the table as Cal got to work. His friend groaned but respected the silence, the two warmly greeting Ashton and Luke as they showed up.

Once they were all seated with their usual drinks and food the conversation flowed, everybody talking about work and swapping stories of difficult and amazing customers. Eventually, Calum repeated his question, Duke now settled in his lap as the dog napped.

Michael chuckled and beamed. “Boys,” he said, watching them all focus on him. Luke leaned forward practically on the edge of his seat. “I have a real date. With a real girl.”

Immediately the other three cheered, all of them congratulating their friend.

“Who is it?” Ashton asked, grinning as he picked up his coffee.

“That cute bakery girl,” Mikey explained. “The one with the shop by my store.”

“Fuckin’ finally,” Luke said, leaning back against his chair as he brought his heads up, lacing them and leaning his head back against them. “You’ve been talking about her forever, man.”

Michael reached over and shoved Luke’s shoulder, the blonde man grinning. “Fuck off,” he said, Luke sticking his tongue out before picking up his drink again. “I told her we could come here, to Cal’s, and she agreed. She’s free tomorrow so we’re gonna meet after she closes.”

The boys were all smiles, every single one of them ecstatic for their friend. The conversation continued to flow well into the evening after that, all of them reluctant to say their goodbyes.

However, Michael went home with his phone buzzing, you and him talking about anything and everything; it was the most comfortable he’s been with someone since meeting the boys, the two of you clicking in a way that he just wasn’t used to. It made him very eager to get to know you, and very happy when you seemed to show the same feeling.

When Michael finally noticed the time he sighed, knowing he should be responsible and go to bed. The two of you said your goodnights, a kissy face emoji attached to yours that made him blush before he turned over.

On the other side of town, you were doing the same, quite content with how your day had ended. Despite the horrid start, you were very happy to have met Michael, and your stomach flipped whenever you thought of the date he had promised to take you on. No other person had ever made you feel that way, so you cherished it, knowing Michael was going to be the sweet boy you’d keep forever.

Maybe this was the start of something that would last forever.

#5 seconds of summer #5sos #michael clifford #michael clifford au #5sos au #business!sos #record store!michael

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nahalism · 4 years

Note

Songs that make you want to experience love (of any kind) or remind you of it??

u just opened pandoras box.. like.. u think ur ready, but ur not ready. and i cant apologise for what im about to do because what song isnt a love song?.. you have proposed an existential question & for that i refuse to keep this uncompletable task concise. hold on 2 ur toupee, clutch ur peals 🤧

verdena // valvonauta

the nerves // hanging on the telephone

dionne warwick // walk on by

luther vandross // anyone who had a heart

stevie wonder // all in love is fair, never dreamed youd leave in summer, lately, superwoman (where were you when i needed you)

ms lauryn hill // i gotta find peace of mind

lenny williams // cause i love you

donny hathaway // ill love you more than you ever know (& the amy winehouse cover of this)

eva cassidy, autumn leaves

nina simone // you dont know what love is, just say i love him, you can have him, everything must change

chet baker // my funny valentine, almost blue, the autumn leaves

the police // roxanne

amy winehouse // take the box, wake up alone, you sent me flying, stronger than me

nat king cole // nature boy, smile, the very thought of you

etta james // id rather go blind

gladys knight & the pipps // midnight train to georgia

al green // how can you mend a broken heart, lets stay together

janis joplin // maybe

anita baker // angel

simply red // holding back the years, you make me feel brand new

luther vandross // a house is not a home

deniece williams // free, silly

boyz II men // i cant make you love me

michel’le // something in my heart

patrice rushen // remind me

toni braxton // another sad love song, breathe again

tamar braxton // all the way home, love and war

the delfonics // lala means i love you, hey love

bobby womack // if you think your lonely now

rick james ft teena marie // fire and desire

the gap band // yearning for your love

jahiem // ghetto love, could it be

mariah carey // anytime you need a friend, my all

tamia // stuck with me, so into you

shai // if i ever

new edition // can you stand the rain, if it isnt love

ATL // make it up with love

blackstreet // dont leave me

bow wow // let me hold you, my baby

jhene aiko // feel like a man, wait no more, my mine, you vs them

twenty88 // 2 minute warning

corrine bailey rae // the whole of her self titled album

yebba // my mind

neyo // do you, part of the list

erykah badu // green eyes, other side of the game, next lifetime, in love with you, out my mind just in time

keyshia cole // send from heaven, love, i should have cheated, trust and believe

whitney houston // i learned from the best, run to you, saving all my love, im your baby tonight

michael jackson // lady in my life, break of dawn, butterlies, baby be mine, keep it in the closet, who is it, give in to me, rock with you .. etc etc etc

abba // lay all your love on me

seal // kiss from a rose

patrick swayze // shes like the wind

phil collins // in the air tonight

the police // roxanne

tracy chapman // fast car, baby can i hold you

james blunt // 1973

chris isaak // wicked game

fleetwood mac // rihannon, dreams janis ian // at 17

googoo dolls // iris (duh)

oasis // wonderwall (duhh x2)

dido // white flag

joni mitchell // both sides now, a case of you

randy crawford // almaz, one day ill fly away

little dragon // never never, twice

lana del rey // video games, blue jeans

london grammar // hey i, wasting my young years

ellie goulding // starry eyes (acoustic), guns & horses (acoustic)

avril lavigne // when your gone, im with you

paramore // misguided ghosts, decode

hiatus kaiyote // the lung

jorja smith // wandering romance, goodbyes

kelsey lu // dreams

kelela // all the way down, turn to dust, enough, better, take me apart

king krule // slush puppy, many more

SiR ft masego // ooh nah nah

fka twigs // papi pacify

steve lacy // dark red

iamddb // more

abra // pride

sonder x brent faiyaz // lovely

pharoah sanders // harvest time

james blake // wilhelm scream

portico quartet // the visitor

kokoroko // ti de

funkadelic // maggot brain, ill stay

collard // everglade

feng suave // honey theres no time, by the poolside

mac demarco // still beating, my kind of woman, let her go, let my baby stay, one more love song

connan mockasin // do i make you feel shy

gas dapperton // prune, you talk funny

blood orange // saint, out of your league, best to you, never good enough

majid jordan // her, u, king city, warm

japanese breakfast // triple 7, the woman that loves you, everybody wants to love you

frank ocean // higgs *or just insert his whole discog*

daniel ceasar // japanese denim

xavier omar // speculate

sza // pretty little birds, caretaker ft dram, babylon, warm winds, 2 am, passport

jeremih // british headboards, worthy ft. jhene aiko, raindrops, & obvs bday sex

j cole // runaway, shes mine pt1 & 2

travis scott // astrothunder

drake // come winter, cameras/good ones go, doing it wrong, east district... anything ending in interlude .. *again, insert practically any of his songs*

tory lanez // 1 call

partynextdoor // tbh, wus good/curious, west district, rendezvous, wednesday night interlude, persian rugs, spiteful, cant let the summer pass, her way, thirsty, muse, the right way

serani // do you good (!!!)

miguel // girl with the dragon tattoo, pussy is mine

vybz kartel & gaza slim // anything a anything

movado // when yuh feel lonely

nicki minaj // save me, i lied, autobiography

tokio hotel // monsoon

my chemical romance // the ghost of you, helena

nickelback // how you remind me & someday

whilst she sleeps // seven hills, our courage our cancer

pierce the veil // stained glass eyes and colourful tears, i dont care if your contageous, im low on gas and you need a life jacket, southern constellations, the new national anthem, bulls in the bronx, caraphernalia, disasterology

(& lol dont roast me but id b lying if i didnt include dem)

vanessa ann hugends // say ok :)

lmnt // open your eyes

edward mccain // ill be

jesse mccartney // im leavin (lol dont roast me)

lindsay lohan freaky friday songz (?) // the ultimate, take me away

#ask #🖤

43 notes · View notes

blog-sliverofjade · 3 years

Text

Of Doms & Subs 1: Can't Stop Here, This is Wolf Country

Pairing: Angus Hopper x OFC

Summary: What's a submissive female to do when she fights her nature and goes on the run as a Lone wolf to avoid being assimilated into a pack?

Word count: 6238

Master List

“Please, please, please let me get as far as Tacoma,” I begged the flagging gas gauge of my trusty old lime green Jeep. Experience told me that it was wishful thinking because traffic was bound to hit before Everett. There was undoubtedly a Seattle pack and the fewer the stops in their area, the smaller the chance of getting picked up by the local werewolves.

A schoolbus drew parallel to me in the left lane so a giant cartoon lupine mascot filled my peripheral vision. “Can’t stop here, this is wolf country,” I muttered.

If I barrelled through, gas up in Tacoma, then I could avoid the dreaded I-5 parking lot in both Seattle and Portland on the Friday of a long weekend. Even though I started out in the British Columbia Rockies my destination was the central Oregon Cascade mountains, it was faster to cut across lower British Columbia, down the I-5 corridor, and then back across the Willamette Valley.

This route also happened to avoid the territory of the famous Adam Hauptmann and his pack. Oh sure, he was the perfect gentleman in the media and his wolves were seemingly well-behaved, but you know what they say about things that are too good to be true. I was submissive and had no delusions about where I’d end up in the hierarchy. Hell, humans had taught me that long before I was Changed two weeks ago. And female werewolves were inevitably absorbed into a pack because some old grand high poobah declared that we couldn’t fly solo.

So why was I zigzagging all over the Pacific Northwest instead of rolling over like a good little bitch? Having been submissive for over thirty years, I’d long ago learned avoidance is the best way to avoid conflict. When that didn’t work, an acerbic tongue and short temper kept most people from getting too close to abuse that aspect of my personality. Too many people think that passivity is a synonym for doormat.

My luck, or rather fuel tank, ran out in the U District. Red and blue lights lit up the rearview mirror just as I squeezed through a yellow light towards a gas station. “Please don’t be for me, please don’t be for me,” I chanted as I pulled into the lot.

“Of course not, when has everything gone your way on this godsforsaken trip.” I lowered my window, plastered a meekly congenial if slightly vapid look on my face, and gripped my license and registration in a sweaty fist.

“Good evening.” The officer bent to look in the window. We both stilled the instinct we caught the other’s scent. I dropped my eyes immediately, partly to avoid staring at the scar that marred his face, and offered the documentation. Please don’t ask any questions, I prayed silently.

“Are you traveling by yourself, Ms. Jones?” Whatever deities that haven’t been listening to me can go shove it.

“Yessir. I’m headin’ back home to Oregon from visitin’ family.” Mostly the truth. I did stop in Vancouver to visit my brother. I put the Southern drawl on fairly heavy. The twang and the manners to go with often smooth the way with people in uniform, even if I hadn’t lived South of the 44th parallel in fifteen years.

“Oh, you have family here?” Must remain calm. Normal, even breaths will help control the heartrate.

“Vancouver,” I smiled. So what if it was Vancouver, Washington and not Vancouver, British Columbia?

“BC?”

“Yessir.” His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly at the blithe lie.

“You must be a member of the Portland pack,” he said, eyeing my ID a little too closely for comfort now.

“Yessir.”

“I’m just gonna go run these.” My dad was a cop and his face would go blank like that whenever he was gathering evidence of my brother’s or my misdeeds. This was so many flavours of not good.

The wolf watched him walk back to his car. She liked the way he smelled. Familiar and right. Like family. If she could, she would have trotted right at his heels. At that thought, the human half kicked in and started up the engine, slammed her into gear, and peeled back out towards the onramp.

“Smart. Real smart, what’re we gonna do now?” I tapped the steering wheel in a staccato rhythm with my thumbs in time to the rock blaring from the sound system. “No license, no registration, he called your plates in before saying hi, he has your address and…” I grabbed my phone and shut it off. If the conspiracy theorists were right, they could track me via the phone. Is it paranoia if they really are out to get you?

I crossed over to the 405 and stopped in Bellevue for gas, otherwise I’d be making my getaway on foot. I leaned against the Jeep, ignoring the damp that seeped from the cold metal through my clothing, and debated the merits of taking the really scenic route of 101. Or would they expect me to leave I-5 and thus making it the safer choice by hiding in plain sight? My head was starting to hurt from trying to outthink them.

The gas fumes seared my nose so I couldn’t smell the driver of the Mazda 3 that pulled up behind me until he approached the squeegee station between us. Studiously avoiding eye contact, I screwed the cap back on and nestled the nozzle back in its hook. Slowly, no sudden moves.

I slid behind the wheel and as the engine turned over a cop car blazed into the station to block me against the Mazda. It looks cool in the movies. Less so if you’re the one trapped. I shut off the engine, folded my arms, and leaned back in a huff. My license and registration slipped through the three-inch gap at the top of the window. I snatched them up and tossed them in my purse without pausing in my attempt to mentally set his car on fire. Unfortunately, lycanthropy didn’t come with pyrokinesis. In the movies fiery explosions usually follow when there are confrontations in gas stations. Too bad life wasn’t imitating art in this case.

“I take it you know the law.” The scarred officer was not referring to any statutes written by man. “You can either come and meet our Alpha or I can arrest you and then you can meet him.” There was no threat in his words. He sounded as if he were inviting me over for dinner, which might actually be the case. I resisted the urge to hit the steering wheel. It would likely crumple now that I had preternatural strength.

“Fine. So where am I following you to meet your lord and master?”

“Matt here will be your driver,” he gestured to the guy who’d blocked me in. Mazda Matt leaned against his car door with his arms folded across his chest, watching the exchange with a slight smirk. “Shane will follow in your car.” A third man I hadn’t noticed before was mirroring Matt’s pose on the other side of the car.

I sighed and glanced at my phone. Even if they let me use it, who would I call? Hi big bro, I’m being kidnapped by werewolves. Please send in the National Guard. Tanks work against werewolves, right? I kicked open the door, forcing the cop to quickly sidestep. With a snarl on my lips, I chucked the heavy mass of keys attached to a carabiner at Shane. Damned werewolf reflexes. If he’d been human they’d have struck his temple and probably dropped him like a stone.

Matt came forward as if to take my elbow and escort me. “Touch me and I break your scaphoid. They’re a bitch to heal even with regeneration,” I snapped. Just because my wolf was happy about getting taken to meet their leader didn’t mean I had to be. He drew back his hand, but he did open the door for me and waited till I buckled up before shutting the door. Why buckle up if I could survive a trip through the windshield? It’d still hurt like hell.

“So I heard you’re from Portland,” Matt said as we merged back onto 405 in an attempt to fill the silence that was thick with my seething.

“Look, I’m no doubt about to get grilled on all this anyway, so let’s skip the twenty questions, ok?” He shrugged and didn’t seem put out by my rudeness.

Eventually he turned on the radio. I fiddled with it until finally settling on 107 the End. I tried to suppress a smirk at his frown. Judging by his pre-sets he liked the music just fine. Not so much me taking control of it. If some strange wolf was driving my Jeep, Mazda Matt could suck it up. He should be glad I didn’t put it on country out of sheer spite.

Thirty minutes later, due to traffic as opposed to distance, we pulled up in front of an expansive house partially obscured by trees. I shuddered to think of the market value for the area. They seemed to be having a party due to the sheer number of vehicles parked beside the house. Shane pulled up as I trailed behind Matt to the door.

The door opened to a large mudroom with hooks for coats and cubbies for shoes. About half of them were in use. Curiously, there were two utilitarian shower stalls that would have looked right at home in a locker room. I followed Matt’s and Shane’s examples and removed my shoes, tucking them into one of the shelves.

“We’re having a barbecue on Saturday, so a bunch of us are already here to watch the game,” Shane explained from behind me as I followed Matt down the hallway. The sounds of men cheering or jeering at a TV screen echoed up from the basement. My human half was worried about being in a house with a bunch of strange men. My wolf on the other hand was curious and delighted by the mixture of scents that spoke of wolves.

How to play this? Be a general pain in the ass and risk the consequences? Or be a good little submissive female and not only risk being assimilated, but also subordinate to everyone else. I always believed in playing to one’s strengths, which meant plan A was go. Besides, I’d never been accused of having the sense God gave a squirrel.

Matt stopped by an open doorway and gestured for me to enter. The man standing behind the desk was certainly not what I was expecting of an Alpha. For starters, he didn’t look like an arrogant asshole. Secondly, he was maybe an inch taller than me, and I was considered fairly short. Underneath his wine, or perhaps blood-red dress shirt he was thin. The only hint to his status was the intelligence lurking behind his dark eyes, which I merely glimpsed before lowering my own.

“Welcome, Eleanor,” he came around to shake my hand. I didn’t know if it was proper protocol or if he somehow knew that I was recently Changed and was sticking to familiar, human customs. His grip was firm, not crushing like some men, and not too gentle as if he was afraid of breaking me. It was a bit startling to actually be able to shake his hand properly instead of my hand simply being engulfed by his as was the case with most men.

“I am Angus Hopper, Alpha of the Emerald City Pack. You’ve made good time considering you left Revelstoke early this morning.” Oh that was neatly done, putting me in my place by hinting that he knew more than I suspected, but not exactly how much. “Have a seat,” he leaned his backside against the desk and gestured to one of the comfortable looking chairs. It was an order, not an invitation. And why was I reminded of being called to the principal’s office as written in a Penthouse letter? Shoving aside x-rated thoughts involving school uniforms and corporal punishment, I tried to look as non-threatening as possible.

“Been sittin’ in a car so long I’d rather stand if’s all the same.” Eyes down, properly polite, and heavy on the Southern accent to hide any attitude.

“I imagine,” he said with a small smile. “So tell me how you came to be living in Portland, a city currently without a pack.” Crap on a cracker, there’s no lying my way out of this one. How does a city that size not have a werewolf pack?

“I was Changed two-weeks ago,” I sighed and sat in the other chair in defeat, the one he had not indicated, forcing him to shift slightly to face me. If he didn’t want small acts of defiance, then he shouldn’t have multiple options available. “I was solo hikin’ in Glacier National Park an’ doin’ a little boulderin’. One slip an’ I ended up with a broken spinal column at the bottom of a ravine. By the time John found me, it was Change or die. Chose what I thought was the lesser o’ two evils. Stayed with him through the full moon an’ then headed home.”

“Does John have a last name?” Angus asked with a frown. My wolf worried that he was displeased with us. I worried what that might mean for us if he was.

“He said he’s old an’ the old ones don’t like to give their last names.” I had to consciously square my shoulders, which had subconsciously rounded under his frown. He nodded as if the answer wasn’t a surprise to him.

“And he was willing to let you go so soon?” he asked with an arch of an eyebrow. It really should be illegal for such a simple gesture to lend an irresistible quality when he was already handsome. Or that could have just been my imagination because it was hard to read expressions from peripheral vision.

“Not as such no,” I admitted reluctantly. “I waited till he went out huntin’ then I booked it back down the mountain.”

“Why did you feel the need to run?” he asked softly. Even if I was brave enough to look him in the face I doubted that it would give any clue as to what that tone was in his voice. I wasn’t necessarily a coward, but I was never comfortable discussing my personal life, let alone with strangers. Focusing on the rug, or the bookcase, was easier than looking at him.

“I got a job to get back to an’ I really wasn’t fond o’ the idea o’ bein’ stuck in the backwoods with a crazy old mountain man who’s also a werewolf.” He was silent, obviously waiting for me to continue. “I got the feelin’ that even if I was fully in control he wouldn’t let me leave.”

Angus folded his arms in thought. “Do you know where John lives?”

“There’s a map in my glove box. I could show ya the route to the cabin we stayed at. There’re no roads, an’ it’s a bit of a hike in.” Despite my best intentions to the contrary, I was cooperating. I blamed my wolf, who was eager for his approval. The Alpha obviously did not like what he was hearing, but it was rapidly becoming apparent that I was not his quarry so I was more than happy to keep him on that trail. He caught the attention of either Shane or Matt behind me, and a moment later a door shut. “But I did get the feelin’ that he moves around a lot.”

“Eleanor,” he began.

“Ellie, please.” Angus did frown at the interruption, but hearing my horrible legal name, which the cop must have told him, was like having my fur rubbed the wrong way.

“Ellie, you’re not in any trouble,” he said soothingly, as if I were a startled horse that might bolt. Perhaps that analogy wasn’t too far off the mark considering I was practically vibrating with the need to run for the Jeep. “The manner of your Change was highly unusual, bordering even on breaking our laws.”

“The law says that no one may be Changed without their explicit permission. I was coherent enough to give it.” Ha, that caught him off guard. That’s right, the newbie knows the rules of the game. I might not remember anything else around the accident, but things like a weird, hairy mountain man offering to save your life by turning you into a monster tends to stick in a person’s memory.

“That is true, yes. However, the second law is that before someone is Changed they must undergo rigorous counseling and testing to determine whether they can become stable wolves,” the Alpha explained. I forgot for a moment and stared into his dark eyes in shock that someone would make the choice deliberately rather than out of desperation. I quickly looked away once the surprise faded.

“A newly Changed wolf lacks control for their first few full moons and requires supervision for the first year,” he continued as if there was no breach of protocol. “A pack is necessary to guide new wolves.” He sounded like he had given this speech many times before. Luckily, he didn’t succumb to dry monotones.

“Which’s why I was goin’ to pack up an’ move somewhere rural enough I could run off a little steam,” I countered. “Nurses are always needed everywhere.”

“This is not just a ‘little steam,’ pup.” I suppressed a flinch at his growl, as well as a snarl of my own at being called ‘pup.’ He took a deep breath, whether to calm himself or to continue his lecture I didn’t know because the sound of the door opening interrupted. Shane handed Angus the familiar map, folded in my own fashion that in no way resembled its original creases. Those things are impossible to refold properly, anyway. After carefully moving a few items, he unfolded the map over his desk and handed me a pencil.

“Here’s the trail head.” I pointed to the circle already marking the spot on Highway 1. “He follows the main trail through this valley.” I pointed at the trail, which was already marked from my planning before the trip from hell. The accent softened as I talked and forgot to maintain it. “At about here he branches off at different angles each time so that his trail, not being well worn, is hard to pick up until you’re further out and know what you’re looking for.” I marked an X where I’d gotten lost and decided to just keep following the river down until I found either a trail, humans, or the highway. “Follow the river up and at the very edge of the park he’s got a cabin right about here.” I drew a paw print on the spot. “With the climb in elevation, it would’ve taken me about two days before… before. Downhill with a light pack, I made it in around eight hours.”

“Does that say ‘Dogtooth Range’?” Shane asked with a hint of a wry smile.

“Could’ve been worse. He could’ve gone for the really obvious with either Grey Fang or Fang Rock,” I smirked and pointed out the so named peaks on the other side of the park. He snorted a chuckle.

“You didn’t go to the authorities.” It was a statement, not a question.

“And end up in a secret government facility?” I scoffed. “No thank you.”

“Where did you stop to rest?” asked Angus.

“I didn’t.”

“Fatigue can be as dangerous as alcohol,” he frowned.

“Have caffeine, will travel,” I quipped.

“Even though your endurance has improved, you still need rest. Exhaustion erodes control.” And back into lecture mode.

“Like I said, I’m a nurse. Pulling doubles, even triples, isn’t unusual,” I countered.

“You passed through the territories of four different packs.” Someone had probably pulled my credit card history to follow my route in retrospect. That was fast work, and most definitely illegal. “How did you avoid detection?”

“Didn’t stop more’n absolutely necessary,” I shrugged. “And when I did, I tried to not get out of the car. Drive-thru, avoided pumping my own gas where I could.”

With a few taps Angus called someone on his cellphone. He had to swipe his fingerprint to unlock it, first. It even had one of those heavy-duty cases, which was probably a good investment for a werewolf. “Hello, Angus.” It was still weird how much my hearing had improved, especially back in civilization.

“Hello, Bran.” Aw, son of a biscuit. I really did not want to show up on the Marrock’s radar. Angus gave a concise report of everything that had happened to me since the accident, as far as he knew, including the pathetic getaway attempt. I sat back down for the uncomfortable reprise.

“Send me the map and I’ll have Charles look into it.” I wasn’t certain how I felt about having just signed John’s death warrant. The old werewolf wasn’t too specific when he talked about the Grand High Poobah of North America, but he was clear that any time the Marrock sent someone blood was spilled. “How is she getting on with your pack?”

“She’s a touch overwhelmed so I thought it best to wait before introducing them en masse.” I glared at Angus from under lowered lashes, which is harder to do than you would think without looking coy or drunk.

“If she chooses, escort her to Eugene. Otherwise I will send someone to fetch her here until she decides where to settle,” Bran said. My scowl deepened and I opened my mouth to tell them exactly what I thought of their plans. Shane shook his head almost imperceptibly in warning, though there was more empathy than condemnation in the movement.

“Please give my greetings to Anna and Charles.”

“I will.” The call abruptly ended from the other end. Our King of the Werewolves was not one for drawn out goodbyes. Angus took a couple of pictures of the map and sent them off with thumbs flying across the screen fast enough to make a teenager jealous. Then he did the most supernatural act I’d seen out of a werewolf yet: he carefully folded the map along the original fold lines before handing it back to me.

I doubled it over and shoved it in my back pocket as I stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I would like to make it home in time for my shift tomorrow night.” Although I kept my eyes on the bookshelf, I could feel his stare boring through me till my knees threatened to turn to Jell-O. Locking one’s knees is a surefire way to eventually pass out, but is effective in the short term.

“I’m afraid that you will have to change careers. Even old wolves can have problems around so much blood and the vulnerable.” The bastard actually managed to sound regretful.

“I have neither the money nor the inclination to go back to school. Not to mention I’m a little old for that.” Must not growl at the Alpha, I mentally chanted for the benefit of my human half.

“Loans can be arranged, and I’ve known werewolves who were alive when the Magna Carta was signed and earned their doctorate two or three times over.” He sounded so cool and collected as if we weren’t discussing what was the beginning of what was theoretically to be my extremely long life. “The more immediate issue is how much control you have.”

“If I don’t get my act together by this time next year I’m put down.” Don’t know why I spared him when it would have been so much more fun to watch him squirm.

“Not only that, but you must be able to shift form and back at will.” People go through that much pain willingly? “New wolves need a pack to teach them control and to prevent unnecessary bloodshed when the wolf takes over until control is regained. We cannot afford one mistake lest we all disappear into secret government facilities at best, or hunted down and exterminated at worst.” Angus’ voice achieved a deeper timbre that coiled through the room like some living thing as he seemed to be losing patience. “You will stay the night here. In the morning Shane and Matt will escort you to Eugene to be presented to the pack there.” Ooh, presented like a gift. Who could resist such a command? Oddly enough, my wolf did not like this plan either, but not because of the authoritarianism.

“And if I don’t want to join a pack?” It’s difficult to arch an eyebrow effectively while avoiding eye contact. But not impossible.

“That is not an option,” he shook his head. “Even if you were not so new, our females are so rare they not allowed to become lone wolves.” That’s what John had said, but I hoped that it was a lie to keep me from leaving. The whole damn lot of them were so possessive it’s a wonder they even realized they were in the 21st century. And I didn’t belong to anyone. Not any more.

“Fine. But I’ve driven from here to Eugene many times so I think we can dispense with the escort.” I waved vaguely over my shoulder to where Shane still lurked by the door.

“That is non-negotiable. As a dominant male and even more so as an Alpha I have a responsibility to see a submissive female delivered safely to another pack.” Oh bloody hell. John was right. They could tell from one’s energy, no matter how much I tried to hide behind my sass. “Not all dominants that you might meet along the way would be as tolerant of your attitude as I am.”

“More arbitrary rules from on high,” I said flatly and folded my arms. “Tell me, is His Furriness one of those at the signing of the Magna Carta? No wonder ya’ll’s thinking’s so medieval.”

Angus grabbed me by the back of the neck and snarled in my face. Reflexively, I stiffened and closed my eyes to avoid looking at him. His grip was tight, but not painful. One quick twist and he could snap my neck. I was pretty sure that was one injury from which there was no recovery.

“The Marrock set down our laws for reasons you cannot yet comprehend. You don’t have to understand our ways yet, but before God you will show respect,” he snarled. There wasn’t anything I could say to that, so with an involuntary shudder I went limp in his grasp as my wolf temporarily took over. Well, there were things I could say, but self-preservation and my wolf stayed my tongue. After a minute, he released me, stepped away, and turned his back. The strength I had just experienced first hand was evident in the taut lines of his wiry shoulders.

My heart pounded in my throat while in the back of my head my wolf howled her anguish at having been chastised. As a result, my self-preservation went right out the window. “My respect is earned, not freely given. If I’d realized that my choices consisted of which pack I was going to be the lowest bitch in, I’d have told John to bugger off.” At least he’d have made sure that it was quick and clean.

The Alpha breathed deeply and was quiet for exactly ten seconds. Basic relaxation techniques to manage the beast within? And they thought they could teach me something in that area? When he was done, but not noticeably calmer, he turned around to lean against the desk again. “We have a rigorous screening process to avoid situations like this. Dominant lone wolves are the last people who should be teaching pack structure to a submissive female.”

“Please stop using that term.”

“‘Female’?”

“Used as an adjective, it refers to a person. As a noun, it denotes something less than human. An animal.” Like breeding pairs. Good thing I never wanted to procreate anyway.

“Get used to the terminology.” If he were human, he’d have developed a new frown line from this conversation alone. “In the constant struggles for dominance, females and submissives are the center of a pack since they do not rise in rank, except for when their mate does in the case of females.” If I didn’t like ‘female,’ I despised ‘mate,’ which seemed a ridiculous term for a species that couldn’t bear children. “With submissives, dominants don’t have to constantly watch their back. And the pack will unite to protect these weaker members.” Oh if he thought I was weak, he had another thing coming. “Female submissives are so valued that any pack would welcome you.” ‘Submissive’ as a noun was definitely not an improvement. “But none would tolerate your disrespect for long.”

“That’s exactly why I should just be on my merry way,” I said brightly. “I’m really more trouble than I’m worth.”

“Nice try,” he smirked. “Dinner is in thirty minutes. You’ll want to freshen up.” True to my nature I wanted to deny hunger despite not having eaten since well before the border crossing. I’d worn the same clothes for the past twenty-four hours straight, which included a frantic run down a mountain through unfamiliar woods, and my hands still smelled like gasoline.

I was still noticing just how many interesting smells I was covered in when a tall, perky blonde swept through the door. She must have practically been listening down the hallway, not that, that was necessary. Everyone in the house had probably heard me mouthing off. I’d forgotten about that. Great first impression.

“Please show Ellie to the guest suite.” Mickayla gave a sloppy salute, earning a scowl from her fearless leader, then cocked her head in silent invitation to follow her.

“You’re up on the second floor,” she said as she led me upstairs. “Hopefully you’re not afraid of heights after your accident,” she grinned.

“Are you kidding? I’ve always wanted to try free climbing, but was too scared. Now I totally want to,” I said.

“Don’t mention that to any of the guys or they’ll have kittens.” Her golden laugh bounced through the stairway.

“Now I’m picturing a bunch of them at the base of a cliff with a giant trampoline like in cartoons when there’s a fire,” I chuckled and she joined me.

“This is you,” she waved a welcoming arm through an open doorway. “Matt already brought your backpack and duffel up.” My bags were indeed sitting on a low, wide dresser against the nearest wall. The queen bed with its elegant down comforter faced the door. A door on the right led to a bathroom, although I had no idea how I was going to be able to do my business in a house full of people who could hear through walls.

“Thanks.”

“No worries. You need anything you just give a shout. Wait, you’re new. No actual shouting necessary, just a sort of ‘hey’ so we know you’re not talking to yourself,” she winked.

“Um, Mickayla?” She turned back to me. “What’s it like being in a pack?”

She stepped into the room with a small smile and shut the door behind her, for all the good that would do. “I don’t know this John, but sometimes wolves go lone because they can’t handle being in a pack.”

“Yeah, he did seem more than a little biased.” I dug out the Ziploc of toiletries and the bundle that was the last clean outfit I’d originally saved for the last day of the drive home, but didn’t dare stop long enough along the way to change.

“Think of a healthy pack more as one big family.” Mickayla flopped onto the bed with one leg tucked up under her, yet kept her voice low enough to not carry. “Complete with the usual amount of dysfunction and bickering. They’re really like a bunch of brothers, uncles, and cousins who are all trying to protect the little sister.”

As she talked, I leaned against the bathroom doorway and started to brush my teeth. They had fuzzy sweaters from the energy drinks I’d downed to stay awake. “But then again, I’m married,” she continued. “If you’re single then the unmated ones will all come sniffing around. It’s not that bad!” she laughed at my expression of dawning horror. “Even if any of them would push their luck and call down the wrath of their Alpha, the closest dom would thrash them, or if they couldn’t, tag someone in who could. Mind you, I’m only talking about the Emerald City Pack. I was Changed two years ago because my mate, Matt, was already a wolf. Before that there were no other girls for I don’t know how long.”

“They weren’t kidding when they said that women are rare,” I said around the toothbrush and foam that probably made me look rabid. She laughed again, although it was hard to tell whether it was at my surprise or the toothpaste.

“We’re more functional than not here. But there are some stories out there of Alphas who went bad. I don’t know much about the Eugene pack, but I haven’t heard any horror stories either,” she shrugged. “You know, it’s funny, women are supposed to be huge gossips, but most werewolves are men and we all gossip worse than any housewife.” I laughed and promptly choked, so I shut the bathroom door and started the shower as I finished brushing.

“You’re going to need to get over that modesty.” Mickayla’s voice was easily heard through the door and over the running water.

“Oh?” I asked archly. She couldn’t see the glare through the door as I undressed.

“It’s incredibly painful to shift while wearing clothes. So pack runs, full moons…”

“I’ve just been told I have to switch careers, move to a new city, am no longer allowed to leave town without a babysitter, and when it comes to my place in a pack my only option is which one do I want to be at the bottom of the pecking order in. Oh, and all the single guys will be eyeing me like a juicy steak. Now you’re telling me I have to become an exhibitionist? No thank you, I’m going to maintain whatever little control over my life I have left.” It took all my willpower to not punch something. If I had to move and look for work there was no way I could afford to replace anything in this bathroom, too.

“If the pack’s good, you’ll be on a pedestal, more or less, not the low man on the totem pole.”

“Great, I always wanted to be Princess Peach stuck in the castle,” I muttered sarcastically. “I’ll see you downstairs.”

“Ellie, I promise that it’s not as bad as it seems,” she said before leaving.

I stood lost in thought in my office for some time after she left, bathed in the complex layers of smells that confirmed her story. Mountain air, evergreens, sweat both old and nervous, gasoline, fast food, and no small amount of stress. Amidst the melange was a thread of fear. If it was any stronger, I would have called Alan, the pack’s only submissive, to come and help calm her before everyone got riled up trying to fix whatever upset her. But under the circumstances, her fear was to be expected. And he was working tonight.

Tension had been running high in the pack ever since we went public. Another submissive to ease the strain would be a boon, and a second medic would not go amiss. Her presence would stir up a rash of dominance fights among the unmated males until she starting seeing someone. That is, if she could be housebroken. Time would show whether her defiance was born of ignorance or emotional pressure. Her knowledge of our primary laws would suggest the latter, though I preferred to avoid premature conclusions.

A younger wolf, or one who wasn’t as high in the hierarchy, might find such calculations cold, especially in regards to a submissive female whose Change had been particularly traumatic. But you don’t get to be an old Alpha without assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your pack members and determining how they can best be used for the betterment of the whole.

As much as I was loath to let her leave, even if the Marrock hadn’t mandated, protocol and courtesy demanded that the Eugene pack have right of first refusal. Appropriate that Eugene was also referred to as the Emerald City, but we had claimed the name before the Portland pack had relocated there. Ordinarily I would have my second, Tom, call to arrange things with the other pack, but the unique situation and the fact that he was on duty called for a personal touch, even if my third, Shane, wasn’t preparing for the trip. Besides, their Alpha, Colin, would be pissed if I dropped this grenade, no matter how attractive or useful she was, in his lap without warning. No, not a bomb. Panicked ferret, maybe. Still not pleasant, but not as disastrous. And they could be cute, when they weren’t baring their teeth.

Stifling a sigh, I found Colin’s cell number in my phone and called him up.

Notes: This was written two years ago and was my first fan fiction and my first attempt at writing over 10 years.

Matt and Shane live in Redmond, thus why they were able to carpool so quickly. It was sheer luck that they spotted the lime green, mud-splattered Jeep as they headed down the 405 after Tom asked them to try and track her while he covered I-5 South. Of course, Ellie didn't know that, nor does she think it's lucky at all.

Ellie was hiking along the easterly side of Glacier National Park of Canada in BC, not too far from Revelstoke, which has some great hot springs, by the way.

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creepychippy · 4 years

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Luigi's Mansion 3 - Tickling Drabbles (Part 6)

Luigi/Kruller: Security Check Expect for some small noises like the humming of security cameras, the squeaking of a chair and some pages of a book being flicked through, the room was entirely silent. When Kruller wasn't doing his usual patrolling around the mall, he would be sitting in his office and absentmindely read a book during his break, sometimes even giving a glance towards the green tinted screens, the occasional flicker dividing his attention away from the string of words that the security guard was holding in his hands. Currently, the first beams of sunshine were making their entrance in the morning sky, which meant that most guests of the Last Resort were either having their sips of coffee to properly wake up or going back to the realm of dreams, depending if they were an early bird rubbing the sleep from their eyes, or a night owl believing that sleep is for the weak. As a result because of this, only a handful of tired ghosts were strolling around the shopping centre, most of them making themselves comfortable on some chairs outside the shop and holding small talk with another one of their kind, the casual giggle ringing through the air here and there. Nothing could seem to break this quiet and calm peace...- until out of nowhere a sudden knock on the door pierced the silence, giving the security officer a small shock, since it caught him off-guard. "Come in." The door was opened and a familiar face stepped into Kruller's workplace, holding a plate with a donut and cup that contained what seemed to be freshly made coffee. "Mornin', Kruller. Steward was a lil' bit-a busy, so I thought-a I lend him a hand and-a bring your breakfast to you-a, instead.", announed the green clothed plumber leaning against the doorway, who has decided to expand his vacation with his friends in this hotel a little bit longer, since a peculiar 'incident' interrupted them at the beginning of their visit. "Ah, that's very nice of you. Steward probably appreciates your help, even though he's an workaholic and would rather done it by himself, as I know...him..." Laying his book aside him, Kruller stared at Luigi in a skeptical way - something was off about the plumber today, he just couldn't put his finger on it. That's when the watchman noticed said something, however. The former ghost hunter's speech was kind of slurred, his movements were rather sluggish and executed in a shakingly manner, which could be observed while he was putting down the tableware on the desk, and the most notable point are the big dark circles that had appeared under his eyes. While Kruller might not be the brightest when it comes to a lot of things that were more or less complex, it didn't mean that he wasn't attentive and mindful when specific subjects were being displayed right in front of him, especially those that he had certain past experiences with. "Had a nightmare?" "..." Propping himself against the doorway and using it as a support for his drowsy body, Luigi stopped dead in his tracks, taking a moment to formulate a response in his head, a particular guard waiting patiently and watching him. "...'s nothing, don't-a-worry about it." "Are you sure you don't want to talk about it, not even a little bit? I do not want to pressure you to do anything that you don't want to do, of course, but sometimes it's just...relieving to have someone hear about your thoughts and worries, you know?" "..." Sighing, the green plumber slowly closed the door behind him, taking a chair out of a corner from the room and positioning it in front of the table in such a way so that he could rest his arms on top of it. "Well, you-a-see..." Luigi took his sweet time describing in detail what had happened in his nightmares and what bothered him, although he stammered and mixed his words up quite a lot along the way. Meanwhile, Kruller silently listened to the poor boy's worries, which went from 'King Boo tried to capture everyone again', 'Everyone hated and abandoned me' and finally to 'I even killed my brother in one dream, because I was brainwashed'. At the end, a sympathetic expression has made itself clear on the purple spectra's face, due to some mentioned aspects being fairly relatable and also stirring up some past memories within him. "...I guess you were-a-right, it was kind of-a-relieving to talk about it. I'm-a feelin' better, thanks..." Sure, to any outsider's eye, Luigi's statement could have been taken as nothing but the truth. The years of paying close attention to behaviours and certain cues from people and being watchful in general, however, told the slightly overweight guard that this was not the case at all. There was still this lingering feeling of guilt and melancholia that was emitted by the plumber's eyes, no matter how hard he tried to conceal it. Letting Luigi leave in such condition was out of the question, no doubt, but what exactly was the best method to cheer up a grieving plumber? Kruller took a second to ponder, making an effort not to take to long to hatch a plan in case the former ghost hunter was getting impatient, which luckily didn't appear to be the case at least. As soon as an idea popped up inside of the watchman's head, he could've sworn that if he was in a cartoon, a light bulb would have certainly flashed above his head. "Hey, uh, Luigi, if you don't mind, how about we play a little game?" "...Why?" "Ah, well, I don't get a lot of company around here in the morning and nothing interesting happens in that time period anyway, so I thought we could kill some time together." The green plumber seemed to be considering the offer, having his head drowsily raised from his arms a bit in a curious manner. Please let this work. "What-a-exactly is this-a-game called?" "Oh, uh, it's called... 'Security Check', right." "And what do I-a-do in this-a-game?" "Well, for starters you have to stand up and spread your arms out in a T-Shape." Standing up, the green hero followed the named steps, albeit doing it somewhat sluggishly, while the taller spectra, who was now floating behind the tired boy, assisted him to some extend. "Okay, what-a-do I do next?" "Laugh." "...Wait wha-hahahahahat?!" Before Luigi could even process what was happening to him, ghostly fingers were already being scribbled into his sides, sending shockwaves throughout his body and making the plumber clamp down his arms out of reflexes. "K-kruhuhuhullehehehahahar, w-w-whahahahahat ahahaharehehe-ahahahaha y-yohohohuhuhuh doho-hahahaha-dohohohoihihihihihihng ahahahahaha?!!" "What does it look like? Performing a security check on you, silly." The redeemed ghost hunter was immediatly torn out of his fatigued state, wobbily pushing against the bigger spectra's wriggling hands but to no avail, his feet weakly pounding against the ground. "Pleheheheheh-hahahahahah-heheheheahahahasehehehehe, nohohohohohahahahahat ahahahahahahaha-hehehehehehehehehehe t-thehehehehehrehehehehehehe!!" "Not there? Got it." Deciding the sides were becoming a repetitive place to drill his fingers into, Kruller instead went on to work on the fidgeting plumber's ribs, gaining him now a more high pitched chuckling instead of giggling. "Ahahahhaha-AHAHAHA K-KRUHUHUHLLAHAHAHA W-WHAHAHAHAHIHIHIT, NOHOHOHOHOHOHO-HAHAHAHAHA!!!" "Sir, please stop squirming so much. I have to ensure the safety of every citizen around here, after all.~" "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA S-STOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO-HAHAHAHAHAHAP!!!" A giddy Luigi attempted to flee from the mischievous spectra's grasp, but was instantly restrained by one arm and punished by the other hand who had snaked his way into his armpit and was currently spidering said area, causing the poor boy to blush in a deeper shade of red. "Ah, ah, ah.~ Has no one ever taught you to not disrespect the law? Since you dared to resist an officer's instructions, I now have to take proper action to ensure no further resistance.~" "W-WHAHAHAHAHAHAHIHIHIHIHIHIT-AHAHAHAHAHAHA; I-IHIHIHIHI AHAHAHAHM S-SOHOHOHO-HAHAHAHAHAHARRYHIHIHIHIHI!!!!" "Tell it to the judge." "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH-HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Realizing that escape was futile, the writhing ghost hunter let himself lean into the spectra's body which in turn promptly earned him squeezing against his belly and light scratching against his neck, making him shriek and wheeze with bubbled up laughter even more. "EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA N-N-NOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!" "I'm sorry sir, but depending on your actions you have to suffer the consequences for it.~" "WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE S-S-STOHOHOHOHOHOHA-HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!" After switching from spidering against his neck, squeezing against his sides, scribbling away his ribs and basically tickling every tiniest laughter out of the plumber, Kruller noticed the tears that had formed in Luigi's eyes, prompting him to seize all attacks, giving the blushy and shivering mess of a plumber finally a chance to catch his breath. "Ah, uh, I...I didn't overdo it now, did I...?" Having eventually revovered to a degree that he was able to talk again, the green ghost hunter who had still a hint of red in his face quietly gazed at the worried ghost before finally answering. "Hey, Kruller. You said-a-this was-a-game, right?" "U-uh, yeah, I did...Why?" "Well, that would-a-theoratically mean that the roles of-a-the players can be switched up, right?" The ghost of the security guard, who was backing up into a wall behind him, didn't like where this was going, especially that playful glare and smirk that the plumber was giving him. "I-ah u-uh, I t-think I've got t-t-to go!" "Before you do-a-that, I still have-a-one question to ask-a-you." "...Y-y-yes?" Luigi was now standing in front of a very flustered Kruller, his blue eyes piercing the spectra's very being and his fingers wriggling teasingly towards him. "Are-a-ghosts ticklish?" Ah, well. At least Kruller was able to cheer Luigi up.

#luigismansion #luigi's mansion #luigismansion3 #luigi's mansion 3 #lm3 #luigis mansion tickling #tickling #luigi #kruller #lm3 kruller #luigis mansion kruller #luigis mansion 3 kruller #luigis mansion drabbles #drabbles

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panspy · 4 years

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Case #0181501

ARCHIVIST

Statement of Eide Burrows, regarding a man who may not have been her neighbor, and her hometown of Millport, Scotland. Original statement delivered through some folded sheets of notebook paper shoved under the office door while I was on a lunch break. Statement recorded January 15, 2018, audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

Statement begins.

ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

In the end, we’re all just shapes. Figures, either soft, angled, flat, or dimensional, all floating through space with only the hint of a purpose. I’ve always thought this made us pitiable. Shapes don’t have a purpose, their only use is to simply be. What is the meaning of a triangle? Any color, it doesn’t matter. How about a square? A dodecahedron? Exactly. It has no right to have that many sides all to itself, but it exists simply because we willed it into being. Shapes thinking of shapes.

Lines connect shapes and connect people. We have no reason to be, other than to just… exist. We think of shapes. Who thought of us? God, you could argue and many do. Argue about God, argue with God, argue in defense of God, argue against God. Argue, argue, argue. Just shapes arguing with shapes.

For the longest time, as far as I was concerned, Millport was nothing but shapes. Old buildings with new paint, old billboards with flashy new signs, old families run by new blood. Old ways and new people. They tried to cover up the old, and bury it like bones in a landfill. Cover it up along with the potholes with new asphalt and cement. Make it shiny and new. They still crack, anyway.

Hundreds of years, that town stood sturdy on soft ground. Founded by confident men with high hopes, big dreams, bigger egos, and empty pockets. Dreams make you blind, but people like to invest in them. Dreams give shapes a purpose, don’t they? Confidence fools others, and eventually fools yourself. Have you ever gone unnoticed in a place you’re not meant to be? If you walk with your head held high and false arrogance, people will believe you belong with them. For either to believe this façade makes them a fool. Not that anyone really belongs anywhere, and we’re all just foolish enough to believe it. Foolish shapes believing other foolish shapes.

I’ve always reckoned that it’s easier to be confident on uncertain legs than to fear falling on steady ground. Watching a frightened child stepping along a wide, even plank at the park is more likely to fall than a tightrope walker on a flimsy wire. Tightrope walkers are triangles, balanced and perfect. Children are parallelograms. Misshapen. Lopsided.

All the children in Millport are parallelograms. Some are flat and one dimensional, others forever rotating on an axis to show off their sides. Never the same for more than a day- I kept track. The adults were a variety of evolved and ever-changing polygons. But for some reason when I was little, looking at all these shapes going about their pretend lives, I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t a polygon when the world seemed to be filled with them. When I looked at my skin, it was soft and squished under touch. My hair was coarse, dull, and brown, unlike my mothers which was static with energy and never quite the same after you blinked. My face was asymmetrical too, as many shapes are. Eyes that seemed to be too big, ears that poke out a bit too much, bags that never went away… well, I don’t think they did anyways. You have to understand, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. After a childhood of feeling as though the world hadn’t been fair enough to make me a nice red square, I just accepted it. I learned not to mind my lack of shape, and felt content to be liminal.

The first time I decided to look further into what made the town fit together into the odd puzzle it was, was the Masonic Lodge on the empty lot of Seymour and Drummond. It was always changing, not that it mattered enough to give it a second thought. In the morning, it could be a red trapezoid but by noon it would shift into a cracked yellow octagon. Personally I always preferred the trapezoid. The men who entered in the evening but never seemed to exit in the morning were also known to change. Whether by name, appearance, age, or multitude… who went in did not dictate who went home. Not that anyone cared about that, either.

When I was feeling especially curious, I would watch them enter from the dim car park away from a flickering old street lamp. As nights went by and I felt brave enough to stand directly under it, I found it made no difference as they never even looked at my direction. By the morning, the cars would be gone and the men allegedly returned home to their spouses and families. And I would leave, deciding to return again at the next meeting whenever I felt the disturbing pull in my stomach beckoning me to witness it. The scheduled days varied, but was always twice a week starting at 8:12 pm and ending when the street light flickered, shrouding the building and parked vehicles in darkness, then flickering on again to show an empty lot. They never met on Tuesdays.

My mother worked down the street at the Birdie’s Bed & Breakfast to help Bertha Goodwin when the old woman needed assistance navigating the cottage she’d rented her whole life, it seemed like. Bertha, though we always called her Birdie, was in her late seventies when I was born, and she was in her late seventies when I left for college. She was still in her late seventies when I returned home the next fall with nothing to show for it and a mother who didn’t even acknowledge I had gone in the first place. Not that they even noticed when I was living with them as a child either. When they deemed me old enough to care for myself, Mum would leave in the mornings with a freshly ironed apron, cleaning supplies I never saw opened, and my Dad would leave to work on blueprints of buildings I never saw built. After staring at my ceiling for hours, distracting myself with faded stars stuck up with putty and cracks in the walls, I would leave my blue square of a house and wander the streets looking for a clue to a mystery I wasn’t quite sure existed.

I tried to be academic, I really did. I wanted to leave that old town and its jagged shapes and build something for myself, but the longer I spent away the pit in my stomach grew more and even looking in the mirror hurt my eyes. I couldn’t feel the softness of my skin anymore. It felt like plastic. The faces of my classmates were static and boring-- none of them pulsed with the same energy as the people back home and all sounded the same. After barely a year I couldn’t take it and moved back home. The school didn’t even call to finalize my resignation.

As a child who grew up with strange disappearances monthly (Birdie said Misses Morgan moved to the States, but her car still collected leaves in the drive), stores popping up that never seemed to stay, and the absence of new neighbors, nothing was too out of the ordinary for us. But I’ve read some of the other statements, Jon, and it seems nothing was quite ordinary at all. Construction workers would vanish and it would rarely make the papers. The opening of a new chip shop was a blessing, but no one would ever be able to go more than twice before it was on its way out of town and replaced with some new fad.

Until the year the cemetery flooded and the school gymnasium roof caved in, about 2006 (it’s hard to beep track of the years), I didn’t think extraordinary could exist. Or at least not in any way that mattered. That was the year the Abbott’s moved in to the house on Cowley Lane, a house I had only ever seen out of the corner of my eye. On a street filled with shapes, this was a straight line.

They arrived as most families do, escaping an unpleasant moment in time by “starting fresh” and “turning over a new leaf”. I never quite understood that expression, as turning over a new leaf does not negate the old one. By turning over a leaf with a sullied edge to admire the green underside, it still remains the same leaf. Turning over a new leaf simply means the old one is left to decompose while you find a crisp, untarnished leaf, while the other still has a perfectly acceptable side to be admired. And, as most families do, they leave the unsightly leaf to be buried with the hundreds of others they’ve “turned over” and promise to change. The promises stay, but are never quite redeemed. Sorry, I got carried away… it's hard to find things to be passionate about these days. I'll continue.

The Abbotts integrated as well as they could, two children ready to attend school no matter the construction work in the gym or the fact it was well into November, and a third to stay at home as infants are wont to do. They threw a barbecue to get to know the neighbors, and the whole village attended bringing their own family recipes and baked desserts. I stayed home.

The Abbott's father, Mark, gained a quick job as an iron-worker while his wife (I never knew her name) stayed indoors looking after the baby. I’d see him in the mine, hacking away at rusty cars and rail too old to use and loading the scraps to be taken away. Hours, I’d watch, as he compressed the piles and laid the new framework to keep unwanted visitors from being crushed to death by eroding stone walls. The day he was called to help install the new wrought iron fence where the cemetery flooded and washed away, I followed him there too. Wherever he went, the shapes that once filled the town lost their vibrancy. Instead of fluctuating between tetrahedrons and prisms, they became either stagnant or frantic. Everything at once, or nothing at all.

I watched him dig in the downtrodden soil, unearthing rectangular caskets and hexagonal coffins. The rain that year had brought landslides and sinkholes, most destructive in the cemetery just outside town and disturbing the dead where they slept. Headstones, monuments, and mementos washed away and sank into the soft dirt, the running fence encircling the land broken up and dragged along with it. Once an infinite circle that cut the burial grounds off from the rest of the puzzle, the shape was now distorted and wrong. Without gate to close and make it whole again, I felt the muted shape of the cemetery slip away and become a tangled mess of string.

He dug for hours until the orange circle of a sun lowered itself behind the branches of the forest and their quickly disappearing leaves. Moving from one plot to the other, from the pristine headstones of recent years down to the protruding stones with names barely legible beneath the moss and decades of wear. Digging, digging, digging, all the while the formless fence to-be remained untouched. When the sky turned dark and snow clouds threatened to shed their weight, I finally turned my back on Mark and left him alone with the dead for the first time all evening, the man seeming blissfully unaware he hadn’t been alone in the first place at all.

The next morning when I went to check on his new project, the buildings along the way had lost their shape. No longer were streets lined with sturdy trapezoids, rectangles, and prisms. The colors were off, like a child with a crayon who had not yet learned the concept of limitation. They bled into each other and polluted the air, cracked frames unable to hold them back. The air tasted like static and I couldn't feel the ground beneath my boots.

By the time I got to the clearing, the holes had been filled and the new fence had taken shape in towering columns that crawled and stretched like spider webs across the dying grass. It was the same dirt, the same stone, trees, and air, but it did not feel like the cemetery I had watched be torn away the night before. I felt a chill settle in my bones and leave as quickly as it came like waiting for pain after burning your finger on a hot mug. From all my observing of the town, never once has a feeling ever driven me to run far away until what I was seeing before me was but an afterthought.

I passed by the Abbotts house, static growing stronger until I could barely hear the crunch of leaves or gravel beneath my feet. Only the wife's car was in the drive and a fresh coat of snow indicated there had only been the one all night, and the black pick-up Mark drove was nowhere to be seen. The sign on their door was new, barely two months old, but as I looked at it, truly looked at it, did it appear to have aged to rot. Abbott’s House it said in curvy lettering (with all the determination of a line pretending to be something it’s not) with five handprints beneath for each family member. Five. Mother, three kids, and… now four. The longer I thought about it, the longer I stared, trying to blink away the dots that kept getting in the way of my vision, the more my eyes convinced me there had always been four. Never two cars, never five hands. Through my haze, I barely felt my feet take me home. Even when I layed down to rest in a foreign looking room, I decided that my childhood mystery, a fantasy I had grown to accept, had found another clue and a little bit more of the town chipped away. Mark didn’t show up for work anymore.

Little things were changing, it just took a trained eye to notice. You don’t have to be a detective to see the details, sometimes you just have to be very, very afraid. The sign for Birdies Bed & Breakfast was now spelled with a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i’, and the apron my mother wore was now a faded lilac instead of a robin’s egg blue. The oak tree that stood tall in our backyard, old as the town itself with a slow swinging hammock tied to the branches, was now a young birch. I likened it to two puzzles cut from the same machine. Different pictures with pieces that fit together only in the most literal sense. The longer I noticed, the more I wondered which puzzle was truly mine, and which one was slowly being replaced.

Each morning the static filled my nose, irritated my eyes, and clouded my ears with a soft dizzying hum that slowly drowned out my senses. The shapes that made up my entire world were broken, dull, and chipping away until everything I knew was muddled and loud.

It was only when I woke up in an empty room, no posters, cardboard boxes, or dirty clothes, I found my feet barely touched the floor. I felt weightless as I wandered down to the kitchen where Mum usually got ready, feeling as though the back of my eyes were filled with cotton. There were only two seats sat at the dining table, and when I tried to open my mouth to speak my tongue tasted like ash.

Before I could blink or even cry, suddenly I was in the street. Red shapes filled my periphery and everything between, and the town was gone. A red sky bled into the houses, cars, and potholes cremating them like the dead. I felt myself falling away from my body and I finally saw my shape. It was a shifting mass of angles and colors and somehow I just knew it was me. When I finally did cry, smaller shapes fell from her eyes copying the drops that fell from mine. Was it out of malice? Pity? Understanding? Was she crying because she shared my pain or was she just a cheap reflection of who I thought I was or simply longed to be?

It’s been a while since I’ve been here, in this black and red. She still mocks me. Radiant and pulsing with color while I exist with imitation soft skin and coarse hair. They’re the only things I can be sure of, as I haven’t seen my face in a long time. Only hers. Now I’m not sure who she is, but she’s the only company in this void. Until I saw your shape, Jon. Blue and black polygons blinking between colors with the beat of a foreign heart. You lead me here to a library of pain that reflected my own, a reprieve from the emptiness I’ve been floating in. Maybe if I tell you my story you can bring me back to the shape of your world? I suppose only time will tell, and I have an eternity to wait.

Waiting for someone to save the outline of a person who isn’t sure they ever existed at all.

#tma #the magnus archives oc #the magnus archives #tma oc #case fic #case file #statement #fan statement #tma fanfic #my writing #the spiral #podcast #eide burrows #fan case #jon sims #jonathan sims

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tacitusauxilium · 4 years

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My Way Of Saying Thank You |Drabble for my close homie~|

A typical Saturday evening inside the Iwadotai dorm, and SEES had just returned from a very successful and smooth Tartarus run. Everyone had defeated a good amount of Shadows and even defeated a guardian Shadow on the floor they were on. Needless to say, it was a tough battle and when everyone seemed to be at a disadvantage, Fuuka had cast a move called Oracle, a blue ball of light from her Persona coming down to crash on the ground, on impact it would unleash a healing wave of energy which would heal all her injured comrades, not only that, but Oracle’s waves had manifested strongly and ended up knocking the Guardian Shadow right on its back, this allowing her team to finish it off with an All-Out Attack.

He had been switching Persona so much and he could feel himself getting more and more spent as the battle went on, as unique as his ability with the Wild Card was, whenever he would change Persona, it take a chunk of energy out of him each time, especially on the type of Persona he would summon, powerful ones being the most draining. So when her Oracle came down, it had been like a light sent down from the heavens to save them. Yet again, Fuuka had yet again saved them from getting seriously hurt or worse. If it hadn’t been for Fuuka’s quick thinking, even if it was an act of desperation, she truly saved them, this would Amaze Minato, and make him hold Fuuka in even higher regard than he already did. On the way back home, everyone had expressed their gratitude for her. Fuuka always did her best it had only been over four months since The Priestess had joined but she was already showing how reliable and dependable she was. But, despite that, The fool didn’t think that was enough, no. He wanted to truly show his appreciation. So, when Sunday Morning came, for a change, Minato was actually up early for a change and much to his surprise, everyone else was out of the dorm besides Fuuka, but this was the perfect chance. The only reason he knew she was still here was because he had heard her little high pitched sneeze from upstairs when he walked to the stairway leading downstairs., It sounded like she was sitting in the upstairs lobby near the girls rooms, likely on her laptop.

With a yawn, Minato left and took a train to the Iwadotai Strip mall to grab some things, then finally, after paying for it all, he grabbed the shopping bags and returned to the dorm. Thankfully, the trains weren’t so packed today so he had plenty of room, actually had a spot to sit, and the trains were all on time today so the trip only took him just over half an hour there and back. Upon his return as he walked through the door and much to his luck, everyone was still gone. Minato would walk up halfway the first plane of stairs, he could hear Fuuka watching a video. With a nod he went to the kitchen and put on an apron. Now when it came to cooking, Minato was average at best, but he still knew the basic idea of cooking, there was no way he was as good as Shinjiro-senpai, but he new some recipes, just not fancy ones. Mostly basics, but he knew what he was doing inside a kitchen at least.

Before he began, he washed his hands thoroughly then started to unbox the various types of fruit, rinsed them under the tap, laid them out on a cutting board and began to cut them evenly. This would take about fifteen minutes or so before he put a cover over them so they would remain fresh while he would tend to the other stuff. He began to cook rice inside the rice cooker, while that would cook, he cracked some eggs. The fool would continue cooking for about half an hour before everything was ready. Once that was finished, he walked to the stairs and called up. “Fuuka-chan! Can you down down here for a minute?" Hearing the fools voice would cause Fuuka to perk up from her laptop. Curious to what he needed, she would put her laptop in sleep mode and closed it, gently setting it down on the coffee table in front of her. Rising up from her seat, she answered back. "U-Um I’ll be right there!" She picked up her laptop and returned it to her room and set on her her table before exiting and closing the door behind her. The tealnette made her way to the second floor hallway and was immediately greeted with a smell of delicious food.

Huh? Is Shinjiro-senpai still here? I thought he went out with Akihiko-senpai somewhere? She thought to herself as she made her way down to the first floor lobby. Upon her arrival, she was surprised to see Minato waiting for her with his hands tucked away in his pockets like usual. He would greet he with a very small smile. "There you are, have a seat."

She blinked a few times, she was pretty surprised, their leader was quite mysterious in his own unique way and although she knew he could cook, she wasn’t expecting to actually see it for herself.

On the table next to Minato was a small assortment of breakfast food that he had prepared:

Fried Eggs topped with Dried-Omulet Furikake

A large bowl of freshly prepared fruit salad, big enough for them to get a bowl out of it each.

Miso soup with mushrooms, slice green onion, Wakame Seaweed all based with dashi broth.

Cooked White Rice wrapped delightfully in Ikura Salmon-roe

Two empty places on the opposite ends of the table with a cup of freshly made Green Tea beside them, the steam still seeping from it.

"M-Minato-kun? W-What’s all this for?” She would ask.

“Sit down and I’ll tell you.” He says as he pulls up a chair on the side opposite side across from her.

She would just nod, she could feel her cheeks just faintly starting to heat up as she pulled up the chair and sat down across from him.

The fool would meet her gaze as soon a she sat down, his expression softening a bit as he saw the curiosity on her face.

“Fuuka-chan, you’ve been doing so much for us lately, ever since you joined us, you’ve been amazingly helpful, you’re support is flawless and I’m so glad you’re here with us.

The tealnette would feel her cheeks heat up, a pink blush appearing on her face, she was so taken back by his words, she wasn’t expecting to be greeted with all this praise, but she could feel her heart flutter a bit at his kind words. She put hands to her chest.

"I know we all thanked you last night, but, I wanted to show my personal appreciation. I’m not as good as Shinjiro-senpai. But, this is my way of saying. ‘Thanks for being here with us, and thanks for everything you’ve done to help me.

She could almost feel herself holding back tears, she was so moved by his kindness, despite not being an expert level chef like Shinjiro was, she could easily tell that Minato still knew what he was doing, it did smell lovely.

"M-Minato..” She would put a hand over her mouth, she didn’t know what to say. With a bright red face, she would shyly downcast her eyes, she couldn’t look at him, she was so flustered.

“Y-you didn’t have to do all this for me you know.” She would speak softly.

“I wanted to, so please, dig in. I made it for you.”

Mustering up the courage she could, she gave him a bright genuine smile and let out a small giggle.

“O-okay!” She put her hands together as did Minato.

A boy, made me breakfast.. I never thought something like this would ever happen to someone like me. I’m happy! He’s so sweet.

Another small giggle.

“Hm? Is something funny?” Minato asked.

She would just giggle and shake her head with a smile.

Minato didn’t really get it, but he wouldn’t question it besides, he had to admit, her giggles were cute.

“Thank you for the food!” She excitedly exclaimed as she began to build her plate.

“Thanks for the food!” Minato added also beginning to make his plate but, he let Fuuka finish making hers first since he knew he’d end up taking a lot more than he should, but he made enough extra in case she wanted seconds at all, but if not he could always give it to her for lunch

The two would begin to have a very pleasant breakfast together, Minato had done a good job, he even surprised himself, but he was just glad she enjoyed it. With the food all gone and their stomachs happy with them, Minato began to collect the plates.

“Thank you for the breakfast, it really was delicious.” She complimented, she really did like it, this made her wonder, what other surprises Minato had hidden away.

“No problem, it’s the least I could do." He answers and he takes the plates to the kitchen sink and began to start washing, starting with the cooking equipment first as they were the largest to clean. As he did that, he felt Fuuka join his side at the kitchen sink, and she began to help wash dishes. The fool would glance over at her.

"Fuuka, you’re welcome to go ahead and relax. I can handle these."

She would shake her head, a smile still across her delicate lips.

"I insist, you did make me a wonderful breakfast after all, it’s the least I can do.” She giggled, repeating the words he said to her. This making Minato chuckle a little and continued to clean dishes.

“But, it wouldn’t be very gentlemanly if I let you help you~” He playfully replied.

A giggle as she ran her index finger through the suds of the dish soap, she quickly faced him and poked his nose with her sub covered index finger leaving a bunch on his nose. He would cross his eyes a slightly to look at the bubbles on his nose before running his two fingers through some suds of his own before quickly putting some on her cheek leaving a suddy soapy handprint on her cheek, with a giggle Fuuka would run her whole hand through some soap suds and lathered it on his face giving him a long bubble beard. Minato would cross his eyes a little but to get a better look at it. The two would look at each other, soap on their faces as Minato blew air from his mouth making all the bubbles go everywhere creating a small mess of water and soap on the counter. The two make eye contact, smile then both burst out laughing, it truly was a heartfelt moment, sharing the laughter with someone you cared about. Minato and Fuuka would clean the rest of the dishes after some playfulness and would spend a tender moment together before everyone else returned.

#drabble #for the mun #(Chase...you really didn't have to do this for me #but gosh thank you so much //hugs//#And i told you i could fix it on my end :D)#submission

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ecofinisher · 5 years

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Movie Night

Ship(s): NathanielxLila

Background ships: AdrienxKagami, JulekaxRose

Oneshot is related to the Super Nathan series around the 4th part.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21012662

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13408780/1/Movie-Night

https://www.wattpad.com/794057412-movie-night-at-the-kurtzbergs-movie-night

In the afternoon Lila was inside the kitchen standing in front of the counter with a bowl in front of her and from the wall cupboard over her she opened the doors and looked at the various snacks and groceries she had stored in there and took out a red-colored bag filled with yellow chips, then she took another chips bag out, which was colored in beige and contained orange sweet potato chips.

“I wonder how the sweet potato ones taste” Lila said to herself opening the two bags, then she filled the bowl first with the natural potato chips, then noted, that the bowl was almost full and grabbed the bowl and placed it behind the small dinner table inside the kitchen, where a few other bowls, filled with nuts, cookies and salty snacks. Lila walked across the kitchen to the fridge and opened the counter beside it to take another plastic bowl out and took it with her back to the counter to fill it with the sweet potato chips, then she crumpled up both bags and she walked with them back to the same direction she went before to the fridge and next to the counter stood the herd and next to it was the sink, which was built inside the counter and in front of the counter it had a door with a drawn, laminated picture of a grey dog dressed in green wearing a backpack on its back and standing with his front paws over a recycling bin. From the backpack of the dog came out a clutch holding a paper cup in it, which was supposed to demonstrate, that he was throwing it into the trash bin.

Lila opened the door to throw the packages into the bag, that was tightened around the trash bin. Lila closed the door, then looked at the table to see all the various snacks she had prepared for the evening. This evening Lila had invited some of her close friends to see her first movie, where she has the main role as an actress.

“Great” Lila mumbled, then heard a burst of laughter coming out from the living room, making Lila smile amused as she recognized the voice of her daughter and her husband, which seemed to be having fun together.

A young girl with long, brown braided ponytail ran into the kitchen passing beside Lila hiding behind her while chuckling.

“Wow Nathalie, who made your hair look like this?” Lila asked looking astonished at the child, which smiled a little embarrassed at the mother’s comment. “You look beautiful”

“Thank you, mommy,” The brunette girl said, watching the mother pick the ponytail to take a look at it.

“Rose, that was definitely Rose, wasn’t it?” Lila asked making Nathalie shake her head.

“This time it was Juleka” Nathalie corrected, then in the kitchen entered her father, Nathaniel Kurtzberg gazing around the area, then widened his eyes as he saw his daughter hiding behind the mother, afterward the girl started to laugh.

“Got ya!” Nathaniel barked and entered into the kitchen running at the girl, which ran off Lila’s back to go around the table, while Nathaniel stopped beside Lila to watch where the daughter was. “You think you can escape me?” The redhead questioned watching the girl slowly move forward to the end of the table, followed by Nathaniel, which observed her steps to be closer to her. Lila wide her eyes at her daughter as a sign, therefore as Nathalie paid attention to the mother Lila rolled her eyes down and up, making Nathalie nod and smirk while looking at her father. Nathaniel grinned at the girl, then watched Nathalie run up at the end of the kitchen and Nathaniel ran beside Lila to head at his daughter. Afterward, Nathalie raced back at the exit of the kitchen, then Nathaniel went around the kitchen and ended up slipping on the floor, falling on his back causing Lila to giggle.

“If you wore your slippers this wouldn’t have happened,” Lila said walking up at her husband going down on her knees.

“It’s weird since I was used to always walk around in our first home in socks. Well there we didn't have tiles, we had India rubber,”

“I had expected you to be like Ivan or Luka wearing the shoes all day on the days we weren’t living together”

“I never took out my shoes, because you never asked at some point” Nathaniel mentioned earning a nod from the woman.

“I know also you never walked on dirt to have your shoes look like a mess,” The Italian woman said helping Nathaniel get up from the floor, then into the kitchen run his daughter towards the couple to hug her father.

“Daddy, can we draw Hunter and Heaven together?” Nathalie asked appearing in the kitchen with a kids magazine with a Cocker Spaniel and a Belgian Shepherd on the cover.

“Like that one on the fridge, we did last week?” Nathaniel asked earning a nod from the girl.

“Don’t you want to see with us the movie?” Lila asked the daughter, which shrugged her shoulder.

“Is it scary? Nathalie asked a little timid.

“No of course not honey.” Lila responded.

“It isn’t also a good idea to watch horror movies with your mother, because……”

“Nathy….” Lila hissed making Nathaniel snicker.

“I was just kidding babe. Your mother….also doesn’t like them” Nathaniel invented earning a nod from the daughter.

“Okay” Nathalie responded, then the doorbell rang calling Lila’s attention, which got up on her feet.

“That must be Kagami and Adrien” Lila mentioned and walked out of the kitchen leaving her husband back with her daughter.

“Daddy mommy always says you’re a bad liar and I know you were lying,” Nathalie said glancing up at her father, which sighed.

“We tell it you one day when you’re older….or when we’re not quite right in the head.

Lila walked in the corridor of the house at the entrance and opened the door to see her best friend Kagami gazing at Lila, which had opened the door while Adrien stood beside Kagami caressing her roundish belly.

“Wow, it’s growing so fast” Lila vowed looking down at Kagami’s baby bump.

“I feel like it was just yesterday, that Kagami’s belly was small and thin as usual,” The blonde said taking his hand off, then grabbed his wife on her hand.

“You had to see it before our cat lying over my belly all relaxed enjoying the little sounds he heard from the inner,” The blue-haired woman explained earning a nod from Lila.

“Aww”

“The sounds are really reassuring when you ever feel down and afterward decide to lie your ear on it” Adrien mentioned. “Last week I got mad at my cousin and chatted with Kagami about it, then I lied my head down on the bump, soon I felt better about it”

“That sounds great,” Lila said moving her head aside, then looked neutral nothing someone was missing. “Where is Elliot?” Lila asked curious.

“The first classes at the E.F.I.P. have a class trip together and are going to overnight at Créteil. The teacher assured us the students would call us all around the 8 am before they would head to bed,”

“Wow your boy is a little far away from home and at that age”

“It’s not really that far thought,” Adrien corrected. “And I think it won’t be a problem for him since Rouven is present too”

“At least he’s got a friend there” Lila mentioned earning a nod from the couple. “Come on you two, get in. Rose and Juleka are already here” Lila invited the couple stepping in making space for the couple, then Adrien guided his wife into the house of the Kurtzbergs, leaving Lila behind, which closed the door of the entrance.

In the living room, Lila sat on the couch next to Kagami, Adrien, Rose and Juleka a little tightly together. On the floor sat Nathalie, which looked at the opening of the videos, then felt someone pass her hand under her braid, making her turn her head back to see Rose.

“It looks very nice” Rose complimented earning a smile from the brunette, afterward Rose grabbed Nathalie from under her arms. “Come you can sit on my lap” Rose offered the little girl, that had let herself pick up from the woman, then sat on the legs of the woman and giggled as Rose had pecked the girl on the cheek.

“Look Nathalie there is your mother’s name” Adrien mentioned looking at the brunette, which rolled her eyes at the TV screen.

“Uhm L…..L..Lila….K...u…..kurtz….berg…….Lila Kurtzberg?” Nathalie read making Adrien nod.

“Exactly”

“And what does Star…...li….ng mean?” Nathalie asked the blonde man.

“Starring is another word to say, who plays the main role in the movie, which in this case is your mother”

Nathalie nodded, then looked at Kagami’s belly bump and gazed up at the woman, which was looking at the screen, afterward she gazed at the side as she noted the little girl observe her.

“Do you want to feel my tummy?” Kagami questioned the little girl with a smile, then Nathalie looked at the belly and shrugged her shoulders.

“Shall I pet it along with you?” Rose questioned smiling at the brunette girl, then Nathalie nodded a little timid and Rose grabbed Nathalie’s right hand with both of hers and opened it.

“You held your hand like this” Rose explained as Nathalie had her hand open flat, then Rose placed her own flat hand over hers and guided it slowly at Kagami’s belly. “Stroke it slowly Nathalie, maybe you might feel it kicking” Rose instructed the young girl which slowly passed her in circular moves around the belly bump, feeling more relieved about it afterward she looked up at Kagami, who smiled simper at the young girl, then Nathalie had stopped and Kagami placed her hand over the girl’s head.

“How did it feel?” Kagami questioned caressing the head, watching the child enjoying the attention.

“I think I felt it kick” Nathalie responded. “It kind of moved up and down a very little bit”

“That’s right Nathalie”

“Only two more months and our girl will see the light of the world for the first time,” Adrien said leaning his forehead on Kagami’s face, making her smile and sink her head down on him.

“Hurry up Nathaniel, the movie is starting” The Italian woman warned loud to her husband at the kitchen.

“Just a minute, pumpkin” Nathaniel responded. “The popcorn is nearly done”

After almost an hour all were entertained with watching the movie, except for Nathalie, which had fallen asleep on Juleka’s shoulder and the raven-haired woman had her hand placed behind the child’s back from caressing her.

“She’s a treasure” Juleka whispered at her girlfriend, who nodded in agreement.

On the TV screen appeared Lila in a dark gray dress standing in the middle of a crowd of dancing couples, which were all well dressed to the event. In the scene, there was a prom of a high school and Lila was watching a tall brown-haired guy talk with another guy in the scene, which stood together there with a blonde girl drinking a glass of punch.

Lila smiled amorously at the man, then approached the trio slowly and as she was close to them, the man noted her and smiled at him.

“Hey Jessy” The man greeted the brunette.

“Hey Brendon” The brunette greeted. “H….how you’re doing?”

“Good” Responded the man. “And you?”

“The same” The woman responded. The girl and the other man looked at each other, then looked both at Jessy and Brendon.

“Hey dude, we’re up there to get some food”

“Alright, I might join you later” Brendon responded watching the friends leave.

“Isn’t that Diego Wijk from Cross my heart?” Adrien asked looking at Lila.

“Yeah, it is him” Responded Lila.

“I saw him last week at the supermarket buying eggs” Nathaniel mentioned, which sat next to Lila over the lean of the couch. “I think he was alone there”

“He’s living at the moment with a few old classmates of him in a commune” Explained Lila. “He’s so far I know single”

“Okay,” Nathaniel answered.

“At the salon, several women talked a lot about him, how handsome he is, that he’s got a nice body and that he’s like the Swedish version of David Buckingham or something like that,” Rose mentioned. “Many seem to like this guy”

"Really?" Nathaniel asked surprised earning a nod from Rose and Juleka.

“Some girls at the wardrobe got jealous at me for having to kiss him in this movies” Lila explained making Nathaniel wide his eyes.

“You get to kiss him in the movie?” Nathaniel asked surprised.

“Look, look” Rose mentioned and Nathaniel looked at the TV screen, where the man had kissed Lila’s character on the cheek for short.

“Ah, I see it” Nathaniel responded a little relieved at the cheek his wife got in the movie.

“You’re really okay with that Nathy?” Lila questioned looking at her husband, which observed the fictional characters interact in the movie.

“Uh me….sure of course...I mean it’s just a movie, right?”

“Of course silly” Lila said pecking the husband on the cheeks. “Everything in the movie is played. Nothing there is true”

“I know, I know, it’s just weird I’m not used to it yet”

“Yeah it’s a little weird I know” Lila admitted earning a nod from the husband and looked at the TV screen back to see the continuation of the scene.

“This is probably a little unusual. Guys like me shouldn’t fall in love with a bookworm. We’re supposed to be the ones interested in cheerleaders and the popular girls, but….you’re different….you’re different from all these girls. You’re special” Brendan said making Jessy smile. “You’re also not that type of girl, that uses lots of makeup and wears dresses, skirts and all that...well besides now”

“Maybe I have a little confession to make to you too. I thought if I would dress up like that you would notice me and actually care about me”

“I have always seen you, Jessy. I….just thought you wouldn’t care about me because you would think I’m a jerk”

“No, you’re not. You’re very sweet” Jessy said caressing the man on the cheek. Jessy went on her tiptoes placing her hands behind Brendan’s head planting a kiss on his lips surprising him, afterward he closed his eyes and deepens the kiss enjoying it along with the brunette.

“Uh I’ve gotta go to the toilet, excuse me,” Nathaniel said getting up from the couch leaving the living room. Lila watched Nathaniel leave, then looked back at the screen again, where the characters were still kissing.

After less than a minute Nathaniel was back and sat down on the lean again to continue to watch the movie, now showing Jessy along with Brendan walking together out of the school chatting.

“Are there more of the sweet potato chips?” Asked Adrien Agreste looking at the Kurtzbergs.

“No that was the last one” Lila responded.

“I’m going to look, maybe there’s more. There could be still somewhere one I might have bought a time ago” Nathaniel told the blonde getting up from the couch walking back into the kitchen.

“Is Nathaniel okay?” Asked the blue-haired woman looking at her friend. “It’s the second time he left during a kiss scene of you?”

“I don’t know, maybe he is bothered about the scenes” Lila answered. “We didn’t even kiss that wild. That movie is for every audience to be seen”

“Maybe it’s just a coincidence” Adrien mentioned making Kagami shrug her shoulders.

Nathaniel appeared in the living room with a green-colored potato chip bag and held it in front of Adrien.

“I was wrong, those were cheese-flavored chips. They taste like the texmex ones”

“They will do it too” Adrien responded opening the bag then before he took it out he showed it to Kagami. “Do you want one?”

“I just take one, I shouldn’t eat too many chips” Kagami responded putting her hand inside the bag to take a chip out, then she placed it inside her mouth starting to chew on it.

“You’re alright Nathaniel?” Kagami asked making Nathaniel open his eyes in surprise.

“Me?” Asked Nathaniel shocked. “Yes, sure I am alright. Why are you asking?”

“It’s strange seeing you leave the room at the exact moment Lila kisses someone on TV”

“Oh that’s just a coincide….I know all this on TV is played to entertain people. Aren’t we all entertained?” Nathaniel asked a little anxious at Kagami being suspicious about his behavior.

“Yes….”Kagami responded neutral, then looked back at the screen and saw Adrien place his hand on her shoulder.

“He will be fine, don’t worry” Adrien promised earning a nod from the wife.

Nathaniel sat on the lean, then felt Lila place her hand over his hand and he looked down at his wife, which smiled at him afterward he smiled warmly at the wife then looked at the TV screen seeing Jessy and Brendan stay in front of an open bus door, where Jessy was about to enter. Before she did it, Jessy hugged the man again and both shared a long goodbye kiss, afterward, Nathaniel got up again and walked into the kitchen.

“I need to wash my hands. Excuse me” Nathaniel mentioned making Lila frown, which decided to get up from the couch and follow the husband into the kitchen seeing him open the water tap watching it run into the sink. Lila walked closer to the redhead and placed her hand over his shoulder causing him to jump aside, then he sighed in relief to find out it’s Lila Kurtzberg.

“Oh it’s just you” Nathaniel replied and looked along with Lila at the water running out of the tap.

“You’re not going to wash your hands?” Lila asked, then Nathaniel nodded and placed his hands under the water to wash them. “Are you alright Nathaniel?” The brunette asked watching the husband add soap to his hands and rub them together until it gets foamy.

“Yes, yes I am fine” Nathaniel responded, then Lila grabbed the kitchen towel and handed it out to the man, which took it to dry his hands.

“Thank you”

“Nathy, listen you don’t have to pretend you’re fine with my kissing scenes in the movies. I can feel they bother you in some way. You’re leaving every time they’re shown on screen”

“Sorry” Nathaniel apologized. “I don’t know, but when I see it, it makes me think of us. Like he’s a totally awesome guy compared to me.”

“Oh Nathy, I already told you everything there is fictive. In reality, Diego isn’t that type of guy, that he plays. He’s just a regular actor, that has been a little longer in show business than me. He’smight be a little arrogant, but he was nice to me and gave me advice during the filming,"

“I don’t know, the scenes are all so real. It really looks like you two have a thing for each other”

“If you see it that way, I guess we did a great job then,” Lila said watching Nathaniel sank his head, afterward she grabbed him on his hands gazing up at his turquoise-colored eyes. “Nathy, don’t be sad. I didn’t mean in that way. I just mean it, that it’s great that it looked so real to you as we worked together on the scenes”

“Well….it actually looked very realistic to me or I am just being silly”

“No, you’re not” The brunette denied. “You’re right….what about the rest of the movie?” Asked the Italian woman. “What did you think about my acting?”

“I feel like you have improved since your role at the foreign beauties series”

“You really think so?” Lila asked glowing at the man.

“You acted more humane in the movie. The series you were humane too, but it didn’t look as good as it looked in the movie” The redhead praised the female.

“Aww that’s sweet, thank you!” Lila raved hugging the husband.

“Maybe you will get the revelation of the year award in the golden globes, what do you think?”

“Nath, you’re exgagerating”

“Who knows, could happen” Nathaniel added. “Didn’t Luka get one there?”

“Yes he did, but he practiced so much. He deserved it”

“And so do you. You worked hard to become an actress. You made many background appearances, some secondary appearances and recently you had two main roles. This is a great reason to be chosen for the awards”

“You’re so sweet Nath” Admitted Lila giving him a peck on his nose.

“I was just telling the truth. You deserve it” Nathaniel stated earning a nod from Lila, which placed her arms around the husband hugging him.

“Will you join us for the rest of the movie?” Lila asked the husband. “There will only be a kissing scene of me near the end and if you want you can look away or kiss me or do anything else”

“Sure, this time I’ll be better. I promise”

“Good, but don’t forget you can always talk with me about it if something about the movies bothers you”

“Okay, but I try to behave myself. It’s your job after all” Nathaniel stated earning a nod from his wife and the two entered back into the living room and sat down next to Kagami, which was drinking a glass of orange juice, then bowed forward to place the glass back on the table and leaned herself back on the couch.

“Are you feeling better now?” Asked Kagami earning a nod from the redhead.

“Yeah, I should have talked with Lila before, but sometimes I don’t want to bother her with my problems, cause sometimes they’re kind of silly” Nathaniel explained the Japanese woman.

“I prefer to talk with Kagami about problems, even if they’re silly or not. It makes me feel better most of the times” Adrien told the friend.

“You and Lila know each other very well. There’s no need to worry about it.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Next time I won’t forget to talk to Lila. I promise” Nathaniel said watching Lila lean her head on his arm making him smile and place his arm around her.

Adrien smiled at Nathaniel’s promise then gazed at Kagami, which mirrored his facial expression, then watched Adrien place his hand on the baby bump caressing it, then gave it a peck on it and lied his head over it embracing it, making Kagami smirk lovely at the blonde and place her hand over his back. The blue-haired woman looked aside at her best friend, which was looking at the screen, then moved her head to the side of Kagami rolling her eyes down at the belly, chuckling at the sight.

“Who had thought we would end up with such lovable dorks?” Lila asked her friend, which giggled at the comment of her friend, afterward both looked back at the TV screen, watching Lila’s character fall asleep with an amorous face of the most amazing night she has ever had.

The End

#oneshot #miraculous #miraculous ladybug #fanfic #fanfiction #ao3 #archieve of our own #tomatofox #lila rossi #nathaniel kurtzberg #nathanael kurtzberg #adrigami #Kagami Tsurugi #adrien agreste #julerose #juleka couffaine #rose lavillant #ecofinisherfanfics

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doux-ciel · 5 years

Note

can u do 8 plz

Prompt: 8

A/N: @oceanscorazon You know me and how I like to get carried away and as you know I got carried away and this is way longer than I wanted it to be but I wanted you to enjoy your ask so here you go!! ☺️

The air purifier ran quietly in the background of the very eggshell white room. Not having much furniture Humraz and his two daughters were waiting by the counter for the secretary to appear.

Jonda his youngest girl was currently over by the fish tank trying to count how many pebbles were in the freshwater. One angelfish came from behind a scuba diver figurine looking at the way her heterochromia eyes light up as she spotted the multicolored Pterophyllum.

Cebba, Humraz’s oldest was by his side playing with the loose strings on his very worn khaki brown jacket. Cebba enjoyed being by her father’s side, curiously observing the 32 year old average height male. Her father taught the 9 year old everything he grew up enjoying as a child.

The trio heard the sound of one of the walls behind the counter, slide open and a woman of Indian descent appears from the thick cloud of smoke. Curious about what’s behind the wall; Cebba walks to the side of the counter, using her hand to block any smoke from obscuring her vision. Her sage green eyes focus on the adults who wore white lab coats and goggles. One of them held the hand of a child, leading her to a glass casing. As the walls close quickly Cebba sees the child stare at her.

The receptionist named Cymbre gives the three a smile and places her forearms on the base of the counter typing away on the computer not even greeting them. Humraz furrows his brows while some saliva escapes his mouth, wiping it away he then clears his throat trying to get her attention. Cebba notices her father not speaking up and decides to do it herself.

“Hey!” The 9 year old slams her hand on the counter.

The noise echoed throughout medium sized room, getting the attention of her younger sister. The 5 year old turns around, skipping towards ¾ of her family members she excitedly screams “She’s here papa!!! She finally came!!”

Humraz pinches his eyes closed while Jonda bumps into her father’s wiry body. He opens his eyes with the determination to get information on the trial run of K.I.O.C. (Kids In Our Care). The year was 2068 and the USA was under new presidency, his name was Creed Humbert and he was all about children. More specifically children ruling our future; he wanted to take the children that were living in the slums of New York, Jersey, Connecticut, etc. and make them better than the next man or woman. Children ages from 4 to 12 years old were being sought after at parks, schools, carnivals, arcades, even churches and being put in pods. Humbert wanted to make them better than before; smarter than the average college student, faster than Usain bolt, and more knowledgeable about the world around them and how they could change it for the better. When the parents give up their children to the government, they will get a big check that follows with it.

Money is the thing that makes the world go round.

So why wouldn’t anybody want to sign their child up for this experiment?

President Humbert believed the children are the future.

Humraz saw the opportunity when he and his wife were out selling their pottery work to the public. All the towns people’s eyes were on the new billboard that had been displayed on the side of the old shoe store. One side showed sad and poverty stricken children, much like Humraz’s kids. It would suddenly change to another slide of smiling children and their parents with money in their hands.

It was amazing.

I was wonderful.

It was too good to be true.

And it totally was.

After Humraz’s appointment with Cymbre, he and his daughters come home to his wife who was sitting on a stool, molding some clay with their infant son in a baby wrap close to her chest. Jonda runs through the door with Cebba right behind her, they give their mother a kiss. After the greeting concurs both the girls go to the kitchen to finish eating the bread, which they have been nibbling on for the past 4 days.

Humraz looks at the mother of his 3 children, admiring her pecan brown skin paired with her honey blonde hair on top of her oval shaped head. The family of 5 currently reside in the slums of a tiny city in Delaware, not much work opportunity around they sell pottery for a living, his wife Ranita creates it while he sells it. Looking around the one room residence he is aware of the various bugs crawling about, the stains in his children’s sheets and the lack of clothing they all have. He felt vulnerable, scared, but mostly desperate.

Desperate for a better life for him and his family.

He truly wished he could provide a stable and safe environment for his children to grow up in.

He knew that he had to convince his wife to let someone else care for one of the two daughters she had birthed, and let them put either Cebba or Jonda in one of the pods.

He knew she would never go for it.

But to his surprise, she did.

After all the paperwork had been signed and they had a taxi come to pick the family of 5 up to take them to the building where the trial runs were being held. They had chosen the girl who would be made anew, Ranita was very emotional while walking into the eggshell white room.

Cymbre was at the front desk and greeted the family while calling one of the scientists to the front. As the wall slides open and the smoke clears a short man in a white lab coat bends down to the level of Jonda, showing his smile to the child; his crooked teeth peeking through his lips. “Are you ready?”

Jonda and her heterochromia eyes ignored the man, staring up at her mother and father she knew she wasn’t going to see them again.

A teary goodbye from her family followed by a serial of numbers stamped on her wrist; she was now property of the government. Cebba asked the man in the lab coat to let her give her sister one last hug before leaving. The two embraced and didn’t want to let go of each other when they were told Jonda had to begin processing for the pod. Humraz had to physically pull Cebba and Jonda apart while tears flowed down his face, watching his family be broken apart.

Watching his youngest daughter walk through the thick layer of smoke made his heart shatter, gripping his wife’s hand; his legs felt weak and he drops to the floor.

Just as the wall was about to close for good, Cebba dashes through the smoke and into the laboratory. Grabbing the jacket of the scientist who had a hold of her younger sister she pleads, “You take me instead, do you hear me? Give her back and take me instead.”

Ranita’s loud scream for her oldest daughter is heard.

“CEBBA!!”

Humraz jumps up from the ground, rushing to the wall, using his hands to bang on it while screaming. “Give her back!!! You hear me in there?!! Give her back”

Ranita runs to her husband, the two hold each other as they sob for their only daughters, who they will probably never see again. Getting his breathing together and his mind somewhat clear Humraz puts his hands around Cymbre turning her around, he repeats over and over to the young Indian woman. “When is Cebba coming back?”

Renita notices a small ringing in her ear and then Cymbre starts shouting, “Processing…Processing….Processing”

She’s not human.

She was being controlled by someone.

They made a huge mistake and now they are paying the price for it.

Coming to this realization Humraz starts to kick around and slides the computer off the counter, while yelling profanities.

He feels like he isn’t in control anymore.

Ranita who was holding her now crying infant son tries to calm her husband down, but nothing is going to stop the man from tearing this room apart to get his family back.

Just then someone comes emerging from the walls on the opposite side of the counter.

President Creed Humbert.

A Caucasian male in a blue tailored suit and a red tie holds his hands out towards the couple.

Humraz suddenly stops and stares in awe of the person standing in front of him.

Ranita on the other hand was scared as to why he was in the room.

The both of them walk up to the President holding their breath.

“Humraz….Ranita thank you so much for the contribution of both your daughters to partake in K.I.O.C. We are very grateful and honored so in return, I will be giving you my own home in the mountains of Shenandoah Valley. You three of course don’t have to worry about anything….your children are in great care.”

Humraz and Ranita both look at each other while President Humbert calls out for someone.

A few seconds pass by and a woman comes out and greets the mother and father, giving them a smile the redhead announces. “Your cab is waiting.”

#creative writing #my work #Black Writers #writeblr #ask #prompts

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thepatricktreestump · 6 years

Text

My Entire World: Tom Holland imagine

A/N: i wrote this one for @fuckyou-imspiderman co-author thingy but i decided to post it on my personal so they can just reblog it from here to keep things easy and so i can see which of y’all are my tom holland stans haha

ask: could you do a imagine were you are the person playing peter parkers love interest in spiderman hoco 2 and it's time for the kiss with tom and you get all nervous. you chose the ending bc i'm a indecisive person and can't chose a ending. thank you - @graceisobsessed

As soon as you saw the role, you knew you just had to audition. You had been a Marvel fan for literally years, and for as long as you could remember, you found yourself staying up late at night flipping through comics or re-watching one of the movies. You were so close to getting the role of MJ in the first movie, but the director had told you that there was a “slight change of plans” and you were moved to an extra instead. Which sucked. But you couldn’t really be mad, because of all actresses, they picked Zendaya to fill your spot. And well, Zendaya was, Zendaya. So instead, you took a deep breath and grit your teeth, playing as one of the people in the background silently. That was, until you realized that they were coming out with a second movie, and for some reason, she wasn’t available for filming, and they were taking new actresses for the part. You knew deep down that MJ stood for Mary Jane Watson, Spider-Man’s future love interest and wife. That meant extra screen time as the trilogy went on, as well as big bucks, especially now that you’d be filling someone like Zendaya’s shoes.

With lots of luck, you scored the role, beaming ear to ear upon hearing the news. You were ecstatic to be part of the main cast this time around and made it a priority to make the crew proud. You showed up early to script readings and interviews and meetings, being sure that you memorized all your lines and listened to critiques. Working with everyone was so much fun, especially Tom. He was so sweet and lighthearted, had a great sense of humor, and always kept his head up, no matter how many times it took to shoot a scene. Your makeup team was doing some touch ups when he came waltzing over, sporting the red and blue spiderweb covered suit, lazy smile on his face.

“What did you think?” he asked excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Did you see? I got it in just a couple takes!”

“I saw,” you giggled. “You did really well.”

“They didn’t even have to pull in my stunt double!” Tom explained. “I just- pew, pew, shoot, shoot, roll, roll- you know? Awesome!” He made overexcited hand motions along with his ridiculous silly sound effects, making you only laugh even more. He was like a little puppy bouncing around, wide eyed and eager to tell you everything.

“You did really good,” you complimented. “I’m proud of you.”

“P-proud of me?” he raised an eyebrow, flustered, slight blush rising to his cheeks. “Well gosh, thanks y/n. Haha, you did a really good job too!”

“Thanks,” you give a small grin. “Ready to turn in for the day? I think we have only one more scene to wrap up and then we’re done. Well, until tomorrow. God we have to wake up so early for that one take.”

“Ugh I know,” he groans. “But hey, you’ll be there! And I will too! So we can just suffer together, you know?”

“Whatever,” you roll your eyes, stifling a chuckle. “Come on, let’s get this last scene so I can take a nap.”

Shooting the scene wasn’t too bad, and after a couple of takes, they handed you the parts you’d be doing tomorrow and sent you home. Tom gave you a happy wave before taking off into his ride, and you nodded with a smile, then plopped the script in the shotgun seat and began to drive home. You stopped at a red light, then heard your phone buzz, picking it up and beaming when you read the text. It was from Tom, and he was thanking you for putting up with him during filming today. You laughed aloud as you quickly began to explain to him through typing that he didn’t have to say such things because you enjoyed being around him, then hit send before the light turned green.

There was something about him that you couldn’t help but love. Maybe it was how his laughter was contagious, his smile made your stomach fill with butterflies, and every time he complimented you, your heart skipped a beat. But you could never tell him -or tell anyone, for that matter. It was one thing to have a crush on a celebrity, but to have a crush on a celebrity that you knew personally and were working with? No way. It would be the end for you embarrassment wise, create a weird vibe between your coworker, and if the media got wind of it, millions of articles and tabloids and tweets. It would just be a mess, and you liked Tom too much as a friend to ever lose him just over a silly crush.

You were folding your laundry at home when you caught eye of your phone flashing his name across the screen, requesting for a Facetime call. Sometimes you would text or call, and even Facetime. Especially since you had a lot of shooting time together, you guys had bonded and created a great friendship, so it wasn’t awkward or just business. In fact, you liked to just have conversation or even read through the script for the next day for extra practice. Upon picking up your phone, you found yourself rolling your eyes, wondering what he might want this time, and then accepted it upon fixing your hair in the screen for a couple seconds. “Hey! What’s up?” you greeted, cheery. As much as you sometimes tried, you still couldn’t match his enthusiasm and classic sunshine smile.

“Nothing much. I just had a snack and decided to play some video games,” he explained. He seemed anxious, but you didn’t know about what. “Thought I’d call you up. And you?”

“Folding laundry,” you waved a sweater onto the screen and he smiled.

“By far being much more responsible and productive than I am,” he teased.

“Yeah I haven’t even read the script for tomorrow yet,” you admitted, and that’s when he scratched back of his head, something you realized he did when he was hesitant about something.

“Well uh, that’s kind of the next question I was about to ask you,” he gave a nervous laugh and you raise an eyebrow, curious. Although both of you had already skimmed and read the entire script at the first few meetings before production, you were sure there wasn’t anything to be too nervous about besides certain stunts or tricky scenes.

“Why? Did they change something last minute?” you asked.

“Oh! No, not at all,” he reassured. “It’s just uh, I don’t know, it’s really stupid. I’m like a school boy getting all worked up over this, gosh.”

“Oh,” you turn red at the realization. “It’s the kiss scene, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he let out another nervous laugh and looks away. “I don’t know, just thought that I’d give you a heads up. In case you wanted to bring me a mouthwash or something tomorrow.”

“Oh shut up,” you laughed playfully at his joke. “You are such a clown, Tom!”

“Sorry, bad joke,” he let out a giggle, something genuine, which made you smile. However, you weren’t at ease at all. The idea of kissing him tomorrow still lingered in the back of your mind.

“So uh, you want to do it in one take?” you offered and he blinked, confused. “I mean, so you don’t have to make it uncomfortable or whatever, I don’t know-” you began to ramble on and he frowned.

“Oh, I mean, I guess,” he stammered. “If you want to, I mean, I wouldn’t want you to have to kiss me any more times than you already have to.”

“Right,” you regretted the word as soon as it left your mouth. No! Now he thought you probably hated him.

“Okay,” he looked a little bummed but clouded it with a fake smile. You felt weird inside. Did you offend him by accident? You cringed.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know this is weird-” you apologized. “I didn’t mean to-”

“No, it’s okay,” he insisted. “Your boyfriend would probably get angry at me anyways. I’m the one who called, I’m sorry I made it awkward, uh, I’ll just talk to you tomorrow. Bye.” He speaks so fast you can barely even respond and before you know it he’s gone.

You sigh, frustrated and exhausted by the conversation. You didn’t mean it that way. And why would he mention your boyfriend? You didn’t even have a boyfriend! Did he know that? The sudden thought came to you. Both of you hadn’t mentioned your love lives, no wonder he was probably so nervous for the scene. If only he knew you liked him, that would make things a hundred times worse. Maybe it was better to fake a relationship, for Tom’s sake. But at the same time, you were so head over heels for him, you couldn’t even imagine being with anyone else.

When you showed up the next day to set, Tom was in a corner on his phone, another nervous tick you recognized he did, avoiding eye contact with others by scrolling through his Instagram. “Hey,” you approached him, swallowing down your anxiety. “Ready for the big shoot today?”

“Yup,” he smiled, looking up from his phone. He looked confident, cheery, happy. Maybe you were wrong about your assumption. “How about you?”

“If I’m honest, I’m kind of nervous,” you admitted. “I haven’t really kissed a whole lot of people before.”

“Well I’m right with you on that one,” he smiled. “So we can learn together, right?”

“Wait. Really?” you tilted your head to the side, confused. “But you’re like, the whole eye candy you know? Girls go wild for you.”

“Doesn’t mean they want to date me,” he shrugged. “No matter how many people tweet that they do, they don’t really know me you know? If that makes any sense.”

“I guess,” you hummed. “But I’m sure even if they did, they still would.”

“Nah,” he shakes his head.

“But you’re funny,” you argued. “And sweet, and handsome, and caring, and amazing, and you’re so much fun to be around and-”

“Guys! Get on set! Time to film!” the director shouted. “We don’t have time to blab! We have to get going!”

“U-uh okay,” Tom stuttered out, still shocked by your words.

You were ushered into your proper places for the makeup and costume crew to get a start on getting you ready and in a couple minutes you met Tom in front of the set where you were about to film. Both of you didn’t say anything except exchanged nervous smiles and stood where they instructed and went over lines until you heard the director tell you it was time to film. A nervous feeling bubbled up inside of your stomach, making you feel queasy.

“Superpowers or not, I still care about you,” you recited the line as you had memorized, reaching a hand up to caress his cheek as the script had instructed. You knew it was wrong to think about it romantically in reality, but you couldn’t help it. You liked him so much you just wanted this so bad, and to finally have it, scripted or not, felt like a dream.

“You do?” his expression softened.

“Of course,” you whispered. “I’ve always cared about you, Peter.”

“I thought you hated me MJ,” he confessed. “I didn’t think that you’d ever-”

“Oh shut up and kiss me, Peter,” you rolled your eyes, interrupting him in perfect time. You were about to lean in for the kiss when the director interrupted.

“Cut!” he shouted. “Hold up, I want some more emotion. Some more action, alright? Tom, maybe some more surprise? Y/n, a little more passion? Okay, let’s take that again.”

You cleared you throat, a bit flustered, then returned to your original position, waiting to hear your signal. “Superpowers or not, I still care about you,” you repeated the line, staring into his eyes, putting a hand up to reach his face when he surprised you, catching your wrist.

“Scripted or not, do you care about me?” his expression softened once again, but this time, much more genuine.

“W-what?” you stuttered, taken aback.

“Cut! Hey guys, not on the script!” the director called out, but Tom shook his head.

“I’m sorry I can’t do this without trying to fool myself that it’s real,” he insisted. “I need you to tell me, not MJ, but you y/n. I need you to tell me. Do you really care about me? Enough to kiss me even if it isn’t scripted or acted or anything? Do you like me the same way I like you?”

“Tom-” your voice got caught in your throat.

“It’s okay if you don’t, but I just need to know,” he told you. “Please.”

“Guys we really don’t have time for this!” the director insisted but you ignored everyone else in the room and kissed him, right then and there, pressing his lips to yours, his entire face turning bright red. You pulled away, your face turning the exact same shade.

“Yes,” you nodded. “I do care about you, Tom. So much. So very much.”

“Really?” he broke out into a huge smile. “For real?”

“Of course,” you laughed. “Definitely.”

“Can we please just get on with the-”

“Yes!” both of you cut the director off with a burst of giggles. “Yeah, yeah, we can!”

“Alright,” he groaned. “Come on, lovebirds. This shot better be good.”

And it was. Every single take you put as much passion into it as you could, and so did Tom. The directors and crew were all for it, and even at sometimes had to pull you two apart because you sort of got lost in the moment. It felt like the best day of your life, like you could do anything in the entire world. “Want to hang out after shooting today?” you gave a small smile.

“Want to?” he raised his eyebrows. “More like need to.”

“Alright,” you rolled your eyes. “Good to know.”

“And hey,” he poked you in the arm playfully. “You know I’ve always felt this way about you, alright? It’s not just cause of the kiss scene today. I really do care about you.”

“As do I,” you smiled. “There’s always been something about you, Tom. And I’ve been so scared to tell you how I truly feel, because I was terrified deep down that you’d never feel the same way.”

“Well lucky you,” he pressed a kiss to your cheek. “Because I do. I feel the exact same way if not more.”

“Thank you,” you whispered. “It means the world.”

“You,” he looked into your eyes, giving a small smile. “You are my entire world.”

“Thanks,” you mouthed.

“Now come on,” he nudged you softly. “We still have a couple more scenes to go.”

#tom holland imagines #spideman imagines #spiderman homecoming imagines #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fic #tom holland fluff #tom holland x reader #tom holland x reader fanfiction #tom holland x reader fanfic #tom holland x reader fic #tom holland x reader fluff #tom holland is an angel

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laisselfreemaiden · 6 years

Text

Grandma’s Ring pt.5

Warnings: I’m not sure. Maybe cussing? And more backstory 4 u

A/n: Can ya’ll tell I got my writing mojo back?^^

With Bilbo seated in his chair, you go back to the company of dwarves. They quieted down after he’d passed out, but they still murmur about the journey to Erebor, the key, and what lies in wait for them. You carefully pick up the contract and curl it back up, placing it on a table away from them. Brushing your hands along your trousers, you turn back to the fourteen men.

“When do we leave tomorrow?”

A mixture of confusion, surprise, a glare, and a knowing look are turned to you. Gandalf seems amused as he watches the dwarves react differently, though he still watches you with a careful, almost protective look.

“You will not be leaving,” Thorin says, staring you down.

“If Bilbo goes, so do I. And I know if I go, he’ll come as well. He’s a hobbit, a closed in race, but he’s protective of his friends. He wouldn’t let me travel alone with a group of males.”

Bilbo would have joined regardless before your influence, but with you here now, with you being close to him, you aren’t entirely sure. You don’t want to take any chances, though, and this is your best idea. Besides, you want to go either way. It’s the journey of a lifetime, too. How could you possibly miss this chance?

“Can you fight?” Dwalin asks.

That makes you stumble, your arms crossing in a defensive manner. “Well...not exactly...I’ve been living here, so how do you expect me to? But I can learn.”

A few of them grunt, the ones you assume are the strongest fighters. Just as you’re about to back off and busy yourself in other ways, Gandalf motions his hand to you.

“If you can learn and if Bilbo does join us, I think you will be a valuable member.”

“I do not want her being extra baggage on us. Your burglar will be enough as it is,” Thorin growls, making you bristle slightly.

“Bilbo is much more than you know, Thorin Oakenshield. I promise you that.”

A bit later, you, Bilbo, and Gandalf are with each other, Bilbo awake with a mug in his chair.

“I’ll be alright, let me just sit quietly for a moment.”

You pick at the skin by your fingernail as Gandalf turns to reply to him.

“You’ve been sitting quietly for far too long. Tell me; when did doilies and your mother’s dishes become so important to you? I remember a young hobbit who always was running off in search of elves and the woods, who’d stay out late, come home after dark, trailing mud and twigs and fireflies. A young hobbit who would have liked nothing better than to find out what was beyond the borders of the Shire. The world is not in your books and maps; it’s out there.”

A smile cracks your expression. “That sounds like a very different hobbit to me.”

“I can’t just go running off into the blue. I am a Baggins, of Bag-End.”

“And a Took,” you add again, looking up at them.

“Yes, you are also a Took. Did you know that your great-great-great-great-uncle, Bullroarer Took, was so large he could ride a real horse?”

Almost instinctively, you look up at the portrait of said Took on the wall. Funny, you’re fairly certain that’s what the camera in the movie does as well.

“Yes,” Bilbo says.

“Well, he could. In the Battle of Green Fields, he charged the goblin ranks. He swung his club so hard, it knocked the Goblin King’s head clean off, and it sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit hole. And thus the battle was won, and the game of gold invented at the same time.”

A small chuckle escapes you before you can stifle it.

“I do believe you made that up.”

“Well, all good stories deserve embellishment. You’ll have a tale or two to tell of your own when you come back.”

“Can you promise that I will come back?”

You look up at Gandalf, knowing what would be said, but curious nonetheless.

“No. And if you do, you will not be the same.”

“That’s what I thought. Sorry, Gandalf, I can’t sign this. You’ve got the wrong hobbit.”

Bilbo walks away from the both of you, passing Thorin and Balin, and leaving you with a sighing wizard.

“Do you still wish to join us?” he asks you after a bit, after watching the exchange between the dwarves.

“You know I do.”

His eyes stay on you before he stands up. “I do. You are like your grandmother in that regard.”

“What was she like...here?”

“Here?”

You sigh softly, tugging on a loose strand of your hair. “I’m...not from...Middle-Earth,” you murmur. “There’s no magic in my world, no journeys like this, nothing. I don’t know how I got here or if I can go back, but knowing she was here...what was she like? Did being here change her? And will it change me?”

“She was...one of the kindest and stubborn person I’ve ever known. She loved learning the languages here, loved being a part of everything. Most importantly, she loved. And because you have her ring, she loved you. So, no, I don’t think she changed, but I think you will.”

“Will it be a good change?”

He stays quiet for a bit and it worries you.

“It will be good if you want it to.”

You nod slightly. “Gandalf...how well did you know her?”

“I knew her as a student. I taught her as much as she wanted. That ring was enchanted by her before she left. So she could always come back to her second home.”

“But why give it to me and send me here? I didn’t make a wish, I wasn’t in a horrible place in life, this isn’t an escape for me.”

Gandalf sighs again. “Maybe she wants you to change something. Perhaps...there’s more to her ring than you know.”

You fall silent this time, looking at your hands. Her ring. The weight against your collar is cool and heavy, and, when you cup it in your palm, it’s smooth. No engravings, no gems. You aren’t gonna risk ruining it to try and find glowing elvish in it by throwing it in the fire, but there’s something about the ring you can’t place. It’s enchanted, yes. How much can it do, though?

“If you truly are sure about this journey, I suggest you go rest. You will need to be up quite early if you wish to keep up with these dwarves.”

You nod again, getting up while still staring at the ring. Did your grandmother send you here to fix the story? Maybe she wanted you to save the Durins from Azog, maybe she wanted you to protect them. Protect all of them.

“Goodnight, Gandalf.”

“Sleep well, child.”

However, when you walk into your room, you don’t get in bed right away. You stay by the partly open door to hear the dwarves still. You know they’ll be singing soon, one of the most calming songs in your opinion. Though, maybe that’s just because of Thorin’s, or Richard’s in your world, singing voice.

“Far over the misty mountains cold

To dungeons deep and caverns old

We must away ere break of day

To find our long-forgotten gold.”

A small smile graces your lips as you lean against your doorframe. You almost don’t notice as your eyes drift close, slipping into a calming sleep at your door. As you fall asleep, you can almost see the Lonely Mountain standing in all its glory. The bustling of dwarves, the sound of the forges ringing, of how beautiful it’d look with it cleaned up from Smaug’s ruling.

The sun shining in your eyes wakes you up and, hearing the hushed voices and the movement of dishes and furniture, you know the dwarves haven’t left yet. You quickly change into the clothes you arrived here in, they seem the most like travel clothes, and you pull your cloak over your shoulders like a shawl. With a tug of some boots, you stumble out to find them packing.

“Ah, Y/n!” Gandalf says happily, carrying a wrapped bundle in his arms. “So glad you could join us. If you are coming, please sign the contract on the table.”

“And grab what you may need,” Balin adds, walking past with his pack in hand.

“Then come back to me.”

You nod and quickly scrawl your name, adding a note to Bilbo to not forget his handkerchief, then going to get your own bag. You don’t pack much, just some clothes, food, and some other supplies. You still don’t have weapons, though, but you aren’t sure how to use them anyway. So, you just go to Gandalf again, where he has laid his bundle on a table. There’s a small, almost happy twinkle in his eyes.

“I did what you guys told me. Now what?”

He motions you beside him before slowly pulling the cloth away. In the bundle is a quiver full of red tailed arrows, a bow with carvings along the wood, and a sword with a dark belt of leather. The buckle of the belt is a shiny polished silver color with a few small pouches on the side.

“What...where did you get these?”

“They were used by your grandmother. Since you do not have any weapons yourself, I am sure she would want you to use these ones.”

You carefully pick up the sword and pull it out of the sheath, watching as the sunlight catches the metal. “Wow…”

“The ponies and dwarves are waiting outside. Come, we don’t want to keep them waiting too long.”

A quick nod follows as you fasten the belt around your waist over your tunic, the hooking the quiver and bow over your shoulders. You quickly grab a handkerchief, though, just in case Bilbo forgot anyway.

“Which pony is mine?” you ask, walking up to the dwarves.

One of the ponies tosses its head, it's braided mane flying out into the cool morning air. You carefully place your hand on it’s nose, making it huff against your skin. Its bright eyes follow your face as you coo to it.

“What about this one?”

You see Bofur shrug. “That lad’s up for grabs if ya want him, lass.”

Humming thoughtfully to yourself, you nod and pet his head. “How about...Amicus?”

Ori looks over to you. “What’s language is that?”

You can almost feel Thorin staring at you. Luckily, it isn’t any elven language.

“It’s Latin for friend. Grandma taught me some other languages when mom would work.”

Amicus snorts again, nudging his nose into your shoulder.

“I’d say he likes it,” Balin says with a smile.

“Come, we must be off if we wish to make good time,” Thorin calls. “Mount up and let us move out.”

You let out a soft huff as you pull yourself onto Amicus’ back, making sure your new sword doesn’t hit him. With one last glance towards Bag-End, hoping that Bilbo would come out before you all left. However, you know he won’t.

“Walk on, Amicus,” you say, nudging his sides gently before he falls into line with the other ponies.

It’s a fairly silent ride out of the Shire into the sunny world of Middle-Earth, though some of them do mutter, “waste of time” and “use a hobbit” under their breath. You have to bite your cheek hard almost to the point of making it bleed to keep from snapping at them. If only they knew how much he’d help them on this journey.

“Wait! Wait!”

You stop your pony first, turning him slightly to look over at the running hobbit who comes up behind all of you.

“I signed it!”

Balin takes the contract as you grin widely at your friend.

“I’m so glad you made it, Bilbo!”

He gives you an out of breath smile as Balin says, “Everything appears to be in order. Welcome, Master Baggins, to the company of Thorin Oakenshield.”

You cheer along with the other dwarves, though Thorin could be less impressed.

“Give him a pony.”

“No, no, no, no that-that won’t be necessary, thank you, but I-I’m sure I can keep up on foot. I-I-I’ve done my fair share of walking holidays, you know. I even got as far as Frogmorton once-WAGH!”

He’s cut off by being lifted onto a pony. You slow Amicus down to walk beside him.

“I really am glad you decided to come.”

He looks at the reigns almost like they’d hurt him. He looks even more uncomfortable when his pony tosses its head. “Well…I couldn’t very well leave you travel with all of them on your own. N-not that you could not handle it!”

You laugh softly. “Thanks, I appreciate that someone thinks I can do this.”

“Come on, Nori, pay up. Go on,” Oin calls before Nori tosses him a sack of money, followed by the other dwarves exchanging money.

“What’s that about?” Bilbo asks.

Gandalf pulls up with you both. “Oh, they took wagers on whether or not you’d turn up. Most of them bet that you wouldn’t.”

“What did you both think?”

Gandalf hums as you smirk, turning in the saddle to look at the two princes.

“Guys!”

You catch the two packs of money thrown at you and hand one to Bilbo. “Never doubted you, Master Baggins.”

“Neither did I,” Gandalf smiles.

“Oh, and, Bilbo?”

He hums and looks at you as you hold out his favorite handkerchief.

“Just in case.”

#grandma's ring #the hobbit #the hobbit x reader #thorin's company #x reader #fili x reader eventually

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thetravsnco · 3 years

Text

Chapter One

Hey! So, after that long, boring talk about all my writing prospects and why I like Traversal so much, and which I suppose you have seen so many times already, plus that awfully ambiguous(to most!) textpost featuring two characters of considerable prominence, Stalford Lupus and Edward Black, and which has either left you interested or displeased, in which I truthfully yearn that you experience the former, now it is time to start the chapters rolling!

Here goes...

This was just another ordinary Saturday in the rich autumns of Nottingham, if you asked anyone. They were perhaps famous, even missed, by long-time residents who had known them, or had spent many a part of their childhood basking in the joy and pleasure of marveling at how the leaves would turn red, golden-brown or even a novel shade of yellow specially at this time of the year, as though to match the radiant glow of the sun's rays as they somehow managed to find their way around the place, behind every corner, pipe, gutter and edge, worming its way into the people's houses, where some would be spending their afternoons watching television, for kids playing perhaps a particularly intense video game, or enjoying the comfort of a good book and a cup of hot, strong, freshly brewed coffee and a snack. Never failing to bring joy to even the most sober, sullen and more sober of the history of miserable long-faces, it very gladly warmed up and caught everyone's smiles within a seemingly everlasting radius. And it would truthfully be an understatement to say that the people of Nottingham were none the more grateful for it.

Now, as the sun which I have so plentifully presented in my earlier paragraph shone its contagious smile on a certain street known so as Kingsley Way, there were two children, the only two in Nottingham perhaps, who did not seem nearly as much cheered up as the rest of the sun's 'patients', by the ages of thirteen, leaning against the kind of fence that looked as though it had not been carefully, much meticulously tended for ages and counting, its once pristine white paint now practically unrecognizable as it covered itself with tender peelings and stains or haphazard smudge marks that littered it, over the passing of time that surrounded number four, Kingsley Way, like a venomous anaconda slowly curling itself around its prey before devouring it in one spectacular gulp, though decidedly not with so much a suspense as the latter.

The kids' names were Oliver and Ana Williams, and were twins, as you probably had guessed. At this very moment even the smartest of passers-by could be forgiven for not noticing their whereabouts, for they were very cleverly and henceforth inconspicuously hidden behind a hedge of begonias that lined the entire interior of the fence and beyond, much. Now, this Oliver and Ana Williams were at this moment not remotely enjoying themselves, as their parents...well, you know how most parents work from nine to five, five days a week? Well, Oliver's and Ana's work from five to nine, seven days a week. Mr. Williams was a lawyer, and Mrs. Williams a medical specialist, which meant that she was fairly high in the medical industry. Mr. Williams was often overseas half the year, as he had become quite prominent in the past years and often had to go all around the world to meet fellow lawyers on business trips, or if someone called on him to investigate big overseas cases, and was hardly ever at home. Meanwhile Mrs. Williams often had to stay up overnight to tend to patients, or to do research on 'important things', as she called it, so Oliver and Ana cultivated discipline from a young age and could pretty much get the house running on their own.

Today was just another of the days that they were left to their own devices, needless to say.

"Hey Olive, want to go for a walk down the street? I'm wholly bored to death on such an uneventful day." Ana, younger by three minutes, had still not gotten used to life with the Williams much.

Oliver was the way more mature of the two, but even he understood how dreadful it could be to have absolutely nothing to do, or no business to get round to on a day like this, and he was practically falling asleep. "Sure." He got up, showing just how much he longed for an opportunity to stretch his legs, despite how much he would refuse to admit it if anyone asked. Disappearing into the house, he slipped upstairs and came down a mere minute later with a blue sweatshirt behind a black jacket which his father had gotten him a few years ago after a trip to the States, sleeves pulled up, and denim jeans for his bottom. Ana was already waiting when he came, and together the pair of them stepped out the door and at once again the fresh air greeted them like a rush of cool breeze from the air-conditioner in their respective rooms. Locking the door behind them, they exited the house through the rattled old fence, and set off side by side towards the horizon on the end of the left of Kingsley Way, as far as the eye could see.

They had no destination in mind, but they just kept walking, thinking that it would be no harm to them even if they were just going for a stroll around their neighborhood.

They passed by the other various quaint houses located along Kingsley Way that belonged to their equally strange neighbors, one of which was the famous engineer Riley Marks, in the area at least. Whenever anyone encountered problems with their home appliances, they need not be afraid to call on him. He was very kind to the Williams, and whenever they ran into his lanky stature packed with sinew and over an oversized jumper, he would give them biscuits and go to the nearby Jackson's to treat them to ice-creams.

Next to Riley's was old Ms. Crowley's. She was a catty old lady whom no one dared come close to, as everyone on the street found creepy. No one knew what exactly she did, but word did spread around that she was senile and a witch, and entering her house was like entering a haunted one. The rumor had been passed down for generations, and of course the twins had heard of it, although they had been too young to say anything adverse to it even if they wanted to. What really confirmed their suspicions, though, was that once, many years ago, Oliver was playing with the Marks boy Andrew in the garden, and their ball had flew over to Ms. Crowley's by accident. Andrew went to get it back, but no sooner had he put one leg into the untidy, weedy grass, the front door creaked open, and a pointy, shriveled finger poked itself out of it and waggled itself at Andrew, as though trying to warn him. Andrew started crying, and Riley himself had to come over to get him (and the ball) back. It was still a joke at meetings, but ten years down the road Andrew had still never forgotten his vowing that day never to step foot in that 'crazy old bat's' garden again.

Soon, unknowingly, as the twins neared the end of the street, they came to the dilapidated house at the end of it. Now, this put together with Ms. Crowley's was quite fitting, as they were rumored to be equally haunted. Now, of course there was a reason it was just a rumor. That is, Oliver and Ava knew otherwise, and it was destined to be a secret between them and the house's mysterious inhabitant - Kingston Podmore, with an indeed mysterious past.

Podmore was the only child of a rich family of scientists, and when his parents died, he was the sole heir to all their possessions. Influenced by his family, Podmore had become quite a budding scientist himself. There was also a prophecy written saying that only Podmore could invent something to rid the world of all troubles and evil once and for all, and create eternal peace and happiness. On Podmore's parents' deathbed, they had also made Podmore promise that he will continue to love Science, and use it only for good, not evil. Of course, Podmore agreed, and from then on dabbled in quite a many of various sciences with many clever inventions. He often worked at his inventions in his workshop through the night, sending flashes of blinding green light through the pitch dark skies. It was enough to scare the bravest kid, and further proved everyone's suspicions that the house was indeed haunted. But the Williams, of course, knew better.

"Last one in there's a rotten egg!" Ava squealed excitedly to Ramon, and together they dashed in without hesitation, slamming the door speedily behind them.

Racing down a long corridor, the kids relished in the strong sense of belonging that permeated their surroundings, as it had been so long ever since this place had started to become their favorite haunt. As though by magic, whatever interesting and new surprises that took place inside the four walls of this house never failed to amaze them, or break their boredom and even, occasionally, strike them into a whirlwind of confusion. These trips often ended with them stepping out of the house asking each other quizzically questions like, "How did he do that?" or "How did that even happen?", a bemused but interested look on their faces as they set off on the pavement leading to home.

They had just left a striking marble hall layered with pictures of all sorts of curious people, which consisted of various rather formidable-looking men with curly white hair which Ava thought must've been from a long, long time ago, young people with funky shocking neon hairstyles and nose piercing whom Oliver could relate to a rock star, shiny-headed baldies wearing an expression of fair disgust which Ava readily understood, and long-pillocks with curls and bangs that gave Oliver the impression of snakes growing out of their hair, which almost instinctively made him stick out his tongue in disgust and mouth, shaking his head, Gross! before he was tugged on the jacket sleeve by Ava and together they boarded a widening, seemingly posh flight of stairs at the end of the room.

"Here!" Ava beckoned at Oliver and together they ran up a few flights of similarly grand stairways until they reached the third floor. Next they hustled down another corridor, this time filled with shining, newly polished knight's armour of all shapes and sizes, and also whom seemed to have been charmed, as they would say things like "Steady there, steady there!" or "Hold your horses!" which usually would definitely have made them crack up, but not today, not now, not when they had a thousand and one things to yet get around to do in this mysterious labyrinth of exploration and wonder, one of which was currently getting to the well-hidden laboratory of their flaky scientist friend.

When they finally got to a bookshelf at the corridor's end, Ana, panting, tapped the third book from the left on the sixth shelf from the top and the bookshelf flipped to its side to reveal a secret passage. Oliver and his sister stepped forward and off they went. It was as though being on an indoor roller coaster. The Williams slid down a seemingly never-ending slide. It was a relief to see the warm glow of Podmore's laboratory, where the twins had to put their hands in front of them to stop themselves falling face-first on the cold wooden floor. They got to their feet to a glance from Podmore, who immediately waved invitingly to them.

"No trouble getting here, then? Hancock's getting worse these days."

Hancock was a poltergeist living in the castle, and whose mischief could not delight him more.

"Not at all, Professor. We didn't run into him today."

"Good, good....well, what brings you here this fine day?"

"We wanted to look at your new project, sir."

"Ah, yes. About that new project....I'll show it to you. It's under here." Podmore motioned to a white cloth in the corner. "I've always been awaiting your arrival to check it out. Here you go."

He lifted the cloth up, slowly. The Williams could not help but stare in awe at the contraption underneath. A sleek vehicle of some sort emerged. It was painted mainly silver and blue, with a neon yellow halo surrounding its top. It reminded one of a rocket. With a transparent window on its side, a small table dotted with various buttons and a keyboard was barely visible.

"Presenting...Traverse 2.0. Made from cutting-edge technology that has been newly invented in the twenty-first century, this is a time machine that is well equipped to travel through the holes of time into the past, future...well, whenever you like for adventures or missions. This machine is lightweight, making it easier to hide in the shadows. This, you will find, comes in very useful during missions. Talking about hiding in shadows...Traverse 2.0 also has an Invisibility function. With the click of a button, Traverse 2.0 will be invisible to outsiders, particularly enemies. Lastly, Traverse 2.0 is built such that I can send messages through texts, or even send a hologram of myself to appear if the need arises, to help you through your journey." Here, after his long warble, Podmore shot a sneaky smile at the kids. Oliver was the first to answer.

"What do you mean, 'you'? Wait...you don't mean..." his confused expression turned into a wide grin when Podmore's quick nod told him his answer. "Wow, really?"

Ana was still gawping at the time machine and when she heard Oliver and Podmore's conversation, she wanted to say something but she found there was nothing to say, so she did the only sensible thing she could think of and closed her mouth. Her brother was already climbing into the time machine excitedly.

"Hang on!" Looking at Oliver's eager smile, Podmore chortled and said, "You need your time travelling suit first."

"But where?" The answer came almost immediately. Podmore pointed to a nearby cupboard. The bottom door sprang open and out came a...

"Portable cupboard!" the kids exclaimed in unison. It looked like a small cylinder at first, just like a can of Coke you could get at the neighborhood convenience store, but when in unraveled, it became a huge object, with poles and hangers hung on them, with many different clothing for various occasions. You could spin it as well. With a flick of his hand, Podmore made the cupboard spin to its left, to reveal two outfits that looked like time travelling suits all right, they looked like what a scuba diver would have worn, and scuba divers had always fascinated the older William.

"Awesome!" He grinned, and, pulling his twin sister, he raced to the cupboard. After donning on their time travelling suits, the twins boarded the time machine and used a button near the window to wind it down. They caught a last glimpse of Podmore shooting them an encouraging smile before they rose up and were blasted into darkness. Never in their wildest dreams would they imagine what adventures they would be wandering into...

All done, yes! Wait for Chapter Two, and, meanwhile, give me a shout in the comments, if there’s anything!

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