#in my defense i buy a lot of frozen stuff for my food so seeing ice taking that much space in the freezer awakened something in me

[spectrum-core]

that last post reminded me of once i had to clean the freezer with my roommates and at some point everyone else was tired as shit so i was handed a knife and told to continue removing the ice, and i apparently went in such a violent ice rampage that when i came back to my senses two girls were staring at me like "dude what the fuck is wrong with you"

#personal #got possessed by the ice hatin demons #in my defense i buy a lot of frozen stuff for my food so seeing ice taking that much space in the freezer awakened something in me #it actually felt great to have an actually positive outlet for violence. i should do that again someday

[ijustloveanything]

A STUDENT’S PANDEMIC

On March 9, 2020, Mayor Isko “Moreno” Domagoso ordered the suspension of classes because of the increasing COVID-19 cases. It was a surreal day. Most students were celebrating the fact that we have a week-long break that turned into month-long online learning, and ultimately a 2-year transition to the online platform. Everyone did their best to adjust. Be it online classes, meetings birthdays, or even funerals, every activity was done online. As someone who has experienced the difference between online learning and face-to-face learning, I can completely say that it was both a hassle and a convenience.

I was out with my arki-friends the moment it was announced that there would be a class suspension. We ate our lunch at ‘The One’ in UST where we usually hang out pre-pandemic. My friends loved their kebab and the full serving of frozen yogurt in Yowell. After our hangout, my educ-friends called me to come back to Morayta for another Tea-ta afternoon sesh at Macao Imperial. We talked a lot, took pictures, and planned our activities for the whole week of no classes. After my hangouts, I rushed back to the condo, packed my essentials, and took a grab home. I left so much stuff back at the condo because I assumed that I would be back next week. Little did I know that it was the last time I’ll see my friends or live in that condo.

In my case, only my mother and I stayed in our house while my father and sisters lived in the province. My academics were severely affected by the pandemic mostly due to my existing mental health problems. My grades plummeted ever since the pandemic because I couldn’t find any motivation to work. My anxiety was all-time high I was too scared that someone might break into our house. That is because the pandemic affected so many businesses and work that people outside our area have targeted houses within our street to break into. This caused me to be on alert at all costs because no one would be able to defend us in case somebody breaks in. This circumstance also made me lose so much sleep to the point that there was a time I stayed awake for 40 hours straight. I wish I was exaggerating, but it was a traumatic experience for me. I couldn’t sleep even though I was already forcing myself to sleep. My work piled up, I couldn’t focus properly, household chores and academics were overlapping and it was extremely exhausting.

During our online activities, it was hard to communicate especially during group work. Everyone was experiencing the very same thing I was experiencing, some even have it worse with domestic violence involved. Some are living alone and don’t have anyone else to turn to. Even though everyone should be available online, most of them couldn’t get themselves to stay online, myself included. There were also students who do not have a stable internet connection or mobile data which completely affected their academic performance. We were also in the middle of finishing our research paper for our thesis defense and it was hard to work on since we have different schedules and couldn’t communicate properly since it was online. We most likely felt that the social connection that we had during the face-to-face classes was cut off.

There were more factors that affected the students’ lives. Students in the poorer and rural sectors of the country don’t have proper gadgets or even signals to conduct their online classes, which posed a serious problem. There were lots of students that were held back, transferred schools, or completely stopped because of the irregularities that were happening. Not to mention they also have to struggle with where to find their food since everything stopped and there was nothing else to buy from local stores.

Looking back, I realized how privileged my life was. I have a good home, I have a working computer, cellphone, and food during the pandemic. When I saw the news about how the other Filipinos are suffering because of the quarantine, my heart sank. It affected my mental health seeing how the world is crumbling and how we couldn’t ask for help from anyone because the government cannot be even relied on. There were tons of issues that we faced. As a student, it was a struggle to work on anything when the world is in chaos because of the pandemic.

At the beginning of 2022, I contracted COVID. My mother and elder sister were infected as well. Only my father, who contracted COVID months before, was left standing and took care of us. He assumed that it could be an Omicron variant since everyone from the New Year party got infected after a few days as well. One even got sent to the ER because of breathing problems. Fortunately, I didn’t get hospitalized and survived. What I have experienced during those days that I couldn’t even get out of bed was something I never want anyone else to experience. I tried to live healthily afterward and swore to take care of my body because I never want to experience that level of pain again.

Based on my experience and seeing how other people experienced it, I could only say that the advantage of online learning was that we didn’t have to go to school anymore, saving up transportation fees, time, and energy. However, there are so much more downsides to this matter and even though the commute is exhausting, I still prefer the face-to-face setup. It feels real and the environment for me is a huge factor in my mental health. But that’s only my side of the story. I know other students had it worse and are still adjusting until today, like me. I do hope that this pandemic that we’re experiencing right now stops so we can recondition ourselves and connect with society again.

[bastardtetsu]

critical thinking | ch③

pairing: kuroo tetsuro x gn!reader

genre: college au, enemies to lovers, tsundere!reader, slow burn

wc: 2.3k

warnings: swearing, being a theatre major

※ mlist��| ① ② ● ④

there is no greater hell than finals week as a college theatre major.

and this year, on top of juries to prep for, studio scenes & dance combos to rehearse, essays to write, exams to study for, and rehearsals to attend for the show you’re in, your chemistry teacher decided to assign a final project in addition to the final exam. rejoice.

it was enough trying to study for the written final while staying on top of all your other assignments and obligations - you’d busted your ass so hard leading up to the exam that you hardly had time to think about the project until a week before its due date. and even when you do start thinking about it, you barely understand what you’re supposed to be doing, much less have the time or energy to try and figure it out.

you end up texting kuroo in desperation and make him agree to meet up with you for an extra tutoring session, however, due to your extra-chaotic schedule this week, the only time you’re both able to meet up is after your all-day rehearsal the sunday night before the project is due.

it’s better than nothing, you suppose.

still, you don’t fully realize the consequences of your choices until you’re exhausted on your way back from your second consecutive day of 12-hour tech rehearsals - a pretty standard tech week schedule in the professional theatre world, but not very convenient for a college student during finals.

needless to say, you’re dead tired. the last thing you want is to fry your brain even further with chemistry & kuroo’s smart mouth, but at this point you have no choice.

as you approach him in the library, you notice he’s dressed way more casually than usual. this shouldn’t come as a shock, seeing that it’s 11pm on a sunday, but the way his t-shirt and sweatpants accentuate his figure is actually insulting. somehow the way the fabric stretches around his pecs makes his chest look even broader, and christ you were not expecting his arms to be THAT toned.

NOPE. now is not the time, you remind yourself. you have a project due in ten hours. you can feel a headache coming on as your stress levels rise again.

“evening,” he greets you with a smile.

“hey,” you respond shortly as you set your stuff down, “thanks for meeting with me this late.”

“of course,” he replies, “anything for my favorite student.”

“…are you being sarcastic?”

“no.”

“i’m your favorite?” you question skeptically. “jesus, who else are you tutoring…”

“well I didn’t say you were my best student—“

“cool, i’m gonna stop you there.”

he just giggles. asshole.

you let out a fatigued sigh as you plop down in your chair. this feels like your first moment of rest all day, but in reality it’s just the start of the most difficult battle of them all. you attempt to gather up the remnants of your brainpower, silently praying that kuroo will decide to behave himself.

“you don’t seem like you’re in the mood for chemistry tonight.”

some prayers must go unanswered.

“yeah, i’ve had a long day,” you reply unenthusiastically, “so i’d really like to get this done as quickly as possible.”

“really? that’s gonna be difficult in your condition,” he jeers.

“well i don’t have much choice, do i?” you snap back a bit too aggressively.

“guess not,” he shrugs nonchalantly, leaning back in his chair with his hands resting behind his head. what is with this attitude? is he really just being a dick right now? and WHY do his arms look so god damn tasty??

you can already feel your sanity slipping away as you try to will yourself to focus on anything that’s not kuroo’s juicy biceps flexing through the fabric of his t-shirt. or his chest. or the little strip of exposed skin that’s appeared just below the hem of his shirt - fuck.

focus, you instruct yourself. your brain, however, is already giving out, the stress of not just the day, but the whole week finally catching up to you. the possibility of having something passable to turn in by tomorrow morning seems further and further away.

“look,” you sigh, leveling with him, “we both know i’m awful at chem—“

“really??”

“shut up,” you cut him off quickly, “and i’ve had a long ass week dealing with all this other shit on my plate and i’m really fucking tired and i just want to get a good grade on this so i can graduate, so can you please, PLEASE just—“

“if you’re gonna ask me to do the assignment for you, I already did it.”

a pause.

“wait. what do you mean-“

“i did the assignment for you. project’s done.”

“um,” you stutter, dumbfounded. “excuse me?”

“what, you thought i was gonna let you do it yourself? after you procrastinated it til the literal night before?” he says with an especially wide grin, “it would be irresponsible for me as a tutor if I let my student do so poorly! granted, she’s really bad at this—“

“ok shut up,” you cut him off. your mind is swirling with a mixture of shock, gratitude, and rage as you process his words. “when did you—“

“this week. after you texted me.”

“what?” you cry, “why are we even meeting up then?”

“i dunno,” he responds with a coy smirk, “it would’ve been rude to cancel.”

the swell of gratitude in your chest is overtaken by the growing wave of rage.

“so you decided to waste *more* of my time,” you state pointedly, “when you literally have enough to do an entire final project just for funsies. cool.”

“hey, show a little more gratitude,” he whines, quirking an eyebrow in annoyance, “you’re the one who left it til the last minute.”

“i’m the one?” you shoot back, “you still think i’m just procrastinating because i’m lazy??”

“look, i know finals are demanding—“

“no, I don’t think you do know,” you cut him off, now fuming. “you want a rundown of my week? i can give it to you.” you list off all the assignments you had to turn in, all the finals you had to prep for - both written and performance, all the meetings with scene partners and voice teachers and rehearsal pianists you had to arrange, all the hours you had to spend in rehearsal, including the 12-hour tech day you just came from. kuroo just sits there, taking in your words. when you finish, you let out an exhausted sigh, “so if you’d like to tell me when the fuck i was supposed to work on this stupid project, be my guest. i’d love to hear it.”

this might be the first time you’ve seen kuroo look shocked. for once he doesn’t seem to know what to say. is that a trace of guilt in his eyes too?

“i—“ just as he’s about to speak, he is cut off by an unholy sound coming from your stomach. you both sit there frozen for a second.

“um… when was the last time you ate?” he asks, cautiously breaking the silence.

“uhh,” you think back, “like 3pm.”

“okay, well it’s past 11 now,” he says, “and you need to eat. get your stuff, let’s go.”

“huh? go where?”

“to get food,” he states simply, “i’m driving, come on.”

“kuroo,” you protest, “i’m not gonna make you drive me—“

“you’re not making me,” he interrupts, “i’m making you. let’s go.”

you let out a sigh of defeat and grab your bag. with the rage beginning to melt away, that swell of gratitude begins to stir in your chest again. it’s still weird when he’s kind to you, but you’re starting to mind less.

—

you hadn’t realized how hungry you truly were until the smell of oil and salt hits you.

after grabbing your food from the drive thru, kuroo pulls around and finds a spot in the near-empty parking lot. you waste no time scarfing down your food, which he even insisted on paying for. whatever, it’s just mcdonald’s, you think. but still, the gesture is nice.

“you didn’t have to do this you know.”

“i think i did,” he says, jokingly referring to how hard you were just stuffing your face.

“funny,” you respond sarcastically, “but seriously.”

“it’s no big deal,” he says, looking away slightly. is he blushing? you can’t tell in the dark. “anyway, i figured i owed you one for making you stress about the project.”

you can’t believe your ears - is he actually apologizing?

“yeah, you really let me suffer all week, asshole,” you respond teasingly.

“i didn’t know it was that bad, alright,” he says, slightly defensive. a brief pause, and then, “sorry.”

you can hear the remorse in his voice - he means it. the corners of your mouth twitch upward.

“thank you,” you say gently, “that means a lot.”

his gaze darts back over to you. you’ve never seen his eyes look nervous before, yet somehow his stare still feels piercing.

“you’re gonna have to buy me a lot more nuggets before i fully forgive you though,” you joke, breaking out your own devilish smirk. he chuckles too, relieved.

“how many are we talking?”

“as many as i want.”

“fine,” he relents, “guess you’ll have to hang out with me more then, if i’m gonna be buying you all these nuggets.”

“whatever, i’m immune to your bullshit by now.”

“oya~? you’re starting to like me, y/n??”

“is that what the fuck i said?”

“no, but it’s what you meant,” he responds with a smirk.

“and how would you know?”

“‘cause i’m a genius,” he says, reaching over to swipe a fry from your lap. you halfheartedly swat at him.

“sure, keep telling yourself that.”

your banter feels natural now, strangely comfortable. for some reason it actually feels good talking to him. he did do something really nice for you tonight after all, despite your continued bickering. no matter how much you insult him he always has something to say back. but as much as it pisses you off, you’re not sure what you’d do if he ever stopped.

—

as kuroo drives you back to your place for the night, your mind begins turning over the events of this evening. in the time since you’d met up with him (which somehow feels longer than the literal 12 hours of rehearsal you were in earlier), you’d not only found out that the final project you’d been so stressed about had been taken care of, but you also hung out with him for the first time outside of tutoring. and he was nice to you. it’s a lot to process.

it’s not like you aren’t used to spending time alone with kuroo - like you told him, you’re immune to his bullshit by now - but this feels different somehow. it’s more peaceful, maybe even comforting. you figure it’s probably because of the rollercoaster of a day you just had, not to mention how unusual it is for him to treat you like this.

“why are you being so nice to me?” you finally ask him, turning to steal a glance at his side profile in the dim glow of the streetlamps.

“huh?? i needed to make sure my student got their nutrients!” he replies, as if it was obvious.

“what nutrients? you took me to mcdonald’s.”

“okay fair,” he says, “but nothing else was open!”

“sure, but you didn’t need to take me anywhere,” you protest, “much less spend money on me.”

“maybe i’ll just cook for you next time then,” he smiles.

“next time!?” you squawk, “what, are you trying to get into my pants??” the words leave your mouth before you fully have time to process them, but either way, you aren’t expecting the sudden silence that falls over him.

a flash of anxiety darts through your mind, but it only lasts for a second before he laughs quitely, almost to himself.

“not if you don’t want me to,” he mutters.

your breath catches. is he joking?? your heart feels like it’s in your throat. he’s definitely joking.

“what are you cooking?” is the only thought you can manage to put to words.

another pause.

“um. probably fish.”

“EW, WHAT THE FUCK?”

“what???” he gripes, “you could use more docosahexaenoic acid!!!”

“you are such a freak.” you’re relieved that the subject has changed, even though his earlier response is still circling your mind.

“okay but can you tell me the chemical formula for docosahex—“

“no, you are not bringing chemistry into this car, absolutely not. i already took my final.”

“what about the molar mass—“

“NO.”

—

you arrive back at your place not long after. kuroo’s comment is still eating away at the back your mind, but you don’t say anything as you gather your belongings. it was a cop-out response, and he was probably joking anyway.

“thanks for everything,” you say gingerly, “the project, and the food, and the ride, and the help with the semester, all that.”

“anytime, princess,” he replies with his signature smirk. usually that kind of response would trigger a jolt of annoyance in you, but this time it feels different. maybe because now you’re actually grateful to him.

in fact, you’re very grateful, and you feel like you should be expressing it more, but you’re not sure how. plus you’re too embarrassed, and have way too much pride. so instead you wish him goodnight and head towards your front door.

he waits to drive off until you’re all the way inside.

you think about him a little differently after that.

a/n: why is he so obsessed with docosahexdhfafdjh acid.... making me have to google how to spell that shit smh. anyways thank you for all the love on this fic so far!! if u actually enjoy this self-indulgent fantasy of mine know that i love & appreciate u to the ends of the earth ;-;

#haikyuu!! #kuroo tetsuro #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo x reader #kuroo tetsurou #kuroo tetsurou x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu #.txt #e writes

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.34

Lance hummed as he drove. Picking pizza up from Sal’s was the most normal part of his day. His long day. His long, long, long day. Curtis hadn’t seen much of Garrison, so Lance had been stuck explaining how things worked in the town. Then he’d been stuck explaining who Hunk and Pidge were, followed by showing Curtis videos of their adventures in the search for ghosts. Basically it’d been a whole day of actively avoiding talking about why Curtis was there, and what was going on with his body. Now Curtis was in the back of the car, while Keith safe guarded the pizzas in the front as Lance hummed to his “dad” music, happy the day was soon to be over...

“Look, a grocery store. Is that where you normally shop?”

And there went his humming

“Yep”

“Can we check it out?”

“Not today”

“Why not? It’s open”

“And how am I going to explain you?”

“I’m a friend of Keith’s?”

Lance didn’t want to take Curtis shopping... but that wouldn’t be giving the man a chance to adapt to his surrounds. Slowing down, Lance started indicating, before turning into the closest parking space for a quick escape

“Five minutes. In and out. No talking to strangers”

Keith sighed at him, probably thinking he was a push over... which he was kind of being

“Thank you. It’s been a while since I’ve been out and able to stretch my legs. Most of my work’s been in the labs in Platt. The curse makes it hard to socialise”

“I can imagine. Keith, you coming in?”

“Someone has to watch you two”

Garrison had done what it did best. Rumours over what had happened at the pub followed Keith and Lance around like a bad smell. Turning to ask Curtis what kind of food he liked, he found he’d left him back at the DVD’s while Keith was already ahead of in the frozen section. The pair of them were worse than children. How was he supposed to shop for them if they weren’t beside him. At least Keith hadn’t seemed to notice the whispers, Lance not sure if Curtis had, of if he had normal hearing despite the curse. With one idiot distracted by frozen meals and less likely to get himself in trouble, Lance back tracked to Curtis

“See something you like?”

“I used to love wrestling... I know it’s corny and staged...”

“Then grab a few DVDs”

“It’s okay”

Lance reached out, grabbing the first wrestling DVD he found. Yeah, he didn’t get wrestling, but it wasn’t like he was buying the DVDs for him

“If you’re living at my house, it’s okay to like what you like. They’re like 5 bucks each. Grab a few. Same goes for anything you like eating, and toiletries. There’s spares in the guest bathroom, but I understand wanting your own stuff”

“I thought you didn’t like me”

Lance bit down a groan, his anti-people side had been strong

“It’s not that I don’t. I don’t know you and I don’t want to leap right into my sex life with a stranger. Plus, I don’t know what to make of you, I’ve never met someone cursed before, but I think it’d be a douche move to judge you over something you can’t control”

“I can see why Keith likes you so much”

Lance’s face burnt in a flash. Soulmates... the thing he’d kind of always wanted to believe in with all that love and stuff, now seemed to be a real thing. He didn’t think Keith was his soulmate, but he also didn’t not want to kiss him

“We’re friends”

“In the time I knew Keith, he was never one to talk as he is now. He had a tough childhood, not knowing his mother was a hunter until he was under threat. Shiro said he didn’t have the best or safest life before they joined up”

That was the kind of thing he wanted to learn from Keith. It felt like a betrayal in trust to hear it from anyone other than him

“Keith and I have talked. I told him that I want to hear about him, from him. I know you can’t help it, but maybe you can tell me less. When they leave, I probably won’t see him again. I don’t want to be more attached than I already am”

“Nonsense. Shiro and Keith are transferring to Platt. I’m quite sure he’d be keen to remain friends with you. He seems to think a little better about vampires having met you”

“It’s taken us weeks to get this close. I’m not ruining that with some notion of fate and soulmates. He’s an idiot but under that he still has a lot of trauma to work through. Now pick your movies out. We’ll be down the end of the isle when you’re ready”

With how sheltered things had seemed to be for Curtis, Lance shouldn’t have been surprised when came back with an armload of DVDs. Lance didn’t have the heart to break it to him that most of them could be streamed now. Maybe cursed people didn’t get on with technology. The toaster had gone up in flames within seconds of Curtis putting the bread in. Keith seeming broody as Curtis placed the DVDs in the cart, like a child who wasn’t getting as much attention as his “brother”

“Don’t be like that. You can get whatever you want. You probably need more underwear and socks by now. They do have some clothes here. You two go pick out anything you need, while I find us a new another new toaster. I liked the last one... and the one before that... No more roasting for the pair of you”

Keith cast a glare at Curtis

“Now look what you did. You got us both in trouble”

“I honestly don’t know how it happened”

“Well this is your fault. You haven’t even apologised”

“It was kind of hard to when you both disappeared”

“We didn’t disappear. We were talking”

Keith was getting too defensive. Lance didn’t need a repeat of last time the hunter tried to stand up for him. The pair really were like children

“That’s enough. Just go be somewhere else already. And don’t go making a scene, some of us still have to live here after the pair of you fuck off”

Keith crossed his arms, an obvious sign he was internally sulking. Curtis simply sighed

“You’re right. I am sorry about your toaster. We’ll do better”

“Thank you. Now go away”

Having wallowed, Lance restocked his favourite snacks, aware he was going to have to hide them away before everyone showed up. Curtis and Keith both obeyed his order to find underwear, Lance wondering if he should get a permanent marker to start labelling things now that there’d be 5 men in his house, though he wasn’t sure how long Curtis would staying. Hopefully not too long, their 5 minute trip had blown out of proportion, Lance having to find refuge in the back fridges when his body suddenly grew unbearably warm and the back of his underwear grew damp. He would have climbed in there if he could have, dealing with Keith was one thing, now he had two idiots under his roof and two peoples feelings to consider. Coming up behind him, Keith made him jump by poking him in the back, Lance spinning around to glare at his friend who’s face immediately fell

“Sorry. You usually notice”

“It’s not your fault. I was debating whether to climb in there or not. It’s really fucking hot all of a sudden”

“Your face is flushed... and you smell sweet. We should get out of here”

Shit he’d been too busy indulging Curtis that the bat thing slipped from the front of his mind. Turning into a bat would be disastrous

“Crap... Here, take my wallet. The pin’s 1470. I’ll wait in the car. Just pay for everything”

“Lance, you don’t need to panic”

“I do if I suddenly turn into a bat. I should have said no...”

Keith’s face softened, his expression changing to one of caring, which Lance couldn’t handle right now

“No. It’s okay. I’ll handle this. Don’t eat all the pizza without me”

Thank god Keith was coping with him being dramatic. He was so goddamn stupid. What if he’d turned? What if he’d fallen right in there with yoghurt and was forced to live the rest of his life as a bat to escape the shame...

Waiting for Keith and Curtis, the pair of them came out with way too many bags. A normal person would have left them in the trolley until they were closer to the car, then gather them all up in an attempt not to do a second trip. Not these two. Curtis was happily sucking on a lollipop, while Keith looked like he’d sucked on a lemon. Remaining in the driver’s seat, Lance wasn’t getting in the way. The two men had once been friends, Lance had the feeling they needed to reconnect or Keith would continue to be miserable and held back by his past. Keith needed friends, he needed to know he could move past the things that still haunted his dreams, and that was okay to be happy. Being happy didn’t mean he had to forget his time with Adam, it meant accepting that something awful had happened and Adam wouldn’t want him hurting.

When the two “kids” had loaded up the shopping, Keith nearly landed in Lance’s lap with how fast he tried to climb into the front, Curtis climbing up to squash the three of them into place on the bench seat

“That was fun! Thank you, Lance. We noticed you hadn’t chosen a toaster, so Keith selected one for you”

Keith huffed, pulling the pizza boxes down off the dash

“Dobber”

Distracted by how damn hot he’d been, thoughts of a toaster went out with window with the need to cool down

“Children, don’t make me put both of you in a time out”

Curtis laughed, while Keith’s frown deepened

“I’m not a child”

“Of course not. Thank you for remembering”

Lance leaned over and kissed Keith on the cheek, not quite sure why.

His movements drew Curtis’s attentions

“Lance, could it be you feel suddenly aroused?”

Nope. Not having that conversation

“Keith did something nice, I was thanking him”

“Your face is flushed, pupils are wide, and your emitting a scent much like a werewolf in mating season. Flashes of arousal will come with the changes in your body as you prepare for breeding. There’s no need to be embarrassed, it’s quite normal and will be quite unexpected as your body settles”

Oooh... that kind of made sense... too much sense... Just another way to make him feel even shittier about the changes

“Curtis, you know that talk we had? Can we please not discuss my body. Right now, I want to go home, eat some bad pizza and have a glass of wine. My body is off limits until further notice”

“Sorry, it was just an observation that you seem quite flustered around Keith”

“I don’t care if you’re cursed, Lance doesn’t want to talk about it, so we’re not talking about it”

Lance was tempted to thank Keith, but Keith needed to stop standing up for him. He couldn’t take it. It made him all nervous and sent his thoughts about Keith south of his belt. It was bad enough he got these hot flushes, now Keith knew what they meant... Now Keith was going to be weird about it, and Lance was going to have to not be weird about it, and there was going to be a whole of weirdness that he definitely didn’t want between them when it was weird enough they’d had sex dreams about each other. Keith was all about taking responsibility... Lance didn’t want him trying to take responsibility for him being horny and deciding he had to handle Lance’s condition with sex when these weird waves came. His body being so damn weird was probably what was drawing Keith to him, not any kind of actual affections, just smell induced reaction. The thought was depressing. Keith probably didn’t like him at all, and once freed from being around him constantly, the man would most probably make a very conscious effort to avoid him. It wasn’t like being at step one with Keith, it was like nearly reaching the finish line only to find someone had jumped the gun so the whole race was meaningless.

Starting his bronco, Lance didn’t bother scolding Keith and Curtis for not wearing their seatbelts. With a little bit of luck they’d all die horribly and the topic of his body would never be spoken of again.

#once bitten twice stupid #oncebittentwicestupid

[youarejesting]

Me & the Ghost in Number 23 Part Four

[MASTERLIST]

Summary: Moving into your new apartment on the dance academy campus, you hear it is haunted. You practise your routines with the ghoulish resident in the second bedroom. Things get heated, except you know ghosts are cold. so…

Pairing: Jimin x Reader

Warnings: Death, being dead.

Genre: Supernatural, Mystery, Drama, Romance, Action, sexy stuff and more. HONESTLY ALL THE GOOD STUFF.

She knew. How did she know? She looked at him, really looked at him and she wasn’t scared. He went back to the apartment and stopped by the front desk, hearing your name. 

“If this one doesn’t work out, we will have to clean out those rooms and try to remove him we are losing too much business”  

He sighed moving up the stairs and through the open front door, stopping horrified someone was in his room. If it was cleaners, he wouldn’t hesitate to scare the daylights out of them. He moved quickly but froze seeing the figure laying on his dusty bed. 

He smiled sadly and sat on the bed, looking down at the sleeping young man. Yoongi was clutching a key around his neck and beside him was the open box of pictures and newspaper clippings. 

The front door clattered open and Yoongi startled awake, sitting up looking out the open bedroom door. He heard the floorboards creak slowly. 

The door to his bedroom was open what does this mean, meandering you peered around the door and squealed. “Oh Jesus, what the hell I thought… who the hell are you and what are you doing in my apartment”

“I’m not in your apartment, I’m in his, I lived here before you,” he spat sitting up, grabbing his bag and headphones. “I have a key and I won’t ever touch your stuff or bother you, I just want to see him again”

“Were you his boyfriend?” You asked, and he full out laughed, it echoed with another laugh. Your eyes caught sight of the contents of the box not daring to step foot in the room but you could make out a yellowed newspaper and a stack of photos.

“Not exactly,” he wiped his eyes laughter dying down as he closed up the box and slipped it back underneath the bed, “I like that though you're funny, I brought some things for Jimin his favourite snacks please don’t eat them”

“Well, since you are here can I make you something to drink or maybe something to eat?” You asked a little awkward but threw an impulse smile at the end. 

“I should go, Hobi will wonder where I am, he spoke about you, you know? Said there was a young lady who moved in and is super nice, he didn’t say you were pretty too”

“Get out before I slap that cheeky grin off your face” you blushed defensively, and he smiled and left you stood in the middle of the living room starring into Jimin’s room. Curiosity was so strong that you took a step towards it a knock making you jump.

It was a delivery some items you had requested for your room, a large mirror, a cushion for your desk chair, a Bluetooth speaker and a new phone charger as they always kept a breaking. 

You carried it inside undoing the bubble wrap and checking the mirror for any cracks or chips; you held it up in front of you by the kitchen bench looking over your reflection the mirror fresh and clean. 

You turned walking it to your room when over your shoulder in the doorway to Jimin's room was a pale beautiful man you shrieked and dropped the mirror. 

Turning to see no one there and the door slam shut. Frozen the adrenaline coursing through your veins like hot water filling your body. A cold sweat slipped from your temple to your jaw and your eyes didn’t pull away from the door eyes flickering to any sound in the room. 

After what seemed like an hour you snapped out of it and scolded yourself for getting spooked by the wind. It was a trick of the eyes. Picking up the shards carefully an idea struck you had seen his reflection many times and believed that perhaps that’s how you could see him. 

Taking the shards you placed them in a small box in your room and kept a piece out whilst you made dinner, the small plate-sized piece of mirror sat leant against the wall but you saw nothing the rest of the night. Perhaps it was too small to glimpse him. 

Lying in bed you thought yourself crazy for buying mirrors online but you selected all shapes and sizes. 

Jimin sat shivering in the bath he was dripping wet and he got up walking out his clothes drenched hair stuck down and he went to the kitchen to find the container of food Yoongi had left for him, he sat dripping a puddle onto the ground and sobbed into the food. 

He had scared you; he didn’t want his home to be taken away this is all he had left. He had to do something; he paced the floor that night trying to calm himself. 

He watched you dressed up and with your handbag heading out early; you were leaving he knew it you were looking at a new house. Planning to leave as soon as possible. He felt the hollow feeling again he felt like he could blow away so easily. 

Nothing made him seem more dead, unwanted and alone. He left seeking an old friend on campus. He spent most of his time in the recording booths. Kim Jonghyun was a charming young man, and he sang like a dream. He like Jimin died young both very talented they bonded over their similarities. 

“Jimin, what brings you here?” He asked smiling from one side of the booth, he sat looking over some lyrics left behind making a few changes. 

“I might lose my home,” he sighed “I scared my roommate by accident, she saw me in the mirror, they said if this roommate doesn’t work out they will exorcise me and send in the cleaners”

“Why don’t you talk to her, I know it is scary but just explain you are nice and don’t want to hurt her”

“That will just make her run faster,” Jimin buried his face in his hands, “I am doomed”

Arriving home you had picked up your online purchase of mirrors and more mirrors from the store. You carried them home and started placing them around the main room, leaning them against the walls around the kitchen and his door along the back and side walls and you hope he wouldn’t be too mad with the mirrors.  

You were sitting at the bench drinking some tea and collecting any more mirror deliveries from the door and placing them around the room. Sipping your iced tea and scrolling through your phone you saw movement out of the corner of your eye. 

Spluttering into the cold beverage you turned and saw through the mirrors a figure frozen in the middle of the room. “I’m sorry, I know this is a lot of mirrors and I will remove them if you don’t want me to see you but I wanted to talk and come to an understanding together. You don’t seem dangerous” 

He turned to a mirror, and you stood beside him looking into the mirror, “you aren’t afraid?” His mouth moved and his voice was so light you thought you imagined it. 

“I’m not afraid,” you said looking him in the eyes  “not anymore, you are a good guy Jimin, your friend Yoongi thinks so too and you caught me in dance class didn’t you, you wouldn’t save me from falling if you were a bad ghost”

#bangtan #bangtan sonyeondan #bangtan seonyeondan #bts #bts x reader #bts imagines #bts reactions #bts scenarios #bts fic #kim namjoon #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok #park jimin #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook #park jimin x reader #jimin x reader #jimin imagines #jimin reactions #jimin smut #jimin fluff #ghost jimin #dancer jimin #ghost au #university au #park jimin fic #park jimin smut #park jimin fluff #jimin fic

[sabraeal]

Meet Cute

Part of The Wide Florida Bay, written for @notesintheflyleaf for winning4th place in my 500 Followers Raffle! She has no specific request, so I thought I should start at the beginning: this should be the official first chapter of Nothing Was My Own (Before I Loved You)!

Exhaustion is almost an asset at this point; the figure in front of her blurs, and suddenly the progression from gill arches to jaws seems plausible. Shirayuki rubs her eyes, crusty sleep seeds skittering onto her keyboard, and tries to focus. She’s only had a week worth of classes with Garrack, but she knows she’ll have to be able to draw this on the test. From memory.

“Well.” Shirayuki startles, back protesting as she twists, nearly curving it around her chair to get a glance at the door. “You’re up at an ungodly hour.”

She lets out a sigh, shoulders collapsing over her ribs. It’s-- it’s just Kihal, impossibly fluffy robe wrapped tight around her, eyebrow lifted in an elegant arch. Her roommate.

It’s hard to get used to this, to having someone around, sleeping less than a full Mitsuhide away. Someone who comes and goes from the room like any normal person would, because this is a normal college experience, having a roommate, not one that should send her scrabbling for the nearest exit.

She’d had one before, back in Freshman year. It’s just...different now.

The scent of vanilla clings to the air, along with that pleasant ozone-y scent water gets from a spray, and it’s all just-- distracting. Shirayuki’s not sure when she forgot how to live with someone, but it certainly doesn’t help that the curtain over Kihal’s cubby is gauzy, so when she slips back there she’s backlit like a cell straight out of Chicago.

She’s not shy-- she spent half her summers skinny dipping in the local pond -- but still, it’s weird to know someone is just...casually naked six feet away.

Isn’t it? Shirayuki grips her desk, the edge biting into the pads of her knuckles. It would be nice if she felt like she knew how to people anymore.

“It’s only seven.” She winces as the words come out. Too terse. Too defensive. “I just-- I feel like I have so much to catch up on.”

Kihal barks out a laugh. “That’s fair. If I showed up almost a month into the semester, I’d probably burst into flames with all the catch up.”

That’s an understatement, to say the least. It’d be bad enough being two weeks behind, but with-- with Raj, and her bus ride north, and the whirlwind transfer to Clarines, and then Mihaya, it’s just--

A lot. But it’s the sort of a lot that doesn’t just fall into someone’s lap like this, the sort of a lot that you have to grab with both hands before it fades away, and--

She rubs her head. That’s not helping.

Kihal pokes her head out from behind the curtain, hair falling in a solid sheet. Her scalp tingles looking at it, remembering the weight of her own hair, like some sort of phantom limb. It’s still weird to comb her hair and feel it just end, but-- well, she’d miss it more if it behaved like Kihal’s. As it is, she’s just glad it isn’t here to frizz in the humidity of the dorms.

“How late were you up last night?”

Shirayuki blinks. It was two when she woke up, drool pooling on her keyboard, and rolled herself into bed. She doesn’t remember much before that. “Not...very?”

Kihal’s brows collapse beneath the weight of her skepticism. “Uh-huh. Come on, let’s go.”

Shirayuki stares, frozen, helplessly watching as Kihal slides into a pair of flats, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Go?”

“Yeah.” She turns her chin over her shoulder, flashing her a sly smile. “This is the sort of situation that calls for coffee.”

Shirayuki isn’t sure exactly what Kihal’s situation is; she’s friends with Zen, after all-- or the closest you can come while still calling each other by your last names-- and from what she’s been able to piece together, she’d been living in that double like it was a single since the beginning of the semester, not a hint of another roommate in sight.

On top of that, she walks with the same sort of confidence as Kiki, the kind that has Shirayuki taking two steps to her one, like she’s a corgi keeping pace with a greyhound and, well-- Shirayuki’s never thought about her friends’ net worth before, not when she’d lived so far out from town it took an hour bus ride to get her to school, but-- there’s few people on this planet with the sort of money the Seirans have.

She shakes her head. It doesn’t matter, not when they don’t use it like some people do.

“So this is, um--” she fumbles for words, breathless-- “a coffee shop?”

“A cafe, yeah.” Kihal barely glances back, but her gait slows, letting her keep pace. “It’s student run place. Super cute. You’ll love it.”

Shirayuki practically has to bite her tongue. “Is it...just coffee?”

“Nah. There’s tea too. And maybe some juice?” She lifts her shoulder, the strap of her tank top slipping to the cusp of it. “There’s food too. The bagels are amazing.”

Her stomach gurgles at the though at the same time her bank account aches. Food sounds great right now, but--

“You have flex points, right?”

She blinks. “I...don’t know? Is that with your student ID, or..?”

“It’s with your meal plan.” Kihal explains it’s like it’s old hat, like it’s something everyone knows, and Shirayuki can only think about how she’d spent her last two lunches trying to get a card that worked in the reader, let alone thinking about any of this. “You can use one of your meal swipes and buy something under ten bucks.”

“Oh, um.” She’d hardly looked at the options past ‘three meals a day,’ and even that had cut deep. “I don’t think--”

Kihal waves a hand. “Whatever, don’t worry. I have you.”

It’s stupid how her eyes sting, just at that. I have you. “Are you sure? I can pay you back--”

“Seriously, don’t worry about it.” Kihal turns to her with a wink. “If anyone deserves to be treated, it’s you.”

“No, that’s--”

Could be fun, keeping you for a while. Even now, just thinking of that grin sends chills down her spine. Right, Red?

Shirayuki lets her mouth shut with a click. “Yeah,” she decides, finally, “I guess I really do.”

Freshman year, Shirayuki had made this mistake of taking a philosophy course as a gen ed, spending a whole semester trying not to nod off as a man expounded upon the thoughts of other men, most of whom had been financially solvent enough to have servants take care of them while they entertained their lofty theories. It had been almost as much of a disaster as her art history class, but she’d persevered, eking out an A- by the end of the course.

Still, when her professor had spouted off truisms like freedom is the burden of choice, it had taken all of her compassion for humanity as a whole to keep from rolling her eyes.

But right now, staring at the eight chalkboards covered in cramped cursive, she almost wants to email him an apology. This amount of choice is oppressive.

“Do you know what you want?”

There’s so many options, she can hardly remember her own name. “Ah, it’s only...there’s so much to choose from.”

Kihal raises a brow, mouth curving to match. “What? You don’t know how you take your coffee?”

“Oh, well, you see--” her feet shuffle under her, toes scuffing at the tile-- “I don’t really, ah...drink coffee.”

Shirayuki braces herself for the blank stare, for the dismayed frown that comes right before, what sort of person doesn’t drink coffee? She’d heard it enough last year, floormates peeling away in the morning before she could get a word in edgewise.

But Kihal only laughs, shaking her head. “And you, what? Just let me take you to a coffee place?”

It’s infectious; as soon as she starts to giggle, Shirayuki does too, and soon she’s covering her face, wiping tears from her eyes.

“Well,” she manages, breathless, “they usually have hot cocoa.”

“They do,” Kihal agrees, nodding her head at the counter. “And once it rolls around to October, they start selling hot cider too. The local stuff.”

“Ohhh.” Her mouth waters just thinking about it. “That sounds good.”

“We’ll come back,” Kihal promises, elbowing into line. “But I promise the cocoa will tide you over for now.”

We’ll come back. Shirayuki’s hands tighten around her satchel. “Right. Sounds good.”

“Large Iced Mocha?” the barista calls out from behind the counter. “For--” he squints, tilting the cup-- “Kyle?”

Kihal rolls her eyes, plucking off a cinnamon chip from her muffin. “I think that’s me.”

His eyes narrow, like he’s trying to suss out whether she’s really Kyle enough, and then shrugs. “Enjoy.”

She takes a sip and nods. “Mm, yes, definitely me.” She holds up a hand, keeping him right at the bar. “Do you know when my friend’s hot cocoa will be out?”

He blinks, giving her a careless shrug. “I dunno. A few minutes? We didn’t really have the machine set up.”

Kihal stares, mouth pulling long. “It’s just some hot milk. You’re making lattes already.”

“I don’t make the rules, lady,” he tells her, and Shirayuki practically trips trying to catch Kihal’s arm before she can really make a scene.

“It’s fine,” she tells her, bagel gripped so tight in her hands the cream cheese oozes out. Ah, she should ask for some napkins. “This happens a lot. I can wait.”

Kihal hesitates, throwing one last glare over her shoulder at the barista, and backs down. “All right. I’ll go grab us some seats, okay?”

Shirayuki nods. “Sure. I’ll be over when, ah...”

The barista has stopped making drinks, instead holding out his phone to a coworker with a laugh. Kihal lets out a long sigh. “You’ll be over when you’re over.”

Shirayuki watches as he pulls the phone back, as he mouths, wait you gotta see this too, and grimaces. “Yeah, something like that.”

It’s not the first time she’s had to wait for a cocoa-- she’s not precisely sure what the mechanics are behind running a coffee shop, but it seems cocoa and coffee are two streams that can never cross-- but it still feels like forever as she’s standing there, wondering whether they’ve even started to work on it. At this rate, Kihal will be finished before she even gets a sip in, and she’ll have to just...wait there, watching her as she eats.

“--Sharon?” A barista calls out, holding out a small cup . “With a y?”

“Oh!” She squeezes up to the counter. “I think that’s me?”

She looks down at her, impassive, and puts the cup in her hands. “Okay, cool.”

It burns her fingertips, and it takes her a full second, staring dumbly at her hand, to realize there were nice cardboard holders on the bar, just for that reason.

“Wait!” she yelps, fumbling to open one around the bottom of her cup. “Do you have, um, napkins?”

The barista blinks slowly, pointing over her shoulder. “Uh. Drink station.”

“Oh!” Shirayuki whips around, catching the small table of straws and stirrers, flanked by a row of dispensers. “Thank--”

She’s already gone. “--you?”

Shirayuki heaves a sigh. Mrs Kino always said New Englanders were a little cold.

Turning on her heel, she bee-lines for the drink station, napkins on her mind--

Only to run smack dab into a wall.

A very warm wall. A very warm wall that laughs, hands banding around her arms to steady her.

“Careful there, Miss,” it says, “don’t want to have an accident, now do we?”

She settles back on her heels, gaze dragging up-- and up-- until it catches on a hooked grin, canines peeking out from behind a crooked lip. “N-no, of course not. Sorry, I wasn’t--” her eyes pulse wide as she realizes she’s still holding the cup, that it could have spilled-- “did I get any on you? Are you all right? Where are you burned?”

He laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkling, rucking up the scar that winks over one eye. “Don’t worry. No harm done.” His smile curves into a smirk. “Though you’re welcome to check if you like.”

Shirayuki nearly reaches out, nearly takes the invitation, but he takes a step back, hands dropping from her shoulders.

“That’s me,” he says, and it takes her a minute to realize the barista is holding another small cup over the bar, waiting. “Watch yourself, Miss.”

She stands, brows furrowed, watching him wade through the crowd. Watch yourself. It’s a normal thing to say, but still--

She can’t shake how much it sounds like a warning.

“Sorry!” Shirayuki slaps down a fistful of napkins, licking cream cheese off the webbing between her thumb and finger. “There were so many people over there.”

It’s a bit of a jump to get up on the stools-- she can’t wait for this high table trend to end-- and her foot nearly misses the rung with Kihal asks, “Did you get his number?”

She blinks, hoisting herself onto the seat. It swivels threateningly beneath her. “Whose number?”

Kihal raises both eyebrows, incredulous. “Uh, the gorgeous guy you were talking to?”

“Who?”

She sighs. “Tall, tanned, had biceps made for putting your mouth on?”

Shirayuki stares. She wasn’t aware that’s what one did with biceps. It seems like a bad time to ask if it’s hyperbole.

“You nearly ran him over?” Kihal ventures, jerking her head toward the counter.

“Oh!” Tall seemed fair, and tan, but she hadn’t, um, speculated about the mouthfeel of his muscles.“No. I just-- I asked if I’d hurt him, he said no, and then he got his drink.”

Kihal tips back her head, casting a helpless glance at the ceiling. “Shirayuki.”

“There wasn’t anything else to it.” She casts a curious glance over her shoulder, but it’s no good, it looks like Mysterious Man has come and gone. “Was he really--?”

“Hot? Extremely.” Kihal’s mouth curves slyly. “I know you and Wisteria have something going on, but you can look at other guys, you know.”

Her cheeks flush, which is-- it’s stupid, because there isn’t any reason to it. “We don’t have anything, we’re just...friends.”

Kihal gives her a dubious look. “Mm-hm. Well, all the more reason to look, then. Especially when tall, dark and handsome seems to be chummy with the barista. Maybe you can score us some free coffee.”

Shirayuki frowns. “I don’t really think talking to someone to get free stuff is--”

“Also, he looks like a good kisser.”

Ethical gets stuck in in her throat, and she blindly grasps for her cup, taking a sip to wash it out--

And nearly spits it out.

Kihal stares. “Are you okay?”

She grimaces, edging the cup away. “This is not cocoa.”

Kihal’s brows furrow, and she scoops it up, taking a sip. “Ugh, this isn’t even mocha. It’s like, half-cocoa, half-espresso.”

Whatever it is, the taste lingers bitterly in her mouth. “Do people drink that?”

“No.” Kihal’s mouth tilts, coy. “Too bad Hot Guy isn’t around to talk to his friend for you.”

“It’s fine,” she wheezes, sliding off the chair, “I can just--”

“No, no.” Kihal snags the drink from her. “I’ll deal with it.”

“No, I couldn’t--”

“Hey.” She holds up a hand, mouth spread in a grin. “I paid for it, I deal with it. you enjoy your food. Besides,” she waggles her eyebrows, “now I can go find out more about your boyfriend.”

#obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #The Wide Florida Bay #my fic #i originally was gonna make this longer #and bring it all the way up to Ain't Saying She's a Golddigger #but this got long enough as is #and i have a feeling the other 'run ins' will as well #so here we go #the meet cute #at least from Shirayuki's side of things

[kanna-ophelia]

Forgot to put this on on Tumblr! Day 5 of @drawlight‘s Ineffables Advent Calendar: Fire. And the 4th of my 31 First Kisses. If you’re wondering what happened to 4, it went all scope creep in both research and writing and is now going to be a chapter in my Big Bang fic (tease: 1976 Soho basement gay club), but I will open that day’s window soon. I’m determined to do all 31.

South Downs Cottage, because I am shamelessly doing all the tropes. Series!Good Omens. On AO3

On Wattpad

Home and Other Fires

Aziraphale tried to decide where to put Crowley's cup of tea. It was more difficult than it used to be, seeing that Crowley's head was dangling down towards the floor, his spine bent at what seemed like a terribly uncomfortable angle in order to keep his buttocks tucked in the depths of the couch, his long thighs extending up the back and his knees looped over.

What was even more disconcerting than the inhuman bendiness was how nicely Crowley fit the couch in that position. It led to the speculation that he had purchased the chair--no, it was Crowley, he would have had the couch custom made--to exactly the proportions needed to dangle upside down over it, baking his face and chest next to the fire.

Aziraphale sighed and put the cup near Crowley's dangling hand. The demon opened one eye, hissed "Thanksss," and apparently went back to sleep.

That was one of the unconsidered quirks of living with Crowley. He slept more of the time than seemed reasonable, and in more places than seemed possible. Another was the amount of heat Crowley liked. The fire tended to be stoked so high, on top of the central heating, that Aziraphale had reluctantly discarded all his layers one by one until he wore nothing but his shirt sleeves, not even a nice cotton vest underneath. After a few centuries of being fully clad, he felt naked.

The third was that Crowley himself apparently didn't wear a lot of clothes inside. That was probably, Aziraphale told himself irritably, why he needed the fire stoked so hot. Right now, Crowley's thin chest was bare, and like his face extremely flushed by proximity to the fire, his skin reddened and warm looking and--

Aziraphale himself felt like he was on fire a lot of the time. Maybe this whole South Downs thing was a mistake.

* * * 

"You don't like my flat, do you?" Crowley asked one day, without anything prior leading up to it.

Aziraphale looked up from the dried dog food he was feeding the swans--a small child had lectured him on the wrongs of feeding bread to birds, and he had been mortified and seized with centuries of accumulated guilt--and tried to think of an appropriately tactful answer.

"It's a very impressive showcase for you, dear. Properly demonic."

Crowley made a sound between a snort and a hiss. "You always find a reason to meet somewhere else."

"You don't like your flat," Aziraphale said defensively.

Crowley stared out across the lake, the wind ruffling his short auburn hair. "Perhaps," he said contemplatively, "the thrones are a bit much."

"Perhaps, dear."

"After all, who do I have to impress, these days?" Aziraphale had the distinct impression that Crowley was looking sideways at him, although it was difficult to tell with those closed-in glasses.

"You just have to please yourself, now."

"Hmmph. Let's go back to the bookstore, I'm frozen and I need drinkable coffee." At some point, Crowley had installed a ridiculously expensive and complicated espresso machine in Aziraphale's office. He never seemed to buy coffee beans, but it produced heavenly--no, not heavenly, definitely an earthly pleasure--smelling coffee every time.

Crowley hadn't mentioned his flat again for several weeks, until he asked, "Mind if I borrow some of your things?"

Aziraphale, who had thought he was asleep on the couch, looked up from the book he was rebinding. "My things?"

"That light thing over there." Crowley thrust a casual hand out towards a priceless directoire table lamp. "And that little olive-wood figurine of Auxesia from Aegina, great century, the fifth BCE. And some books."

"Books?"

"Yeah. I think they feel, you know, home-like. So long as I don't have to read them." Crowley frowned. "Can you pick out some of your favourites? It will stop people buying them. And if you want to read them you can always come over."

"I--of course I will, dear boy." Aziraphale felt sentimental tears come to his eyes. Crowley was trying to make that dreadful flat comfortable for him. He should stop avoiding it so much.

But Crowley stopped inviting him over at all, although he kept borrowing things. One day, out of the blue, he announced that he had bought a cottage as a holiday home.

"You can come stay for a while, I suppose," he said, with an air of grudgingly giving into pleading. "Get you out of London for a bit, until you stop seeing angels on every corner. 'S'nice," he added, defending himself against accusations never made. "Near the ocean. And it's pink. Thought I could repaint it black, but apparently there's regulations and stuff. Might have to see what I can do about that. Anyway. Can't expect me to live in a pink house by myself, at least until I get used to it."

"It would be a kindness to come stay," Aziraphale said, thoughtfully.

Crowley made a disgusted face, but Aziraphale could tell he was pleased by the tiny quirk at the edge of that mobile face.

The cottage had been a revelation. More of Aziraphale's favourite things had travelled from the clutter of his bookshop to the shelves and mantlepieces than he remembered Crowley asking for. He knew he had perhaps become a little overenthusiastic in lending Crowley books, but the packed shelves everywhere were an unexpected delight, and he knew some of the books were not his own purchases.

There were cosy chairs and tartan rugs and a general, heady feeling that Crowley had been feathering a nest for Aziraphale, for his personal comfort. It wasn't something that could be spoken, but--

--there were twenty nine different teas in the kitchen, carefully arranged by region and levels of oxidisation and fermentation. A beautiful gramophone as well as a modern sound system. "The softer sounds and crackling are soothing sometimes," Crowley said, shrugging. Real velvety dressing gowns and fluffy slippers and merino scarves n the wardrobes.

"How long were you intending me to stay?" Aziraphale asked, feeling oddly shy.

Crowley shrugged. "Don't care. Long as you like, makes no difference to me. No reason not to, now. What's the harm?" Too many sentences, his voice too jerky despite his air of nonchalance, just a hint of a nervous hiss. "Look, there's fireplaces all over this place. I know you love a good fire."

The harm, Aziraphale suspected, in what it was doing to him to share living space with a demon who clearly felt shirts were optional and tended to stand with one hip jutting out, showing the top of an enticing hip bone. Or drape himself across counters, denim-clad behind perched--"It's a food preparation surface, Crowley, please"--on the counter-top, legs spread, leaning back on his elbows. Or doze spread out across any available surface, including the wall. Or lean halfway across the table staring fixedly at Aziraphale while he ate, like the serpent he was. Crowley was always there, and pretty much half naked all the time, and Aziraphale wasn't sure if the tight jeans or the silk pyjama shorts were more aggravating.

Crowley had also developed a new, and odd, habit of curling around Aziraphale at unexpected times, sliding hands around his waist from behind and leaning a bare chest against him, as Aziraphale made tea, leaning on his shoulder as they watched the bizarrely tedious television he seemed to enjoy so much, tangling half-bare legs with Aziraphale's legs as the angel read and Crowley did something dastardly on his phone.

"What brought all this on?" Aziraphale asked once as Crowley put his head on his lap and wound his arms around Aziraphale's arm. Aziraphale was torn between pushing him away, petting his hair or--no. He could be misunderstanding, mislead by the ache in his own body.

"Snake." Crowley said. "Like to wind around warmth. You're warm, angel. And it's not like anyone will stop us, anymore." He hesitated, and his voice was suddenly vulnerable. "Unless you hate it?"

"No, of course, it's fine," Aziraphale said, and let himself card his fingers through Crowley's hair. Crowley tightened his grip and went to sleep, and Aziraphale resigned himself to a couple of hours of fire raging through him and not being able to concentrate on his reading at all.

The worst of it was that there seemed nothing flirtatious in it at all. Crowley never said anything provocative or tried to kiss him, except in Aziraphale's secret mind. He just seemed content to be close, and revelling in all the heat, and the fondness--poor darling thing, he must have been starved of affection for thousands of year-- and completely aware of how unbearable it was all becoming to Aziraphale. That every exposed inch of skin, every casually intimate embrace made Aziraphale desperately want to touch and kiss--oh, yes, kiss and kiss--and everything that followed.

Friends. Open friends, without having to hide from the world or each other how much they enjoyed each other, was good. It was wonderful. It was just that Crowley's delicately protruding clavicles were unexpectedly fascinating, and the way his spine curved behind the waistband of his ridiculously tight jeans, and the way that, despite all his boniness, there was a slight soft rounding of his belly right before the trail of auburn hair down to that same waistband.

Six millennia of being uncomfortably aware that this demon creature was literally infernally pretty hadn't prepared Aziraphale as much as he had hoped for living with an accountably affectionate and half-dressed, infernally pretty demon creature. One that kept touching Aziraphale, and gazing at him like he was the most adorable creation in existence. Or snarling irritably at him in a way that also somehow seemed to suggest Aziraphale was the most adorable creation in existence, followed by making him perfect cups of tea. Or driving him across three counties to a book sale, where he would mope and glower and stab at his phone and stay just as long as Aziraphale wanted, then take him out to dinner somewhere lovely he had apparently just found on his phone.

It was bliss, and it was torture. Reward for saving the world and punishment for betraying Heaven, Aziraphale supposed. Trial by hellfire.

So long as they believed he could survive hellfire, he would be fine. And he could survive this. He would.

He sighed, and set his own cup of tea down on a side table, prepared to settle down and read and not at all stare with unabashed craving at an upside-down dozing demon who--

"Surely it can't be good to let your skin get quite so red, Crowley. Move away from the fire."

"It's not too hot. C'mere and see."

Aziraphale hesitated, then moved to the couch. It really wasn't too bad. Warm. Odd, sitting next to Crowley in this position, though. He arranged himself primly.

"But my dear fellow, you are so flushed."

Aziraphale reached out and down and, unthinking, brushed his hand down hot skin, slightly furred with hair. Incredibly, the skin turned even darker, and Crowley said, "Ngk."

Aziraphale pulled his hand down as if he had been burned. "Sorry. I shouldn't have touched you."

"Don't be sorry. Please don't be." Crowley managed to move to a proper sitting position, by way of swinging his legs over Aziraphale's head and across to his lap, revolving the rest of his body with them. It was a distinctly inhuman movement, and one that ended up with him sitting halfway across Aziraphale's lap. "You can touch me. Any time and in any way, angel. Do you hear that?"

"Yes," Aziraphale managed. It was suddenly very hard to speak.

"Angel. Aziraphale. I want--this is probably a bad idea, but you did--angel, promise that whatever I'm about to do, you won't get upset with me and go tearing back to Soho."

"i can't make an open-ended promise like that to a demon."

"Retired demon." Crowley cupped Aziraphale's chin with one hand and turned Aziraphale's face to look at him. "Retired demon who loves you and is going crazy and when did you stop wearing so many clothes, anyway?"

"Ah, yes," Aziraphale said, his vocal cords working automatically while his mind whirled in dizzying circles around the word loves. "It's hot. All the fires."

"The fires? Oh. Is that any reason to subject an innocent demon to your blessed provocative wrists?"

"Provocative wrists?" Aziraphale squeaked. "You don't have a shirt on!"

"The fire's warm!"

"Yes!"

They glared at each other for a moment, then Aziraphale said, "I promise. I--"

The rest of his sentence was lost in Crowley's mouth.

Some minutes later Aziraphale surfaced, discovering he was pressed back into the couch, his shirt somehow come unbuttoned, although he couldn't remember any of them doing it, and his skin was trapped against Crowley's bare chest.

"Oh, darling," Aziraphale said.

"Angel." Crowley pressed clinging, hungry little kisses all over the corners of his mouth, his chin.

"I'm not going back to Soho."

"Thank you." Crowley kissed him again, pushing his tongue against Aziraphale's, and oh, it was fire, fire licking through Aziraphale, fire licking down his veins and gathering at the pit of his belly.

"I love you too, Crowley. More than I could ever say."

"Angel. Oh, angel, I've loved you so long, so long." Crowley kissed his eyelids, his ears. "Imagined kissing you so many times, never thought it would be here... in our own nest, in front of our own fire. Not having to be afraid. Just you and me, my angel love."

"I never thought we would have this, either. Oh, you wonderful thing."

"I was beginning to think you were impossible to seduce," grumbled Crowley. "Didn't matter what I wore or what I did, you would pat me on the hand and call me your dear boy. Cold as ice."

"Cold? Oh, Crowley, I've been burning."

"But that's the first time you looked at me like that."

Aziraphale pursed his lips, blushing.

"Oh," said Crowley. "That's the first time I've caught you looking at me with lust." Crowley's mouth drew up into a smug smile. "Oh, I love you."

"You do pose very prettily," Aziraphale said defensively. "Oh, stop smirking and kiss me again."

The flickering light from the fire lit up Crowley's hair and eyes in dancing red and orange for one moment, and then they were kissing again, and the only fire Aziraphale could think of was his own.

#31 days of ineffables #fire #ineffable husbands #south downs cottage #Aziraphale/Crowley #goodomens fanfiction #so much fluff

[south-park-x-reader-blog]

Ooh could I please have a request for Kenny where reader is wealthy like Token and they always help him out by buying food and clothes his family needs. Kenny thinks reader pities him but its completely different case, they actually love him

((Thank you http://furunui.tumblr.com/ for letting me use your drawing and thank you anon for the request! I hope everyone has a happy new years!))Money, that was something that never really mattered to you. Honestly you had more than enough money. In fact, you had the best of all of your favorite things. But something that was just so normal to you meant the world to someone else. In fact it broke your heart that you began to think like that.

You thought of yourself as someone who was rather kind but you never even thought about how others might be doing money wise. That is until you met one Kenny Mccormick. He was attractive for sure but his clothes were dirty, hair stringy and unchecked and he always seemed to be getting sick. You didn’t mind at all at first but the one day you went to his house you saw the state of his living space. He had a giant hole in his roof, only had frozen waffles to eat, and his clothes were passed down by his family. Honestly you couldn’t believe yourself that you didn’t notice your friend was in such a poor state, that’s why you were going to make it up to him. You had gotten him quite a lot of things. Clothes, some clothes for his siblings a lot of food and some games so he wouldn’t be bored. You felt like Santa and honestly couldn’t wait to see the joy on Kenny’s face. After all Kenny was your crush, would he thank you? Give you a kiss on the cheek? Your face turns red at the thought and a big smile crosses your face. Whatever was to come you’d accept it willingly. You gather the last of the stuff you got for Kenny into your bag. You make your way out of the house and pass the gate. “I’ll be back soon!” You call to the guard with a wave. You start to run through the snow not minding the cold at all. Even though the sun was up it was always cold in Colorado.You make your way over to Kenny’s house and knock on the door “Kenny!” You call. You could hear shuffling inside and someone walking down the stairs. Honestly Kenny’s house was the size of your shack and it made you feel bad but you could at least help him out.“Hey Y/N.” He says as he opens the door with a happy smile on his face. You return the smile in kind.“Hey! I got you some stuff.” You say cheerfully. Kenny blinks in surprise a soft frown crossing his face.“Well you already kinda gave me presents for Christmas you know…” he mutters out making you laugh a little with a slight brush crossing your face.“I just wanted to do this for you.” You weren’t quite sure why he had a frown but he nods and lets you come in anyway. He leads the two of you to his room that had water dripping into a bucket from the hole in the roof. He sits down on his bed and glances over at you. You happily sit down on the floor despite the line of dust across it. “Here you go.” You hand him your bag and he raises a brow at that. “Wait everything in here is for me?” He asks hesitantly and opens the backpack. “Well everything but my backpack, my parents would kill me if I gave that away.” you rub the back of your neck shyly and watch him dig through the stuff refusing to take any of it out. Did he not like it? A worried frown crosses your face.“Thanks y/n but I don’t really want your pity.” He says in an annoyed tone. You have never heard Kenny annoyed before and honestly it made your stomach drop. This wasn’t out of pity! Why does he have to be so blind!“This isn’t out of pity Kenny!” You say rather defensively making him raise his eyebrows in surprise. “Well normal people don’t really get each other gifts for new years so what is it?” He sighs softly and sets your bag down on the ground. You couldn’t help the blush that crosses your face. Oh how you wanted to punch some sense into him.“It’s because… It’s because I like you!” You shout out without thinking. The words leave your mouth before you could stop them. You stare at Kenny in shock and he returns the look. A soft smirk crosses his face and he starts to laugh loudly your embarrassment was now cloud nine and you shove him.“Stop laughing!” You yell annoyed. That only makes him laugh harder. Man Kenny was the worst sometimes. You whine and give up hiding your face into your knees. Why’d you have to go blurt it out like that? It was supposed to be romantic!“Y/n it’s ok… I was just, embarrassed that the girl I like was pitying me…” Kenny says as he comes down from his laughter fit. You blink in surprise and looks up at Kenny in surprise. He’s cheeks were flushed pink but it was hard to tell if it was because he was laughing too hard. “You… You like me back?” You ask curiously making Kenny snort softly.“Duh of course I do!” he huffs softly and helps you back to your feet pulling you into a hug. “You’re the nicest girl in our entire year and not to mention you’re really kind to Karen. I’m pretty sure everyone in our class had a crush on you one point or another.” He says with a shrug and happily kisses your cheek making your cheeks flush pink.“But sucks for them I stole your heart first.” He gives you a bright cheeky grin that makes your heart melt.“Geez Kenny…” You mutter embarrassed and hides into his chest. “You’re an idiot…” You grumble into his chest making him laugh again. Though you wouldn’t show him a soft smile crosses your face. 

#south park x reader #south park #kenny x reader #kenny mccormick #rich reader

[shoelacecollection]

Worst Nightmare

The Newdle’s got mites!

(You should expect this as a given with any new snake. Better safe than not.)

What do you do about mites? You get down to business. (TL;DR at the end.)

1) Quarantine, Quarantine, Quarantine!

Mites are the devil and can spread diseases from snake to snake in the same way that mosquitoes spread malaria. Whenever you bring a Newdle into the home, keep that man the hell away from all your other little buddies. A month will work for mites alone, but I’m a proponent of long-term quarantine of 6 months or greater if you can manage it, mostly for a little disease called Inclusion Body Disease, an invariably fatal, contagious monster of an illness which both Pythons and Boas are susceptible to. Don’t risk it!

2) Isolation and Cleaning of the Snake Itself

Regardless of whether you were quarantining or not, you’re gonna want to get the affected away from the rest of your animals right away -- and furthermore, assume that the entire rest of your collection is affected and proceed accordingly.

Take the infected animal(s) and give them a soak. They’re probably already soaking, because snakes sit in water to try and kill off their parasitic little friends -- but nonetheless put then into a ventilated bin and give them a soak. (Then when they foul the water, clean the whole entire thing and put them BACK in for the REAL soak.) Add a little betadine to the water after they’ve fouled the water, been put into new water, and had their fill of THAT water to help soothe all the bites. This won’t kill the mites, this is purely for the poor snake’s comfort because mite bites are like mosquito bites and clearly make the animal uncomfortable.

After they’ve had their soak, I recommend wiping them down with a product called Reptile Relief. It’s snake-safe and it can help kill off anything you miss. It’s about the only thing you can apply directly to an animal -- don’t even think of trying it with the other thing I’m about to mention.

3) Cleaning the Enclosure (and Everything Else)

While your snake is safely tucked away somewhere surrounded by paper towels covered in Reptile Relief to deter anything getting out of the bin (NE Herp does this to keep mites out of their fly colonies,) it’s time for the nuclear option on the enclosure itself. 

If there are other animals in this room, including feeder insects, get them out before you do this. Wear gloves, open the windows, and turn on the fan, because we’re dealing with some serious stuff now, and it can be fatal to small animals and make you sick your damn self.

Deep clean the enclosure in your usual method, making note that when you’re done you’re gonna be washing whatever you’re wearing on hot. Throw out anything porous -- sorry, but you’re not saving it now. Anything in there that’s got little cracks/crevices or isn’t made of hard plastic, glass, or metal is a lost cause. 

This is the nuclear option, but it’s time to go nuclear. Mites are no joke.

Once everything’s cleaned, either take it outside or put it somewhere with great ventilation. Protect yourself, too -- gloves, a mask if you got one, it’s not gonna kill you outright but you don’t want it on you.

Then spray every item except the water bowl down on all sides (though you don’t need much!) with a product called Provent-a-Mite. 

PAM is a miticide, it’s an insecticide for mites, and if you don’t like chemicals you’re just gonna have to move past that today. It’s long-lasting, and it will kill both the mites that exist, and the ones that are going to hatch out for the next few weeks. One can will last you for ages if used as directed, so it’s always good to keep it on hand... just in case.

While the enclosures are airing out, turn to the room itself. Spray the doors, the perimeter around each enclosure, and things like snake hooks and bedding or other soft materials where snakes might have been and deposited mites in the process. Don’t spray anything used in feeding like hemostats, tongs, or (god help you) a pinkie pump, or anything meant to hold your snake’s water, as you don’t want them ingesting this shit.

(If you already know what a Pinkie Pump is and what it’s for, you probably already know everything in this guide.)

Once that’s done, leave everything to air out for at least six hours, but go to twelve if you can. You do not want fumes hanging around.

4) Aftercare

You are going to need to be stringent in cleaning everything from here on out. To quote Mad-Eye Moody here for a second, CONSTANT VIGILANCE. Check everything. Toss sheds right away. Change clothes -- yes, really -- between handling the infested and the rest of your collection. We’re back in quarantine mode, folks, function over form, sterilization over decoration. Paper towels, two hides, water bowl, heat source. To add more gives the mites a place to potentially hide. Your snake will be fine in this setup until you can clear the room and the rest of your house as a mite-free zone.

Continue to clean as you regularly do. Fresh water every day, replace paper towels as needed, always check for mites. I recommend spraying more Reptile Relief once a week, but if using PAM you probably don’t have to do that. Do a complete teardown once a month and reapply PAM to at least the enclosure and fixtures, making sure to use the proper precautions when doing so.

Yes, it’s a lot of work. It’s a pain in the ass. But it’s better than the alternative, and it’s what our animals deserve.

Keep to the routine for at least three months after you stop seeing mites.  Do not take for granted that they are gone until you can be POSITIVE that they are gone, because it only takes one missed mite to start this whole ordeal over again.

5) Prevention is Worth an Ounce of Cure

Mites are scary, and the worst. What can you do to prevent them? 

Quarantining new arrivals is the biggest kindness you can give to your pets, folks. I cannot stress this enough. Even if the animal you get in is sick or mitey or otherwise ill, at least by quarantining them, you prevent the rest of your animals from winding up as sick as the poor new guy. Quarantine is the single best defense between one sick animal and nothing BUT sick animals. It’s worth the hassle.

Freezing substrates can also help, though, as can making sure you buy bedding from places that don’t generally carry animals. Mites are like ticks, and they can survive for a quite a while without food. Getting something where there aren’t any other animals simply decreases the risk of encountering mites in an already-healthy collection. Prophylactically spraying down bedding and new enclosures with PAM before you even set them up can be a great help to get a head-start on killing off any mites that might be coming into your house on an animal in the mail, too, and it really doesn’t take much to get the job done, so it’s a worthwhile endeavor in my opinion.

Feeding frozen-thawed can help, too -- but that’s not an option for everyone (lizard feeders, you have my sympathy.) For those who can do it (and that’s the majority of people who keep herps,) do it! It’s safer for everyone involved.

One more thing you can do, though don’t do it if you’re using PAM, is buy a bag of Hypoasis miles -- mites that eat mites. I’d only do this for people with sensitive animals like amphibians who can’t handle chemicals nearly as well -- especially since Hypoasis need high humidity environments to survive.. They’ll eat anything that lives on the surface of the soil and above, and they’re a self-limiting population that will feed on themselves if they run out of food. 1000% recommended if you have a problem in a planted vivarium or another setup that’s difficult to just tear down and put back together. (That said, they’re a little pricey!)

Afterword and TL;DR

At the end of the day, most keepers are probably going to run into mites at some point in their life. Whether you keep noodles, lizards, or something else entirely (’sup, backyard chicken community!), mites are the great equalizer, and even the best-kept animals still run the risk of mites or ticks. So it’s better to be prepared and aware of what to do ahead of time, rather than to frantically google it and wait days for fancy reptile products to get shipped to your home.

Don’t be the me of the past, and I hope no one ever needs this guide.

TL;DR

QUARANTINE so you don’t have this issue

ISOLATE if you have this issue anyway

CLEAN everything, snake, enclosure, the works

TREAT the snake, the bedding, the enclosure, the room

VENTILATE this step is important I’m serious

MONITOR the animal going forward

MAINTAIN the treatments for at least 3mo after the last seen mite

CONSTANT VIGILANCE

This has been my PSA on mites and what to do about them.

#mites #snake mites #care sheet #herpblr #petblr #snakeblr #what to do about snake mites #how to treat mites #how to treat snake mites #how to kill mites #kill mites #mite treatment #snake mite #mite #psa

[ladyhawk-s]

Are the Dog Days Really Over?

Relationships: Katsuki Bakugou/Ochako Uraraka Ochako, Bakugou Katsuki and Uraraka Ochako 

Characters: Katsuki Bakugou, Ochako Uraraka 

Rating: G+ 

Word Count: 12,170~

Summary: On Katsuki's one day off, he expected some serenity with a bit of spicy food and action packed movies. You know, the usual.But living with Ochako doesn't provide the usual and certainly not today with an unexpected new furry addition to their residence.

AN: FINALLY, yesterday I got off my lazy ass and edited this piece so I could post it. I won't lie you guys, when I first wrote it, I thought this was the best piece EVER. I was so proud of it and I couldn't wait to upload it. BOY was I wrong. I've really changed my writing style since this fic so it's really old (like...September old) and I didn't really feel like editing the whole thing since it's 12000+ so please be aware of that when reading!! Maybe in a few years I will go back and fix it up but in the meantime, I hope you guys like it!!  Also, I was going to dedicate this to someone but they blocked me 8') so I just decided to dedicate to every one in the Kacchako fandom. A lot of reasons have kept me away from contributing but you guys still create awesome content that reminds me why I love the ship and forget about what happened so thank you all! I have a bunch of Kacchako fics in store that will be written MUCH better than this so I hope this will sooth you guys over until then!!

Read at AO3 ; Read at FF.net

-------

The bright sun from the day beamed through the window, creating a natural light that brought an angelic glow into the small kitchen.

 Normally, Katsuki wouldn't be at home during the day time hours like this. Due to his immense skill and ability, he was called into work almost every single day, having to use his flames to defeat the gross amount of villains that would terrorize the city. His quirk was known to produce quick results so, along with Izuku Midoriya, they would team up together and conquer the streets together. By no means did they enjoy being in each other's company, in fact there's still slight tension and sarcasm thrown between them but their quirks were compatible enough to beat villains at an alarming rate so they sucked their pride in and just only allowed a few words to pass by them.

However, today was special in that the villain case involved more close intact spaces that required quirks that were designed for closer precision attacks rather than the explosive ones Katsuki and Izuku had. While both were able to perfect techniques that had sharp shooter styles, their quirks still weren't applicable enough for the job, leaving them a day off to do whatever their hearts contented. Izuku took the day to spend time with those around him, really cherishing the free time he had to explore areas he hadn't seen before and making memories that could be stamped on Facebook. Katsuki, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. His body lived for the excited energy of slamming villains against the cement floor, seeing their faces oozing out blood as their bodies burned and bubbled under the heat of his explosions. The adrenaline he gained from zooming through the rubble pumped through his veins and he loved the burn he gained from over exerting his muscles. Katsuki lived for activity and days like this made him feel restless. He already went on a run earlier in the day and he hit the gym afterwards to test out the weights but he still found himself bouncing up and down with pure energy, not resting until he got some motion in them.

 To get his mind off of his burning legs, Kastuki decided to find temporary residence in the small kitchen of his apartment, cooking up a recipe that he had been craving for a while now. It was one of his favorite dishes, full of a variety of different spices and flavors that left a tingling sensation on his tongue as it burned his taste buds. Every time he could feel explosions coursing through his mouth, feeling it was on fire as it tunneled down to his stomach but that was the way he enjoyed it. Others looked at him like he was crazy and that the neurons in his mind weren't firing right but in response, he would just flip them off and even eat the items they pushed off to the side.

 Katsuki was rapidly cutting the bell peppers in a swift motion when he suddenly heard the door open with small whispers attached to it. Perking up his ears, he stopped in mid cut, trying to identify what the sounds were. He completely froze his body like he did in battle to not mix sounds together and he could hear an all too familiar voice acting as if it was trying to keep a secret. Their words were intangible, mingling with each other as they tried to speak in a frantic voice, hoping that they wouldn't get caught. Curiously, Katsuki silently set down the knife and took light steps towards the voice, trying not to cause attention towards himself.

 Through the door frame, he could see Ochako, the other resident in the household, carrying an abnormally large duffel bag that slung awkwardly on her shoulder as it looked like she was talking to it while patting the fabric sides. The bag was bulky in nature, as if it was filled to the capacity with a variety of different items that protruded on the side, their shape being defined on the exterior. Yet, something was odd with this image. Not only was she using a duffel bag that she strictly used for large hero assignments that took several days, but the bag vibrated every time she whispered to it, almost as if it was responding to her hidden commands. Even her eyebrows furrowed in as she spoke, something she usually did when she was frustrated and trying to concentrate. Everything about her position right now confused Katsuki and his cautious instincts kicked in, ready to combat any force that would be emitted from her bag. His muscles tensed up and his stance was completely stable, veins protruding out from his skin as his blood ran wild.

 "Oi." Katsuki called out to Ochako, a slight growl emitting from his throat as he caught her distracted attention.

 At his growl, Ochako jumped back a little, her eyes widening in shock as she saw Kastuki looming in the door frame like he was a predator trying to catch his prey in complete silence. Unlike Katsuki, her scheduled varied based on availability, leaving her to either stay at home for days on end or find comfort on a marble floor between her breaks as they set up the next assignment for her. However, she knew Katsuki had a more rigid time table from leaving at the early morning sun to coming back at howls of the moonlight. It was a schedule that left a bitter taste in her mouth as she grew accustomed to it so it surprised her to see him standing there with an intimidating look smeared across his eyes. Time felt slightly frozen as she tried to readjust to the situation, though it took the rustling of her bag quickly snap her back.

 "Oh! Um...hi Bakugou! I didn't expect to you at home this early! What's going on? Is everything ok?" She rambled on, nervousness lining her words as her eyes slightly shifted around his face, looking for signs that would indicate his mood. Her bag continued to rustle even more under her arm, almost exuding rage like qualities in response to her lack of attention.

 Katsuki narrowed his eyes even further, his eyebrows furrowing more inwards while he gauged Ochako's actions. She seemed suspicious, as if she trapped her secrets in her bag and it was raging to come out. Shifting his gaze towards the bag, he analyzed the threads that were protruding out from this mysterious being inside, though it proved more difficult than he imagined since the fabric more opaque than he would have liked in this situation. From what he could see, it was bulky but also filled curves and whenever it would create bulges, they would be small little bumps that would look slightly tubular depending on the angle. After creating a few plausible guesses in his mind, he looked back at Ochako's now pale face and scrunched up his face even more. "What's in the bag?" He asked roughly, not hesitating for a second.

 Ochako took a step back in response, gulping her answer along with her guilt as she tried to formulate words to come out. "W-what are you-u talking about?? It's just my hero stuff that I always need. I'm not sure what you're talking about." she whistled out, her face giving off clear tell-tale signs that all she was capable of telling in this current state were covered up truths. Reflexively, she pulled her bag even closer to her chest, acting like she was protecting the presence that resided within there, and she crossed her opposite arm to place her hand the mysterious lump that was sticking out. Her pose even began to shift in one that was filled with defense and protection, as if she was fending off the bag from a villain who was after secret treasures that could change the fate of the universe.

 However, Katsuki wasn't buying it. Whatever was in that bag wasn't important enough for her to cover up her footsteps and he felt his irritation boiling up in his fiery veins. Picking up his heavy feet, he slowly trudged over to her, determination for the truth lining in his eyebrows. "Fucking liar. What's in the fucking bag!?" He roared out in his usual aggressive tone, his voice getting slightly louder as his annoyance grew. As soon as he got closer to her, even with her resisting maneuvers, Katsuki elongated his arm and reached for the bag. Despite Ochako's attempts to fend him off, he managed to grab onto the handles of her bag and tugged it closer to him, also slightly pulling Ochako down with him. Though, even he was rough his motions, Ochako still kept her determined look on her face while her feet gripped onto the floor and used the traction of her shoes to somewhat keep her stance. "Fucking! Fucking let go Round Face!" He began to roar out as he pulled harder, the stitches holding it all together breaking under his grasp.

 "N-no! Bakugou, s-stop!" Ochako heavily breathed out, her voice giving out under the immense amount of force she was using. Katsuki, ignoring her requests, continued to tug on the straps, grunts escaping his lips with each resistance Ochako put on him. Using a last measure on the man, she begrudgingly let go one of her hands to counter his on the handle and extended it outwards towards him, trying to grab onto him so she could activate her zero gravitational quirk. However, just as he maneuvered around her during the Sports Festival, the same thing occurred here as he shifted around, completely dodging her movements to make him levitate.

 They kept at this for a good solid minute with Katsuki bending his back in multitude directions to fend off Ochako's desperate attacks while tugging on the bag even tighter and with Ochako panting out her exhaustion as she tried to protect the contents in there. Due to their actions, they weren't able to notice the vibrations of the bag as it shook in fear, emitting slight noises through the thread with the hope it would be released soon.

 "I SAID FUCKING LET GO!" Katsuki barked out again, using all the air in his lungs to bellow out his voice as he pulled once more with immense force. Though, this time, he completely erased his limitations and instead yanked at it enough that he completely ripped off the straps of the bag. The whiplash caused the bodies to collide into each other, creating a small heap on the floor with the bag heavily dropping on the wooden floor, producing a large "thump" sound along with it.

 Katsuki and Ochako laid down on the cold floor for a few seconds, recoiling from the blow that had overtaken both of their heads. In the meanwhile, through the rip, a small, moving creature tore its way out, gnawing at the fabric to make the hole enough for its escape. Slowly but surely, he made his way out, placing each foot into the cold ground as he lifted his stumpy legs from his temporary imprisonment to make his way towards the fallen humans. Ochako was the first to prop herself up since Katsuki cushioned her blow and she was greeted with small licks to her mouth that left her to be a giggling mess.

 "Hey, stop that! It tickles!" she cooed out in her sing song voice, giving out small laughs that originated from her lungs. When she found her core once more, she swung her legs inward and sat up in a position that allowed for the little 4 legged being to come to her. Picking him up, she brought him close to her chest and gave kisses to the top of his head, not caring that small little pieces of hair were getting wedged in between her lips. His little pants matched the tempo of her loving noises and he dug himself deeper into her hug, embracing her hold and getting himself comfortable in his new mother's arms.

 Katsuki woke up to Ochako's inaudible murmurs and initially everything came off as blurry with colors mixing into each other as he tried to readjust himself after the hit to his head. However, his fast paced eyes quickly refined the Lines in his world and irritation set into his blood as he saw the scene unfolding in front of him. Right in front of him was Ochako holding a small, fluffy dog against her chest, caressing his spiked fur while he attacked her face with his millimeter tongue. While on the surface it was sight that should have been mass photographed, all the prerogatives of it flew around it and he began to count down all the faults, noticing first on Ochako's impulsive nature.

 "What the fuck is that thing!?" he snarled at her, completely knowing exactly what kind animal she was carrying but more asking in the realm of why even a creature like that was in the house to begin with.

 Ochako giggled at his question, completely oblivious behind the true meaning of his sharp words. "What a silly question Bakugou! He's obviously a cute little dog!" she said with a happy voice. She then shifted the dog in her arms so that way her hands cupped his little armpits while their faces met with each other's, his stumpy body extending downwards as his tail wagged heavily in happiness with looking at his new owner. "That's right, you're a cute little doggy, aren't you! Oh you're cutest of dogs! I could just eat you up, that's how cute you are!" Ochako purred out as her eyes squinted out of delight, treating the animal like he was her new born child. Between words, she brought his face close to her and amassed his face with kisses while she received soft licks against her skin in mutual admiration.

 Of course, that moment was short lived with Katsuki's explosive mannerisms. Using the muscles in his foundational stance, he quickly sat himself upright and stared intently at the duo while more and more questions began to pop in his head. "I can fucking see that, I mean what the fuck is that thing doing in my fucking house!?" He snarled at them, showing off his sharp teeth as they clenched tight against each other. Ochako was known to act impulsively and cross some lines while doing so, Katsuki even figured this out during their first match as freshmen, but this was even a situation that overstepped even his lowest expectations.

 Looking at Katsuki's reaction already sent a shiver down her spine and she gnawed at her bottom lip with doe eyes as she tried to come up with an explanation for the dog in her hands. Even though Katsuki seemed to be one driven with emotions at his constant barrage of words at others, he actually viewed things rationally and logically, using evidence around him to prove his point. He analyzed the situations he was placed in and based his actions around that, only acting impulsively if the situation allowed him to.  It was that in addition to his quirk that got him to claim one of the highest statuses in the professional hero realm and that logical mindset could be seen here despite his yelling and sparks that appeared on his palms as he spoke. Every argument Ochako came up, she could hear Katsuki's counter ringing in her ear and his intense stare left her a bit anxious to speak up. She tried to see how aggravated the lines in his face were to see what kind of reaction he would display but the only conclusion she could come up with is that he would spark in her face regardless so she may as well fess up with the truth and pray he would spare her life. "Well....you see...I was at work this morning and our mission today was more low scale, you know, I mean, it was still pretty serious but nothing compared to the villains we fought at UA, I would probably compare it to a maybe low scale Chisaki case with the whole yakuza aspect going on  and surprisingly with guns? I'm not too sure why since I'm sure they had quirks but-"

 "Get on with it, Round Face."

 "Right, right, anyways, we saw this kidnapped family and upon helping them, well, we came across this little guy!" she said as the dog shifted around in her arms, converting himself into a position where he could look at Katsuki with the same glittering eyes as Ochako. "We asked the family if he was theirs since he was locked up along with them but they said he was already there when they got there. After a bit of talking with them, we thought he belonged to the leader but no matter what, it still came down that he didn't have a home to go to. A few others in the team tried to take him with them but he kept growling and biting them, pretty much being an angry poof ball! I was the only one he was nice with so....I decided to bring him home!" With that, she brought the dogs face next to her own and they both shared the same look of happiness, their mouths open in wide smiles attached with goofy eyes. Then Ochako shifted her pupils to her furry friend as she used one of the hands holding him to scratch the skin underneath his soft, amassed fur. "It took me a while to come up with a name but I decided to name him Kacchan after you!"

 Katsuki's blood was already boiling from hearing this farfetched story but at the name, that's when hell froze and then burned to crisps under the flames of his metaphorical explosions. If she didn't already cross over many lines, she created more lines and even crossed over those as well. At this point, he couldn't tell if she was just messing around with him and pulling on his leg or if she was actually being serious, though at this point, given her stupid yet seemingly adorable face, it begrudgingly seemed to be the latter than the former. "Ha?! I'm nothing like that scrawny, piece of shit animal over there! Where the fuck did you see me in him?"

 At Katsuki's question, Ochako's face brightened a bit, relieved that he asked her something that has a more solid and understandable answer than the others she had to give him. She would be the first one to admit that this situation had ridiculous undertones but at least she could answer this one with more confidence. "Well everything about him is pretty much you, just in doggy form! I'm pretty sure he's a Pomeranian but his fur is as fluffy as yours and it's even the same ash blonde with white undertones like yours as well. Plus he's just as irritable and cranky as you-"

 "I'M NOT CRANKY OR IRRITABLE, THE FUCK?!!"

 "See! He gets angry just like that, though his barks are a bit more high pitched, but they still have the same explosive tone like yours!  And right now he's acting calmer since I'm here but he get can really mean, like he'll bite or growl if he doesn't like you. He's pretty much you at this point, I tried coming up with other names but Kacchan just kept rattling in my mind so I just decided to keep it." At the end of her sentence, Kacchan began to heavily wet her face with the saliva of his tongue kisses, making her beam in delight as soft giggles escaped from her lungs, creating a small melody that went in tune with his pants. It was as if Kacchan was her child and all Ochako could do for him was give him unconditional love under the shelter of their house. After a bit of their moment, Ochako looked back at Katsuki and held out Kacchan to him, her arms begging him to take the puppy out of her hands and into his. "C'mon Bakugou! You should hold him for a bit! His fur may look really rough but he's actually really soft!"

 "No fucking way." He immediately spat out, his eyes squinting in massive rejection. No matter how many times his eyes glanced over the puppy, each swipe always had the answer of No within them. Ochako was right in the sense that Kacchan was in the more ferocious end, that was easy to see just from one look at how he slightly barred his teeth at Katsuki. It was as if he was challenging his human counterpart in a battle for Ochako's attention and Katsuki's eyebrows itched in irritation at the dog's nonsensical fighting stance. A small line of red electricity flashed between their eyes as a streak of dominance jolted between, causing a metaphorical anime pre fight scene to commence between them.

 However, even though to the common eye their aggression was heavily apparent and prepping for a fight to ensue between them , Ochako's eyesight apparently needed work as she interpreted their behaviors in the complete opposite way than was intended. Her world was skewed in an optimistic way, seeing shades of love and unrequited feelings in certain situations that didn't belong there. Which was exactly how she saw this one too. For reasons unknown, possibly ones that involved trying to diffuse the situation, she saw their stare off as a ring of who would start the first move of affection, as if making the first move would result in a signature of weakness on their manliness. So, Ochako did the only thing she knew how to do (or at least believed so) and she tried to remedy the situation with giving a small crack in the ice that formed between. "Oh, c'mon! Don't be so passive aggressive! Here! Just try holding him!" she chirped to Katsuki as, despite his everlasting protests, she essentially shoved Kacchan into his arms and smiled as she saw the duo together in unison.

 Though, the scene in front of her wasn't as peaceful as the image that had formed in Ochako's mind. Within Kastuki's arms, Kacchan wriggled and thrashed everywhere, his body language screaming to be released from Katsuki's latched grip, though it proved futile for the dog as his arms only seeped into him more. Feeling the closeness more than he could handle, Kacchan found a piece of bare skin on the forearm holding him custody and he bite into it, his fangs seeped into the flesh that caused blood to drip out from his mouth. Even though Katsuki tried to shake him off, Kacchan's teeth practically became one with his arm and he even continued to stay on despite even being airborne with shakes for a bit. Small growls erupted from his mouth that coupled with colorful language that was being belted out from the human counterpart.

 Witnessing all of this, Ochako went into a frantic mode and immediately ran over to the attack, getting her hands in there. "Oh my god Bakugou!!" She said in response to his explosive curses that heavily ringed in her ear. Her trying-to-be-calm words countered his screams and it was a clash of ideals as Ochako tried to assist him while also having to dodge his flailing arms and the firecrackers that emitted from the sweat in his palms. After a melody of screams and not so pleasure language, she finally managed to rip Kacchan off of Katsuki, blood slightly spurting out of the fang marks as they left stains on his calloused skin. In her arms, Kacchan was quivering, showing his content to be back with his new mother as his tail waved rapidly back and forth while also showering her skin with wet kisses.

 Once everything had settled down, Ochako looked back at Katsuki, wincing while his words kept hitting back at her and slapping guilt onto her cheeks as every curse directed themselves towards her. When his fiery attitude sizzled down a bit, she managed to look back at him in a more proper standpoint and her eyes crinkled in worry as she saw the pool of blood collecting in his hand with the veins in his hand protruding out with the heightened pressure he was adding to his forearm.

 Her lips began to part to voice her concerned thoughts when Katsuki's head snapped back to her, his eyes gaining beast like qualities as a snarl escaped from his trachea with his teeth becoming more jagged as he looked at his prey. "Get rid of him." He commanded with fire, his voice somehow maintaining a calm level despite his teeth gritting into each other as he tried to not outwardly express the sheering pain he was in.

 "What? But Bakugou-!" Ochako began to protest, tensing up her muscles as she readied herself to tackle against his arguments when he interrupted her and allowing his impatience to flourish out.

 "Shut the fuck up already!" He screamed out to her, causing her to quickly shut her lips close together and look back with bulging eyes that slightly popped out from her skull. Even Kacchan seized the movement in his tail and took his focus from the safety of Ochako's cheeks to stare at Katsuki intently as well. "Look at what that shithead did to me!" He began to roar out as he took off his hand from his arm and shoved the bloody wound towards Ochako, making sure she can see his blood cells clotting around the deep wound that created an ombré sea of red. "He's a fucking monster and a demonic little SHIT STAIN that deserves to fucking die! I don't give a flying fuck on how you do it, take him to the pound, kill him, fucking feed him to Deku for all I care, JUST GET HIM OUT THIS GODDAMN HOUSE!" Pants began to escape from his throat as he zapped most of his energy to give those demands to Ochako. Fortunately, while most would have grown faint from a wound like this, Katsuki had dealt with enough gashes in his life that the pain wasn't as severe as it could have been but it still caused enough of a reaction that had him reeling back a bit, especially with his over exertion of his voice.

 "But he needs a good home Bakugou and I don't know if he'll get one if he's in a place like that. With his scary attitude and their week policy, there's no way anyone is going to adopt him or want him. I can’t even ask around to see if anyone wants him. It's not fair and he deserves a good home too. And he's a sweet little guy when you get past his fluffy, mean exterior." Ochako softly spoke out loud, bringing Kacchan closer to her chest as budding tears began to gloss over her eyes, slightly pushing the realm of crying.

  Yet, even though she had a wavering voice and her eyes were symbolizing weakness towards the animal, Katsuki's standpoint wouldn't budge, in fact it only solidified his resolve even more. However, even though he had words sticking out from every pore in his mouth, it was a rare sight to see her in that state. Most of the time, her cheeks would continue to radiate against her smile and would bring happiness even in the darkest of tunnels so to see her now with her cheeks dulling themselves out from the scrunched up face she was making, it tugged at Katsuki's heartstrings and he knew that he had tp control the firecrackers that were budding on the tip of his tongue. Sighing out his aggression, he got up from his twisted sitting position and looked down at the duo with tainted eyes that swirled in mixed feelings. Using the maturity that swelled calmness into his fiery personality over the years, he gave one last feat of exasperation. "Figure it out Uraraka. He needs to get out of this house as soon as fucking possible." Katsuki commanded sternly, making sure that his words weren't too harsh but also were inflicted with a lick of seriousness that would manipulate her movements to match his words.

 With a slight nod, Ochako clutched Kacchan further into her and kissed the top of his head as he whimpered his sorrows into the nape of her neck, as if he could see his fate being closed down on him. The two sat like that for a while, holding onto their souls, silently mourning their soon loss when they grew startled by the eruption of the phone ringing. While one minute Kacchan was a quiet creature, the minute the phone spoke out the incoming call, rumbles and growls slowly appeared until they transformed into loud and piercing barks that deafened the room for a small bit. Yet, even though his stance was ready to jump and pounce, Ochako held onto him more, making sure the only struggle he had was close to her and not on the furniture.

 As the rings continued to go on, Ochako looked back at Katsuki and gave him pleading eyes, gratitude shimmering in her eyes as they rounded themselves off and made her face turn into that of a doe that was face to face with the barrel to shotgun shoved in her face. Upon seeing those eyes rimmed with desperation, Katsuki decided redial the bullets that were rotating his irises and only grunted in response as he went to perform the not so pleasure deed. With a quick swipe of his arm, he placed the receiver right next to his ear and only responded with a harsh greeting as he listened intently to what the other individual was saying on the other end. Their words were jumbled and combined together with hints of urgency meshing in between their voice and it got to a point where he couldn't understand anything the mystery person was saying except for that they needed Ochako and if she was at home. "Yea, she is. Hold- I said fucking hold on....well if maybe if you kept your shit attitude close to you, maybe I could fucking finish what the fuck I was about to fucking say. Fuck you." He cursed out to the other person in the void of the phone before he whipped the phone away from his ear and shoved it towards Ochako, his tongue clicking against his teeth with his arm vibrating in annoyance and irritation.

 Slowly wiping her eyes to rid the current state she found herself in, she weakly grabbed it from him and placed it lightly against her ear, completely acting opposite on how Katsuki did. "Hello....yes this is Uraraka...." As the words spoken on the other end grew more frantic and kept hitting the plastic of the phone, Ochako became more stuff and tense, her throat beginning to close and itch as her eyes widened. The only thing she was able to communicate were slow nods that showed signs of understanding and worry. "Ok...I'll be right there.....The stations near there may be closed so it would take me a bit but I'll be there as soon as possible.....No, thank you for letting me know, if there's any way I can help, I will.....Alright, I'll be there soon....Bye." She spoke out softly, her voice coarse from the shock that she received and she felt her breaths growing heavier as she quickly pressed down on the ending call button and immediately set Kacchan down to crawl towards the contents of her fallen bag and start picking them up. In the midst of her quick rush to pack the contents back in, her eyes locked with Katsuki's and explanations began to spill out. "The agency that is connected with mine is having major issues. Villains infiltrated their underground base and I'm not sure what's fully gone on, I don't think people have died yet, but it's bad enough that some of my coworkers who were in there got turned into hostages. So they need me to go there and help out with the rescue, especially since my quirk can let me get rid of some blocked areas in a more quiet way." Ochako explained, though phrases would be cut off from pauses her thought process as she multi tasked her mind to not only talk to him but to prep herself for the oncoming battle. With throwing in the last of her stuff, she yanked the zipper closed, creating a loud zipping sound as she clenched onto the somewhat demolished straps and placed them on her shoulder with enough ease to not worsen their current state but with enough urgency to showcase her rushed nature.

 However, as she swiped her keys into her hands and walked towards the wooden front door, her body was stopped by the brawn nature of Katsuki's body that stood rigid in front of her path. Ochako stepped back, her eyebrows twitched together as her eyes scanned Katsuki in a desperate attempt to find an escape route through his muscular build. Just as Ochako was about to peep out her protesting words, Katsuki threw his arm into an upward side position, his fingers curled into a fist as his index finger stood out amongst the rest, pointing to the new friend that came into their life. "What about the demon fucker? Are you going to take him as a fucking side kick?" He asked in a hostile tone, his teeth gritting together as he patiently waited to see what kind of answer Ochako would give in response.

 Which she reacted in just the manner he expected. She slapped her two palms together and brought the prayer symbol close to her face as her eyes crinkled in her normal submissive behavior towards him. "Please Bakugou! Just this one favor for me?" Ochako pleaded with him, giving him the look of desperation as she just hoped this one time he would cooperate with her and actually do this small thing for her.

 Except her pleadings were for naught as he barred her teeth at her and little flames could be seen flaring from his nostrils in retaliation against her request. "What the fuck Uraraka?! No fucking way, I'm not looking after that shit stain while you prance around in your fucking hero costume. You want him to be supervised? Then do it your fucking yourself!" He screeched at her, his voice creating echoes in her ear with its higher pitch.

 "What? Bakugou, I'm not prancing around in my hero suit, I have an emergency to attend to and he can't come with me. Please, Bakugou, help me out for a bit. It'll only be for a few hours." She begged further, her knees buckling inwards to lower herself in a way that would show a sense of weakness to his dominant stance. It felt humiliating and defeating and something that her pride didn't want to indulge in but it was the only way that didn't include gravitation and her needing to engage in a combat battle that would have stolen all the stamina that was queuing up for her mission.

 Though, it only had the opposite effect as Katsuki puffed out his chest even more and elongated his neck, making his features more sharp as his jaw countered itself enough to look like it could kill with one slice. A deep, reddening fire flourished within his crimson irises as he looked down upon her, still not letting go his guard around her ever since she proved him wrong all those years ago. "Did you get fucking amnesia? Or did he suddenly bite your head off enough that it went soft? Look at what he fucking did to me!" he gnarled out, his lip curving up as he swung his arm around like a baseball bat and shoved it to Ochako so her eyes could rest upon the image of his battle wounds once again. "I'm not wasting another second with this fucker so you better fucking handle it!"

 His screams echoed in Ochako's ears as her face contorted to be one of pain. Her eyes shifted in confliction with the eternal debate of Katsuki and Kacchan and with every gnaw on her lip, a new thought would appear and tunnel her back to square one in the cube of confusion. It left her in a hole of confliction filled with respect for the parties involved and decisions were only in fleeting in nature, making her brain fizz in choices. However, with one last swipe at Kacchan, resolve filled her spirit and she turned back to the brute force known as Katsuki. Swallowing the buildup of fear down, her lips creased inwards as her eyes quickly drew down towards his chest, surveying his outlook. "I'm sorry Bakugou...." she quietly spoke out but the few seconds it took to reach Katsuki's ears were just enough for her to lung forward and smack her hands against the muscles that shaped his chest.

 Out of shock, he wasn't able to lurch out of the way quick enough and Katsuki's legs began to levitate as they released their gravity to Ochako. "What the fuck!?" He screeched, finding himself floating higher and higher. Whipping his head down, he latched his gaze onto Ochako's and flashes ignited in his eyes as he began to curse out all the obscenities in the dictionary. "Fucking put me down Round Face! This fucking isn't funny!"

 The rushing nature of the situation suppressed the laughter that would have normally bubbled out in Ochako's lungs and before guilt could scratch at her conscious, she quickly sprinted to the door, acid burning the back of her throat with every step she took. Pulling on the door fast enough that the hinges creaked out their rustiness, she took her foot outside, released him by pressing her pads together and saying a small "Release,", then got the approval to run when she saw his body crash onto the wooden floor. A small sound of apology could be heard with her rushed expression and the door signaled her complete exit with its deafening slam as the lock clicked back in place.

 Groaning, Katsuki rubbed his thigh as he reanimated his corpse back to life, sores aching throughout his body as the whiplash of the fall rippled out. His spine cracked when he pushed his back upwards, readjusting his focus to create more solid lines on the objects surrounding him. Everything had a tilted stance and a small rumble escaped his lips that matched the massages on his temple from his rugged palm. However, in the midst of redefinition, a small blob of yellow traveled to him, little clicks tailgating their steps as they got closer and closer to Katsuki. Squints revealed Kacchan making his way towards the fallen Katsuki and getting a little close to his disliking as his fur grazed the fabric covering his jeans. Out of disdain, Kastuki shook his leg away from the four legged beast that had sharper teeth then Eijirou and crossed them together as he pushed himself upwards into a sitting position. Scowling at this foe's constant licking of tongues, he kicked himself off the floor and curved his back behind before snapping it downwards in a condensing 75 degree angle. "What the fuck do you want? A fucking round two?"  With only a wag of his curled tail in response, Katsuki snarled at Kacchan upwardly curved lip. "Fuck off then!" He shouted as he pushed the canine away with his foot, making him slightly flop over to allow a path to be cleared to get back to the chopped vegetables on the counter in the kitchen. Placing the knife back in his hands, horizontal stabs began to crease the peppers once again, creating thin slices with slight jagged edges that came from his irritated stance.

 Grunting at the cuts he was carving into the vegetables, his mind tunneled into an action packed vortex where strategic plans and potential new moves sharpened his mind and left him to focus on the fresh pieces of food in front of him. His mind fell into a black hole and his focus tunneled into itself to a point that a yelp of shock escaped his throat when he felt small wet stains on his legs. Dropping his knife that created a clattered clink on the floor, Katsuki swung his torso around to see the hound of his nightmares sticking by his heels as his pink tongue brushed against his skin, giving acidic wet streaks against his roughened skin. "What the fuck!? Did I not tell you to fuck off!?" Katsuki screeched out, as he wiggled his leg away from Kacchan, almost hitting his snout in the process. Kacchan, with aggravated and annoyed creases, snarled back before nipping his ankle with his sharpened teeth. Giving out a curse with growled undertones, Kacchan whisked himself away, his unclipped nails leaving little ticks as he pranced out of the kitchen into adjacent room. Even though explosions got caught in his throat, he decided to gulp in down and let it ruminate with the acid that was bubbling in his stomach. Hatred and annoyance created a sharp pain that hit him in the gut and he hoped that the food he was mixing and cooking would settle it all down.

 After a millennia passed, he pour the mixture into one of the frilly plates Ochako had insisted on purchasing when habitual living came about and added the last minute garnishes of sauce and spice to really kick in the flavor against his buds. Sticking the fork with the rest of vegetables and rice, Katsuki threw the used and useless utensils into the sink before kicking his feet off to meet with the couch he shared his meals with. However, the calmer expression that had reflected on his face soon morphed back into his typical raging face as he saw Kacchan terrorizing his own space. And it wasn't even just that as well, the blankets that Katsuki had used for comfort were being ruffled by that devious canine as he circled to find his preferred position, making threads pull out under the claws of his paws.

 Anger flushed Katsuki's face as he gripped onto his bowl tighter to keep the contents inside the bowl that was already beginning to form cracks under his pressured fingers. His eyes twitched as he saw Kacchan continuously rolling around, sewn threads demolished under his nails. "Oi oi oi!" Katsuki began to call out as he trudged over to the tiny villain, smashing the bowl onto the nearby coffee table before he loomed over him. "When I told you to fuck off, I didn't tell you to fuck off here! Now get the fuck off!" Katsuki screamed as he grabbed the waist of Kacchan, that unfortunately was met with another bite and harsh words, and threw him onto the ground. Not even bothering to check the state of the creature he dominated, he swished his hand around in front of his crimson orbs, assessing the damage he took once again. Determining it was only as bad as a bee sting this time around, Katsuki went back to adjusting the blankets to his liking, forming them so the rougher, woolen one was cushioning the sticky texture of the leather with the threaded, soft one on top to cover him in a sense warmth. However, the mere few seconds he decided to turn his head away gave enough grief as a loud crash shattered onto their wooden floor.

 Time seemed to freeze on Katsuki's end, making his hands stick in the same folding position before his neck joints began to add functionality once again and he cracked his neck around to see Ochako's bowl into tiny fragments with his food sprawled all over the table and seeping into the floor. Surprise shook in Katsuki's muscles as his fingers began to twitch in anger before his back heavily straightened and stormed over to the culprit who was casually licking the contents spewed on the floor. "The fuck!? Do you think this is fucking funny to you!?" Katsuki bellowed out, anger seeping through his teeth as his crimson irises met with Kacchan's. Yet, while most would shake in fear from Katsuki's menacing glare, Kacchan just continued to stare, his puffy tail swishing back and forth before he then turned back to the meal he believed he was given. It was as if he gave zero cares to Katsuki's demeanor.

 Irritability seethed through Katsuki's teeth as his eyes continued to drill themselves into the scene, the desire to strangle both Kacchan and Ochako building up within his spleen. Huffing out the steam strewing in his bloodstream, eyes rolled as he walked over back to the kitchen to unwillingly retrieve the cleaning supplies since he could hear the ringing of Ochako's whines within his earlobes.  

 With the rags and spray clasped between his fingers, he clumped his feet back to the scene of the crime before deja vu slapped him back on the face, making his face return back to the distorted expression from before. Possibly even worse as he eyed Kacchan rubbing his back into the gloppy mess on the floor, spreading the contents from the surface deeper into the carpet.  Little growls of relief emitted from his toothy grin as his body wiggled against the slop, scratching the itchy patches of fur against the pricks of the shaggy carpet. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING YOU FUCKING STUPID ANIMAL!?" Katsuki cursed out as he ran towards where Kacchan was to only having to be stopped in his track by the dog's flipped position. With his paws lying forward, his teeth protruded out as he stuck his rear in the air, clear sign of playing around with the human companion. "What the fuck are you doing!?" He screamed out once again when he took a step forward, causing his opponent to do a small little jump back as well. Suddenly, a competitive nerve burst in Katsuki as a click was felt in his mind and a demonic grin latched onto his face. "Oh is that how you're going to fucking do it huh?" With whippings of Kacchan's tail and a gruff of noise cursing out of his mouth, Katsuki took that as an acceptance of the air challenge that formed between them. "Alright fucking bring it!"

 Accompanying his starting, Kacchan's nails skidded on the floor as he sped throughout the house, the attached food to his paws leaving trail marks on carpet with each zigzagged zoom. Following the same feat, Katsuki began to chase after him, colorful language booming out in the same moments where he knocked into the walls out of clumsiness to get the little furry creatures. And oh boy did Kacchan move fast; his stumpy legs knew how to jump and slide under pieces of their furniture, making Katsuki believe he had him trapped until he saw a blurry figure crisp through his legs, making Katsuki twist and turn to see where he went off this time. Fortunately, the little train tracks of food got Katsuki to sniff out his new location but even the warrior in the wonder duo was facing his toughest opponent to date. Even All Might's punches to the gut back as a teenager seemed to be much easier to have a handle on than this little 4 foot beast scurrying his way around the house.

 However, soon Kacchan's official location was finally revealed when vibrations of his whines emerged from the living room. A small shiver of chill crawled up Katsuki's spine as his feet grew stuck to the carpet flooring they found themselves in, trying to gauge the noise Kacchan was making. The tunnels of his ears cleared as he allowed the noises to mix in, making sense of what kind of yelping Kacchan was forming. It was one of immense pain, as if he was screaming in his own language for immediate help. The whimpers grew to be more grange and gnarly and Katsuki's heroic legs quickly moved themselves to play the role of a hero to help the hurt animal. Entering into the living room, his throat tightened up as he saw the scene of the victim mangled into bits.

 To be less exaggerated, Katsuki wasn't aware of the circumstances or how it got to this point since his ears had been rumbled with adrenaline but what he saw made his calloused fingers fill with an unusual sweat that panicked him slightly. Somehow Kacchan managed to hit against the table of memories (or at least how Ochako decided to name it) and a special vase that was gifted by Katsuki's mother, containing a special charm that relaxed him, found itself shattered on the floor, bits and pieces sticking out as the meshed colors scattered across the ground. Fragments of all kinds sprinkled around, some visible to the eye, other more minuscule that one would have to strain their eyes to see. However, the pieces that were obtruding out of Katsuki’s eyes were visible enough that he could see swirls of blue and yellow being mixed in with the liquid of red that signaled for immediate attention. Looking at his arrival, Kacchan recalibrate his eyes back to Katsuki and a little shimmer of water glossed over them as whimpers of avail whistled through his sharp teeth.

 "Fucking Christ.....you can never keep your shit to yourself huh?" Katsuki muttered under his breath, still continuing his cursing barrage as he side stepped the damage and went to the bathroom to get all the human supplies that could help with a wound. Fortunately, with being a hero, all kinds of detrimental things happen on the daily so Katsuki even had the skill set to be able to revive a heart back to conscious. Which is why, glass being stabbed into Kacchan's paw wasn't too much of a dilemma for him, the only thing hesitating him were the differences in species. But he could worry about that with Ochako later. Right now, it was sewing time.

 Pulling out the tweezers and small scissors from the restroom drawer and digging through the cupboard for the healing products, he returned back to the yelping puppy and grabbed onto the paw that was damaged and oozing blood. Kacchan gave Katsuki quivering eyes as he swiveled the paw around, assessing how rooted the fragment of ceramic was lodged in. Noticing that it was only in enough to cause major discomfort but not enough to decimate his walking ability on his pads, Katsuki cleared his throat as he placed the tweezers in between his fingers and carefully gnawed out the piece, listening to the heavy pants that escaped onto Kacchan's tongue. With immense concentration, Katsuki used the metallic tweezers to latch onto the tip and picked at the ceramic bit by bit, moving it slowly around so it would unlatch itself from the pads. Teetering it back and forth, using semi horizontal movements to get the desired result, eventually it loosened to a point where then Katsuki threw the tweezers to the side and used his nails to grip at the edge to pull it out of it socket. Blood began to splatter out, getting drops of the darkened fluid on his shirt as it continued to spill all over the tiny foot and Katsuki's finger tips, leaving a messy trial of the vital fluid.

 Ignoring the howls that shrilled out of Kacchan, he continued on his process, calmness radiating through his mind as he worked as swift as possible. A rag that Katsuki pulled from the cupboard soon found itself pressed against the battle scar, hemorrhaging the wound to allow clots to form around it. During the painful minutes it took to make the bleeding stop soaking the rag from underneath him, Katsuki rubbed his furry neck, giving soothing and reassuring words that brought strength to Kacchan's lower quivering jaw. With passage of time and constant checks of the rag to see if the pressure worked, soon the blotches grew small enough to the point of nonexistence and immediately another cloth with disinfectant rubbed itself on the wound, fending off the potential germs that could seep in. Burns and sizzles emerged from the rag and Kacchan gave out hisses as the fiery substance worked itself into cut and fighting against the battles of infection. Rubbing the remaining in, he tossed away the clear soaked rag away and turned the paw within the tips of his fingers to see if stitches were needed. Determining that wasn't the case, he grabbed a flimsy piece of gauze and compressed it down while twirling the medical tape around to keep his work all in one place. Inspecting the finer details of his labor, he gave a grunt of approval before setting the paw down delicately and leaning to meet the panting dog on the side. "There ya go, you little shit. You gotta be more fucking careful or else shit like this will happen again. Got it?" He lectured the canine, allowing the widened smile with a tongue out to be a good enough acceptance from him. "Fucking alright then, can't have you hurt again." Katsuki said in a softer tone as he picked Kacchan up by under the arm pits, carrying him like a human child as he then rested him on top of the nest he was creating until confusion occurred. Settling him down softly so his body curled up into a donut shape, Katsuki loomed over him, his gaze softening against the widened eyes that were looking up at him. "Stay here, I'll be back soon." He responded with a tinge of sweetness as he gave Kacchan one last look before cleaning up the mess.

 Bit by bit, things were put back in its proper place, finding their homes back in the cupboards where their clear spaces in the dust made room from them. All that Katsuki could speak were in the languages of sighes, wondering how his one day off turned into this catastrophic mess with a dog he didn't even imagine would come in of all days. But of course, what did he expect from the gravitational girl that also resided in the house? Since they fought in the arena, she kept him on his toes, using the expected to create the unexpected. Deep down inside, he had imagined a somewhat peaceful day where spicy food could be the only thing that divulged in his fiery nature but in actuality, he was now on his knees cleaning up a mess that could have only happened in his wildest of dreams.

 Once the house looked somewhat how it did when Ochako ran out, Katsuki dug his fingers into the roots of his hips, teetering of the balls of his feet as he looked in the peripherals of his surroundings, now questioning what to do with himself. The one plan that had really stuck in his mind found itself stained on the ground so that idea completely threw itself out the window in a flash. Ideas ran through his mind yet, even though he wanted to do all of them, a feat of exhaustion flew into his muscles and everything that mingled in his mind felt unappealing and redundant. Then, twisting his body around, he locked his ruby textured eyes with Kacchan's similar ones, exchanging a look of serenity and company. With the way he was positioned in the nest of blankets, the angry and carnivorous vibe he had earlier was swiped away and replaced with a formidable pet that just wanted to receive love. Something that Katsuki could relate to in his former memories.

 Digging his fingers more into the skin of hips, he dropped his head down, let out a deepened sigh before bringing it back up and looked at the dog, locking eyes with him. "You can't just leave me alone for 10 fucking seconds, huh?" He retorted back but with a more playful undertone as he smirked back at Kacchan, feeling a somewhat new connection with his former enemy. With the throbbing of his bite marks fading and stitching itself together with the paw's injuries, Katsuki plodded himself over to the couch and slumped his rear down, sinking into the cushions of the couch. Picking up the remote that slid into a diagonal position, he illuminated the high definition screen and flipped through the channels, one thumb pressing the down key, the other hand unconsciously occupied by resting itself on the top of Kacchan's protruding fur, his fingers getting lost within his golden hair.

 Settling down on a program full with loud screams and red undertones as two men dueled it out with bloodstains on their clothing, Katsuki set down the remote with small clank on the table and leaned further into the couch. As if his eyes were magnetized the screen, scenes of the movie swirled into his pupils as he continued to look on, only blinking when he felt his eyes slightly watering from the strain of keeping them open. Invested so much into the action, he couldn't even feel the way Kacchan's tail was fanning against the side of his waist as his mouth turned upwards with his tongue sticking out, panting out the same excitement that crossed on Katsuki's face. Both looks contained pallets of captivation as gore splattered across the pixelated monitor, barks of orders and parkour enticing the actors while they continued on the plot with kicks and dislocated joints.

 Spellbound by the menagerie of performances that depicted action, betrayal, and even occasional spouts of romance that were met with repulsed looks from the duo, the outside world blurred within their peripherals as the television messed with their internal clocks. Nothing brought them out of that state until they heard a small little click with a flash blinding their visuals. After giving yelps of pain and smudging the black dots away that were popping up in between the shades of color, soon, the perpetrator appeared in front of them. It was Ochako, bruises splattering across her arms and neck from the damages her selfless rescue caused and her silhouette was shadowed on the ground from the lamp switches that were flicked on due to the darkened night that seeped through their familiar window. Yet, even though a black eye covered the purity of her rounded features, tightening up the muscles by the opening with a mixture of dark colorations, it still crinkled in happiness as her rosy cheeks brightened under the small smile that spread across her face. Her delicate fingers wrapped themselves around the phone in front of her chest, creating clicking sounds with her thumb as she created more blackmail with the fine tunings of her camera.

 "The fuck are you doing!? Aren't you supposed to be doing some hero shit or something!?" Katsuki retorted out, his body scooting forward to pounce on her to rip that phone from her nimble fingers. A slight blush appeared on his already reddening face though his hand still remained on Kacchan's golden fur, not even trying to cover the tracks of his sudden attachment to the dog he asked to kick out earlier. Even Katsuki could feel Kacchan reacting the same way as his body tensed at his savior.

 "Yea but the rescue team finished their work a bit earlier than normal plus," she said with grin as she glided over to the draped windows and yanked them apart to reveal the darkened sky with little bulbs of light sprinkling across it. Katsuki's eyes widened as he stared at the crystalline night sky, completely in shock on how time slid through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. "It's completely dark outside! Last time I checked it was almost midnight as well!"

 For Katsuki, it only felt he was on the couch next to his fur rival for an hour, possibly less but Ochako revealed the proof of it being more and twisting his head towards their clock affirmed her words. Even Kacchan's mouth opened up and his tongue rolled out in between his teeth as his head bobbed back and forth between the two differing faces.

 "It seems as if you guys are getting along though!" Ochako said as she shattered the silence that formed in the room, looking at the duo with a smirk on her face as small laughter erupted from the depths of her diaphragm. Her eyes crinkled at the image that appeared in front of her as she saw past Katsuki's artificial stance and looked at the true image of care that was painted with their closeness.

 "The fuck!? No! Only in your fucking imagination Round Face!" Katsuki spat out, removing his hand immediately from Kacchan and raising himself from the couch as he contracted towards Ochako with clenched fists accompanying his sides. His face reverted back to the one of earlier yet this time there was a glow of softness that wasn't apparent before, reducing his contorted features to be those of a lie.

  "That's not what I'm seeing!" Ochako continued to tease, rocking back and forth on her buoyant feet that carried a bantering tone. With her tuffs bouncing close and waving towards her face, she pulled out the gallery of evidence and shoved the clearest photo of their affection into his face. "Last time I checked Bakugou, a picture is worth a thousand words, isn't it?" She teased towards him, giving him a grin that was filled with content and vibrancy but also leaking with slight sinister vibes that contained motives Katsuki knew he wouldn't enjoy.

 With tension seen in the veins popping through the outer skin of his fists, Katsuki's mouth twitched at Ochako's prancing as she continued to shove his true emotions down his throat. He wasn't going to lie, he had grown an affinity for the small creature. The way he looked at him with pleading eyes as if he was his only savior, the way he enjoyed the flying of guts being spewed on a TV screen, the way he placed his elongated chin against Katsuki's thighs when his eyes started to get droopy, all these things made the flame in his heart tenderize and a bond started to form underneath the tip of his nose. Yet, he wasn't going to let that slip out to Ochako anytime soon. "Oh I know what that picture is saying and it's saying that that phone should be fucking burned Round Face!" He grumbled out as he lunged towards the object in her hand, ready to smash it into smithereens under the pads of his fingers.

 However, despite her coming back from battle and bruised in major areas, Ochako was still able to maneuver with grace as she spun away from his heated grasps. With each step Katsuki took, Ochako took a defensive one back as a smug look appeared on her face in retaliation to the flustered twitches that plagued the edges of his face. To an outsider, it looked like a dance of twisting personalities that spiraled together with a common theme of a phone being held above like a victorious trophy. Even Kacchan felt the excitement between their compatible feet and, with his flag tail whipping back and forth, he jumped from the couch and joined the frenzy with small jumps and little yips. It was a whirlwind of dancing feet of all kinds and no matter how desperate Katsuki fought to grab the phone, Ochako would just refute the action with her own.

 "C'mon Uraraka! Give that fucking phone to me!"

 "Hmmm let me think about it.....NOPE!" She said with a devilish smirk plastered on her skin as her reddening cheeks became more daring with a redder shade blossoming out. "I actually was thinking about framing it as way to show how affectionate you can really be Bakugou!" Ochako added with a small tongue sticking out to get him riled up even more.

 A huge scowl curved down on his lips with a roughing noise escaping through the clenching of his teeth. "Why you..." He managed to bark out before beginning to aim harder at her operations, even going as far to use a hand to pull down the shoulder, aiming up to bring it down.

 "Hey that's cheating Bakugou!" Ochako whined, her cheeks puffing out at the pressure that she felt on her shoulder as it buckled her knees down slightly. However, that still didn't leave her taunting appeal as a smug look twisted her features. "Well, you remember how UA dealt with cheaters, right?" And before Katsuki could realize what she was doing, she brought her free hand upwards and slapped the phone with it, causing her cat like pads to illuminate in a pink glow. Slowly, her phone began to levitate, reaching the top of the ceiling as Ochako brought her signature hands downwards. Little mumbles of hurt could be heard in the back of her throat as her neck held itself back, looking at the flow of where it was traveling in the air.

 In utter shock, Katsuki stood still for a few seconds, his muscles palpitating as they gave small spasms of anger at the cunning move Ochako had pulled. However, control soon returned back to him and his features convulsed as he tried not to rip her into shreds in that exact moment. "Fucking! The fuck!? What the living fuck Uraraka!? Holy fuck! You'll regret it once I get my hands on that fucking phone!?" Katsuki screamed out as he began tromping around the floor, moving chairs around to see if he could elongate his reach to grab the phone. Yet, no matter how close his fingertips got to get it into his grasps, he could hear little squeaks from Ochako as she maneuvered the phone around, making sure it's lack of gravity kept itself away from the explosive danger Katsuki was going to impose on it.

 Once the device floated a sizable distance away from him, Ochako staggered back, still keeping her eye on it as her feet moved backwards. "Re..Release!" She said with a quivering voice as she calculated the distance and caught the phone right in between her hands. Though, that movement had her feet slightly collide into each other and Ochako found herself stumbling backwards to recalibrate her balance and make sure neither her or the phone found itself on the ground. However, as soon as she regained her equilibrium, a loud squeak rippled in the air that was followed by an even louder squeak, though it had more of the soundings of an exasperated gasp.

 Looking down, Ochako's eyes immediately downturned as she saw her foot pressing against Kacchan's hurt paw, his eyes turning glossy as he whined for the sheering pain to be released. "Oh my gosh Kacchan! I'm so sorry!" She immediately said as she lifted her foot away from his smaller one, jumping on the more grounded one, trying to get away from the injured dog. Once she core stabilized itself again, she immediately plunged herself downwards, ready to pick him up and have him lay in her curved arms. "Come here baby, oh I'm so sorry! Let mommy pic-"

 However, before she could even grab Kacchan, a hiss sounded right next to her as two beefed arms swiped him away, cradling the dog into the crevices that were created in the spaces. Coddles and coos were pressed against his ear as Ochako looked up to see Katsuki purring into his fur while using his free fingers to scratch Kacchan's skin to cause a tongue pouring out. Licks began to mark up Kastukis arm as they bonded over the care he poured into the furry creature. Though, as soon as Ochako shifted her posture a bit, Katsuki's head whipped towards her direction and his canines cross hatched into each other with a ray of red lighting zooming within his crimson irises. "The fuck did you fucking do you fucking gravitational bitch!? Are you so used to the air that you fucking forgot you are a fucking clutz on the ground now? Like the fuck, he was standing fucking right there, vulnerable as shit given his fucking foot wound and you just had to stomp all over him as if he's a fucking toy and you have no respect towards injured people and I hope you- THE FUCK YOU LAUGHING AT!?" He screeched as he halted his hate filled monologue with a response to the slight laughter Ochako was trying to cover up with her hand pressed against her mouth.

 "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She breathed out in between laughs, each time trying to stop the flow but flubbing up once more and continued to giggle under tears dropping down from her cheeks. Breathing heavily to regain her ability to structure sentences once again, she began to cough out the last remaining bits of laughter withheld in her voice before she tried to explain herself. "It’s just....it’s just earlier you were acting as if Kacchan was a spawn of Satan and you wanted him gone but now you're acting as if he's your child! Just like a good father!" Ochako said with brilliance, her eyes crinkling in enjoyment as her two hands clapped together in front of her ecstatic smile. Standing up from her kneeled position, she walked closer to the duo and gave small whispers of love to the dog Katsuki had clutched into his arms as she rubbed his pointed ears together. "It's as if we became a huge happy family with you as the dad, me as the mom, and Kacchan as the son!" She said cheerily as she snuggled closer to Kacchan's nose.

 However, hearing the words family, son, father, turned Kastuki's face into a beet red color as he became a fuddled mess of a being that had his muscles trembling. Even though he was a grown adult with a more than stable job and could properly function in the harsh realms of the adult world, those words were still too mature for his liking and stuff that never even crossed his mind before. The idea of being a father, even to a mere animal like Kacchan, blew his mind into crackles of explosions and spirals twirled in his eyes as he tried to wrap his thoughts around those ideas. Did protectiveness and sudden onset of adoration mean that he had those qualities? He certainly didn't think so but then he flashed back to his younger days when his quirk would incinerate certain pieces of furniture and how, even though he gained injury, his parents would still love him and cradle him in their arms after he kept his frowning face. Memories began to parallel with his current mindset and Katsuki felt himself entering into a reddening fog that made his sentences jumble.

 Before he could object to any of Ochako's sudden statements, clicks of a selfie sided phone began to burst into his ears as his focus suddenly pulled itself out of his daze and saw Ochako taking photos of all of them together. "Say cheese!" She said in the photo as her mouth quickly upturned into a smile with a peace sign pressed against her cheek, continuing to take photos. Katsuki began to protest and wiggle around the camera's line of view but Ochako would just keep hoping around to make sure they all fit in the frame. Soon, her harassment stopped and she stood still while her index finger ran through the photos, laughter flourishing out as she continued to spy on them. Just as Katsuki was about to repeat his question from earlier, Ochako shoved her phone right back into his face. The pixels on the image formed mixtures of colors to show Ochako with an ecstatic laughter while Katsuki had his open mouth in his signature roughened expression as Kacchan wiggled around in his arms, licking the skin on his owner's arms. "See Bakugou! We look just like a family! Man I should get this developed and framed so we can put it somewhere...." Ochako muttered to herself as her feet teetered away from Katsuki, getting lost in her own world as her thumbs zoomed into each photo, analyzing each aspect with slight mutters that were only audible to herself.

 Katsuki stood still with trembles quivering through his muscles as he continued to be shook by Ochako's phrasing with the photos. Lava soared in his veins and it took the attentive licks of Kacchan in order for the heat to boil out and erupt out in explosive fire. From the outside, the interior through the window became a sea of reddening oranges and yellows that followed with barks, high pitched squeals that had a sweet sound of happiness in there, and loud confused roars that were filled with maddening blushes.

#kacchako #bakuraka #katsuki bakugou #uraraka ochako #kacchan #katsuki as a dog #kacchako fic #bnha #mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #katsuki bakugou x uraraka ochako #bakugou x uraraka #katsuki x ochako #urabaku #katsuocha

[the-firebird69]

And we put this in people's minds dewey cocks taught my husband to walk hard and to carry a big stick.

So we have this great idea and you can put monster statues up and we make them like sideshow.com does but we don't put people or anything in them and you can put them up and some of them move and some make noises and some of them say stuff and all replicas and they're wonderfully fun and there's all sorts of talking points and moving clothing and all of it is online we have a ton of it already because of demand and we can pump it out fast but he says you can make up your own design based on the motif you want but we're going to have motifs for sale and one of them will be the Pan Pacific defense Corp and it's going to have all sorts of Cajun stuff and cajun things for you to look at and it is going to tie into the actual Pan Pacific website which is up and running because we have it and we put sightings that people send in and it's not us verifying it but some of it's accurate a lot of it is accurate and there's a lot of products and for sale on there that occasion orientated and actually EXO suits and really cool stuff they're professional grade they're not real thick armor but they will deflect all lead bullets so you can walk into any police station practically not that we're saying you said but you could if you were say bja.

The music and everything is there and kaiju you food and treat menu and you can order it from SIM and it comes Frozen and they drop it off at your house and make sure that you get it or it's actually in a package that will last a few days still frozen I'll send you emails and texts.

Yes even in Florida and a special KJ food by the way huge beef ribs all sorts of weird stuff that you people like to do and alcohols and liquors and drinks and all of the special Cajun drinks that we have come up with you can order and you can put them in there especially made cooler system which is really a big fridge made to hold that stuff and there's a reheat facility place and everything on your entertainment center if we have a movie screen some of the movie screens are huge by the way gigantic some of them are very very big and some of them are made for condo complexes and apartments and we put them in this morning in many of them and they went berserk watching movies the things are really really high tech and you can have 3D movies out of 2D ones and it's surround sound and the chairs recline and you can fall asleep quite easily and people can't hear you because they have their own speakers and everybody was just astounded in the condo facility and they want to pay more fees and we wouldn't let him we said we're maintaining it with income from fees already have and we have plenty of money to do it and they were astounded they were just very happy with it and tons of people argue over which movie to watch and recent releases are out there and we're working on getting rights to show recent releases maybe not ones that are still in the movie theater but ones that recently went to CD and we're going to try and get movie theater ones in we're going to push for that and people who make the movies might because you see it in the condo complex with 5,000 people and some of our condos have 20,000 people the largest one we have is a million and all of them would see the movies and it'd be more than one theater of course and they come in modular sections we just drop it in and its operational John Travolta wants to win so I'm asking him which one he wants and he says the biggest and that's it it's like an amphitheater and it's half the size of football stadium so he says about half that so okay so we're on the line with him and he's ordering a whole bunch of people from Hollywood are they never heard of anything like what we're talking about and we want to mention it but we might not want to because it could be annoying according to Mac but we have a full suite of now please please my husband doesn't know anything about this Star Trek entertainment center areas and it's all tricky stuff and everything is run in the entertainment center and your BMS of the house from the control center which is in your entertainment center and it does turn into the deck of the Enterprise and also a meeting room and that's the mid-sized one it's pretty big and there's other sizes that turn into the new ship the gigantic I don't know what's it called aggressorship or every time with names you too no the Bismarck no it's not the Bismarck juggernaut no come on Travolta you're a pilot.. no I don't know it Chris how's Justin the aggressor something like that and we have it that it some of them look like it on the outside but that's just for people are nuts. Huge huge buildings are on the condo ones it's just a gigantic amphitheater and it's actually literally half the size of a smaller football stadium with a u facing the humongous screen which is glorious screen you can see it from any angle and it's Crystal clear and tons of people go and see movies we tried it out we only had like two in a condo complexes and it is attracts huge crowds from other places they all want to buy condos there and they want to buy a condo complex and they want to live there cuz it has pools and it has real neat ways of getting around and has all sorts of living accommodations that you find in a resort not a condo

All these things are not that much money the one John Travolta is buying is very large it's the size of the movie theater that my husband was in today just the one theater and that is about $250,000 but that's bare Bones if you want the meeting room and the entertainment center control console full-blown and the eatery and the bar it's about half a million dollars and tons of calls now because it's gigantic for them it seats about 200 people and it goes down and forms a giant meeting room and you guys organize your meeting rooms like that and even your war room is in the middle and you still have a meeting room and there's also to things you put in phones and columns for each chair it's like a NATO set up almost but not stepped too much a little bit and I've seen it in movies and it might even be our product so I have a little panic attack right now

Hera Zues

Olympus

[gainerstories]

Holiday Heft: Halloween

“Wow you look so different,” said my sister, Emily, “healthier.”

I knew full well what “healthier” meant. It meant I was fat, hairy, and pale. You see, I had checked into rehab two months ago at the beginning of September for a coke and pill addiction. I was something of a party boy, a circuit gay if you will, and the lifestyle eventually caught up to me. A few days after my thirtieth birthday I almost overdosed and woke up in a hospital covered in my own blood. The lining of my nose was falling out. After that, I checked into rehab and kicked all of my habits: drugs, booze, boys, and even cigarettes. The problem was, I picked up another habit: food. This was common in rehab, and a lot of people spoke of their extra pudge with pride because it was a sign of their recovery. I tried to adopt this outlook, despite the fear that no one would want to fuck me once I was clean. It didn’t help that I had turned thirty which meant my fuckability in the gay community was already plummeting. I checked in to the recovery program at 5’10” and 120 pounds. I stood at my parent’s doorstep at 140 pounds.

“Well you know what rehab will do to yah,” I said and slapped the bit of fat clinging to my abdomen. “And they don’t even have tanning booths there!”

We laughed and I stepped inside. It was strange to be back home in Connecticut. Once I had moved to San Francisco I rarely visited, and when I did it was for very brief periods of time. Everything looked the same in my ancestral home, but my family appeared older. My parents were welcoming, but the air was filled with disappointment. I dropped my stuff in my room and helped my mom prepare for Halloween night. She was leaving with my Dad on a business trip in a few hours and it was up to me and my sister to pass out the candy.

As the sun began to set, the first of the tick-or-treaters arrived. After handing out candy for maybe fifteen minutes, my 21 year old sister abruptly announced she had a party to go to and abandoned me. We lived in a wealthy suburb that was wildly popular on Halloween and I was a bit annoyed I was stuck here alone. It also didn’t help that I was able to watch on social media as all my friends in San Francisco got plastered. Meanwhile, I was handing out candy to kindergarteners. To distract myself I put on a horror movie and stretched out on the couch. I was craving a beer or at least some weed, but resisted and ordered a pizza instead.

My stomach was growling as I manned the door, so I decided to help myself to a few treats after each group left. I was already a bit full of candy when the pizza arrived, but I ate it anyway out of boredom. After killing the small pie in record time, I realized I didn’t feel completely satiated. My stomach had definitely grown to accommodate more when I was in rehab, leaving me with a surprising appetite. Back in the day, one slice of pizza would would leave me feeling bloated and fat. Now one slice felt like nothing. The Halloween candy was right in front of me so I absent mindedly continued to snack through my movie.

As I was choosing the next flick to put on the door bell rang. I opened up to a chorus of “trick-or-treat” and reached for some candy. I was shocked to see the bowl was nearly empty. How was that possible? Was I handing out too much? The night was still young and more kids were certain to stop by. After the kids left I dug through the kitchen looking for more candy. I knew my mom had bought three mega sized bags of Halloween treats, but they were all empty and I couldn’t find any more. I did find some bags of chocolate chips for baking, but nothing individually wrapped that I could pass out. What had happened? The only answer remaining was that I plowed through the candy myself. A wave of anxiety washed over me as I dually realized that not only was I a fat pig, but that I was going to have to turn the lights off at 8pm and hope the neighbors didn’t gossip or tell my parents. I wanted nothing more than a xanax to calm my nerves, but instead I opened a bag of the chocolate chips for some much needed comfort. What the fuck- might as well embrace being a fat ass. I put on another movie and reclined on the couch with my chocolate.

I woke up to my sister drunkenly stumbling home with a box from Pizza Hut. I looked down to see brown stains across my shirt and two empty bags of chocolate chips on the floor. Luckily, she was too drunk to notice my blatant gluttony.

“Hey brotherrr, wants join me for some dank ass pizza?”

I complied, even though I hate Pizza Hut, and she plopped down on the couch next to me. I tried to ask about her night but she could barely form words as she struggled to finish one slice. Immediately after she dozed off. I removed her shoes, covered her in a blanket, and cleaned up the house a bit. It was almost 2am but I was wide awake. My stomach was noticeably bloated from all the pizza and candy, but I figured one more slice before bed wouldn’t hurt. In fact, it would probably help me fall asleep. Before I knew it, the whole pizza was gone and my gut was distended and tight. I was uncomfortably full. It was a strange and foreign sensation that only occurred on the occasional thanksgiving. What would I tell Emily about her pizza? I destroyed the box and hid it at the bottom of the trash can. Hopefully she wouldn’t remember getting it, and if she did I would tell her there was only two slices in the box when she got home. I tried to ignore my aching stomach and not think about how out of control my appetite had become as I headed to bed.

I woke up the next morning still bloated and filled with guilt. I needed to get myself together. I decided to skip breakfast, throw on some tennis shoes, and go for a jog. It didn’t take long before I was drenched in sweat, out of breath and all around miserable. I persevered, however, and clocked three miles. I decided that my plan for the day was to make a green smoothie, go to the tanning salon, and then buy a gym membership. It was time I started looking like the old Levi, just without the excessive drugs, partying, and sex. I got home feeling refreshed and greeted Emily in the kitchen as she was making coffee. She looked super hungover.

“Fuck I’m so glad you’re home,” she said.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“How do you think?” She struggled to chuckled. “I need hangover food ASAP. Come with me to the 50s diner?”

“I was gonna make a smoothie, and then...”

“Fuck that, I need greasy food and some company. Pleeease Levi? You don’t have to order anything, just provide conversation.”

I sighed and complied. Who was I to turn her down when I’d been absent for so many years? I changed clothes and we headed to the diner. Emily ordered an excessive spread of pancakes, hash browns and a milkshake. I ordered French toast and a side of fruit.

Our food arrived and it all looked delicious, plus I was positively starving. I tried to pace myself although I couldn’t help but to gobble up every morsel of the gooey French toast. Emily claimed to be full after only a few bites and continually shoved her food onto my plate. I verbally contested this, but my actions proved otherwise. The crispness of the overdone hash browns was really hitting the spot, and I started grabbing them off her plate to drench them in ketchup and ranch. I definitely ate the majority of that dish. To Emily’s credit, she did eat most of the pancakes but I helped polish them off. The milkshake, however, was simply beyond her capacity. It was almost completely melted, but I still took it to go. It felt wasteful to leave. Plus, I had a weak spot for this diner’s milkshakes, melted or frozen. I guzzled it down halfway through the drive.

My first week back home continued in a similar fashion, which is to say it was pretty food-centric. My family took me on several sumptuous outings which usually consisted of me eating their leftovers. Furthermore, my newly sober status meant that if I wanted to hang out with any of my old friends our options for activities were pretty limited. More often than not, we would get lunch or dinner. It also didn’t help that my mom bought an excess of discount Halloween candy to put out around the house. The result was that I was almost constantly snacking on something sugary and sweet. In my defense, I did try to go jogging when I could muster the energy, but it was always a struggle. And, needless to say, I never got that gym membership.

It’s not like I was oblivious to the fact that I was developing some bad eating habits and a bit of extra padding. I could feel my shirts clinging to my poochy belly and my thighs suctioned into skinny jeans. There was no avoiding how the waist of all my pants forced the fat around my waist to bulge out and strain the lower half of my T-shirts. To avoid this I began to wear sweatpants and basketball shorts almost daily. Elastic not only alleviated the discomfort of a tight waistband, but also didn’t produce an unbecoming muffin top effect. Strangely, I was generally unconcerned about my physique. I figured I could always lose the weight and that my sobriety and family time was more important. However, this didn’t mean I wasn’t shocked when I stepped on the scale a week after Halloween to find myself clocking in at 151 pounds. That was an 11 pound gain of what was certainly pure fat. I knew I’d been unhealthy, but 11 pounds in one week? Something must be wrong. I scheduled an appointment with my doctor for the next morning.

I struggled to find clothes that flattered my figure while I getting dressed for my appointment. Eventually I settled on all black, even though the button of my jeans felt like it would burst at any moment. When I arrived, my doctor took all the usual tests and then sat me down for a conversation.

“I understand you’re concerned about your weight, but frankly you shouldn’t be. 160 pounds is perfectly healthy for someone with your age an height.”

“160?!” I responded. “My scale at home was ten less than that.”

“Perhaps a full stomach or heavier clothes can account for the discrepancy. Regardless, you shouldn’t be too worried. I’m sure you’re finding that your metabolism is not what it once was, and this is normal for men your age. You are about fifteen pounds shy of an overweight BMI, so what we want to do is maintain your current weight with healthy eating and light exercise. I know you’re aware that weight gain is often an effect of newfound sobriety, and not cause for alarm. You should really feel proud of yourself, Levi. Don’t sweat the small stuff.”

As I left the doctors office, I did feel better about myself. Still, if I wanted to ever get laid again, I needed to cut some weight. Sobriety meant a fresh start and I should start caring for myself accordingly. When I got home I busted out the razor and shaved off all my body hair. I went to Walgreens for some tanning lotion and then H&M for some better fitting clothes. I knew I had to invest in my appearance if I was going to take make lasting change. That is, after all, how I got sober in the first place.

Finally, after a full day of self-care and healthy eating I returned home for a long bath and a face mask. As I walked in the door a wonderful buttery aroma filled my nose. I knew instantly what it was: my mom was baking.

“Honey, I’m so glad you’re back! I was struck with the holiday spirit and decided to do some baking. I need you try everything and tell me how it is.”

“Mom, I’m really trying to watch my weight right now.”

“Oh silly, just one slice of each dish. I insist. There’s Oreo cheesecake, pecan pie, and my special dark chocolate banana bread that you love.”

That banana bread was my weakness and my stomach was growling after a full day of eating vegan. I had to resist if I ever wanted to get laid again. I prepared myself to turn her down and took a deep breath. I don’t know if it was the smell in the air or what, but the words coming out of my mouth were not what I intended.

“What the hell, I’ll take two slices of the banana bread.”

This was going to be a long Holiday season.

#gainer stories #holiday heft #holidayheft

[supersoldierslover]

A New Beginning Part 4

Summary:  After moving a lot, you found yourself in a small town in the middle of Europe ready for a new start. You see yourself falling in love for the city and developing a crush for the cute stranger that you never had the courage to talk to until you’re forced to. (Modern Au)

Pairing: Steve x Reader

Words: 2884

Warnings: Fluffy and secrets.

Thanks to @widowsfics for being my beta

Credits to the gifs owners

PART 1  PART 2  PART 3

After dinner with Steve, your relationship with him was moving really fast and slow at the same time. During the next few weeks, you two saw each other every morning for your walks. You never imagined that you could love mornings as much as you do right now.

You two also went to a few more dates, after two amazing dinners, your third date was at this amazing ice cream shop for milkshakes. It was a fun and simple date.  The fourth date you two watched Casablanca on the drive in, it was a special night.  There was something really romantic about watching a movie and sharing popcorn on a cold night.

And your fifth date Steve took you dance. When he said that you two were going to a dance you imagined that he was taking you to a night club with loud music and expensive drinks. But no, he took you to a salon where classical music was playing and couples were having the time of their life’s.

Sure most of the couples were twice or three times your age, but they look so happy and in love that you couldn’t help but smile.

Sometimes you feel like you live in a crazy town, like the one of Gilmore Girls Stars Hollow. There was always some kind of event happening, it could be a fair, or the night of classic on the drive in or some kind of celebration.

Even though that you and Steve spent a lot of time together and you two are going out for almost a month the relationship was moving slowly, especially physically. Steve didn’t have a problem with being affectionate, he was always holding your hand, hugging you and kissing you.

The problem was that the kisses never turned out into something more, his hands never explored your body and he never tried anything. At first, you were thankful for this, all other guys you were involved with always moved too fast, but now you two were together for almost a month and nothing happened besides exchanged kisses and cuddles on the couch.

You sighed, putting your hair in your ponytail and going outside “You are late, sweetheart.” Steve says kissing your cheek, taking Blueberry’s leash from your hands and giving you a cup of coffee “My bed was so comfy this morning that I had to stay there for a few more minutes. Did you wait for long?” You asked worriedly, the fall had started and you’d hate it if he got sick waiting for you on this cold morning.

“Not really, I also spent a little more time in bed this morning.” You agree, you lean on his body, the cold didn't make easy for you to wake up earlier and you are more tired than ever “So I was thinking, maybe we could have dinner at my place tonight?”

You smile, you have never been to his place before and you can’t deny that you are curious to know what he´s been hiding “I love this idea, are you going to cook for me?” You ask playfully as he hugs you by the waist “I can try, or I can order some food. I just you want you there tonight. You can even take Blueberry if you want.”

“Are you inviting me to spend the night?” What else would you have to take your dog to a date for? “No, I mean yes but only if you want to. I am not suggesting anything, really take your comfiest pajamas and I have a guest bedroom if you prefer…”

“Steve, shut up. I would love to spend the night, but Blueberry is going to stay at home, she likes to be alone.” You say coltishly, kissing him; you loved when he got flustered “I can pick you up from work if you want.” You shake your head no, you have to pack a few things and make sure that Blueberry has enough water and food for the night.

“Text me the address, I will meet you there around seven?” He nods, kissing you “It is a plan.”

After you two finish your walk, Steve goes home for a quick shower and gets ready for a long day at work “Morning, Wanda.” He says to his assistant, as she hands him his coffee “Morning, boss. Mr. Stark called, he will be here next week for a meeting, I emailed the details. And Mr. Barnes asked for you to call him back as soon as possible.”

He enters in his office with Wanda following behind him. It’s not even 8 in the morning and he has already so much stuff to do “What did James want?” He asks looking at the contract in front of him; Tony was not going to be happy with that agreement “He was asking about the prosthetics and how the designers are going. Also, he asked if you bought your plane tickets and…. Well, how were you this week.”

“I will give him a call, did you send the tulips?”  Wanda nods “Yes, they were already delivered white and yellow ones.” Good, these were her favorites “Do you need anything else, boss?”  Wanda asks with a smile on her lips, she works for almost 8 months and so far she was the best assistant he had ever had.

She was smart, quick and didn’t take his bushtit “Yes, I need you to go the store and buy some things for me and leave them at my place.” He hates to ask Wanda to do personal things, but he knew that he wouldn’t have time to do it himself.

She smiles when she sees the list “Date night, boss? This is a really good wine. So when are going to meet the special girl? Are you taking her to the fundraiser next month?” He found odd how happy she was for him, but then he remembers the reputation that he has on this company: he is like a lone wolf.

“How do you know that?” She arched her eyebrows at him “Steve, please, you don’t need to be a detective to figure this one out. For the last month you had this big smile on your face and now you are asking me to buy expensive wine and actual food for you. Not take outs or frozen pizza. So when are we going to meet her?”

Steve shrugs, these events are so boring that he usually escapes them as soon as he can but maybe with you, these things aren’t going to be so bad “Maybe in the fundraiser.” The assistant writes something in her notebook before asking “Do you need anything else? Candles? Candy? Flowers?”

“No, maybe candles… no, follow the list. And Wanda please, don’t let me stay late, kick me out of my office if it’s necessary.” She laughs “You got it, boss. She must be really something special, I never saw you leaving the office on time.”

The rest of the day goes by without him even noticing. Between analyzing contracts, reunions with suppliers and looking at new designers, he hadn’t stop for a second. He even called Bucky on his lunch time to update him on the prosthetics matter and about his relationship with you.

The conversation with his best friend wasn’t easy. Bucky always worried too much about him and always asked too many questions. He told Bucky that you were going to spend the night in his place for the first time today and how he was thinking about inviting you for the fundraiser next month.

Bucky thinks he should do it, that you are good for him and that you should know about his real job. Of course, he was also excited to meet you, the girl who was able to make his friend smile. The end of the conversation was still playing on his mind.

“You should tell her everything, the latter you tell her the worst she is going to react.” He rolls his eyes at his friend, he wishes it was that simple “If I want her to run away and never see her again, sure.” He says sarcastically.

“You are so stubborn and dramatic. She is not going to run away, it’s not like you have a secret family here in New York. Remember the advice that you gave me when I was having problems with Nat? You said just talk to her and now I am asking for you for do the same. Tell her about your job, at least because if she founds out in any other way she is going to be pissed.”

He hates when Bucky is right, and lately, he was always right, not that he was going to admit this out loud “Bucky, I told her I was a designer and I still do that and it is my favorite part of the job. And second I will tell her, but you know that as soon as I tell her I am going have to explain how someone so young became a CEO and then everything. So give me a break.”

“Of course, Captain... Can’t wait to meet her next month.” He can imagine the smug smile that Bucky has in his face right now “Don’t call me that, you know that I hate this fucking nickname.” Since he started to work for Stark, he was good with leadership and solving problems. He was the perfect leader for any project, especially the ones that were designed to fail.

He was a good Captain, especially of sinking ships.

“Are you ok, Steve?” He notices the change of tone in his friend, he knew what the reason for this call was made with this question “Not really, but I have been worse.” He was glad that he was not going to be alone tonight “Me and Nat are going to visit her today, do you want us to say anything?”

He takes a deep breath “Just tell her that I love her and that I miss her, Wanda sent the flowers already.”

“Boss it is time to go.” Wanda says taking him away from his thoughts “Thank you, Wanda. Go home and rest.”

At home he prepares the recipe like his mother used to, praying that he can do his mother’s meal justice. He decides to cook spaghetti a carbonara, the recipe was easy enough for him not to screw up.

You are 15 minutes late, in your defense it is not your fault. You were busy baking a chocolate lava cake for the both of you, maybe it was your fault but dessert is very important. You knock on Steve’s door, you can’t help but laugh when you see him.

Steve was still wearing his work clothes: a nice blue dress shirt and formal pants, but the best part of his whole outfit was the apron saying: kiss the cook. You gave him a peck on his lips before saying “You look adorable.” He pulls you into another kiss “And you look beautiful. Come in, let me help you.”

He takes your purse, letting you get in and you start to look around. His apartment is beautiful and spacious but was so impersonal... it was like opening a decoration magazine and recreate whatever was on the page.

The walls were white, he had a black leather couch in the middle of the living room and a coffee table in the same color. There was a big blue fluffy rug close to the couch, a few decorations in red but that was it, no pictures or anything that said that someone actually lived in there.

“I brought a cake, the best one you are ever going to eat.” You say putting the cake in his hands, he leads you to the kitchen who follows the same color scheme that the living room “I bet it is, everything you do is amazing. I hope you like my cooking if it sucks we are going to order pizza.”

“Don’t worry so much, and it smells amazing. If it tastes half as good we are going to have an amazing meal.” He gives you a glass of wine, smiling at you “I have an invitation for you, you can say no if you want... But next month I have this thing in the company… it is a fund raiser and it is going to be boring. But I would love if you come with me.”

He runs his fingers thru his hair, sometimes he is so confident and other times he is like a high school boy with his first girlfriend “You sure know how to convince a girl, but yes I would love to come with you. Even though that a month is far away from now, are you sure?” He nods, hugging you “100 % sure, actually there are a few people who want to meet my girlfriend.”

It feels so good to hear he said the word girlfriend out loud. You knew Steve liked you but it was good to know where you two stand “Do you talk with your friends about me?” You ask following him to the living room, where you are about to have your meal “Just my best friend and my assistant but I do consider her a friend.”

He pulls the chair for you, you look at the table in front of you. The spaghetti looks amazing, but what really caught your attention is how he set the table with candles and flowers “This is amazing, Steve.”

The food was good, it wasn’t amazing but it was very good for someone’s first attempt to cook. You two ate making small talk. You told him about the new employer in the pet store, about the puppies that were for adoption there and how you almost took them all home with you.

Steve talked a little about his day, he didn’t give you too many details but it sounds chaotic. He looks tired, not just work tired but like he didn’t sleep last night “Are you okay, babe?”  You ask when the conversation fell into silence “Yes… this week has been kind of hard for me… and I didn’t have too much sleep last night.”

You catch his hand on yours playing with his palm “Do you want to talk about it?” He nods, you get up off your chair sitting on his lap. He holds you close, hiding his face on your shoulder “Yesterday it was my mother death’s birthday, she passed away a couple of years ago…”

Your heart aches for him, you notice that he was kind of distant but for you, he just had a lot to do on work,. You never imagined that was going through something like that “I am sorry, Steve.”  Your hands play with his hair, you don’t know what to say to him.

You remember how painful was for you to lose your grandmother, how around the anniversary of her death and the holidays you can’t stop thinking about her “You two were close?” He nods, you wonder why he invited you here today.

It was oblivious that he was not in the right place of mind right now, maybe he just didn’t want to be alone, maybe he thought that he could go by this date without getting affected “My dad died when I was a child. I don’t remember much of him, I just know that I look a lot like him. It was always just us, she was the best mom.”

You catch his face in your hands, making him look at you “I am sorry, this should be a fun date and I am here crying on your blouse.”  You clean a few tears out of his face and kiss his forehead “I am not, I am glad that you trust me enough to open up about this. Why don’t we lie down for a minute?”

“Are you going home?” You can hear the despair in his voice, he doesn’t want to be left alone and you would never leave him in this condition “Only if you want me to.” He shakes his head a no, he takes your hand and leads you to the bedroom. There he takes his shoes off and lies on the bed “Please, stay.” You lay by his side, he rests his head on your chest while caressing his back.

“She was a nurse, she worked a lot of crazy hours but she was always there for me. She took care of me when I was sick. And trust me, I was sick all the time growing up… I just miss her. She was so good at giving me advice, she always knew… I remember this one time I was sick and she skipped work just to take care of me. We watched old movies, she made me soup and cuddled with me all day.”

Steve tells you a few more stories about his mom and growing up. You wish you could say something to make this better, but all you can do is listen and give him some physical comfort. Eventually, he fell asleep, holding your waist with his head on your chest. You kiss his forehead “Goodnight, Stevie.” You say, closing your eyes.

Part 5

Please Leave feedback, I really like this series and i believe this can be a really good one. So share your opinions with me. And of course, if you want to be tagged let know.

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #steve x reader #marvel imagine #marvel x reader

[fearofaherobrine]

Roleplay Server Log #280

“Dawn Repairs Sally, Pottery Lessons”

[Splender] He and Sally are about to head out of the server to gather supplies for his brother's gift-

[Sally] Is bouncing excitedly- Let's go!  Let's go!

[Gk] Is flopped across the path and twitches his goatlike ears at the childish sound- Hmm?

[Sally] Laughs as she grabs onto Splender's leg-

[Gk] Picks up his head and looks at her quizzically- Who's the kid?

[Splender] - Oh!  Gk!  Hello, this is Sally!

[Gk] Twitches his ears - is she one of the village kids?

[Splender] - No, she's a pasta!

[Gk] Aww, a little pasta? - Leans his head near her - Looks like a cute little macaroni type. -winks at her-

[Sally] Hides behind Splender a little-

[Splender] - We're going to go get some stuff for her gift to my brother for his birthday

[Gk] Which brother? I don't think you'd take a little kid to buy something for Offender!- snorts -What's the matter kid, you scared of me?

[Splender] - She's always nervous around new people, especially men...

[Sally] - No, it's for papa

[Gk] Oh. I can.. uh.. hang on- He transforms and isn't much taller then Sally in his human shape. - Who's your dad? I thought BEN was the only pasta with a kid?

[Sally] - Papa Slender!

[Splender] - Brother is strangely defensive of her and has taken on a parental role for her, especially after what happened to her

[Gk] Oh the biggest brother! Reminds me of Cp. Murderous to adults, but nice to kids...

[Sally] - You know CP?  He's one of the ones who plays with me the most!

[Splender] - Actually...

[Gk] Yep. He's my drinking buddy. Though not as often lately since I'm helping raise Endrea's kiddos.

[Sally] - Oh, it's been a lot more quiet since almost nobody is home...  And Endrea is cute when she's rteally tiny!

[Gk] You should visit more often then. She's got three little kids of her own that are near always feeling playful.

[Sally] - Okay!  But first we have to go get some shells for Papa!

[Gk] shells?

[Sally] - For his present!

[Gk] You're going to give him shells? Will they at least have edible stuff in them?

[Sally] - No!  To decorate a vase!  Splendy's going to help me!

[Gk] Cocks his head at her - Why don't you use gems? Something sparkly?

[Sally] - Because I wanna use shells!

[Gk] Okay? - Looks at Splender in confusion.

[Splender] - That's just how humans are, now we should be going before it gets dark out

[Gk] Do you want me to walk with you? The mobs usually leave me the nether alone.

[Splender] - Oh no, we're going out to the real world

[Gk] Oh. Okay. Well look out for MIBs and stuff.

[Splender] - Oh trust me, we're going someplace safe

[Gk] What would you consider safe?

[Splender] - Dawn's island!

[Gk] Oh, the witch. Yeah, I'd say that's pretty safe. I hear it's isolated as all get out and well... Basil is here already.

[Splender] - Yup!

[Sally] - Splendy!  Let's go!

-The morning in the woods dawn's crisp and icy and Doc is pacing a little bit. -

[Doc] Xe throws the bunker door open and the light streams in fully, bringing with it a breath of cold, clean air.

[Lie] - Shut the door!

[Doc] Ignores her and leans out to see. - Wow...

[Lie] - Doc that's too cold

[Doc] Fine. - Xe closes the door except for a crack and goes outside.

-The snow has fallen and covered everything in pure white drifts nearly knee deep, and more against the sides of the building. Hir breath fogs out and hir boots crunch in the snow. The trees are just bare black branches clawing at the empty blue sky. -

[Lie] Is grumbling inside, trying to build the warmth back up again-

[Doc] Turns back to look at the door. The scratches are still there, incised deep into the metal, but some of them seem somehow fresher.

[Lie] Mentally- Why do you want to be out there is the frozen hell scape?

[Doc] It's actually kind of pretty. I'm not used to snow being more then just a white dusting on the ground.

[Lie] - How much is out there?

[Doc] It's pretty deep, about to your knees. But it's super powdery.

[Lie] - That's pretty deep, don't try to walk through it, you don't know where there might be holes

[Doc] Makes hir way carefully back to the door and steps down hard into a slushy spot. The muck leaves a black film on one boot and xe shakes it with some annoyance. - Too late...

[Lie] - Come on back and warm up by the fire

[Doc] Walks back in and leaves hir wet jackboots by the door.

-The brackish film slides slowly down the leathery surface and pools under the boot, getting into the crevices between the sole and the heelplate.

[Doc] Is wearing purple socks and skips quickly over to sit by the lava pool. - The ground is wet under all that ice.

[Lie] - Yeah that happens.  So, anything other than your brief excursion outside planned for today?

[Doc] Well I would have happily gone for a longer walk, but it's probably a bad idea. I don't want to get lost. Are we running low on anything?

[Lie] - Not that I can tell, we still have a tiny bit of Chinese food too

[Doc] Darn... I was kind of looking for an excuse to pop back for a few.

[Lie] - Why?  Do you need to get anything?

[Doc] No, I just get worried.

[Lie] - Then go, I can hold down the fort here

[Doc] Are you sure? It's not really fair to keep leaving you.

[Lie] - I'll be fine, actually, there is something you could get for me while you're over there

[Doc] Anything.

[Lie] - A small vial of the lust nectar

[Doc] Gulps - I might have one... stored someplace...

[Lie] - I would appreciate it

[Doc] Can do. - Xe pulls hir shoes back on and opens the way to the server. Xe takes a welcome breath of the warm air and walks briskly from the spawn towards hir house. The front door opens with a familiar creak and the Doctor doesn't even notice the black footprint hir boot leaves on the carpet at the bottom of the stairs. Later that night, the mark isn't there anymore anyway.

[Sally] Is giddily playing in the shallow waves on the sandy beaches of Dawn's island-

[Splender] Is watching her from the shade of the trees-

[Dawn] Slips silently through the trees and stands next to Splender. - Aww. You brought a ghost out for a nice day at the beach? She's so young. Poor child.

[Mort] Is carring Samedi in his arms, the black rooster looks comfy and drowsy. He was obviously letting Dawn see who was there first. - Oh, hey Splender. It's a lovely day isn't it?

[Splender] - Oh hello you two! Yes, we came out here to find some shells, but somebody seems to be having a bit more fun with the water at the moment [Sally] Reaches for something in the water that she picks up- Splender! I found a crab!

[Splender] - Careful! Don't let it pinch you!

[Sally] Runs back over to Splender to show him the crab but when she see's Dawn and Mort she gets shy and looks at Splender for reassurance-

[Mort] gently- That's a big old crab! Those guys are pinchy.

[Sally] Nods a little and then looks at Splender- Splendy?  Can we keep it?

[Splender] - No Sally, it lives here, but maybe it can stay with us while we're visiting

[Samedi] ruffled feathers, and opens one eye to look at the girl. Sensing something off about her

[Splender] Creates a bucket and holds it out for Sally- Here, put mister crab in here

[Sally] Drops the crab in and then looks at it- He's hungry

[Dawn] They'll eat pretty much anything, they're scavengers

[Sally] - Like cookies?

[Dawn] Maybe? You can try.

[Sally] Looks at Splender- Cookie please

[Splender] Laughs and pulls a sugar cookie out of his sleeve- Such good manners

[Sally] Drops it into the bucket with the crab- There he goes

[Mort] Is petting the chicken softly. It keeps opening and closing its beak, but there's no sound.  

[Splender] Creates another bucket- Here you go, why don't you put the shells in here.  We need to hurry so we can make the present

[Sally] - Okay!- She goes running off with both buckets on the hunt for shells

[Dawn] Oh no... is it time to glue shells to things?

[Mort] Snorts-

[Splender] - Nope!  Pressing into clay to make a vase!

[Dawn] I have nice clay and a kiln if she just wants to make a pot...

[Splender] - Oh really?  That would be wonderful since I don't know much about clay myself

[Mort] Wanders over to Sally- Do you want some help?

[Dawn] Certainly. Mort's very good at making ceramics. I mostly do the firing. But Doc gave us a bunch of really nice clay if you want to partake.

[Splender] - I just might

[Sally] - Hi!  I like your chicken!

[Mort] Thank you. His name is Samedi, you can pet him if you want.

[Samedi] Looks at her quizzically.

[Sally] Puts one of her buckets down and reaches out to pet the bird-

[Samedi] Is petted and stays perfectly quiet. His coat is glossy and black and his tail feathers arch over Mort's elbow and trail a little.

[Sally] Giggles- Will you help me find shells?

[Mort] Sure! - He transfers the rooster to his shoulder and helps her look.

[Sally] Splashes through some of the water and then runs towards a rock.  As she runs, she trips and falls, hitting her head on it.  Her entire demeanor shifts as her color dulls and her clothes become dirtier and blood begins to flow down her face-

[Mort] Rushes to her as the rooster clings to his hoodie - Splender!

[Dawn] Also rushes to help-

[Splender] Turns to look- Wait!  Don't touch her!

[Mort] Brushes her clothing and then jerks away at Splenders yell -

[Samedi] Goes crazy flapping madly at Sally and opening his beak as if to caw at her-

[Dawn] Gives a startled hiss at the childs appearance

-The brief contact was all Sally's abilities needed as Mort becomes petrified as his mind is barraged from memories of when Sally was living.  The small ghost reaches down and picks up the rock-

[Splender] Teleports to Sally and stops her from moving any farther- Shhhhh, it's okay, he's not here.  You're safe little one- He's trying to coax the rock from Sally's hand so she can't bash in Mort's skull

[Mort] Is sitting in the water crying as Dawn reaches him.

[Dawn] Is already turning to snatch the rock out of her hand as Splender appears.

[Sally] Is crying- Don't let him get me...

[Splender] - Shhh, it's okay, remember?  Papa already took care of him

[Mort] Just curls up as Dawn lifts him and the rooster from the water.

[Dawn] She carries him solemly to the shore and sets him down, protecting him with her arms and magick.

[Mort] Lets out a small sob.

[Splender] - I'm so sorry about this, if I'd been a little faster in my warning...

[Mort] Is hugging himself. - Why...?

[Dawn] -sighs-

[Splender] - She's a creepy pasta, it's the way she's found to be able to disable her prey so she can kill them

[Dawn] I think he means just why in general Splender. His mom was abusive. He has a lot of bad memories of his own already.

[Splender] - Sally's parents weren't the abusive ones, it was her uncle

[Dawn] Still... It's nothing he wants to think about.

[Splender] - I apologize...  If you want us to leave...

[Sally] Is just crying into Splender's jacket now-

[Dawn] I take it this is something she can't control?

[Splender] - No, it isn't.  The bleeding and dulling of her colors is normal for when she gets upset, it was her hitting her head that kicked her killing instinct into gear

[Mort] Could we... bless her? Would that help at all?

[Splender] - I don't know

[Dawn] It helped him, and it won't hurt someone who's already dead.

[Splender] - If you're certain,  brother would be very upset if anything happened to her

[Dawn] If there's one thing I'm good with Splender, it's the dead and undead. I've been given power over them by my patron.

[Splender] Looks down at Sally- Are you alright now?

[Sally] Peeks at Dawn and Mort- I'm sorry

[Mort] I forgive you.

[Dawn] Me as well.

[Mort] Come over here, I want to show you something. - He's still sitting on the sand with Dawn behind him-

[Sally] Nervously looks at Splender who encourages her over, she goes over, still bloody-

[Mort] Pats the ground for her to sit in front of him. The sand is warm, white and powdery.

[Sally] Sits, looking curiously at Mort-

[Mort] Dawn's father, and for all in intents and purposes, my father-in-law is Azrael, the angel of Death.

[Sally] - Who?

[Dawn] The Grim Reaper? Very tall skeleton in a black robe with silvery gray wings?

[Sally] Shrugs-

[Mort] There's a small creaking noise as he smirks his skull a little. - It's okay, the point is he gave me something special. A blessing energy to help keep me alive. - He reaches down and unzips his hoodies so the front falls open. The empty ribs inside are lit up from within by a plume of green fire dancing in the center of the space.

[Sally] - Doesn't that burn?

[Mort] No, it's actually a little bit cold. - He passes a hand over where his heart would be and some of the flames jump to his fingers, dancing between the bones.

[Sally] Watches with fascination-

[Mort] Do you mind if I touch you with it? It may help you forget your re-occuring nightmare.

[Sally] - No more Uncle Joe?

[Mort] Yes.

[Sally] - Okay

[Dawn] Give me a moment... - She stands up fully and drags her heel in a circle around them making some gestures and quiet words in the cardinal directions before coming back to put her hands on her mate's shoulders from behind again- Ready.

[Splender] - Oh do be careful

[Mort] I will, it's a good energy. Watch this. - He wipes his hand on the sand and it leaves a trail of green shoots of grass on the formerly pristine surface.

[Sally] - Plants!

[Mort] Are you ready?

[Dawn] Is gathering her energies as well and feeds them into him-

[Mort] He holds out his own bony fingers, all wreathed in fire. -Take my hands please.

[Sally] Reaches for his hands, her smaller ones fitting snuggly inside his bony ones-

[Dawn] Lifts her voice and the words flow like water around the circle-  In nomine Angelus custos est ad finem omnia, ut iubes animam tuam. Liber esto darkess esta est, et vade in odium suum et foedum habent quod putent adhuc vestram narrando revocare. Esta volo mundare et ex contagio alios afficiunt. Iustitiae omnino mercedis accepit te. In Gruva nomen liberari. Sic fiat semper. -

[Mort] The green fire wreathes the three of them briefly and then slides back inside him.

-The circle is now full of a lush carpet of grass that ends exactly at the line Dawn made in the sand.

[Dawn] Makes a starred circle with her right hand and quietly releases the corners of the temporarily sacred space.

[Sally] - I feel funny...

[Mort] Uncurls his fingers gently - Funny good?

[Dawn] Shakes herself off a bit- That was heavy stuff...

[Sally] - I think so?

[Splender] Swoops in to hug Sally- Oh thank goodness you're alright!

[Dawn] Well I don't suggest we injure her to test it, so let me know how it goes, okay?

[Splender] - Oh absolutely!   Now what do we say Sally?

[Sally] - Thank you

[Mort] Can we go make pots now?

[Dawn] Chuckles-

[Sally] - That's right!  Papa's gift!

[Dawn] Come on then- Motions up the path.

[Samedi] Goes strutting ahead-

[Sally] Is put down and she follows along behind Dawn-

-The group passes through a lot of jungle and enters into a clearing bordered on the back and sides by a sheer rock face. The rooster disturbs the chickens pecking in the yard and they scatter a bit at the newcomers approach. Mort picks his way between the lush garden and the side of the house back to a shed with an open side, pulling the tarp away to reveal what's within. There's a wheel and a long table and shelves with pots in various stages of completion. The most striking thing though is a huge clay block, nearly square but missing a chunk off one corner.

[Splender] - Ready to work Sally?

[Sally] Nods eagerly-

[Mort] Good. Here, I'll set you up. -He takes a wire with a bit of wood on either end like a garrotte and uses it to slice a hunk of clay from the block. It's already perfect and moist and he drops it on the table for her. There are already some tools laying around with weird ends and smoothing edges.

[Sally] Plunges her fingers into it-

[Mort] Watches her - are we doing pinch or coil?

[Sally] - I don't know what that means

[Mort] Well pinch is like this- He takes a ball and shoves his thumb into the center- then you just go around and around and make the walls thinner by squeezing.

[Sally] Plops the clay onto the table- It makes a funny noise!

[Mort] Yep, it's squishy!

[Splender] Just sits back to watch-

[Dawn] Is watching bemused - You want in Splender?

[Splender] - Oh no, I'm happy to watch

[Dawn] Are you sure? With those long fingers you might get a kick out of the wheel.

[Mort] Is showing Sally how to roll a snake for coiling pots.

[Sally] Is making snake noises as she does so-

[Splender] - Oh I've done it many times in the past, but I find it more entertaining to see what children come up with

[Dawn] Ah, okay. Well you're always welcome to do so here. We've got plenty of clay and it fires better if the kiln is nice and full.

[Splender] - I will keep that in mind

[Sally] - Is just having fun, her vase having several little holes in it-

[Mort] I know a better way to use the shells too!

[Sally] - Really?

[Mort] Smooths out a bit of clay with a rubber tool and takes a shell before pressing it deeply into the clay- the actual shells would break in the kiln, but the textures make all kinds of interesting stamped patterns.

[Sally] Cool!- Starts pressing them everywhere

[Mort] If you want, I can glaze it too, then it will be all glassy and smooth - gestures at some finished pieces around them.

[Sally] - Pretty

[Mort] Just pick a color.

[Sally] - Pink!

[Mort] Okay, I'll make a note. You just work on that part. Make sure the walls aren't any thicker then this -Pinches his fingers to show her a small amount of space. - and try not to fold the clay over itself. Bubbles will make it blow up.

[Sally] - Okay!- Shew sticks out her tongue in concentration

[Splender] Hums in contentment as he leans back, ready to be patient-

[saintmccann]

roadtrip - the west

Part 3 of 7! 

If you haven’t read part one

If you haven’t read part two

Note: I’m really loving how this story’s turning out! Let me know if there’s any mini requests you have as it keeps moving along!

____________________

They've reached California.

The warm sun beats down on them as they speed past orange groves. The pungent scent of citrus and sunshine mixed with smog comes in through the cool air vents, lingering subtly. The sky is an immense, perfect blue, so perfect that it almost seems fake.

That describes California well.

They speed down freeways and byways, loops and clovers, swimming in a sea of metal and cement as they head towards the coast. She likes stopping at the little convenience stores, taking stock of how the food changes across the nation.

She hops into the car, throwing down a plastic bag.

"What’s it this time?" he asks, pushing his fringe out of his face with one hand, the other lingering lightly over the steering wheel.

She grins, holding up her prize. "What else? A ‘phat’ burrito and a Zip Coke. This is the Zipmart. The turkey wraps were Wawa, the Jamaican beef patties and hot dogs were 7-11, and the Bengal coffee and Krispy Kreme were all Motomart. I can't even remember all the other ones."

"Y/N, eatin’ her way through the USA?" he quips, turning the wheel under his steady hands.

"Have a Twinkie."

"So fuckin’ gross."

"You eat worse shit than this all the time."

"I can't wait til ya hit 30 an’ lose your metabolism. You'll have to buy Richard Simmons tapes and velour track suits from Lane Bryant and I'll be laughing my ass off."

"You're such a sweetheart," she says, with some sort of indelicate sarcastic snort. Her mouth is pinched up.

But in a few minutes and a few bites, she's happy again. She blames it on the insane sunshine and the fake blue perfection, palm fronds waving in the wind, white houses whipping past.

"Let's go to the beach," he says out of the blue, and she looks at him surprised, because he usually doesn't care where they go. She's always the one with maps and red markers and plans, always the one with a sense of direction.

"Sure," she smiles dreamily, fading off into a reverie of Orange County clichés. He watches her long lashes resting on her cheeks, her half smile, her toes tapping on the dashboard.

"We'll rent one-a-them beach shacks," he goes on, fueling her sleepy imagination. She tastes saltwater and oranges under her tongue. "We'll wake up real fuckin’ early and go to sleep late, we'll swim and walk through Venice Beach, we'll smoke some weed, surf a little."

"Nix the early rise," she whispers. "Keep the rest. Van, let's go see UCLA. We'll have a grand time."

Yes, he thinks, a great time. You'll get those freckles on your nose and shoulders, you'll get sunburned lips, I will wake up everyday to your smile, your rapacious eating, the sound of you turning pages, skin against paper. I love you.

However, he does not say this out loud.

Maybe she is thinking it also.

Neither one of them speaks; they open the windows and let the sun warm their blood, making it speed through their veins with anticipation.

*

"Good God."

They are standing inside a partly lit room. Light is streaming in from the windows.. In the middle there is one acid orange velour couch; to the side there is one mattress, and on the other side, there is a tv, a closet, and a microwave.

"Is that a ‘praise the lord’ kind of good God, as in ‘God is good,’ or is that a ‘good God’ as in, look at that orange, am I trippin’ or is this what I really think it is?" asks Van, raising one eyebrow with a slightly amused expression.

"It's a ‘good God’ as in, wow, we get a microwave too?"

"So it's not me mum and dad’s bed n’ breakfast. We'll survive."

"You better not kick, sleepwalk, snore, or unconsciously cuddle," she grins, inspecting the closet with a girly kind of curiosity.

His eyebrow goes up even further.

"You're letting me share the mattress?"

She stands there, shoulders at an awkward angle, blush rising.

"I didn't……I wasn't trying to imply…"

"Relax. I'm just messin’ with you."

She glares without subtlety, muttering something less than complimentary.

"What did you bring in from the car?" he says, eyeing the bursting army duffel with a  bewildered look.

She blushes even more, fidgeting.

"Not much stuff. Just….some pajamas and such."

He sighs.

"Unbelievable. Let me see."

"No."

He snatches her pack, dumping it out. She crosses her arms defensively.

"Bunny slippers? A robe? First Impressions of Earth? Sometimes you leave no words to be said."

"Packing light is for girls," she mutters, remembering her mother's words from a long time ago. "Julian Casablancas has a lot to say about what we're doing."

She retorts: "Indirectly, Julian could apply to anything. You're misusing his lyrics."

"He won't mind."

They stand there, looking around, satisfied.

"Swim?" he hitches his thumb over his shoulder at the door.

She nods, pulling out a black bikini, and then stands there solemnly, looking at him. He realizes the situation.

"Want me to turn around? ‘Cause I can..."

But he is frozen, because she has already taken off her shirt, holding his gaze steadily, eyes pinning him down. He has forgotten to breathe, and is careful not to move, or say anything. Her face is serious and calm, expressionless, eyes burning a hole in him; she pulls off the rest of her clothes, standing graceful like a heron. Her warm skin is lightly freckled, a light layer of hair on her arms and stomach. He has to fight not to break eye contact.

She slips into the suit and disappears through the door, into the blinding sunlight, her form melting like a shadow, then gone.

He stands inside the cool darkness of the room, breathing again, silent.

They don't talk about it. They don't talk about anything at all. Instead, they swim until they are so tired they cannot speak, and then lay on the sand, letting the last rays of the sun warm their bodies. They are exhausted, sand dry and sticky-eyelashed. Music is drifting over from the sidewalk above the beach, some loose and lazy ska and reggae. They are mellow and relaxed, languid. Her hand drifts lazily through the air, letting sand pound through her fingers onto his chest, thin rivers of gold sliding down his stomach.

"I see the ghost of Marilyn Monroe, Moriarty racing…….punk rockers, senator's daughters, surfers, drug addicts, animal right's activists……….California is one long, warm dream," she whispers, her voice like the sound of the pouring sand.

"Poetic."

"Are you mocking?"

"At least you didn't go all delirious on me with your California dreams or start singin’ Tupac," he grins, earning a light sandy slap. There is a moment of silence, after which he hears her quietly humming.

"California, knows how to party…."

She breaks into a girlish kind of laughter that makes him smile as she springs up, leaning over him, shaking her thick, sandy hair in his face, covering it, and he's suffocating in her hair, her neck, her smile, her gleaming eyes.

She gets up, slowly meandering towards the shack.

"I'm making dinner," she calls over her shoulder.

"Put a paper towel down under the mini pizza this time!,” he calls after her. “Only three minutes or the sauce will jump and I'll have to clean it again."

She rolls her eyes, moving in long, languid strides.

He gets up to follow her before long.

It is night, and they are both soundly sleeping. She is cold, and curls up; in his sleep, he childishly pulls towards her, unafraid and relaxed. They clutch the blanket, windows open to the ocean breeze, while the waves rhythmically sing outside in the night, advancing and receding in the infinite darkness beyond the water.

She wakes up before him, and pulls away a little, stiffly. It is morning and the first rosy rays of the dawn are breaking through, illuminating the room in a pale gold light. She studies him, eyes soft. His hair is thick and lightened by the sun, beginning to curl in on the edges; his thick eyelashes and plump lips make him look like a petulant child. All the harshness, the pain of concealing his emotion, the guarded teenage sarcasm are gone from his features.

She cannot explain her desire to kiss him, to place her lips between those slightly open ones and steal the breath that comes out. She is afraid and hesitant all of a sudden.

But she does it anyway.

When she pulls away, she sees his bright eyes watching her silently, the eyes of a little boy, hooded by those butterfly lashes. He does not say anything as she lays down, her hair splayed on the pillow, still looking into his eyes. They lay there for a while like that, not saying anything. He suddenly raises his hand, taking her chin in it, placing his thumb against her dimple, then tracing her ear.

He retreats.

"We should talk," he says simply, and for the first time, they both want to.

*

Days are pouring through a sieve. There are a few mornings spent between the jagged black edges of rocks on the Pacific coast, cold salt water and the sweet, pungent smell of cedar wood mixing in her hair. She stands wrapped in a blanket, on the edge of the water in the morning, watching the sunrise while he makes tea.

She lays in the scented groves, under the damp bark, letting tiny drops of rain drip on her mouth from the leaves. He covers her in ferns and refuses to touch her, afraid of what might occur now that they both know the gentle truth.

Her smile is sweet and benevolent these days.

During the day, they lie on the sand, watching the grey waves and picking driftwood.

"You can always tell who the Californians are" she says, the corners of her mouth turned up, eyelids half closed.

"That so?"

She sits up on one elbow.

"They always run into the water, surfboards under one arm, hollerin’ and whoopin’ about the waves, look at the size of that mother! Half a second later, they’re running out, teeth chattering, blue toenails, cursing."

He laughs.

"If you don’t die of hypothermia there's white sharks."

"Win win."

She drapes a strand of seaweed over his arm, pensive, and his smile slowly becomes solemn. His eyes memorize her, burn her into his memory as the grey wind whips her hair around her face. Her arms curl around her knees, and her mouth is very grave. They know everything is rather different now.

They've packed up and moved. The car moves through the sweltering August heat like a mirage, and they both feel the change in the air, the smell of an ending approaching. Through the long drive through Nebraska, she even found herself absentmindedly thinking about school supplies and such, ticking off a list in her head that would doubtless show up on paper. He can sense this in her, he's always been able to read her when she tries to hide something. Cornfields sweep past, mind numbing in their similarity, blazing under the hot sky; they stop once, because she wants to walk through one.

"I've never done it before," she says rather defensively. He's still grinning.

"You're going to get lost. They're going to find your corpse years later, probably not too far away from other corpses of tourist who lived on the east coast."

"Well, at least yours will be next to it."

"Dream on."

"Van." she pleads, voice sweet now.

"Didn't you ever watch Children of the Corn?"

"They don't exist now. Crop dusting killed them."

"No way in hell," he replies, crossing his arms.

Minutes later, he's trudging through the rows.

"It's like a maze or some kind of scary dream," he hears her voice, seeing flashes of brown hair and bare arms through the green stalks. An odd sensation pursues him that she is only a ghost, rustling through the humming field next to him.

"Y/N?" he suddenly says, breathless.

He can hear words. Flashes here, there, silence. Laughter. The acid blue sky presses down on his shoulders, the sun burning. The silence seems to buzz, heavy, eerie, beautiful.

"Y/N?"

His worn black boots have picked up now, going faster down the row. He is in a forest, surrounded by pale green, row after row. Leaves slash at his arms, tracing fine, invisible lines. The earth crumbles soft under his feet, dark and hot. His mouth is dry, no words will come out.

She appears in front of him in the blink of an eye, suddenly and surprisingly there, out of nowhere. She is calm and quiet. His heart is beating hard, in the sound of the humid silence.

"I thought I lost you for a bit there," he finally says, through dry lips.

She nods as though she understands, and grabs his hand, pulling him through the rows back towards the small glow of light where they had entered.

*

"So see, that's why the Cubs suck," she says, very seriously, snapping her gum twice, swinging her legs, sitting on the hood.

"Because an old greek man put a curse on them?" he grins, shaking his head.

"Yep. Years later, we now have the Billy Goat Tavern, founded by this great man, where people can come devour overpriced heart-attack inducing burgers and talk about how much the Cubs suck."

"Ok, what else?"

"Hmmm…..oh, Jerry Springer!"

"But of course."

"And original Chicago hot dogs. Better than Llandudno," she says maliciously, smiling.

"Now why would you say that? You know it's just going to start a fight and make me yell at you."

"Hold on to that feeling until we get to Jerry Springer."

He finishes putting in gas, screwing the cap back on. "Anything else?"

"Gino's East. I want to eat the hamburger pizza and write my name all over the walls."

He smiles.

"Can I put ‘+ Van’ next to it and draw a heart around it?" he says, half jokingly, but he's afraid he might really mean it.

When she looks at him, he's surprised by the shyness in her smile as she nods, and he feels as though he has seen through something he was not supposed to for a second, and it made his heart jump a rhythm, causing some dull sort of ache.

"Chicago it is," he says suddenly, to get past the moment. "But so help me God, if you insist on singing the whole soundtrack all the way there I'll go to Minnesota to see the Butter Festival instead."

"C'mon babe, we're going to paint the town, and all that jazz."

"I'm warning you,” he drawled out, playfully.

She throws her arms up, flipping her hair and hopping down from the hood.

"Oh, she's gonna shimmy till the gutters break, and all that jazz," she sings, spinning under the gas station lights, one dramatic hand over the proverbial heart.

And she does not stop until they are two miles into the highway.

They stay at an old hotel there where everything smells of clean detergent and the towels are rough and embroidered with someone else's monogram;  the shower stops working after Van takes one, leaving her with a sink and a few washcloths as her only option. He opens the windows, so the sound of the night wind rustling the trees can come in. There are no sounds from the cobblestone street outside, and the thin lace curtains slowly and sensuously swell and retreat in the breeze.

He helps her wash her hair, careful to keep the suds out of her eyes. She smells damp and fresh from her washdown, clad in clean cotton underwear and a slightly large cotton nightgown whose straps kept falling down her shoulders. Van remembers thinking she looks adorable, nightgown barely to the knees, cut like a childish smock, frustrating straps falling, wet hair plastered to her head. He leans over her, turning her head under the faucet, studying the slight ridge of the spine as she stands there, bent over. Gently, he towels her hair, making light jokes about drowning cats and bedtime prayers, feeling his heart pulsing, his whole body warm, alive, waiting.

Every once in awhile, she comes close without noticing, her skin brushing almost unnoticeably against his, as they do a sort of delicate dance around each other. She is surprised at how those hands that can make such raucous sounds on guitar can be so delicate. She knows her body is humming too, singing, sending out warm waves, invisibly beckoning.

They lay down next to each other, the dark of the room illuminated only by one golden orange streetlight, barely casting shadows of the trembling leaves on their wall. Outside, a wind from Lake Michigan whispers secrets from the north.

They each know that should they even touch a second, the least significant touch, that it would be impossible to stop. So they lay there, keyed and nerves taut, bodies buzzing silently like the flickering streetlight, unable to sleep, thinking only about things that made it even more unbearable. The tiny space between them on the white sheets expands like an ocean, then shrinks to a millimetre, like a hallucination. He is close enough to feel the golden down on her arms raising, close enough to hear each shallow breath, too afraid to move.

He squeezes his eyes shut.

"I can’t sleep."

Her voice makes him jump, sending a shock through his nerves before his body quiets down again. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm down.

"Can’t either."

The sound of sheets rustling. Another hissing whisper, each word heavy.

"I’m cold."

"Should I shut the window?"

"Please?" she says, and he sees the dark outline of her arm as she props herself up on her elbow.

Then he sits up. She blinks her eyes, and he is right over her, his dark form inches away, and her whole body stops working and the ground drops away, the ceiling explodes in stars as the poor girl freezes. In an instant he is by the window, and as the blood rushes back into her veins, she realizes he has just simply vaulted over her to get to the other side. She can hear the queer sound of her breath, strangled, rattling in and out of her body almost silently.

She watches the muscles of his back tighten, the edge of skin that rises from the soft cotton at his waist as he reaches up to pull the window down. She concentrates on the strange warmth curling inside her, eyes tight shut.

She hears him crawl in on his side.

Her hand moves of its own accord into no man’s land, the few inches of white sheet. Years later, she would remember how it had moved without her consent, as though her body had refused to be denied any longer. It rests between them, powerless to do more.

He hears it move, watches it incredulously, centimeters away from his. Every thought suddenly flees, leaving only a calm quiet in his head. Everything is slow, as though underwater. He hears his heart, feels the cotton on his skin, smells her hair. His fingers close around her wrist slowly, daintily, circling it. He feels the little round bones, the blood rushing through her veins, her pulse.

The crime.

She buzzes with electricity. Her body purrs, velvety.

Very slowly and painfully her hand moves to his chest, landing on his heart, feeling its wrecked pulse tearing through to her palm. Her lips curve shyly in the darkness.

"Are you scared?" he whispers, no need for explanations. Under his shut eyelids, new universes and northern lights bloom soft in the darkness.

"No," she replies, voice small and still.

He hear her body rustling, and he instinctively turns towards her, eyes still shut.

"Open your eyes," she says softly, each word like a petal.

He does, and sees her dark, gleaming ones, wide and floating in her face, glittering.

Her hand has forgotten herself on his chest, seeming attached there by that current. It drops softly to the sheet and slides back to her side.

He studies her features.

"Why not?" she says, feeling the blood rushing to her cheeks. She cannot believe she is asking for this.

"I don’t want to hurt you again," he answers, his voice strangled. She can see the rise and fall of his chest. The feeling inside her begs, and she feels it move between her hipbones, little ripples of warmth spreading. He continues. "I don’t want you to regret this later."

She trembles.

"Can I touch you?"

She freezes at his soft words. This is different, different than the mere teenage physical attraction that has moved them to act before, clawing at each other, frenzied. This is terribly different and she can feel everything reverberate inside her like an echo.

She is too scared to hear the sound of her own voice. She nods.

And so he does. She watches his hands in wonder, how they move like instruments, with such exact precision. How his head falls forward, gentle, lips parted, how she arches and coils and curls in response, how stars bloom and explode silently under her closed eyelids, colors and circles, ragged breath. She hides her face in her palms, and bites down hard on her knuckles.

Then, it’s over.

Rapidly, he turns away from her, afraid she’ll see the look of pure happiness crawling up in his eyes. I love you, he wants to say.

They lie sleepless all night, not saying a word.

#vanfiction #catb fanfic #catfish and the bottlemen #catfish #catfish fanfic #vanfic #van fiction #van fic #roadtrip fic #roadtrip #road trip #van mccann #part 3

[swagmasterlowell]

For the Love of Pizza

Some sicc High School AU Fluri based on @yozora-no-ai ‘s bizzare experience earlier today. It’s mostly comedy. I’ll cross post it to A03 later. Rated P for Pizza.

They had been there for hours. 6 Hours to be exact.

Other students often criticized the student council for just being a bunch of kiss-ups trying to bolster their resumes and college transcripts. Maybe the other students weren’t entirely incorrect, but still. The members of the council put in a lot of hard work to make sure the school events were at least a bit fun and not run by adults trying to be cool and relatable.

Spending 6 hours in the gymnasium hanging up decorations after school on a Friday night was something only a dedicated person would do. Or someone who needed community service.

It was a blessing when the pizza arrived. Everyone- save for a few- dropped what they were doing and gathered around the table with the pizzas. There was no order. No line. Someone opened a box and 5 hands at a time were reaching in to grab themselves a slice before it was all gone.

Flynn, who was tasked with painting the large paper mache Easter eggs, was on a roll, so he was one of the few who decided to hang back. Usually that meant he wouldn’t get a slice but Sodia had grabbed him one and the slice was sitting off the side, tempting the student council president with its seductive, cheesy scent. Every so often Flynn would glance over at the pizza slice longingly, but his determination to finish the eggs was stronger than the growl of his stomach. Pizza could wait, eggs could not.

When he was halfway done, Flynn stole another glance at his pizza slice just in time to see the insufferable asswipe from his gov/econ class swipe it up and take a bite out of his pizza.

Never had Flynn stood up faster than he did in that moment. He stood up so fast the blood rushed to his head and he went down within seconds, an angry bark dying in his throat as he crumpled to the ground.

The pizza thief’s brows went up in surprise, mouth frozen mid bite. A few students turned to see what the source of the loud ‘thunk’ had been but the rest were too tired to care.

Flynn quickly scrambled to his feet, cheeks blazing red as he glared at the dark-haired culprit who had finished off the filched pizza slice.

“Hey, Lowell! You can’t just take other people’s stuff!”

Lowell- Yuri Lowell to be exact- seemed bewildered at the other’s exclamation. “Well it was just sitting there. I didn’t think it was anyone’s, sorry. I guess.”

The few students watching the exchange could practically see the smoke coming from Flynn’s ears as the blond snapped, “At least give me a proper apology!”

Yuri put his hands out defensively, though the action was more damning than defensive with the  pizza grease on his fingers. “Okay- geeze. I’m sorry for eating the pizza. I was actually on my way over here to ask you out, but I got a little hungry.”

Flynn, who had raised his pointer finger angrily, lowered his hand as his eyes narrowed. “You- you what?”

“I got a little hungry.”

“No! The other thing, before that.”

“I came to ask you out.”

The gears in Flynn’s head kicked into overdrive as he thought to himself. What kind of person goes and eats someone’s food before asking them out? Who does that? It seemed like Yuri was the type to do that. He had a lot of balls thinking anyone would say yes after having their pizza stolen. He definitely wasn’t bad-looking, but that was beside the point-

“It was just a slice of pizza.” Yuri groaned in exasperation. The nerve of that guy-

“If you think this is just about pizza-”

“Hey! I said I was sorry. Look, I can make it up to you.”

“Oh really?” It was Flynn’s turn to sound exasperated.

“Yeah, give me your number and I’ll call you when I get another pizza for you. Then you can come and get it.”

“That…” Made a lot of sense actually. At least Yuri was nice enough to pay him back. Yuri already had his phone out too so Flynn grabbed it and put in his number, though when he typed in the last number it dawned on him- too late. Yuri swiped the phone from Flynn’s hands and winked.

“Thanks, I’ll call you later.” And then he turned around and walked away, gone just like Flynn’s pizza slice.

Flynn blamed the head rush from earlier for his grave miscalculation. At least the irritation took the edge off his hunger. The blond continued painting his eggs aggressively before a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

Estelle, a fellow student council member, smiled down at Flynn. “Hey you look like you could use a break. I saved you a slice of pizza.” If there was a Pizza God surely he was looking out for Flynn in that moment in time, and Estelle was the Pizza Angel sent down from Pizza Heaven. Sure, the pizza slice was lukewarm, but it was really the thought that counted.

Flynn smiled wearily back at her and replied, “Yeah. I could, thank you.”

-

Flynn ended up ranting to Estelle about the encounter with Yuri, venting his frustrations between bites of pizza.

“And then he tries to trick me into giving him my number!” Flynn threw his pizza-free hand up in the air before resting it on his head to run his fingers through his messy blond locks. “Who does that!? That’s not even close to how you’d ask someone out-”

Estelle nodded attentively as Flynn took another bite out of his pizza, chewing on it angrily.

“So…. did you give him your number?” Estelle asked innocently. Flynn choked on his pizza.

“I- well- uh.. I mean- uhhh..” Flynn’s face turned redder with every sentence fragment that left his mouth. He didn’t even have to properly answer, he could tell Estelle knew from her smile.

“Maybe he won’t be so bad.”

“Say that to my pizza slice.” Flynn grumbled. Normally he would never be so petty but Yuri Lowell got under his skin far too easily.

Estelle giggled, “At least give him a chance.”

“Well… he did say he’d buy me another pizza.” Flynn admitted.

“See? Not all that bad.”

“I guess…” He seemed unsure at best.

Estelle smiled, brushing a few strands of strawberry pink hair behind her ear. “There you go! I’ll help you finish up the last of the eggs.”

“You’re too kind, you don’t have to-”

“But I want to.” Estelle pouted as Flynn sighed, though he was smiling anyhow.

-

Flynn’s quick break had been longer than he planned, but at least he wasn’t listening to the insistent growling of his stomach anymore.

He and Estelle walked over to his eggs… only to find that they had all been painted already. Flynn blinked once, then twice, then circled the eggs, studying them intensely. Had his break really been that long? Flynn gingerly touched the top of an egg only to find that the paint was still drying. He shook his head, his break hadn’t been long, whoever had painted the eggs had just been really quick. The paint job wasn’t half bad though.

Something caught his eye so Flynn crouched down and peered at the text on the bottom of the last egg.

’Ur welcome u can thank me l8r- YL’, it read, which was followed by a nine digit number that could only be Yuri’s phone number.

Strangely, Flynn wasn’t even mad. Maybe Estelle was right about Yuri not being such a bad guy after all.

-

As Flynn stood smiling in front of the drying eggs, Estelle turned and gave Yuri a thumbs up. Yuri returned the thumbs up before leaving the gym entirely and beginning the trek home.

It could have gone a lot smoother, but mission accomplished nonetheless.

A few minutes went by before his phone buzzed. Yuri pulled the device from his pocket and checked the sender. Pizza Boy. He definitely hadn’t expected Flynn to get back to him so soon. The message was a simple, *‘Thank you.’* Of course Flynn wouldn’t cut corners and abbreviate.

’no probelm wen and where do u want ur pizza tomorow’ Yuri watched as the 3 dotted bubble popped up before another message appeared.

’3 PM at The Comet is acceptable for me.’

’3 it is then c u itll be slice to c u again’

Yuri laughed as he watched the 3 dotted bubble appear and reappear several times and could only image what Flynn’s face looked like. The student council president was in for a wild ride.

#fluri #flynn scifo #yuri lowell #tales of vesperia #tales of series #prompts #listen kids it is most defintely OOC but I was too busy laughing to care