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matchadobo · 1 year

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KIDD; beauty & the beast

wc: 10754 summary: a beauty & the beast inspired story where kidd is the beast and reader is the beauty. featuring killer, law, and luffy. tw: this is my first time writing a fully fleshed out fantasy story sO PROCEED WITH CAUTION, monster au, suggestive themes but no actual seggs, fem reader, if i miss any errors im sorrrryyyyy

in the quaint village, a seemingly quiet town busy to each their own. the arch that welcomes the entrance of the city has ambrosial vines snaking up to each side of its pillars up to its voussoir and keystones that had the townsmark engraved in it. a fountain welcoming each soul that enters the village was riddled with swans, birds, and vociferous children chasing each other.

a vast cobbled path with shops of varied provisions: empty antique bookstores, butcher shops with burly men, bakeries jam packed with patrons, and flower shops filled with gentlemen and swooning ladies. a town as old as time where everyone knows each other. and everyone knows you as that one eccentric lady who always got her face sunk in books and hasn't got herself a man yet.

you had just finished buying a book that you've got your eye on. a leather-covered, raven book with gold linings in the spine. you hugged the piece tight to your chest as a joyous smile decorated your face. you opened the book excitedly, relishing the scent of newly pressed paper wafted into your nostrils. your eyes sparkled in delight when your eyes skimmed across the tiny letters of the paper, breezing through the pages as you fully immersed into the fictional world. yes, it has been your solace. your imagination could run miles upon miles across the globe, galaxy, and all existence. the beauty of each tale you got lost on, wandering around the dazzling dream fiction has to offer.

more than anything, books have shaped you as a person. a knowledgeable woman, unlike the ladies who'd dumb themselves down to be someone's bride. a visionary, unlike the people that surround you and your scientist father, you have the initiative for change and have the intellect to do so. a refined lady, wanting a man because of your standards, not just because they're a man. you want to be courted, treasured, and loved by a man who is willing to stoop himself down to treat you just how you deserve it.

"weird lady,"

"'s why she doesn't have any man yet. pft i mean, who wants a woman who reads?!"

"she should be bearing a child right now."

mocks, jeers, and insults. the all too familiar strings of slurs which you've grown to hate and ignore. you sauntered across the stone-carved path of the town while hearing those remarks. you huffed a disappointed sigh and carried onto your way home.

"i'm home! i brought the tools you were asking, papa!" you called out, shutting the door by your feet and putting your basket full of goods and hand tools on the wooden table draped in checkered red and white cloth.

your father welcomed you to a tight hug, an ear to ear grin when he saw the hand tools. "this is perfect, thank you dear! i can now carry on to my journey to showcase my experiment!" he placed a kiss on your forehead before grabbing the tools you brought to his satchel.

"always be careful, papa!" you farewelled, helping him up by the horse. you also bid the stallion goodbye, patting it lightly by its head. you sent them off and carried onto your day.

a couple of days had passed yet no signs of your father coming back, it was one drowsy morning when you heard philippe come back with a neigh of distress, only to find out that it was only philippe who had returned and your father missing. you surmised that the stallion was sending a message with the muddle of neighs and frantic movements so you opted to ride onto where he was pointing to after grabbing your coat and draping it on your head down to your body.

soon enough the agitated, cinnamon-colored clydesdale hesitated to enter the black forest. an eerie and desolate forest barren of trees and vegetation that had bright yellow eyes lurking, unbeknownst to you what creature it belonged to. the breeze of the frigid wind sent a chill down your spine. sharp, gnarled branches of the tree lured you into its peril as you slowly entered the forest. ignoring the hearsays that uttered horrors of not returning and the forest itself leading you astray and towards your demise, you ventured in full speed with too much desperation of getting to your father before it's too late.

not too long after your chilling journey, you stumbled across a gothic castle with bats and crows settled on the peak of each pillar. the sky remained gloomy, and brought thunderous clouds despite the sunny weather back in your village. the castle was grim; pointy gargoyles were accentuating each apex of the roofs, its raven colored stones that make up the most of the building had numerous cracks from its age, ghastly branches and vines of withering plants almost blocked the flying buttresses and the pointy, arched iron gate you were facing. what surprised you and perked your eyebrow was the garden of tulips spread across the vast yard that was beside the cobbled path where the front of the house led to.

it piqued your curiosity, the contrast of the tulips and the arid aura of the place drew you even more to its mystery. that's why you couldn't help yourself but enter, despite the danger awaiting you. crows flew across the field at your arrival, you shielded yourself in return but they went over your head, the gust of wind raising goosebumps across your skin. you mused at the beautiful batch of flowers, well-tended, yet seem to be missing a few. there you saw in the middle of the grass, your father's hat. you immediately thought that maybe, your father got stuck here. so you rushed into the castle without thinking of the possible consequences.

you knocked at the double wooden doors with the labyrinth knockers settled on each knob just above your head, desperately calling for someone. no one answered and the silence killed you. so you pushed through the towering doors, using all your weight to enter the castle. the sound of the door creaking open echoed throughout who knows where, because goodness was the castle vast. it was phenomenally dark, it scared you. tall ceilings and wide rooms. a red, velvet carpet spanning across the checkered porcelain floors. countless mirrors lined with golden, intricate details decorating the walls. lofty stairs with delineated golden railings. broken yet glimmering chandeliers. colossal paintings of individuals poshly dressed in layers of clothing and heavily styled hair that curled in ways you could never imagine, yet each painting was harrowed by scratches on each portion where it seemed to be a place where a prince stood. you tilted your head in confusion and curiosity.

swoosh!

you could've sworn seeing a shadow in one of the balconies in your peripherals, so you sharply turned your head to that direction. yet there was nothing but a gust of wind.

you swallowed a huge lump in your throat, mustering up all the courage you had in you. you grabbed the candelabrum settled at the cabinet near the front door to have some light as you venture deeper in the castle, calling out to your father. your voice echoed.

you heard incessant whistles by your side. you turned your head and saw a man in one of the elongated mirrors, smiling and waving at you.

"oi, you seem to be lost." he giggled, getting a good look at you. "are you the one finally for our master?" you tilted your head in confusion as you mused at the man inside the mirror. he was wearing a red suit with a black button up and a frilly, pink tie. he had round eyes and a tiny scar below the left one. but what's most remarkable in him was the straw hat resting on his disheveled, raven locks.

"a word of advice, leave at once. and straw hat-ya, stop humoring her." another voice spoke across from you, another ominous mirror mounted in one of the pillars beside the stairs. "we shouldn't impose on our master, he'll get his love when he demands it." he had this composed aura, more earnest than the other one. dark, baggy eyes, arms adorned with ink of varied designs, yellow three-fourths button up perfectly hugging his lean torso, he had a goatee and prominent sideburns, and he also had a white, black-spotted northern-style fur hat.

"aaaw, you're no fun torao! don't you want to finally get out of these mirrors?! we haven't gotten on that date i asked you years ago!" the red one whined, jumping in his place with a pout on his face. you could see the other one, pulling his hat down in embarrassment as he stayed quiet.

you on the other hand, couldn't muster up anything to say. completely trying to piece out whatever the fuck is unfolding in front of you. men flirting in mirrors are certainly not what you expected in this castle! in the silence of your overwrought, another voice emerged from the corner of the castle from what seemed to be a kitchen.

"but we have a deadline, don't we? it's steadily approaching." he calmly uttered as his features got illuminated , wiping his hands with a towel. the only normal you’ve seen in the flesh so far. his noticeably blonde hair was voluminous and almost masked the left side of his sculpted face, blue eyes glowing in the poorly lit manor, his charming face contrasting his burly build clad by a stygian three-piece suit. "allow me to introduce myself. address me as killer, the butler of this castle. that red one is luffy and the one wearing yellow is law. please, follow me to your qua-"

"no!" you immediately refused, suddenly all eyes of the three gentlemen were on you. "i-i'm sorry but, i came here to find my father...! i think he's in danger. can you please take me to where he is?" you desperately interjected, hopeful tone as you pleaded through your eyes.

"i told all of you, she'll come looking for him in an instant. forget the matchmaking." the earnest guy scoffed. you could see the butler sighing but he returned to you with a smile, gesturing for you to follow him.

as you reached the basement where a dungeon appears to be, you could hear the meek coughs of your father from the corner cubicle. you hurriedly rushed to where he was. he was shivering. you touched his cold fingers from the small window of the cell, trying to warm them up as tears streamed down your face. "n-name! you should run! you're not safe here! hurry, before he comes!"

"i won't go, papa! not without you! are you hurt? you shouldn't stay here, you must be starving. but wait...before who comes?"

in a blink of an eye, you were met with a towering creature as thunder erupted. he was much, much bigger than you, bigger than anything you have ever encountered. he was covered in a red, fur hooded cape; dimming most of his features, a crimson, satin scarf mask covering his lower face and only showing his gleaming, golden eyes, his toned torso bare; the cape shielding the sides of his upper body, his pants were incongruously varied sizes of yellow dots with a black base, and his boots that reached his calves made him even more taller. looming over you, his aura filled with hostility. it's as if he's ready to kill you.

he reeks of blood. his anonymity, the darkness, and his prodigious size terrified you to an extent that hazed your mind. the glint of his haughty gaze, how he looks at you as something so measly that could be destroyed eventually with little to no effort. he can crush you under him, spill your brain matter in mere seconds. you couldn’t move even if you wanted to. you wanted to run. scream. just fucking get away from your inevitable passing.

“you have the damn gall to enter my castle?! who do you fuckin' think you are?! " he furiously roared. bellowing across the layers of stone carved walls, the glass of the lanterns mounted on the wall cracking at the reverberations of his growl. you stood there, frozen from the fear rushing through you. your hands felt numb. your knees were jelly. the soles of your feet digging by the hard, cobbled floor. you looked up at him teary eyed.

his bellowing came to a stop when he met your glassy eyes, you didn't miss the hint of hesitation in his eyes. he soon rolled his eyes and avoided your gaze, scoffing. "i'll have you know that the man you call father's been acting foul, woman."

"w-what?"

"your father took tulips from the garden, our garden. without permission." killer retorted, leaning by the pillars of the jail cell. "the tulip garden is a very important asset to our master. even if permission was asked, our master would be downright enraged."

"damn right. to say the least, i was merciful enough to just detain him." he snarked, kicking the door of your father's cell and laughing to see him flinch. you glared at the towering man, almost punching him if you could just reach him. "tch, entitled humans."

"for flowers?! you detained him for picking flowers?! that's absurd!" you fumed, brows furrowed in indignance. you leaned slightly towards him, boiling in anger.

"insolent fuckin' lass!" he bellowed once more, leaning down at you. you leaned back yet he was still so close you could smell him. you got a good look at his eyes, it's almost as if fires were dancing on the yellows of his eyes. you could see him seething in anger at the mild translucence of his mask, you inhaled his musky scent that mixed with the aroma of freshly laundered garments. "know your place." he ordered, guttural voice rumbling from his chest.

you shivered at the proximity, stiff beneath his gaze once more. killer stepped in and put a hand on his master's chest. "please! leave her be! she's my daughter!"

"quiet! i'll have your head by midnight!" he barked, your father shivering in cold fear. you stepped in amidst the shaking of your hands, instinctively protecting your father.

"no! s-stay away! please!" you defensively stood at the space between the creature and the door of your father's cell. "whatever it is you're planning to do to him, d-do it to me...! i'll be your prisoner!"

each man in the dungeon, including your father, had their eyes staring daggers of horror at you. "no, name! please don't!" your father pleaded, tears streaming down his place.

"fine by me!" the creature responded, whirling his cape as he stormed out. "killer, take this man to the carriage and send him to their distasteful village. as for the woman, throw her in jail! she's my prisoner." and with that the door shut.

it was a tear-filled goodbye. killer had a difficult time prying your father off of you as he was ignoring the pleads you two are giving. and all of it happened in a blur; now, you're crying in the same cell your father was in earlier.

"oi." luffy called out to killer, preparing the dinner at the kitchen. ignored.

"oi~" no response.

"OII!!!"

"what is it, luffy?" killer returned to the boy in the mirror beside him, voice calmly pissed. his sleeves rolled up as he doused the tarte in brandy and flambéd the dough. it's the appetizer for this evening.

"aren't we gonna matchmake master and that pretty girl?" he pouted, examining and drooling at the tarte he was making.

"we could but, master's furious right now." he tsked lightly, turning the stove off. "mind doing some...interventions?"

luffy immediately knew what he was talking about and traveled through the master's quarters, after forcing law to come with him of course.

the beast was pacing in his quarters, dour and grubby. curtains lopsidedly hanging on each window, disheveled by multiple scratches. the mattress had its stuffing rumpled and taken out angrily. furnitures broken and dilapidated, thrown across the room. carpet ruggedly clawed. the only light source in the room was a glowing, red tulip encased in a cylindrical glass. its petals slowly falling over time.

"master!"

"what the fuck is it?"

"torao has a suggestion!"

"w-what?! i-i don't even kno-!" law smacked the smaller lad, the hint of panic at his shaky voice sent luffy snickering. law cleared his throat and uttered, "well. you seem to be perturbed, master. mind lending me an ear to help you feel better?"

"what idiocy are you two up to again?" he scornfully answered, snarling in his seat at the presence of two fellows in the mirror.

"quite the contrary, my lord. it has something to do with...the guest down at the dungeon." his little pause caused the beast to turn his full attention to the two, luffy hiding behind law at the beast's sudden action.

"what about that damn woman?!"

"she might be the cure to your curse, our curse." law started, earnestly holding the beast's gaze. "we have a great inkling that she will get rid of your bane." the doctor's tone was careful and solemn as he studied the beast's expression, gradually considering his proposition.

after a few moments of silence, the beast huffed a deep breath. "fine. then what do you propose i do with her?"

"a dinner would be nice!" luffy butted in, a bright smile on his face as he emerged from behind law's back.

"dinner?" the beast asked, puzzled at his suggestion. it has been so long since he shared a meal with someone.

"yes! it's the first step for every date nowadays." luffy rubbed his chin, trying to think back when he peeked at the newspapers killer brought in a few days ago.

"but i presume giving her a room first would soothe this volatile situation, yes?" law urged.

the beast thought to himself for a moment before finally making up his mind and rushing down to the dungeon. he found you cooped up in the corner as you hugged your knees, biting your lips to try and stop yourself from crying.

"oi, woman!" he slammed the prison cell open. you flinched at his arrival, nothing but terror mirrored your eyes.

"i know you're brash as fuck but this is your soon to be bride. being more gentle is the wisest option, jesus christ." law shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. the beast looked a little embarrassed but maintained his brazen front.

"w-what is it now" you shakily asked, trying to be brave despite your prickling skin.

"...follow me." he turned around, expecting for you to follow him. yet you don't find it in you to stand up and obey this monster. your life was taken away!

"why should i follow you?" you daringly asked, pulling yourself up from the cold, stone floor.

"i'll show you to your room, stop being a fucking pain in the neck before i change my mind." he snarked, looking at you over his shoulder. his aureated orbs flickering, perilously drawing you into him.

"i wouldn't expect manners to come from you but goddamn you are ill-bred." you bit back and he swiftly turned around, bending to your height as he got dangerously close. your heart galloping in your chest.

"irreverence won't help your situation, brat." you felt cold at the gravel of his voice, reaching the back of your throat. you almost choked at the ominous ambience he gave with his words but instead looked away and cleared your throat.

"g-get it over with then." you looked away, looking at him would suffocate you more.

you followed his tall figure, still not getting a good look at him. all you remember from his physical features was his toned torso, snowy skin, piercing golden eyes, and harrowing, gruff voice that never fails to make your heart race from unease.

"stop boring holes at the back of my head, little mouse. i won't go anywhere." he cheekily teased, you could hear the smirk in his voice.

"stop your presumptuous thoughts, beast. as much as i would love to bore actual holes in your fucking boneheaded skull, a lady needs her beauty sleep." snarking, you crossed your arms and blew an air of irritation.

the beast found himself chuckling as he sauntered through the gothic concourse of his manor. "your derision is daring, perhaps you're not aware of your situation."

"i am. i'm just not scared of you." a lie. you're shivering. the tips of your fingers are cold. your mouth was dry. your knuckles were white, uncertain from anger or from fear. you are shaking. it shocked you how bold you are right now.

the beast stopped walking and the sudden urge to flee came to you but you couldn't move. even if he was glaring at you over his shoulder, sharp eyes digging into your soul. he scoffed after continuing his steps, "arrogant woman."

you opted to wisely shut the fuck up before you push yourself further to your demise. not too long after the suffocating silence, you have reached a tall, ivory door accentuated with golden roses.

"there." he stepped aside, letting you enter. you stand before the door of your room. "don't get too lost in there, it's quite vast."

you twisted the knob in your sweaty palms and was met by an enchanting quarter. it seemed like it did not belong to the castle, it looked too serene.

milky walls generously embellished by medieval ornaments and paintings. high ceilings with exquisite glass chandeliers. a wide traditional canopy bed with upholstered headboards in ashen. a three-mirrored, mahogany vanity lateral to the bed. an arched, bay window at the far side of the room where snowy pillows settled and velvet curtains shielding the sun. it had somehow lulled you to sleep.

"once you're finished gawking, get ready for dinner. i'd like a date who doesn't smell like grime and shit." he stifled a laugh, walking past you.

your cheeks flushed, heart seemingly to fall out of your ass. you tried smelling yourself and goodness how you reek of hell. "h-hey, i didn't agree for a d-date?!"

"you are now." his deep voice echoed in the wide halls of the manor as his figure disappeared in the shadows.

you sighed as you thought to yourself, what did i get myself into?! men speaking to you in mirrors, you were his prisoner earlier and now you're his dinner date?! what's next? are the appliances gonna move now?!

you almost shat yourself when the closet opened on its own, laying out all the clothes it had in its compartments. the vanity cabinets also sprung open, the variety of cosmetics sprawling out one by one on the desk. the bathroom door opening and the bath started running on its own. you were starting to think you were going off your fucking rocker until luffy spoke in the mirror.

"before you start crying, this is an enchanted palace." he said with both of his hands up, as if trying to stop the tears looming in your eyes.

"i-it's not haunted?"

"in a way," law intruded, clearing his throat. "you'll know more about it when the master intends to disclose it to you." his tone was stern, it's as if he hadn't smiled in years. "for now, it'd be best to heed to his requests. the amenities in your quarters are doing the work for you. the least you could do is follow through."

"it's ludicrous that you lot think that i will easily agree to the farce you have set up. hah, i mean, how arrogant can you all be?!" you almost threw a fit, furious at the doctor inside the mirror. "unlike you servants, i don't follow that beast! i'd never! i volunteered to be a prisoner because of my father, not because i want to be his date or some other bullshit you lot imposed on me, fucking hell! i refuse to go out!" you crossed your arms, angrily sitting on your flocculent sheets.

"perhaps we might've gone too far and lacked briefing, my lady." a suave voice emanated from the balcony outside, the brawny man in a suit making his way to stand before you at a decent distance. "our master needs a bride quite badly and you appear to be a perfect candidate at a perfect time. the master has a...distinctive way of showing his affinity to particular things but i assure you, you are special to him. i mean, why else will he willingly give a mere prisoner a room himself and invite this prisoner to dinner if he wasn't keen on pursuing her?"

"why make me a prisoner in the first place?" you scoffed, leaning back in your arms and rolling your eyes. "your master's a brat."

"a brat?! she called me a fucking brat?! i'm gonna fucking kill he-"

"sure, kill the only way to save all of us in this damned castle." law blatantly retorted, his words returning all sense in the beast's head.

"i reckon that the situation is incorrigible. she refuses to get in the bath nor even look at some clothes. she's quite stubborn, much like you unfortunately." killer stifled a laughter, fixing his coat afterwards to politely brush off the informality. the beast threw him a glare so deadly common folks could shrivel up and die.

"she doesn't eat then. dinner with me or no dinner at all." he sulked, snarling once more in displeasure.

"pigheaded prince." law mumbled to himself, transferring to another mirror on a different room.

as the grandfather clock chimed across the echoey walls of the palace, the dead of the night came. your stomach was growling and you are longing for food, but boy was your pride strong.

"you and the master are stressing me out, how far do your prides go?! just fucking eat, woman!" law fumed from the vanity mirror as he looked at you in disgust.

"i don't want to see your dishonorable master." you plainly responded, still sulking. "but i can't help my stomach." and there came another growl of hunger.

after careful pacing and overthinking, you opted to make your way down the dining hall and looked for something to eat. in the far side of the room, a light was shining. a silhouette of a tall, broad build was looming at the kitchen illuminated by the fire of the stove.

"apologies for keeping you, here's your dinner." killer welcomed, setting down a bowl with a beef stew. you thanked him, giving the beautiful man a smile after digging in.

"you said you refused to go out, did you not?" that ominous and familiar aura sent the hairs on your neck standing, it was near to where the voice was. "funny to see you enjoying yourself here, aye?"

the spoon shook with the shivering of your hand. it's him again. "unless you'd want me dead, i'd stay there gladly. but it seems that you badly need me, as stated by your butler." you cockily retorted, munching on your food to swallow all the fear away.

"that spunk in you. wherever the fuck do you get courage to snark at me like that?" he slammed his hand on the space beside your tableware, the objects jumping at his force.

"from something called, a mind of my own. something you appear to have none of." you answered, trying your best to maintain this nonchalant front you have. while deep inside, you have nothing but foreboding anxiety.

he laughed to himself, bellowing across the vast dining hall. "you interest me, dollface."

"i'm glad you find me annoying."

"quite the opposite." he sat on the seat across from you, not too far. "i find you amusing. a mere woman, snide enough to keep a conversation with me. you're one of a kind, huh? tell me your name."

"it's a two way street, big guy. i'll tell you mine, you tell me yours." you finally looked at him, setting aside the cutlery and holding his gaze. his eyes were so hypnotic, the swirls of his buttery orbs grew more prominent each time you see him. he contemplated for a while before taking his hood off.

his thick and bouncy curls resembling flames sprung up at his gesture. he then combed through it with his fingers, pointy nails coated in dark crimson. chunky, curling ram horns were mounted on each side of the crown of his head. he looked devilish and ghastly; you grew more scared and more riveted. a prominent scar on his left eye that appears to be extending down somewhere, you couldn’t see since the mask obstructed his visage. "eustass kidd. the twenty-first generation prince of the eustass monarch." despite his gruff tone, his words managed to smoothly reach you. shit, he's pretty. you almost gawked seeing more parts of him but you restrained yourself.

"name. full name." you returned. "i have to say, for a prince like you, your vulgarity is unexpectedly natural." you went back to your meal, hearing a scoff from him.

"for a lowly townsfolk like you, you've got some damn nerve insulting me like that." you fell silent, his cavernous voice never fails to make the hairs on your back stand. "tell me little mouse, how are you not scared of me?"

"you're no different from the fools in my village." your response was blunt, eating a mouthful of the stew in indignance. "arrogant, selfish motherfuckers."

he clicked his tongue, anger starting to boil. he almost mauled you off of your seat but stopped when he saw a piece of food stuck in your cheek, snickering to himself when he knew how hungry you were.

"you have shit on your face." he blurted out, pointing at you. you stuck your tongue out, trying to reach over at where he was pointing at but with how he was laughing at you, you thought he was fucking with you.

"whatever game you're playing, i'm not having it you stupid prince."

"oi, you're the stupid one. you really do have shit on your face, dumbass." he insisted. "here let me-" he reached over, you felt his sharp, dark-tinted nails prick lightly on your skin as he scooped the piece of food on your cheek. you got a good look at his scarlet tousled locks and its contrast on his white, porcelain skin. his chest and biceps gravely close to you. you almost recoiled but with the difference of his whetted nails and his velvety touch, you were uncharacteristically undaunted and drawn to it. so much so that it brought heat rushing in your cheeks and your heart hammering to your chest you could hear it going crazy.

what the fuck is going on with you?! why are you flustered?! you berated yourself. you sucked in a deep breath and downed the tall glass of water, swiftly excusing yourself and bolting to your room. man, you need to get some serious talk with yourself.

kidd plopped down his wingback chair, bitter at your departure. "why the fuck did she leave?!" he snarled at his servants, as if they could calm him down.

"i can't deal with this dumbass." law had his head in his hands, agonizing over the moronic prince's thought process.

"you did a good job, master." killer spoke from the kitchen, wiping the golden wares and storing them in the cabinets. "i presume she's hiding in her room to suppress her budding feelings for you."

"whatever the fuck do you mean?"

"she was blushing, my lord." the blond insinuated, finally looking at the prince who immediately flushed at his remark. a gratifying smile on the butler's lips at his master's realization. "the proximity between the two of you may have gotten to her. her frantic behavior is enough evidence for it."

you on the other hand felt like you were going to faint. you had your back pressed against the door as you had both of your hands at the sides of your face, trying to cool your burning cheeks and collect yourself. your fuzzy mind going places it shouldn't be. he just took food off your face, stop being thirsty! he's a beast for fuck's sake!

you've decided to sleep it off before it gets worse.

once morning came, you were awoken by the bright light outside and a gentle voice jolting you awake. "name, name. wake up, your breakfast is waiting for you."

"what?" you groggily responded, still trying to stomach the fact that you just awoken at the castle of a beast.

"a bath and a new set of clothes has been prepared for you as well, you may choose among the garments; whichever fancies you. i'd rather not hurry you but, the food master left for you might run cold." he said, turning off the faucet of the tub and pointing to the hanged clothes at the rack as he spoke.

you made your way to the dining hall and reveled on the aroma of pancakes, strawberry purée, and brewed coffee. you quickly feasted on the scrumptious food prepared just for you.

too consumed in eating, you didn't notice kidd watching you at the balcony from the second floor, an unseen smile in his lips at the sight of you happily stuffing yourself.

"falling already?" kidd almost jumped at his butler's voice, almost cursing him out the castle.

"shut the fuck up."

"why don't you join her, my lord? staring would only make you want for more." the blond teased, inducing the light tint in the prince's cheeks.

killer had been kidd's butler ever since the prince could remember. killer's family have been the butler of the eustass monarch for ten successive years, their families have been deep-rooted and became friends rather than master-servant. when kidd was a little boy, killer and he would always play by the yard and would spend most of the afternoon together doing whatever little boys do. up until kidd reached his adolescence, killer was his servant and confidante. even until the curse was cast upon the prince, the two remained close friends. fortunately, killer wasn’t present when the curse was brought upon the castle since he ran some deliveries but bearing the sight of his family, including the servants and the prince himself, being anathematized; he suffered the same loneliness as them.

“tell her to meet me at the garden afterwards, refusal is not an option.” he ordered, making his way to his quarters.

“what folly does that prince want?” you raised a brow.

“he didn’t mention anything else other than that, my lady. although i have a hunch that what awaits you is something special.” he smiled, picking up your used wares.

you pondered and gazed over the garden. it does look pretty. what could possibly go wrong in the garden? it wouldn’t hurt to explore a little, right? as much as you don’t want anything to do with that beast, your curiosity at his peculiarity and mystery weighed more than your rationality. as someone who is imaginative, your affinity to books has honed this attitude of yours; sometimes benefiting you and often not. and so you listened to your heart rather than your head, such a rare occurrence.

as you pushed through the arched, glass double doors, you were met with the sun blinding you. you covered the top of your vision with your hand to take in the sight before you. you felt the damp soil under the soles of your sandals. the whistling of birds, skittering squirrels, and fluttering of butterflies across the viridescent bushes as they appear to be greeting you. the breeze of the wind rustled the leaves, soon blowing through your hair and soothing you. you inhaled the aroma of the pleasant tang of tulips, hydrangeas, sunflowers, camellias, amaryllises, and berries. and at the far side of the garden you saw that all-knowing, fiery, currant hair, your heart hitching at the sight. you almost drummed your chest to calm it down but took a deep breath instead.

you sauntered across the dense fields of grass towards the gazebo where he was standing tall and gazing at the river. “saw anything you like?” he started, turning to you as you reached him. you somehow got lost in his eyes once more, the clarity of his features in the sun intoxicating you.

“t-the tulips were…cute.” you rubbed your arms, avoiding his gaze.

“what’s wrong?” he furrowed his brows, leaning down at you to try and get a view of your expression. “saw anything you hate?”

“other than you, no.” you mumbled under your breath, turning your back to him to try and get away from his stifling presence.

kidd chuckled. there she is. he thought to himself. “tell you what, little mouse.” he leaned down closer to your ear, resting a hand on your shoulder. “i don’t normally do this but, pick whatever you like, it’s gonna be all yours.”

he was so close you thought he heard how fast your heartbeat thundered. you quickly pulled back, walking backwards to the field of tulips as you waved at him. she really does get flustered at the closeness. he mumbled grinning, pleased at himself.

he watched you as you strolled across his garden, heading straight for the pink tulips. you bent down to their height, smiling to yourself as you plucked out a handful. you take in delight the blossomy aroma of the garden and the pleasant singing of the birds surrounding you. what a sight to behold. how his heart won’t stop fluttering at the sight of you dear god. how peaceful you are, how he never seem to feel serenity before you arrived. never in his life, has he witnessed someone so delicate, so divine, and so feisty enough to measure up to his own pugnacious self. he’s pissed off at you, yes. at how daring you are and how sharp your insults are. yet he can’t get enough of it. the fire that doesn’t seem to falter even if he daunts you. he finds it annoyingly attractive.

“he’s completely under her spell, don’t you two think?” killer muttered to the two lads in the mirror.

“he’s whipped as fuck if you ask me.”

“oi that’s how i look at you, torao.” luffy blurted out. the older lad intensely blushing and hitting the smaller at the remark.

“tulips, huh?” he abruptly spoke behind you. you almost jumped at his presence.

“yeah. they’re rather exquisite.” you smiled at the bouquet of tulips clutched close to your chest. “a unique one out of the bunch.” you mused at the widespread flowers at the yard.

“it means perfect and deep love in the language of flowers.” you continued. “it dates back to when two lovers fell in love and met a tragic end. much like romeo and juliet but… juliet actually died; driving the other one mad, he killed himself and the tulips grew where his blood was spilled.”

“s-sorry, that was witless. i-i just read about stupid shit like this a lot, i’ll shut u-”

“fuck no.” he interrupted. “go on with that thing you call stupidity then, i want to hear more.”

a shaky smile on your face starts to widen once his words had sunk in. you giggled, carrying on a tangent about flowers, its legends, and etymologies. while he sat down on the lawn with you, listening and remarking from time to time. admiring the way your eyes beam with genuine happiness and how you never ran out of things to say.

“ten years? you’ve been isolated for a whole fucking decade?!”

“damn right, no contact from the outside. drove me crazy for a while, but it grew on me. i wore insanity as a fuckin’ cape.” he laughed to himself, seemingly proud for reaching this far.

“how’d you last this long?”

“i’ll… show you somewhere.” he had hesitation in him but it was clear that he was eager to show wherever it is he wants to show you.

he took you to a place, not far from the garden. it was a little shack, quite dilapidated. built of planks as its walls and cobblestones as its roof. he entered first before opening the door for you. and you have to say, each time you enter a room in this castle, you are enchanted.

you couldn’t help but be enamored at the trinkets that filled the shelves that was mounted on the walls of the vast shack. they were all intricately done, meticulously built with torques, bolts, and metal scraps of varying sizes. a range of sculptures of animals, mythical creatures, abstract designs, body parts, and the like. a big, wooden workbench settled at the far side of the room where different knicknacks reside messily.

“done gawking?” he nervously laughed. “you don’t have to fucking like it, i know it’s not that mu-”

“shut up, kidd! this is breathtaking!” you clasped both of your hands together before your mouth. “the amount of patience, the creativity, the time it took, h-how did you…”

“y-you shut up.” he looked away, thankful for his mask which covered the flushing of his cheeks.

“can i touch them?”

“can i hold them?”

“can i keep one?”

you were giddy and he found it adorable. he doesn’t understand what he was feeling and he hated it. he hated how he wants you to fawn over him and his works. he hated how he craves for your elation. he hated how he wanted to show off more of his aptitude to you. he hated how funny you make him feel. “j-just don’t break anything. i’ll make you do it all over again if you do, numbskull.”

“but if you’re gonna take something, take this.” he towered over you, reaching at one of the shelves above you. “‘s a necklace, nothing special.”

your heart melted at the sight of gold-lacquered jewelry in your hands, glimmering at the glowing afternoon. “when did you make this?”

“it was a long time ago, i was like…fuckin’ 12? ‘s my mom’s.”

you looked up, surprised. “hold up! 12?! and why are you giving me this if it’s your mom’s?”

“j-just fuckin’ take it and stop yammerin’ off, fuckin’ hell.” he stormed out the workshop, ears red. was he that angry that it reached his ears?

“h-hey!” you hesitantly called out, running out the shack into the field where he was standing. “thanks for… not treating me like shit. and this necklace too..! you create… beautiful things.” you fiddled with the bundle of metal on your palms, not meeting his eyes because your cheeks are outright ablaze right now. your mouth is running dry. your head is fuzzy. the base of your fingers sweating waterfalls. and all you could hear was your wavering voice and the deafening pummels of your heartbeat.

there was a moment of silence. you tried and peek at his expression because christ does the complete absence of sound gnawed at you. you saw him covering the span of his upper cheek from the left side, across the bridge of his nose, into the right side with his palm. his eyes also refusing to meet yours. to your surprise, he was also brightly red; it was evident even if his scarf mask hid most of his face.

“i-it’s fuckin’ nothing, s-shut the fuck up and let me fuckin’ breathe jesus christ.” he said in one breath, trying his best to not slur his words. “i-i need fuckin’... air.” he mumbled, not even looking at you as he sauntered far, far away.

he left in the middle of the field; dizzy at the events, flushed and bothered. you bent down and hugged your knees, burying your face in your palms as you screamed through your nose silently. resting both of your hands beside your face to regulate your temperature once more. cause fuckin’ hell has it been going wild ever since you arrived here.

as days passed through, you had either spent most of your days doing chores or experimenting with food in the company of the three servants. you had managed to establish a camaraderie between the four of you. baking with killer has been delightful, he always has the most intriguing stories about the prince.

as for the prince, you almost never see him after that incident in the shack. whenever you find him in a room and it’s just the two of you or the other way around, he always leaves you and won’t say anything. absolute avoidance.

so you’ve decided to take matters in your own hands and head to his quarters. they’ve told you it was forbidden, that he would be more than bent out of shape. as if that ever stopped you.

you traversed the west wing. same high ceilings, aristocratic paintings, and golden chandeliers. in the far middle of the vast room, there lied a scraped up wooden door. you immediately knew that it was his.

you tried knocking a few times but was met with silence. so you entered and was met with an ominous, abraded room. frayed carpet, broken windows, scratched curtains, broken bed frames, rugged furniture stacked upon each other. it scared you, and made you want to call out to him.

until you saw that tulip encased in a glass, emitting a soft glow. unlike any other tulips in his garden, this one looked distinct. you got closer to have a better look. tilting your head as you examine the glittering object.

“the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“i-i’m sorry you didn’t answer so-”

“you fuckin’ trespassed, is that it?! get out before i change my mind!”

“b-but i still have some ques-”

“out!” he growled, thunder erupting once more. for the first time, fear had completely taken over you from the force of his voice and his aura. minatory gaze chilling in your spine. you ran out his room, into the garden of tulips, trying to calm down and get some air.

“it seems you have made a wrong move, master.” killer spoke, as the both of them gaze out the window.

“i don’t care.” cold. but man, killer’s right and it’s painfully annoying.

a few hours after, you were with the men in the kitchen as you ranted your heart out.

“what’s wrong with him?” you frowned, kneading the dough in your powdered hands. almost as if pouring all of your frustrations in the paste between your hands.

“everything.” law said in passing, rolling his eyes.

“i suppose you’ve bewitched the master.” killer returned as he mixed the gouache for the dessert later at dinner. “your little thanks and gesture at the garden had sent him into a state of deep coma. he almost never eats too, says his stomach felt funny these days. ”

“i-i don’t understand…?”

“other than his late mother, he never felt anything remotely close to rapport to other women; only indifference. you see, the master is awfully confused. emotions are somewhat foreign to him. why don’t you help and make it clear to him?”

“make what clear?”

“that the feeling is mutual.”

“w-what feeling?!” you grew rather agitated, trying to piece out whatever killer was saying.

“ah. they’re both dumb.” luffy snickered, rubbing his nose.

you could see the mild frustration in the butler’s eyes, he sighed softly before continuing. “nevermind that now, the master has prepared another something for you.”

the mention of him jolted you awake, “is he finally gonna come out of his fuckin’ cage?” it sounded bitter but boy were you hopeful to see him again, not like you’d admit that.

“as a matter of fact, he will. he is waiting right now.” he straightened up, gesturing at the yard leading to the riverside.

“h-huh?!” you tilted your head in confusion, “but it’s… dark out.”

“precisely.” a playful smile crept on the blond’s lips.

“how can you have a bonfire when it’s bloody bright out?” law’s tone was sardonic, crossing his arms.

“aww torao they’ll stargaze at the riverside! do you remember when we do that?!” the rubber boy shook the doctor in excitement, instigating the bright tint of pink in the taller lad’s cheeks.

“what took you so fuckin’ long?” the prince ‘greeted’ you with a frown. before him was a bonfire, not far from the riverside as water splashes against each other. he was sitting on a snowy, silk cloth spread across the silty ground. a woven basket, red and white checkered fabric blanketing the inside, a variety of sustenance ranging from loaves, finger fruits, packed sandwiches, and two bottles of exorbitant-looking rum.

“that’s not the issue here, kidd.” you firmly started, brows furrowed and face red from fury. the scowl in his face got deeper since he expected you to be delighted, he was stunned at your tantrum. “you’re baffling me! you shower me with all those romance, ignore me for seven days, and then have a bonfire, stargazing at the beach date after?! make one thing clear, eustass kid! what the fuck do you intend to do with me?! are you just doing these things on a whim?! are you having fun playing with my feelings?!”

he avoided your gaze. hands curlings into fists because he’s mad that you’re right. he doesn’t even know what’s going on with himself either. he always feel sick around you, feels like he’s gonna vomit fuckin’ glitter as he put it. his head is all fuzzy and full of the thought of you.

“...sit down.” he said under his breath. you sighed and did so.

he took a deep breath before going on a tangent. “even i have no fuckin’ idea how this romance thing works! i thought the solitude in this castle will drive me crazy but no, you fuckin’ did! i want to avoid how good i feel about you. i hate that you’re right about every little thing and i want to praise you for it. i hate how i always want to hear your voice. i hate how i always seem to fuckin’ look for you. in those seven days of avoidance, i stopped myself. because i know that if i didn’t i’ll be far too gone. i fuckin’ hated that i’m starting to fall deeper with you, goddamn it! all these damn years i’ve been condemned to hell on earth, i lost all hope. and then your cute ass fuckin’ showed up.”

your chest tightened as butterflies bloomed in your chest and your ears rang continuously. you were frozen. he repeats ‘hate’ a lot but it all sounds like love to you. the way he frolics in his seat as he tries to muster up his words. with the contrast of how red he is and how he ‘hates’ you so much, you couldn’t help but giggle to yourself and grow cocky.

“you think i’m cute, huh?”

“fuck off, little mouse.”

“if that’s your declaration of love i’m taking it.”

“it’s not.”

“really?”

“no.”

“‘cause i feel the same way.”

“fuck yo- wait really?!”

you hid your face in your palms, trying to regulate your heartbeat and temperature. after a long while of silence from getting tongue-tied at the confessions, you both faced each other and laughed it off.

“since you love me so much, fulfill a request for me.” you scooted closer. hands brushing by his sinewy arms, up to his broad shoulders, up to the thick column of his neck, to his half-clothed face. you could feel him going hot under your touch. “take it off for me. the mask.”

he hesitated for a while, before untying the knot behind his head. the satin material flowing graciously down his lap, revealing the lower part of his face. the canines of his lower teeth were prominent, both reaching up to his cheekbones. his scar that you noticed a few days ago, extended down the left side of his face down to his neck; seeming to be extending even further to his chest.

he carefully watched how your face will contort. will it be fear? disgust? prejudice? he expected you to recoil from whatever grotesque visage you’re seeing but no. even you got shocked at your actions.

you reached over, cupping his cheeks with glassy eyes and a smile as you tried stifling your sobs. you then wrapped both of your arms around his neck and pulled him close. he grew awfully red at your embrace. “thank you for being brave enough to show me.”

his heart swelled in his chest, it seemed surreal that such words were uttered to a beast like him. how could you endear someone so inhuman and jarring like him? no one has thanked him for showing his face, only shrieks of fear and disgust yet here you are smiling before him.

as the night deepens, so was your warmth for each other. talking about all things possible. the moon scintillating, casting a soft glow on each other’s faces.

in the quietness of the river and the tree branches you two were under, it was not too long after both of you started taking swigs of rum. the sweet yet bitter taste filling your being. you were settled between his legs, he was leaning back to the tree bark to support your and his’ weight, his heartbeat steady on your back, his thick fingers combing through your locks; his piercing nails giving your head little cozy scratches as it lulled you to drowsiness, while the other hand intertwined with yours.

“you feel warm.” he lowly mumbled, placing his chin on top of your head. you snuggled closer to the juncture between his neck and shoulders. “it’s sweet.”

“am i?” you purred, hiccupping afterwards; obviously drunk as shit.

“that was just half a bottle, how are you drunk?”

“i don’t drink much.” you giggled uncontrollably. startled by your own actions, you suddenly straddled yourself on his lap.

you held his face between your hands and placed a kiss on his forehead, holding it for a while. “never knew i’d fall with someone like you.”

“what, someone like a beast?” he scoffed.

“someone so out of everyone’s leagues yet i managed to draw you into mine. i like it. more than the fantasy of ideal men in fiction. more than the love stories i dreamed of being on. more than the written words i dreamed of hearing. more than the romance the books had taught me.” you declared. “you stand on top of all of them, my prince.” you rubbed your thumb on his tinted cheeks, tracing his horns with your fingers. you soon got lost in his eyes reflecting the rising sun from the east, falling deeper as you stare even further.

“why’re you gettin’ all fuckin’ sappy,” he tried looking away, quickly heating up. shortly after, you soon nestled in his arms and returned to the cuddle position you two had earlier where he was behind you.

“do the books also tell you that,” his hand crept up under your shirt, immediately startling you as his cold hands stung in your warm skin. “couples do this.” he continued, hand rubbing on your stomach, precariously trailing up to your chest.

“w-what are you-” you tried stopping him but you couldn’t bring yourself to move, melting in his touch.“we’re not a fucking couple.”

“not yet.” his hands roamed even further inside, playing with the seams of your bra. “tell me little mouse, how does it feel?”

“p-prick.” you should stop him before it escalates to something more yet you want him to keep going, even further. his breath is hot against your neck. his fangs brushing by your ear. “i feel like throwing my fist in your stupid face.”

“mm.” he grinned, both hands running on your waist. he pressed his nose on your head, inhaling your scent before placing a kiss on your ear. “want me to keep going?”

“fuck you.”

he then unhooks the clip of your undergarment, you felt the peril creeping up in your neck together with his small hums. “never knew you were this hungry for me.” you added.

“oh, you’ll find out now.” he whispered in a low voice. “the sexual tension was too palpable, no?” his hands slid beneath your now loose undergarment, his serrated nails poking you from time to time as he kneaded your mounds in his massive palms.

“degenerate.” you said it bitterly through half-lidded eyes. but you were just trying to mask the great amount of pleasure he’s arousing off of you.

“but you love it so much, aye?” he whispered, his fangs poking in your ear. “by the time dawn comes, you won’t be whining so much, i promise you.” his words spread electricity across your body, his smoky voice drying your throat and awakening something in you.

“go on then,” you turned around and slid your clothes off over your head, watching him fall completely red and crazy over you as his eyes scanned each curve and detail of your body. “do what you want with me.”

moments after, the alcohol soon had taken an effect and you had a hazy memory of whatever unfolded. but you know one thing for sure, you fell asleep in his arms after a long while of pleasure under the stars.

the blinding sun jostled you two awake. you grumbled lightly as you nuzzled your face in his chest, where the minimal shading of the tree you two are under was prominent enough to hide from the light. he hugged you tighter, rubbing your bare shoulders. “oi, wake up and get a good look at your prince.”

it took you a while to register what he was saying, your mind was still cloudy from sleep. but you sprung up immediately and got a good look at his face, the daylight glow accentuating his sharp features.

“who the fuck are you?!” you instantly got on your feet, clutching the blanket wrapped around you and getting the most amount of distance from this dashing young man before you.

he bellowed a laugh. but this time, it’s not chilling anymore, it’s dreamy enough to bloom flowers and spread butterflies on your stomach.

“it’s me, the man you’re so crazy about.” he smugly retorted, opening his arms for you.

you narrowed your eyes before it all finally came back to you. you ran to his arms, hugging him so tight he fell on his back. he returned your hug. one arm spanning across the width of your back, getting tighter with each second while the other propped you both up. burying his nose in your neck, the absence of fangs makes it easier to plant kisses at the juncture between your neck and shoulders. brows furrowing as he inhaled your scent once more, relishing at the touch of you.

“a little fuckin’ tight, mouse.” he complained, almost choking.

you pulled away, scrutinizing him as you placed both hands at the sides of his face while you straddle his lap. you traced your fingers across his high cheekbones and hollow cheeks sculpted by the gods. mused at his intense, canary eyes reeling you in as you studied each feature in his face in the aurora. you run your fingers across his extremely defined and narrow nose bridge. down to his plump lips that kissed you all night until daybreak. “you’re fucking stunning, i can’t believe i got my hands on you.”

despite his rose-tinted cheeks, he managed to plaster a cocky grin on his face. “i’m all yours, don’t worry.”

“NAAAMEE!!!” you hear your name being shouted from a distance, it grew closer each second. you furrowed your brows and looked back. there you see luffy and law, jogging by the vast fields. “we’re turned back! y’all did it!” you raised a brow in confusion. you assumed that since kidd turned back, they might as well too?

as luffy jumped in both of you two’s arms and rejoiced loudly, law and killer stayed back watching the two of you try and manage luffy’s embrace.

“who would’ve thought master would find love?” killer sighed in relief.

“they’re both crazy, of course it’d work out well.” the doctor responded, arms crossed.

after having a banquet for breakfast with the members of the manor, you and kidd have decided to bathe in his black, porcelain tub at his master’s bedroom. washing each other up, scrubbing each other’s backs, playing with the foamy bubbles, and rambling about all sorts of things. time seems to pass by but you couldn’t care less, you have all the time in the world to spend it with him.

subsequently after lunch, kidd decided to take you somewhere after blindfolding you. guiding you as he held your hand and shoulders to arrive at where he wants to take you.

“what is it?! stop pushing!”

“be fuckin’ patient, alright?”

as soon as he took off your blindfold, you were met with walls upon walls of books. two balconies with mahogany railings, extending to each side of the room. shiny, porcelain floors where you could almost see your reflection on. a reading nook on a tall window seat with pillows and linen sheets. books of all kinds filling all the shelves brought enormous bliss to you.

“kidd this is…”

“yeah it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he scanned the room, then back to you. “it’s all yours.”

you turned to him, smiling ear to ear. you wrapped your arms around his neck, jumping into his embrace. “it’s everything i ever dreamed of.”

he placed a kiss at the crown of your head, hugging you just as tight as you did. you spend the afternoon rummaging through the sets of books as he follows you around like a puppy, taking pleasure in your euphoria. once you’ve picked out books, you read it to him and he patiently listens and watches how your face always has that gleeful sheen when you’re around your books. you even taught him how to read piece by piece, it was an intimate moment you’d want to relive over and over again.

shortly after, you got yourself fixed up for dinner. the servants had taken their time in applying cosmetics and perfume to you whilst preparing different sets of gowns. lines of dresses with shades of varied colors and unique designs. but what caught your eye was the voluminous, off-the-shoulder, dandelion ball gown. it was conically tiered as the ruffles of the silhouette extended down to the floor. there were matching creamy, yellow gloves and golden pearl earrings.

finally getting dolled up, you made your way to the castle ball room. before you went down the stairs, you saw kidd waiting in a three-piece, blue and white suit with a tailcoat. you snorted at yourself because of how proper he looks, he furrowed his brows at you at your remark.

“the fuck you snickerin’ at?” he said, holding out his hand for you.

“nothing,” you pressed your lips together to contain your laugh. “you just look too formal, ‘s not like you.” you took his hand and he grabbed your waist, eventually getting into position for the dance.

soon, the melody of the classical orchestra resounded.

“you’re a good dancer, not bad.” you praised him.

“‘s nothing, one of the few things they drilled into royals back then.” he bragged, “you suck, though.” he snorted, looking down at you.

you blushed in embarrassment at his remark. “shut up or i’ll step on you.” you said through gritted teeth.

“by all means,” he winked. “you look fuckin’ amazing.” he leaned closer, placing a kiss on your ear.

“how’ll you tell your father? he probably hates my guts.” he instigated, laughing bitterly.

“he’ll love you… soon. trust me.” you tried comforting him with a soft smile. “for now, let’s just have ourselves a good dance, yeah?”

you hugged him close, placing your chin on his shoulder as he rested atop your head. reveling in each other’s arms according to the tune of the music across the lofty ceilings, porcelain floors, and widely decorated walls.

when the next day came, you two had visited your village. your father almost had a heart attack from the attractive man you’ve brought home. when you told him it was the beast, he almost threw all his tools at him but you explained it to him and he calmed down. it’ll take some warming up, but kidd is more than happy to go through all that for you.

BRO FINALLY PUTTING THIS OUT GODDAAAAAAAAMNNN this is actually my first time using writing guides and thorough description i hope it was immersive uwu

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singlecrow · 5 months

Note

For the fic meme! Any of these that you feel like answering I'd love to hear about! I saw in an earlier ask that one of your 'guilty pleasures' is miserable h/c and also I know you love your AUs so I'm following up on those by asking:

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

and

L: What’s the weirdest AU you’ve ever come up with?

and I swear I didn't just go down the alphabet in order on purpose but I'd also be very curious to know:

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

Hi Rosie! thank you for these excellent questions I like them a lot!

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

I tend to dither about angsty ideas and then go ahead and write them anyway. The angstiest story I have ever written (in modern times? I was much worse about this when I first started writing fic) is Samhain (when you hear the river rising). Hawkeye, in that one, turns out to (maybe?) be escaping within his mind from a horrible abusive reality. It's meant to be a scary story, but it came down on the angst as well as creepy sides. There's also a couple of apocalyse AUs in various fandoms, and this odd dystopian MASH AU though the notes say I wrote it for a friend so maybe it wasn't entirely my idea!

One thing I don't do even in angsty stories, though, is violence against women. It's a conscious decision which I've always stuck to. I'm not sure why that's different, but it feels like it.

Also, I am way in my Murderbot feels and I don't think that's a fandom you and I share but I hope you'll forgive me for manifesting an idea that is lingering at the back of my mind that I don't want to write! really don't! but is sticking with me anyway.

For the Murderbot folk then: on this reread I've been wondering about the canon divergence AU where Murderbot doesn't have the hacked governor module on the first PreservationAux survey. Everything goes wrong similarly, but without it, the PresAux gang don't escape. But, Mensah can't be killed by GreyCris because killing a major political leader will start a full-on war.

So this is a cheerful story that starts with Murderbot killing the rest of PresAux and then standing guard over Mensah while the corporates try and negotiate with her as a hostage. BUT. as we know, the governor module doesn't change an individual's personality, only their means of expressing it. So it's had the same experiences. it still loves her, it still wants to save her, it just... can't. And she has no idea that it's even a person rather than a faceless killing machine.

The thing is, I think this is a good story! That idea of a prisoner and a captive, Mensah as prisoner in body and Murderbot as prisoner in mind. But, ah. Angst. Maybe.

L: What’s the weirdest AU you’ve ever come up with?

Definitely the roller derby AU. And, I don't know if you'd call it an AU, but triple shot and extra hot raises the important question of what would happen if Starbucks opened an establishment on Deep Space Nine. What I like about that one is it absolutely follows the premise to its logical conclusion. Someone in the comments was like, I thought this was a joke and it was just a series of vignettes of various characters meeting in a cafe but no it's actual Starbucks on actual DS9. I was very proud of myself.

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

I am trying to focus on my other work right now so don't have anything fanficcish that I'm working on (except my little project for your exchange). But I'm still really fascinated by the cis girl Hawkeye idea and I've actually got about 2000w of it stowed away. Here is a bit.

“Here,” BJ says, throwing Hawkeye a spare blanket. “Our stove unionised a couple of days back. Better to just wrap up before it goes out.”

Hawkeye grabs it. “Who are you writing to, your wife?”

“Yeah.” BJ pauses, then reaches behind him for another letter, with every inch covered with dense, narrow script. “Listen, what do you think that says?”

Hawkeye follows his pointing finger. “I’m taking Erin to Mom and Dad for a week,” she reads. “That way she’ll get some experience of— huh. Your wife is taking your kid to your in-laws for dysentery?“

“I thought diabetes,” BJ says. “Potter thought dressmaking.”

“Dystonia,” Hawkeye says thoughtfully. “Dreams. Dracula.”

“It’s definitely not a capital D,” BJ says. “Which is of course the only reason my wife isn’t taking my daughter to Ohio to meet the king of the vampires."

Hawkeye laughs. It’s warm in here, despite the stove withdrawing its labour, and she’s starting to relax a little as the nightmare lifts. “You settling in okay around here, then?” she asks. “I remember my first few weeks. They were brutal.”

“Yeah,” BJ says, holding up his hands. He’s looking at Hawkeye like he’s never seen her before: Hawkeye in bathrobe over pyjamas and sweatshirt. Hawkeye is average height for a woman, which makes her about a foot shorter than BJ, and keeps her hair tied back in plaits. She never eats enough because the food here tastes like used sanitary napkins, so she’s slighter and more angular than she was in civilian life. She knows that if she hadn’t met BJ off the transport plane; if she hadn’t been driven him across hostile country for forty miles while being shot at, he would think she was fragile.

“Hey,” BJ says gently. “How’d you end up doing this? If you don’t mind my asking.”

Hawkeye tilts her head. “If you mean, how does a woman end up doing this, then that’s what you should say.”

“You.” BJ is stubborn. “I figure, you and I are going to be working together a while. Why shouldn’t we get to know each other?”

“You’ve just got a ‘satiable curiosity, haven’t you, Dr Hunnicutt?” Hawkeye murmurs, worrying the frayed edge of her sleeve between two fingers.

“I have to,” BJ says. “Not like there’s much else to do, here on the banks of the great grey-green greasy Limpopo.”

So I would like to finish that! But it has a plot and stuff, which I don't have time for right now. In due course.

#mash #murderbot

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blysse-and-blunder · 11 months

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midweek commonplace book: the rough drafts

5pm, wednesday, june 28, 2023

it's been over a month since i drafted the following ilcb post, and here i am again, in the same coffee shop i was in back then, again avoiding working on a cover letter for a course instructorship position. in the intervening time, i a) got that job b) taught that whole class, c) took a weekend trip to see a friend get married, and d) am now applying for the next one! figured it was time to open the vault (my chaotic drafts folder) and let these musings see the light of day. maybe it's the key to my success.

edits and new text below in [brackets] to preserve the original draft's ~authenticity~. XD

in lieu of a commonplace book: may day

3pm sunday, april 30 -- 6pm sunday, may 7, 2023

it's rainy and there are so many flowers starting to emerge in the neighborhood, and i've been cozily reading escapist fantasy instead of writing my syllabus or facing the future head on.

reading since i last made one of these posts, i've finished reading the following: the golden enclaves by naomi novik (audio), the jasmine throne by tasha suri, the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid (audio), dial a for aunties by jesse sutanto (audio), and the tyrant baru cormorant by seth dickinson. this not being exclusively a book review series, unfortunately, we're just going to talk about the [left out the title but did include the picture so we know it was at the feet of the sun by victoria goddard!].

[i think i failed to actually write out my thought about this one because a number of people who follow me (@spoonierbard, @hematiterings) were either reading it or were about to start reading it, and i didn't want to color their experiences. i was also not entirely sure how i felt about it? i think i went in with expectations this time, which is a recipe for disappointment-- and i also had actual literary 'critique' thoughts primed and ready, as opposed to the pure vibes and pleasure with which i approached hote. overall-- and i say this as someone who reads and loves fan fiction-- it felt like reading fan fiction, ambitious, self-indulgent, big focus on relationships and feelings, and with a definite Point to Make. a behemoth of a book, and full of things to love--but less transcendent, for me, than its precursor. happy to expand on these feelings in a pm!]

listening

[i didn't write anything here, but i did include the two videos below. both were new to me this spring-- i never had a fallout boy phase in high school, please don't laugh, so it was very exciting to fall in love with first so much for stardust and then, at the recommendation of my housemate g, this track from folie a deux. 'disloyal order of water buffaloes']

youtube

[i think both of these songs are saying something about the mood i was in this spring-- yearning? defiant? a little pissed off? "hundred days" was a sptify recommendation, and fuck if they didn't get me in one. i have since investigated the duo behind the album a little and realized i have... possible thoughts, about their oeuvre, about making art out of their relationship, but this particular song unfortunately goes extremely hard for folk so i am compelled to love it! there's just something about the main melodic hook, the plaintive/desperate tone of some of the lyrics (especially 'i want / a hundred days / of bright light' each! time!), and the way there's so much going on in the arrangement at 2:34 ish-- i wish the rest of the album was as good as this one track. i want a hundred good days! of bright light! I do regularly think about things i'm trying or striving for and think "I want ! a hundred days !" of whatever it is. At least 100 days. there's something almost reminiscent of tiffany aching to this, for me-- using your selfishness/unvarnished wants to motivate you.]

youtube

watching taking a break from prestige tv!... with more prestige tv. started severance while my fellow succession and ted lasso-viewing housemate is out of the country. i love the stylization, the aesthetic, the eeriness! this is what i was hoping don't worry darling (2022) would be, in terms of combining a mid-century aesthetic with our main characters working for some enigmatic brain-washing Company or Project. Lumon better not be a simulation-- as i discovered back in january, i like it when there's some *there* there, when the conspiracy is actually as trippy as it seems, i understand that sometimes people want to write misdirection but man i am sad anytime something was all an illusion after all. also watched a bit of the first season of the gilded age and the first truly wild episode of mrs. davis with another housemate; there is no witty comparison or fun snappy one-liner i can come up with about these two.

[the above remains true-- i just watched a bit more severance yesterday! there was a massive cliffhanger just where i stopped, but the tone of the show is so Much that i actually was glad for the break. don't get me wrong-- i love how stylized it all is, still, i love the aesthetic and all the visual and verbal details that build up to mad-men-esque 60s office culture-horror, it's fantastic. getting that little extra moment with dichen lachman's character and hearing her talk about her experience was...gutting... but my favorite character continues to be devon.]

[playing]

[triumphant return to both dnd campaigns in the past week or so! it hasn't been entirely my fault that neither group met for most of the past six weeks, but i didn't help. campaign B had our one-year anniversary on sunday! one of the players went really overboard and commissioned a bunch of beautiful cards and badges and coins for us and our characters' little secret organization!! we broke the dm's screen door briefly and saw how big her baby has gotten!! we cried over @dimir-charmer's wedding dress! we successfully escaped the wild west!]

[making]

[didn't even draft this section. i thing i had just fixed...something, but who remembers what. pro cooking tip, leftover tortilla soup can become poor grad student shakshuka so easily. two eggs + in a pan + simmer = profit]

[working on]

[aforementioned cover letter for a course instructorship for next fall is due tomorrow. technically there are two i could be going for, both of which have definite pros and cons, but i'm pouring all this time and angst into one and just kinda forgot about the other? also i'm grading for two different classes, figuring out how to have sooo many tabs open at the same time and how to juggle spreadsheets+answer key+word+ pdf reader all at the same time. oh for the days of paper submissions, you know? last but not least, i am desultorily staring at the manuscript + outline for my conference paper for next month (less than a month now! fuck!) for like an hour a day, and making very little practical progress on it. so.

#in lieu of a commonplace book #ilcb #weekly roundup #though at this point it should be 'quarterly roundup' really #'seasonal roundup'

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danielforshort · 4 months

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Back at work now that the holiday season is over. I'm returning to my fall semester project. A small part of me (the scared part of me) wanted to give up on this project forever. This is the one that I spent an entire semester on and "failed" at. But the brave part of me was eager to try again.

I'm starting out by reviewing the last things I did for the project. I'm also focusing on a better organization system for my progress, notes, timeline, and scripting drafts. I was so overwhelmed by the project and my disorganization fed into that. I read some papers about neuroimaging and data organization ("Best practices in data analysis and sharing in neuroimaging using MRI" was a great read). I also set up a OneDrive folder with some sub-folders and documents to track my goals and daily progress. I think that will really help me stay on track.

I'm also reminding myself how cool I find the topic (functional connectivity in the putamen with an autistic population). I love the putamen. I love the basal ganglia (BG) as a whole actually; I have a very rudimentary slidedeck titled "My Love Letter to the Basal Ganglia" and I did my master's project on the caudate nucleus and the nucleus accumbens! I think one of the reasons I love it so much is because I see so much of my own neurodivergent behaviors in the dysfunction of the basal ganglia. Also, I think repetitive motor behaviors (stimming) are a huge under-researched portion of autistic research, and god, can you imagine what we might learn if we focused on the existence of RMB as healthy behaviors and how gender identity and sex assigned at birth might affect RMB and how that might be seen in the BG?

Any time I start to write, think, or talk about why I love the BG I get excited about this project! And sometimes the big gloomy cloud of imposter syndrome and fear of failure cover up my excitement, especially when I am struggling so much.

I spent a couple hours today fussing with my MatLab script. I didn't make any "aha it works!" progress, but I did get familiar with the error messages and the set up I wrote in the fall. I think that is good and important to do!

I'm so used to being competent or skilled, that the unfamiliar sensation of being unskilled and not having a great foundation to start and very little structure direction of how to progress, make it hard to work on this project. I'm going to hold tight to my excitement and also learn how to loosen my grip on the fear of failing.

Alongside getting back to this project, our big lab project is also starting to pick up a bit more momentum, At first we had heard some rough dates to start data collection September and now we're hearing it could be as late as February. It's a bit frustrating but I'm so grateful to the experience of seeing a giant project in its infancy. The slow starts, little hiccups, big issues that need quick responses, are an experience that I wasn't expecting, but I sense will be valuable to have as I work my way through academia.

In the back of my mind I've begun to worry a little about my comprehensive exams, my dissertation, what job I even want after I graduate, and my long-term goals of moving to Europe. I shouldn't borrow this anxiety from the future though, so I'll try to let this settle for a while.

I hope that there are other PhD students who I can connect with on Tumblr, or that my thoughts and experiences bring some sort of comfort to other students. I want to let people know that I am a queer, disabled, Autistic, person of color, succeeding in a PhD program. There are many barriers to grad school and holding any marginalized identity compounds those barriers. But that shouldn't stop us from our goals. I am going to thrive and kick ass in my PhD program.

#phd life #phdblr #phdjourney #neuroscience #autistic student #actually autistic #grad school #basal ganglia my beloved #research assistant

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datonebird · 1 year

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Finding a new career - Chapter 1

Wow I can't believe I made a new tumblr. Somewhere out there my old tumblr is still alive, and I am determined to find it.... Anyways! Welcome to my journey in changing my career. I wanted to make a video series with this, which I am still going to do, but for now I just want to put my thoughts down somewhere that I can access. I could have used my notes app on my laptop but I think, this makes me feel like I'm actually writing for an audience.

okay! enough rambling on, let's just get to it. I am on a journey to change and enter a new career. Long story short, I have been a business owner for the past 6 years and during those years I had some part time and full time jobs to help sustain myself as my business was in its growing stages. Eventually, I entered the business full time and after some extremely painful experiences, I decided for myself that this is not really what I want to do for the rest of my life. That decision was liberating. I still remember how confident I felt, and I really hade no doubts. Don't get me wrong, the thought of giving it all up was present all the time during my time owning the business, but it never felt this real. So I trusted myself and I said hey let's go with this feeling, there's obviously a reason why I feel this way. I've never felt so decisive in my life and honestly it was exciting! I was excited to enter a new era, rediscover myself, and become my old self again once I find that. So somewhere in October, I began my journey in finding my career. I had some leads -- which I was extremely excited about and I was determined to put my all to it. I told myself -- a few years ago I didn't think that I would ever be where I am today with owning a small business, it took some work though and a lot a lot a lot a lot of time but I did make it where I was set out to be. My first lead So there was this event production company that I came across with in 2021 - and I had previously applied to it that year - but didn't get the job, obviously. However, I continued to be connected with them through various freelance opportunities here and there. I worked at a number of events for them and even helped out in the back end with some administrative tasks. I stayed connected with them until now. Around the time that I decided to change my career - they were also hiring for new team members. So I told myself ok, let's go for it. I spend hours and days in between the studio and teaching working on my design deck, cover letter, and resume. The first position that I was applying for was for the "Event Coordinator" position. I submitted an application because I saw it on their website, even way before they started promoting it on social media. I thought "hope this paints me as a proactive person!" Then one day, I noticed that the role got taken down from the website. I panicked and THEN I kid you not as I was panicking I get a text from the CEO, who again I've been in contact with all this time as a freelancer, asking me if I was available to work one of their events in December. I of course said yes, and I also took the opportunity to ask about the job. Apparently, the position was given to one of her contractors and she said "but there's contract positions still open." At this point I was still panicking, and I was like okay yeah I'll apply for the contract but you know what I'll also apply for the other full time position that is RIGHT up my alley. "Executive Assistant" I told myself, okay I've been operating a business for 6 years. I've been assisting my business partners in operating our business for 6 years. The job description was like 50% operations and 40% event planning and so I said okay! let's do this. So I kids you now, I ran, not walked to my laptop. cooked up a new cover letter, and this time I just pasted that cover letter straight in the email and I sent TWO applications. Because I basically wanted to show them hey I just want to work here, I don't care what position you give me. So, eventually I get a reply, like a week later I think. I got scheduled an interview, bing, bang, boom and now we're here. The interview was on December 2nd, 2022. Today is January 3rd, 2022. So it's been a month since I've had the interview, and I still haven't heard back. I'm beginning to lose hope already.

Actually, I started to lose hope even way before Christmas. There was a couple things that happened that just told me like, I don't feel like I'm gonna be the person that they're looking for. Despite and amazing experience and performance that I did for the event that she asked me to work in December, and how great I felt after the interview. I feel like it may just not be a good fit. Friends and partners told me to look around for other opportunities, or think about a backup plan. Which was really difficult to do because I REALLY want this job, and doing that just felt like It was there was no change and that was my reality. It brought me to spiral into a period of depression. Right around the corner of Christmas.... on December 20th, I get an email saying that their team didn't get a chance to sync up and finalize things and she's on the way to Mexico. So she said that they are looking to get back to people early next week after Christmas. However, they also were throwing their anniversary party and the CEO's birthday party that week, so I was personally invited. So Christmas happened and then the next week came in, I was predicting maybe getting a reply on Tuesday - because that's what "early" next week meant to me. Then Tuesday past, nothing.... Wednesday past, and I'm pretty sure they're busy with the anniversary party and if they did meet that day to finalize things, ok I may receive a response that day. Wednesday passes and then it was the next day which was the anniversary party. For sure no reply there, Friday comes and I'm pretty sure, they weren't going to do any work after the party and it was also her birthday. Then the weekend comes, the NEW YEAR comes. and now we're here. Tuesday. Throughout the weekend and yesterday, I finally accepted things. If I really got the job, I felt like it would be such good news that they wouldn't have been able to tell me. It would have been something they mentioned during the anniversary party. but nothing --- So I figured okay, time to move forward. This feels like more of an introduction piece. but that's okay. I feel like this is chapter 1 - I'm currently entering chapter 2. Sending a bunch of applications and getting some replies so we'll see how this era goes. and i'll be back for chapter 2!

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proud-and-prejudiced1100 · 2 years

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Careers in English

I am someone who plans a lot. I love knowing what my next step will be, constantly projecting myself in a near future (perhaps to the detriment of my relationship with the present). Literary studies have been no different. I applied to the program with an end-goal in mind, a vision for who I could be and how to achieve my objective. Of course, those plans can always change. I try to give myself space for error and readjustment, so that I am always able to change my mind if at one point I realize that publishing isn't for me. In the mean time however, I have devised a rather straight-forward plan in order to get me to where I'd like to be.

The first step to achieve that goal was to go back to university, specifically in a literary program. I chose English because I find that I have a stronger affinity with the language itself, as well as a deeper appreciation and interest for its literature. I'm currently doing a major, which allows me the space and possibility to explore another program if I wish to do so, or change my path to a full English BA.

Once I get my bachelor's degree, I plan on applying at the Université de Sherbrooke (the Longueuil campus). They offer a DESS in Édition, which covers all of the various aspects of publishing, from the actual editing of texts to the marketing of books and other works. I'll need two letters of recommendation, both of which I plan on acquiring from professors at a later date. Considering that this is only my second semester, I do not consider my current skill-set as representative of what it will be in a few year's time and thus plan on waiting a bit longer before getting my referrals.

This program will allow me to get a hands-on experience in the field with various publishing houses throughout Quebec. It will help me to further develop my individual and personal skill-set as well as make connections with people who work in the field. I would love to work for a children's publishing company in either marketing or the creation of the "book-object" (aka the making of a physical copy of a book).

For now, I simply plan on honing my writing skills, one class at a time, one day after the other.

#ang1100

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sshannonauthor · 2 years

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Hi Samantha,

I recently bought the first two books in the bone season series because I loved Priory so much, and I got them both with these covers in paperback from my local bookstore:

I've found The Mask Falling in paperback with a cover that matches these, but I can't seem to find The Song Rising in this style at all.

I've been looking around and now I'm slightly confused about collectors editions and changed covers? If you know how I could find The Song Rising to match with the rest of the set, or what the deal is with all the different versions, that would be wonderful.

Lots of love, and thank you for the beautiful books you write.

–

Ah, yes. This is a thing. Let me tell you the tale:

Back in 2015-16, Bloomsbury made the decision to follow what was, at the time, a broad trend towards minimalist covers, and they changed the entire look of the Bone Season series, to refresh it. They gave The Song Rising the cover you'll see in bookstores now – the one with a white background and a flaming crown – and also rejacketed the previous books to match this updated design in paperback. The colourful originals were supposed to be discontinued in favour of this look.

At the time, I didn't feel able to stop this happening, despite being wary of mid-series cover changes. I don't blame Bloomsbury for giving it a shot, because they really thought they were doing the right thing for the series, to keep it eye-catching on shelves. However, I knew readers would be upset, because a lot of people care about their books matching. It was disappointing for me, too, because I loved the original designs so much – I still think they're fantastic – and it was gutting to think that they were just going to disappear. So I wrote a letter to Bloomsbury and asked them to preserve the original design in some way. They kindly agreed to create a Collectors' Edition for each new instalment of the series – a limited run of hardbacks with a design reflecting the original vision, so readers had a chance of getting a matching set.

As the years went by, trends in cover design swung back towards colourful and ornate. Now, I've never seen a publisher do this before, but Bloomsbury actually decided to renege on their decision, because it was clear that the originals had been, and remained, far more beloved by readers. They designed a beautiful golden cover for The Mask Falling and decided to print all future hardbacks with the colourful designs, rather than just doing those as a limited Collectors' Edition. The UK is now keeping the white designs only in paperback format, while the US has reverted to the originals across the board.

Unfortunately, this whole experiment left a bit of a mess in its wake – the only way to get a matching set is to get the UK white paperbacks. (You were actually quite lucky to find those two designs in paperback form.) The Song Rising was the instalment that really suffered for all of this. Only 5000 copies were printed with the purple design, and all of them sold out. I only have two copies of it myself, such is their rarity. They are therefore not available to buy. I have requested a reprint, as have many readers, but my feeling is that this is something Bloomsbury would consider only when the whole series is finished.

On the positive side of things, all the other hardback books in the series will match the dark blue cover of The Bone Season's first edition. My hope is that Bloomsbury will do something like a box set once Book 7 comes out.

#sshannonauthor publishing asks #the bone season

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dr3amofagame · 3 years

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take a shot - dsmp!mcc fic

MCC FIC! MCC FIC! MCC FIC! To be clear, I outlined this weeks back, when teams were first announced, and I took very very little from the actual MCC itself when it came to actually writing this - all I have are the same teams, but it really exists in its own continuity outside of Real Life MCC (obviously, as it’s using the dsmp characters) and everything like that as a whole! Just to be clear :D)

The worldbuilding is also Absolutely Bullshitted start to finish, as well as any and all medical information. Rip. We’re here for a good time, not for a long or particularly accurate one - hope you guys enjoy regardless!! I had a LOT of fun writing this fic, dsmp!mcc aus my BELOVED

title obviously from win it all by derivakat

---

Michael loves MCC.

But it’s one thing to love the normal Championships and quite another when his team looks like it’s falling apart from the inside out - and as the games progress, it becomes more and more obvious that losing, this time, might not be an option.

tws: C!QUACKITY CRITICAL (sorry i promise i love him but he is NOT portrayed very nicely here, very dark portrayal of him), implied trauma, abuse, torture, panic attacks, manipulation, gaslighting, needles, hospitals, MCC-typical violence, emotional distress, prison arc, pandora’s vault themes

(16k words !! :D long boi)

Michael loves MCC.

Of course he does! It’s fucking MCC - like, who wouldn’t love it? MCC is how he met so many people, how he met Dream, that one time, the two of them teamed with Techno and Burren and winning it all - MCC is a goddamn blast and he’s thankful every time he gets the invite that he’s able to compete.

Still- it’s hard not to be a little more nervous, now.

Dream gave him an invite to his SMP right after they teamed, but it wasn’t until months later that Michael actually cashed it in. Entering the server, it became very obvious very quickly that the DreamSMP, as it’s known, isn’t quite the same as its shiny media appearance. The spawn was covered in blocks, creeper holes littering the ground. The people he passed were grey-faced, too stoic to be the same, smiling faces he remembers from only less than a year ago. The air stings of gunpowder and iron. Worst of all are The Crater, shoddily covered in glass that does nothing to hide the damage done, rending the server in two straight down to bedrock, and the Prison, looming on the horizon. Absent-mindedly, Michael rubs at his left shoulder, remembering the Warden setting the prongs of his trident against the skin in warning, just hard enough to barely draw blood. Yeah, that place is bad news.

The fact of the matter is the server is a mess. And like, okay, whatever, Michael gets it. Everyone has their issues - it’s just the DreamSMP seems to have more than most. Despite his original worries, it’s honestly not been as bad as he originally feared upon logging in; yeah, Bad and Puffy and Foolish and the rest of them are a little more trigger-happy than he might’ve expected (and he’s not going to say that Bad crying over turtles wasn’t a little startling when he first joined, but honestly he thinks Bad is just Like That.) There’s way more death than he’s really comfortable with, and Puffy keeps mentioning Bad murdering her son (Foolish? He thinks? The guy is also a literal God but like, families are weird, who’s he to judge) in a way that’s way too casual to come from anyone entirely well-adjusted, but overall his experience has been alright.

Still, he gets the feeling that nobody exactly wants the outside world to know about the issues with the place. It’s not an issue for him usually, not when his sleeping schedule is the exact opposite of most of the people he knows and he spends most of his time screwing around on the server, anyway (usually harassing the Warden until the asscrack of dawn if he’s being honest) but with MCC, with everyone watching - he’s starting to get why everyone from the SMP was so damn tense all the time, now.

Anyway- he loves MCC, he really does. But even that doesn’t stop him from wincing when he sees his team card, the names Dream and Quackity and Sapnap written in Scott’s looping handwriting. He’s not seen Sapnap at all since joining the server, has only heard a little about his place (something Kingdom, not that he was paying attention) from Foolish, and has no idea what the man has been up to. Quackity is his own unique can of worms; Michael doesn’t know exactly what’s up with him and his country, but everything he’s heard so far has sounded like nothing but bad news, casinos and schemes and a trail of wreckage following wherever he goes. And Dream-

Michael looks out his window, chewing on his lip, looking directly in the direction where he knows the prison stands, impenetrable, intimidating. Where Dream’s cell is, in line with his house, where he’s been hidden for months without a trace. Where the Warden had confronted him that one night, a dangerous gleam in his eyes, blood splattered on his boots.

There’s no real ignoring an MCC invite - not without good reason, not without the admins picking up on something being up. There’s not really a choice, here, but for Michael to duck his head down and pretend everything’s fine just like everyone else from the SMP. He directs one last glance at the prison before walking away, setting the invite on his counter. If he’s lucky, everything will turn out fine.

(He ignores the part of him that asks what’s going to happen if they’re not. No point in worrying about what hasn’t happened yet - right?)

---

Weeks pass, the tournament creeping closer, and Michael gets no alerts from his teammates on his comm. No one comes to his house to check in, say hi, not even a ‘hey, we’re kinda competing in a massive tournament in like, seven days, you ready?’ Hell, he even starts checking his goddamn mailbox for a letter or something only to come up empty-handed every time. Never mind performing well - it’ll be a miracle if their team manages to arrive at the tournament at all.

It isn’t until the day before MCC, the sun high in the sky at what must be near noon, when he finally gets a message on his comm. Michael fishes it out with a frustrated huff, seeing Quackity’s name pop up first when he manages to turn on the screen.

Quackity whispers to you: you down for some practice?

It takes a couple seconds for him to blink away his shock - out of everyone he expected to arrange practice for their team, Quackity was definitely not at the top of the list. He half-thought they would have to drag him to the tournament kicking and screaming; from what he’s heard, he’s been nothing if not devoted to his country. Shaking his head, he goes to reply; practice is practice, and their team really needs it.

You whisper to Quackity: sure. practice server?

Quackity whispers to you: yes

Pulling up his server list, Michael scrolls for the practice server, finding it and then letting the server transfer do the rest. A few nausea-inducing seconds later, he’s at the practice server spawn, standing in the middle of a neatly paved road surrounded by colorful arenas and signs.

“Michael!”

He turns; there, by the Battle Box arenas, Quackity is waving at him, already dressed in a red varsity jacket and a pair of shorts, the jacket bearing a front pocket embroidered with a rabbit and a large R stitched onto the back. He reaches behind him for a red bag, throws it his way for Michael to catch mid-air.

“Got these outfits for us last minute - hope it’s alright with you,” Quackity smiles, and Michael tries to prevent his eyes from clinging to the scar spanning the entire left side of his face. “Anyway- how are you, man? I feel like we haven’t seen each other at all on the server. How’s it been?”

“I’m good- it’s been good.” Michael opens the drawstring bag, cataloguing the contents - there’s a jacket, just like Quackity’s, a pair of shorts and sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a headband, all in varying shades of red and white. “Nice outfit- thank you. Is anyone else around?”

Quackity waves a hand behind him. “Yeah- Dream’s here. Should be coming out of the arena soon, actually.” Michael looks over behind his shoulder to where he’s pointing - there, walking down the stairs, is another figure wearing all red that must be Dream. “There he is- hey Dream! Michael’s here!”

Dream hurries down the stairs; unlike Quackity, he is wearing the sweatpants along with the same jacket, hands stuffed in his pockets. His hair is a lot longer than Michael remembers, pulled back behind his head in a ponytail, mask, as usual, fastened over his face. He settles behind Quackity, giving Michael a small wave; his hands are covered by a pair of fingerless gloves.

“Hey, Dream!” Michael grins; it’s been such a long time since he’s seen his old teammate, and despite the circumstances and everything that’s apparently happened since then, it’s still pretty damn nice to see him. “How’ve you been?”

Dream seems to freeze for a moment, before shaking his head. “Good,” he says, quiet, sounding almost breathless. Michael’s eyes go to the slivers of skin that show on either side of his face, to the slight shake to his hands.

“You alright? You look a little pale,” Michael asks, and he definitely doesn’t miss the way Dream stills at the words, muscles tensing, gaze averting to the side even with the mask - doesn’t miss how Quackity steps forward, looking Michael in the eye as he tosses a casual arm around Dream’s shoulder, smiling brightly.

“Don’t worry. This idiot has just been practicing a bit too much before you got here,” Quackity gestures with a flippant twist of his wrist, “You know how he gets. Right, Dream?”

“Um- yeah. Ha,” Dream responds just a little too late to be strictly normal, shoulders tight and nearly pulled to his ears under Quackity’s arm. “Practice- I’m a little out of shape.”

“You sure?” Dream’s breathing hitches and Quackity steps forward, just a little bit, eyes still fixed firmly on Michael’s own even as he shifts his gaze to try and look at Dream. “We can take a break if you need, Dream-”

“I’m fine!” Dream smiles with a little stuttered breath that turns into a small laugh, “It’s- uh. It’s fine. Thanks Michael, but we can practice. Not much time left to waste, you know?”

“You sure, Dream?” Quackity says, suddenly, voice soft and sincere. “I guess it has been a while since you’ve been able to practice- you sure you don’t need a break?”

Dream shakes his head firmly. “No- it’s fine. Really- where’s Sapnap? He should be coming soon, right?”

“If you say so, pal,” Quackity replies, doubt coloring his tone as he pulls out his communicator. “I told Sapnap to come, he replied a couple minutes back; he should be here soon, I think. You want to go meet him at spawn?”

Dream nods, and they begin to set out towards the center of the server, Quackity and Dream quickly taking the lead as Michael falls back. After a minute, Quackity falls into casual conversation, rambling about something as Dream nods, Michael trailing behind the two of them and adding his own input as he sees fit. Sapnap arrives soon after, and the noise level picks up even more after that, Sapnap and Quackity falling into an easy rhythm of banter and quips as they set out to practice Battle Box and Parkour Tag, carefully working their way through the different games under Dream’s tutelage and advice.

And here’s the thing- Michael isn’t stupid. Yeah, he’d hardly consider himself a top tier MCC player, and he’ll be the first to say that he’s nowhere near qualified to deal with the literal laundry list of issues that affect every member of the SMP, but even so, he’s not clueless. He’s good at looking at multiple sides of a situation, doesn’t easily give into intimidation or manipulation, and he’s observant as all hell. So when Quackity wraps his hand around Dream’s wrist, fingers wrapping all the way around until his knuckles pale, when Dream winces, muscles in his arm locking before letting it go limp, not protesting when Quackity drags him forward except in the tiny, tight expressions that flit across his face every few moments, tight and gasping and shaky at the corners - Michael notices.

“See you at the tourney, yeah?” Quackity calls to him after practice with a wink before clapping Dream on the back, Michael watching silently as the muscles of Dream’s neck pull tight, head ducking to his chest. “Good job, big guy,” he says, laughing. “Keep this up for tomorrow and we’ll be good.”

“Mmhm,” Dream mutters after a brief second, “We’re- we’re gonna win.”

“Betting on it, pal,” Quackity replies, voice light in a way that completely fails to explain Dream’s full-body flinch. “MCC, huh? Can’t fucking wait.”

“See you tomorrow, Quackity,” Michael says as he presses DreamSMP on his server list, pretending that a chill doesn’t crawl down his spine at the smile that the other man throws his way in return.

---

There’s no real easy answer.

Michael comes to that conclusion at some point in the middle of the night, restless and pumped on way too much adrenaline to go to sleep. He can’t outright antagonize Quackity, can’t let him know he knows something’s up - not when Quackity had already spent the majority of practice keeping one dark, narrowed eye on him at all times, lips pursed in a slight frown whenever he thought Michael wasn’t looking. He’s not stupid; whatever’s happening between Dream and Quackity is secret, and kept that way for a reason. His mind goes back to the brief flashes of anxiety that had moved over Dream’s face before he could react fast enough to school them back into a carefully neutral position; whatever it is, he doubts it bodes well for Dream in the slightest.

Unfortunately, his hands are pretty damn tied. He knows public opinion on the masked man in the server is overwhelmingly negative, but has no damn idea how far it extends. How many people are in on whatever’s happening in that damn prison? How many people know what would make Dream, bold and bright and recklessly confident in all of Michael’s (rather limited) memories, into someone so quiet, unimposing, nervous? His head spins with the possibilities, with the ever-present reminder to not make a fuss, let the tournament pass on, to never, ever let anyone find out what’s going on within the SMP. Should he do anything at all?

Too soon, it’s morning, and he drags himself out of bed with a groan to glare at the sun streaming through his window. Somewhere, Quackity and Dream and Sapnap are also waking up, are preparing to compete in one of the biggest damn tournaments to exist. Michael sighs, glancing over to where he’s set out his outfit, freshly pressed and waiting. Any other day, and he’d probably be fucking ecstatic. Here, he buries his head in his hands, muffling a frustrated groan against the palm of his hands.

He loves MCC, but he sure as hell doesn’t like whatever the hell is going on with the rest of his team.

Getting into the server goes smoothly enough. The outfit is comfortable and looks damn good, props to whoever made the thing, and the sight of the multicolored crowd successfully manages to tamp down some of his nerves. He busies himself with saying hi to all of the members waiting in the lobby, happy for the chance to talk to some people he hasn’t seen in ages, feels the night of anxieties wash away with every stupid joke told and burst of laughter drawn from his lungs.

They come back the moment Scott steps up in front of the lobby. “Teams, it’s time to head to your team rooms! The tournament will begin in fifteen minutes,” Scott says, expression sunny and bright, “we’re wishing you all luck for a great performance today! May the best team win!”

In a flurry of movement, they’re all whisked to their rooms for a final few minutes of preparation and morale-boosting, and Michael enters the glorified dressing room to Quackity, Dream, and Sapnap already standing there, seemingly in the middle of conversation.

“You ready to win?” Sapnap yells, and Quackity whoops, and Michael manages a small cheer of his own. They’re all visibly nervous; Quackity has scarcely stopped moving, pacing from one side of the room to the next; Sapnap is basically jumping in place where he stands. Dream stands at the very back of the room, looking tense; Michael directs a wave his way and gets a small one in return.

“Game plan, game plan,” Quackity mutters, “do we know what games we’re playing first? Dream?”

He nods at Dream, and Dream stands up straighter, mouth falling open.

“Oh- um,” he hesitates, a strand of hair flopping forwards as he tilts his head in thought. “We’ll want to save Parkour Tag and Battle Box towards the end- maybe something more high-risk at the beginning, but not first, just to boost morale,” his teeth catch on his bottom lip, “Maybe something like To Get To The Other Side? If they have that- or Build Mart, if we can get it out of the way.” He shakes his head. “If that’s alright- I mean-”

“Great,” Quackity cuts in smoothly. “Sapnap? Michael? Does that sound good to you?”

Sapnap flashes a thumbs up, and Michael nods. “Yeah, sounds great. Thanks, Dream.”

Dream’s head snaps towards him, mouth slightly open in shock. The sight of it makes Michael’s gut twist uncomfortably; there’s something about how surprised he is, at the nervous hesitancy with which he spoke that was nothing like what Michael remembers of his easy leadership in that MCC with Techno, that doesn’t sit right at all in his stomach. Even with his expression largely hidden, there’s no mistaking the clear, genuine surprise on his face at the idea of someone thanking him - Michael tries to tell himself that he’s reading too much into it as Quackity continues to speak.

“We’re going to win,” he grins, just a little too sharp at the edges, “so get out there and play like your lives depend on it, yeah?”

Sapnap cheers, and again, Michael and Dream follow. It’s not until he’s outside the door, within the clamor of screaming teams and people counting down with the timer that Michael realizes that Quackity was staring at Dream the entire time.

---

Michael curses, frustrated, when he’s knocked off a platform again, making sure to flip Krinios the bird before he falls into the Void entirely. When he makes it to the other side, Quackity and Dream are already deep in conversation - if you can call it that. Even from here, it looks worryingly one-sided.

“-were you thinking, falling off there-” Quackity’s hand is on Dream’s shoulder, Dream standing stock-still in front of him, “you better be taking this seriously, Dream.”

“Hey- sorry about that,” Michael calls with a wave, “I swear Krinios had it out for me. At least I made it across, right?”

Quackity turns, startled, and in the split-second that it takes for him to register Michael’s appearance, his expression smooths over into something friendlier, more inviting. “Michael!” He says, enthusiastic, and it’s like the anger that had filled his words just seconds before was never there at all. “Don’t- don’t worry about it, man. We all kinda dropped the ball on that one, right Dream?”

The words should be encouraging, just simple ribbing between teammates. Dream’s mask is still ducked down, facing the floor, shoulders slightly hunched in.

“Um- Sapnap did pretty good,” Dream says, quiet, “he got top ten, right?”

Michael looks over to where Sapnap is standing a little ways away, seemingly busy typing on his communicator. Quackity laughs, sharp and loud.

“True,” he punches Dream lightly on the upper arm, and Michael watches the way he freezes the second the fist makes contact with his jacket, “come on, man, you’re losing your touch. You really gonna let yourself get beat by Sapnap?” he shakes his head, still laughing as he pulls open his communicator. “Jesus- even I beat you in that last round. Watch your spot, Dream, I’m coming for you.”

“I mean,” Michael says when a second passes and it becomes clear Dream isn’t going to respond, “Dream was doing pretty well with the last two rounds, right? I thought I saw his name pretty far up there.”

Quackity takes a second before responding, again, staring at Michael oddly as he does. “That’s true,” he concedes, “hey- I was just making a joke, don’t worry. It’s all for fun, right Dream?”

His gaze goes to Dream, and automatically, Michael follows. Dream seems to startle under the attention, twitching Quackity’s direction in the awkward silence that results. Michael watches as the mask slants slightly to face Quackity, as Quackity looks back at him with an intense, unreadable expression, shoulders strangely tense. Whatever unsaid conversation that seems to pass between them is entirely lost on Michael as Dream finally responds with a sudden, almost strangled bark of laughter.

“Yeah- just jokes,” his fingers twist over one another, hands held close together in front of his body, “Though Qu- Q’s right, I- I should probably pick it up. We’re playing to win.”

A ding alerts them to the end of the round, and Michael steadies himself in preparation for the teleport to the next map. As he turns, he catches Quackity’s expression, once again, and the self-satisfied smirk on his face as he continues to look at Dream.

“Good luck,” he calls just before they enter the next round, and tries not to think too much about what he’s saying it for.

---

They manage pretty well for the rest of To Get To The Other Side, finishing with a second place overall that got cheers from Sapnap and even a slight smile from Dream. Hole in the Wall, on the other hand, has been a lot less successful - though Michael will be the first to say that it’s his fault. His practice in the last few months has been lackluster (at best) and it definitely showed in the arena.

He leans over the railing, watching Dream and Sapnap through the crowd of participants left that have yet to be knocked out by the giant walls of slime. Quackity’s standing next to him, having been similarly thrown off the platform early in the round, expression tight and lips set in a small frown, and looking at him for too long makes Michael uneasy so he looks down at the arena again. They’re in the last round, and they’re supposed to be making callouts anyway for their teammates still participating below.

Without thinking, once again, Michael looks over at Dream. Sue him, he knows the guy best and Dream has been acting odd all day, to put it lightly. Even ignoring the part of him that’s screaming that something’s wrong, that there’s something up that has everything to do with the beanie-wearing man standing besides him, it only takes a few minutes of observation to see that Dream is - for the lack of a better word - off. Michael watches as he vaults over another wall, only barely managing to bring himself to his feet in time on the other side. Dream’s movements - even to his untrained eye - have always been fluid, effortless. He jumped and vaulted and ran like gravity didn’t exist, like every physics-bending maneuver he made was as easy as breathing. Michael remembers watching him sprint over the parkour course before, time completely unmatched as he appraised each obstacle and basically flew his way through, sounding hardly even winded when he whooped loudly in victory from the top of the salmon ladder. In total contrast, Dream jerks away from the coming wall again, movements sloppy and harsh as he scrambles to the other side of the disc-shaped arena. He’s still fast, and still making jumps, but everything is strangely angled where it had once been fluid, stopping and starting suddenly, moving in bursts of speed and then skidding to sudden stops.

“WEST!” Quackity shouts, and Michael watches as Dream’s head turns jerkily at the noise before he dives out of the way of the incoming wall and manages, barely, to twist around the side. Michael winces at the tumble he takes on the opposite side, clutching his chest slightly as he stands back up again.

“North!” Michael calls, because he should probably actually help his teammates, huh, and Dream manages to move around this one better, jumping through a hole in the wall and tucking and rolling as he lands. “Nice jump- East!”

It’s an easy wall, thankfully, and both Sapnap and Dream visibly take a breath as they stand in place for the wall to pass over them. As it passes, a droning buzz comes from the speakers, and the walls below them speed up.

“South-to your right!” Michael shouts as they turn, eyes turning between all of the false walls before finally focusing on the right one, his shout echoed by a similar one from Quackity. At each one of the calls from the man besides him, Dream seems to tighten further, movements increasingly erratic as he dodges and weaves around the walls. There’s still a lot of people left - Michael follows Dream through the crowd with a frown, watching as he and Sapnap jump the next wall, Dream’s foot nearly catching on the top edge.

“West-” Dream flinches, jumping over the two-high wall at the last possible second, landing completely off-balance on the other side and falling to the ground. He scrambles to his feet, but there’s already a wall at the west edge of the platform - his head turns, still searching for the wall - Quackity yells.

“LEFT!”

Something in Dream’s movements seem to shift, even in the distance - Michael watches as he immediately, almost robotically, steps to the left at Quackity’s voice, not even jumping, not turning his head to take in his surroundings, just moving instinctually at the words, and slams into the coming wall hard enough to get flung into the middle hole in the platform. Quackity curses, fist crashing into the railing as Dream falls and the chat message shows on their communicators, and a second later he’s materialized beside them, face oddly slack and mask focused somewhere faraway.

“Shit,” Dream mutters when he seems to come back into himself, shaking his head and then turning to the two of them, still by the railing, “Dammit. Sorry, I-“

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael cuts in before Quackity can speak. “You did good.”

“I-” Dream catches Quackity’s gaze, then pushes his head away, mask facing the ground. Something about it and his raised shoulders and the dark, angry glare that Quackity directs over the railing when Michael looks back makes him shift in place, uneasy. “Could’ve done better, ha. Sorry.”

The three of them watch, silent, as Sapnap continues to compete. He manages to get pretty damn far, making it to the top three, but getting knocked off-balance by a wall and off the platform just before the timer sounds. Michael cringes back at the sound of it over the speakers, watches the other contestants settle into place, panting, in victory.

“Great job, Sapnap,” Michael shouts when he materializes in front of them, and the other two are quick to echo his sentiments. If they sound a little duller than they should be, if Quackity’s jaw seems clenched and Dream’s all coiled up like a spring, far too tense, it’s from placing lower than they wanted and slipping in the rankings, not anything else.

Keep your head down, Michael reminds himself, and everything’s gonna be fine. And if the words ring more and more hollow with every repetition, well, that’s for him to ignore and for everyone else to never, ever find out.

---

Buildmart is chosen next, which they all groan at, but at least it’s going to be out early and not left to ruin all of their scores later. Michael takes his place at his build, one third from the left side - it’s some abomination of colored glass and white concrete meant, if he is to guess, to emulate a stained glass window. He’s between Dream and Sapnap, the former positioned in front of a flower-dotted grass field with a picnic table, the latter staring down a miniature car with black concrete for tires and stone buttons for detailing. He breathes a steady breath as they await the countdown, already planning for his trip to the Colors section to grab materials for his build and the others’- Buildmart isn’t his strongest game, but it’s not his worst either, and he’s damn well going to try his best.

He skids into the portal with an armful of colored concrete and glass, spilling half of its contents inside a chest before running to his build. He pulls himself to the crafting bench to craft - he squints at his build - he needs four red glass panes and 3 yellow, right. As he brings the panes to his inventory and begins laying out the frame of the build in concrete, he looks over to Dream, who is noticeably struggling with placing the flowers in his build and getting the placements to match that of the original. He knocks away a white tulip with a muffled curse, sounding frantic as he looks back to the original, and places it again to no avail.

It seems that his struggle hasn’t only caught Michael’s attention, as the statue to the leftmost side of the room explodes in gold coins and confetti - Quackity has finished his build and is now looking at Dream with narrowed eyes. Dream places the flower again, and the build refuses to respond. Quackity’s gaze narrows further, and he opens his mouth-

“Hey Quackity!” Michael starts speaking before he’s even noticed that he’s opened his mouth, fumbling as he regains awareness of what he’s doing and tries to find a direction for his sentence to go, “do you have any concrete?”

Quackity looks at him like he’s grown a second head, which is fair, considering there’s a block of white concrete pretty obviously visible in his hand. “Um- no? Weren’t you supposed to go to Colors?”

Dream finally manages to place the tulip where it belongs, and the build between them disappears in another explosion of gold glitter. Michael laughs awkwardly.

“Sorry- haha. I got a little mixed up.” He places the last piece of white concrete, watching as his own build disappears. A little wooden cottage takes its place, made of what appears to be just oak wood and cobblestone. “Are you going to get wood? Or should I?”

“I- You get wood,” Quackity shakes his head, visibly frustrated, “And I’ll get stone. We have to hurry, we’re falling behind.”

After that, Michael finds it a little too easy - or maybe not easy, but at least tolerable, to interrupt when Quackity looks a little like he’s about to fall on the side of being angry versus just annoyed, stepping between his angry glares at Dream with a forced smile and an incessant string of annoying questions-

“Hey Quackity, do you have any spare iron?”

“Hey Quackity, I think you placed that a little too far back.”

“Hey Quackity, can you take a look to see what I placed wrong?”

It’s not perfect. It’s hardly even functional; Michael knows that Quackity has begun with the habit of directing death glares at his back whenever he thinks he’s not looking, his responses to Michael’s questions becoming more and more clipped, often paired with irritated grumbles and sighs. Sapnap, when Michael looks at him, seems largely engrossed with his own builds, but he’s also begun looking over at the two of them with a vaguely dissatisfied expression, and Dream only seems to be getting more jumpy with every frustrated growl out of Quackity’s mouth. Even Michael’s forced levity and falsely ignorant questions can’t do much against Quackity’s anger when they walk out of Buildmart dead last for the minigame, dropping their team all the way down to seventh in the overall rankings, and the tension within the team as they walk out - Quackity nearly stomping, Dream following with his hands wringing around each other and head ducked fearfully - is almost enough to make Michael scream. He looks at the scoreboard with a worried expression as he enters the Decision Dome, trying to quell the sinking feeling in his gut.

There’s still five more games to go, and he’s not sure how long they can last before something snaps.

---

Battle Box is chosen next, and they react to the game with quiet cheers and slightly grim faces. Michael’s been in enough MCCs to know that this game, of any, is crucial - after their lacking performances in the last two games, a good showing at Battle Box will be crucial to pull them back into the competition and raise morale. With Sapnap and Dream, if this were any normal game, they should be able to sweep through a good amount of the competition without much effort. As it is, though, Michael looks at the two more combat-oriented members of his team with a worried expression, the two barely even able to meet each other’s eyes. Their interactions so far have been less than promising- if they can’t hold it together for this round, well.

Michael shakes his head. They’ll do fine. They have to.

Even so, the first round only seems to confirm his concerns - they get woolrushed almost immediately, and in Dream and Sapnap’s stumbling to get to mid, nearly crashing into each other and focusing their efforts on the same player by accident, the other team manages to fill out the wool, sending them back to the spawn box even more frustrated than before.

“Amazing teamwork, guys,” Quackity snarks immediately, and Michael rolls his eyes.

“Like you did that much.”

Sapnap is still staring at Dream oddly, Dream turning his head to avoid his gaze. The two of them look largely oblivious to Quackity and his whole deal, even as Quackity whirls around to give him the stink eye.

“You didn’t do anything either, if I remember correctly,” Quackity mutters, and Michael shrugs.

“Fair.”

A ding alerts them to the round’s end, and they resign themselves to preparing for the next round. Michael picks the extra arrows from the wall, knowing that no one else will want the kit, and watches as Dream anxiously runs his hands over the crossbow.

The next round goes better, barely; Michael and Quackity end up knocked out pretty early, but Dream and Sapnap manage to kill the rest of the team soon after. He watches from the box as they fill in the wool, Dream looking awfully tense as he shears away the white wool for Sapnap to fill it with red. Quackity watches them both with a tight expression, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Michael turns away, ignoring him, going back to watching Dream and Sapnap still standing within the arena. Both of them look awkward, oddly out of step with each other - Michael’s not watched them fight much, but he knows that they have a reputation as a pair, was there for the Sky Battle round where they completely wiped through the competition. Even here, Sapnap moves forward and Dream flinches back - there’s something heavy and tense between them, lingering in the few words they’ve spoken to each other, if they’ve even spoken to each other at all, one always rushing forward too fast or following just a little too slow. They’re still brilliant fighters, almost unrivaled in hand-to-hand combat and with swords, but the faltering communication is sure to hurt them more in the future.

His worries come true just three rounds later, the two in between being narrow wins for their team, each a little more shaky than would be comfortable. Michael has found himself easing off the worst of his anxiety in verbally sparring with Quackity, jabbing at the other with offhand remarks and little needling jokes to keep his attention off the other two, especially as his glare has become more pronounced and his words more angry. Even so, nothing he does or can do will fix the odd tension between Dream and Sapnap, whose communication remains as stilted and awkward as ever.

They’re facing a stronger team, PVP wise, with Punz and Seapeekay, and Michael ends up falling in a bow duel against Jack. He watches as the Captain falls to a potion by Sapnap, then as Jack is taken out by a crossbow bolt courtesy of Dream, just before Quackity falls to a well-timed bow shot from the opposing team.

That leaves the strongest PVPers to battle it out, and Dream and Sapnap manage to team up and kill CPK - but not without taking a nasty damage potion to the face that must leave the two of them low. Michael watches Punz, booking it to mid with a crossbow, anxiously - both of them would be a oneshot with the thing, and on the condition that he takes no damage before fighting with either of them outright, he’s probably got enough health to hold out a few hits.

Sapnap pulls out a health potion, and Michael grins - that’ll be good for the two of them, and should secure them the win - only for him to gesture roughly with his sword and for Dream to stagger backwards, panic flashing over his face. He only seems to grow more fearful at the sound of glass shattering on the ground, falling backwards further - far enough to be largely out of range of health pot - and in their shock, Punz manages to catch both of them off guard and nail Sapnap with a crossbow bolt that downs him for the round before similarly dispatching Dream in two hits of his sword.

Sapnap explodes upon respawn in the box - “What was that? I had a health pot!”

“I-” Dream fumbles, face still oddly pale, “Sorry I didn’t- I- I-”

“We had that round!” Sapnap’s arms flail forward as he gestures angrily, Dream freezing further as one hand skims past his shoulder. “I can’t believe- I had a health pot! Punz was on, like, half! We could’ve killed him!”

“Easy, easy,” Quackity moves forward, putting a hand on both of their shoulders - Sapnap seems to relax immediately, while Dream, if anything, only looks more tense. “It’s time for the next round - we’ll talk about this later, alright?”

Dream nods, movements overly tense, and Quackity flashes a toothy smile his way as Sapnap moves back, still mumbling to himself. He and Quackity move to talk in the back corner, words quiet enough that Michael cannot make them out, and something sick and cold slithers over his spine. Sapnap and Quackity are fiancés, aren’t they?

Michael looks over at Dream, mask still covering his face as he looks away through the glass to the arena, shoulders still tight as Michael’s pretty sure they’ve been for as long as he’s seen him since he came onto the server. He remembers the panic that make itself obvious on his face every time Quackity came up to him, even as covered as it is, the similar- if not the same- fear that had painted his face when he respawned fresh off of the Battle Box round after Sapnap’s sword had passed a little too close to his body.

Quackity and Dream- he’s sure, even if he doesn’t want to admit it, that there’s something going on there, dark and dreadful and poisonous. Who’s to say that Sapnap isn’t involved, as well?

---

They finish Battle Box decently well, but not as well as they’d hoped, pulling them up to fifth place with a decently large gap between them and fourth. Quackity and Dream disappear immediately as the Audience Votes begin coming in, leaving Sapnap and Michael to stand awkwardly in the lobby to wait for the rest of their team to come back. Michael watches the crowd for a glimpse of Quackity and Dream, comes up empty. A sigh fizzles through his teeth as he looks up into the sky, the endless blue doing little to ease his nerves - he’s worried, even if he doesn’t want to think about it, for his teammates. For Dream.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the man is scared of Quackity, that there’s an odd sort of history there that Michael conveniently has no information about. Whatever it is, it’s left Dream unsure and uncharacteristically nervous, left the entire team floundering without proper leadership to tie them all together. Really, a part of him knows that the Championships should be the least of his concerns - if he were braver, or a little better at combat, or a little less inclined to just let things pass as they always have, then he’d be raising a fuss. Getting in the way, talking to Dream, doing something other than making backhanded compliments to Quackity that he’s sure have been doing little more than annoy the man further.

“Michael?” Sapnap comes within his line of sight, lips pressed together in a carefully put-together expression that Michael is sure will collapse the moment they’re away from others’ prying eyes, “Can we speak for a moment?”

Michael forces another easy smile to his face as he turns towards his teammate, feels a little disgusted at the amount of them he’s had to use to simply function with the rest of his team. “Sure! Where to?”

They walk at a brisk pace to the team room, Sapnap’s eyes focused forwards the entire time, not speaking. If he’s being honest, it’s a little awkward, but the lighthearted comment on his tongue to break the silence dies out the minute Sapnap closes the door and looks back at him with fierce, focused eyes boring into him.

“What’s your deal?” He hisses immediately, words pitched low even though he doesn’t really have to - there’s no one nearby, and the team rooms are decently soundproofed. Michael feels his hackles rising as Sapnap’s arms cross in front of him, eyes still focused on his own as he talks. “I’m not going to lie- I don’t know you that well, even though you’re on the SMP now, but can you quit it with Quackity already?”

“Quit what?” Michael snarks - sue him - matching Sapnap’s tone with irritation of his own.

“Don’t- you’ve been antagonizing Quackity all day,” Sapnap’s hand runs through his hair, messing up his hair and tangling it into knots, “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re kind of in the middle of a competition here? So it’d be really nice if you could save the fighting for until after we’re done?”

“Says you?” Michael can’t help the retort this time, huffing irately at the offended expression that flashes over the other’s face, “I don’t really know if you’ve noticed, but your teamwork has been a little less than stellar, today. Pot calling the kettle black, much?”

“What-” Sapnap looks confused, even through his anger, gesturing more and more wildly. “What do you even mean?”

“Oh, so are we just ignoring what just happened in Battle Box then?”

Sapnap’s eyes flash as he closes into himself again, hands gripping at his upper arms as he crosses his arms in front of his chest once again. “That- that’s different. That’s because of Dream.”

“Oh, just keep blaming it on the other guy, why don’t you?”

“No-” Sapnap shakes his head furiously. “You haven’t been on here for nearly as long, you don’t get it, Michael. Dream- he’s-,” Sapnap flails, and Michael groans at the familiar words.

“Dream’s what? I was on the team with the guy before, you know. It’s kind of the reason why he invited me in the first place?” He raises an eyebrow. “We worked together perfectly well then - am I supposed to believe that his self-proclaimed ‘best friend’ can’t do the same?”

“You don’t understand,” Sapnap repeats, expression hard and oddly far away, “Dream- he’s changed- he’s done so many terrible things. I don’t know what he’s said to convince you, but he’s bad news, man. He’s hurt- so many people.”

“Oh- you want to talk about hurting people?”

Michael isn’t quite sure what comes over him - only really realizes a white-hot flash of rage lancing through his chest, a sleepless night and half a competition’s worth of anxiety and frustration and build up combining into a sizzling spike of fury that briefly tinges his vision red.

“How about the way Dream looks like he’s about to keel over whenever anyone gets close to him? How about how he flinches back at literally every loud noise and fast movement? How about how Quackity’s been making these stupid, angry comments at him for the entire competition that make him freeze for a minute each time? Or how about when you were in Battle Box and Dream backed away from your sword like he thought you were gonna drive it through his chest?” Michael barely feels himself stepping forward with each word, jabbing his index finger into the other’s chest. “You want to talk about hurting people? How about you go talk to that fiancé of yours and then come back to talk?”

A loud, droning buzz comes over the speakers, alerting them of the end of the break. Michael steps back, face flushed in embarrassment, before the world whirls away and they’re teleported back into the Decision Dome.

He adamantly refuses to meet Sapnap’s eyes as Quackity and Dream materialize in the sector with them, Quackity’s hand clamped around Dream’s upper arm as the other man keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, looking even more panicked and frozen than before the break.

“You ready to win?” Quackity laughs, and Michael watches as his hand tightens around the sleeve of Dream’s jacket, knuckles paling from the strain.

“Yeah,” Michael tries to cheer, and it feels like ash on his tongue. “Let’s do this.”

---

Survival Games ends up being picked next - Quackity and Sapnap quickly pull up to the front of the group, close enough to be within eyesight but too far to really pick up their conversation. Michael keeps an eye out for the reddish glow of their bodies as they scout the surrounding areas for chest, staying back with Dream as they look at the other side of the road. He’d be lying if he said that he didn’t feel a smug sort of satisfaction of Sapnap seemingly confronting Quackity about whatever the hell has been going on, as awkward as his whole outburst had been. As it is, some time with Dream is nice without Quackity watching over his shoulder like a hawk - he directs a small, genuine smile at the man by his side that Dream seems to do a double take at before shyly returning it with one of his own.

“There- I think I see a chest,” Michael points under a lamppost, running to the wooden box and flicking the lid upwards. He pulls out a chain chestplate that he promptly puts on himself, then throws over the iron boots to his teammate as well as a small stone axe that he’s sure Dream will make better use of. “We should probably catch up to the others - don’t want to be caught off guard while separated.”

Dream nods, and the two of them pick up the pace before finding another chest that Dream rummages through, this time, finding an iron sword that Michael takes for himself and a cake.

“You’ve been doing really well so far,” Michael says after a few minutes of quiet, words becoming more firm when Dream looks up at him with a surprised expression. “Seriously- you’ve been doing great, man.”

“Thanks,” Dream smiles, words quiet and terribly sincere, and the sinking pit in Michael’s gut returns at the tone. “Not as good as I should, though. I’ve been underperforming a lot,” he laughs a little at the words, but even to Michael’s ears it rings hollow. “It’s not over yet, though.”

“No it’s not,” Michael concedes, rearranging his inventory as they run. “But it’s good enough, man, really - just look at my rankings.”

Dream huffs. “You’ve been doing good, Michael.”

“And you’ve been doing a hell of a lot better than me,” Michael tips his head in his direction. “Give yourself some more credit, man. You’ve been playing well.”

Dream smiles again, but even now the corners of his mouth seem tight, tense. “I need to play better, though, if we want to win,” he says, matter-of-fact, analytical to a damn fault. Michael rolls his eyes, but nods to concede the point.

“Sure, but that goes for all of us, Dream,” he shakes his head. “And it’s okay if we don’t win, you know?”

“No.”

Michael turns, frowning. Dream’s tone has become oddly flat, eyes dead as he continues to stare at the pavement under their feet. He seems to be chewing on his lip anxiously, startled out of his own thoughts when he looks up to meet Michael’s gaze. “I mean- I don’t know. I really have- want to win.”

There’s something so carefully worded about the admission, quiet and scraped open and raw in the slow sincerity of the words. Michael wants to poke at it, wants to understand what’s left him so unsure of every step, what determination lies behind the words that has left desperation clinging to every shallow breath he draws. A crack of thunder on the horizon, heralding a player’s death, reminds him that now is not the time.

Keep your head down.

“Alright,” he smiles thinly, hoping that the fracturing, yawning pit of emptiness in his chest isn’t obvious in the words. “Then we’re going to win.”

---

Michael skids to a stop at the finish line, feeling the elytra deequip as he’s thrown into spectator mode. He runs his hands through his wind-tousled hair, feeling it strain against his fingers as he roughly finger-combs it back into place. Dream and Sapnap are off to the side, standing next to each other but seemingly not speaking - Michael smiles as he floats over, still shaking the adrenaline off from the race.

“Hey,” the two look up, smile in recognition, and Dream waves; there’s a small smile on his face, strained but present. “You both did really good!”

“Thanks, Michael,” Dream laughs, earnest, “I did decent, I guess- haha. Top ten at least.”

Sapnap whoops. “We’re popping off!” Michael cheers in agreement, and their efforts manage to pull Dream’s smile a little wider as he ducks his head to look away again.

“Thanks, guys.”

They watch as Quackity flies through the finish line, appearing in front of them and shaking his arms out as he gets his bearings.

“Geez- that trident,” he shakes his head, looks up. “Hey, there you guys are. How’d we do?”

“Dream got seventh,” Sapnap scrolls through his comm, looking through the rows of contestants and their times as they come in, interspersed by the occasional chat message, “And I got 10th. Michael got- 28th, I think? And you got 32nd.”

“Hmm,” Quackity hums, “What do you think, Dream? Is that good enough to pull us to Dodgebolt?”

Once again, Michael watches as Dream stiffens under the scrutiny, head ducking down and looking for all the world like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Um- I don’t know,” Dream mumbles, “I messed up a trident- fell into the void once, probably could’ve done better otherwise-” his voice trails off, tensing further as Quackity takes his usual spot by his side, jabbing an elbow none-too-lightly into his ribs.

“But you didn’t, though,” Quackity says, tone flippant, “so what do you think? With those placements- is it going to be enough?”

“Hey, we did great, man,” Michael glares at him, more forward than he’d usually be - but all he can see is the shoulder that he has pressed against Dream’s arm, the way Dream’s stood stock still since the moment he made contact, “Lay off of Dream, would you? He did great.”

“Yeah, Q,” Michael’s eyebrows raise in surprise as Sapnap chimes in from the side, rising further when Sapnap moves forward to link his arm with Quackity’s own and half-drag him away from Dream. “Chill out, man, we popped off. We’re gonna fucking win this, ok?”

Quackity’s lips press together; he’s still smiling, but there’s no mistaking the seething darkness that lingers in his narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows, gaze still trained on the pale off-white disk of Dream’s mask. Still, with the rest of the team against him, he’s in a losing fight and he knows it; Michael watches as he visibly backs down, rolling his shoulders back as he lets Sapnap pull him further back.

“We’re going to fucking win this,” he repeats, and Michael wonders how he manages to make the words sound so much like a threat.

---

“Sky battle,” Sapnap calls as the decision dome below them lights up in confirmation of the penultimate game, expression immediately becoming more focused as he turns back to the rest of the team. “Alright- strats, what are we thinking?”

“There’s the iron at spawn,” Dream starts, interrupted by the teleport to the Sky Battle arena, making him cut himself off comically and take a second to shake off the resulting disorientation, “And then there’s the iron in the nearby island. We gotta pick one, tower as soon as we can.”

“Got it,” Sapnap looks down, seemingly calculating, before looking up again - Michael has heard him compared to fire before, but he thinks this is the first time he’s really seen it; there’s a veritable blaze burning in his eyes as he looks at each member of the team, easily taking charge as they prepare for the first round. “Same buddy system as Survival Games - Q, stick with me, Michael, stick with Dream. I’ll tower to the next island- Dream, you good with getting the iron at spawn and crafting armor for us?”

Dream startles, before flashing a small thumbs up at the other - Sapnap smiles wider, teeth bared dangerously.

“This is our game,” he cheers, and Michael enthusiastically whoops in reply, “we’re winning this, you got that team? Let’s go!”

This, Michael thinks, is the way the games should’ve gone - they jump into action upon the start of the game, Michael watching as Dream races through both chests on the spawn island, getting the iron and jumping down cleanly with a water bucket before following Sapnap’s bridge to the other island. He tosses over a pair of leggings and boots as he lands, then takes Sapnap’s excess iron to craft the other pieces of iron for himself and Sapnap as the other man begins shooting at opposing teams. Their communication is near wordless, simple one- or two-word requests communicating all they need as they follow each other seamlessly into the main arena area, sealing off their entrance as they search the ring for other teams.

Sapnap, especially, seems to have shifted - instead of waiting for Dream to take the lead, he seems comfortable barrelling on forward on his own, trusting for Dream to follow his steps. Michael watches as the two of them easily work through the two lagging members of Orange, shooting through a gap in the wall to catch an unsuspecting Yellow player chased by the border. Michael ends up dying to an unlucky block of TNT placed on his head - curses out what appears to be Quig, bounding over to the other side of the arena, and follows Dream and Sapnap as they continue to fight their way through the competition.

It’s not perfect, for sure - Dream hesitates at a bad place a minute later, ending with Sapnap getting 2v1ed and exploding in a flash of red sparkles. Dream is similarly dispatched a few seconds after, and the three of them watch Quackity, caught in the crossfire of two other teams, before he also goes down.

“Good work, team,” Sapnap says as he appears, disoriented, in spectator mode, and they watch the remaining two teams battling in a rapidly shrinking border before Fruit falls as well, leaving Pink as the winners. “That was close- we’ve got this.” The conviction in his voice leaves no room for argument, and Michael, briefly, feels bad for anyone that stands in the way of it.

With the second round, they once again fall into rhythm without any major hiccups - someone tries to cut them off before entering the main arena, but are made quick work of by Sapnap’s relentless onslaught. As Michael watches, Dream seems to regain confidence as well, moving more to fight with Sapnap side by side instead of just playing support, tugging him back from a risky play and catching Punz in a nasty combo that does him in when he manages to slip past Sapnap.

The four of them end up in the final stand off in the middle, but end up getting caught too high up and killed by the border before they can jump down. Sapnap hisses at the narrow defeat, but the disappointment has hardly seemed to dim his determination - if anything, it seems to burn brighter.

“Last round,” he mutters, and Michael watches as Dream walks up to him, bumping him lightly with his shoulder.

“This is our game,” he says, a small smile appearing on his face, and Sapnap returns it with a fiery, blinding one of his own.

“Ours,” he says, and even just standing on the side, watching - Michael believes it.

Still, his concerns have yet to disappear - they linger in his mind as they jump into an adrenaline-filled last round, jumpy from excitement and victory just within their grasps. Dream is still more jittery than he should be, taking a second more than usual to react to fights, and his teamwork with Sapnap - while good - is still noticeably rusty. Michael’s lips thin at the memory of Dream backing away from Sapnap’s sword in Battle Box, hunched into himself, almost on the floor, with a clearly desperate edge to his expression - and no matter how he tries, he can’t quite manage to shake it off.

Unfortunately enough, the third round doesn’t bode well for them from the start - Quackity gets bowed off while bridging to the main arena, and upon entrance there they end up flanked, hard, by another team in a conflict that gets Michael killed within seconds. Sapnap and Dream book it to the other side of the arena, where they manage to work through a full team without too much trouble - but the next minute brings another half-team flying at them from the back, catching them in the middle of trying to recuperate. The two focus Dream in the middle of eating a steak, and Michael watches as Dream steps back instead of moving forward to fight, that same shade of fear making his muscles seize as he stands, stock still, watching helplessly as swords fly his way- Michael cries out, but there’s nothing he can do-

Between one blink and the next, Sapnap is standing in front of Dream, a snarl painting his features as he whirls through both players in a fury. Michael watches, awed, as his sword weaves and dances between the two attacking Dream, making quick work of them both until they’re no more than items scattered over the ground, then grabs Dream by the wrist and drags him up a nearby ladder onto the upper floor, plopping him by the wall and then backing off.

Sapnap stands back as Dream sits against the wall, breathing fast and labored, dropping to his knees with his hands in front of him, palms up, no weapons in hand. Michael watches, frantic, for the signs of any teams nearby - with Dream panicking and Sapnap’s back to the rest of the arena, they’d be easy pickings - but for once, luck seems to be on their side, because no one comes. Dream heaves a breath through his lungs, deep and shuddery - Sapnap watches, lips flat from concern, but doesn’t speak.

“You good to continue?” he asks, when Dream seems calm enough to recognize his surroundings, and Dream looks up at the words, jaw slack from shock and disorientation, before his head dips in a firm nod.

“Good,” Sapnap smiles, tight-lipped and fiercely determined, fiercely loyal, as he reaches out a hand that Dream moves to take. “Let’s go fuck them up, yeah? You and me, just like we used to.”

Michael watches, heart in his chest, as they stand together to face the rest of the competition, towering towards the middle and facing off with the remaining teams, watches as they move forwards through explosions and buckets of lava, coalescing onto the middle island, as they battle through the remaining opponents as one in a clean spiral of clashing blades and flying arrows, fighting with their backs to each other in the center of the arena. He watches as a well-placed fishing rod by Dream knocks their final opponent off the platform, leaving them in the middle, triumphant, as the only remaining team -

Watches, a brilliant, bubbling laugh in his chest as Dream and Sapnap take their spots in the middle of the arena, standing side by side as Sapnap raises Dream’s hand in victory, both laughing and cheering into the sky.

---

Their performance in Sky Battle manages to pull them to third - but second place still stands a few hundred coins away, and they watch anxiously as Parkour Tag is chosen as the last game and they are transported over the arena.

“Last game,” Sapnap calls, “We’ve got this, alright?”

He gets terse, short nods in return - it’ll be a close game, and even Michael is feeling the pressure. He breathes a soft, quiet breath through his teeth as they prepare, looking over to the opposite team as they choose their hunters and runners.

“Dream, you up to hunting first four?” Sapnap seems to be watching the effects of his words more, waiting for Dream’s agreement before moving forward, sliding into the position of leader easily when Dream seems to struggle. Dream nods and steps into the hunter’s box, lips pressed together, flat and focused, and Michael turns back to the arena to plan out his route.

Parkour, by far, is not his strong suit. It hadn’t been his strong suit during Parkour Warrior and sure as hell isn’t it now - he enjoys it well enough, but with the pressure of a hunter on him or the time creeping past and the competition standings hanging over his head like a guillotine, he’s prone to slipping up and he knows it. The map is full of dizzying, multi-colored structures and difficult jumps, the twists and turns of the arena making his head spin. Being good at parkour is more than being good at movement - it involves being able to make split-second decisions and execute them with no time to hesitate. Unfortunately, Michael isn’t particularly good at any of that, so Parkour Tag mostly just stresses him the hell out.

He sets out to the arena, listening for callouts over comms as he fumbles over the buildings. Halfway through the game, Dream’s voice comes through comms, quiet, focused.

“Gottem.”

“Nice, Dream,” Michael smiles, trying not to trip over a particularly hard jump, only to fall to being tagged in the back by the opposing team’s hunter - Ant, if he remembers right. “Sapnap and Q are still in- we’ve got this.”

Once again, each time, Dream races through the opposing team in seconds, seemingly going faster with each round. Michael has heard his reputation as a hunter before, but only now is he really appreciating the extent - the speed at which he manages to dispatch all three opponents is downright terrifying. They manage to win all four rounds, lingering around second place overall on the leaderboards, before Sapnap and Dream switch off for hunting.

With each round, Michael watches Dream in the lobby, watching as he tenses further in focus and determination and no small degree of fear, but it hadn’t been nearly as obvious in between rounds. Now, with him in the arena with Quackity and himself, Dream’s jumpiness is all that more palpable, adrenaline making him pace and jump in place from where he stands at the edge of the place. The glass lowers, and he explodes into motion, bounding on top of the nearest tower to wait for the hunter to come towards them.

Michael ends up caught first, early in the round, once again, and resolves to following Dream over the glass to watch his movements and make callouts for the hunter chasing behind him. Watching Dream move through the arena, dodging below fixtures and through tunnels and jumping from tower to tower with seemingly no regard for gravity pulling him down, it’s become all the more obvious that this is his element. He makes another hairpin turn around a pole, kicking himself up over a tower and then diving from it to a nearby building, landing on a ledge inside it, hands clutching the wall - Michael watches, quietly awed, as he outlasts the hunter, landing in small, panting breaths in the lobby.

“Great work,” he cheers, quiet, as Dream shakes off the last dregs of the adrenaline, all of them watching the leaderboard anxiously, “Just three more rounds, alright?”

The rounds that follow continue in much of the same vein - Dream, once he’s gotten started, seems near-impossible to chase down; Michael and Quackity provide support, distracting the hunter for as long as they can until they get tagged, but part of him wonders if it’s all even necessary. Dream flies from structure to structure seemingly unhindered by The Laws That Be, expression firm, if a little frantic, as he parkours his way through the arena. To their credit, the hunters chase, and several come pretty close - but Dream, worked up on adrenaline or anxiety or some twisted mix of the two, races over and around the buildings within the arena like his life depends on it.

It’s a surprisingly (if sickeningly) apt description - the skill in parkour is far from unacknowledged on Dream’s record; they all know his reputation with Parkour Warrior, all know that there are little that can match his skill as a traucer - but there’s something newly desperate in the way he runs, the muscles of his body tight and taut even in between rounds, expression permanently tight at the corners from fear. His movements, lacking in their usual fluidity, are made up with sheer speed and mad scrambles up walls that no one else seems to dare replicate. It’s concerning, even to Michael’s untrained eye, how frantic he seems the entire time, the flashes of expressions that he’ll direct towards the hunter like being caught by them will be his end, but- if anything, at least it’s effective.

Between his parkour and Sapnap’s own skill, they manage to dominate the other teams without much issue, and the bonuses from eliminating the other team first combined with Dream’s survival points each round land them a first place for the game by just a few hundred coins. The four of them watch with bated breaths for the event standings, whooping and cheering together when it shows the red rabbits in second -

“DODGEBOLT, BABY!” Quackity cheers, loudly, and the rest of them join him, laughing and screaming incoherently, “LET’S FUCKING GO!”

“LET’S FUCKING GO!” Sapnap punches the air with a loud, resolute whoop of joy, and Dream - still shaking off the jitters of his last round in Parkour Tag - soon joins in with a few cheers of his own.

Michael watches them all with a smile on his face as they cheer in victory - Dodgebolt has them against the Yellow Yaks, which will be a hard match up, but between Dream and Sapnap’s skill, if they all stay focused, they shouldn’t have any issue.

They’ve done it. They’ve made it to Dodgebolt - if they keep their heads in the game, then they should win. All he has to do is keep his head down a little longer, long enough to win them the game, long enough for them to go home with new crowns and new coins, long enough for him to go back to living his quaint little life in his quaint little house - going back to heckling the Warden at night and hanging with Bad and Puffy, working on builds and living life away from the rest and pretending that nothing is wrong. The server will go back to normal come tomorrow, and it will all be okay.

The smile slips off his face.

They’ve done it. And then they’ll go back to the SMP, and Dream might evade whatever immediate consequences come with losing, but there’s no evidence that whatever’s caused that heartstopping, devastating fear that has characterized his every move is going to stop. They’ll win, and they’ll go back to the SMP, and they’ll keep dying and fighting wars and keep pretending that the world they live in is normal; they’ll go back to the server, and Michael will go back in his house while Dream goes back into his cell directly across from it, still locked in a black box with no way in or out, no means of communication with anyone outside, locked away with the key thrown away for anything to happen with no one to know-

Michael glances over to Dream, to the tense edge of his shoulders that has never left for as long as the tournament has continued and long before. To the grey-faced, grey-eyed inhabitants of the SMP, coming to the Championships with sealed lips and a shared determination to never reveal that anything is wrong, to pretend that things are normal and move on.

Michael’s hands clench into fists at his side, then unclench, the helplessness cutting through his excitement like a splash of cold water straight through his chest. They’ll win the Championship, and then what? They’ll go back to the server, and then what?

He looks up at the sky, avoiding the eyes of the rest of his team as they are teleported to the arena. Around him, nothing comes in reply.

---

“Shit-”

Sapnap disappears in a flourish of red particles, and Michael winces as Dream picks up the arrow he left behind, biting his lip as he watches the opposite side maneuver on the ice.

Both of Dream’s shots hit true, and Michael switches to dodging over the ice as the opposing team begins to shoot. His mind is still buzzing with uncertainty, questions whirling around his skull and making his head spin, the reminder to just let things be raging against the anxiety that has wormed its way deep into his bones for the better part of the day. His performance has fallen a bit as a result, and they’re tied, 2-2, for the last round of Dodgebolt against Yellow - winner takes all.

He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to tell, but he wants to fall back into the background. He wants to make a difference, but also wants nothing more than to go on pretending that everything is fine. It would be so, so easy to move on and wash his hands of the whole affair - it’s not like anyone else will know, only himself and the guilt that he’s sure will haunt him to remind him of his failures. Is there even anything he can do? He’s no genius at combat, or parkour, or strategy- all he has are his eyes, his ability to see what the hell is happening with no means to change any of it.

An arrow whizzes towards him, too low to hit, and falls to the ice by his feet. Michael feels it plop into his inventory as he runs past it, shivering slightly from the cold or adrenaline or some mix of the two - not that he can really tell. The other team still has an arrow, the gleaming arrowhead catching the light as the person shooting - Jack, it looks like - moves it from one side to the other, looking for someone to aim. Michael lets the arrow into his hand, feeling its weight.

A sudden shock of clarity.

He staggers back and nearly trips over his own feet, feeling relief rock his body when he manages to catch his balance - his eyes rake over the rest of his team, still dodging over the ice, completely focused on the opposing side. He worries his lip between his teeth - it’s a risk. It’s a hell of a risk, and if he messes up - they’re fucked. They’re more than fucked. There’s a good chance that this does more harm than good, a good chance that it won’t do anything at all.

Michael takes a deep breath, and nocks his arrow.

With his bow pointed to the floor, he doesn’t think anyone’s noticed yet - especially the rest of his team, gazes still trained over the centerline to the other side of the arena. Michael plants his feet, raises his bow, aims - he’s standing still, too still, and he can already see Jack swinging the bow towards him from the corner of his eye, preparing to let the arrow fly directly at him. That’s fine. It doesn’t matter.

Keep your head down.

Michael lets go, and Quackity manages to turn just in time to see the arrow hit him between his eyes.

Not this time.

Michael just manages a wicked, satisfied smirk before the world disappears in a flash of red.

---

“What the hell was that?”

Michael teleports into the middle of the MCC main lobby, finding Quackity already mid-yell in front of the podium, where the Yellow Yaks have taken their places as the winners of the Championships, new, shining crowns on their heads as they greet the crowd with smiles and cheers. Michael turns to where the rest of the team has gathered in the corner, Quackity hissing angrily at Dream, curled into himself against the fence.

“I- I-”

“You lost us the fucking game, that’s what you did,” Quackity grabs him by the arm, rage painting his features as he yanks Dream closer to him, ignoring the other’s panicked yell at the proximity and flailing to get away. “What the fuck- you had both the arrows. How the fuck did you miss that?”

“Back the hell off, Quackity.”

Michael steps forward, bodily shoving Quackity out of the way - Dream’s head rises just enough for the two eyes painted on his mask to look above where they’d been hidden behind his arms, though Michael’s far too lost in his own anger to pay any mind to him at the moment. Quackity turns his furious direction towards Michael, only seeming to get angrier as he meets his eyes.

“Oh, fuck off, Michael- you-” he rakes a hand through his hair, “You fucking- we fucking lost because of you, you know that? We had that! We were going to win that, you fucker-”

“And then what, Quackity?” The words Michael had been pushing back the entire day come forth, mixed with his simmering anxiety and muffled anger that he’d been forced to push down, game after game after game, one bubbling mess of emotion underscoring his tone and making Quackity rear back, “Then you’ll go back the SMP and pretend that everything’s fine and dandy? Go back to your shiny little country with a shiny new coin, beat up Dream a few times to work off the adrenaline because, hey, it’s not like anyone else is gonna know if he’s black and blue inside of that shitstain of a prison, is that right?”

The flash of panic that makes its way over Quackity’s face is more than enough to confirm the worst of Michael’s assumptions, and the rage that has made a home in his chest only burns hotter.

“What- what the fuck did he say?” Quackity barely manages to catch onto his tone, pressing harder with narrowed eyes and a snarl, “He’s lying, you fucking idiot, that’s all he ever fucking does-”

“He’s not told me shit,” Michael presses forward, forcefully pushing Quackity away from Dream, who is cowering from both of them behind him, “But you would know a hell of a lot about that, wouldn’t you Quackity?”

“I have no fuckin’ clue what you’re on about, pal,” Quackity shakes his head, hair whipping past his eyes, “And I’d recommend you shut your fucking mouth before you go around hurling baseless accusations- I could have you sued for defamation, you know-”

“Oh, we’re talking law, now? Fine! We’ll talk legalities- how about we start with that casino of yours and work from there?”

Sapnap moves over, quiet thus far as he watched from the sidelines, and Michael watches as Quackity relaxes, minisculely, at his approach - only to tense further when Sapnap presses a hand to his shoulder, meeting his eyes with blazing eyes staring right at his.

“Q,” Sapnap says, voice uncharacteristically serious, “tell the truth, now- what did you do?”

Quackity laughs - it sounds unsure, even in Michael’s ears, “Sapnap? You can’t tell me you believe-” he waves his hands frantically, “this- this fucking asshole, now, do you hear him? He sounds- he’s literally out of his fucking mind-”

Sapnap shakes his head, firm. “Quackity, I’ll need you to cut the bullshit. What did you do?”

“He’s backing up Dream, Sapnap,” Quackity focuses his gaze on Sapnap, something creeping up in his tone, sweet and cloying despite the bitter tone, that Michael can’t quite recognize, “You know what Dream is like- he pulled the same shit with you, remember? You and George? Tommy?” He waves a hand at Dream, who ducks down further at the attention, “He hasn’t changed, man! He’s still pulling the same bullshit, still manipulating people for the hell of it- you know, the exact same thing he did to you? Don’t fall for that again, man.”

“I-” Sapnap seems to hesitate, conflict warring over his features.

“Look at me, Sap - you know what Dream’s like. He pretends to be your friend, makes up some stupid bullshit to justify his shit - Michael hasn’t been around for as long, not like the two of us, remember? He doesn’t know.” Quackity brings his hand to Sapnap’s own, ignoring Michael’s protests as he laces their fingers together, “I care about you, Sap. All of this- I’m just worried that he’ll end up manipulating you again. I’m just trying to protect you.”

“...liar.”

“What?”

Sapnap steps back, wrenching his hand out of Quackity’s own. His expression, out of what Michael can see from the sliver of his face that is facing him, is stormy with fury and no small amount of regret - Quackity steps back, unease finally beginning to flicker in the corners of his self-satisfied expression as Sapnap stares him down.

“You’re a liar, Quackity.” Sapnap draws himself up. “Now, I’m asking this for the last time- what did you do?”

Quackity’s expression stutters, falls, as Sapnap stands back next to Michael, the two of them between him and Dream. His eyes flick between their faces, then to Dream, then back again, frown deepening with every pass he makes between the three of them. Michael keeps his arms crossed in front of his chest, feeling his muscles tense with every second of silence that ticks by, Quackity seeming to grow more and more angry and tense under their scrutiny and unforgiving stances-

-a second passes, and he throws himself forward.

“Quackity!”

Michael only manages to throw himself out of the way of the man barrelling towards him just in time - too late, he realizes that he wasn’t Quackity’s intended target. He tackles Dream to the ground, pinning the taller man underneath himself onto the ground in a rough thump that seems to knock all the air out of him. Dream immediately begins to thrash aimlessly, jaw going slack in panic as Quackity levels his arm against his neck, going still as Quackity presses harder against his windpipe. Michael is only barely close enough to pick up what he says over the sound of the surrounding screaming, Sapnap rushing forward to pull Quackity off to no avail-

“-make what I did two weeks ago look like a fucking joke when we get back, going to make you wish you fucking died-”

The world explodes into white.

When Michael’s vision clears, he’s face to face to the stony face of one of the MCC admins, their status displayed by the proud red [Admin] by their nametags and the fact that they’re floating several inches off the fucking floor. He backs away, strangely winded - probably from the panic or adrenaline or yelling or, more accurately, all three, as Quackity is pulled back effortlessly by an admin, easily caging his flailing limbs with a snap of code as he is frozen into place - and Michael whoops.

“LET’S GO!”

(The arrow hits Michael in the shoulder, and he disappears in a flash of red - only instead of going to his usual place above the Dodgebolt arena, standing with the other competitors, he finds himself teleported in front of a dizzying array of screens and buttons, too many to have any idea where they connect and how they work. Michael turns to meet the faces of the MCC Admins, each one looking at him with odd, concerned expressions and furrowed brows.

“You shot your teammate,” one says - Noxite - and Michael nods to concede the point, not quite finding the words to speak. “Why?”

“If you had such a big issue with the teams, you could’ve just talked to Scott,” another one pipes up from the back, “I’m sure we could’ve worked something out.”

“I know, I know,” Michael runs his hand through his hair, both relieved at the plan working better than he could’ve ever fucking imagined and suddenly lost for words in front of the admins, each one looking at him with their full attention. Every nerve in his body rails against the scrutiny, reminds him to pretend that nothing is wrong - but it’s too late to pretend, now. It’s been too late for a long, long time.

He remembers Dream, looking away all competition, voice dead and lacking all of its former vitality - remembers Puffy, hair a little greyer from stress, grief painting her face whenever she thought anyone wasn’t looking - remembers Bad, hands still shaking despite his attempts to hide it - the prison, looming on the horizon, unbeatable, impenetrable - himself, helpless, for all this time, to do anything but watch and wait. Until now. He takes a deep breath, steels himself-

“Something’s wrong with Dream.”)

“Thank you for your information, Michael,” Noxite smiles at him, and relief throws itself through his system so fast that it makes him dizzy- “We’ll handle this from here. Good job.”

“Holy shit- when did you get time to contact the fucking admins, Michael?”

Michael ignores the clamor around him as the lobby bursts into activity and people talking over each other, each one probably trying to figure out what the hell just happened, ignores Sapnap muttering, awed, from beside him, to move towards Dream, still sprawled out over the floor. There’s an admin by him, standing by to seemingly keep the crowd away but not engaging with Dream directly, and Michael ducks by them to kneel down by Dream and meet his gaze.

“Hey,” Michael smiles, still shaking from the leftover adrenaline as he presses his hands to the ground to try and hide it, “We’ve got you. It’s over- Quackity’s gone. You’re safe now.”

“Michael?” Dream’s voice is so damn small when his head twists to look over, hair having fallen largely fallen out of his ponytail to land in wisps all around his face. “You- how-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael shushes him, chest twisting painfully. “It’s alright.”

“...I don’t feel so good.”

Dream coughs harshly, and Michael quickly maneuvers him to a sitting position as his shoulders shake with another one, hand flying to his mouth as he is wracked with loud, wet-sounding coughs. Concern wells up in his throat, watching as Dream shakes with more coughing, nearly choking as he curls into himself, muscles tense. After what feels like an eternity, he pulls his hand back, and Michael gasps at the sight.

“Dream-”

There’s blood, and a lot of it - mixed with the saliva in his palm, shiny and stringy over the planes of his hand, dribbling past his lips and down his chin. His teeth are similarly stained red when his mouth opens slightly, stance wobbling before he collapses altogether against Michael’s body - Michael can barely hear himself shouting for a medic as Dream heaves a rattling, wet sounding breath into his shoulder.

“Th’ts not g’d,” he mumbles, quiet, before going completely limp.

---

When you first get strong enough to go to the Nether and collect blaze rods and brew potions for the first time, the first thing that gets beaten into your head forwards, backwards, left, right, and every way in between is that health and regen aren’t a replacement for actual recovery. Instant health pots are famous for their tendency to heal everything affected to the same degree - which is bad when you have a particularly deep injury, as it’ll often finish healing it near the surface while the injury persists underneath. Regen pots tend to be better at that front, but even they cannot completely fix a serious injury - the two can only act as a temporary, emergency fix for severe wounds, often being an invaluable resource to stop the worst of the bleeding and hold everything together for long enough to bring someone to proper medical attention.

Unfortunately, when someone tries to use health pots and regens to completely bypass the time and rest needed for the body to properly heal itself and recover, what usually ends up happening is internal injuries - not completely healed by the potions alone - continue to be jostled and irritated, which can lead to further, worse, problems with internal bleeding and bones shifting out of place if they’ve been broken, which can then pierce through muscle and organ tissue - to be honest, Michael was never the best with all the medical stuff, and he’s half-sure that the horror stories he’s heard were exaggerated to beat it into his head never to be an idiot that thinks that potions can solve everything, but either way, he’s never tested his luck with the things.

Unfortunately, Dream doesn’t seem to have done the same, as the entire day’s worth of intense activity, between practices and MCC itself, were more than enough to fuck over the healing effects of whatever health potions he apparently downed before coming to the Championships. From what Michael has heard, it got a little harried after he was first brought into the hospital, but he’s apparently stabilized since - recovery will be slow, both physically and mentally, but at least he’s out of that damn prison to actually start on that path.

“Simply put, your teammate is a bit of an idiot,” Scott tells him when he finally catches him in the waiting room, hair fluffed up at the sides from where he’s evidently messed it up in Admin-related stress. “But he should be alright now, with proper medical attention and lots of rest - make sure to tell him to actually rest, will ya? No more parkouring for him - he can wait until after he’s out of the hospital to show us all how it’s done.”

Michael laughs, relief settling into his chest, “Thanks, Scott.” He directs a playfully accusing look towards the other, a grin tugging at his lips, “but you know, he’s only my teammate because you made it that way. Kinda sounds like your own fault there..”

“Oh, quiet, you.” Scott laughs- he looks stressed, and Michael feels a twinge of sympathy. The administrative side of things after his whole stunt at Dodgebolt, and then especially with what happened in the main lobby, must be an absolute nightmare. “Anyway, I need to go back - Admin meeting,” he shakes his head, already looking at his comm. “You should go see Dream, by the way. I think he’s awake.”

“Thanks for everything, Scott.”

Scott smiles at him, soft, sincere. “Go see your friend.”

He disappears in a flash of white light, teleporting away, and Michael looks at the empty space where he stood for a few seconds before standing up out of his chair to move towards the door. He hesitates at it for a second, hand on the doorknob but not yet turning it to the side - it’s suddenly awkward, without the pressure of the competition at his back and the relentless questions of what he should do. He doesn’t even know if Dream knows what happened, or if he’ll be happy with him - for all he knows, Dream was the one who started the whole ‘don’t tell the Championships what happens in the server’ deal. His teeth catch on his lip as he stands, lost in thought, at the door.

Well. Here goes nothing.

He eases the door open, getting a glimpse inside the room - it’s white, clean-looking, the smell of disinfectant heavy in the air. There’s a bed in the middle of the room, a chair on the side with his Championships clothing and what appears to be some sort of padded body armor laid over the cushions. Dream, as expected, is lying down in the bed, unmoving; for a second, Michael thinks he’s sleeping, before he suddenly twists his head over to look at him.

“Michael?”

“Hey,” Michael smiles, moving into the room and closing the door behind him. For the first time today, Dream’s face isn’t masked, a glimpse of it visible behind him on the dresser by the bed. He blinks up at him owlishly, eyes wide and green, looking even bigger combined with the hollow planes of his cheeks, overlaid by pale, slightly raised scars. “How are you feeling, man?”

“Um-” Dream tries to pull himself up, visibly struggling, and Michael rolls his eyes as he hurries over to help raise the back of the cot because you’re supposed to be resting, Dream, just let the fancy bed do its job, and settles back with an odd look on his face as Michael pulls over a chair. “Good? I think? I mean-” he flails his hands a bit, “this is weird. And I kind of hate this gown- but um. Yeah.”

“That’s fair,” Michael laughs, and Dream huffs a small laugh out of his own, settling back into his pillow. He looks strangely small, with all the layers stripped away, frail and skinny against the sheets. His skin isn’t that same paper-white shade it had been when he collapsed in the middle of the fucking lobby, but it’s still pale enough to be vaguely worrying, especially combined with the IV and other wires hooked up to him.

“Apparently, I’m dehydrated,” Dream drawls when he catches Michael staring at the IV, making a small, frustrated sound through his teeth as Michael turns to look at him, “figures, I guess, but still sucks. I hate needles.”

“Ouch,” Michael winces in sympathy, “yeah, those don’t look that fun.” Dream smiles up at him, before his expression shutters, dulls, and he looks away, not meeting his eyes. The sight of it makes Michael frown, quiet, remembering the way he’d drawn back from them all over and over again throughout the day - that fear and trauma won’t go away in a day, but it hurts all that much more to see his face as panic flashes across it and he pulls back, gaze carefully detached.

“Dream?” Michael moves closer, but is careful not to make contact, “you alright?”

“Hmm?” Dream directs another small, tight smile his way, strained at the corners as his eyes flick away to the floor once again, “yeah- I’m- I’m fine.”

Michael sighs, but decides not to push it. “Have you done anything else here, yet?”

Dream shakes his head. “No- I think that someone’s going to bring food over soon, I’m not sure. Not really hungry,” he mutters, half to himself, and Michael tamps down the concern that wells up in protest, “But we’ll see, I guess.”

“That’s good,” Michael nods, and Dream looks up at him, expression startlingly unsure.

“Um- do you know?” He wrings his hands together, eyes darting across the room nervously before flicking over Michaels’ face, and Michael tries to make himself look as calm and comfortable as possible, “I mean- do you know what’s going on with- everyone?”

Ah. Michael winces internally- he probably should’ve expected this question, but in the fallout of what happened in the lobby and Dream, you know, passing out in his arms, he ended up brushing off or ignoring a lot of the chaos that resulted. He wracks his head for snippets of information that he’d seen in his communicator and from visitors to the waiting room, including people that had been there with him that had been pulled for questioning and meetings, Tommy’s expletive-filled yelling from the lobby still ringing in his head.

“Um- I think that they’ve got a team of moderators pulled up to investigate the server, figure out what’s been going on,” Michael ticks names off on his hands, mentally going through the list of people that he’s been given information on, “They have Quackity in custody, I think, for the moment- they’re still waiting for more information on what to do with him, but they’ve got a whole MCC lobby’s worth of witnesses that saw him assault you so far, if you plan on pressing charges and stuff- um- Sapnap got pulled for questioning, nothing too major right now, I think that they’re going through the other server members that were attending the Championships for the moment.”

“Are they- putting them in jail?” Dream’s voice sounds slightly tinny despite his forced calm, arms crossed in front of him, and Michael shakes his head firmly.

“No- legal stuff between servers is weird, and I think they’re holding off on anything like that for now. Quackity’s just there at the moment because of assault charges on the MCC server - stuff in the SMP is still technically outside of their jurisdiction.” Dream visibly relaxes, and Michael smiles thinly, “It’ll be rough for a few weeks as they collect evidence and figure out what to do, but for now, they’re just focusing on recovery - giving people medical attention if they need it, lining up therapists,” he laughs, quietly, “lots of therapists.”

Dream hums, looking away. The corners of his mouth fall, eyes fluttering shut as he breathes a shuddery sigh through his lips.

“I- never wanted it to get this bad,” he opens his eyes, looking down at his hands, lip slightly trembling, “I don’t- I don’t know where it all went wrong.”

“Hey,” Michael slides closer, ducking to meet Dream’s eyes with a soft smile. “You’re not alone anymore, alright? You don’t have to fix it all by yourself. Focus on yourself, on recovering.”

Dream hesitates, breath seeming caught in his throat, wide green eyes staring into Michael’s own, before ducking his head to look away with a slight nod. Michael leans back in his chair, watching as Dream turns to the side, curling in on himself slightly with a small wince, eyes fixed on the window.

“Didn’t think I was going to see the sun again,” Dream says after a while, gaze still trained behind the glass to where the sun is slowly setting, rays of sunlight streaming past the slits in the blinds and casting glowing stripes of honey-gold throughout the room and over Dream’s face. Michael feels something cold press against the back of his throat, the quiet admission making air stutter in his lungs at the image of Dream, alone, huddled in the middle of an obsidian box for months and months and months, never knowing if he’d see anything other than the same black walls for the rest of his life.

“You’re not there, anymore. You’re safe now.”

Dream doesn’t reply, continuing to look out the window silently, breathing slowly as he moves his hand through a sunbeam, watching the way it streams between his fingers and warms his skin, seeming mesmerized by its soft glow.

“Michael?” Dream looks over, and Michael feels the air punched out of his lungs at the soft, disbelieving sincerity held within his expression, the fearful edges for once pulled back far enough for the light to catch the quiet, heartfelt appreciation gathered in the slight quirk of his lips and downward slope of his eyes. He looks away a second after, a band of light cutting across his face and landing over the bridge of his nose, smile still on his face, voice almost too quiet to make out. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Michael feels his own smile widen, looking out the window himself- it really is a beautiful sunset. “What are friends for?”

#-> my writing #my writing :D #c!Quackity critical #tw trauma #tw abuse #tw torture #tw panic attack #tw manipulation #tw gaslighting #tw needles #tw hospitals #tw emotional distress #pandora's vault #prison arc #god this was so fun #hope you all enjoy !!#long post

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fruitoftheweek · 3 years

Text

Little Cherry Book:

Chapter 1: Who is She?

Chapter 2 Here/ Chapter 3 Here

I guess this is a Switch!Spencer (mainly Sub! Spencer)X reader fan fiction this is my first fan fiction I’ve written since middle school so bare with me and feel free to message me constructive criticism. This will probs be multiple chapters but I just couldn’t get this idea off of my mind so here we go! And yes this season 1/2 Spencer because he is just the cutest!

Pairing: Spencer Reid X reader

Plot: Doctor Spencer Reid has heard of little black books, but that pales in comparison to what he has just found in the BAU’s elevator. A sweetly scented notebook filled with salacious journal entries illustrating the writer's sexual fantasies. He doesn’t know what it is about this book but all he can think of is finding its owner.

TLDR: Spencer finds your kinky notebook and uses super sleuth skills to find you.

Series TW: 18+, smut, degradation, piercing, choking, knife play, mommy/daddy kinks, spanking, exhibitionism, Will update as time goes on

Chapter TW: Cumming in pants, Hinting at sex, exhibitionism, no panties, Language, General 18+, Hinting at future kinks

Word Count: 2,439 (gah damn)

𝒯𝒪 𝒲𝐻𝒪𝑀 𝐼𝒯 𝒞𝒪𝒩𝒞𝐸𝑅𝒩𝒮:

𝒟𝑜 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝓇𝑒𝒶𝒹, 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓂𝓎 𝓈𝒶𝓀𝑒, 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓈. 𝐼 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝒷𝑒 𝓌𝓇𝒾𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝓎 𝓃𝒶𝓂𝑒 𝒾𝓃 𝒸𝒶𝓈𝑒 𝒾𝓉 𝒸𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓈 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑜 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓌𝓇𝑜𝓃𝑔 𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒹𝓈. 𝐼𝒻 𝒾𝓉 𝒸𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓈 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑜 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓇𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒹𝓈, 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒸𝒶𝓃 𝒻𝒾𝓃𝒹 𝓂𝑒. 𝐼𝒻 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝒾𝓃𝓊𝑒, 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓈𝒽𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝒷𝑒 𝒸𝓊𝓇𝓈𝑒𝒹, 𝒷𝑜𝓉𝒽 𝒾𝓃 𝒶 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒸𝒽𝓎 𝓌𝒶𝓎 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉𝒶𝓁𝓁𝓎. 𝒴𝑜𝓊 𝒽𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝒷𝑒𝑒𝓃 𝓌𝒶𝓇𝓃𝑒𝒹.

As Spencer read these sentences, he paused. Not for the warning of so-called curses, there was no scientific evidence for such things and Spencer knew magic was just science with a trick of the eye, but for the vehement warning making him feel intruding on whoever had left their journal in the elevator.

It had caught his eye as he stepped into the elevator on his way out of the office. As someone who had lost plenty of books in his days roaming the halls of the BAU, he knew how frustrating it was to not know what happened at the end. As he picked it up, he noticed the cover. It was old, bound in aged cherry red leather, yet too small to be more than a pocketbook. He had found your message while searching for a name to return the book to, and simply reading the first page already felt prying.

Alas, one sentence enticed him “If it comes into the right hands, You can find me.” Where his hands the right ones to come into? The probability of that could be found easily by calculating how many people got on and off of this specific elevator that day, no, in the past hour, with the hustle and bustle of people leaving for the day. Spencer could and he would calculate it he wasn’t so distracted by the message and his voracity to solve this mystery.

Tentatively, he flipped the page, finding a handwritten table of contents. This book had obviously been very important to the reader if they had taken the time to write in page numbers, detailed headings, and chapters. The table was nearly full of chapter titles in scrawled cursive lettering. His eyes stopped on the first chapter title. “Male Needs” with shakey lettering. He could tell by your handwriting that you grew more confident in your journaling as the chapters progressed, the hesitations in your strokes growing few and far between.

As he flipped the page once more he had reached the next floor and a large group of people bustled into the elevator. Spencer shied away from them, not just because he had an aversion to contact with strangers and their germs, but because of the sentences, he had read underneath that first chapter “I do not need a man, a man needs me. Yet, when I am with a man, I have needs. Needs that most men can’t fulfill. I need a man that eats pussy like it’s the only way to quench his thirst-“ and with that Spencer slammed the book shut, earning some confused looks from the others on the elevator. He should have heeded the warning because now all he could think about was the fact that this was your nervous entry and as your confidence grew, it was bound to escalate from there. He wasn’t sure if it was his flustered mind or the heat growing deep from inside him that made him feel dirty; not because it scandalized him, but because these were someone’s fantasies and he had intruded in their secrets and soiled them with his mind.

Ding! He had reached the ground floor and that was when he decided to leave it alone. He couldn’t bring it to the lost and found as it would be more likely to end up in the wrong hands there and your secrets would be for someone else to find, not that he even knew who you were.

On his drive home, he tried to think of anything else besides the book. His lunch, Garcia’s new item she added to her collection, how to get back at Derek for putting salt in the sugar container, but his mind kept wandering. It didn’t help that the notebook sat tauntingly on top of his satchel as if saying “Open me, you know you want to. You want to know who I am. You can find me.” There was no way that it had been there for that long as the janitor was on duty today and he had been on the elevator two hours ago on his way to clean the top floor. Since Spencer had left a little later than most people that meant there were multiple elevators full of people who would have noticed. He knew it wasn’t so but part of him felt as if you had left it there specifically for him to find. Like it was made for him. He quickly shook off the thought and went back to who it could be. He wanted to return it without reading any more. You clearly would miss it but he couldn’t imagine you wanted others to know about what lay in those folded corners of your book and your mind.

As he walked up the steps of his complex, he clutched onto the notebook with all of his strength, he feared that he would look down and it would have disappeared, he wanted to keep your deepest secrets safe as if they were his own. He was only able to relinquish his grip when he shut and locked the door to his apartment. He set it on the table as he got prepared for the night. By now he had limited his pool to 54 women who were regularly in and out of the elevator at that time of day which was a cut down in comparison to the 860 roughly women in that building on any given day. But that number still wasn’t small enough. He had to minimize the sample size even further. That was the only reason he reopened to the table of contents, right? Not because of his own morbid curiosity and definitely not because of the heat burning in his stomach.

He looked down at the page numbers, still too nervous to look at the titles, and saw that each entry was a page long consisting of 23 entries and one with a title but no page numbers. Not chapters as he previously thought but entries giving lascivious details into what he had not yet mustered up the courage to read. He was still unable to look at the titles in fear of what he might find. If graphic depictions of female oral sex were displayed under “Male Needs”, what possibly could lie ahead.

For now, he studied the handwriting. Cursive, not often used by many younger women, was often associated with antiquities and traditional values but he noticed something off. There was a very specific curl to certain numbers. Every even number had a specific extra curl or flourish to it and the zeros had a line through it like a “do not enter” sign. This went directly against the hypothesis that you were an older woman that the cursive provided; as many older women who wrote in cursive stuck to the rules even when it came to numbers. She wasn’t old enough to even be Hotch’s age but she appreciated the charm of the past. 'Who is this girl?' Spencer wondered. He was able to narrow it down to about half of his previous lot, excluding the women on his team. He had seen them write enough to know their handwriting inside and out. And while Garcia’s had similar flourishes to yours, she never crossed her zeros.

Spencer knew that he would have to read at least the chapter titles to grasp a better understanding of your handwriting and who you could possibly and as his eyes scanned the page, for the first time in a while he was actually reading slowly; putting all of his focus into each word and what order they were in. Unfortunately, his focus was his downfall. His face became so hot that he felt as if you could see steam coming off of it.

Table of contents:

Male Needs

Praise

Degradation

Mommy

Daddy

Work

Exhibition

Choking

Collars

Breeding

And that was all he could take. Ha couldn’t look at the thirteen and a half more entries, even this much knocked the wind out of him. He didn’t have much experience with women and certainly not enough to understand what all of those words necessarily entailed but he knew that whatever it was keeping his internal fire roaring with heat.

While he hated snooping, he knew he would need more information. He chose the chapter that sounded the most mundane out of all of them, "Work." ‘What was more normal than work.’ he thought, but he was so sorely mistaken.

"Work:

"Before I move on to exhibitionism, I have to talk about work. Yes, I would love to have sex at work where I and my partner are one step away from getting caught, I haven’t done that yet. I want to tell you what I have done. Almost every day I go to work wondering if the others can tell that I’m not wearing underwear.”

His heat spread from his face down until it pooled in his loins and his cock became hard imagining this mystery girl walking the halls of the BAU with a breeze in her skirt, nearly exposing the secret that lied beneath. Had he sat next to you when you were partaking in this activity? What would he have done if your skirt bunched up your thigh as you sat, exposing the tan lines where your underwear should be. Would he be able to see you in your tight work pants with no pantie lines and be the only one who truly knows your secret?

“I kinda want to be caught someday by Him. I wonder what he would do. Would he tell me off for being unprofessional? Would he take me to that storage closet 3 doors past Garcia’s office, just far enough away that he could teach me a lesson for being naughty at work?”

He felt so dirty, inserting himself into the fantasies of a girl which he did not even know that he almost glanced across the use of Him, capital H.i.m. He wanted to indulge in his imagination that in some way or another that the “Him” in question was in fact the man reading this with trembling hands and an impossibly hard cock. He couldn’t stop himself from imagining situations in the storage closet that he regularly used as a reading nook when he needed time away from the others.

He rested his head on the pages of the book, hoping somehow that his dirty thoughts would be transplanted from his head and back into the pages so that he could stop thinking about you. His efforts were thwarted as this action meant that he could spoil himself in your scent that enveloped the book. As if you had wrapped it in the deepest most vulnerable part of you to hide it away from others. You smelled of bergamot, patchouli, and musk but deeper than that, you smelled like sweet, tart berries and honeysuckle in summer. There was something else that he couldn’t put his finger on at first but it was intoxicating all of his senses. It was saccharine, heat, and sex all combined in one. When it clicked, it no longer felt as if his head was pressed against a book but as if his he sat kneeling on the ground with his cheek resting in your inner thigh, your hot sex waiting for his indulgence, “like it's the only way to quench his thirst” echoed in his brain. The scent was your natural pheromones beckoning him closer with the promise of a treat.

And that was it. That was what sent him over the edge. The purest embodiment of your scent had him cumming, hot in his pants.

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You sat down at the edge of your bed after a long day at work; shucking off your work clothes to get as comfy as you could in your PJs as a way to unwind from the day. You went to grab your lip balm from your bag and noticed that the front pocket of your bag had been left open. You instantly panicked, searching everywhere for your little red book. The one that kept the key to your deepest secrets and darkest fantasies. You tore your bag apart, knowing that you had it at the end of your workday because you took it out of your desk drawer and tucked it back into its home in your bag. You cursed your carelessness for not double-checking that you zipped your bag before leaving. With your forgetfulness, you knew it would happen one day but you didn't realize it would be this soon.

There was an odd mix in your heart and your stomach. Part of you felt your heart drop through your ass thinking that it had ended up in the wrong hands, part of you had butterflies thinking about someone knowing the deepest parts of you, intimately in your own words. You had the assurance that your name was nowhere to be seen in the book but you also knew that you worked with people who analyzed people's dark desires for a living. While none of your fantasies involved murder, they were like precious gems that you kept locked away in your heart. You couldn't dare imagine what would happen if it came into His hands. While you were the youngest at the BAU, only by a few months and you weren't even part of the group because you were still tentative, you couldn't put your dirty thoughts into the innocent head of the pretty boy genius. It was almost more worrisome than if SSA Hotchner or Gideon found it and you were fired. The idea of tainting someone so pure...

You had to literally shake your head to clear your thoughts. Imagining His face tinged red in innocence reading through your lewd writing had your head in a tizzy. Imagining Doctor Spencer Reid sifting through the pages with lightning-fast fingers, stroking down the pages of smut as you had imagined him stroking down your thighs so many times before. You decided to bury your head in your pillow, hoping that would calm your mind enough to slip into slumber.

Unfortunately for you both, your efforts would be fruitless and you would both go to sleep unknowingly thinking of each other.

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

Chapter 2 Here/ Chapter 3 here

And that's Chapter one. Hope y'all like it. LMK in my messages and all that <3 have a great week!

#Spencer Reid smut #Spencer Reid imagine #Spencer Reid x reader #spencer reid blurb #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid angst #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #sub spencer #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid #sub!spencer #mommy kink

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waitimcomingtoo · 3 years

Text

In Case You Don’t Live Forever

~chapter two rewritten~

Pairing: Peter Parker x Venom!Reader

Synopsis: you are Peters greatest love and Spider-Man’s greatest enemy

Masterlist and Series Masterlist

Moving and finding an apartment can be an incredibly long and stressful process. Unless you’re you, and life likes to throw a lot of curve balls at you for the utter hell of it.

Your dad dropped dead three weeks after you told Andy you were moving to New York. Coincidentally, right in the middle of you trying to find a place to live. He drank himself to death. Figures. You doubted you’d ever had a conversation with him that he was sober enough to remember. His untimely demise was unfortunate for him, because he died or whatever, but very fortunate for you. As his only child, you got his apartment in Queens and all his smelly hoodies.

You said your goodbyes to Andy and Dani after a night out in the streets of San Francisco. You had originally moved there after high school to start your show, The L/n Report. San Francisco was known for its crimes against the homeless population and you wanted to start with a story on that. You ended up interviewing Andy at the police station while investigating a missing person, and dated him for two years. Now, you were spending your last few hours in San Francisco with the very boy you once loved and the very girl he now did.

“Are you all packed?” Dani asked you, snapping you out of your thoughts.

“Pretty much. I gotta put my toothbrush and hairbrush in my suitcase in the morning. Other than that, I’m good to go.” You answered her. She smiled fondly at you as she linked her arm through yours.

“Hey, I’m really gonna miss you. More than that guy over there.” You whispered, nodding towards Andy, who had his head buried in his phone. Dani laughed and nodded in agreement as you continued to walk.

“I’m going to miss you too. You’re my best friend here.” She sighed sadly.

“I’m glad we’re friends. Most women in our position would hate each other.” You thought out loud.

“Uh uh. You’re thinking of women in films. It’s 2021, baby. Women support women. You and I are two talented, smart, beautiful women who would never be caught fighting over some boy. Especially not one who can’t take his eyes off his phone for two seconds.” Dani said loudly and smacked Andy’s arm. You laughed at the domestic moment but couldn’t help feeling a pain in your heart knowing he used to be that way with you.

“What, sorry?” Andy looked up. You and Dani looked at him before looking at each other and laughing.

“What’s funny?” He asked, growing annoyed.

“We’re laughing at you babe. Put your phone away. It’s Y/N’s last night here.” Dani scolded playfully. Andy sighed and reluctantly put his phone in his pocket.

“Right, sorry. And it’s not her last night here. She’s coming back. You are coming back, right?” He asked you. You nodded, though you weren’t entirely sure.

“Of course I’ll be back.” You shrugged. “I just want to experience something new for a while. I’ve done a million pieces on homelessness and poverty. I want to see what fresh stories New York has to offer.”

“You’re quoting the Daily Bugle, aren’t you?” Dani teased you.

“That is verbatim what they said to me.” You admitted with a laugh. “But hey, it worked. As of tomorrow, I’m the Daily Bugle’s newest investigative reporter.”

“Who are you reporting on anyway?” Andy showed a rare interest in your work.

“Some guy named Cletus Kasady.” You answered. “He’s some hot shot serial killer down in Queens. No one knows how he’s hiding his victims bodies. Apparently none have ever been close to being found.”

“And they want you to write the story on him?” Andy raised an eyebrow, always with the condescending tone.

“Well they heard about the whole Carlton Drake situation and decided I hadn’t been through enough trauma in my career.” You replied, earning a laugh from Dani but not Andy. You and Andy had already broken up by the time Carlton Drake contracted a symbiote and tried to kill you and Venom. You stopped him before he could hurt anyone and wrote a career defining article on his lethal human experiments. You managed to leave out all information regarding symbiotes from the article, so your secret was still safe. You were a fairly well known reporter since the incident and your next job was waiting for you in New York.

In the morning, You and Venom got on a plane and made your way to New York. Being on a plane with Venom turned out to be the equivalent to traveling with a toddler. You tried to sleep, but every two seconds you had to stop Venom from getting into trouble. She kept trying to open the window, even after you explained to her that everyone on the plane would die horrible death if the window were to open.

“Stop that.” You whispered when you noticed a black tendril creeping towards the window. The lady in the seat next to you shot me a look of confusion. You gave her a fake smile and turned back to the window, doing your best to conceal the small black tendril that was coming out of your body and fidgeting with the airplane window.

“We want it open.” Venom replied telepathically.

“Do you also want us to blow out of the plane and into space?” You said through my teeth.

“We didn’t anticipate that but it’d be appreciated.” Venom answered, making you groan. The rest of the plane ride followed in similar fashion.

Seven hours later, you arrived at the apartment building. You had never been to your dads apartment, you didn’t even know he had one. You wondered what happened to your childhood home as you looked around the place. The apartment wasn’t too small but not too big either. The rent was practically nothing compared to how expensive San Francisco was, and The Daily Bugle offered to cover your expenses until the story was done. You figured after some redecorating and moving in, it would make a fine new home.

The first seven days in the apartment went by smoothly. You unpacked, with little to no help from Venom, and set up the furniture. On the eight day, you sat on the couch, aimlessly flipping through channels in the TV when you had a thought.

“Oh shit.” You said out loud.

“What?” Venom, who was curly nestled around your neck like a neck pillow, asked.

“I forgot mail exists.” You frowned. “We better go check the mailbox before it overflows.”

You and Venom grudgingly walked to the mailboxes and back again. No one was around, so she manifested herself and rested on your shoulder as I looked through the mail.

“Oops. I grabbed someone else’s mail too.” You clicked your tongue when you read a strangers name off the envelope. “I gotta find them.”

“Let’s go.” Venom said and pulled you towards the front door.

“Sorry, babe. This is a me thing, not a we thing. You know I love you but I don’t want to scare our neighbors. Not yet anyway.” You reasoned. Venom grumbled and went back inside your body.

You checked the address of the envelope and discovered that it belonged to the apartment directly across from you.

You knocked on the door and patiently waited for someone to open it as you mindlessly cracked your knuckles. Just as you were about to walk away, the door opened.

“Hi, are you May Parker?” You asked right away. You looked up from the envelope and your face instantly flushed. The person staring back at you definitely wasn’t May Parker. It was a boy around your age, maybe a little younger. He had soft brown eyes and wavy brown hair. It was gelled back loosely and you could see the outline of soft curls. To your surprise, he was just as flushed as you were. You stared at each other for a moment, no one wanting to be the first to blink.

“Yea. I’m May Parker.” The boy said finally. He shut his eyes in embarrassment and shook his head.

“I mean, no I’m not. But that’s my Aunt. May is my Aunt but I’m not May. That’s my Aunt May. I’m her nephew…obviously. Aunt May is my Aunt May. I…what?” He stumbled over his words and somehow turned even redder. His blush reached all the way down his neck, to his blue jumper that read “Midtown Tech” in yellow letters. You recognized the name of one of the most prestigious high schools in New York, already impressed with your new neighbor.

“Well hello, not May Parker. I’m also not May Parker. But I seemed to forget that when I grabbed your mail this morning. Sorry about that.” You said sheepishly as you handed his mail to him. The boy rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at it and attempted to redeem himself.

“It’s not problem. She and I always forget to check the mail so you actually helped us, um, whoever you are.” He smiled weakly. His voice was cute. He had that Queens accent that the people of San Francisco lacked, for obvious reasons.

“Oh, right.” You laughed in embarrassment. “I’m Y/N L/N. I just moved here from San Francisco. I live across the hall.”

You pointed to the door behind you as if he didn’t know what “across the hall” meant. You didn’t know what was wrong with you. You were never this awkward.

His eyes lit up a bit once you told him where you lived.

“Really? I thought that smelly guy lived there.” The boy said and you stifled a laugh.

“That smelly guy was my father. He died a little while ago so I live there now.” You told him, malign the boys eyes widen. They were so brown. Like little pools of honey. Or little pools of the Hudson River. You had seen a million pairs of brown eyes before, but none like his. They were quite distracting to be honest.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry! I had. I had no idea-“ he began to frantically apologize but you cut him off.

“Don’t worry about it. We never got along. And you’re right, that man stank.” You chuckled. It was the first thing you said that felt like your old self. You hadn’t really talked to anyone since moving to New York, with the exception of Venom and the occasional phone call from Andy or Dani. You liked talking to this boy, though you still had no idea who he was.

“Oh thank God. I thought I screwed this up before it even went anywhere.” He immediately turned red when he heard his own words. You saw the regret in his eyes and decided to throw him a bone.

“Well it certainly can’t go anywhere until you tell me your name.” You flirted. Again, he relaxed. You felt a surge of confidence knowing he wanted this to go well.

“Parker. I’m Parker Peter. I mean, Peter Parker.” He fumbled over his words again, making you smile fondly.

“We like him. He’s cute.” Venom said telepathically. You looked down at my shoes and blushed, knowing you liked him too.

“And he looks delicious.” She added, ruining the moment.

“It’s nice to meet you Peter Parker.” You gave him your best smile. “I’m glad there’s someone my age around here. Everyone I’ve met so far is either an old bitty or a creepy uncle type.” You regretted it as soon as it left your mouth. You didn’t know what his sense of humor was like and he might not find you the slightest but funny. Andy always told you you were bad at telling jokes, and you feared he might be right.

Lucky for you, Peter burst out laughing.

“Ah. I’ve seen you’ve met Henry.” Peter pointed a finger down the hall. “Yeah, I’d stay away from him. He asked me if he could have pictures of my feet once. He said he’d “pay me handsomely” for it too.”

“Damn. So he beat me to asking you.” You pretended to be upset, which made Peter laugh again. The sound of his laugh made your heart pick up speed. You weren’t used to feeling like this. Boys rarely impressed you, Andy was just lucky you liked a man in uniform.

“Yeah. You better stay away from him.” Peter advised.

“It might be hard.” You clicked your tongue. “Our mailboxes are pretty close. I’ll make a mental note to never check my mail while wearing flip flops, though.”

Peter smiled at your joke. He had the kind of smile that you would make the person laugh just to see it again. It was brilliant.

“Well my mailbox should be directly above yours. So don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” He grinned, and you grinned back.

“My hero.” You gushed as you put your hands over your heart. The tips of his ears went pink, like he was shocked that you said that.

“I’m no hero.” He sounded almost panicked, like you touched a nerve or something.

“We’re hungry. We need to eat.” Venom interrupted abruptly, causing you to jump. Since Peter couldn’t hear her, he looked at you strangely, not knowing the cause of your sudden jolt.

“Sorry, I uh, I thought I saw a spider.” You lied.

“If there was a spider, we’d eat it. We need food. Now.” Venom demanded.

Peter looked up at his doorframe for the imaginary spider.

“Yeah, New York is full of them.” Peter said skeptically. “Not that full, though. And some spiders are nice. One might even call them friendly.”

“Right.” You laughed at his strange wording, unaware that you were both keeping a secret.

“Would…” Peter began but trailed off, seemingly mulling something over in his head. “Would you like to eat dinner with my Aunt and I? I remember when we first moved in, it took us a while to get into the swing of things and make dinner every night. If you like, you could join us. And, you know, we could get to know each other.” He offered. It all came out in one breath. You could tell he was nervous and that only drew you in more.

“I’d love to Peter.” You said, and he smiled in relief.

“Great.” He gave an awkward thumbs up. “We usually eat around six so maybe come around then? She’ll be so happy to meet you. She loves cooking and she always tries to get me to learn but I once burnt cereal and I still don’t know how.” Peter began to ramble. He cut himself off and shook his head again. “Sorry. I’m rambling.”

Then, you did something stupid. You put your hand on his arm like the dumb bitch you were. You barely knew this guy. Who the hell were you to touch him? He must’ve been thinking the same thing, since he instantly froze under your touch and stared at your hand on his arm.

“Don’t apologize. I can’t cook either. Unless you count making tater tots as cooking. Then I’m Gordon Ramsey.” You assured him, feeling him relax under your touch.

“You’re just gonna mention tater tots without warning us first? Our mouth is watering. Can we eat Peter?” Venom asked, making your eyes widen.

If it was socially acceptable to scream at your symbiote in public, you would’ve yelled “NO, WE CANNOT EAT PETER” from the top of your lungs. But since you didn’t want to scare Peter and the rest of the neighbors away, you merely smiled and made another mental note to smack the shit out of Venom later.

“I love that man. “Where is the lamb sauce?” Peter mimicked in a bad British accent. He had no right being as charming as he was.

“No no no.” You shook your head. “His best line is “I’ll get you more pumpkin and I’ll ram it right up your ass. Would you like it whole or diced?”. He’s said some pretty wild things but that one makes me cry.”

Peters laugh rang through the halls. To be the cause of that laugh was a feeling like no other. You stood there for a while, just looking at each other. His eyes grazed down your body, but not in a crude way. You berated yourself for not dressing better when going to meet the neighbors, clad in nothing but a grey hoodie and some leggings. Peter looked cute, but you had a feeling he always did. His jumper was pretty baggy and you could see a collared shirt poking out the top. He was dressed almost professionally and you found it incredibly endearing.

You wanted to know more about him. You wanted to know his secrets and his hobbies and what makes him itch. You wanted to see if he dresses this way on weekends too or what his summer clothes looked like. Your gawking was interrupted by Peters phone ringing. He broke out of his trance and answered it quickly.

“Hi, Mr. S. No I’m not busy. I mean, I’m super busy but I can totally make time for you. Yea, Happy talked to me. Okay. Okay. Where? Okay. See you in a bit.” Peter hung up and looked at you apologetically.

“That was my job. I have to run but I’ll be back in time for our dinner. I live at…you know where I live. I’ll see you then. Don’t be late.” Peter called as he ran down the hallway, towards the elevator.

“I won’t. See you later.” You called back.

You went back to your apartment and like a kid, broke out into a happy dance.

“Venom!! Did you see how cute he was?” You gushed. “And how funny he is? I have to get ready for tonight.”

Venom manifested and swirled around my arm.

“Someone has a crush.” Venom smirked. Well, as much of a smirk as she could muster with that huge mouth of hers.

“I don’t have a crush. I just think he’s cute okay?” You replied coyly. “Cute. And funny and sweet and charming and amazing. But that’s it.”

“We can feel your heart beat.” Venom reminded you. “It was going ten miles an hour. What would Andy say?”

You had been rummaging through your closet and stopped in your tracks. With Peters new inhabitance in your mind, you had forgotten all about Andy. You moved to New York to avoid his wedding and his moving on, and you might’ve succeeded.

“I don’t care what he’d say.” You decided. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“But we want him to be.” Venom insisted. “We want him back, remember?”

“I don’t know what I want.” You answered honestly. “I just want to get ready for tonight.”

“Why are you getting ready now? You have 5 hours until you have to be there and it’s right across the hall.” Venom teased.

“Only 5 hours?” You sighed. “We better get moving.”

#peter parker x reader #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x you #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker imagine #peter parker x venom!reader #venom!reader #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fluff #tom holland fanfiction #iron man

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sunlight-moonrise · 4 years

Text

Sugar, Spice, and Everything (Not So) Nice (Reid Imagine)

Summary: Being a Barista and falling for a regular is as cliche as it gets. Having that customer become your new professor? Not so much.

A/N: *Peeks head out* Hello everyone. I have come back from my unannounced hiatus to show off this baby. Major thanks to @definitelynotkatesblog and @clean-bands-dirty-stories for helping me put this fic together. This was written for the lovely @httpnxtt for the secret-fic-swap in the Discord (thanks @imagining-in-the-margins.) I hope you all enjoy this smutty goodness.

Category: Smut

Content Warnings: Face Slapping, Degradation, Slight Hair Pulling, Oral Sex (male receiving), Fingering, Spanking, Penetrative Sex, Unprotected Sex/Creampie

Word Count: 6.4K

Masterlist

Being a barista is pretty awesome. Sure, there were bitchy customers and super early mornings but it had it’s redeeming perks. We got free coffee, tea, and snacks during our shifts, which served the caffeine addict in me. I also learned how to make popular lattes, mochas, and frappes that I ended up making at home for myself one too many times. While there were the occasional assholes who couldn’t appear human before getting their hands on some caffeine, there were the regulars who made it worth it. Most of the regulars were so sweet, I appreciated a familiar face when they came in. Some.. more than others.

“He’s baaaaaaaaack,” my coworker Hazel whispered to me in a sing-song voice as she scribbled a customer’s name on a cup. I turned to see who she was talking about, but I already had an inkling about who it was.

My suspicions were correct. I turned to see one of our kindest regulars, my personal favorite customer, Dr. Spencer Reid. Is it weird to know the full name -including the honorific- of a customer? Possibly. But when I’d asked for his name to write on his cup the first time he came in, he accidentally gave me his full name.

“Dr. Reid- uh, Spencer. Sorry, work habit.” He stuttered, avoiding my eyes after the mistake.

“No worries! What can I get started for you?”

As a Criminology major, I learned to study the people who catch my attention before indulging them. Call it an old habit.

Dr. Spencer Reid had earned his title and then some. He’d joined the FBI at only 22, having six degrees under his belt by the age of 27. He’d written several dissertations and co-wrote novels with his colleague, David Rossi. Someone with his reputation could be a pompous ass and have a leg to stand on, which is what made his humbled demeanor so much sweeter. He was also incredibly easy on the eyes, which was a nice little bow on top.

Hazel liked to joke about how we’d make a cute couple but I know she only did it to watch me get flustered.

I walked towards the counter to take his order, leaving Hazel with the task of refilling the caramel syrup. I’m always the one to help him since he very aptly pointed out that I’m the only one who makes his coffee just how he likes it.

Some days, he’d let me surprise him with a random creation. I’d confirm if he wanted caffeine (he always did), iced or not, and any flavor requests. He’d take his drink, tip me handsomely and let me know his thoughts on the drink the next time he came in. So far, his favorite was the almond milk honey latte I’d concocted. It was nice to have a little bit of fun, especially with regulars who were as consistent as him.

“Hey Doc, what can I get ya’?” I asked.

“The usual, please,” he said with a smile. I nodded and set off to make his drink: a venti dark roast with a shit ton of sugar, a dash of nutmeg, and a tiny bit of cinnamon.

“Of course!” I quickly go to fill his order, making sure to put a complimentary treat in a bag for him. I know he had the ultimate sweet tooth so I try to sneak him a confection whenever I can. At first, he was a bit reluctant to take the free pastries, but nowadays he usually smiles when he sees the small bag.

“Here ya’ go.” I handed him his steamy cup of caffeine along with the little treat, seeing him smile at the small pun I add to his cup, “Have a BREW-tiful day, Doctor!” I watched as his lips landed on the rim of the cup, taking a long sip of the hot coffee. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, the sight making my cheeks promptly flush. I cleared my throat before asking, “Is it good?”

“It’s always good when you make it,” he stated matter of factly, a small smile touching his lips. The heat in my cheeks rose again. “Will you be taking a course this summer?” he asked, taking another sip of his coffee.

“Yeah, I’m really looking forward to it. My first day is actually later today. I’m surprised the class section was open, to be honest.” Super surprised actually. I’d been trying to enroll in this class for the past couple of semesters but it was always full by the time I was able to even load the registration page.

“Well, I’ll wish you luck, but I’m sure you won’t need it.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I can just tell.” He stated calmly, like it was common knowledge. I raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to explain. Before he could respond, an insistent cough caught both of our attention. I peeked over Spencer’s shoulder to see a customer waiting for his order to be taken. I turned my attention back to the Doctor, an annoyed look painted on my face. He nodded, taking a hint from the impatient mouth breather behind him.

“Thank you for the coffee. Enjoy the rest of your day. I hope that class goes well.”

“Bye, you too.” I waved, watching as he exited the door. I turned to the waiting customer, a bit miffed that he interrupted our conversation. But because I was at work, I plastered a fake smile on my face so that he wouldn’t see just how annoyed I was. “Welcome, how may I help you?”

●●●

After clocking out at 2:30 PM, I made a dash for the building where my class would be held. It’s not supposed to start for another half-hour, but I wanted to be sure to get there in time to choose a good seat and settle in before the rest of the class arrived.

Luckily room 301 was relatively empty so I was able to score a perfect seat by the window. I decided to kill some time by listening to some music and doodling randomly in my notebook. Some time had passed when I felt someone take the seat next to me. I turned to see a young man occupying the chair beside mine. He looked to be a frat boy based on the Greek letters he was sporting. Who wears a cap and hoodie in this weather? I really hope he didn’t expect to cheat off of me- although these types of guys always seem to do so.

I was about to return to my doodle when I felt a poke on my shoulder. I turned to give the offender my full attention, removing one of the earbuds from my ears.

“Hey, I’m Tony,” frat boy said, with a wide smile adorning his face. I must admit, his boyish grin melted the slight annoyance I had begun to stir toward him. I returned his greeting and introduced myself as well. “I don’t mean to be a bother,” he continued, “but I like to have at least one buddy in each of my classes. In case we need help or miss an assignment or something.”

I nodded my head - a friend in a class was always useful when it came to studying and swapping notes. We chatted a bit more, learning about each other’s major and why we both decided to take a summer course. Tony is a double major and this course will satisfy the credits he needs for his psychology requirement. This is why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

It wasn’t until I heard the hush of the classroom that I realized the class was about to begin. I turned back to my notebook, preparing to jot down some important information despite it being the first day of class.

“Good morning class.” Wait. That voice... I didn’t even need to pick my head up to know who had spoken. “This is Criminal Psychology and I am your instructor, Doctor Spencer Reid. Unfortunately, Professor Monroe could not cover this course so I’ll be his permanent replacement. Now…”

I raised my head, watching as he continued to talk about what is to be expected in this course while a TA handed out the syllabus. He went on, able to capture the attention of everyone while speaking of the experiences he had with an array of criminals. His eyes scanned the room and for a brief moment I thought they would land on me, but they continued to take in the mass amount of students before him.

My concentration was broken by Tony passing me a copy of the syllabus. I scanned it over, making sure to highlight all the important dates. I didn’t want any exams or projects conflicting with my work schedule. I also made note of how the overall grade system is broken down. The whole thing seems pretty fair and everything was spaced out enough where I wouldn’t feel too overwhelmed with the workload.

“… and that pretty much wraps it up. Does anyone have any questions?” I tuned in just as he was pulling the first class to a close. No one raised their hands, so he dismissed us with a reminder to read the first chapter of the textbook and to check for any emails.

“So do you want to grab lunch?” Tony asked from beside me. I contemplated whether or not to go with him. He must have seen the hesitation in my face because he quickly added, “Not as a date or anything, I just wanted to grab a bite and I didn’t want to do it alone.”

“Sure,” I smiled, “Let me just ask the professor a quick question about his office hours and I’ll meet you at the food court.”

“Sweet, I’ll see you in a bit.” With that, Tony gathered his stuff and exited the back door.

I focused my attention on the podium, seeing a gaggle of girls surrounding him asking redundant questions. From what I could hear, their questions could have been answered if they’d read the syllabus. I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt, they were probably more focused on him rather than what he was saying during class. I waited a few more minutes for them to finish up before I made my way to him.

“So do I call you Doctor or Professor now?” I laughed.

“From you, I’d respond to either,” he replied warmly. The comment made me blush. If he looked into my eyes at that moment, he’d see more stars in them than the night sky. I bit my lip to stop the idiotic grin from spreading across my face.

He’s your professor, get a hold of yourself.

“How can I help?” he asked, bringing me back to the original reason as to why I was standing in front of him without a cash register between us.

I cleared my throat. “Um, I was wondering if it was possible to see you outside your normal office hours? I usually work the morning shifts and I don’t want to flood your emails with my questions.” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “You can come to my office at whatever time works best for you. I know balancing a work and school schedule can be hard. Besides, I’m usually there handling paperwork anyway.” He gave a small shrug, pushing his hands in his pockets.

“Thank you so much. I look forward to the rest of the semester Professor Reid.” I liked the way his newfound honorific rolled off my tongue.

“Goodbye, Y/N.”

“Goodbye, Professor.” With that, I left and headed out to meet Tony.

I was able to find him at the food court. We got some food and chatted more about our classes as well as life outside of school. He made it easy to be his friend, and it was nice having someone to talk to. He works as a waiter so we shared our customer service horror stories and tales of sneaking food at work. It was a nice distraction that took my mind off of Dr. Reid and the ongoing battle of calling him Doctor or Professor. As Tony rambled, my mind wandered about other things I’d like to call Spencer instead.

●●●

In that short span of two weeks, we already had an exam, an oral presentation, and a report on the psychoanalysis of serial killers. Not one day had been wasted, but this is what to be expected from a summer course. The essay was due the day before. Now we had to wait for our grades which gave us a moment to take a breath.

I was worried that my paper was subpar; especially since I chose to write about Andrei Chikatilo, a serial killer from Ukraine. He wasn’t as popular as those in America, so I ended up spending hours on deep research to find substantial information about his crimes. It also didn’t help that some of the original reports weren’t in English. I had worked hard, and hoped Professor Reid would see that, even if my writing could sometimes be a little weak. I was worried about the grade as our research papers held the weight of 20% of our final mark.

“Hello? Earth to Y/N! Anyone in there?” Hazel’s voice pierced through my worry bubble, her hand waving in front of my face. I shook my head, trying to focus on restocking the coffee beans.

“Sorry Haze, I’m thinking about this class.”

“Funny you say that; your favorite professor just walked in. Thought you might want to take his order.” She wagged her brows at me, making kissy faces as I hurried to the front register, trying my best to not let my eagerness be so glaringly obvious.

There he was, in his usual handsome glory, patiently waiting for me to take his order. He greeted me with a small smile that I happily returned.

“Hey Doc, what can I get you today?”

He debated for a moment before saying, “Surprise me.”

“Gotcha.” I already had an in my head; it’d been a while since he asked me to make him a random drink so I’d had plenty of time to plan. We got an early shipment of ingredients for our fall-themed drinks and I figured he would appreciate some pumpkin spice in his caffeine. “How are the papers coming along?” I asked casually as I rang him up.

“Pretty well. I’m almost done, so you’ll all receive your grades later today.” Wow, that was fast. I wondered if he stayed up reading all those papers to be done by today. Probably not, a TA must have helped him.

“I am a bit nervous about mine, especially since it’s worth a huge part of our final grade.” I really wanted to get an A in this course, but it was hard juggling everything in such a short amount of time.

“Don’t worry about it too much,” he reassured. “I haven’t properly finished yours yet but it looked great just from what I’ve seen thus far.” His words gave me a little reassurance.

“Thanks. I put a lot of effort into it. Let me grab your coffee now.” Spencer walked towards the pick-up station while I grabbed a venti cup for his drink. Just when I was about to make his order, I saw another familiar face come up to the register. “Tony, hey!” I shouted, placing the cup back down, “What can I get you?”

This was the first time he’d been here, despite him saying for the past few days that he’d stop by for a visit, even with the promise of a cake pop if he did. It was nice to see another familiar face.

“Hey coffee girl, how you doin’ today?”

“Just peachy. My feet are killing me, though.” Just saying the words caused the ache on the soles of my feet to spike higher. I thanked my lucky stars I was almost done with this eight-hour shift.

“Give me the chance to sweep you off your feet, I promise you won’t regret it.” he offered boldly. It wasn’t the first time he’d joked about taking me out. I laughed, especially since he had a girlfriend. She met us for lunch one day and we became fast friends- she was an incredibly sweet and intelligent girl, polite and elegant as well. It is a wonder how his frat boy charm won her over but opposites attract, I guess.

“Shut up, Casanova. What are you gonna have?”

“I’ll have a grande iced matcha latte, please.” I should’ve known. He told me that he loves matcha flavored food and drinks the first time we grabbed lunch after class. He had complained that there was no good place to get one on campus.

“Coming right up.” I quickly filled his order since it was faster to make compared to the pumpkin spiced latte. I handed him his bribe-cake pop, matcha flavor of course, while he waited for me to finish making his drink.

“By the way, we’re still studying at the library for the exam later tonight, right?” Tony asked.

“Yup, I’ll meet you at 8.”

“Copy that, see you later coffee girl.” He turned to leave while I turned to make Professor Reid’s order. I put extra whip cream and a bit more syrup to satiate his sweet tooth. I grabbed a fresh chocolate muffin from the display case and popped it into a bag for him as well, drawing yet another pun on the good doctors bag. “Thanks for being such a TEA-rrific professor!”

“Here ya’ go Doc,” I called out before placing his drink and muffin on the counter. I looked up to see him no longer smiling. “Is everything okay?”

Ignoring my question, he said, “I wasn’t aware you were so close to Mr. Montgomery.”

“Oh yeah, we study together once in a while.” I could have sworn I saw his frown deepen before his features became void of any emotions. He shifted his eyes downward, his hand moving rapidly to grab the cup.

“I should get going.”

“Oh, okay” Before I could say goodbye, he was already halfway out the door.

That was weird. I looked at the counter and noticed that he left the cupcake behind. Maybe he was in a rush?

I shook my head. I needed to concentrate on making it through the last couple of hours of work.

●●●

I made my way to the classroom, smiling at Tony as he pulled out my seat for me. Professor Reid walked in a few minutes later, his tall figure drawing all the attention to the center of the small stage. He let us know he already graded the papers and that they would be distributed by the TA before the end of class. I had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach but decided to brush it off and pay attention in class. Despite my attempts to focus on his lecture, I found my mind wandering every so often anyway.

I couldn’t help but think he was less animated today. Usually, he taught with such passion that the class couldn’t take their eyes off him. But today, it felt as if we were all in a boring seminar with an ancient professor. Tony kept glancing at the clock, probably also wondering why time felt like it was going by so slowly.

I couldn’t shake the unsettled feeling the entire class. It didn’t help matters that every time I would raise my hand to answer a question, he would call on another student. What the hell did I do?

I decided to tune out the rest of the class. There is no point in being an actively engaged student if I wasn’t going to get treated like one. I’d just get the notes from Tony later.

Thirty minutes before the end of class, the TA handed out our essays while Professor Reid wrapped.

“Some of you did very well, while a few others struggled with the assignment.” His eyes landed on mine as he said that. It was the first time he had glanced in my direction the whole class. He moved on to the other side of the room. My mind was probably just playing tricks on me. “If you have any questions you can see me at my office hours next week or send me an email. You are dismissed.”

The TA finally made his way over to me, handing my essay in a slight fold. I looked at the grade on top and almost dropped the paper. My heart sped up as I stared at the letter in bright red ink. No way, no way this could be my report. I looked at the right-hand corner and saw my name at the top. I read through the first page and saw they were indeed my words.

How the fuck was it possible that I got a D on this paper? I knew my writing wasn’t the strongest, but a D?

“How you’d do?” Tony asked. For a moment I forgot I was in a room with other people.

I cleared my throat, trying to relive the lump so that he didn’t hear the croak in my voice. “Umm, not what I expected. I’m going to try to speak to him about it.” Tony was a smart kid, so I was sure he could see how tense I was. Luckily he didn’t question me any further and instead told me he’d text me later before leaving the classroom.

Fortunately, there were no other students in the classroom to slow me down this time. I walked right up to the podium, watching as Professor Reid placed some papers in his satchel.

“Professor, I need to speak with you.”

“Not now, I’m busy,” he replied, not even bothering to glance in my direction. This can’t be real. The sweet, kind Doc could not be the man acting like a total asshole right now.

“I really need to discuss with you my paper,” I pressed, raising my voice a little louder in an attempt to get his attention. That was wishful thinking on my part since he continued to fiddle with his satchel.

“I said I’m busy,” he uttered once again, his voice void of any emotion. He was about to walk past me, ignoring my whole being. His blatant disregard made my cheeks burn, and not in the usual way they usually did when I was around him.

“Spencer,” I barked, “We need to talk. Now.” For a few moments, he stood in front of me, his back facing my direction.

I was about to speak again before I heard him say, “My office. Half an hour.” He exited, leaving me alone in an empty classroom. The only things keeping me company were the fuming feelings swirling inside me and the failed paper clutched at my fist.

●●●

I knocked on his office door ten minutes earlier than he’d told me. The anger in my gut brewed hotter the longer I waited. As soon as I heard a “Come in,” I rushed through the door, slamming it behind me. He regarded me coolly, but didn’t comment on my actions.

“What can I do for you Ms. (Y/L/N)?” I walked up to his large desk, not bothering to take a seat in the chair in front of me. I took a moment to calm myself down before replying.

“Well, you can start by explaining to me why I got such a low score on my paper.” I guess he didn’t like being the only one of us sitting down because he stood up and leaned against the wall behind him.

“It did not meet the requirements for a passing grade as outlined in the rubric. The information given was boring and the overall topic was uninteresting. It was tedious to get through,” he responded nonchalantly, like he was giving me a weather report.

“You said that you enjoyed it so far.” I rebutted, placing my hands on the desk. I needed something to offer me stability so that I wasn’t visibly shaking.

“I’d mistaken your work for another student’s. Maybe Mr. Montgomery,” he dryly clipped.

A bitter laugh escaped me as I put the puzzle together. Was- was he serious? Was this man acting like this because of Tony? The audacity! The laugh that bubbled from my lips must have unsettled him. He left his position from the wall in favor of standing in front of me.

“You want to know what I think?” I didn’t give him a chance to respond before continuing, “I think you’re jealous that I have another guy that isn’t you getting friendly with me at the shop and because of your inability to keep your---“

“That is enough,” he grounded out, shaking his head. But I didn’t stop talking.

“--private feelings away from your professional ones, you decided to give me a failing grade. Do you know how hard I worked in-” my voice rose up higher and higher until I was yelling.

“I said that’s enough,” he said again, louder this time. But I wasn’t done.

“-this class? This is my life, my fucking future on the line. I’ve told you how important this all is to me and you don’t even give a shit! You’re going to let your interpretation of my relationship with another student influence the way you do your job? And here I thought you were a decent man, Professor.” I hissed, “Do you even give a damn abo-”

“Enough,” he roared, slamming his hands on the desk and caging me against the wood. His breathing was matching the upbeat pace of my own. His quick movement and the sheer volume of his voice caught me off guard, effectively silencing me.

“I don’t deserve to be punished over your envy,” I whispered, locking eyes with him in a steady gaze.

“You want to see a real punishment, darling?” he hissed, the heat of his words almost breaking my glare, his breath fanning along my face.

We stared at one another for a while, neither of us willing to be the first to back down. The tension between us kept rising and rising until the inevitable happened. I couldn’t be sure who made the first move but before I knew it, our lips collided with a mix of rage and desperation. My arms draped around his neck as he pressed me on to the desk. He placed his hands on the back of my thighs, lifting me up high enough until I was perched on the cool wooden surface.

Spencer’s lips were soft, a stark contrast to the harsh way he was kissing me. His tongue parted my lips, gliding over mine with fervor. I couldn’t help but moan as he rolled his hips into me. He continued his rough grind, keeping my legs open as we moved as close together as our bodies would allow. He overwhelmed my senses- the smell of him, the taste of him, the feel of him. Everything was making me absolutely feral for this man.

I never expected the gentle Dr. Reid to be so fervent, so sensual. The kindhearted, sweet professor who regularly drank his weight in caffeine never gave me this impression. But then again, I’m sure he was shocked by my attitude as well. He knew me as the friendly, bubbly barista, now student, who enjoyed his class. He was about to meet a whole new side of me, just like I was going to for him.

Spencer pulled away from me, our mouths making an audible ‘pop’ sound from the sudden separation. I tried to catch my breath as he stared at me, our chests rising and falling together. If I were to move a bit closer to him, we would be touching once again.

He took a few steps back before motioning me to step in front of him. “I want you to get down on your knees. Now.” I wasn’t going to argue with him, mainly because I wanted the exact same thing he did. I kneeled down, keeping my eyes on his face.

“You going to shut me up, Professor?” I teased, feeling powerful, even though he was looming over me. He didn’t reply, just continued to look down on me with those honey colored eyes- full of lust and rage.

I watched as he slowly placed his hands on his slacks, undoing the belt and buttons. He drew down his pants and boxers at the same time, just low enough to reveal his impressive size. My mouth salivated at the sight of his bulge as he came closer to me.

“We’re going to put that smart mouth to better use. Open.” He said, gripping my face between his fingers, forcing me to follow his orders. I opened my mouth slightly, not giving him exactly what he wanted. Instead of ordering my mouth to open further like I expected, he placed his thumb inside. He pushed the digit deep, pressing it against my tongue. I moaned around the finger, softly nibbling at the skin. He continued to slide his finger within my mouth before dragging it out completely. He wiped the excess spit on my cheek before lightly smacking it. The small shock of pain sent a shiver down my spine.

“Open, and do it right this time.”

I obeyed, opening wide enough to accept him into my mouth. My lips were stretched almost uncomfortably in an attempt to fit around him. He was so hot and thick, I couldn’t help but hum at the taste of him on my tongue. The soft “fuck” that fell from his lips had me purring around him. I went to place my hands on the remaining portion that couldn’t fit, but he batted them away.

“You’re using only your mouth.”

Fine, have it your way, Sir.

I placed my hands behind me as I bobbed my head, hallowing my cheeks with every rise. His shallow thrusts encouraged me to suck harder. I slowly pulled away to run my tongue against the vein protruding on the underside of his cock. I was rewarded with a groan escaping his lips.

“I should have known that you would be so good at this, darling,” he said, his voice slightly hoarse as he tried to control his grunts.

I made sure to look in his eyes as I swirled my tongue around the head of his cock. The face he made was purely angelic. The muscles of his neck protruded more evidently and his breathing became more labored. I placed him back in my mouth, this time taking my time to go down on him.

“That’s right, Princess. Show me what a good girl you are for me.” He moaned as I felt his hands weave in my hair before he pushed my head down on to him, causing me to gag around him, tears pricking my eyes. He continued his thrusts into my mouth, barely allowing me a chance to breathe. My nose repeatedly touched the base of him as I swallowed around his hard length.

Spencer tightened his fingers in my hair and I knew he wasn’t going to last much longer. The pace was brutal, but I enjoyed the rough treatment. Knowing that I was the one making him feel good was such a turn on. He buried himself deep in my throat after a few more thrusts to finish. I swallowed his release like the greedy brat that we both now knew I was.

He eventually pulled out, a satisfied sigh leaving his lips. I swiped the back off my hand across my mouth to clean off any leftover spit and cum.

“Get up,” he ordered, his voice hoarse.

I did so, rubbing the ache in my knees as I slowly rose. “I want you bent over the desk,” he continued.

“I want you to answer my previous question.” I quipped.

“You’re not in the position to be making commands,” he growled. He wrapped his fingers in my hair again, pulling just roughly enough so that I was looking up at his face. “If you want this to end well for you, I suggest bending over my desk before I stuff my cock in that bratty little mouth of yours again.”

He released me, eyes still on my face waiting for me to follow through on his order. I turned to his desk and did as he asked, bending over the wood until my chest laid flat against the surface. I waited as patiently as I could for him. It felt as if I was in this position for an eternity before he touched me. He pushed both my underwear and skirt down to my knees before placing his hands on my hips. I heard it before I felt it- the smack on my ass that caused me to yelp.

“Fuck, Spencer. What the—” I was cut off with another resounding smack.

“Did you really think that I wasn’t going to give you a real punishment, darling?” I took a deep breath as another shiver went down my spine. He had no business sounding so hot right now. Another smack, this time on my opposite cheek, had me biting down on my lip to stop myself from crying out.

“This” *SMACK* “Is” *SMACK* “What” *SMACK* “Happens” *SMACK* “To” *SMACK* “Bratty” *SMACK* “Little” *SMACK* “Girls” *SMACK*. A sob ripped from my chest as the last blow landed. My ass was on fire and surely littered with his hand prints.

“You’re lucky I’m in a good mood since you sucked me off so nicely, or I would have made that worse.”

Gee, thanks.

“You look like such a dirty slut like this.” I felt a finger enter me easily, the wetness gathered there making my entrance ready to take him. “So wet. Was it the spanking that got you like this, or your mouth around my cock?” A moan was my only reply as he added another finger, the two digits moving in a scissoring motion.

“Are you gonna be my sweet girl, now?” He asked as I moved my hips along his fingers, desperately trying to seek some more relief for the fire burning between my thighs as his mouth littered marks along my thighs. I closed my eyes, focusing on the pleasure he was giving me as he curled his fingers, a slow moan falling from my lips. He pulled them out of me, wiping the slickness against my still burning ass. Fucking bastard. I wiggled my hips against him, hoping he would grant me a reprieve and put his fingers back inside me. Instead, he spanked my ass one more time- one quick, sharp blow against the bruised cheek.

Just when I was about to yell at him, he placed the head of his member against my entrance. He moved up and down my drenched entrance before penetrating me in one full thrust. I took a short breath in, trying to get used to feeling so full. He was stretching me out in the most amazing way.

Spencer waited until I was grinding against him before he pulled out and pushed back into me. “Look at you, such a wanton little bitch aren’t you?” He could call me whatever he wanted, as long as he didn’t stop fucking me.

He kept a steady pace, making sure to grind into me every time he slammed back in. The obscene sound of our skin smacking against one another’s and the moans escaping our throats was an erotic symphony that had my body heat raising the temperature in the room.

He hitched my leg on top of the desk, entering in an angle that made the pleasure so much better. I couldn’t stop the whines that kept escaping my mouth every time he pounded into me. His hand stayed upon my leg, holding me down and limiting my movements. His nails dug into the skin so harshly I was sure there would be bruises left in their wake.

“Fuck, you feel so good wrapped around me,” he hissed under his breath. “Should have known you just needed to be fucked like the cheap whore you are.” He sped up, hips snapping at an almost punishing pace. The desk creaked every time he slammed into me. I hoped no one was nearby to hear what was going on. A whine left my throat when I felt his fingers rub against my clit. I was so close now.

“Should I stay inside you? Fill you up so you walk around campus carrying my child?” He growls, his pace increasing with each passing moment. “Knock you up so the whole campus knows what a whore you are for me?” He asks, earning a cry ripped from my throat.

“Who’s fucking you?” he grunted. I don’t know how he expected me to form a coherent statement at this current moment. My eyes could barely stay open at this point.

“Spencer, please.” He smacked the outside of my thigh.

“Try again, who’s fucking you?”

“You are, Doctor.” Apparently, that was the wrong answer too, because it earned me another smack on my thigh. I had tears streaming down my face from the pleasurable pain he was giving me.

“You have one more chance or else I’m not letting you come. Now, who’s is fucking you?”

“Professor Reid!” I cried out.

“That’s right darling. Now come on my cock.” A harsh bite on my neck was the ultimate push that had me seeing stars. Spencer thrusted a few more times before fully sheathing himself within me.

He slumped over me, the feel of his breath against my neck causing me to shiver once more. We took a moment to have the high leave our body before he pulled out of me, a gasp leaving the both of us. Spencer was the first to break the silence between us.

“Would you like to have dinner with me?” he asked, his voice a bit shy.

I giggled at his demeanor. A few moments ago, he was fucking me senseless and spanking me over his desk like a porno, and now he was asking me out to dinner.

“Absolutely,” I smiled. “But I should probably cancel my study plans.” I quickly added.

He led me to the faculty bathroom so I could freshen myself up. When I emerged, he was back to being the prim and proper professor I knew him to be. Just before we left his office, he leaned down and whispered, “By the way, you got an A.”

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