#makes the formatting look cooler so. shrugs

[gemharvest]

(ids in alt - do not repost)

Some more Mop Cycle doodles from my notes. :'D

#artings #mp100 #mob psycho 100 #ekurei #serirei #ekuserirei #kageyama shigeo #reigen arataka #ekubo #serizawa katsuya #katsuya serizawa #dimple #arataka reigen #shigeo kageyama #i do not think i posted the reigen and mob with the hands but sorry if im wrong #makes the formatting look cooler so. shrugs #anyways (1) i know im posting this late if you see me boost this several times tomorrow ermmm no you dont #(2) i redrew ekubo's face in the third one digitally because i just could not make it work when i did it irl AUGH #still figuring out how to draw him but im getting it to work slowly #i also kept the hands on reigens in even tho they had nothing to do with him because. they look nice :)

[daydreamingleclerc]

pretty little short skirt - mick schumacher

summary: in which, on a river walk you bump into someone you’ve never seen taking the route before, and after an exchange of numbers things get dramatically interesting.

warnings: protected sex, oral (m&f), dirty talk, choking, spitting, pet names, praise kink. trigger warning for a mention of death of an animal at the beginning.

requested: no.

notes: this is based on a dream i had about mick & thanks to my beloved @libraryofloveletters for bringing it to life in true dirty smut format (anj i love you)

“angie, no, you can’t have the ladies peanut butter!”

you caught the tail end of the sentence as you pulled an airpod from your ear, and looked down to be greeted by arguably one of the prettiest dogs you’d ever seen, a huge, fluffy australian shepherd, clearly called angie.

you smiled, and slipped the lid on the open tub of peanut butter just before the dog could stick her tongue inside of it, and you tickled the sides of her neck.

“i’m so sorry,” the man stuttered, crouching down to pet his dog, “she turns into an olympic sprinter when she smells peanut butter.”

you couldn’t help but laugh. his cheeks were flushed a light shade of red, and he had a baseball cap on his head. when he smiled you subconsciously tucked your legs further underneath themselves, making sure your skirt was covering anything revealing.

“don’t worry about it,” you smiled, really getting into tickling the dog’s neck, “she’s gorgeous, angie, right? i heard you calling her.”

“yeah, angie,” he smiled, tapping her side. as he did, he looked around. the riverside was reasonably quiet, with the odd people running along the opposite side of the bank. “have you got any dogs?”

you laughed and an embarrassed flush came to your cheeks, “i did,” you admitted, “i’ve got two cats and a rabbit too, but my dog blue passed away six months ago and i used to bring him here to play in the river.”

the man’s face folded into a frown and he rested his elbows on his knees while still squatting beside you, “he was just really old, and peanut butter on apples was one of his favourites,” you pulled an apple slice from the cooler beside you and held it out to the man, “any chance angie likes peanut butter on apples?”

“i think she does,” he smiled, “i never got your name?”

“i think she does,” he smiled, “i never got your name?”

“Y/N,” you blushed, “and you?”

“i’m mick,” he noticed the blush on your cheeks but knew better than to say anything, “and i’m sorry for ruining your peace.”

you shrugged him off, explaining that the company was well needed and you were happy to let them stay put for a while. mick sat himself down on your blanket properly, while angie sniffed around your bag for more peanut butter apple slices.

as you prepared more slices for her, mick admired you. he couldn’t believe he’d never seen you on this route before, it was the one he always did when he was around this area, but he’d been busy working on the car with his team and had just got back from a holiday, so even if he did see you before, he could forgive himself for letting the memory slip away.

you looked pretty in a pleated checkered mini-skirt and a white vest with a knitted cardigan, almost ethereal for want of a better word.

“i like your skirt.”

the words came out unexpectedly, even mick was shocked when they did, for it seemed his subconscious had a mind of its own. as you turned your head to face him, he stuttered over the right words to say; but ultimately decided to just say nothing.

“thanks,” you smiled in return, “i made it myself, but i’m not sure if i like it.”

he seemed shocked at your revelation, and soon you rambled to one another about everything and anything. you realised you knew his face from somewhere, and then the pair of you began talking about his work; you had plenty of questions on the subject but it was obvious mick was humble and didn’t like to talk about it too much, and so the conversation quickly shifted onto you. he asked you questions about your life and your job, and the pair of you joked that it almost felt like some sort of weird first date.

“oh shit, i’m going to my mum’s house for dinner this evening, i was supposed to be there half an hour ago,” you said, snagging your phone from the top of your bag and only realising the time when your mothers name flashed up, “i’m so sorry, i need to go.”

mick smiled, but he was upset that his time with you was coming to a close. “that’s okay,” he said, standing up and helping you to your feet. you could see him questioning whether or not to give you his number, and you couldn’t help but giggle. “what?”

“nothing,” you giggled again, grasping the pen that was wedged into the side of your notebook in your bag, “here’s my number, give me a call sometime.”

you scribbled the numbers on the palm of mick’s hand and couldn’t help yourself when you gave him a kiss on the cheek, which ended up leaving some pink lipgloss on his now bright red and rosy cheeks. as he watched you walk away, he couldn’t help but admire you once again, only this time, once he saw how short the skirt rose on your legs, his admiration was a little less innocent.

*

by the time you got home from dinner with your parents, it was reasonably late, but thankfully your flatmate was working until the early hours of the morning. as soon as you got through the door, your phone buzzed and when you opened it to an unknown number your eyebrows creased for a minute.

hey y/n, the message read, it’s mick. i hope dinner with your mom was good :) i’d really like to see you again if that’s okay with you. plus, you left your airpods on the bench. i’ve got them for you x

immediately, you smiled. hey mick, thanks for texting! dinner was great thank you :) you shot that one over and within seconds mick had read the message. thank you for collecting them! i would love to see you again soon, when’s good for you? x

well, the message started, i hope i’m not coming off too strong but your skirt collection was very... interesting. any chance i can see some more?

you couldn’t help the smirk that painted your face, and in a bold move, you replied swiftly. sure, i’m free now if you want me to make myself look pretty and show you my collection ;) your fingers wagged over the send button until eventually it was hit, and within minutes he responded.

perfect :) he said. what’s your address? x

*

“you look very pretty,” mick said as he stood at your door, a bag full of things tucked away in a small carrier bag, “is that a different skirt?”

“like i said,” you smiled, “i promised i’d make myself look pretty and show you my collection.”

“and you certainly didn’t disappoint,” mick said, his hand gravitating towards your hips, where he lifted the material briefly, and your stomach lit up in butterflies.

the change in his breath was obvious, and he let out a long, heaving breath. “do you want to come in?” you asked innocently, “i’ll take your jacket for you.”

he smirked, and followed you into the flat. you purposely wore your skirt high up on your hips, so that the curve of your bum was almost peeking out. you took him into your kitchen-livingroom, and hung his jacket up onto the rack at the back of the door.

mick noticed the washing pile beside the drier, where clean garments of lacy, skimpy underwear lay on the top of the rest of the clean clothes. he picked a pair up, hooking it around one of his fingers, and the thin red lace dangled in the warm air.

“are these yours, or do you have a roommate?”

“i have a roommate,” you said, eyeing him watchfully as you picked up the half drunk glass of wine you’d been drinking before he arrived, “but they’re mine, if you’re that curious.”

mick smirked, placing them back on the pile. he watched you eagerly as you shot back the remains of what was in the wine glass. “do i make you that nervous?”

“you wish,” you replied, hints of a smirk curling up at your mouth. he took a step closer, and your hands subconsciously rested on his hipbones and it brought him closer. his breath was hot on your skin, fanning your face delicately. “i just wanted to make sure i tasted as pretty as i look.”

“oh, i’m sure you’ve got nothing to worry about in that department, angel.”

within seconds, mick leaned in and hungrily kissed your lips. one of his hands was pressed against your hips while the other moved up your body to rest at your neck, thumb just knicking your chin as he did.

his thumb dragged at the skin under your lip, which gave him the upper hand when they parted, and left him able to nibble down on the bottom one. he tugged it between his teeth and slipped his tongue along it to soften the pain. you moaned at the action, and sucked on his tongue to give him a taste of what he would end up getting.

“is your roommate here?” he asked, pulling away from your lips and dipping his head under your jawline so he could leave a mark.

“no, why?” you asked, raising an eyebrow as you tugged on his hair breathlessly, “were you hoping she’d join in on the fun?”

“no,” he shrugged. he pulled at the fabric of the bodysuit, and when the poppers gave their signature pop! he knew he could pull at it with ease now, “was just making sure that nobody would be around to hear all the noises you’re gonna make, that’s all.”

“bold statement,” you hummed, pulling away from him and wiping the lipstick from the corners of your mouth, “do you want a glass of wine?”

mick smiled. he liked the hard to get attitude you provided him. it was new and exciting, and he loved being kept on his toes. “sure, sweetheart,” he said, and watched as you spun around in front of him to get the glass. “can you reach?”

you said nothing, but you nodded as you hopped up onto the counter. mick’s eyes trailed down your figure, and he couldn’t help but let his mind wander at the sight of you in front of him, kneeling on the counter with your skirt so short he could see your bum, and he shifted in his position.

“do you trust me?” mick’s hands skimmed your hips, and you shivered at the contact.

“i’ve only just met you.” you recalled over your shoulder, and you caught his eyes, bright blue with an eager, menace-like twinge to them.

“i know,” he said, kissing at your jawline, “but do you trust me?”

you nodded, and gave him a little yes to confirm that you did. he hummed, and with that he licked his lips. you moved once again, and mick got to his knees and awkwardly found an angle that would suit his idea best. you heard the scraping of one of your kitchen chairs behind you but you just assumed mick was pulling it out to sit at the dining table.

“mick, why don’t you — oh,” the feeling of his tongue licking a stripe up your slit made your brain go foggy, “fuck.”

“no underwear?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow, but you were too engrossed replaying the feeling of his tongue on your clit over and over again in your head, you didn’t answer. “not as innocent as you look.”

mick’s tongue flicked at your clit and you gently rocked at the feeling. every few seconds you would pull away in fear of mick’s suffocation — you weren’t sure the media would be best pleased at that news. “shall we move to the bedroom?” you asked him, but he shook his head, no; and the friction made you shiver.

“nope,” he said, and waved his finger in the direction of the sofa, “i don’t wanna sound dramatic but i need to taste you now.”

you couldn’t help but laugh as you pulled yourself away, and mick helped you down and guided you to the sofa with his hands on your hips softly, “is it a matter of life or death?” you raised an eyebrow to him as he laid down flat on your cushions.

“oh yeah,” he smirked, and pulled you back on top of him, “quite literally.”

mick’s hands rested on your bum cheeks, while you rested one hand on the back of the sofa and one at the side of his head. you moaned at the feeling of him switching between flicking his tongue on your clit and dipping it inside of you, and you couldn’t help but think he’d done this many times before. he was a pro. you pulled off of him every so often once again, fearing for his own safety.

“sit, Y/N,” he said sternly, pulling off of your clit with a pop before separating your lips with his fingers, giving his tongue deeper access. the feeling made you jolt and you lifted your hips subconsciously.

“but i don’t wanna-”

“-i said sit, Y/N, not fucking hover.”

a swarm of butterflies swept through your stomach at his words, and the tone of voice he used was dominant enough to leave you wanting more but nice enough to know that it was just fuelled by arousal. his hands moved from your bum cheeks - but before they did he left a harsh slap on each one which made you moan - to hook underneath your thighs, where he held you in place.

you were unable to move from his grip now, and your hands clawed at his hair while he hummed against your clit. he pulled away from it and flattened his tongue against your lips, and when his nose bumped your clit at the same time his tongue dipped inside of you, you cried out in a loud, desperate moan.

“that’s it, good girl.” mick muttered, albeit muffled.

“you’re so good at this,” you told him breathlessly, beginning to rock your hips back and forth against his face.

“i know, sweetheart,” he replied, and you could feel him smirking against you cockily. “and you taste so delicious.”

it didn’t take you long before you were on the brink of an orgasm, rocking back and forth against mick’s flat tongue. everytime you looked down, his eyes were on you, clouded over thickly with lust as he admired you.

“please…”

“please what, Y/N?” mick’s eyebrows furrowed while a smirk crept up his face, he knew you were close because of the soft pants and the open pleading.

before you could speak any further, your orgasm hit. mick’s hands subconsciously gripped at your legs harder so you were unable to move, and as he did that, he shook his head side to side. his nose was now rubbing intensely against your clit and you stilled as you cried out his name in pleasure, unable to hold back.

mick’s arms released from around your legs and you climbed off of him and to his side with wobbly legs. immediately he wrapped an arm around your hips and you knelt beside him with your hands messing up his hair as he kissed you. “was that good?” he asked, his forehead pressing into yours softly as he caught breath, and when you nodded he smiled, slipping his tongue past your lips so you could taste yourself.

“so good i can barely think,” you admitted, embarrassed at how much you were stroking his ego, “anymore where that came from?”

“why don’t you guide me to the bedroom and i can show you plenty, pretty girl.”

you obliged, practically jumping off the sofa and snagging mick’s hand so you could drag him to your bedroom down the hall. he admired the innocence within it — the fairy lights pinned up around the edges of floating shelves, the photo frame of you and what looked to be your family and blue on the bedside table, a TV mounted to the corner of the bedroom between two walls, endless fluffy blankets on the bed and the open closet door which showed the tiniest hint of mess you’d tried to hide before he arrived.

he kissed you, backing you up against the wall closest, and as he did you reached your hand down to his crotch. his dick was already hard in his jeans, and he was fighting all urges to push you down to your knees already. you wasted no time, dipping your hand into the waistband of his sweats and feeling the skin to skin contact of his dick in your hand, a feeling which made him gasp sharply. he pulled off his shirt, and when you saw the flex of his abdomen your knees almost buckled, but you kept composure. his hands then came to the straps of your bodysuit, and as he’d already undone the poppers earlier on, it made for an easy pull. he reached around and unclasped your bra, and for a minute he stood there admiring your boobs in his hands with a smirk on his face. you squeezed at his dick and moved your lips to suck a hickey on the underside of his chin as he fondled your chest.

“jesus christ,” he muttered, but before he could say his next part of the sentence, you were already dropping to your knees. you helped him shimmy out of his sweats, pulling his calvins down along with them and when you came face to face with his dick you sucked in a breath.

mick watched you with his lips parted slightly as you wrapped your mouth around his dick, carefully bobbing your head and working your fingers around what you couldn’t fit in your mouth.

you knew if there was one thing you were good at in the bedroom — it was giving a blowjob. mick’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as you took him to the back of your throat and held him there for a few moments before your throat contracted around him and you gagged.

“fuck, do that again,” he said, already lining his dick up with the back of your throat. “fucking hell.”

“what happened to please and thank you’s?” you asked, muffled, as you pulled off of his dick for the second time. mick smirked, and pulled you up from your elbows, pecking a kiss to your lips multiple times.

“okay,” he breathed, “please let me fuck you senseless.”

your cheeks burned hot, not expecting mick to ask a question like that, and all you could do was nod.

“thank you,” he smiled cheekily, knowing he’d caught you off guard in the situation.

immediately, he guided you to the bed and you sunk down between the sheets, and the atmosphere around you both grew to an exceptionally hot temperature. mick fumbled with the zipper on your skirt and rid it of your body before spreading your legs with his knees as he leaned over you, his toned body looking exceptional in the low light of your bedroom.

you leaned your hand down and grabbed at his cock, and mick groaned at the feeling. "do you have anything?"

"mhm," you shifted, pointing in the direction of the bedside table, "there's half a pack in my drawer."

mick kissed your lips again before leaning around to find the box. you ran your free hand down his abdomen, admiring the toned muscle above you. he pulled one from the box, and delicately ripped it open and you rolled the condom on for him.

mick noticed a change in your breath, and he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. "we don't have to do this," he kissed your nose and gently pinched your cheek with his thumb and forefinger, "we can watch a movie or something."

"i wanna do it," you smiled, leaning up and pressing a kiss to his lips, "i just find it hard to believe that we only met like what? twelve hours ago and now you're about to fuck me."

mick laughed. he felt the same way too, this was so out of character for him but something about you drew him in like a magnet, "i'll make it a fuck to remember, don't worry, sweetheart."

he lined himself up with you, and you held the base of his dick to guide him inside of you. with every inch, you sucked in a breath that got deeper and deeper, he was filling you up so perfectly.

"oh, fuck, mick." you cried, wrapping a hand around his neck.

"i know, angel," he groaned lowly, followed by a soft moan, "god, you're so tight."

he began to pick up speed, snapping his hips against yours in fast fashion. you couldn't help but moan, and you got louder when he dipped his head to your chest and sucked one of your nipples into his mouth.

with every thrust, you could feel the pit in your stomach but you wanted to hold off for as long as possible. mick's left hand hooked under your right knee, and he used his strength to push it up until it was as high as it could get without any discomfort for you.

the angle of which he was fucking you was different now, and you threw your head back and began to mumble incoherent profanities. he pulled off of your nipples with a pop, and figured he'd use your neck to his advantage.

"god, you're so fucking hot underneath me like this," he said, his words lining up with each thrust. mick's hand wrapped around your neck, and almost immediately you moaned at the contact. he restricted your airflow for a few seconds before releasing his thumb and pinky from either side, and then smirked. "so responsive, even when my hands around your fuckin' throat."

he somehow managed to rest your calf on his shoulder, and used it for leverage, squeezing at the flesh as he used it as a balance to fuck you faster and deeper.

you let out garbled and strangled noises, and through all the chaos he somehow understood that you were asking him for more. "open that pretty little mouth for me then, darling," he said, his thrusts slowly starting to fall out of rhythm. immediately you did as you were told and he patted your cheek, "good girl."

you made a whimpering noise at that, and mick stuffed the memory away into his metaphorical back pocket for the next time you two would meet in this situation.

at first, the way mick leaned down you expected him to kiss you, but then you felt a trickle of spit land on your tongue and slide down into your throat. a loud, almost pornographic moan left your lips, and mick repeated the action.

his hand released from your throat, and this time he pushed your left leg out as far as it could go and held it there; meaning you'd undoubtedly have bruises on both legs from his fingers tomorrow.

"'m gonna cum, mick," you cried, your throat so dry it came out more like a croak, "i can feel it."

"hold it," he demanded, "you cum when i tell you to."

mick's hips really began to fall out of rhythm as you clenched around him, and he was unable to hold back his orgasm. "cum for me, princess," was all he had to say before the both of you came in sync.

he dropped your leg down carefully from his shoulder, and after a minute he pulled out of you and flopped down beside you, almost heaving for breath. you admired him as he pulled off the condom and tied it off, dropping it into the bin beside him.

"that was fun," he smiled, brushing the hair from your face as he turned to face you, "and you still look beautiful."

"thanks, so do you," you stifled a yawn, "we should do this again soon."

your eyes felt heavy by this point, and you were so exhausted that you forgot to thank mick as he pulled the covers from underneath you and slid you in. it wasn't until you threw it off of you that he realised you wanted him to get under as well.

"we will do it again, Y/N, but i think you should go to sleep now."

"mhm," you agreed sleepily. for a minute, you thought mick was going to leave you, so you wrapped an arm around his chest and placed your head beside his shoulder to stop him. "but stay with me tonight, please?"

he kissed your forehead and wrapped an arm around your shoulders, "i'm not going anywhere, gorgeous girl."

#mick schumacher #mick schumacher smut #mick schumacher blurb #mick schumacher x you #mick schumacher x y/n #mick schumacher fluff #mick schumacher blurbs #mick schumacher one shot #mick schumacher x reader #mick schumacher fanfic #f1 fluff #f1 smut #f1 x you #f1 x reader #f1 x y/n #f1 blurb #f1 fanfic #f1 one shot

[vincent-sinclair-deserved-better]

just gonna post this unedited, just as it fell out of my brain, and not formatted because hell knows when i'll get around to it but because @rottent33th deserves to see it (also insert internal screaming bc it's been like a million years since i wrote about Clay)

not straight up murder but. being kinda mean to a person digging their grave. the usual.

prompt was something about camping under the night sky

It was a warm late-summer / early-fall evening, temperatures just at that sweet point where you didn't break out into sweat when one moved the tiniest bit, but not cold enough that one started freezing when sitting still for an extended amount of time. Birds were still chirping in the trees, their gentle song accompanied by the chirping of crickets, along with the steady crunch when the shovel dug into the earth and the following thud when the dirt landed on the growing pile next to the hole. The setting sun was bathing the small clearing in hues of gold and copper, lighting up Clay's red hair like the flames of a campfire. 

"You know what would be fun?" Cylas said, her voice breaking through the quiet, and sat up, "Twisted bread. And marshmallows, maybe. Also, I've never had s'mores." 

Clay, who'd been leaning against a tree and staring into the distance, turned slightly to look at them, "What?" 

"I was just thinking how the sun is making your hair look the colour of fire which made me think of campfire which made me think of twisted bread because it's amazing." 

"You could just say that you're hungry, you know," Clay replied with a snort, "That's why we did bring snacks along."   

"I am not hungry per se," she said, "I'm just craving twisted bread, apparently. Never really get to have it because... well, I rarely happen to be around campfires. Plus, doing stuff alone is no fun." 

Clay shrugged, pushing away from the tree and going to grab a beer, "Camping alone can be fun, though. Just winding down, enjoying nature. It's peaceful. You should come along sometime - unless you'll end up acting like Griffin." 

Just as she was about to reply, her stomach grumbled and she rolled her eyes, "Hang on a sec, about those snacks you mentioned - what do we have?" 

Instead of replying, Clay opted to just throw the assortment of bags at them. They only just so managed to avoid being smacked in the face by a pack of Bifis, and Clay's beloved goldfish crackers flew past their head, while the bag of Cheez-its landed in their lap. 

"Your aim sucks ass," she commented. 

"Good, I wasn't making an effort," came his deadpan response and she laughed before leaning back to grab the crackers. 

Clay sat down next to her and helped her back into a seated position before handing her a can of cider. 

"Aw, you thought of me," they almost cooed, bumping his arm with their shoulder. 

"'Course I did, I'm keeping drinks for you in the cooler whenever I know you're in the area," he replied but refused to look at her, and although it could've been the sunlight playing tricks on her eyes she thought she could see him blushing. 

She grinned as an idea formed in her head and she picked up the bag of Cheez-Its before throwing it at him, "How awfully cheesy of you," 

Clay lifted a hand to easily catch the bag and quirked an eyebrow. 

It was then that they noticed how quiet it had gotten. Some birds were still bravely singing on against the dark creeping closer and the crickets were louder than a city-dweller could even begin to imagine, but the sounds of digging had stopped. Clay groaned and made to get up, but Cylas grabbed his arm. "Wait." 

They carefully put down their cider and proceeded to sit up on their knees. Then they leaned forward until they were resting on their forearms, and scooted just close enough to the hole to look over the edge. Behind her, she could hear Clay's barely contained laughter and a breathy call of "Are you for real?" which made her smile. The woman sitting slouched in a corner of the hole however was not smiling. In fact, she wasn't doing anything at all. Under other circumstances, Cylas would have assumed the weather and physical exertion had become too much, but it wasn't hot enough for that - not even taking into consideration how lenient and patient Clay had been so far, allowing the woman to work at a much more leisurely pace than usual. Something felt off about this. 

"So, what's the issue?" Clay called, and Cylas reached to her side, grabbing a handful of dirt, without taking her eyes off the woman. 

"Think she's trying to bullshit us," she said, throwing the soil at the limp body. The subtle flinching was almost imperceptible, but they'd become good at noticing things, "Get up, lady, there's work to do." 

As was to be expected, the woman didn't respond. 

"Next time I'll throw a rock," Cylas added and sat up, already looking around for a fitting projectile. 

Clay chuckled, "Here, use this." 

She looked over to him and caught the empty beer bottle he threw her. 

"Really? Littering?" she said, raising an eyebrow in mock surprise.   

"We'll pick it up afterward. Just don't break it." 

"Sure, I'll throw it gently," they replied, voice dripping with sarcasm, and finally found a suitable stone, roughly the size of a table tennis ball. 

The woman still hadn't moved and Cylas was determined to change that. "Alright, honey, last chance. Drop the act and get back to work or I will throw something. Might hurt you." 

No reaction. 

They looked from beer bottle to rock and back, before tossing the bottle - gently - into the woman's lap. She visibly startled and lifted her head, staring at Cylas with wide eyes. Just in time to see the rock flying towards her face. It hit the earth wall right next to her head and the woman shrieked. Cylas smiled. "Next one won't miss." 

Pale-faced and trembling the woman stood up but made no moves to pick up the shovel again. Instead, she stumbled closer to the edge, her hands lifted in some type of pleading manner. "Please, let me go. I'll do any-" 

"Blatantly not," Cylas scoffed before turning towards Clay, "I think the lady needs the assistance of a strong handsome man to do her task." 

The woman paled even more and immediately recoiled, pressing herself against the opposite wall. 

"No, no, it's okay, I'll get right back to it, just please don't hurt me." 

As soon as Clay's figure appeared next to Cylas, the woman scrambled to grab the shovel and resume digging, while Clay eyed the hole critically. 

"Hm, haven't gotten very far yet, have you?" he said, voice devoid of any of his usual warmth, "Not used to hard work or just lazy?" 

"I- um- I'm sorry, I just don't know- I've never done this before and- please can't you just let me go?" the woman rambled, but neither Clay nor Cylas paid her much mind. 

"She doesn't look exhausted in the least either," Cylas mused, "Not a drop of sweat as far as I can tell. Seems she's really been slacking off back here." 

Clay scoffed, "That's what you get for being nice I guess." 

"Nice?" the woman shrieked, "You call kidnapping someone and forcing them to dig a stupid hole under threats of violence 'nice'?" 

"At least so far it's mostly really stuck to threats," Cylas said with a snort, "He can be very different. Some might say that I'm making him soft." 

He rolled his eyes at that and held his bottle out to them, "Mind holding this for a moment? I'll be right back with you." 

They took the drink from him and watched as he jumped down into the hole before turning to sit back down and drink their cider. 

"Anyway, where were we?" she said once Clay had returned and finished cleaning his hands. The sound of digging resumed, accompanied by quiet sniffling and the occasional pained whimpers, "Right, camping. So, what did Griffin do?" 

It was darker now, the area only lightly illuminated by Clay's camping lantern and the moon. Still, she didn't need to actually see his expression to know that he was giving her one of his "are you serious?" stares. 

"Right", he said after a moment, shaking his head at the way her mind could jump between topics and easily move on from situations, "Basically, he was being a big whiny baby about it all, complaining about the blow-up mattress and how uncomfortable it was, whining about mosquitoes, and the fact that there were no proper toilets close by also shocked him. Seemed surprised that camping actually involved camping and not a 5-star hotel." 

"What? Mosquitoes? In nature? Were there other bugs and critters as well?", Cylas replied in exaggerated shock, "And you expected poor Griff to go through that? Why didn't you tell him in advance that there was bound to be creatures? You clearly just set him up for failure." 

"Damn, you looked right through me," Clay said with a chuckle, "It was all just a ploy to get him off our backs." 

Cylas leaned back on her hands and stared up at the sky. The night was almost completely void of clouds and she was once again amazed at how many stars were actually visible away from towns and cities. 

"Come on, lie down with me," they called over to Clay who raised an eyebrow but complied. 

"What kind of  nefarious plan do you have now?" 

"Wanna look at the stars and use you as a pillow because the ground is uncomfortable," they stated, giving Clay just enough time to settle and get comfortable before scooting up to him and resting their head on his arm. "And as much as I love stars and campfires, I don't think proper camping would be for me. Could I do it? Yeah. But... I'm a spoiled princess at heart and need my luxuries." 

"Choosing a soft bed over a blow-up mattress and me? I am offended." 

She snorted, "More like choosing a bathroom and plumbing over pissing and shitting in some bushes." 

"You have such a way with words," he replied, his laughter vibrating in his chest. 

"So, Mister Nature-Man, tell me something." 

He furrowed his brows, "Like... what?" 

"I don't know, nature stuff. Tell me about the stars." 

"I can point out the Big and Little Dipper to you, but that's about as far as my knowledge goes," he admitted with a shrug. 

Cylas rolled her eyes, "Make stuff up then, not like I'd know the difference." 

He chuckled at that and focused on the sky above them. Cylas did the same, and for a while, they just lay there in silence, except for the crickets and digging woman. 

Clay was right. It was peaceful. 

#cylas speaks #cylas writes #cylas keir #clay spencer

[dainty-fingertips]

hail 2 u! ||polnareff x fem! reader

HEY HI so im just kinda dumping stuff from google docs onto here to kind of establish myself so anyway heres my french bb wjhged;; also minor spoilers if you haven’t finished stardust crusaders!!

word count: 2449

summary: you and polnareff were teamed by dio himself and saved by jotaro in hong kong. polnareff is hit with a wave of guilt as you and the crusaders reach what joseph has said to be avdol’s father’s island. you follow him out onto the beach to try and comfort him, and while it seems to work, the enemy stand hiding nearby inside an old middle-eastern kerosene lamp has no intention of giving you both time alone. that is, until the frenchman makes a certain wish.

trigger warnings: none :)

||

          He sat down on the chopped stump of a palm tree, his head in the palm of his hand. She had followed after him when he walked away, she knew he wouldn’t stop blaming himself for the death of Avdol. She approached him from behind with a worried look on her face. “Polnareff…” She said, softly. He turned around. “Oh, [y,n].” He said. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with Mr Joestar and the others?” She stayed silent. She calmly walked toward the Frenchman and rested on a large rock to his right. “I couldn’t just let you go on your own.” She muttered, her face growing warm. “You know what happens when you’re left by yourself, anyway.” She smiled somberly, trying to lighten the mood.

          He chuckled dryly. “Yeah, yeah.” He turned toward her a bit. Thankfully her weak attempt at humor had worked, as his expression seemed less dull. The wind picked up a bit, causing the afternoon sun to beam down a bit more harshly on the beach. He turned his head, and she followed suit. He squinted his eyes. “Hey, is that…?” She tilted her head. “It looks like…” He stood up and approached the shiny object, a dull gold hue peppering through a barnacle clad shell. She raised herself off of the rock and took a few steps forward, glancing around his side. “It’s pretty.” He said, his eyebrows raised.

          He picked it up and examined it. “I wonder if it came from a shipwreck. Look at all of those barnacles.” She added, moving around and picking at it with her fingernails. “Hey, hey! Careful! You might scratch the gold underneath!” He said, holding it above his head and significantly out of her reach. “H-Hey! No fair, Pol!” She cried with furrowed eyebrows. He laughed at her futile attempts. “Yeah, right!” The two of them went through a solid minute of teasing, insulting, jumping, and punching (Three of those four were brought upon by [y,n], that is), it seemed that the strange object had been rubbing around in his hand quite a bit.

          A sudden burst of blinding light beamed out through what was left of the barnacles and caused Polnareff and [y,n] both to panic, and him to drop it. They both stepped back, [y,n] opposite to him. An odd smoke rose out of the tip of what was now seen to be a kerosene lamp of sorts; similar to the one from Aladdin. Though, the smoke disappeared just as quickly as it had come, causing the two of them to look around confused. The light and smoke both were gone, but the lamp remained. Polnareff sighed after a moment. “Man! That was weird. Must’ve been pressurized air from inside.” He said, a hand on his forehead. [y,n] nodded looking to the left. “Would’ve been cooler if there were a genie, but, you’re right. Probably just gas.”

          When she looked back, however, she panicked and pointed behind him. “P-Polnareff, look out! A Stand!” He jumped, his eyes widening. He took long strides toward her and whipped his head around. “What the hell?!” A peculiar looking Stand, one which appeared to be more industrial than some of the previous that the group had encountered. “Three wishes!” The Stand called, holding up an arm-like appendage; though it had only three fingers on each hand. “I will grant you three wishes! Whatever you wish is my command, master!” The Stand was gigantic, standing a solid 10 feet tall. “My name is Cameo. Thank you for letting me out of my lamp.” [y,n] glanced around, sweat sliding down her cheek. “Uhh, n-no problem.”

          Though, it didn’t seem that Polnareff was ready to initiate conversation with the entity. “Another Stand user! [y,n], back me up!” She looked at him and nodded her head. Blossom Samurai and Silver Chariot, both sword wielding Stands, got into a sort of formation, with Samurai behind Chariot. They battered Cameo with their swords, but they barely did any damage. Chariots rapier was too weak, and Blossom’s attacks were only a mere second too slow causing Cameo to dodge with ease. “Son of a…” Breathed them both in unison. “You’re pretty strong!” Said Polnareff. “Your user must be close. Where is he?” Cameo crossed its arms. “Again, I’m here only to grant wishes. Do you want your first wish to be a lame one like that?” He groaned.

          Polnareff granted. “Yeah, yeah, what is it with you and wishes, huh? Are you saying you can make me rich right now?” Cameo’s voice was unwavering. “Is that your first wish?” Polnareff relaxed a small bit, but was still on edge. “You know what? Sure, dumbo. Let’s see you put your money where your mouth is.” Cameo’s arms uncrossed. [y,n] squinted. “Fine, then. Your wish shall be granted.” The two of them raised their eyebrows. “Huh?” Mumbled [y,n]. Cameo put its arms in an odd position, like a puppeteer would do, and raised its voice. “Hail 2 U!” 

          It immediately disappeared, causing them to blink a few times and watch the leftover smoke dissipate. Polnareff reached down and pulled the half buried lamp from the sand. Night had nearly fallen by now, but it was still visible. “What was all that about?” Polnareff asked in a confused tone. He sighed. “So…” she muttered. “What was that thing? Was it a Stand, or wasn’t it?” He shrugged. “If it is, what a weird Stand to send after someone.” He noted with a chuckle. She nodded her head. Damn these Stand users; she just wanted a chance to be with Polnareff. She excused the thought from her head with a bite of her lip. “Do you think maybe it’s got something to do with Avdol’s dad?” He shrugged his shoulders, the sunlight caressing his face in a way that would make anyone melt. 

          Her face got hot again. This stupid Frenchman has no idea what he’s doing, sending soft gazes her way. Every time he laughed, she felt like melting butter. She couldn’t help but look away from him with a coy grin. Polnareff chuckled. “Hey, what’s that look for? Come on, you don’t have to force yourself to look away. I know you think I’m hot.” He teased nonchalantly. She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Hah! As if, stupid.” She sent him a playful grin and stuck her tongue out. She was really hoping he didn’t actually know.

          It was then in that moment, both of them smiling goofily at each other, that a noise was heard. “Hey, what was that?” He asked, turning around. “Sounded like metal.” She said, walking in the direction of the noise. It was near; maybe just in the grass 6 feet away. Polnareff followed suit, and lo and behold. “W-Whoa!” She cried, leaning in. “No way!” He yelled afterward. The two of them crowded around what appeared to be a half buried chest of doubloons, jewelry, and bejeweled goldware. “T-That’s real buried treasure!” He called, scooping a few coins out. “But how?” She asked, tuning her fingers through it. “Hell if I know! But this is all mine!” He laughed chaotically. 

          “You little—! I helped you find this, I get half! 50/50!” He snorted. “As if, stupid!” He retorted, mocking her previous statement. “Ooooh, I’m gonna kick your--!” Directly before she went for his money, Cameo’s booming voice echoed from above. “Now, what is your second wish? I shall grant it.” The two of them shot their gazes up to the Stand. Polnareff freaked and dropped the coins, to which [y,n] then picked up and stuffed in her pocket. “Y-You! Why are you doing this?! Whatever you have up your sleeve, I’m not falling for it!” He yelled up at the genie, perched in a palm tree. “I am keeping the gold though.” He added shortly after.

          Cameo stayed silent for a moment. The only sound that could be heard was the wind blowing and the ocean rocking. “Is the answer to that question your second wish? As thanks for my freedom, I’ll give you anything,  including such a stupid answer.” [y,n] huffed and nudged Polnareff. He looked down at her and his expression softened. “F-Fine, then.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I want to be a comic artist!” He exclaimed. The answer threw [y,n] for a loop completely. A comic artist? She had never known he was interested in art. In fact, the only interest he’d shown was when he’d watch her draw.

          “I’ve always wanted to be one! And not just some starving artist, either! I want to be more popular than Walt Disney!” She furrowed her eyebrows with a stunned expression. “Huh?” She whispered. “Pol, I don’t think—“ he cut her off. “I want to create Polnareff Land!” He stood with his arms out in a comically dramatic stance, [y,n] in a stunned (and slightly embarrassed) silence at his side. “... Is this your wish?” Polnareff lowered his arms. “Actually, no, wait,” Oh thank God. She wiped metaphorical sweat from her forehead. Maybe he’d think of something more rational.

          “I want a girlfriend!”

          The phrase made her freeze in place. Her eyes were wide and her throat closed. He wanted a girlfriend, did he? He really must have just thought of her as a friend, then. She kept her mouth shut and kept her eyes on Cameo. What was she supposed to say to that? The words echoed in her mind. She wanted to love him like that so badly, but Polnareff seemed to feel otherwise. “Love is better than money or fame.” He said with a grin. At least he was sincere about that, she could tell. “She’s got to be really cute. I want a girl who’s my perfect match! Our pinkies entwined with the red string of love!” He held up his right pinkie finger for emphasis. 

          Polnareff had never made her feel so conflicted before. Her insecurities began to softly gnaw at her. Was she not cute enough? She felt like they were perfect for each other. She’d liked him since Hong Kong. Was this really happening? She simply kept her gaze on Cameo. She stared at it. What was it going to do? She thought genies couldn’t make people fall in love. “You want me to find the perfect match for you?” It asked him. “Yeah! Try that, bastard!” Cameo sat still for a moment. As she was staring, she noticed it turn its head slightly in her direction. It was looking at her.

          She inhaled sharply. What was it doing? Cameo was completely silent for several seconds until it finally decided to pipe up. “Very well.” It turned its head back to Polnareff slowly. “Hail 2 U!” The Stand once again dissolved into smoke. Polnareff looked at his finger expectantly, and sure enough, there it was. She saw it too. The red string of fate. He grinned. “Oh, wow! I finally get to have my perfect girl!” He beamed. She stayed silent. He looked down at her curiously. “Hey, you okay? You’d usually have made fun of me or something by now.” She looked ahead and nodded. “Yeah! Yeah, I’m good. I’m happy for you, man.” Though she never once looked at him. Polnareff sighed. “Thanks, I’m glad too! Let’s see, where does it lead?” He held the string and noticed it went to his right. He looked in growing surprise to see [y,n] standing there, staring into the ocean with the most flat look he’d seen her sport, and a growing lump in her throat. Was she about to cry?

          He wasn’t really sure what prompted him to do it. What made him want to look down first before pressing her on how she felt. Though he was sure glad he did; in fact, it was arguably the best decision he made during that 50 day trip. If he hadn’t taken a mere half second to glance down below her waist, Polnareff wouldn’t have caught the crimson string tied around her finger until a much later, possibly much more awkward time during their interaction. He felt his heart swell inside of his chest, sheer ecstasy causing blood to rush to his cheeks and make his face burn as if he himself were a bonfire of sheer emotion.

          “H-Hey…” he began, reaching out with a shaky left hand. “Hm?” She looked over. She hoped the darkness of night would hide the tear that had dropped from her right eye and down her cheek. “[y,n], you, uh… your hand.” She slowly held up her left hand and stared in shock at the string around her pinkie. “That’s— that’s the-“ she quickly turned to look at his hand. Sure enough, the two were bound. Polnareff soon grew a stupid grin. “Well, well. Look at that.” The utter euphoria she experienced in that moment went unmatched with anything else she’d ever felt. “We-“ she choked back another sob as more tears fell. She covered her mouth and shut her eyes. 

          Polnareff freaked out. “H-Hey!! You okay? [y,n], c’mon! I’m not that bad!” He joked. “You idiot!” She called, throwing her arms around him. “You scared me!” She heaved into his shoulder. “I thought- I thought you didn’t—“ she shakily said. He chuckled. “Hey, hey! Calm down! If you’re wondering if I didn’t like you, you’re not just wrong. You’re stupid.” He grinned softly. She giggled like a little kid on Christmas. “I was so afraid when you said you wanted a girlfriend.” She said, pulling away. Polnareff put his arms around her waist. 

          “I thought I wasn’t good enough.” She laughed awkwardly. “I only said it because I thought you didn’t like me.” She noticed a glimmer in Polnareff’s eye; he was crying too. “O-Oh, Pol, you-“ before she could say another word he pressed his full lips against hers in a brief kiss. “Shut up.” He laughed, tears smeared on her face. She snorted and wiped his cheek. “I’ve liked you for so long. Ever since Hong Kong.” He scoffed playfully. “Ever since Dio paired us, you little snail. Did you just ignore all my little attempts to go on dates with you?” She giggled. “I didn’t wanna take it the wrong way. You never actually asked, idiot.” 

“Well, how about this.” He cleared his throat and laughed again. “Do you want to go on a date with me?” She nodded with a dumb grin. “Yes, yes, of course, dumbass.” She leaned up for a kiss and he returned the gesture. “Let’s beat the hell outta this guy and regroup, okay?” He smiled. “My pleasure.”

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba x reader #jjba sdc #stardust crusaders #jean pierre polnareff #polnareff jojo #jean pierre polnareff x reader #polnareff x reader #jjba part three #jotaro kujo #muhammed avdol #joseph joestar #noriaki kakyoin #iggy jjba #jjba fanfic #this is old but idc #i think its cute so HAH #x reader #anime x reader

[mythologymondays]

It’s that time again, the time where we all gleefully sit down on the nearest mound and regale ourselves with totally normal Welsh tales of magical women and horses and enchanted bags, because that’s just how the Mabinogion is. Fun sources and FACTS beneath the cut, as always.

Press J on your keyboard if you hate stories about Medieval etiquette, liminality, and magic mounds.

The Prince and the Horse Girl: a temporally disconnected romance for the ages

So, the last we heard of Pwyll, he had successfully cockblocked himself into becoming best friends with Arawn, the Lord of the Underworld, which sounds like a pretty average Friday night in Cardiff, let me tell you. Anyway, Pwyll at this point is just kind of riding high on the fame that being best pals with Arawn brings, and he’s showing his friendship bracelet to everyone he meets and saying stuff like “yeah, it’s great to have the Lord of the Underworld Arawn-ed whenever I need him,” and everyone just sort of rolls their eyes good-naturedly and thinks about death.

One day, Pwyll is at his court at Arbeth, which is one of his most important courts. There’s a huge feast in front of him and all of his courtly pals are there, just chewing the fat. Pwyll tears off the leg of another whole roast pig, probably his eighth of the session, and he’s about to bite into it when he realises that everyone sat around the table is staring at him, so he puts down the pig leg really gingerly and says, “do I have hog spleen around my mouth or something?” and one of his courtly crew, who doesn’t get a name in the original text and so will henceforth be known as Brad, says, “no, my lord, but you do have practically an entire herd of pigs in your stomach, so maybe it’s time for a walk?”

Pwyll blinks at him and he’s like, “I don’t really see why I would want to go for a walk in the yucky outside when I could be sitting here and savouring delicious morsels of tenderly roasted flesh,” and Brad shrugs and says, “well, I read an article about nutrition in this scientific journal last week, and apparently it’s not actually that good for you to just eat constantly and never go outside ever,” and Pwyll is like, “no, but it’s super fun,” and Brad sighs and he’s like, “look, I wasn’t going to tell you this, just in case you got too excited, but there’s actually a mound outside,” and then Pwyll’s eyes go as wide as dinner plates and he cries, “a mound? Seriously? You’re not just fucking with me to get me to go outside?” and Brad is like, “no, there’s seriously a genuine, 100% organic mound outside, and it’s only a short walk away,” and so Pwyll pushes his chair out from under the table and he’s all, “lead the way, pal, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me sooner that there was a fucking rad mound outside, you know how much I love mounds.”

So, they all traipse outside on horseback, and lo and behold, Brad wasn’t lying. There really is an absolutely incredible mound outside, all earthy and hilly, and… look. I’ll level with you. It’s hard to get excited about a mound, but Pwyll manages it. I have no idea how. God knows I’ve tried. But anyway, he leads his merry band of lads up to the top of the mound, and they’re all about to sit down when Brad puts out a hand and stops Pwyll from doing so. Pwyll is like, “dude, stop crushing my vibe, I’m about to become sedentary on this sediment,” and Brad just shakes his head and he’s like, “bro, I need to tell you something about the mound, because I may have undersold it.”

Pwyll is obviously in complete disbelief at this point, just like, “mate, there’s no way you undersold it. It can’t get any cooler than this. It just can’t. Have you seen it?” and Brad is like, “yes, it’s a really interesting geological formation, and the topography also makes it look a bit like a butt, which is obviously super rad, but I didn’t tell you that it’s also a magic mound, because if a nobleman sits on it, one of two things will happen: either he’ll see something absolutely fantastic, like the original The Mummy film starring Brendan Fraser or a cool dog, or he’ll get maimed and mortally wounded. It’s 50/50, to be honest with you.” 

Pwyll just blinks at him, and he’s like, “dude, those are two very different things, but you know, I really can’t pass up the opportunity to see a cool dog,” and Brad says, “I need you to know that the dog was just a random example, I make no canine promises here, I can’t stress that enough,” and Pwyll just shrugs and scoffs, “whatever, dude. Anyway, if I do get totally maimed, I’ve got my posse here, and you’ll do first aid on me, won’t you?” and Brad just sort of nods nervously, because they haven’t even invented antiseptic in Medieval Wales and all their bandages are just, like, old socks drenched in ale, and they don’t have St John Ambulance to teach them all first aid because there isn’t even a J in the Welsh alphabet, and then Pwyll grits his teeth and sits down.

Almost immediately, this brilliant white horse just zooms past them, and Pwyll is like, “oh, that’s fucking sick, my dudes! I thought a dog would be cool, but a horse? Are you kidding me? It doesn’t get much better than this! Equestrian displays are my jam!” and then Brad rolls his eyes and he’s like, “my lord, did you not notice that there was a phenomenally sexy and almost certainly magic lady in gold riding that horse?” and Pwyll is like, “honestly, no, I was kind of distracted by the fetlocks, but now you come to mention it, she’s pretty attractive, I guess. Hey, do you think I could catch up with her and ask her where she got her cool horse?” 

So he gets back on his horse and he tries to catch up with the lady, but even though Pwyll’s horse was sold to him as being the fastest ride on four legs, he can’t even come close to her. He walks back to his lads, his metaphorical tail between his actual legs, and he’s like, “dudes, we’re going to formulate a plan tonight,” and then a random guy in the posse is like, “oh cool, I brought Sharpies,” and they go back to Arbeth Court and spend literally all night just drawing diagrams and equations on a tapestry of England, because that’s probably the best use for it.

The next day, they put their plan in action. Pwyll gets his youngest, fittest lad, plops him on his biggest, muscliest horse, the one that’s like an equine version of that man in Game of Thrones who keeps breaking weightlifting records and is almost definitely earmarked to play Atlas in some big budget Greek myth film, and sends him after the lady. But still, no matter how fast they ride, she’s always one step ahead of them. At one point, they almost catch up with her, but when Pwyll reaches out to stroke her silky blonde hair in a totally normal and cool way, she pulls forward again and he just fucking eats dust. It’s humiliating. 

And this goes on for three days, because princes don’t have, like, hobbies in Medieval Wales, or apparently any princely duties that would make galavanting after a magic horse woman for half a week kind of inconvenient for the general populace, and gradually, Pwyll’s men all bow out one by one, probably because they’ve all developed an absolutely stonking case of piles from being on horseback for three days solid, and then Pwyll is alone in his romantic and also literal pursuit. 

Exhausted, starving and probably desperate for the loo at this point, Pwyll throws his head back and howls, “what the fuck is going on on this day? I’ve tried everything! I’m absolutely stumped. I don’t know what to do about this. I’ve considered it from every possible angle. I chased her, and that didn’t work. I got my wingman to chase her, and that didn’t work. Those are my only two options in the entire world. I just don’t know what else I can do. It’s completely fucking futile, I wish I’d just seen a dog instead,” and then a flash of inspiration comes to him, and he just calls out to the woman, “erm, could you maybe just, like, stop?” and, like a miracle, she does.

When he catches up to her, she glares at him, and says, “I’ve literally been waiting three whole days for you to just ask me to stop, why did it take you so long?” and Pwyll is like, “I sort of thought that it was implied, to be honest with you, what with all the chasing and me crying loudly about my unending solitude and the futility of love,” and she shrugs and says, “well, if we’re to be marred, we really have to work on our communication,” and Pwyll is like, “wait, what, who said anything about marriage?” and she just rolls her eyes, like, “look, I’m a sexy Medieval maiden and you’re a prince with some land and gendered expectations, so of course we’re going to get married,” and he’s like, “well, if we marry, that means I get to ride your horse whenever I want, right?” and she nods, like, “yes, that’s definitely the primary appeal of marriage.” 

But just as he’s about to get down on one knee, she looks at him again, and says, “I should just tell you something super quick, in the name of true love and Medieval marriage etiquette,” and he’s like, “what, your name?” and she says, “no, not that, although it’s Rhiannon, but mostly I’m thinking of the fact that you actually have to wait a whole year to propose to me, because I’m almost engaged to someone else, who I hate, and I need to sort that all out first.” 

Pwyll frowns and says, “hang on, is this going to be another one of those weird magic things where I have to wait a whole year and then conveniently murder someone in a previously determined location?” and she’s like, “what the fuck, no, there’s not going to be any murder at all, just a lavish engagement feast and some nuptials and probably some awkward standing around with the in-laws to-be,” and he’s like, “so why do we have to wait a year?” and she just waves her arms around and says, “temporally disconnected Otherworld shit, my love, I don’t make the rules. Just come to the court of Hyfaidd Hen in exactly a year, and we’ll do the whole ball and chain thing. It’ll be great.” 

So he agrees, because of course he does, and the next thing he knows, it’s a year later, and he goes to Hyfaidd Hen and Rhiannon’s there in this beautiful McQueen wedding dress, looking all Kate Middleton but without the colonial royal associations, and there’s an absolutely exquisite feast laid out, with a whole array of delicious Medieval food, like unseasoned meat pies and room-temperature ale that looks like piss, and Pwyll just thinks to himself how cool it all is, but he also secretly harbours a lingering regret for the previous year, where he was forced after a blunder of etiquette to kill a random man in a duel, and although he feels bad about it, a part of him longs for the decadent adventures of his bachelorhood, when murder was more than just a six letter word. 

They’re all just kind of milling about on the dancefloor, listening to the bards spit some absolute club classics like Y Gododdin by Aneurin, which really gets the toes tapping, when this random dude with a chiseled jawline and a playful glint in his eye comes up to Pwyll and extends his hand for Pwyll to shake. Pwyll, who is completely head over heels for manners and etiquette, shakes the man’s hand, and says, “hello, new friend! What can I do for you?” and Rhiannon elbows him in the side, and hisses, “be careful, fiancé dearest, don’t let him tangle you up in a web of etiquette from which there is no escape,” and Pwyll waves her off, saying, “my sweet darling, I am a prince of Wales; manners are my middle name,” and he turns back to the man. 

The man grins at him, and he says, “I’ve come to ask a favour of you, Pwyll, prince of Wales,” and Pwyll, still enamoured by this man’s manners, is struck by an overwhelming desire to just do whatever this perfectly polite man wants, so he spreads his arms wide in a benevolent gesture, conveniently using it as an excuse to set down his glass of lukewarm piss ale on a nearby shelf, and says, “literally anything you want, my friend, I’ll give you!” and then the stranger’s grin turns into a smirk and he says, “by your word?” and Pwyll is like, “fuck yeah, man, by all of my words, as God and all these noble guests are my witness!” and the stranger is like, “sick bro, I want to marry Rhiannon, and I also want your wedding feast.” 

And Pwyll has no idea what to say to that, because he just promised this man anything he wanted, so he decides that maybe silence is his best bet here, and the man grins at him, and stalks off, knowing that there’s literally nothing that Pwyll can do now except reconsider all of his life choices up to this point.

When the man has left, Rhiannon groans, “you phenomenal dick, that man was Gwawl and he’s the complete bag of dicks that my parents tried to marry me off to, and you just got me affianced to him!” and Pwyll just grits his teeth and hisses, “well, dear, you might have told me that before I told him I’d do whatever he wanted,” and Rhiannon sighs and says, “you’re right, but look, we can work through this. Here’s the plan. Firstly, we’ll tell him that he can’t have the feast, because it’s not yours to give, but mine, and we’ll prepare him an equal feast instead. Then, we’ll tell him that he can marry me a year from today, but here’s the thing - on the day of the wedding, you’ll secretly turn up in disguise with a very tiny magic bag and you’ll ask him, very reasonably, for just enough food to fill the bag. He’ll obviously say yes, because even he can’t turn down something that reasonable, but the bag will be enchanted to never be filled, so you’ll just take all the food, until he asks you how he can help you fill the bag, and you tell him that a fine nobleman has to step on it to seal it, and then he’ll step on it, and then you jump on him and pull the bag over his head and tie him up in the bag and hang it from a rafter, and then you’ll blow your hunting horn to summon your posse of lads and you’ll all beat him to a bloody, pulpy death in the bag.”

Pwyll just blinks at her, and says, “sweetheart, love of my life, light of my existence, did you perchance dream up that oddly specific plan a while ago, because if not, then your imagination terrifies me,” and this small, maniacal grin plays on her lips, and she says, “darling, you know how you asked me last year if you’d have to wait a whole year and then conveniently murder someone in a previously determined location, and I told you no?” and he’s like, “yes, I do remember that,” and she says, “well, ask me again,” and so he says, “babe, do I have to wait a whole year and then conveniently murder someone in a previously determined location?” and she’s like, “yes, sweetheart, but I’ve got it in the bag,” and then they high five each other and do a vengeful murder jig for like ten minutes.

And of course, a year later, they do it all over again, this time with a tiny enchanted bag and a goddamn point to prove, but that’s a story for another time.

My other retellings can be found here, and my Mythology Mondays Facebook page is here. My book is here. Yay.

I’m going to level with you: I typed out a whole bunch of super cool academic stuff and then my turdwallet of a laptop crashed and deleted all of it, and I honestly want to perish very slightly at the prospect of typing it all out again, but in a nutshell:

Some people think that Rhiannon was a horse goddess who was undeified by the Christian dudes who wrote down the pagan Welsh myths all those years later. While the Christian dudes did almost certainly sanitise the source material, we just don’t have any real proof of what they left out. The main argument for Rhiannon being a horse goddess is that she’s a woman and there was, erm, a horse. Not the most compelling argument. Some people also think she may be a cognate to the Gallic horse goddess, Epona, but this is basically extrapolated from the fact that they’re both female and somehow linked to horses, which I don’t think would fly in a court of law.

If you’re wondering why Pwyll didn’t just tell Gwawl to fuck off, it’s because he’s bound, as a nobleman, by a very strict code of honour and morals. By giving Gwawl his word, even before he knew what he was agreeing to, Pwyll made a binding promise. If he goes back on his word, Gwawl is well within his rights to challenge the fuck out of him.

Welsh myth and the Otherworld is super interesting. The Otherworld was generally believed to only be accessible at certain times and via certain places, called ‘liminal spaces’, such as bogs, bodies of water, and caves. Liminal spaces are essentially a sort of sacred space which exists in the in between, where the boundaries between worlds are porous and can be crossed, provided certain ritual conditions are met. The mound in this particular narrative is likely a portal to the Otherworld, which explains why Pwyll was able to access the magical realm of Rhiannon through it. The Otherworld, although not explicitly an Underworld, does have links with death and the afterlife, as do mounds, so that strengthens the connection. Bet you never knew mounds were so fucking cool.

Primary sources:

Davies, Sioned (2007) The Mabinogion, New York: Oxford University Press

Secondary sources:

Goldwasser, Michele (1994) What Drives the Mabinogi? Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 14, 49-57

Linkletter, Michael (2001) Magical Realism and the “Mabinogi”: an Exercise in Methodology, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 21, 51-63

Wachsler, Arthur (1975) The Elaborate Ruse: A Motif of Deception in Early Celtic Historical Variants of the Journey to the Other World, Journal of the Folklore Institute, 12(1) 29-46

#mythology mondays #celtic myth #welsh myth #pwyll #rhiannon #mythology #mabinogi #mabinogion

[unstoppableforcce]

such a simple thing

pairing: Santiago “Pope” Garcia x reader

masterlist | song link | 7.3k

a/n: I was so happy with this when I finished that I kind of refused to reread it so I wouldn’t hate it lol, I checked for errors but not as extensively as I normally do, also formatting on this hell site was fighting me so I apologize if the italics for memories aren’t encompassing

I really enjoyed getting back into the song one shots so if you enjoyed this and want more, feel free to send in song suggestions and characters you want to see paired with them :)))))

Tell me what you’re feeling, I can take the pain

“You’re quiet tonight...”

Lifting your head from the racing drops of condensation running down from the lip of your bottle, you found the patiently awaiting eyes of Santiago. He dusted the sand from the blanket you were sat on and made just enough room for himself before sitting down.

“Got something on your mind or...” his words danced through the air just as a turn in the wind pushed the smoke from the bonfire back into your face, offering you the perfect opportunity to drop you stare back down the cold sand you buried your feet in. “Honey...”

“It’s nothing.” You hummed, twisting the base of the bottle into the sand.

He sighed, glancing back to the fire and the crowd of the boys and some of their other friends on the other side of it.

Benny was fumbling with a device to keep the lights of the few phone flashlights in his hand propped up and illuminating the corn hole boards. Will was actively mocking him while he helped, the two of them both making a show of their bare chests and tattoos to the surrounding girls. And Frankie... Frankie was somehow managing a amiable conversation with the group around him while tending to the fire, his girl right over his shoulder.

But you weren’t socializing like they were, you were over here, off to the side as the sun finally dipped just beneath the horizon of the ocean.

“Does this nothing have to do with mr. No Show tonight?” He mocked hesitantly, nudging his shoulder into yours.

You quirked your head onto your shoulder to look at him, your goosebump covered knees pulling into your chest. “I broke up with him this morning.”

“Shit...” he shook his head, “I’m sorry, honey...”

Shrugging your shoulders, you reached back for you bottle and took a sip. “You didn’t like him anyways.”

“I liked him fine, more than the last one at least.”

“He was nicer than the last one...” you hummed again, but bringing the bottle to your lip, you only found it empty.

And he offered his to you instead.

“Doesn’t matter how nice he is, you still broke up with him...” he countered as you took your first sip and crinkled your face at the taste.

The light coming out from where the sun had just disappeared was just enough to read the label but it didn’t do much to clear it up in your mind. “What is this?”

“I don’t know, some shit Benny bought.” He shrugged, mirroring you as you accepted your fate and brought the bottle back to your lips.

There were plenty of drinks left in the coolers by the rest of the party but neither of you were getting up.

“What did he do?”

You groaned as the disgusting drink made its way down your throat and shrugged, pursing out your lips. “He didn’t do anything.”

“So why’d you break up with him?” Santi asked, leaning back with one arm propped up into the sand.

“Because he didn’t do anything.” You scoffed, “even if I hadn’t broken up with him today, he wouldn’t have come out tonight, he never wanted to go out. Not with friends, not even just for dinner... I don’t even know, everything was just complicated with him.”

“Well I guess now is a pretty good time to mention that I don’t remember his name anyways.” He laughed, effortlessly pulling you into it with him. “But I am sorry...you deserve better than this.”

“Thats sweet, Pope,” you chuckled, hitting his shoulder as he dipped his head down into his lap, thankful the slowly darkening horizon hid the rosy blush on his cheeks. At least until you recoiled, your tone losing all of your teasing tone. “I appreciate it, really.”

“I mean it.”

If only you knew exactly how much he meant it.

My heart is like paper, yours is like a flame

Whatever shitty beer Benny had brought got better after a few more. And you and Santi slowly rejoined the party.

And after a few more, the two of you thought it best to slowly work your way out of the party as well.

“I’m driving you home...” he said simply, grabbing your hips as you began to stumble off course through the sand on the way back to the parking lot, your shoes in hands and his jacket over you shoulders.

“I haven’t had that many—“ you held up your hand, counting off finger by finger until you ran out of fingers. “Okay maybe—“

“Come on, honey.” He cooed, holding you tight as you nearly tripped over yourself again, spiraling into a laughter that he couldn’t help but mirror with his own.

It had always been like this between the two of you.

Overseas, in some makeshift hospital tent as explosions shook the mountains around the two of you, your hands remaining steady as you stitched up the small knife wound on his forearm. You’d crack some joke, it wouldn’t even be a good one, but it’d be enough to pull some laughter out of the two of you.

Enough to take the two of you out of your heads, enough to ignore the bombs and blasts at least for the moment.

Because as soon as they stopped, that meant he and the rest of the boys would be heading out again.

“You’ll be here when I get back, right?” He asked as you wrapped a bandage around his arm and pressed it down tight.

“Depends how long you take,” you added carefully, glancing up to him and pulling your gloves off. He quirked his head and you continued, “I’m shipping back to Germany, the surgical program, remember?”

The army was making you a doctor, and as he had told you every every time he ran into you in medical tents and facilities wherever he went, you were going to be a good one.

But he missed his chance with you then.

And since reconnecting with you back in the states, he spent a lot of time wishing he could go back to those small moments with you. This was as close as he could get to it.

Unless, your wandering hands as you pulled him back to his jeep meant something more than you were just tipsy and still sad about this morning.

“Honey, what are you doing...” he hummed as you pulled his hoodie off your shoulders and tossed it into the passenger seat, moving your back to the door as he followed.

“What are you doing?” You mocked back, reaching for his hand to pull him even closer.

“Im driving you home, what are you doing?”

“Trying to kiss you...” your hands found the front of his shirt and pulled him in closer until he could feel the heat of your chest against his through the fabric of your shirt.

Everything about you was hot, searingly hot. The tips of your fingers just burning into his the skin of his arms as you wrapped them around you.

He was on fire.

Hotter than the flames that provided the only light in the harbor parking lot, the ones emanating from the bonfire the two of you had just left and the ones surrounding it. Someone, maybe Benny, maybe one of the idiot friends from the gym he invited, was spraying lighter fluid into it, sending the flames sky high and still not coming close to as hot as he felt as you drew him closer.

He had imagined this before, not in a parking lot certainly, but in a bed... this idyllic bedroom he had in his mind, a part of this perfect house he used to dream about as he watched blood and dirt run down the drain in the shower. It wasn’t his house, he never really had a house and he certainly had never lived anywhere with a fireplace, but there was one in that house, lit up as hot as your current touch. 

And the candles littered around the room burned equally as bright. 

Everything was so quiet, and you were always so warm.

It was an escape from the gun fire or explosions that came close to blowing his ear drums out on many occasions. It was an escape from the fight and his role in it.

Except it wasn’t real. It was just what his tormented mind came up with to stave off the nightmares in his bunk, packed in next to other soldiers like sardines in a can. It was just a dream about the beautiful medic who stitched him up, time and time again, surely the rest of the boys around him were imagining something similar.

He used the mere image of you as a distraction, even long after his discharge. In the jungles of South America, in the room they had him wait in before they prepped him for his neck surgery...

It wasn’t real though, the memory of you in his arms in some perfect house. 

But right now? Your arms leaving trails of flame and smoke up his arms to wrap around his neck and bring your lips dangerously close to his... It was real, and it was so much better than he could have ever imagined. 

Until the smell wafting from your breath, as you moved your lips impossibly closer to his, hit his nose. 

It smelled like that shit beer Benny had brought, and the few shots that Will had challenged you to. Then everything, even the scorching touch of your fingers over the scar at the base of his neck, felt like a mistake. A drunken mistake. 

You didn’t know what you were doing. You didn’t even know how much you had to drink that night. But he did. He sipped on a few beers the whole night knowing he’d have to drive home and he knew exactly what was coursing through your veins as your hips nudged into his. 

It was the breakup sadness from this morning, even if you said you were okay, no one got over it that fast. It was the liquor that was plaguing your thoughts, making you think that you wanted this, that you wanted him...

It wasn’t you. You didn’t want him. Not like he wanted you. 

“Santi...?” You quirked you head, clearly sensing a change in his touch. And when he froze up underneath you entirely, you recoiled back into the car, seeming to realize what you were doing for the first time. “I’m sorry, I--”

“No honey, I...”

The heat of your touch was gone, turned into the goosebumps that electrified your arms as you pulled away, taking every minuscule feeling of warmth with you as you did. 

He didn’t know what to say, but he tried anyways, reaching out for you because he didn’t know what else he could do, “no, honey it’s not--”

“Just take me home...” you said quickly, hoping into the passenger side of his jeep and crossing your arms tight over your chest. 

I can’t make you see if you don’t by now

Santi was a fast driver. 

Notably fast really, at all times, day or night. Not crazy, just fast. 

But this slow crawl back to your house and up the driveway was all he could manage as the silence between the two of you settled over him, weighing down his shoulders as the chilling breezing whipped around his topless jeep, freezing him to his bones. 

You hadn’t said a single thing the whole drive back and he wasn’t sure yet if that was better or worse than the alternative. 

With his jacket over your thighs, covering up the shivering skin your denim shorts left exposed, you sat unmoving beside him in the passenger seat, your hands playing over themselves in your lap. He didn’t know how to read this emotion on you, he had just never seen it before. 

Never once had you been so quiet in his presence, not unless he was counting the few times the two of you had been star gazing. But those times never felt like this. 

Those silences were comfortable, warm even, as the two of you huddled up next to each other in his back seat, staring at the stars over head. Nothing needed to be said then, all you wanted to hear from each other was the sound of each breath and over the forest on the other side of you. 

This wasn’t that. 

This silence was a weight heavier than anything he had ever felt before. As metaphorical as that assessment of it was, he literally felt his shoulders caving in where he sat, one hand extended out to the wheel and the other resting on the stick shift. And the weight of all the defenses and excuses he wanted to make for acting the way he did felt even heavier inside his chest, but he feared you didn’t want any of them. 

He kept his mouth shut and pulled smoothly into your driveway before putting the car in park and turning the engine off. 

He had never had to be hesitant with you. Things were just easy.

He could put his arm around your shoulder, he could kiss your cheek and tell you that you looked amazing and it wouldn’t mean anything more than what it was. Platonic love. 

Maybe what he felt was more than that, but what did that matter? He was sure you didn’t feel anything more than that so he kept it to that and just hoped you didn’t figure it out. 

But you must have, right? You must have known there wasn’t something more to what he felt for you. 

He didn’t drive the other guys home, he didn’t chat with them in the middle of the night when the couldn’t sleep, he didn’t buy them smoothies and meet up with them after the gym because he hadn’t seen them in a few days and that was the only time they were free... no, all of that, he reserved for you. 

For the woman who had saved his life more times than he could count, for the woman he loved more than anything in the world... for the woman who just tried to drunkenly jump him and who he turned down--

“I’m sorry.” You said quickly, finally looking up from your lap to meet his stare, but just as quickly shifting it away to the shut garage door in front of you. Taking in a deep breath, you continued quieter than you had started, “This morning was... and I had to much to drink... and I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry...”

“Don’t apologize,” he tried to fight in a way that kept his heart contained in his chest. 

But you kept going, “I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry.”

You shouldn’t have. Right. He knew that. 

You hooked two fingers into the door handle and threw it open, laying his jacket back on the seat as you hopped onto the concrete below you with a light thud. “Thank you for driving me home...”

“Anytime.” He fought back quietly, just loud enough to be heard over the gentle slam of the door shut. And as you retreated to your front door, sparing him a final glance over your shoulder, he offered a quiet, “Good night, honey.”

“’Night,” you added back with a wave over your shoulder before fishing your keys out of your pocket and unlocking your door. 

He waited for you to get in, he always waited.  

It didn’t matter what was brewing in his chest as he did. 

I’m so tired I just don’t care

It was a week later and the same silence from the car ride home had continued to haunt the two of you, both of you unsure of what you could possibly say. 

No texts, no calls, not even an email... he missed you and still couldn’t find it in himself to reach out. 

Because what if you didn’t want him to. What if, after that night, talking to him was the last thing you wanted. What if you woke up sober the next morning and just found the whole thing embarrassing and didn’t want him to admit he remembered it all in excruciating detail. 

What if he couldn’t see you again without mentioning that the crease between your brows looked even better up close as your face relaxed, your lips moving in for a kiss. What if he called you and couldn’t stop talking about the way your touch ignited a fire in his chest that had been stamped out and left unlit for decades. What if he saw you sober and made a casual move on you like he always did and you wanted none of that. 

What if it was all just you being drunk and lonely and him mentioning it made it more than what It was. 

He’d spent the whole week tiring himself out with every possible permutation of what he imagined was going on in your head and none of them made him feel any better. None of them came close to easing the tension his muscles seemed to be holding since he pulled out of your driveway that night. 

He was surprised he could even manage to relax his hand enough to let go of the steering wheel when he got home. 

The only outcome that he could imagine could ever possibly keep some semblance of normalcy between the two of you was to ignore it entirely, to act like he didn’t care or didn’t even notice something had happened. 

And as it turned out, you had come to the same conclusion. 

You greeted him at Benny’s next fight with a simple, “hi,” and spent the rest of the night with Frankie as a buffer between the two of you. At least until the break between the fights, when you went off to fetch a new drink for yourself and wandered back with a man trailing behind you, engaged in seemingly effortlessly conversation and laughter with him. 

“You’ve got to stop staring at her, Pope.” Frankie muttered to him as he turned to place his body directly in Santi’s line of sight towards you. 

All he could do was huff and return his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and Frankie didn’t seem to take that as an answer. 

“What the hell happened after the bonfire, man?”

He shook his head, glancing away, back to the empty octagon for a breath before returning to meet his glare and realizing he wasn’t getting away without answering. With a sigh, he gave his best attempt at a convincing shrug, “I don’t know, nothing happened.”

“Oh, nothing? Really? That’s why Will tells me she called him for a ride home after a late shift the other night, the one you always used to pick her up after?” He’s careful to keep his voice down, but one glance over his shoulder told him you were far too interested in the man who was far too interested in you. “And you refuse to go with us to the baseball game Friday night after you found out she was going?”

You always called for a ride if you needed one. Sure, he planned to get you every Tuesday when they inevitably kept you late, but you always called to tell him when. And when you didn’t? Well, that was just the final nail in the coffin. 

Ignoring it entirely was the only way it was going to end up okay in the long run, so he opted out of the game, yeah. 

He wasn’t proud of the route the two of you were taking, but he wasn’t about to make it any worse by saying something. 

“It’s nothing, just a bump. it’ll work itself out.”

Frankie let out a sigh somehow more exhausted than the one Santi had managed a few seconds earlier, but if anyone else had reason to be tired, it was the man with the one-year-old and two idiotic best friends. 

“What happened?”

The funny thing was that Santi had told the truth. Nothing happened. 

Your lips were inches away from his and absolutely nothing happened. The fact that nothing had happened was the problem actually, and the absurdity of that statement alone was enough to bring a veil of pure exhaustion over his body as he settled back in the seat. 

The crowd was beginning to cheer again so the next fight must have been close at hand, but Frankie was still turned in his seat like Santi and whatever he was feeling was the night’s entertainment. 

“You need to talk to her.” He argued in place of receiving an answer. 

“She’d talk to me if she wanted to talk.” Santi huffed, rubbing over his face and fixing the cap over his head. “She always has.”

“Yeah,” He scoffed, “when she wants your opinion on other men in her life.”

Santi turned his head back to face him just as the crowd roared again, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re that man now, Pope, whether you want to admit something happened that night or not,” He sighed, reaching down for the beer under his seat and standing up as the rest of the crowd did, pulling Santi up with him. “My best guess is she’s going to Will for that advice now.”

He could pick your cheers out of the dozens around him, echoing around in his ears. Hell, he could pick the faintest sound of your voice out from stadiums away; he felt tuned to it. So when you got particularly rowdy, he knew he would turn away from Frankie’s stare and find Benny entering, shoulders bouncing and ready to fight. 

He just couldn’t. Not with the weight of Frankie’s words hanging around his neck. 

“It’s complicated,” he tried to defend, wielding the word like it was some sort of excuse. 

“It never has been before with you two.”

With that, they both turned back to the spectacle in front of them, Frankie beginning to cheer along with the crowd, but Santi couldn’t muster the breath just yet. 

Because as he looked back to you, spotting you just over Frankie’s shoulder, the man you were with already had his arm around you. And by the time the fight was over, you were already heading out with him, stopping by Will briefly, probably to ask him to pass on your “congratulations” to Benny, then leaving entirely. 

There was nothing for the two of you to talking about. There were no what ifs. 

You were sad about your breakup and drunk off the shit beer Benny brought. He was just a rebound, a move of last resort or something like it. 

You didn’t burn for him the way he did for you. 

If you did, he would’ve at least gotten a goodbye. 

Can’t you see how much you hurt me?

The one night he isn’t awake at 3 a.m. is the night his phone rings. 

Just the gentle buzzing on his nightstand at first, something he was barely cognizant of as he lifted his head from his pillow, a trail of drool following as he blinked his eyes open to read the exact time off the digital clock. Then his home phone began to rang, the shrill tone piercing the peacefully silent air of his whole house and rocketing him out of bed in an instant. 

It was Frankie, on both lines, calling frantically, and that was the last push he needed to fall out of bed and find a worn pair of jeans on the ground and a mostly clean shirt from atop his hamper. 

His mom had called him and woken him up much the same way, saying his father was in a car accident and that, while he would probably be okay, she was rushing to the hospital now and he needed to do the same. Which was no problem except his girl was out of town for work and he had a one-year-old asleep in her crib who would need to be fed in a hour. 

“I can be there in two minutes, just let me find my keys.” Santi assured him and the sigh of relief that fell from Frankie’s lips over the phone was astronomical. 

“Thank you...”

And it really was two minutes despite being a five minute drive. Santi was a fast driver. 

Though, in parking at the curb and jogging up the few stairs of his porch, he found he wasn’t the first one there. Stood against the unfinished planter box in pathetic pajamas, a cardigan wrapped tightly around yourself and socks with lemons on them tucked into slippers was you, tearing his heart out just by being you. 

“He called you too?” He asked carefully, the first thing he had really spoken to you in weeks. 

You shook your head though, “no, she called, said ‘Fish called her frantically and would need the help.”

“You already knocked?”

The look you shot him clearly said ‘what do I look like to you? an idiot’ but he knocked again anyways. It gave him something to do besides stare at you in your adorable sleepwear. 

And before he could bring his fist down for the second half of his knock, Frankie frantically pulled the door open and ushered you both in to the kitchen where he was fussing with bottles, the fridge door wide open. 

“She’ll need to be fed when she wakes up, that’s usually in an hour and I should be back by tomorrow but if you have questions, you can call either me or--”

“Frankie, calm down, we’ve got this.” You said, your voice barely waking up out of its raspy morning drawl as you walked around the counter and laid your hands gently over his to get him to stop. 

Glancing to Santi with the same crazed stare, Santi offered a similarly calming sentiment, “We’ve got this, go, don’t worry.”

That seemed to be the last reassurance he needed, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek, grabbing his hastily packed backpack off the floor, wrapping Santi up in a big hug and leaving. Leaving the two of you in complete silence besides the gentle hum of the baby monitor left sideways on the counter next to the mess he had been busy with. 

And the silence was no good, not since Santi had spent so much time brewing in it in his own house, thinking about you. Now you were four feet in front of him, just a kitchen counter between the two of you and he had to open his damn mouth. 

“You can go, I’ve got this if you want to head home.” He shrugged like it was nothing. 

Your face didn’t react like it was nothing though. 

Your arms crossed back over your chest with your loose cardigan puddling around your arms, let out a hefty scoff and jutted your hip out all in one go. “I’ve got this, you should go home.”

It was the feistiness in you that he loved, he just didn’t love it in this one moment. Because it pulled something ugly out of him, something he didn’t like but was powerless to stop as the words bubbled out of his throat. 

“Honey just go, I’m sure you’ve got someone waiting for you at home anyways, so just go.” He argued, like it made all the sense in the world to say. 

It didn’t though. Not as it left his lips and certainly not as your face twisted into deep confusion, the crease in your brow furrowing before pure anger took over you, unlike anything he had ever really seen from you. 

Across your chest, your hands turned to fists and you didn’t let him escape the fire of your stare. All you let out was one fateful word as it slipped past the lips that had tried to kiss him just a few weeks ago. 

“Wow.”

He tried to fight it back, “that came out harsher than I wanted it to--”

“Really, is there a softer way you meant to slut shame me, Pope?” You scoffed again, shaking your head as he stumbled for a grasp on the right words. 

“I didn’t mean to--”

“No, I think you did--”

“Honey, that wasn’t what I meant--”

“Stop calling me that.” You said definitively, getting his babbling to stop, his whole disposition shifting to that of a hurt puppy at your words. 

He had always called you that. Always. Since the day he met you and never once, no matter how many egomaniacs you dated that felt threatened by your friendship with him or how many times you tried to ditch the group to meet someone new at a bar, never once had you told him to stop calling you that. 

But before he could fight it, the baby monitor released a muffled cry from where it was downturned on the counter and you quickly reached for it. Again, a cry echoed out of it, the blue light meter signaling significant noise while the both of you just sighed. 

“I’ve got her--” he tried to get out, moving to the hallway back to her nursery but you held up a hand to stop him in place. 

“I’ve got her, you should just go.”

“Please--”

“Go, Santi.” You added, your tone much harsher as you disappeared down the dark hall, your steps turning to tip toes before he heard the door creak open and the cried become even more apparent. 

He didn’t go though. He couldn’t leave after his best friend called him to watch his baby during a family emergency, whether he was fighting with you or not. 

He walked with careful steps into the kitchen and pulled one of the prepared bottles out before sticking it into the microwave to warm it gently. By the time you came back out with a quieter but distinctly awake little Mia settled on your hip, he already had it ready to go, passing it to you with one of the soft towels lying around. 

“Hi, Mia.” He said softly, stroking one of the tears off her cheek. 

She giggled lightly at that, she always did have a soft spot for Tìo Santi. 

You, maybe not so much now as you accepted the bottle and walked her over to the rocking chair set up in the living room. He followed sitting back on the couch next to you and the silence remained. 

For the whole rest of the night, it remained. You took Mia back to bed after a while and came back out into the living room, claiming the loveseat across from where Santi had now laid out on the couch and keeping the silence. 

A cold and painful silence. His heart burning in pain the whole time.

It’s like I wasn’t there

“Do you know where we are right now?” 

Settling into the seat next to Santi, Benny took up as much room as he possibly could until Santi just couldn’t avoid him. He had his arm over his shoulder, his knee nudging into his, his foot rest on the ring beneath his bar stool and his face in his. 

Impossible to ignore. 

“Yes.” Santi answered stubbornly, pushing his face away so he could grab his fresh drink from the bartender. 

“It’s a bar.” Benny told him despite his answer and Santi nodded along, still confused. “It’s a bar where we’re having a party.”

“Benny I--”

“My brother’s birthday party.”

“Yeah, I know, I--”

Benny put his hand over his mouth and shook his head, “No, listen to me. You are at a party, a birthday party, and you are sitting alone, not having any fun just because the woman you’ve been in love with for a fucking decade is here.”

Santi didn’t get a response with Benny’s hand still over his mouth, so he had no opportunity to even mount a defense. Not that it would’ve mattered, Benny had eyes and there would be no convincing him he was wrong, especially as he continued. 

“She’s beautiful, she’s smart, she’s saved your life more times than I can count and look,” he casually swung Santi’s head toward the pool table where you and Frankie were battling, “she’s all alone here tonight in the hottest dress she owns--”

That was the final straw. Santi pushed him off of his shoulders and made sure to get his hand away from his face, all with a practiced precision that forced Benny’s hands into a show of surrender. He raised them even higher as the rough cut of Santi’s voice broke out again, “You don’t think I noticed what she was wearing?”

“She came here alone.” He added, accentuating every word like that wasn’t the second thing Santi had noticed when you came into the bar they rented out. 

“So what? So she can pick up another guy here--”

“You two are such fucking idiots,” Benny cursed out, stealing Pope’s drink for a sip before he fought for it back and ushered for him to continue. “She knows everyone in here, she’s not trying for some meaningless hook-up, she’s trying to catch someone’s attention.”

“Or she just wants to look good for herself--”

“Pope, you absolute fucking idiot. That is the dress. THE dress! The one you she wore on her birthday last year and you said ‘now if you’re ever looking to catch someone’s attention, that’s the way to do it’.”

He let his stare shift back to where you were bending over the table, trying to line up a shot without succumbing to the laughter spurred up by the group around you. 

It was that dress. 

How Benny remembered it so well, well he didn’t want to ask. All he knew was that he was right. It was a slip of black that flowed over your body beautifully, with a low-cut back and slit up your left leg. 

If he remembered correctly, which he knew he did when it came to you and that night, he actually had said, “Oh Honey, did you wear that all for me?” with a joking intonation. 

Only you responded with a little twirl and laugh, “Why? Do you like it or something?”

Shaking his head, he pulled you into a burly hug, spinning you slightly with both his strong forearms wrapped around your waist. He followed that up with a quick kiss on your cheek and pulled back to show you a smirk he just couldn’t wipe from his lips. 

“If you ever walk into a room wearing that and it doesn’t catch my attention, you’ve got to shoot me, honey, because that’s not the real me.”

It wasn’t as coy as Benny’s memory, but in his head, you just laughed and shook your head, dragging him and Benny, who hadn’t gotten nearly the hello that Santi had, into the restaurant behind you to where Will and a few of your friends from the hospital had already secured a table. 

“Now,” Benny leaned back in, interrupting the memory that played through his head as he continued, “I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but ‘Fish seems to think that you think she’s not into you and I just wanted to use this opportunity to remind you that A. that’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard, and B. this is my brother’s birthday party, so whatever happened needs to not be happening here, because you’re killing the mood with all this sulking.”

And that finally pulled a laugh out of his throat. 

Benny just naturally had that effect, changing even the sourest moods into something better. 

With a hearty slap to his shoulder, Benny left Pope at the bar with his drink and returned to the group he had been chatting withe before, but turning back one last time before he made it to point to where you were playing and give a wink and thumbs up. 

But you were playing and having fun. If he was going to do this, it wasn’t going to be now, not If he had to pull you away from your fun to do it. 

Taking his drink, he followed Benny to his table to ease back into conversation instead of drinking his sorrows away, and when he saw the party begin to die down an hour later and the dancing began to slow down on the small dance floor, he finally crossed the room to you. And with one look, Frankie said goodbye to you and pulled his girl onto the dance floor where Will was with his girl. 

Then it was just you and him, and finally, the two of you couldn’t ignore each other for any longer. 

Tell me what your heart wants

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Good, at least that was a start.

“Do you want to--”

“I just want to say--”

The two of you can’t talk to each other for how long and now you can’t not talk over each other... the irony was not missed by either of you as you both stole brief chuckles. 

He just overcame his nerves before you did, and got his question out first. 

“Do you want to dance with me?” 

His hand hung in the air, extended out between the two of you, colder than it had been even while wrapped around his glass a few minutes ago as you just stared at it. If you said no, he was pretty sure that would be the end of things between the two of you. He just couldn’t see a way back from that. 

But instead, you slipped your molten-hot fingers into his and gave him a gentle nod. 

He dragged you backwards from the pool table to the relatively empty dance floor, stopping briefly as both your feet found it to offer you the chance to leave, but you didn’t. You stepped up, one whole step closer to him and placed your free hand on his shoulder, his other hand slipping down the effortlessly smooth fabric of your dress to settle at your waist. 

And like those nights when he took you star gazing, the silence was natural for the first few beats as the two of you began to sway with the slow song Will had obviously requested. It stayed that comfortable too, at least until you finally turned your head and made eye contact with him. 

Then he just couldn’t take it anymore. 

“I don’t know how it went so wrong so fast, honey-- I’m sorry, I just...” the breath he collected for the sentence fell away as you watched him try and catch it again. But all he could muster was another apology, “I’m sorry...”

As you shook your head, you gave his hand a tight squeeze. 

“You’re my best friend, Santi, I didn’t mean to ruin things. I just had too much to drink and I was feeling lonely and...” you trailed off and his heart stopped, his face moving back into your distracted line of sight, all but forcing you to continue. “I never feel lonely around you, so I did something I shouldn’t have--”

“No--”

“Santi, this is my fault--”

“No, I wanted to kiss you and I’m the one who ruined it.”

Your stare shifted up from the chain around his neck to his eyes with a hopeful glint. “Why didn’t you?”

He shook his head this time, glancing around the floor to see the other couples too caught up in each other to even realize what was happening between the two of you. 

“You were drunk and I thought I was just going to be your rebound... I didn’t want you to do anything you would regret...”

The sigh from your lips was the embodiment of the relief he felt at seeing the tension fall out of every muscle in your body, even your grip around his hand and his shoulder felt looser, much more like the version of you he knew and loved. 

“Why didn’t you just say that...” 

“Because I didn’t want to ruin anything. You’re my best friend too and I was afraid if I opened my mouth, the right thing wasn’t going to come out... like at Frankie’s that night with Mia... I didn’t mean that, I don’t even know why I said it... I just... you mean too much to me honey, I could’t lose you.” 

The words flowed from his lips, barely processing through his mind as he held your stare. It was everything his heart wanted to say that night and he finally had the courage to drop the gate and let it all come out. 

Because keeping it shut was losing him you. And he couldn’t lose you. 

“When did this all get so complicated...” You chuckled with only half your heart behind it as his hand at your waist tugged you into him further. 

“It doesn’t have to be,” he defended, “we can keep it simple.”

“Simple?”

“Yeah, just the basics.” He said softly as you leaned your head forward onto his shoulder. 

“What did you have in mind?” You mocked somewhat as he pulled his hand intertwined with yours up to his lips and left a soft kiss on your knuckles. 

“We start with the fact that I’ve been in love with you for over a decade and go from there.”

You lifted your head from his shoulder and stopped your swaying immediately, and he froze like had the second he smelled the liquor on your breath after the bonfire. Only this time, you didn’t pull away or drop your heated touch from him. 

You just brought your lips to his and this time? He didn’t hesitate. 

Like a match lighting a fireplace, like the burning heat from a bonfire or the warmth from a candle, flames erupted inside his chest, scorch trails tracing back from his heart to every point of contact with you. Your touch on his shoulder switched to his neck, igniting a trail of gunpowder up to his hairline. Your grip in his hand held tight and tingles ran down his forearm like a grenade had just gone off in your shared grip. And your lips...

Your lips were the sun, burning hotter and brighter than anything else around, the perfect embodiment of what you were to him. 

He couldn’t pull you in tighter if he tried. The hand at your waist gripped into the silky fabric of your dress and pressed and pressed until your chest was flattened against his and every inch of you was a point of contact, sending every molecule of his being up in flames. 

What a way to go. 

And when you pulled back, desperate for a breath of oxygen before you could stoke the fire again, you sighed out a gentle, “I love you too.”

His eyes opened to find yours waiting for him, your forehead pressed into his and lit up with what had to be all of the light from every burning star in the galaxy. 

“What’s your favorite constellation?” He had asked somewhat mindlessly all those nights ago, the two of you in the back of his truck, necks angled so that all you could see was the sky as you star gazed. 

“The big dipper.” You answered, equally as mindless. 

“Wow original,” he mocked easily, “why?”

You shrugged, your shoulder hitting his as it did. “Sometimes the simplest thing is the best thing.”

He had made some kind of joke about whatever poetic moment overtook you there and then, but he wasn’t joking as he gazed into your eyes now. 

He loved you and you loved him. 

Such a simple thing

--

tags:@itsamedeemoney @pizzahutmonkeybutt​ @poesflygirl​ @aellynera​ @mandolovian​ @phoenixhalliwell​

#santiago ‘pope’ garcia x reader #santiago garcia x reader #such a simple thing #fluff #soft #sad #triple frontier

[libermachinae]

Fault Lines Under the Living Room

Part IV: Touch - Chapter 11: Ripple

Also on AO3 Summary: They’ve only just arrived at their destination when things start to go wrong. Word Count: 2193

---

“Picking up some light readings,” Drift reported. “Limited tech, similar to Vitrious. You getting anything?”

“Just a massive, concentrated energy spike a few degrees northeast,” Rodimus said. “Recent exposure, Cybertronian markers.”

“When’s the last time you took that rig in for a tune-up?”

Ratchet hated having to repeat himself, but either Drift was incapable of recognizing the severity of his ship’s disrepair (unlikely) or he was being even more obstinate than normal. Exchanging their vessels’ specs had revealed the truly horrific condition the ship was in: fuel efficiency half of what it should have been, unreliable pressure seals, thrusters that should not have made it into the air, let alone off a planet. That he had survived transit was a—not a miracle, an insult to probability and reasonable calculation of—

Rodimus put a hand on his shoulder and tried to think calm thoughts. Drift had survived. It didn’t make sense, and maybe the luck would run out now that it had been acknowledged, but—

Ratchet halfheartedly swatted at his hand, more like a firm pat.

No wonder you liked him so much. Morale officer doesn’t suit you. He failed to dislodge Rodimus’ hand and didn’t bother trying again.

“Haven’t had the time.” The sound of flipping switches was followed by a hard smack from Drift’s end, rounded out by imprecise grumbling. Drift’s report had lacked any details on the state of his ship’s user interface, but the variety of language he had spoken to it with, impressive even by Ratchet’s standards, gave the sense that it was functioning at about the same level as everything else: barely.

“Still think it’s an outpost?” Rodimus asked.

“Lot of things it could be,” Drift said, voice accompanied by a few more mechanical noises. “We’d need more info to say for sure. Or a visual.”

Rodimus considered the readouts in front of him. There were more he hadn’t read out, but only because he didn’t know how. Ratchet translated what he could, but they were trying to keep his focus on piloting which meant Rodimus couldn’t spend too long wondering about the more mystifying aspects of his screen. Was that box in the top corner a map, or a graph? He didn’t know, and he had to look away before it overtook their other priorities.

“There are also stockpiles, energon plants, and decoys out there,” Drift went on. “Traps, if you’re really unlucky. Whole lot of empty shacks; lot of boltholes won’t have anyone living in them most of the time.”

“On the move a lot?” Rodimus asked.

“Sure. Only one in a dozen stellar systems will have a planet good for energon harvesting, and then there’s having to be vigilant about competition and enforcers. Sometimes needs will change or new opportunities will open up, and a crew will split up to deal with it.” He sounded annoyed at that, briefly breaking from his researcher-describing-mysterious-outgroup tone.

“Couple Decepticons on holiday accidentally give you the slip?” Rodimus asked, just to keep him there.

“More like an entire platoon,” Drift said, rising to it so quickly that they could only assume he’d been waiting for someone to complain about this to. “I tracked them to their covert thermal operation on a smelter of a planet, got all the way in, only to discover the one mech they’d left behind was their communications specialist—it was a mess. But, that’s the past now.” And just as quickly, the wall was back up. “If our intel’s good and Grit’s got a byte of sense, there should be someone here. Just no idea how many.”

“Sounds like there’s a good chance we’ll get this thing cleaned up quick,” Ratchet said. “So long as we stick together.”

Drift’s Hm’d agreement was more than either had expected. Maybe they were making progress.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Good to go,” Rodimus said, adjusting the items on his screen to focus on the ship’s status. “Defense and surveillance up, and we’re at about descent altitude. Just give us a head’s up when you start improvising, so we can get out of your way.”

He was not supposed to say that. He shot over a grin in response to Ratchet’s disapproval; what point was there in denying the inevitable?

Practicing being a good friend, remember? That means saying no to stupid ideas.

It also means being there to catch him instead of holding him back.

It was the kind of argument that couldn’t be solved with a few pointed thoughts or memories, the kind that they did not have time for now, as the visual feed showed Drift’s ship starting its descent. They set it aside in their own ways: Ratchet simply stopped thinking about it, while Rodimus let himself run through the myriad arguments he would have made simultaneously before reconnecting himself to the present. A moment later and they were ready, Ratchet punching in the commands to follow Drift down.

The planet’s cloudless atmosphere gave them a clear view of the terrain below, its massive, dramatic rock formations contoured by deep shadows. North of them, the average surface elevation increased and smoothed out into tall hills, but where they were going the difference between peaks and valleys created a network of shelves and tunnels that would be perfect to hide a secret base in. And stealth did seem to be one goal of whoever had set up shop down there: besides the sloppy energy output, there were no obvious signs of cyberforming on the planet’s surface. Rodimus was about to suggest that only those who came looking for Cybertronians would ever notice they were here, when a glint in one of the visual feeds caught his attention. He brought the feed to his station and zoomed in. Metal?

The word hit his vocoder as Ratchet shoved them into a dive.

“Turret!”

The energy beam was hot enough to ripple the air around it. Even though Ratchet got them turned away fast enough, the whole shuttle shuddered from the near-miss. Crates and containers rattled in their restraints, and Rodimus was too busy keeping up with Ratchet to think about the sounds of crashing down in the hold. They should have been at a safe distance to avoid detection; how had they been pinpointed so quickly?

“Pull up! Get out of here!” Drift shouted.

No time to wonder about it right now.

“Can’t,” Rodimus said while Ratchet wrestled with the controls. “I’ve got visual; they’re charging up for the next shot. Reversing momentum would have us hovering like an auto-skeet.” If the console would stop bombarding him with warnings, he might have been able to make better estimates about their next move, but a ship this size wasn’t designed to be flown by just two bots with half a processor each. Ratchet was demanding so much of their attention that even reading the words on the screen demanded resources they didn’t have, so he scrubbed the whole thing until all that was left was the visual feed, the twinkle that shone just before the storm. “Diving. Keep on our tail.”

“No, that’s—fine. Aim for cover.”

Ratchet switched off the reverse thrusters and the ship plummeted out of its gentle descent. The entire world rocked nauseatingly as the discordant visual feeds broadcast the tilting horizon and rising ground, and they startled as the second blast singed the air behind them, the crackle of Drift’s failing comms suite not enough to prevent their sparks from clenching down in panic. The rear cameras recovered from the overexposure, and there was the speeder, intact and keeping pace.

“What now?” Drift demanded.

“Evasive maneuvers,” Rodimus said, following the ticker tape of Ratchet’s intentions. “Triple Thunderclash!”

Ratchet twisted hard on the controls and sent the ship spiraling. Rodimus would have been flung across the bridge had they not been secured, but even then struggled to maintain focus as they were thrashed around, over and over. He couldn’t see Drift anymore, or the distant turret: everything was swirls of color, broken up for only a split second as the third blast went wide and passed them by.

Ratchet drew back and pulled them out of the spiral, then hastily steered them aside as the recovered visual feeds revealed an oncoming peak. Landing thrusters were engaged; slightly dazed, Rodimus picked out a promising valley for Ratchet to maneuver them into. Drift reappeared in the rear feed, keeping his distance in case they had to dart again. Not that there would be much room for it, as the canyon walls rose up and enveloped them.

Ratchet brought the shuttle to rest on a wide shelf and sat back, optics dim. The constant, pounding beat of his focus dispersed, and he sunk into pillowy relief, buoyed by Rodimus’ burst of Wow we made its and What kind of gun was thats and I’m alive Ratchet’s alive Drift’s alives. It had been hard, keeping that iron grip on himself while Ratchet put in the work of keeping them alive, but—

“Wouldn’t have seen that shot coming without you,” Ratchet said. Rodimus looked away as he flushed, warm with appreciation and embarrassment; sincerity was an intimacy he was never quite prepared for. He was grateful when Drift’s speeder landed alongside them.

“Everybody intact in there?” Ratchet asked. He thought Rodimus’ embarrassment was amusing, frag him, but was willing to set it aside out of concern for their friend. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t find a way to exploit it later, but for now, Rodimus was safe.

“We made it,” Drift said. “That was more more like a Double Thunderclash.”

“Ratchet was between Thunderclashes and I had to make a best guess.” Rodimus tried to mime the path of the two ships with his hands, twisting his arms as far as his joints would allow. “It’s a Triple Thunderclash because it’s three times cooler than a thing Clash did in some fight,” he explained, since he felt Ratchet wondering.

“Battle of Ambustus Major?” Ratchet asked. Rodimus shrugged and tried not to pout when Ratchet immediately brought up an old vid file of the maneuver.

“Is the ship stable here?” Drift asked, reminding them they were here with a purpose. In the aftermath of such a close call, it was natural to want to ease back for a moment, but Rodimus couldn’t fault Drift for wanting to stay on track. The stakes weren’t any lower just because they’d made it to the surface intact.

“Should be,” Ratchet said, leaning over so he didn’t have to keep relying on Rodimus to funnel through the ship’s readings. “Holding steady for now. We’d probably need to conduct a physical survey to be sure, but I’m not seeing anything troubling from here.” Ratchet wasn’t sure of the composition of this planet, but the lack of dust in the atmosphere suggested it was made of a lot of hard, compact stone, hopefully strong enough to support a spacefaring vessel. They just had to hope that whatever geologic event had formed this shelf hadn’t terribly weakened the wall it was anchored to.

“Good,” Drift said. “The good news from all this is that the turret gives us an idea of where they have their main base; it’d be a waste of fuel to have to drive back and forth a long way. Once I’ve scouted it out and located Grit, you can come in.”

“Okay, and one more time with a plan we’ll actually follow?” Ratchet’s edge emboldened Rodimus. If it had been just him out here, he might have let Drift make all the decisions out of guilt, but the strong presence beside his mind pulsed with gentle encouragement.

Drift sighed.

“Right. Give me a minute.”

Ratchet gave Rodimus a thumbs up. Progress.

Rodimus got up from the captain’s seat and walked to the bow of the bridge, where the narrow viewshield gave him a closer peek onto the planet. The impression he got: rocks. Though the surface was painted mainly by dull shades of brown, down here they started taking on more color, hints of red and green only noticeable against the stark homogeny of everything else.

Why had the Decepticons chosen this planet? Were there fuel reservoirs buried too far below the surface to show up on orbital scanners? How would they have known to come looking for them? If not, if this was just a backwater hideaway, why the powerful defense system? Who was hiding here? And for how long? He itched to pop the hatch open and start exploring, but Ratchet’s presence kept him in place. This world, with its unknown Cybertronian population, confronted them with a new variety of complexity and danger. Though they could be rash in their decision to help Drift, they couldn’t risk being stupid about it.

Ratchet gently nudged him away from that kind of thinking. No one here was stupid. Everyone was trying to do the right thing for the people of Vitrious, the universe at large, and each other.

Rodimus cast a small, grateful smile over his shoulder.

“Okay.” The comms came back to life with Drift’s voice. “I still think this is a bad idea. But I’ve got something.”

#maccadam #transformers #dratchrod #ratchet #rodimus #drift #my writing #longfic #fault lines #edit: pfff forgot the link :P

[tundrainafrica]

Title: En Prise (2/18)

Summary:  

Hange already had the innate analysis skills and the quick wittedness to excel in the classroom. Chess should have come easy for her. As she processed her fifth loss to the man in front of her, she started to understand that there was more to the game than meets the eye.

College AU! Levi is a little too good at chess and Hange gets roped into studying the game further.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Link to other chapters: 1

Notes: Netflix has this new show out called “Queen’s Gambit” which makes chess look like I pretty good driver for a story. Attack on Titan has its fair amount of chess motifs as well and that’s when I knew a Chess AU has to exist somewhere in the fandom. With that, Levihan AU came into existence.

Hange found herself going on walks at the same time everyday when the air was a little cooler, the sunlight a little dimmer. She followed the same route she made on her first day. She never did enter the bar though, slightly conscious of the fact that she would be obligated to buy something if she did and at that point, she had no money to spare.

She settled for looking through the window as she walked, disappointed every time to find the same disappointing scene of empty chairs and an empty table on that one corner.

The first few days, she had attributed it to life. Maybe his day job just gets busy. No one can earn just playing chess.

A few days went by though, then the weekend, and he never did come back. Maybe he wasn’t a regular hustler? Maybe he was a dream?  Hange quickly abandoned that last thought, her empty wallet attested to the existence of that boy.

She decided that the night before classes would be her deadline. That late afternoon, she allowed herself one long look at the window, long enough at least for the owner to come out.

"May I help you?"

"The chess player who sat at the table on the corner…" Hange did not have to say too much else.

"Ahh you’re talking about Levi. Sadly I can't say when he'd be back. He usually only comes back at the most once a month to play."

"So he's been doing this for a while?"

"Since he was much younger.” The man answered. He turned to Hange and sighed. “Look,  He's a good kid. He pays for food and compensates any damages."

But he hustled me. Hange sensed the contempt she kept in her tone, as she asked the first few questions. He must have noticed it as well. It was apparent in the man's tone that he at least had some emotional attachment to the young boy.

"So this Levi guy… Would you know where I can find him?"

The owner shrugged. "Never told me. The kid doesn’t talk much."

He talks enough to hustle at least. Hange thought to herself. She could not help but remember that he had talked a fair amount for her to at least have been surprised at the bar owner’s comment. It was a particularly glaring fact since chess was a game which is supposed to be played in silence.

"Thank you. Will check back again next time then." Hänge was quick to turn around as she felt a wave of disappointment. She had no idea what type of face she was making at that moment but she bent her head down just in case.

"Do you really need the money?”

Hange looked back at the owner, the loss of her money once again painful.. “Excuse me?”

“The money he hustled from you, I mean.”

“Yes. I do.”

“Will you starve without the money?”

“No.”

“Then give the boy a break. That boy has gone to my bar long enough, something tells me that the games are all he has.”

                               En Prise      

School was a good distraction.

The fact that chess was a part of her curriculum was the only thing that made it difficult for her to completely forget the man who had welcomed her her first night. One relieving yet somehow disappointing thing to note was her professor in PE seemed more interested in making them read up on openings and present them on screen.

Zoe, you'll be assigned the Pirc Modern.

She had expected at first to be playing and maybe reliving the frustration of losing again and again in blatantly winning positions. Studying opening theory turned out to be a respite for Hange and she found herself treating the game like any other subject.

Every night, she prepared for her lectures in chemistry, then biology, then statistics, always ending her days by opening an online chess database and replaying games on the modern opening.

Her days in her chess class would start with quizzes to identify common formations. Hange was surprised to find that most of them had names.

Every time they called out the openings and presented them on the board, Hange was brought back to the large shelf in the bookstore, with what could have been a hundred books about chess. As the students read out of index cards explaining the theories behind the first opening moves, Hange was made aware of the thousands of possibilities just by the first five moves.

Of course they would have books about these.

The first pawn moves. Where they place the knight. Where they place their bishops. Where they castle.

Every decision, every move mattered. Somehow, chess was starting to make her as excited as biology and chemistry did for so long.

The Pirc Modern opening is an opening for black as a reply to the king's pawn opening for white. It is characterized by an opening reply where black plays the pawn in front of their own queen one step forward, with plans of casting king's side with a fianchettoed bishop for added protection.

When she researched her own opening and saw it played out on the board, she could not help but think that that was one of the openings Levi had played against her that night. The thirst for some sort of conclusion at having lost so miserably to that particular opening she had to study came over her and she approached it like an opponent.

It was a relatively straight forward opening. All the first ten moves were booklines and even if white did change the move order, the game usually ended up with the same position. When Hange had played it herself, she had gone through what she had deemed most logical and had gone for the center early on.  Her research introduced the possibility of  something more aggressive, an idea to close the center, castle queenside with an idea of a pawn storm towards the king.

That was the idea she introduced during her own presentation.

"That's a great idea Zoe. May I remind you though that you only needed to discuss the first ten moves and the resulting position."

Hange looked up at the board she flashed on the screen, only to realize then that she had presented thirty moves all leading up to the rook exchange sacrifice on the h file and the inevitable mate.

"Oh really?" Hänge looked back at her classmates to see that most, if not everyone were all focused elsewhere, the most attentive being those staring blankly at the screen. "Thank you for listening then."

Hange packed up her laptop and made her way to her place at the side of the room.

"It looks like everyone has already presented their openings. Since we don't have much time anymore, just prepare for next week. We'll be playing actual games then."

"Nice one Zoe. At least we don't have to actually play yet."

Hange was packing her bag when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked back to see that the student had already passed her through the crowd of students. It was nothing new. Most students were usually in a hurry to get out since the physical education department where they had classes was a good ten minute walk away from most other classrooms.

Other students with no classes right after, probably just preferred not to be there and it was obvious. It was one of the easier classes which did not require much physical work nor did it require the difficult choice of whether to take a shower after class or be sweaty and stinky the whole day.

The opening presentations proved to be a pleasant surprise for most people as it turned out that most students did not have to actually think beyond making a presentation and reading off index cards to actually pass the class. It had been at least a month since the start of classes and even she had forgotten for a second that chess was mainly a game of war and not just a subject for research and analysis.

Hange guessed that most of the students at the most would play the openings they had to present about. Just in case, she prepared.

On the nights leading up to her next class, she had started to memorize the most common replies to each possible opening.

Those nights, she actually dreamt of the characteristic checkered board.

                                       En Prise

"Zoe. I want to introduce you to someone."

In the midst of the bustle as students were assigned partners to play with, Hange was surprised and utterly confused to find that her name had not been on the list passed around. She had not completely processed the unexpected turn of events when her professor approached her about it. "Yes sir?"

"This is Moblit Berner. He'll be playing you today."

Hange looked up to see her professor and behind him, someone who looked to be a fellow student. Oddly enough, he was not among the faces Hange had gotten used to the past month she had been attending chess classes.

Chess is chess. Hange did not think too much of it. The pit in her stomach that made itself when she could not find her name on the list, disappeared soon after she lead her to the nearest board and placed a white pawn in front of her.

"You'll be playing white.” He looked up at her.” You can call me Moblit by the way. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too."

Moblit started to tinker with the clock. "You've used a chess clock before I imagine."

“Actually… No.” Hange had played enough games online to know chess games were timed. That was the first time though she would be playing a timed one with someone right in front of her.

For a moment Moblit’s expression changed to that of utter surprise. “Let me set it up in front of you then.”  

“We’ll be playing a rapid game. Twenty minutes with a five second increment for every move.” He positioned the clock to Hange’s left, angling it so she could watch as he scrolled through different options. “Meaning when you move, you get an extra five seconds.”

“You ready?” Moblit held out his hand for Hange to shake. That was only the second time she has ever played a live game. The last time Hange had played one was with Levi. Back then, there was no clock. Her opponent hadn’t even bothered to shake her hand. Hange found herself a little more pissed off at Levi’s audacity.

“Ready.”

Hange opened up with the king’s pawn. Moblit responded by moving his own king’s pawn one step forward.

The French Opening.

Hange had read a fair amount about it to know it was not played by aggressive players. Another familiar one opening Levi had played against her. He had quickly sacrificed a piece for a pawn though and that opening that generally transitions to peaceful middle game, quickly transitioned to an aggressive attack for Levi.

Moblit played by the book lines of the Tarrasch opening. Hange was aware of the quick mating attacks that could follow his more mild approach towards the position.

He castled kingside and Hange only had to look at her five miserable loses to Levi to see the potential for a mating attack. A few moves into the start of the middle when Moblit played his flank pawn forward, Hange saw an opening for a mating sacrifice.  

It was like something possessed her for a split second. Hange took the pawn sticking out from the formation with her bishop. Hange only came to terms with the gravity of the sacrifice when she made eye contact with Moblit who did not look at all like he was taken by surprise at it. He took the bishop with his pawn.

Hange froze. Was it the wrong move?

It was like all the variations which Hange had thought up just a few seconds ago disappeared from her head. She was blank. She tried to push herself to think beyond that. She desperately looked up at her opponent, for inspiration, something random, unexpected to break the block that materialized in her thinking space.

Moblit’s face was unreadable. His movements were slow, careful. Although Hange recalled a slight tremble in his hands when took her bishop, with the way he looked at the board, Hange could not help but even doubt her own memory.

She looked back down at the board, trying instead to focus on what her next plan would be. Too taken aback and frustrated by her own impulsive decision though, Hange was frozen on the spot.

Her mind had become a blank slate. And that blank slate was what led to a losing end game. When the smoke had cleared, Hange was a clear two pieces down with little to no compensation.

Hange raised one out her hand in surrender. “Thank you for the game.” Hange said.  

Moblit’s eyes were wide in surprise as he took Hange’s hand. “You’re resiging?”

“There’s no way I could win now.”

“The attack was amazing. To be honest, I was a few moves until mate. It looked like you just held back at that last part. If you just brought your knight into the attack. I would have had no way to defend it.”

By the time Moblit had mentioned that last part, the pieces were close to fixed and Hange could not imagine their last position for the life of her. The embarrassment and frustration at having frozen on the spot and having lost so miserably, had her wanting to forget it at that moment. In truth, she knew would have wanted to analyze it in time. The researcher inside her was scolding her for having given up a good opportunity to learn and discover.

That only left Hange more frustrated at the recent developments. Hange pushed aside her chair and grabbed her bag more roughly than she had intended. She actually felt bad for Moblit who had jumped at her movements.

She peeked at her phone. Ten minutes before class is over. “Just tell coach what happened.” Hange said as she walked out.

She had already exited the building and was already strategizing the fastest way to the library where she could prepare for her next class. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked back to see Moblit.

“What do you want?” Hange asked.

“Do you know why your professor made us play?”

“Are you his friend or something?” Hange gave Moblit a onceover. She did not recognize him as a classmate at all.

“I’m part of the chess team actually and we need to recruit an extra player so I asked your professor for help. He said you’d be the best one there. And you play pretty well, so you might be interested.”

“I’ve never played competitively in my life. You’re better off finding someone else.”

“I  think you’re good.” Moblit paused for a moment. “Okay not good good, but good enough to hold your own against seasoned players at least. Just give the team a chance.”

“And how many times a week do you train?” Hange asked, an attempt at proving her inability to commit more than anything else.

“Four times a week.”

Hange thought back to the amount of classes she had, the research she wanted to undertake. “Would I even have time for this.”

“Athletes don’t have to take PE classes so that’s one class off your plate.” Moblit suggested weakly.

That proposition was far from weak in Hange’s eyes though.

                                      En Prise

The chessroom was a small room hidden along the hallways that snaked through the sides of their basketball courts which connected the locker rooms to the stadium. For prestigious universities, with famous basketball teams that expected hoards of fans every season, the gyms were large enough to at least house those confusing mazes of hallways. In fact, Hange soon realized as she followed Moblit through the hallways that she would have never found it through directions alone. Someone really had to guide her through the first time.  

From the entrance of the basketball court, the only way to get there was the narrow hallway that opened up from a doorway she could have mistaken for a janitor's closet.

To her surprise though, the narrow and dark hallways came with echoes of clicks and clacks. As she walked through, the clicks only got louder. Moblit did not look at all bothered by that sound. As Hange followed him into the room at the end of the hallway, she was quick to understand why.

The room was notably spacy when compared to the narrow hallway she had just gone through a while ago. To the corner of the room were four players, three boys and one girl, playing what looked like speed cheese. The source of the clicks, from their quick taps on the clock. The source of the clacks, the sound of pieces hitting the mat spread out on the table.

One particularly large clack rang out as one of the boys in the closer boards slammed his king on the board. "We're playing again!"

"You lost three games in a row already. Just stop trying to sacrifice pieces so recklessly. You're not Levi."

Levi…  

"So this is our chessroom." Moblit said as he guided her in. "And this is our team."

That name was pushed to the back of her mind as Moblit brought her to the table to introduce her to every one of them. Their names went into one ear and out the other though, that one mention of Levi was fighting for control in her mind.

"You mentioned a Levi?"

"Why? You wanna play him?"  The blonde answered, looking particularly annoyed at the mention of that name. "Why don’t you play one of us first?."

"Actually, I have no plans of playing---."

"In fact, I've been practicing Levi's opening lines---" The blonde ended up biting his tongue as the girl next to him pushed him away.

"Sorry for the rude introduction from Oluo over here. My name is Petra. " The girl said.

"She's our new recruit." Moblit answered.

"So you finally found a replacement." The blond man on the other side stood up and walked toward Hange.  "Nice to meet you. Name's Eld."

"Wait what… replacement?"

"Gunther here can't play the season because of grades so we had Moblit try to find us a quick replacement. You have experience playing competitive chess?"

"Online?" Hange suggested.

"You got someone here with no experience playing competitive chess and her first day you bring her is when we have a simulation match with Levi. You might end up having to look for a new recruit after today." The man who had bitten his tongue a while ago looked like he had quickly recovered enough to at least laugh at Hange without wincing.  "Have you at least prepared mentally to get your ass beaten by him?"

Levi… "I feel like I've gotten my ass beaten by this person you're talking about already." Hange replied. There were only so many Levis in the vicinity who play good chess right?

                                        En Prise

Levi had a disinterested look about him which made Hange wonder what went through his head half the time. She could not help but note that that was probably why he played chess so well.

She could never tell if he was taken by surprise. When Levi entered the chess room and made eye contact with her, Hange had to focus most if not all her energy into placating that flash of recognition and softening that boiling feeling inside her. Was it anger? Or was it excitement?

Either way, it manifested as frustration at seeing the Levi's poker face. Did he recognize her?  

“This is Hange Zoe. She’ll be joining our team from today.”

"You owe me money!" Hänge said, louder than she had intended. From her peripherals, she could see Petra jumping in surprise.

"I don't remember owing anyone any money." Levi replied, his tone as disinterested as his face.

"You hustled me." Hange accused.

"I don't hustle people." Levi said calmly.

"This guy is your teammate? This guy plays competitive chess? He hangs out in bars and hustles random people over chess games.” Hange challenged. “And you get this dirty guy to represent our school?

Petra looked uncomfortable. As Hange scanned their faces, she could see they all were looking for something else to focus on.

“Erwin asked me to play all of you today since he can’t make it to training.” Levi turned to Hange. “ WIll you be joining us today?” He had said it so politely and calmly yet  had completely ignored her accusation only a second ago. That was enough to get Hange’s blood boiling.

“She’s our new recruit. I think it would be a good experience if she plays too.” It was Moblit who had answered for her.”

“Wait, play with this dirty man? He might steal my money again.” Hange protested.

Levi sighed. “Zoe, let’s make a deal then, if you beat me here, I’ll give you back the money you bet. How does 500 dollars sound?” So he did recognize her.

500 dollars. That was more than what she had lost for sure. “There must be some catch to this.”

Levi shrugged. “Just stop with these accusations so we don’t waste anymore time. Erwin’s gonna get angry if we don’t finish the game today.”

Hange could only watch as Levi and the other players pulled out a long table from the side and set up chess boards and placed the chess clocks on the table.

Hange sat next to Petra. The latter grabbed the chess clock from Hange’s left side and set it up. “55 minutes with a 10 second increment”

“Everyone has to play their best opening for white. Erwin’s orders.”

“It’s not like you’re actually gonna play a bookline anyway so what’s the point.” Oluo commented.

Everyone ignored him.

Hange watched from her seat as Levi walked through all the tables. From her place she could see that Eld had moved already. What move he was playing, she could not tell. Levi quickly replied to Eld’s first move.

Beside her, Hange could see Petra had played her queen’s pawn forward.

“You have more than enough of an advantage to beat me Zoe. I’m playing five people and you have nothing to lose.” Levi said as he arrived in front of Hange’s board. “Make your move.”

Hange pushed her king’s pawn forward.

Levi stared for a second and raised one eyebrow. A disinterested and judgemental look plastered on his face. Hange could not help but doubt her opening. Is there something wrong with e4?  

Levi replied with b5, the pawn in front of his knight. Hange had never seen that in her life but what she managed to a see a few seconds later was the clear line from bishop to pawn.

She could take it and develop her bishop at the same time. She had read it before. Focus on developing pieces at the opening stages.

Was the pawn free though?   One thing Hange had learned from losing to Levi multiple times though was that Levi could easily turn a piece down position into an attack for himself.

“Hurry up and move Zoe. You’re the only one still in the opening.” Hange jumped to see Levi standing in front of her.

Hange looked to her clock.  30 minutes. She’d been thinking for at least 30 minutes. Or at least trying to think. Her mind was still blank.

“Do you still want your money back?”

That was the provocation Hange needed. She took the pawn with her bishop.

Levi quickly replied by placing his bishop on the square where the pawn was only a second ago.

The clock was ticking for Hange again. Develop your pieces. Hange played Nc3, a normal developing move to defend the pawn. Levi quickly played f5. The past few moves Levi had not left her board and as Hange looked to the others, she could see they were all deep into middlegame positions.

She looked back at the position in front of her. Another free pawn.

“Don’t you have other boards to play?”

“One less board to play if I finish one now.”

Hange took the pawn on f5.

“I’ll teach you how to win a game a rook up.” It took Hange a few minutes to notice it. After Levi had moved his bishop to the take the pawn on her right wing, at the same time threatening to take the rook,  he walked away, leaving Hange with the problem of how to save a trapped rook and the futile loss that came with it. It also gave Hange enough time to reflect, to ponder on the fact that Levi had alluded to one of their games only a week ago. Levi had been down a rook for most of one game yet managed to win.

Hange developed her knight in front of the king, having completely given up on defending the rook. From then on, she had focused on simple development. That was what Levi had done after all, when he was a rook down.

“You gave up pretty fast.” Levi commented only a few moves later.

“I’m still playing.” Hange said. The pieces were all set up but Levi was a clear rook up. From then on, Levi had not left her table in the simulation match. Levi’s material advantage only increasing from that point. The same pattern, it was definitely not as slow as it had been back in the bar when Hange was always a piece up. The advancement of Levi’s forces on the board were rapid

She found herself spending a few seconds looking at the board of Petra to see the material advantage was equal.

She couldn’t even do that much. Hange found herself playing faster and faster. It could have been from frustration or from the desire to have that humiliation end. Levi only entertained that in her as he matched her speed.

“It’s good manners to resign when you’re losing Zoe.”

Hange did not even have time to organize her forces. A black knight had planted itself in the middle of the board and the black queen was staring down at her uncastled white king.

Hange did not need to look up to feel it. Everyone’s eyes were on her and Hange chose to wait. Eventually, Levi walked away from the board and she could hear the clack and the click as he moved the pieces and pressed the clock. Then more footsteps then the clack and the click again.

Levi never did go back to her board. He didn’t need too. Hange only had to look at the clock next to her to know the game would be over soon.

“Resign.” It was Petra who resigned soon after her clock hit zero. Oluo resigned a few minutes after.

When Hange finally looked up, she could see Moblit, Oluo and Petra gathered around the board between Eld and Levi. Eld had his hands to his head while Levi just stood waiting, looking as disinterested and uninvested as he always did.

From her angle, she could not see what had happened on the board, but as she heard the sound of a piece slamming into the board, soon followed by Eld standing up, she knew it was over. Levi had beaten all of them in a sweep.  

“It’s getting late.”

Petra and Oluo had gathered up their pieces into the middle of the chess mats while Moblit and Eld

“Just keep a record of your games. Erwin will look through them.”

“Record?” Hange only noticed then, that there papers on top of the board as well.

“I forgot to tell you... I’m sure Erwin won’t mind if you didn’t have one, it’s your first day after all.” Moblit said, his tone apologetic.

“I’ll help her replay the game. You three can go ahead.”

Soon, it was just the two of them in the room.  

“Do you even know how to record games?”

“I learned in PE class but it gets confusing.”

“I’ll write it down for you to save you time.” Levi said as he set up a board in front of her. He soon replayed the game one by one, pausing to write on the board every few moves, not even bothering to ask her if he had recalled it correctly.

He had set up on the board the moment his bishop took her rook. He replayed her next move when she had developed the knight in front of her king, making sure to tap the piece multiple times on the board before writing it down. The face he made as he did that, only clued Hange in to the fact that it was probably the wrong move. “You gave up too easily.” Levi commented

“I was a rook down.”

“If we switched boards I could have won this position.” Levi said as he continued to play quickly through it.  He stopped at one familiar position, having opened a clear path for the knight to plant itself on the middle of the board. “The game is already lost at this point. There’s no need to analyze it.” Levi explained. He wrote out the last few moves on the paper, not bothering to play them out.

“You didn’t need to point it out.” Hange said as she watched Levi push the pieces towards the middle of the board. “Thank you for doing it though.” The words were difficult to say. Hange only found the strength to say it as Levi returned the board to the box on the side of the room.  

“It just bothers me. For someone who is so willing to play ten games in a row, you give up too easily on the board.” Levi shrugged.  “At least, I got some money out of it.”

“So you admit you were hustling me.”  

“You were winning in all your games. You just managed to fuck up in the middle and lost some money, that’s all there is to it.”

#levihan #levi ackerman #hange zoe #levi x hange

[hex6rcist]

The original ask for this was accidentally deleted so here it is in a post. The ask was along the lines of: Jin meeting reader when they start a conversation with him out of the blue. They go from friend, to FWB, to a relationship. Can be NSFW. I believe the asker was @slobbynblobby​ 

This ended up way longer than I had thought because I went with a weird format that isn’t really a fic but also isn’t really headcanons? So I hope that’s cool. Hope you enjoy. <3 

TW: Alcohol, nsfw, drunk sex 

WC: 4,200+

Jin x [F!] Reader Developing Relationship

First Meeting

Jin isn’t one to strike up a conversation with strangers in public. If he could help it he would actually avoid speaking in public at all. His tic makes it particularly difficult for him to communicate with anyone who doesn’t know him well enough and can often times embarrass him in public, so he’d rather just keep his mouth shut. 

However he won’t be outright cold to anyone out and about who tries to talk to him. He’ll do his best to give lost strangers directions, he’ll excuse himself if he bumps someone, he’ll thank the person at the checkout counter. He’s not a dick. If anything he can just come off as curt as he tries to keep his ticing to an unoffensive minimum. 

When you sit next to him on the late night train he gives a polite bob of his head but that’s about it. It was never a problem for him if he was brusque in a public setting because no one expected much more. But you sat for a while, fiddling with the end of your shirt and letting your eyes wander around the train. Being late it wasn’t as packed as usual but everyone was still seated close together. Idly you two bump knees. 

Jin draws his knees in closer, eyes shifting over to see if he’d bothered you. He was surprised when you were looking right back at him. Your nose twitched in a way that Jin thought was cute but could have possibly been an indication of disgust. His eyes quickly shifted away and he mumbled a short, “Sorry.” 

You give a small smirk. “Never apologize mister, it’s a sign of weakness.” He’s a little taken aback by the response, unsure of what to say to that. “I take it you’ve never heard of John Wayne huh?” He simply shook his head no and your nose gave another one of those cute twitches. “He’s an American actor form the 1940s. He was in a bunch of these cool western films, ya know the ones about cowboys? And he always plays these tough guys who say cool shit like, ‘Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.’” You’d struck your best tough guy face and put on a drawl, making Jin chuckle lightly. A little smile plays on your face too. You like his laugh and wanna hear more.    

You chat for so long Jin is actually surprised when the train comes to a halt and you start to grab your things. “Sorry, my stop. It was nice talking to you. Maybe I’ll see you again.” All he can get out is a pretty lame, “Oh, bye.” before you’re gone. In the silence you left him in he’s not sure how to feel. One part of him is glad that he’d gotten through a pretty normal conversation with a perfect stranger on the train. He felt normal which was refreshing. But another part of him wanted to kick himself for not getting your number or at least your name. 

Second Meeting

Jin wouldn’t want to outright admit that he was looking for you but he would say he ended up on that particular train more often than he would have before. The week passes by without a sighting and he comes close to giving up, he’s really starting to feel a little creepy. But that Friday night just before the train was about to depart you slide through the doors before they could close with a relieved sigh. Jin could feel his heart in his throat. Would you even remember him let alone sit by him again? Maybe you were just being polite that night. 

Sure enough when you recognize the cute blonde guy you’d chatted up just last week sitting in the same spot he’d been in before you don’t hesitate to flop down in the space next to him. “Hey there, good to see you again. I realized I didn’t introduce myself before I got off last time and felt so rude. Especially after you let me talk your ear off. I’m y/n!” Jin really couldn’t believe his luck. “I’m Jin.” “No I’m not!”  He flinched slightly at his outburst. Last time he saw you he had been doing well for a while but things tended to change fast with him. Once again Jin noticed your nose crinkle a bit but you ignored his outburst. “Jin, I like that name. It suits you.” 

Just like last time you spend the whole ride chatting. Jin doesn’t let on that he’d come to take this train every night since you met just to see you but you reveal to him that you work the late shift at a bar in Kamino Ward So you always take this train back home on the weekends. He decides that makes sense for you, the kinda girl who starts a conversation with a stranger on the train, to work at a bar. “Why do you take this train?” Obviously he doesn’t want to tell you what his business in that part of the city is so he settles on saying he also works in the area but takes the late train home because he likes to hang out at the bar after work. 

This time when you get up to leave he’s a little more ready, It’s the same stop you got off at last time. “It was nice talking again Jin! You should come by my bar some time. I’ll buy you a drink. I work tomorrow night if you’re interested.” With a little wave he watches you hop off the train. He can’t help but smile the whole way back to his shitty motel. Sure he hadn’t manned up enough to ask for your number yet, but at least now he didn’t have to feel like a stalker. 

Becoming Friends

The night after your second meeting Jin had decided to come and meet you at the bar. He was glad when he realized it was more of a small dive and not one of the clubs with a thrumming bass. This definitely suited him better. Though it was still a Saturday night and the place was kind of packed he was able to find a seat at the end of the bar. When you noticed him you couldn’t help but be excited. “You came!” You made your way to him, cutting your conversation short with another man. You being so excited to see him and the dirty look the guy shot him went to Jin’s head juuuuust a little bit if he was being honest. 

“Okay, okay let me think. I’m so good at guessing what people like to drink so don’t tell me okay!” He gives a short nod, “Alright impress me.” You stand back and act like you’re framing him up in a camera shot while he makes goofy poses. “Mhm, yeah, that’s good, yup. Okay! I got it!” You throw open one of the coolers and pull out the cheapest beer you got before cracking it open and placing it in front of him. “Oh, you are good.” “Whaddaya think I’m cheap?” You giggle and shrug, “Not cheap, just not one for frills, beer is beer.” This time when your nose wrinkles he realized it for what it was, a little tic of your own.

Jin ends up at the bar with you every weekend and every time he comes you’re just as excited as the first. What had started off as a chance meeting on the train turned into a friendship. He loved to watch you work, effortlessly juggling social situations in a way he couldn’t imagine doing. You really were a people person and he just really liked that about you. 

Though his favorite part of the weekend really had to be when the two of you walked to the train together. It was strangely intimate to share such a casual routine with you. And he was glad he could. He really didn’t like the thought of you making the walk to the train on your own that late at night in that part of the city. He knew you could take care of yourself, he’d seen you break up plenty of bar altercations, but he also knew what kind of threats stalked these streets and with your friendly nature he worries someone might lure you in. 

The biggest thing Jin noticed once he spent more time with you is just how damn friendly you could be. You were downright kind in a way he didn’t often see. You were the kind of girl who’d give a bum your last dollar, your last cigarette, and ask about their day. It always took him aback that in a world like this someone as sweet as you could exist. 

FWB

Jin knew he was attracted to you. He knew as soon as he met you. Though if he was being more honest he’d say it wasn’t as much an attraction as it was a crush. You were funny, smart, beautiful, sweet, the whole package really. and he knows he’s not the only one interested. Plenty of other men at the bar vied for your attention, leaving large tips and their phone numbers or leaning over the bar just to get closer to you. It made him glad you never really drank at work. He didn’t want anyone to try and take advantage. 

That’s why he was shocked to see you downing shots with one of your other regulars when he entered the bar one Sunday night. You frantically gesture for him to come join you and the small group of regulars at that end of the bar, opposite where he’d normally sit. He approached shyly. He knew some faces and some names but never chose to interact much with other customers, much preferring your company. But you happily introduced him to the group before revealing it was one of the patron’s birthdays. Later you two would remember this as the night that Jin met party y/n.

Needless to say you all got pretty trashed, buying the birthday boy, Jin, and yourself shots. By the end of the night you had a hard enough time closing up the bar on your own Jin jumped in to help put up chairs and mop while you focused heavily on counting the till and pulling the money you spent past your comp tab out of your tips. 

It really wasn’t until you two had gotten on the train that you both realized how drunk you were. You head lolled onto his shoulder as you two tried to quell fits of giggles, much to the annoyance of the other passengers. When your stop rolled around you both agreed it’d be safest if Jin walked you home. 

At first it didn’t really hit you but the closer you got to home the more you started to think. Should you invite him in? You looked at Jin from the corner of you eye. He wasn’t the only one with a crush. You knew you wanted to invite him in and you were just drunk enough to take the leap. But then how clean was your apartment right now? Did you leave you underwear from this morning on the floor? Is your makeup all over the bathroom counter? All these thoughts abandoned ship however when you reached your door. Jin shifted from foot to foot awkwardly while you fumbled with your keys. Finally you got them in the lock and opened the door. Moment of truth. “You wanna come in?” 

You two were barely through the door when your lips found his. Neither of you was sure who’d leaned in first and neither of you cared. In an instant your hands were all over each other. Groping, caressing, feeling it seemed neither of you could get enough. Your nails raked through his hair and his strong hands had found their way under the hem of your shirt to grab your waist. The feeling of his hands on your bare skin is all it took to finally get the two of you out of the entryway and stumbling towards your room. 

You both laughed lightly as you guided him by the hand through your dark apartment, tripping over nothing and bumping into walls and each other. When you two finally reach your room he’s pleasantly surprised by the way you push him down onto the bed and climb on top of him. He’s almost thankful for his inebriated state and the confidence it gave him. While your lips pressed to his neck, kissing and nipping, his hands found their way to your ass, giving a firm squeeze. 

Both you and Jin eagerly shucked off each other’s clothing. Once you were naked and laying below Jin you couldn’t help but feel just a little shy, cheeks tinting pink. He let his hands glide along the length of your body before they found your hips and squeezed. “You’re so beautiful.” “I’m gonna fuck you so good.” Your lower lip caught between your teeth as Jin lowered his head to start kissing down your stomach, the tickle of his scruff making you giggle. 

Jin settled himself between your legs, his broad shoulders keeping them spread for him. Just before his lips found the spot where you wanted them most he took a detour to nip playfully at your inner thigh. You gave a little yelp your toes curling as you giggled again. “Jin! Don’t tease me.” Not wanting to leave a pretty girl waiting he finally let his tongue lave up the length of your wet cunt, just to get a taste of you. His tongue found it’s way to your clit, circling around the sensitive bud in a way that made you moan. Your head fell back onto your pillow as your thighs squeezed to trap Jin’s head. Not that he minded. His large calloused fingers probed shyly at your entrance, feeling how wet you are from his treatment. He pulled back just long enough to press his fingers to your mouth. You part plush lips to take his fingers in and suck on them. He moaned, the feeling sending a shock though his system. He loved how you looked right then, eyes glazed with lust and his fingers in your mouth. He slowly thrust them in and out, letting you get them nice and prepped before he couldn’t wait any more. “Good girl.” “You’re such a slut.” Eagerly Jin returned to his spot between your thighs. He gave himself the privilege of watching one of his fingers enter your tight pussy. Even though it was only his fingers he couldn’t stop the satisfied sigh that fell form his lips before he went back to your clit. 

Jin made sure you were well and satisfied before finally standing and pulling you to the edge of the bed. He gave his achingly hard dick a few stroked before slowly pushing it inside you. “Oh fuck!” The way your thighs quivered and your voice hitched was enough to drive him crazy. He wanted nothing more than to pound into you but he held it together. He wanted you to enjoy it as much as him. He locked eyes with you and let his hands cup your face. He thrust slow and hard, groaning softly. “You feel so fucking good, y/n.” “I wanna make you scream for me.” Jin’s cock stretched you so good you could only reply in small whimpers and moans. Your hand found the back of Jin’s head pulling him so close your foreheads touch before you lock lips in a heated kiss. 

When you finally adjust your legs wrap tightly around his hips and you press yourself farther into him. Jin gladly takes the cue and his hips begin to move at a brutal pace. The first hard thrust arches your back and rips a loud moan from you. He sits up, one hand pinning your hips to the bed and the other rubbing unrelenting circles on your clit. You’ve only just started and you can already feel an intense orgasm rippling through your body, making your legs tremble. The feeling of your pussy clenching around him only spurred Jin on further. 

The next morning Jin’s head was pounding. He squinted against the harsh light of the sun and buried his face into your chest. ‘... Wait...’ He shot up with a small gasp before looking around the room. It took him a moment to remember exactly what happened last night but the pieces slowly clicked together. He looked down at your still naked form, snoring softly next to him. He slowly lowered himself back down, laying on his side. He brushed your hair out of your face and took in your sleeping face. 

After that night you two had an admittedly awkward morning. You made coffee and some greasy breakfast food to quell your monster hangovers but you couldn’t ignore what had happened the night before. You also couldn’t ignore the lingering touches and eye contact between you two. Finally after eating and getting a few cups of coffee down Jin trapped you between his body and the kitchen counter. His fingers raked through your hair before cupping your cheek. Any resolve you had to not do this again was quickly replaced by need as you pull Jin in for a deep kiss. 

It would go on like this for the next 3 months. Stumbling back to your apartment on drunken nights, stealing kisses in alleyways, playful pinches and squeezes. You two had both tried to stop what was happening but you just couldn’t keep your hands off of each other after that first night. You’d both agreed to enjoy whatever this casual sexual relationship was for now. You were having fun and there was no reason to read too much into it. 

Relationship

“Hey Jin you going to see your girlfriend? When do we get to meet her?” Toga’s questions threw him through a loop. ‘Girlfriend.’ The word made him nervous but excited. And well at this point he really wouldn’t say that you weren’t his girlfriend. Neither of you was really sure when it happened, but it just dawned on you both one day that things had just gotten more serious. Nights of stumbling back to your apartment to hook up turned slowly into walking home hand in hand to watch a movie on the couch. You now cooked more meals together instead of just breakfast. Hot, passionate kisses turned to slow, sweet smooches. In the end though neither of you minded all that much. It was nice. Comfortable. “Yeah I am.” “You’ll never meet her!” 

That night when Jin met you at the bar he found it hard to keep his heartbeat steady. That word just wouldn’t leave his mind, ‘girlfriend.’ You crack open a beer and place it in front of him before leaning over the bar to press a chaste kiss to his lips. It had become more common for you to greet him with little kisses and sweet hugs. That had to mean you felt the same right? You were both on the same page? 

At the end of the night it took all of Jin’s courage. But once the bar was closed down and you two was sharing one last beer in the dim light he decided now was the best time. “Y/n, you know how I feel about you right?” Your nose crinkled in the way he loved and your cheeks flushed. “I think I have a pretty good idea...” Jin nodded, “Good because I want us to be on the same page. I want you to be my girlfriend.” God that word made your heart flutter. You wrap your arms around his neck and lean in for a sweet kiss. “Mmh, I like the sound of that.” 

Dating Jin most days was like a dream. He was handsome, funny, and loving. He wanted nothing more than to make you happy and you wanted to do the same for him. In a lot of ways he surprised you. A healthy and loving relationship wasn’t an easy find these days. That being said you knew Jin had his problems, you did too. No one was perfect. You two had a long discussion about what exactly to do when Jin had one of his episodes and that’s when he showed you his mask. If he was going to be with you he wanted to be honest. Finding out about the League was a hard pill to swallow but one you were willing to take. You had your own issues with the way this superhuman society was canted and you could understand why Jin did what he did. But it made you worry for him, not just for his physical safety but his emotional wellbeing too.

Jin had decided that the best way to make you feel better about the situation would be to introduce you to the league. They had really become his family and so had you. He figured if you could see firsthand what kind of support he had it’d put you at ease. So that’s how you ended up hanging out in an abandoned bar with some of Japan’s most wanted criminals. It was a little uncomfortable at first but the setting was familiar to you. Your attitude quickly put everyone at ease, and seeing Jin so happy definitely helped. 

Toga was probably the quickest to take to you. She was a romantic after all and she really felt that you and Jin were a perfect match. And you were so cute too! A little fact that didn’t escape Dabi’s attention. He made sure to give Jin a good clap on the back for that though he otherwise seemed uninterested in you. The others regarded you politely but with apprehension. Jin could be a little too trusting for a villain sometimes. Though no one would deny that you were a very cute couple, other than a disgruntled Shigaraki who’d only really agreed to this so Toga would stop asking. 

 After the first meeting Jin’s life fell into a kind of weird harmony. He moved out of his shitty motel and into your small apartment. He liked not hiding anything from you and feeling completely accepted for who he was. He knew his life would never be normal or peaceful but this was fulfilling, and that’s all a guy like him could ever ask for.  

#jin bubaigawara #jin bubaigawara x reader #twice #twice x reader #twice bnha #bnha imagines #bnha headcanons #bnha scenarios

[honeybeeespeaks]

Room 205

gif by @pedropcl

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Part One

Word Count: 3498

Warnings: Alcohol and drug consumption, uhhh that’s it I think? Lemme know lol

Summary: Javier Peña is back in his hometown and it’s the last place he wants to be right now. Tonight he meets someone that might change his mind.

P.s. the formatting might suck cause I’m on mobile soz babes♥️

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This was, quite possibly, the last place Javier wanted to be tonight. He wasn’t the biggest fan of crowds or attention and yet here he was. At a party his old college friend Drew insisted they throw in honor of Javier’s return and success in taking down the Cali godfathers. Not to mention his new supervisory role at the Texas office. Which only meant one thing to the town. Javier Peña was back again. Drew had the decency to ask of course and Javier gave him the exact opposite of a positive response.

“No.”

Clearly that didn’t get him very far as he now stood in Drew’s living room, sipping a beer while people continuously came up to him and shared their thanks or praise. He tried to put on a good face. These were the people he grew up with after all. He was supposed to be having a good time. Right? He watched the room as others mingled with each other. It was his nature now. His guard was always a little bit up. The things he’d seen in Colombia were things out of nightmares. He’d seen a teenager get shot in the head for Christ’s sake. As much as he tried to push that image out of his head, it always came back on the bad nights. It wasn’t as bad with Cali, but there were still bodies. Javier had seen too much to come back to this life and act as if everything was normal. Like he was the same as he was before all of it. These people didn’t know him at all anymore.

His eyes stopped on a stranger in the sea of recognizable faces. He blinked a few times, squinting a bit. He knew everyone in this house. He had to know her. He looked down for a moment then up again only to meet her eye from her spot across the room. A tiny smile graced her lips after noticing how he jumped just a little bit. She kept her gaze for a few moments before moving it to the floor then back to her friend. A hand slapping down on Javier’s shoulder took his attention away from her and he let out a big breath. He had been holding his breath?

“Javi! Man it is so good to see you...” the man’s voices faded in and out of Javier’s ears. It was always the same words. “We’re all so proud of you man. You’re a hero. What you did was incredible.” His response was a broken record.

“Thank you, it’s good to see you too.” It would end there with a ‘have a good night’ unless they engaged in other conversation. Javier preferred the former.

Excusing himself and making his way to the coolers on one side of the room, he grabbed another beer and popped the top. He took a long sip before surveying the room again. Save for one or two faces, he grew up with every single one of these people. He remembered almost daily lunches with Mark and Amanda during junior year, skipping classes with Joey to get high past the football fields, breaking into the city pool with Jessica to make out and nearly being caught by the cops. He’d sprained his ankle that night hopping the fence to run. God, he was getting old.

His eyes once again found her. He made a trail down her body, clocking her little black tank top and high waisted jean shorts that hugged her in ways that made Javier stand up straighter and clear his throat. She turned her head and their eyes locked again. Shit. He looked away before she did and turned, sweeping the room for Drew. He didn’t know why it was beginning to bother him so much that he couldn’t place her. But he was determined now to know for sure. Once he spotted him, he grabbed an extra beer and made his way over. Drew turned his head to Javier as he tapped the beer bottle against his arm once. He nodded and took the beer from Javier’s hand.

“Hey....who’s that with Rosie?” He nodded his head toward Drew’s wife and the stranger across the room. “Was she a few grades below us or something?” Drew took a swig of his beer and followed Javier’s eyes.

“Oh no she showed up about a week or two ago, Rose said her name was uh...” he snapped his fingers after a moment toward Javier. “Nell. She’s a new teacher at the elementary school. Rosie invited her.”

Her name fell from Javier’s lips quietly as his eyes stayed on her for a moment. He watched as she threw her head back in laughter at something Rose said, her brunette waves falling like liquid off her shoulders.

“Hey Javi,” Drew interrupted Javier’s stare. “Don’t even try.” He laughed a little bit. “Rosie says she’s...something.” He shook his head once and took another sip of his beer. His eyebrow raised as he looked to Drew then back to Nell. Something huh?

He didn’t know how long he’d been at this house but the constant words of celebration were just about getting to him. He needed something stronger than beer, needed a cigarette, a good fuck, anything else. As he made his way toward the back door he was stopped by Drew’s hand. Fucking hell, he just needed a cigarette. Instead he was being dragged to the center of the living room where, conveniently, a group had gathered around the two of them. Drew held up his cup and shushed everybody. Oh god, here we go.

“Ladies and gentlemen! I’d like to thank you for being here tonight to celebrate our brother Javi’s homecoming.” A small cheer was let out amongst the crowd before the speech continued. Drew slung an arm around Javier’s shoulders as he spoke. The words were, no surprise, the same as they had been all night. He tried his best to not cringe when his ear caught the word ‘hero.’ He spotted Nell in the crowd and watched as she widened her eyes sarcastically with a smirk before sipping her drink. Her eyes met his for the third time that night and she hid her giggle with her hand as Drew continued to sing Javier’s praises. She shook her head lightly before sipping her drink again and moving her eyes to the ground. Javier’s mouth formed into a smile as he watched her. He was glad someone else thought this was as absolutely ridiculous as he did.

Once the crowd cheered one last time and everybody drank to Javier, he slipped out of Drew’s grip and made his way to the back door. He slid the glass door open and slipped through before closing it behind him. Nell watched him and waited a few moments before excusing herself from the group she was with and following his trail out the back door. She was met with the back of him, his arms leaning on the railing of the deck. She watched as an orange glow appeared in front of him followed by a trail of smoke floating above his head. She made sure to make her presence known by closing the sliding door a little louder than normal and he stood up straight, glancing over his shoulder. He stopped before he turned around fully to face her. She walked over to the spot next to him, leaning her back against the railing. An eyebrow was raised at her as he pulled out his pack of cigarettes and held it open to her. She shook her head lightly and he shrugged, sliding the pack into his back pocket. He turned back and rested his weight on his elbows, looking out toward the empty field behind the house. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

“This isn’t really your thing is it?” Nell spoke, gesturing vaguely toward the house. “All the attention.” A sharp chuckle escaped him before he pulled from his cigarette, exhaling toward the sky. His head dipped before he turned to look at her.

“God, it’s that obvious huh?”

“No. You’re doing pretty well actually.” she spoke with a light giggle. “I grew up with performers though so, I can tell when someone’s faking. I do have to say though, you don’t look like a hero.” He breathed out a laugh and shook his head.

“Wow, thank you. Your vote of confidence is overwhelming.” he pulled from his cigarette again. She laughed a little, shaking her head.

“That’s not what I meant. ‘Heroes’ are proud.” She used air quotes when she used the word. “You’re not proud.” Her smile had fallen but her gaze kept on his face. Almost admiring him. He stiffened slightly at her words and shot her a glance before swallowing hard. He looked back out to the empty field, taking another drag. She nodded a few times before fixing her gaze to the back of the house. Exhaling, he turned his head, letting his eyes wander down her body and back up as she leaned against the porch. He stood straight up as he put out the butt on the railing.

“Javier Peña.” he offered his hand for her to shake. Her head lazily rolled to look at him and she huffed out a short laugh.

“I know who you are, Agent.” she gave a devilish smirk before taking his hand and shaking it once. “Nell James.”

“Right..sorry..” he chuckled a little before letting her hand go. He ran his hands over his face and groaned softly. “Oh I’m getting tired of this. The shit that happened there, things I saw...things I did...” A sad chuckle escaped him as he turned and rested his elbows on the railing again. His sad smile fell and his voice reduced itself to a near whisper. “Nothing close to a cause for celebration.” She looked to the ground for a moment before turning to match his position. Her head fell back slightly and her eyes fixed themselves on the night sky. Silence fell upon them again. It wasn’t at all an awkward silence and truthfully, Javier appreciated it. Everything had been so busy, so loud for so long now. He couldn’t help but find peace in moments like these. Nell spoke softly, as if she’d disturb the universe if she spoke any louder.

“It’ll fade. The adoration, the noise. The memories...” She paused and Javier swallowed hard. “Like everything does, it’ll take time. But time isn’t the thief people think. It gives before it takes. Really, a gift.” She turned her head to look at him and gave him a soft smile before pushing off the railing. He didn’t speak, just watched her as she began down the stairs that led off the porch, into the empty field. She continued further as she met the beginning edge of the tall grass. She turned and looked at him, a playful smile laid on her lips. “You coming?”

Javier stood up straight, his mouth opening to speak before he shut it instead. He looked back toward the party then to her once more. He couldn’t help but smile at how she looked. The light from the moon illuminated the field, turning her into some kind of deity. He swallowed the rest of the beer before putting it down on the railing with a thud.

“Yeah.” he gave a nod as he followed her path down the stairs. She looked to the ground with a smile as he made his way over to her, her gaze trailing back up to the night sky as they began their trek into the field.

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“I grew up sort of everywhere.” She shrugged, looking ahead of them. “Parents were musicians, actors, dancers, jugglers...” she giggled a little bit, shaking her head. “Whatever type of performance you can think of, my parents did it for money. So we traveled my entire life. Lived in an old school bus, mom homeschooled me. Gave me my passion for teaching.” she smiled fondly at the thought, glancing down to the ground. “My parents retired when I was in my early early 20’s. Got a house and everything. I could hardly believe it. I couldn’t have a life like that yet so they let me have the bus.” she shrugged and glanced at him. Javier’s smile was warm. He watched her as she spoke, noting how her eyes lit up when talking about her childhood. They’d been walking for nearly 15 minutes and for the first time in however long Javier could remember, he hadn’t stopped smiling. “What about you? Obviously you’re from here.” her arm waved in the direction of the house. “But why come back to Texas if you wanted to get away so badly?”

“My dad.” he answered with almost no thought. “After Cali...” he shook his head and sighed. “Let’s just say I needed a break. Dad needed help on the ranch,” he shrugged. “Seemed like a good fit. Then they offered me the position in the Texas office. It saved me from being out of a job and let me have the time with my dad, so I accepted. Yours sounds like quite the life though.” he shook his head, stopping in his stride. He looked up at the stars. “How’d you end up in a place like this?”

“I like it here.” She smiled small, stopping to meet him and following his gaze to admire the sky. “It’s quiet, slow..” she let her eyes fall to his face. “The teaching thing here kind of just fell into my lap so I made my way here from a gig in Ohio.” Javier’s gaze met hers as she continued to speak. “Rosie’s been trying to get me to mingle since I got here.” She shook her head with a laugh. “Hence my presence at your lovely celebration.” she half curtsied and he chuckled, shaking his head once.

“Is it too much to tell you I’m grateful?”

“Oh not at all. Most people are.” She shot him a wink before she slipped her hand into her shorts pocket and pulled out a lighter and a joint. She held it between her lips as she lit it, pulling slowly as she slid her lighter back into her shorts. Javier stared at her with wide eyes, quickly calming as he continued to watch her. A smirk danced along his lips, his gaze flickering down her body then back up, his hands coming to rest on his hips.

“Hm, bold.” he nodded in her direction. She took a long hit then eyed him with a wicked smirk.

“Are you going to arrest me Agent Peña?” She exhaled the smoke to the side of them and raised an eyebrow before turning to walk ahead of him. He watched how her hips moved, his eyes falling to her ass. He sucked in a sharp breath at how the too short shorts shaped it. His head fell as he let out a breathy laugh, shaking his head.

“Oh christ.” he spoke under his breath, moving quickly to catch up with her. Something was an understatement to describe this girl. She made him feel like he was in his early 20s again. His heart was beating just a little too fast. He was intrigued, to say the least. She stopped walking again once he’d caught up. She took a couple of puffs, exhaling slowly toward the sky. Her eyes drifted up, locking onto the stars. They found constellations as her high settled in. Suddenly, he grabbed the joint from her hand and her head snapped toward him. Panic in her eyes until he smiled at her. “I won’t tell if you won’t.” He raised both eyebrows at her before bringing the joint to his lips, making her eyes go wide for a moment. She bit down on her bottom lip, trying to hide a smile as he pulled a long hit. He held it in for a second before he coughed, a hand coming to his knee, exhaling as ungracefully as he could. A loud giggle escaped her as he coughed a bit more, holding the joint out for her to take.

“Long time since you last got high, Agent?” she couldn’t suppress her giggle as she went to inhale again. He coughed once more and shook his head a few times slowly. He lifted his head and pointed a finger at her.

“Hush over there. Or I’ll have you arrested.” he shot her a wink that made her blush and turn away. God that was so cheesy. What effect did this man have on her?

“I would love to see you try.”

He gave her a wicked grin before he glanced down at his watch and cursed under his breath. “Fuck, It’s getting late. We oughta head back.” She nodded as she exhaled another hit she’d taken, holding the joint out for him. He laughed and shook his head. “Generous girl, but I think I should stick to one.”

“Suit yourself.” she shrugged and took another hit, letting out a small sound of satisfaction as she exhaled that made Javier’s breath hitch in his throat. He swallowed thickly, trying to make his mind go anywhere else other than to the thought of how she’d look writhing beneath him. He stood up a bit straighter, attempting to cover up the bulge that was now making itself obvious in his tight blue jeans. She eyed him as she blew smoke to the sky and couldn’t help the smirk that formed on her mouth. His eyes stayed on her as she brought a finger to her mouth. His lips parted slightly as he watched her run her tongue along the pad of her index finger. She pressed the wet digit to the joint, extinguishing the light. Her eyes met his with a cheeky grin. He blinked once and let out a breathy chuckle, trying to snap himself out of this. Shaking his head, he held out his hand toward her.

“Let’s go.” He nodded his head back toward the house. She let out a giggle that made Javier feel warm and she walked over to him, slapping his open hand playfully before beginning to walk ahead of him. He watched her as she moved ahead, a glance thrown back at him after a moment.

“Hey, you said it, let’s go old man.” She called back with a wink and laughed again as she continued to walk

“Loquita.” He shook his head and breathed with a smile before jogging to catch up with her.

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As they stepped inside, Javier let out a sigh of relief. A lot of people had left since the mini escape he’d made with Nell and people were continuing to leave. Nell had separated from him as soon as they walked inside to find Rosie. She needed to reassure her she hadn’t been taken against her own will. Nell had only known Rosie for a few weeks but she knew that’s exactly the conclusion she’d jump to. Javier gave a few more thank yous and goodbyes as people came up to him on their way out the door. He found Nell amongst the remaining party members and watched her as she now made her rounds, passing goodbyes to people she’d met throughout the night. She’d landed back with Drew and Rosie, hugs and words exchanged before he saw her turn and make her way back over to him.

“And where’s the traveler off to now?” he questioned with a sly smile. She shook her head and giggled at him.

“Just to where I keep my stuff for right now.” she rolled her eyes playfully. He went to speak but instead blinked in surprise when she grabbed his hand. She turned it over and began writing something on his palm in blue ink, earning a cheesy smile from Javier. “I don’t really sleep...and I have a feeling you don’t much either.” she shrugged when she finished writing, looking at him as she capped her pen. “If you wanna talk...or whatever. I’ll be up.” she smiled before dropping his hand. “See you around, Javier.” she gave a smile and turned away. He brought the inked hand up to his face and read the name of the motel outloud, a smile forming on his face. He looked up when he realized that was all she wrote. He moved quickly out the front door to see her getting on the bus she’d described earlier in the night.

“Nell! You never wrote what number!” he called after her, holding up his hand to show her. She turned back in surprise and a giggle escaped her, shaking her head lightly. She called back to him before closing the doors.

“Room 205!” Javier watched as the bus pulled away and he looked down at the scribble on his hand again. He let out a light laugh, shaking his head to himself.

“Okay..” he breathed. “Room 205.”

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@coredrive @stevieharrrr @pascalplease @keeper0fthestars

Feedback is always appreciated🙊♥️

#oookay here it finally is #🤗 #i really really REALLY love this #i hope you do too♥️ #room 205 #javier peña fanfic #javier peña x oc #javier peña fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #oc #javier peña #narcos

[quickspinner]

I’ll Give You the Stars - Ch 1 Paying it Forward

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

I’ve been meaning for some time to transfer my multichapter works over here as well as on AO3, so if you’ve already been on my AO3 site, I’m afraid these are nothing new, but if you haven’t, here you go! I’ll be posting chapters as I have time. These are all complete, it’s just making time for setting up the post and formatting for Tumblr, so, if you get impatient, you can find me under this same username on AO3 and read the whole thing at once.

This particular story was written before most of Season 3 came out so there’s a few things that might not track perfectly, but I hope you enjoy anyway.

Summary:

The members of Kitty Section has been planning to go to this Jagged Stone concert for ages, but Luka doesn’t understand why Juleka drags him to the venue hours early until one Marinette Dupain-Cheng appears with a surprise that could change his life — a chance to impress Jagged Stone.

“You set all this up for me? I— why?” It was a stupid question, he knew that the moment it was out of his mouth. This was Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She couldn’t have done anything else.

“I told you we were going to get here way too soon,” Luka sighed as he walked beside his sister up the stairs of the concert venue. “I don’t get why you insisted on leaving so early.”

Juleka’s mumbled response was unintelligible but there was something about the way she dipped her head forward to let her hair fall across her face that made Luka think she was laughing at him.

He shook his head and spread his hands. “Well, we’re here, so what now?” He had dressed for the heat and the crowd, swapping his usual layered look for his black Kitty Section t-shirt, which was both lightweight and perfectly fitted. He sort of wished he hadn’t abandoned his favorite sneakers for combat boots, but the last time he’d worn sneakers in a concert crowd, he’d taken a stiletto to the instep that left him limping for a week.  Even with the changes, standing out in the summer sun for hours was not something he was excited about.

Juleka ignored him, texting on her phone. Luka shook his head and took a guitar pick out of his pocket, feeling the hard edges press into his fingers as he turned it in his hand. The band members had made plans weeks ago to attend this Jagged Stone concert, but Luka was sure the rest of Kitty Section wouldn’t be here for at least an hour. He didn’t understand why Juleka was acting so weird.

Suddenly Juleka looked up from her phone, scanning the milling pedestrians. “Here she comes.”

“Here who—oh,” he said, and shoved his sister lightly when Juleka chuckled. “I’m so gonna get you for this,” he told her under his breath as Marinette bounced up to them.

“You can thank me later,” Juleka told him, elbowing his ribs in retaliation for his shove. She stepped forward to greet her friend.

Marinette was wearing a black leggings and a Jagged Stone t-shirt a couple of sizes too big so that it hung off one shoulder, artfully ripped in places to expose the pink tank top she had on underneath.  Her hair was in a messy bun on top of her head and her bangs were gelled back in spikes off of her forehead. She had a canvas tote with the bakery logo on it looped over her shoulder, a smile a mile wide—and his Jagged Stone guitar pick, strung on a black and pink striped cord, rested perfectly in the hollow of her collarbone.

Luka squeezed the pick in his hand and reminded himself to breathe.

“I’m so glad you made it,” Marinette gushed. “Here’s the tickets for the rest of the band.” She pulled a handful of tickets from her purse and gave them to Juleka, who grinned. “They’re good seats, I checked. Sorry I couldn’t get more of you in with us.”

“Thanks,” Juleka mumbled, and then she shoved Luka forward. “He’s all yours.” As she turned to walk away she told Luka, “Try not to embarrass yourself.”

Luka watched her go for a moment and turned back to Marinette, running his fingers through his hair and slipping the pick back into his pocket. “Okay, I officially have no idea what’s going on, I thought we were all going to—“ He stopped as his eyes focused on the small plastic square clipped to a lanyard that Marinette was holding out to him. His hand came up slowly to take the backstage pass. “Are—are you serious?”

“Yep,” Marinette winked, giggling at his reaction. “Surprise.”

“You can say that again,” Luka said in awe, staring at the pass. “All access—How did you even get this?”

“No time for that now!” Marinette grabbed his arm, pulling him towards the door. “I told Penny we’d meet her at the security door in five minutes.”

“Penny?” Still bewildered but not about to protest, Luka slipped the lanyard over his head and let Marinette guide him.

Security opened the door and a dark-skinned woman with magenta hair and a clipboard looked up and smiled broadly. “Marinette, good timing! It’s so good to see you again!”

“Hi Penny! Thanks for getting us the tickets and passes, it was so nice of you!” Marinette took the bag off her shoulder and offered it to Penny. “These are for you and Jagged, fresh from this morning! There’s box of macaroons in there for Fang too.” As Penny took the bag of sweets, exclaiming in delight, Marinette reached into her purse and pulled out a USB drive. “Here’s the digital proof for the album artwork, I finished it last night.”

“Perfect,” Penny took the drive and tucked it in a pocket, clicking her pen to check off something in her clipboard. She looked at Luka and smiled. “This is your friend you brought to meet Mr. Stone?”

“Yes, this is Luka!” Marinette pulled him forward and Luka shook Penny’s hand numbly. He looked at Marinette.

“Did she say ‘Meet Mr. Stone?’ As in, Jagged Stone?” he asked in a low voice.

Marinette shared a conspiratorial grin with Penny before she turned to him and shrugged. “Surprise again.”

Penny smiled kindly. “It’s nice to meet you Luka, I’m Penny Rolling, I’m Jagged Stone’s agent. Mr. Stone is a big fan of Marinette’s work.  She’s working on her second album cover for us, and she did some of the promotional art for this tour.” Luka’s eyes widened and he looked at Marinette. How did he not know that? Penny laughed at his expression and Marinette’s suddenly red face. “Marinette, you’re too modest. How are you going to build your business if you don’t promote yourself?”

“I do!” Marinette insisted. “It’s all in my portfolio, it just, um...never came up?”

Luka put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly. Penny just shook her head and checked her watch. “Come with me, we’ll put you in the lounge. Mr. Stone is still in makeup, so he’ll join you when he’s done.”

She ushered them through the backstage area so fast that Luka only caught glimpses of the staging area and people rushing by carrying cables and lights and equipment. Crap, I totally owe Juleka groveling and ice cream,  he thought distractedly.

“Here you go,” Penny opened a door and ushered them inside. It had a couch and a couple of chairs, as well as some instruments on stands along the wall. “I have some more things to check on, but make yourself at home. Just grab one of the craft services people if you need anything.” She popped back out of the door, pulling it shut behind her.

For a moment it was quiet as Luka and Marinette just stood there.

“So…” Luka said slowly, running his hand through his hair and turning to face Marinette. “You’re on a first name basis with Jagged Stone’s agent.”

“Yep. She’s really nice.”

“You’ve met Jagged Stone.”

“Mmhmm. A few times now.”

“You work for Jagged Stone.”

“He wanted a younger perspective on his last couple of albums, so...”

“Jagged Stone is a big fan of your work.”

“Well that might be overstating it a bit…but, kinda?”

Luka bent down to look her in the eyes. “Marry me.”

There was a beat of silence as Marinette stared wide-eyed at him, and they both cracked up together. “Seriously,” he said, still chuckling, “I can’t believe I didn’t know any of this.”

“Sorry, it’s kind of a lot to surprise you with all at once, isn’t it,” Marinette giggled. “But your face is so worth it right now. I can’t wait to tell Juleka.”

Luka turned toward her and took her hands. “You set all this up for me? I— why?” It was a stupid question, he knew that the moment it was out of his mouth. This was Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She couldn’t have done anything else.

“Because you’re my friend,” she answered with a smile. “And you’re so talented and passionate about your music, you deserve to be heard, Luka! I know the rest of Kitty Section loves what they do but it’s not their whole life like it is yours. And Jagged Stone is going to love you, I know it.” She hesitated. “You should know, though, he’s kind of eccentric. He’s not as cool or laid back as you are, he’s actually a giant dork and kind of high maintenance. And whatever you do, do  not insult his crocodile.”

Luka grinned at her. “You think I’m cooler than Jagged Stone?”

Marinette made a face.  “Please don’t tell him I said that, he’ll be super dramatic about it.”

Luka had to laugh. “This may be the most surreal day of my life. How come you never told me you knew Jagged Stone so well?”

“Oh,” Marinette pulled her hands away and reached up to fiddle with her spiked bangs, “it’s kind of hard to bring it up without sounding like I’m bragging, and it was all luck to start with. Really, I was just in the right place at the right time and somehow I managed to impress him, and things just kind of snowballed from there.” She dropped her hand and looked away, blushing fiercely. “Also, please don’t be weirded out if he calls you my boyfriend. He likes to tease me.”

“I don’t know, Marinette. You hang out with rock stars, I’m starting to think you’re out of my league.” Luka snickered at the look she gave him. “You are fun to tease though.”

Marinette shoved him lightly. “Just wait till he hears you play, he’ll forget I exist.”

“Play?” Luka’s eyes widened. “You think he’ll want me to?”

Marinette just gave him a knowing smile.

“I think I need to sit down,” Luka muttered.

“Is it too much?” Marinette asked in a small voice as they sat down on the couch. She folded her hands around one of his. “Maybe I should have given you more warning...I’m sorry. It’s just, Penny didn’t want word getting around so she asked me to keep it quiet…”

Luka shook his head, squeezing her hand. “Only you would apologize for something like this. Marinette, I—“ he pressed his free hand to his chest. “I’m so touched. I can’t believe you would set this all up for me.”

“I didn’t do much.” Marinette squirmed. “I just mentioned it to Penny after one of our design meetings and she did all the work. She felt like she owed me a favor because, well, things went kind of bad the time they tried to film that reality show at our bakery, and—“

Luka freed his hand and put his arm around her waist, pulling her to him in a tight hug. “You have no idea how awesome you are.”

“Luka,” she sighed, hugging him back. “I’m not.”

“Hush and let me appreciate you, okay? It’s the least you can do for springing all this on me,” he teased. They sat in silence for a bit as Luka tried to process everything he’d been told. He still felt like he was having some weird out of body experience. He closed his eyes and breathed for a moment, trying to focus on the ground beneath his feet and Marinette’s warmth pressed to his side.

“Luka?” she said after a moment, bringing him back down to earth. “Do you ever sing with your music?”

He gave her one more squeeze and released her, sitting back on the couch. “I used to, some. You know I told you words aren’t my thing, I’m not a lyricist, so I wasn’t, like, writing ballads or anything that I really felt like I needed to sing myself. But I used to sing other people’s words all the time.”

“Why did you stop?”

Luka winced, running his fingers through his hair. “It’s kinda embarrassing actually.”

“Really?” Marinette giggled, covering her mouth with one hand. “I didn’t think you got embarrassed.”

Luka had to laugh at that. “I’m chill, Marinette, I’m not dead. Of course I get embarrassed, just not usually over small stuff.”

“Oh. You just always seem so calm. And when you—I mean you don’t—I mean if I tried to say some of the things you’ve said I probably would have really messed it up but you did it so cool and—” She was growing redder by the minute, and smiling to himself, Luka took pity on her, interrupting her ramble to answer her question.

“I stopped singing when my voice started changing,” he admitted. “Trust me, no one wanted to hear me while that was going on. It was bad.” He chuckled ruefully. “Juleka even banned me from singing in the shower.”

“Oh,” Marinette gasped. “Oh, that—that makes total sense actually. But...but you’re over that now, right? I mean, you always sound good now.” The color that had begun to fade from her face returned. “I mean—I like your voice.“

“Yeah, I’m pretty much done with that,” Luka smiled, tactfully ignoring her embarrassment. “I just...haven’t really gotten back into it. We’ve got Rose now and the songs we’ve been playing don’t really need backup vocals, so I just haven’t picked it up again. I’m out of shape for singing.” He glanced sidelong at her. “But, you’re right, I don’t really have an excuse anymore. Maybe I’ll start working on it again, see what I can do with this new voice.”

Marinette’s hand curled lightly around his bicep and he looked down at her. “I’m sure it’ll be great, Luka. I know you can do it if it’s something you want.”

Luka couldn’t help the way his eyes softened as he looked at her earnest face turned up to his.  I can do anything if you’ll look at me like that, he thought. Some of what he was thinking must have shown in his expression because Marinette’s cheeks slowly darkened the longer he looked at her. He swallowed and looked away.

“This is gonna sound weird,” he said a little hesitantly. “But do you mind if I meditate while we wait? I have a feeling I’m gonna need all the chill I can get.”

“Of course,” she said, sliding back from him. “Maybe you should teach me some time. Heaven knows I could use some more chill.”

“No,” Luka said immediately, and then shook his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that, and of course I’ll teach you if you want. But you don’t need to be like me, Marinette.” He swallowed down the lump in his throat and reached into his pocket, pulling out one of his ever-present guitar picks and turning it in his fingers. “Chill would look weird on you. You feel what you feel and I love that about you. It’s brave, even when it scares you.”

“Luka?” she touched his hand.

“I’m okay,” he said automatically, smiling at her. “Just—don’t change, okay? Not like that. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re enough.”

She smiled slowly at him and pulled her hand back. “Thanks, Luka. Um, I’ll just sketch while you do your thing.”

Luka folded his legs and set his arms, pinching the pick in between his index and forefinger. His first breath was shaky. He closed his eyes and quieted his mind, but only for a moment. Silence was not solace for him. Silence was waiting for the pin to drop, waiting for the blow to fall and not knowing when or why it was coming. Silence was anger, pain, the flat, speechless moment in the aftermath of tragedy.

Silence was a black butterfly in a moment of weakness.

Instead, he let his mind fill with music, picturing it flowing around him, in him, out of him.

He listened to it all, still vaguely aware of the scratch of Marinette’s pencil in her sketchbook, the humming of the air conditioning, the distant sounds of people rushing beyond the door.

His heart calmed, his turbulent thoughts smoothed into an easy flow. He’d been reeling all afternoon and he needed this moment to get back in his own skin. By the time Jagged Stone burst through the door like a whirlwind, he felt grounded, collected, more like himself again.

Jagged was across the room hugging Marinette before Luka’s eyes were even all the way open, and Luka bit back a laugh at the sight of the tiny girl wrapped in the rocker’s spider-like limbs. Luka unfolded himself and stood up as Marinette struggled half-heartedly.

“Jagged, stop!” Marinette whined as the rock star ruffled her spiked bangs and cooed over her “cute little punk-wanna-be style.” She pried herself loose and pushed the tall rocker towards Luka.

“This is Luka.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” Luka said, careful to meet Jagged’s eyes while he shook his hand.

“Luka, huh. My girl here talked you up pretty big,” Jagged winked. “Seems like you made an impression.”

Even forewarned Luka could feel heat in his cheeks, but he rolled with it. “She certainly made one on me.”

“Ohh, a charmer,” Jagged threw his arm around Luka’s shoulders. “He’s definitely got more style than that blond kid you wallpapered your room with.”

Marinette sputtered, turning cherry red. Luka cleared his throat and coughed to cover his laughter.

“Play!” Marinette burst out at last. “Guitar! He plays good guitar!”

“Is that so,” Jagged laughed, and Luka realized that the rock star didn’t really believe her. Luka was a kid, after all, maybe with some talent but this surely can’t be the first time he’s been forced to listen to someone who couldn’t live up to their friends’ hype. He must have been through this dozens of times. He was indulging Marinette now because he liked her, but it was clear he didn’t expect anything special out of Luka.

Luka’s eyes locked with Marinette’s and he saw that she’d realized it too, and he saw the firm line of her mouth and her outrage on his behalf. Then suddenly she was giving him that lopsided smirk of hers and he could hear her clear as words.  You’ll show him.

He appreciated her faith in him, though there was a curl of fear in his stomach. He was confident in his skill as far as that went, but whether he could measure up in the eyes of someone like Jagged Stone, universally admitted to be the greatest artist of his generation...He didn’t want to believe Jagged was right. He didn’t want to let Marinette down. He didn’t know how he would take it if that happened.

“Well, kid, let’s see what you got.”  Jagged reached a long arm out to grab the neck of a guitar on a stand near his chair and he tossed it to Luka. “Oy, Penny, plug him in, will you?”

Luka licked his lips a bit nervously as he went through the familiar motions of settling the guitar and tuning it by ear.

“You sure you don’t want a tuner?” Penny asked him, and Luka shook his head with a one shouldered shrug.

It didn’t take him long to be ready, the guitar was already mostly in tune. It was a far more expensive model than he’d ever played, he noted distantly, but it was close enough in size to his usual guitar to feel familiar in his hands. He played a quick warmup exercise almost without thinking, and nodded to himself.

“It’s not just the playing,” Marinette was saying when he tuned back into the conversation. “He writes music, too, and his improv is amazing. Show them, Luka. Play me.”  She looked at him, shining with confidence, and he couldn’t refuse her.

Normally it amused him when people treated his music like some kind of freaky superpower. There wasn’t anything mystical about what he did, he was just observant. Intuitive.  Sensitive, his father had scoffed. It was just a quirk of his brain that he translated his observations into music without conscious thought. Maybe it started as self-preservation, for all the things he wasn’t allowed to say back then. He couldn’t make anyone angry with the wrong words if he didn’t use any. His music brought people in instead of driving them away.

However it started, it was as natural to him as breathing now, and he couldn’t turn it off, even when he tried. He heard music everywhere. In Juleka’s growling voice, his mother’s boisterous laugh, in Rose’s smile, Ivan’s strength, in Mylène’s gentleness. In the waves slapping the boat hull, in all the million shades of the sky, in the gentle rocking that meant home.

In Marinette’s enthusiasm, creativity, determination. In her babble and stutter, in the heart that would break itself to pieces for the people she loved.

He played. Eyes on his guitar, he played her confidence, that unwavering support, the tremor of excitement in her words. He played his gratitude and her joy.

Luka didn’t notice her come next to him until she touched his arm. “Now play Penny,” she said. Luka raised his eyes to the agent for a moment, adjusting his fingers as he thought.

For Penny, he played efficiency and competence and a kind heart, satisfaction in a job well done, the strength to fight when she had to, and a softness that he couldn’t quite define but could sense nonetheless.

When he stopped playing, Penny was blushing, Jagged Stone was looking at her with tears in his eyes, and Marinette was beaming at Luka as if he’d just given her the world instead of the other way around.

The air in the room was so heavy it was almost painful.

Luka took a breath, thought, what the hell, and began playing I Love Unicorns.

The tension snapped as he’d intended, and all eyes turned back to him, but the only sign he gave that he noticed their attention was a small smirk at the corner of his mouth. He knew this music like he knew his own breath, and it was easy to just let go.

He sank into the music, as he always did, letting it move his body. After a minute or two he felt comfortable enough to look up, to connect with his audience. Jagged Stone had a surprisingly serious look on his face, though his own body was moving subtly to the music. Penny stood with her arms folded, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. And Marinette - Marinette looked ready to explode with glee, and he couldn’t help the grin that broke over his face.  He kicked the tempo up a bit, more energetic, more free, and with a smirk of his own, launched into Jagged Stone’s own music, riffs as unique and recognizable as the artist who wrote them, daring and unmistakable.

Marinette whooped and Penny applauded, laughing.

Jagged jumped up, pointing at him.  “Keep playing, kid,” he said, going to the stand behind the chair where his own guitar rested.  Luka’s heart leapt into his throat but his fingers kept going, his body kept moving, and the song kept growing. Luka could see Jagged bob to the beat before his own fingers start moving and a second melody rang out, improvising around Luka’s song.

How did this happen, he is jamming with Jagged Stone, how is this even his life, and he grinned wider than he probably ever had when Jagged whooped enthusiastically. “Alright, can you keep up?” the rock star hollered, taking the lead, and Luka laughed, catching up a harmony. “Rock ‘n roll!” Jagged cried, and the girls backed up to give them space as they played and whooped and danced.  

He caught Marinette’s eye and she was looking at him with a face he never wanted to forget, joy and pride and excitement that he knew was all for him, because he was happy, because she found a way to bring him joy and she couldn’t NOT do it.

He glanced back at Jagged Stone and found the rock star giving him a sly grin, and Luka could only grin back sheepishly, knowing he was caught. Jagged clapped his hand on Luka’s shoulder. “Can’t blame you kid,” Jagged said, surprisingly quietly, “She’s a keeper. Clearly got an ear for talent, too.” He winked. “You’re gonna do great things kid. Give Penny your number, let’s stay in touch.”

Oh if anybody could hear what was going on in his brain right now, his reputation as the laid back, relaxed artist would be  over.

“All right, it’s been great, kids,” Jagged said, taking off his guitar and handing it to Penny.  “But I have to get ready for the show.”

Luka held his hand out. “It’s been an honor, sir, really.” Jagged shook his hand and pulled the boy in to bump shoulders.

“Keep rockin’, Luka.” The tall man turned and opened his arm to Marinette.  “Marinette, you never stop impressing me.” Marinette giggled as Jagged hugged her to his side.  “You two kids enjoy the show.” He looked back at Luka. “Keep an eye on my girl here in that crowd, she’s so tiny she’ll get crushed.”

“I will, sir,” Luka started to say, but Jagged was already hollering for Penny, though she was only a few feet away.

“Hey, Penny, how about we let Marinette and her boy watch the show from the wings? Less likely to get stomped on, as long as you stay out of the crew’s way.”

Luka and Marinette gaped at him, and then at each other as Jagged walked out. Then Marinette squealed as Luka laughed. “This. Is. AMAZING!” Marinette shrieked, shaking him.

“Woah,” he exclaimed, “Easy, easy, I’m not feeling so steady already.” He lifted the guitar strap over his head. “That was wild,” he murmured, taking the instrument back to the stand. He stood for a moment, turning the pick in his hand, then looked up when he felt Penny’s hand on his shoulder.

“You impressed him,” she said, and he appreciated the gentleness in her smile. “Here’s my card, be sure to send me your number. You’re still young but we can definitely help you make some connections and develop your skills.”

“Thank you so much, ma’am.” Luka felt the heavy, smooth weight of the card between his fingers, slick on one side with Jagged’s picture. He put it carefully in his wallet.

“My pleasure. It was a real treat to hear you play, Luka. Now, why don’t you and Marinette come with me and we’ll find you a good spot to watch the show? Ready Marinette?”

“So ready!” Marinette bounced on her toes.

“All right then, let’s go.” Penny led the way out, and as the two teens followed, Luka caught Marinette’s hand and linked their fingers. She looked up at him in surprise and blushed at his soft look, but didn’t pull away.

#quickspins #backlog #i'll give you the stars #lukanette #i am lukanette trash i admit it #luka couffaine #marinette dupain-cheng #miraculousladybug #miraculous ladybug

[anneshirleycuffbert]

the space between the letters: the Avonlea girls take on Queen’s

[if you’ve been following me, you know I’ve posted shirbert letters; this is a awae short/fic of what happens between their letters. since I can’t wait for season four and wanted to know how the girls fare at Queen’s, I decided to write my own personal snippet-of-their lives shortly after the events of the season three finale. I hope you enjoy it as I’ve enjoyed writing it!]

click here to access an index to my awae shorts/letters

The Space Between the Letters: The Avonlea Girls Take on Queen’s aka Cuffing Season

The Avonlea girls were having tea in the parlor on a crisp autumn afternoon. The sound of hushed conversation following a rush of laughter chimed through the Blackmore house, and fortunately the volume was not improper as to warrant the mistress of the house herself to leave the confines of her study to reprimand them. 

Jane Andrews was the center of attention, for just an hour before tea, two of Queen’s fine students had unfortunately come knocking at the same time. It was rather mortifying for Jane to have to entertain two suitors in the parlor with Mrs Blackmore in the study situated right next to it and the girls spying at the top of the staircase, hands clutching at the rails. She knew she was being watched on account that she had done the very same with her friends when Moody Spurgeon visited Ruby Gillis just the day before to play her a song he composed and planned to present at the Winter Ball in a few months. Now being on the other side of the staircase and in the parlor herself, Jane felt rather sorry for invading the couple’s privacy. 

The moment the boys stepped out of the elegant house and Jane clicked the door closed, the girls descended the staircase like a stampede of farm animals. They were promptly scolded by Mrs Blackmore then, and they all shuffled as quietly as they could manage to the parlor. 

The girls sat at the table in silence as Jane poured tea for each of her friends. Once everyone had stirred in their preferred amount of sugar and milk, and gently placed their spoons delicately on their saucers as Mrs Blackmore instructed a lady should, their eyes turned to Jane Andrews expectantly. 

“Oh, I’m so embarrassed!” she exclaimed, pulling her hands up to cover her reddened cheeks. Immediately, the questions flooded out of their lips and soaked the room. 

“What did they say to each other?” said Tilly Boulter. 

“What did they say to you?” inquired Diana Barry. 

“Did they ask to court you, at the same time?” demanded Ruby Gillis. 

Josie Pye laughed. “Their faces were almost as red as Anne’s hair!”

The room erupted into fits of laughter, and even Anne Shirley-Cuthbert found amusement in her former enemy’s words. 

Diana, however, had not yet warmed up to Josie and her humor, and faithfully defended the honor of her bosom friend. “We can all see Anne’s hair has darkened into a handsome auburn, Josie. And besides, many of the boys at Queen’s have taken notice of Anne because of her hair.”

“Oh, never mind about me,” Anne laughed, colouring, but she would later thank her dear Diana for defending her. “Jane, tell us everything!”

Jane recovered her usual straight face, with a ghost of a smile on her lips and a telling blush spread on her complexion. “There’s nothing very interesting to tell, really.”

After much prodding, Jane revealed the suitors to be Richard Cordell and Leroy Murphy. Both were in Jane’s mathematics class and admired her for her wit and intellect. She was one of the few students who could finish the math problem sets in record time, and one of the even fewer girls in class who would speak up to answer the professor’s questions. 

Ruby was not satisfied. “But what did they say to you? How did they compliment you?”

Jane, remembering she had spied on Ruby and Moody, felt compelled to make up for it despite the fact that Ruby had just done the same. “Richard said he has yet to see anyone who has eyes as gold or as handsome as mine,” she reluctantly revealed. The girls stayed impressively calm, waiting for her to continue. “And Leroy said that I give off the same air as a sunflower and his day brightens when he sees me.”

The girls burst into squeals of delight and Jane’s indifferent expression cracked, revealing a pleased and bashful grin, but not before harshly whispering: “Quiet, or Mistress Mang will come and finish us off for sure and certain!”

-

Now in the back garden of the Blackmore property, the girls had laid out blankets on the grass. Anne and Diana were lying side by side gazing at the cloud formations in the gorgeous blue sky that was slowly turning a purplish-pink, hinting of a beautiful sunset to come. The breeze was getting cooler as the days passed, so Anne was determined to cherish these evenings where they could lounge outside without fear of catching colds and potentially their deaths. She reveled at the sound of rustling leaves and chirping birds, missing the ones she friended at Avonlea.

“Dearest Diana, thank you for defending my honor and my hair earlier,” Anne smiled, turning to her bosom friend and squeezing her hand. 

“I meant what I said,” said Diana, squeezing back. “It’s a very handsome auburn now but even before it was a pleasant shade of red. That Josie Pye–“

“–is our friend now,” Anne interjected. “And since we are her friends, we need to make allowances for her. Sometimes.”

“Not even Aunt Josephine would be able to afford all the allowances we will have to make for her,” Diana sighed. “But I suppose you’re right.”

A comfortable silence enveloped them until Anne remembered Gilbert, and because Diana was kindred to Anne’s spirit, she knew when the silence whispered of worry. 

“I’m sure he’s sent a letter to you, Anne. It’s probably just been delayed in reaching you.”

“What if he changed his mind?” Anne groaned, unable to bear the thought of losing Gilbert again. Certainly there were girls more beautiful and brilliant than she at U of T, she thought. “Diana, be honest. Do you think he’s changed his mind? About me?”

Diana turned to look at her friend with a knowing, mischievous smile. “After the way he kissed you that day when all was revealed? Not a chance.”

Anne’s natural rosy complexion darkened. “I– we– you– Ah!” Anne bolted upright, discovering that it was possible to feel immense joy and painful embarrassment at the same time.

Diana laughed, sitting up as well. “I’m serious! And from your description of the kisses the two of you shared before I arrived, I would be astonished if he would dare change his mind. And don’t think I hadn’t noticed the way he looked at you before he jumped off the carriage to kiss you. Twice, if you happen to recall.”

The problem was Anne did recall. When all was quiet in her mind, she’d find her thoughts drifting to a brilliant, wonderful boy whose lips have stained her memory forever. She missed him. And, okay, she missed kissing him, too. But what she missed the most was the way he looked at her, made her feel when he looked at her. The way he smiled at her. His smile. His brilliance. Him. Gilbert. She missed him. Anne Shirley-Cuthbert sorely missed Gilbert Blythe. 

“I can’t believe it finally happened,” sighed Diana. “You and Gilbert Blythe were destined from the start to be together. He better have a good reason for his delayed response, or I’d have a good mind to scold him. Again.”

“I’ve no doubt you would,” Anne mused, so grateful for Diana’s part in bringing them together. 

Jane Andrews and Josie Pye bounded out the backdoor each holding a basket of fruit and joined them on their blanket spread. 

“Girls, I need your advice,” Jane moaned. “How do you choose between two boys?” She sat beside Josie, both girls crossing their legs. “Ruby said to go for the most handsome and Josie said to go for the most kind.”

Anne glanced at Josie, who was laughing at Jane’s distress. She couldn’t help but feel pride bloom in her chest for Josie Pye, who had come out of the worst of the scandal with Billy. Josie had a quieter demeanor, now, and had grown to be more thoughtful. Choosing a beau for their kindness over their looks was something Josie would never have considered a few months earlier. But Anne was as hurt as she was proud for her, for the sad happenstance that Josie Pye learned this beautiful lesson of love over a tragedy that she’d carry for the rest of her life. Much like she carried the despairing events of her orphan life, although they seldom came to her mind these days. Anne was hopeful that one day Josie would not be overcome by the painful memory of Billy and the shame he brought on her.

Ruby, however, had a ways to go in the way she viewed love and suitors. But Moody and her were courting now, and they were good for each other. Anne prayed with all her heart that it would turn out well. 

“If you could find it in yourself to think the most kind boy is the most handsome, then I think that would be ideal,” Josie said. 

“I agree,” Diana smiled at Josie sincerely. “When someone is good in heart, they become more beautiful than the one who is devilishly handsome with no virtue to their merit.” 

“Well, as of right now, who do you like more?” inquired Anne. 

“I don’t know,” Jane shrugged. “I’ve only talked to them briefly a few times before they came calling. I never would’ve thought they’d ask to court me!”

“So that’s your next move,” Anne nodded, brows furrowed in thought. “Get to know them both before deciding. And if one of them quits their pursuit of your worthy heart before you make your decision, then you know he’s not worthy of your love.”

Tilly Boulter, Ruby Gillis, and Lily arrived with a platter of chicken salad sandwiches cut up into delicate triangles, joining the rest of the group sitting in a circle. A gust of wind threatened to blow away their hats that were pinned to their hair.

Lily, deaf and mute and gentle and kind, actions speaking louder than words could scream, was happily adopted into the friend group. Mrs Blackmore considered Lily their chaperone when necessary, not trusting half the girls to be proper in public, while the Avonlea girls considered Lily their older sister. The moment she caught them staying up late the second night at Queen’s to practice sign language in the living area was the moment Lily knew she loved them. Her eyes now followed them with curiosity and wonder.

“Can you believe the number of boys that have been visiting lately?” giggled Ruby, nibbling on her triangle of sandwich. “We have all been called to the parlor by Mang because of a suitor. So many of them have come and it’s not even the third week of class!”

“Yes, and I wish they would stop visiting so frequently,” Anne laughed, half meaning it. She hadn’t minded when boys came calling for her friends, but it was an awkward situation when they came to visit her. The first time was flattering, but the last few times were excruciating because it would always remind her of Gilbert and how he could not come calling like the Queen’s boys. The girls, however, found it ever so exciting that quite a number of Queen’s students took notice of them, especially Anne, and it made them feel a sense of pride and camaraderie as they all represented Avonlea. Since their arrival at Queen’s, Avonlea had earned a reputation for raising some of the most charming, handsome, and bright girls the Island would encounter– the latter attribute an influence of Miss Stacey, who missed them dearly. 

“Anne, have you heard from Gilbert?” Tilly inquired, and the girls curiously looked at the girl in question. 

They were shocked to hear the news that Gilbert had sacrificed a sensational life in Paris with beautiful Winifred in order to study at the University of Toronto. Since they had reacted so severely, Anne was wise to wait two days before revealing that Gilbert was now courting her. She had worried of Ruby’s reaction, whether she would be angry or upset given her past infatuation of him, but her eyes were now fixated on a sweet, charismatic banjo-playing scholar. In fact, next to Diana, Ruby was the most excited for the new couple. But then again, Ruby was always enraptured in all things pertaining to love and romance. Nevertheless, Anne was grateful that the girls found her and Gilbert a solid pair. 

As for Charlie Sloane, who took notice of Anne a few months ago, he had quickly adapted to the prospects of Queen’s and rumor had it that he had taken notice of a student who was from Carmody.

“No,” Anne replied curtly, trying to hide her disappointment. “Not yet, but I will.”

Lily reached over to hold Anne’s hand. She had been so touched by the girls’ retelling of Anne and Gilbert’s history as they walked to the postal office two weeks prior, and she looked forward to meeting the legendary Gilbert Blythe.

“Don’t worry, Anne,” Josie offered. “If things don’t work out between the two of you, there are a handful of boys here that have expressed interest in you. They were sorely disappointed to find out you were not available to court.”

Josie spoke with good intention, but it rubbed Anne the wrong way and rubbed in the fact that Gilbert was so far away. She refrained from saying anything, only replied with a tight smile.

Just then, the familiar whistling of the postal worker drifted from the front of the house to their ears. Anne’s eyes met Diana’s, and within five seconds, all of the girls were sprinting around the side of the house to the front door, laughing excitedly. Lily calmly walked as she knew Mrs Blackmore would not be pleased if she witnessed the scene. 

“Ah, ladies!” old Mr Sanderson smiled upon seeing the youthful girls, tipping his hat as a greeting. “I have mail to deliver here. Now let’s see…” he trailed off as he rifled through his satchel, pulling out three envelopes, one a brown manila envelope, and two standard sized cream-coloured ones. 

“One for Mrs Blackmore–“

“I can take it to her,” Anne impatiently grabbed one of the standard envelopes from the old man. He didn’t notice her desperation. “Anything else?”

“Well, we have a letter… oh! From the University of Toronto– for a Miss Anne Shirley-Cuthbert.”

Anne froze, nerves tingling up and down her spine as her breath caught. Somehow, she lifted her hand to receive the manila envelope with a strange bump protruding inside it. “That’s for me, sir. Thank you.” 

The girls squealed in excitement, but Anne did not dare look at the sender’s name written on the top left corner of the envelope, although she knew it must say “Gilbert Blythe” because who else could it be from?

Anne faintly heard the last recipient, Tilly Boulter, but could not remember anything else after. 

Lily gracefully delivered Mrs Blackmore’s letter to her private study knowing Anne was too preoccupied at current, and Anne had not heard Diana shepherding the girls back to the backyard to give Anne privacy to read Gilbert’s letter to her. 

When she finally held it up and found that the letter was, indeed, from Gilbert Blythe, she felt her heart race. 

Anne hurried to sit on her favorite bench placed under the willow tree to the right of the house, trying to ignore the fact that she passed the spot where Gilbert and her had kissed weeks ago. She inhaled a deep breath of cooling air before opening the envelope, remembering the personal things of her heart and the feelings she expressed in her letter to Gilbert, and Anne prepared herself for his response to her follow-up question.  (Click here to read Letter 1: Anne’s letter to Gilbert) 

Exhaling, she unfolded the letter. 

-  

(Click here to read Letter 2: Gilbert’s letter to Anne)

-

Anne had read Gilbert’s letter five more times and pinched herself five times more before she rejoined the jolly group in the backyard, now packing up their picnic and heading inside. 

The girls couldn’t help but notice that Anne was in the same mysterious mood she was in the day they moved in to the Blackmore house. They knew it had everything to do with an old classmate who was now a medical student in Toronto but they said and asked nothing of Anne, allowing her to process and feel what needed to be processed and felt. 

She was unusually quieter than usual, for a longer period than usual, and Diana would have been more worried if not for the sparkle in Anne’s eyes and the slightly higher lift of her chin as she moved about in her silence. 

The two young scholars were finishing their homework in the bedroom they shared, sitting at their respective desks. Diana had been conjugating a set of French verbs when Anne spoke up. 

“He loves me,” she said, voice trembling. Diana left her desk to stand beside Anne who was sitting at her own, staring at the letter spread atop it. Anne looked up to meet her friend’s tender brown eyes with her own teary gray ones. “Gilbert loves me.”

“Of course he does,” Diana asserted, putting her hand on Anne’s shoulder. She remembered how Anne had cried when she told her she loved her the first time, and felt a pull at her heart that her bosom friend had now been blessed with romantic love, too. Diana felt that Anne deserved all the love in the world and was grateful that Gilbert was one of the few people who could and would supply it justly to her. 

“He loves me,” repeated Anne, beginning to cry. A tsunami of emotion spilled from her eyes and waves of shock, relief, elation, disbelief, joy, longing, and love broke Anne’s proper demeanor, reminding the both of them they were still girls. Their arms captured each other in a tight iron grip, and Anne cried into her bosom friend for a few minutes, the sound summoning the group of friends who were now fearful they misunderstood Anne’s mood and were afraid that something dreadful had happened. Diana smiled at them and nodded her head, assuring them silently that everything was alright. 

Tilly shut the door quietly and the sound of footsteps receded into the hall. The sharp tapping of Mrs Blackmore’s feet came bounding up the stairs. Within a few seconds, she knocked on the door and entered. 

“Girls, are you alright, I heard– oh goodness me, what’s happened here? Anne, why are you crying?”

“These are happy tears, Mrs Blackmore,” she sniffled. “I’m quite alright, thank you. I received the best news.”

The mistress Mang sighed a breath of relief. “Be mindful now of your tears. It isn’t ladylike to cry so, but you are at liberty to cry as much as you like here. Be sure to wash your face or you’ll be puffy in the morning.”

“Yes, Mrs Blackmore.”

“Good evening, ladies.”

The door shut again and Anne and Diana sat on the nearest bed. 

“Oh Anne, I’m so glad for you.”

“I can hardly believe it- Gilbert loves me– is in love with me! But I suppose he must love me to kiss me and to have kissed me in the manner and amount that he did,” Anne said, laughing in reference to their earlier conversation.  

“All is well then?” asked Diana, looking fondly at her friend. 

Anne nodded, smiling at the thought of Gilbert and his heartfelt letter.  “All is well and good in the world.”

“Let me know if you ever need to speak with me, about anything,” Diana squeezed Anne’s hand. 

“Thank you, dearest of Dianas. I will.”

Anne leaned back on her bed and watched Diana return to her desk and flip her French dictionary open. An idea bloomed in her mind, and she sat upright. 

“Say, Diana, would you happen to have a book containing foreign languages vocabulary? I’ve decided to engage in a long-distance duel with Gilbert Blythe and I am determined to beat him, fair and square.”

#what have i done #the space between the letters #should i write more? #anne with an e #shirbert letters #awae fic #shirbert au #awae au #awae spoilers #shirbert #awae #gilbert blythe #anne shirley cuthbert #anneshirleycuffbert #awae season 4 #diana barry #ruby gillis #josie pye #tilly boulter #jane andrews #anne x gilbert #cuffing szn #moody spurgeon #charlie sloane #renew anne with an e #renew awae #saveawae4 #awae:dlu

[yourdeepestfathoms]

turn this boat around (we’re going down)

(Read Anne as Courtney!Anne)

who would win: a normal river or one soggy girl

Word count: 5764

Prompt: “You’re not hurting me, you’re not heavy. I’ve got you, love.”

———————

“Don’t forget to put on—”

But it was too late. Kitty and Cleves were already sprinting into the river and collapsing into the water. Jane’s arm fell limp to her side and she narrowed her eyes at the pair.

“Fine. I hope you both fry.” She hissed before turning to help someone else- someone less stupid and more obedient- with putting on sunscreen.

It had been Kitty and Maggie’s idea to go out for a swim, which was why the ten Tudor reincarnated ladies were out by a secluded riverside in the first place. It was quite warm that day, anyway, so they gave in to the idea and packed up two cars and drove out to the serene little spot for a nice day on the water. However, not everyone was as thrilled to be there as Kitty and her impractical soulmate were.

Joan’s nose curled as water lapped hungrily at her toes. She stepped out of the shallows and back onto the sandstone shoreline. It was too cold in her opinion- she didn’t know how Kitty and Cleves weren’t bothered by it.

Not to be a buzzkill, but she really didn’t want to be there. She hated the water, although she didn’t quite know why, as she didn’t think she had any trauma attached to it. She just didn’t enjoy getting all soggy and cold. Nor did she know how to swim, so just added bonus points to why she didn’t enjoy water. However, everyone else was onboard with the idea without even hearing her opinion, so she got dragged out with them whether she liked it or not.

Although, she had to admit the place they were hunkered down at was quite beautiful. Down a dirt path and through a thicket of foliage, the trees opened up to border the riverside. It was shaded by the overhead shrubbery, shielding them from the sun, and had several rock formations sticking out in the deeper end, perfect spots for jumping off and diving, as Kitty has already discovered, since she was already clambering up the side of one crag. Dense brambles locked around the other side, which has a bay like a gravelly beach. Joan was standing in front of the shallows, where sparkling rivulets of water rushed through the weathered limestone riverbed. She winces when she steps on a pebble. She knew she should have brought some kind of river shoes.

At the main site, Maggie had just jumped in and was now chanting for Maria to get in, who was slowly lowering herself into the water and squealing about how cold it was. A purple, black, and indigo blur then suddenly passes them in a flash; Bessie pops up from the surface a moment later, blinks at them through violet goggles, then disappears once again without a word.

“She is in heaven,” Aragon commented with a chuckle. She was seated beside Jane in a beach chair on a flat ledge just in front of the water. They were both basically taking up the roles of lifeguards for the expedition.

“Definitely.” Jane agreed with a light laugh of her own, but that light laugh quickly turned into an uproar of laughter that nearly made her fall out of her chair when Bessie unexpectedly resurfaced holding a catfish by the tail. “HOW DID YOU—?!”

“ELIZABETH!!” Aragon barked, laughing as hard as everyone else. Joan even thinks there’s tears streaming out of her eyes at the sight. “PUT IT BACK!!”

Bessie stared at her, then at the fish, and then placed it back in the water. It fearfully shoots away from her as fast as possible, probably having a fishy panic attack. She blinked, flashed a quick peace sign, and then dived again.

Joan watched Aragon and Jane for a moment as they settled, half transfixed on how pretty they looked in their bathing suits and hating herself for it, before a flash of green caught her eye. She turned to see Anne standing there and tipping the can of sunscreen at her.

“Have you put some on yet?” The queen asked.

“Not yet,” Joan replied.

“Need help?”

Joan’s ears were suddenly on fire, much to her dismay.

“N-no, I got it.” Joan stammered.

“Alright,” Anne shrugged. She handed Joan the can and then went to get in, pushing in Cathy, who was trying to hype herself up to jump in, as she did so.

After very poorly putting on a coating of sunscreen, Joan just awkwardly stands by the bags for a moment. She watches everyone else splash around happily, then walks past Jane and Aragon, and to a swampy area of the bay. It was overgrown with cattails and reeds, and the surface of the water was covered in a layer of mushy green algae. Joan wrinkled her nose, not even wanting to know how that would feel between her toes, and stepped across the goop to a rock sitting between a circle of tall grass growing out from the water, then to another, and another, and another, until she situated herself on a flat, fairly large stone that would make for a good watch point.

And watch she did, since she didn’t have anything better to do.

On the tallest rock formation, probably around twelve feet in height, Kitty was standing on the edge babbling about being the true queen of the castle or something. Maggie walked up to her, looked at her wordlessly, then shoved her off. Kitty’s alarmed squeal was quickly overcome by the splash of her body slapping against the river’s surface. Jane was barely able to fight back a flinch when she saw this, but was able to settle herself from where she sat.

At another part of the river, a slightly shallower area where you could stand up and only be submerged around the waist or stomach, Cleves and Maria were playing with a volleyball that had been brought along. Cleves was playfully barking at Maria to not tuck her thumbs in or else she would end up breaking them, which “would not make playing the drums very easy.”

And then, in front of Jane and Aragon’s ledge, a flurry of bubbles explode against the rippling surface. A moment later, Bessie pops up like a two thousand year old river monster that has just awoken from its slumber. Thick, long tendrils of black hair draped over her face like wet snakes, but she’s able to navigate her way over to the shore with ease. When she gets to a ledge, she hops up, grappling her arms in the rock for a grip while her feet scrabble against the stone before finding a hold and pushing the rest of her body up. Once she stands, she pauses for a moment, then shakes her head wildly to dry her hair, quickly replacing the image of “river monster” with “soggy black bear.”

“Was that really necessary, Elizabeth?” Aragon said with distaste, as she got caught in the crossfire of the splattering hair water. But even from a distance, Joan could tell Aragon was just messing around, and was quite endeared by how at ease and happy her daughter figure was.

“Yes.” Bessie said with a blank face. She padded over to the cooler and took out a water bottle. She took a few sips, then set it down, along with her goggles. “I don’t need these.”

“Elizabeth, don’t open your eyes under-”

But Bessie had already returned to the river, which she’s practically claimed as her aquatic kingdom. Aragon shook her head with a loving chuckle.

Just then, Joan felt a flash of embarrassment. Bessie was so calm and relaxed, despite being in a bathing suit. Everyone knew she had issues with her body, but she looked so peaceful. Sure, it was a one piece swimsuit (dark purple with black stripes) and she also had shorts on, but still! Even Kitty was in a tankini! And Cleves, who was the proclaimed “ugly one” by history, was proudly flaunting a ruby red bikini!

Joan shyly looked down at herself, at the light blue rash guard and darker blue waterproof shorts covering her floral bathing suit underneath; and felt a blush rise to her cheeks. She felt kinda pathetic- what gave her the right to be so ashamed of her body? She wasn’t touched in the way Kitty and Bessie were. She shouldn’t be so nervous of skin being shown.

She sighed and plucked up a pebble sitting on her slab, throwing it fiercely as far as she could. The resounding splash seemed to alert a few of the girls on the largest rock, who just now noticed that she was sitting there.

“Joan!” Maggie called. “Come on! Come up with us!”

Joan scanned the water, but found no possible way to get to the rock without getting in, and it was very deep in that area. Besides, even if there was a way, she knew she would probably be pushed off if she dared to venture up there, and she didn’t know what she would do if that would happen. Everyone would figure out she couldn’t swim, she would probably have to be rescued, and she would never be able to live that down. She huddled further into the center of the stone she’s on.

“I’m good!” She called back.

Maggie exchanged looks with Cathy and Kitty, who were up there with her. Anne was standing on the top, too, but she just tilted her head at Joan in a curious, but slightly worried way.

“Why not?” Kitty yelled this time.

“It’s too cold!”

“Uhh.” Kitty blinked. “Okay.”

Joan bit her lip, already knowing she was being judged. They definitely saw through her answer and were thinking about how stupid and scared she was. She wished she could be like the protagonist in a movie that would suddenly get a burst of confidence which would send her proudly leaping into the water and being perfectly fine, but she just couldn’t. She didn’t want to get in. And she didn’t want to sit there looking like a fool anymore, so she stood up and hopped back onto the bay.

Joan walks over to the bags, noticing random trinkets- necklaces, rings, hats, even a damp, clumped up shirt- piled neatly on the ledge Aragon and Jane were sitting at. She looked at it curiously, then yelped as a crushed beer can was suddenly hurled out from the water. Aragon and Jane look at her in amusement.

“Watch out,” Aragon warned her a little too late. “Elizabeth is cleaning out the river.”

“And also creating a hoard.” Jane nodded at the pile.

Speaking of the devil, Bessie’s top half emerges from the water and clings to the edge of the ledge so she can place a scuffed green beaded necklace with her pile.

“Think you can find me some sunglasses?” Aragon asked.

Bessie grinned up at her and then disappeared in the water again. Joan momentarily saw her figure ripple near the riverbed before sliding out of view into the deep end.

“She has a tendency to go nonverbal when she’s in her zone or concentrated.” Aragon informed Joan with a chuckle. “It’s adorable.”

Joan smiled slightly, then moved to sift through one of the bags. She pulled out two pencils and her small sketchbook. Seeing as she had nothing else to do, she thought she could get away with drawing. Not like anyone would do anything to stop her.

She looked around for a good place to sit, then noticed a path winding through the trees to her far left. She blinked at it, glanced at the others not paying any attention to her, then walked into the riverside jungle.

The tangled trees seemed to be reaching for her with long trailing roots, and branches like skeletal fingers snarled together overhead to create a canopy of sorts. Sunlight filtered in from above, casting pale yellow spots across the large boulders dotting the foliage. They were all huge and just lied around like the remnants of an ancient landslide. A few packed together tightly against a tall fjord of earth, creating a rocky corridor of sorts. There was another path to get to the other side, beneath a log suspended in the air by two crags and through some weeds, but Joan decided to venture into the crevice.

Walking through the passageway felt like she was getting a hug from the earth. It was a slight squeeze to go through, she had to hunch her shoulders in to keep them from scraping against the walls, but it felt worth it for the sights.

Flowers were blooming from vines etched in the moss-matted bedrock on either side of her. Orange and green and amber were streaked through the rock walls, glowing beneath streams of water that glittered like melted diamonds from a spring somewhere up above. Specks of sunlight bleeding in through the canopy above would hit the stone’s tears in just the right way to set them off in radians of iridescent and silver. The deep emerald moss was fluffy beneath Joan’s fingers when she tentatively touched the patches. Ahead, she then sees braids of willow dangling down from a long, reaching branch that has itself draped over one of the boulders. When she pushes through the curtain, she’s met with scattered trees that break down and fold into a field of rock crags that border the glistening river.

Joan walks through the grass and down onto the shoreline. Most of the bay there were shallows that have leaked into the openings between stony ridges risen from the ground. She shivers as she wades through the ankle-deep water, feeling the cold jolt through her muscles. She clambered up the first rock she could reach as fast as she could.

She took a moment to scan around her, then glanced over her shoulder. Parts of her were hoping to see the others calling her name, breaking through the foliage and running to her in relief for wandering off, but she knew that would never happen. She bet they would end up leaving her there entirely if she stayed out too long.

Shaking her head to rid herself of that though, Joan began to traverse the rock formations carefully. She leapt from one shelf to another, feeling like a graceful bighorn sheep climbing a mountainside or a dragon mapping out its new territory. Jumping and moving like that made her feel so free and uncaring- perhaps this is what Bessie felt when she was in the water?

Joan paused for a moment to catch her breath. She looked to the side and saw a large pool of stagnant brownish water sitting in between some ledges nearby. A dark green, blobby frog croaked from in the warm, bubbling mud, then bobbled at her with its big yellow eyes. Joan giggled softly, then moved on.

Hopping across rocks, tight walking over fallen logs, occasionally stepping through the water below when gaps were too big to jump, Joan made her way across the stone shoreline. Then, the ground flattened out and the bay became one of smooth stone that she could easily walk across, only occasionally going around the reaching shelves of earth that stretched out from the cliff face bordering that side of the river.

Finally, her trek and hard work paid off when she spotted a nice rock formation reaching over the water. It was high up, safe from any splashing from the rapids below, with a sheer edge and an inclined side that Joan was able to climb up with little difficulty when she held her pencils and sketchbook in her mouth. There, she settled herself and began to draw.

Around thirty minutes into finishing up a drawing of Killer Frost brawling with a menacing polar bear (what? she had an active imagination!) she looked up and stared with wide eyes at the hawk perched only a few meters away.

It’s not that she’s never seen a hawk before, she has, but she’s never been this close to one. And it’s not like they were common in a big city like London.

This one was pretty big. It had its streaked, slate grey chest puffed out as it scanned the water with orange-red eyes from the tree branch it was regally perched on. The thick, bristled tail was still banded, though the marks were fading, meaning this was an adolescent. And the wide, white stripe over the eyes told Joan that it was a goshawk.

The bird flexed its razor sharp, obsidian black talons around the branch, and Joan watched it do this simple action in awe. She flips to a clean page and begins to sketch out the beautiful creature, looking up every few strokes to check the details and diameters.

On her fifth glance, the hawk suddenly billowed its huge wings and leapt off of the branch. It dove straight down into the water, submerging itself for a moment before soaring back out in a blur of brown and grey. A long, blue-grey fish was now wriggling desperately in its hooked beak. It clamped down harder to keep its meal from falling out, then glanced at Joan. Its fire-colored eyes narrowed at her, talons twitching subtly beneath it as it hovered in the air. Then, it cocks its head back, as if to say, “Try to top that, wingless bird,” and flies off into the trees on the other side of the river.

Joan watched it go with an amazed look. She smiled and went back to her sketch. She finishes it relatively quickly and goes to the next blank page. As she’s doing so, she slowly starts to pick up on how active the floral and fauna around her was.

Tangles of thorns and thickets of huge ferns grew along the shoreline on the other side, which was coated with smashed up gravel and fragments of river shells and pieces of smooth black flint. Sharp, hollow reeds poked out of the edges of the water like pale green and light brown needles, just waiting for some poor sole to step on them and be lanced by their spear-like points. Tadpoles and minnows were weaving between the bases, their delicate bodies barely even stirring up a fleck of mud as they swam.

In the deeper water, the shimmering bodies of fish could be seen, although it was hard to tell what size or color they were because the rapids were rushing white streaks over the surface. However, she did notice a green-brown catfish swimming lazily from underneath her rock, whiskers billowing beside its face like little squirming snakes.

Out of the corner of her eye, Joan noticed a tawny, speckled gecko skitter up onto her ledge, then paused when it saw her. It looks her up and down with its big brown eyes, sizing her up, then turns away, deciding to find a different place to sunbathe. Joan giggled softly. She HAD to draw Killer Frost messing with a lizard, now. As she was reaching for one of her pencils, however, it slipped from her hand and began rolling to the edge. Joan lunged just a bit too far for it.

Joan couldn’t even think to try and catch herself as she tips over the edge and into the icy water below.

The first thing she realizes when she falls in is that the water was a lot shallower than she thought it was. Or maybe she fell with enough momentum to slam all the way to the bottom. She didn’t know, but she felt her back connect to the riverbed with so much force she thought her spine broke for a moment. But then her body began to writhe like a stabbed snake without her brain commanding it to do so. She just squirms and wiggles and flails, but she can’t get to the surface and the current seizes her in its glacial talons and drags her along with it. She can feel her back scrape and shred against the rock beneath her, even with the rash guard on.

The water stings every inch of her like dry ice until she can’t tell cold from hot any longer. She’s so in shock from falling in and then landing on her spinal cord that she forgets if she’s being boiled alive or being frozen solid.

Everything is dark, and the water presses down on her. Someone is coming to save her. Jane is coming to save her. She must be. Or someone must be— they won’t let her die!

This— this was why she’s scared of the water. Not because of a past trauma, but because of the knowledge of how powerful it is and the inherent fear that comes with that. The water is stronger than she’ll ever be and that makes her scared.

She can’t swim, she can’t breathe, she can’t escape. She’s going to die in this river, and shouldn’t it have edges. Shouldn’t there be a way out?

Joan suddenly bashed into a boulder sticking out of the river— there it was. Reeling with pain, awareness rushing back to her, Joan spun in the water, flailing for a hold on something.

She crashed into another rock, bounced off, and slammed into yet another. The river was going so fast now that she couldn’t stop herself. She was being dragged hungrily by the undertow at top speeds.

Joan manages to twist over so she wouldn’t be belly-up anymore like a fish waiting to die. She shoved her knees against the riverbed, feeling the stone slabs slice off an entire layer of skin like a hot knife, and breaches the surface. She gasps, sucked in as much air as she could in her panic, then tried to scream for help, but was cut off when her face smashed into solid rock.

Joan sees bright, colorful stars explode across her vision— or maybe they’re minnows, because she keels over and the undertow reclaims her into its depths. She’s back underwater, sinking into an alarmingly deep part of the river.

Mmmmm... The river seemed to rumble around her. So delicious... Mine. My prey.

Blood is swirling up from one of Joan’s nostrils. She doesn’t know how because that nostril already feels like it’s swollen shut. That side of her face is pulsing with pain; she can feel her heartbeat pounding away- is it getting weaker?

Her back touches the riverbed. Knobby protrusions and pebbles and shells scratch against her rash guard like desperate fingers. A few might have actually managed to cut through the fabric because she can feel the streaks of pain lancing across her spine worsening by the second. Her cuts being packed full of grit and gravel is so bad that she doesn’t even become aware of the burning in her lungs until just then.

Shhhhhh.... The water whispers when Joan’s whimper sends ripples through its body. Shhh... Rest. Mine. Hungry.

The burning turns into a full on incineration of her lungs. Suddenly, the water around her feels a lot less icy and a lot more like it was boiling around her. Her body felt so hot and heavy, her frigid and numb at the same time. This and the pain brought awareness back to her somewhat. She’s dizzy and can barely move, so it wouldn’t matter if she knew how to swim or not. Someone warm and wet is trickling from her nasal passage and down into her throat- blood.

Hungry. Hungry. Mine..... Cooed the water gleefully.

Stop, Joan thought desperately, as if she could speak the language of the undertow humming around her. Please stop.

Something is pressing down on her chest with talons of fire. Her throat is wrapped with burning hot razor wire. The surface just ten feet away from her face is starting to look a lot more black.

Want this. Want want want. Chanted the water. Sleep. Hungry hungry hungry.

Let me go. Joan mentally begged. She couldn’t believe she was using the last of her strength to try and telepathically speak to a fucking liquid. Please.

Can’t. The water replied, and now she knew for sure oxygen deprivation was making her delirious and think it was talking back to her. So hungry. Yum yum yum...

No. Human yuck. F-fish yum. Joan tried to persuade. Ripples swish around her like the aquatic shake of a head.

No. Need. You. Mine. So hungry. The water burbled. Shhhh....

No- Human yuck. Human yuck.

Joan couldn’t tell if she was crying, but the voice she was using to think with was cracking and trembling like she was.

Shhh....

Human yuck. Fish yum. Please don’t.

Shhhhh.......

No-

Shhhh.....

STOP! Joan roared. Her eyes shot open and, thick with gurgling blood, she screamed, “HELP!!” as loud as she could.

She may have been underwater, but surely someone had to hear her. She had to be close to the others by now.

How long has she been drowning without them knowing...?

“HELP! HELP!”

HUSH! Cried the water.

STOP!! Joan shrieked back.

Suddenly, something pierces the surface. Through the blackness hazing her vision Joan looks up and smiles weakly. She knew the others wouldn’t have left her to die. She knew they cared.

But it wasn’t them.

The fleeting blur of grey and brown zipped out of the water in an instant. The water is agitated, roiling and churning in rage. It seizes Joan by the throat and arms and legs and shakes her.

Then, she’s going up, up, up, dragged against a jagged, razor sharp slope of shell shards and flint daggers, and—

And she’s thrown over the surface.

Joan gasps loudly, reintroducing her lungs to oxygen—but they weren’t quite ready to quarrel with the element just yet. So, instead, she just made feeble, wheezing squeaky noises as fights to stay up above. Or, rather, the water fights to keep her up. She was just floundering around like an upside down drunk duck that never learned how to swim.

Crack went something in her chest as she wheels into a twisted rock formation and stab went another bolt of pain throughout her entire body.

Human yuck, Went the water as it shoved her waterlogged body into another protrusion. Human yuck.

Human yuck, Joan agreed dizzily as she extended her hands and grappled onto the next rock she was thrown against. She squeezed her eyes shut, hearing the tiny chick-chick-chick of the spiderwebs crawling through her rib cage when she stretched out her arms. Human yuck. She repeated tiredly.

Weakly, Joan crawled out of the water and flopped onto the top of the stone. At the sudden pressure on her stomach, water comes rushing out of her mouth and all she can really do is slack her jaw and let it all pour free from her innards. It was a terrible sensation, like water snakes were slithering out of her stomach and up her throat. It halted her breathing for several terrifying seconds, so she had no choice but to force up a cough to move the process along, but that cough turned into a gag and then a sob.

She has definitely been crying.

Joan wasn’t too sure how long she was sprawled out on that rock with tears streaming down her cheeks and water leaking from every orifice, but eventually looked up blearily. She had managed to float all the way down to the small forest with the rock passageway, but wasn’t at the other side yet. She also saw that tangles of water weeds and ropes of slimy algae were coiled around her limbs, like medals awarding her for not drowning. She didn’t have the strength to peel them off.

Everything hurt so badly. Her knees were skinned raw and filled with gravel, her back was so gashed she was sure her spine could be seen, her palms were on fire and one of her fingernails were missing, one half of her face was swollen and bruised, and something was very wrong with her ribs. She had no idea how she was going to get back to the others, and she was starting to fear they weren’t going to look for her at all. They were going to leave her.

More tears spilled free. She tried to call their names, but her voice came out as a strangled gurgle that the rapids shushed with their relentless churning. She stared fearfully at the rushing water around her and whimpered pathetically at what was to come.

After a few more minutes of laying still, Joan slowly slid off of the rock. The icy chill of the water sends the cuts scattered across her back alight with fresh pain and they sing with discomfort. She sings with them when she keens miserably.

Each step is agony. Her knees tremble under her weight and her ribs quiver in her chest in a terrible, unnatural way. The only reason she’s able to cross to the shore is because the water is only to her chest, but it’s still hard to wade through and bubbles around her, like it’s laughing at her efforts.

Joan stumbled to the bay along the side of the forest, which is situated on a ledge she wouldn’t be able to hoist herself up onto with her injuries. So she has to scale the side, walking through the deep, murky water until gravel turns to mud and her feet are sucked at hungrily. She can’t manage a yelp, so she just gurgled awkwardly and jerked back quickly, which makes her see stars. She clings tighter to the grass on the ledge and continues forward.

Finally, after twenty-five minutes of moving at a crawl, she reaches the end of the forest. The bank curves into a pool-like area, then continues to a straight line where the site was. Joan considered getting out and walking over there, but knew what would happen if she did- everyone would have to pick up and leave and they would all hate her for ruining it for them. As much as she really wanted to go home and soak in a hot bath that won’t try to drown her, she didn’t want everyone being annoyed with her, either.

So, instead, she dragged herself to the pool bay. Slimy black mud squelched beneath her toes and she nearly flattened a squishy-looking toad when her knees finally buckled and she collapsed. It hops out of the way with an alarmed croak, gawks at her black and blue and pale white form half sticking out of the water, then scoots away hastily.

There, Joan lays, moaning and crying miserably. She rationalizes that she’ll have more strength in just a moment if she just rests... Yes... She could feel the pain ebbing away already...

Sleep, sleep... Cooed the water as it licks her legs gently. Mine. So hungry... Human...yum.

———

“Can you get her up the hill?”

“Yes, Catherine, I’m not THAT weak. Besides, she’s really light...”

“I know, I’m not saying you’re weak, I just don’t want you to drop her.”

“I’m glad you have so much faith in me.”

“I never—”

“I had a baby, you know? I know how to carry a person. I was a mother.”

“Carrying a baby and carrying a teenager are two different actions.”

“I don’t know... Look at the way she’s snuggled up to me. Jealous?”

“No—”

Two voices bicker above her head. They’re both very warm and very soothing, but one is barbed with thorns and the other is coiled with jagged gemstone points. She’s too delirious to make them out fully, though, or ask them to be quiet, so she just moaned weakly. They don’t appear to hear her.

“Gentle, Anne!”

“I am being gentle!!”

A whimper worms free. This time, she’s heard because the voices shut up. When they eventually speak again, their tones are too hushed to hear properly.

“Mmmm...” Joan choked out. “I’m.....mmmm.......”

A finger brushes her cheek- the one that isn’t swollen and throbbing. She leans into it with another feeble whimper.

“We need to bring her to the hospital.”

“We need to bring her home.”

“Do you see the state she’s in? She needs a doctor!”

“Well, you can be the doctor. Doctor Catherine!”

“Do you not care about her? Because if not, give her to me.”

“Woah, hey- I’m holding her. Back off.”

“Then we take her to the-”

“Home.” Joan rasped. “Wanna...go home.”

She forces her eyes open and sees Anne and Aragon above her. They both look very worried as they stare down at her.

“Please...”

“You heard her,” Anne, the one carrying her, said. “Come on. Let’s hurry to the car.”

They continue walking to where the cars were parked. In that time, Joan becomes a little more aware of her surroundings. Instantly, guilt filtered through her. Everyone was probably having to leave because of her.

“I’m...I’m sorry...” She panted. Talking was so hard and it made her bruised face hurt tremendously. “I can...I can walk....mm too...heavy...”

“Shh, shh,” Anne hushed her, making slight rocking motions. “You’re not hurting me, you’re not heavy. I’ve got you, love.”

Joan tried to argue, but could only make a weak moan of pain. She hears the sound of a car door opening and then she’s being set inside with her head in someone’s lap- Aragon’s. Fingers began to gently thread through her wet, tangled hair.

“Why do I have to drive again?” Anne asked while sliding into the driver’s seat.

“Because you got to hold her.” Aragon said. “So I get to sit with her. It’s fair.” She looks down at Joan’s cloudy eyes. “Hey, baby girl. We’re gonna bring you home, alright? You’re gonna be just fine. We’ll take care of you.”

Joan really liked the sound of that.

She smiled dreamily in her daze and began to babble softly as she started to drift back off into unconsciousness. She can feel her cracked ribs aching, and she’s desperate to not feel again.

“Did she just say ‘human yuck?” Anne said from the front of the car. “Oh my god, that is too cute! Catherine, record that!”

“Eyes on the road, Anne!”

Soon, all Joan can feel is Aragon’s gentle hand stroking her hair. She knew she would be in an extreme amount of pain when she woke up again and may actually have to go to the hospital, but, right now, she just focused on the loving pets she was getting and the sound of the water’s lullaby still roaring in her ears.

One thing was for sure: she was never going to go swimming again.

#six the musical #six the musical fanfic #six the musical fanfiction #six fanfic #six fanfiction #katherine howard #anna of cleves #jane seymour #anne boleyn #nana boleyn #joan on the keys #catherine of aragon #maggie on the guitar #maria on the drums #bessie on the bass #catherine parr

[bnhaclaimedmysoul]

✧･ﾟ:  floofvember d11  :･ﾟ✧

stargazing

character: dabi

genre: fluff

note: here’s dabi for ya. i’ve been writing dabi content so much, but i can’t not???? i love my baby. but enjoy this piece! ♡

–– medusa.

dabi

being on the run wasn’t exactly the easiest. having to be affiliated with the league of villains, a growing group of malicious entities under a so-called ‘cause’, meant having to move from one place to another. your new normal ranged from the rigid, dusty floor of abandoned buildings to the rare luxury of cheap motel beds. comfort was a rarity given that the lone spaces you and your group would occupy were rock solid, giving your neck and back frequent pains. although comfort was sparse, you were provided warmth in the form of a certain villain’s presence. his embrace during the wee hours of the dark when everyone else had gotten shuteye was the closest you had to comfort as his body had radiated warmth and affection that he showed only to you.

it was only recently when the league had finally gotten their big shot at achieving their grand title upon forming a union with the meta liberation army, which granted access to long awaited opulence. it was fresh beds, new clothes to wear, actual food and an overwhelming amount of money, which was a whole upgrade from what the league had lived with for the past few months. the sense of safety was assuring nonetheless, but it somehow managed to make you miss what you once had. yes, it was everything you wished for, but what you had in the present could never make up for the adventure you had on the run. it was the late nights where you and dabi bonded– hopping from one bar to the other, snatching at pockets as a challenge to find the best steal, running from the damned authorities, and your personal favorite, watching faint twinkles from under the midnight sky. all this you missed, which lead you to your current plan.

“just where are you dragging me to, doll?” the dark haired villain questions for the umpteenth time that night, dragging his feet as you lead him along the tall grass. you flash a glare, brows furrowed at his insistent questioning. “i already told you, it’s a surprise.” he only shrugs, gaze directing elsewhere to further analyze just where you were taking him.

the november breeze was cooler, the wintry atmosphere adding to your need to reach the awaited location to snuggle up against your personal source of heat. and although his hands were laced with yours, it wasn’t quite enough to keep you warm. just a few more steps, you tell yourself as you squeeze his hand. it had been a long walk in the field of tall grass littered with the tiniest of flowers, but the two of you had finally arrived at the foot of a hill. thankfully, the hill you had chosen prior wasn’t steep, making it easy for the apathetic villain by your side. you tug him along as you stride up in an effort to reach the very top, where a lone blanket laid out for the two of you. “is this it?” he motions to the familiar blanket against the land, recognizing it as the blanket he thought he had lost a few weeks ago. you hum, making your way over to one side of the large cloth to sit down.

“i know you’ve been missing the outdoors and doing stuff like this after hours, so i thought i’d do a little something for the both of us.” this brings a small simper to form on dabi’s lips, slightly stretching the metal punctured by the lower region of his visage. “look at you, being cute and shit. do you like me or something?” he teases, causing you to roll your eyes and stick your tongue out at his usual antics. your lover settles beside your frame, one arm supporting his position while the other snakes around your waist to pull you closer. finally enveloped into warmth, you lean your head under his chin. this gives him the chance to slowly set himself down against the blanket, switching the position to a much comfortable one with you resting on the arm that curled about your frame.

both of your gazes are set heavenward, delighting in the view of the constellations scattered across the deep blue of the night’s veil. he listens intently as you point out the patterns laid out in the sky, watching as you outlined the formation of draco, scorpius, and andromeda. although he didn’t quite understand constellations as they “all looked the same”, he couldn’t help but adore your delight towards the shine outlined in the sky. soon enough, silence had fallen upon the both of you as it was a moment of admiration in two forms. it was the way you marveled at the millions of luminous beams, finding peace at the simple form of escape you shared with your lover. the other form of admiration was through the way dabi’s slender digits gently raked through your tresses, bathing in the view right by him. it was your eyes that he had paid attention to– his own form of stargazing for heavenly bodies could never compare to the beam laced within your irises.

“the stars are pretty tonight, aren’t they?”

“yeah... they are.”

#dabi #dabi x reader #dabi fluff #dabi scenarios #dabi headcanons #bnha x reader #bnha headcanons #bnha fluff #bnha scenarios #mha x reader #mha headcanons #mha fluff #mha scenarios #that's some cliché crap right there #bear with me that ending was so cheesy

[obviouslyelementary]

Confessions over Ice Cream

Am I going to supply the Nog/Jake fandom with all teh fanfics I can muster? Absolutely. 

I hope my old followers don’t mind.

(MIght make a dirty follow up if it comes up)

Tags: first kiss; confessions; the ds9 crew being annoying; mentions of oo-mox

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

Another dangerous mission. Another set of nights without sleep, drifting off one or two hours before waking up on a rush with any sound that made its way to his ears. More and more he felt sympathy over misses O'Brien, having to stay aware of her husband through subspace communications or his father's own words. It was quite difficult, he understood it now. And Nog wasn't even his husband!

He was his friend.

Only his friend.

Jake caught himself thinking about that way more often than he would like to admit. They had been friends for years now, way too long, and it didn't seem to get any simpler. In fact, everything was turning out to be more and more complicated. He realized his feelings for Nog when he was what, fourteen? Fifteen maybe? Now he was past his twenties and that god damn feeling never left, in fact, it became stronger. One look at him and his heart jumped, his lungs squeezed and his stomach turned. Well, not anymore, but it used to do that. Now seeing Nog meant he was safe, and sound, and it brought a nice warmth to Jake's chest.

Julian and Dax knew about it, and wondered time and time again when he would open up the game. He insisted to them he would, eventually, when the time was right, but it never seemed quite right. In fact, he hadn't even summoned up courage to ask Rom or Quark about Ferengis and, well, same gender relationships. He did his research, and nothing he looked through seemed to point out any resistance against it, but who knew? And besides, every time he believed the timing was right, either he or Nog were in a relationship with someone else, and that always stopped him in his tracks.

But now, oh, he was regretting his cowardness. Nog had been away in a dangerous mission into the Gama quadrant for weeks, and hadn't returned yet. It was a mission supposed to last two weeks total, but they were coming around to the fourth with barely no contact between him and his team and the station. Last time they had contact had been two days prior, and everything seemed fine, but Jake couldn't shake away the feeling that something wasn't right.

It could be his anxiety talking, but still.

He was so nervous in fact that even his books weren't being touched. He hadn't written a single word since Nog didn't return on schedule, so there were seven days and counting without any progress. He didn't like it, he didn't like standing still and waiting, but he had to. He couldn't grab a vessel and run after him.

But he could pray, and hope, that Nog would be back soon. And indeed, someone in the vast universe heard him, because on the next day his father said that Nog and his ship would be back in three days. Apparently the delay was caused by a phenomenon they wanted to investigate before returning, not that Jake understood or cared about that space crap. Nog was coming back, and that was all that mattered.

On the day they were scheduled to arrive, Jake didn't sleep a single second, and he was right at the doors together with the senior officers to greet the ship's personal. As the officers left the ship and got into the station, Jake did his best to greet them without seeming too disinterested, but there was only one pair of ears he was waiting for.

Nog was one of the last ones to leave, luckily for the rest, because Jake grinned at him and hugged the Ferengi without caring about leaving the passageway open for the rest. Nog was quick to hug him back, finally having learned that some human affection didn't hurt, and even though Odo tried to tell them to leave, he had a heart not to bother them too much.

And after Nog finally greeted Kira, Dax, Julian and his father, they were finally free to leave and have a more private talk.

 "really Jake it was incredible! The formation of a nebula right in front of our eyes?! I have never seen anything so beautiful!" Nog said, ranting on and on about the trip, something Jake didn't care at all, specially over some delicious betazoid ice cream. "I-I'm sorry, I'm making this all about myself again... how were your days here at the station?"

"You have all the right to make this about yourself, my days here were as boring as ever" Jake chuckled, getting a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. The bar was quiet, empty. It early still for movement, and Quark and Rom were looking over the profits of the morning while preparing for the night shift. The station had an air of calmness around it, and they were pretty much alone, and Jake felt it. Like he felt the other times.

Maybe it was time to just... spill it out.

"Jake-"

"Nog-"

They stopped and looked at each other, before Nog snorted and Jake chuckled, shaking his head.

"Go ahead" Nog said, but Jake shook his head and nodded to him.

"No please, be my guest. What is it?"

"Alright alright" Nog grinned. "Jake, something amazing happened. I have to tell you. I'm so excited."

"Oh now I'm curious. What is it?" he asked, eyes widening as he leaned closer. Nog did it too, their noses almost touch.

"Jake... I got promoted" he said, giggling loudly, and Jake's eyes widened before he laughed and reached out for his friend, holding his shoulder.

"Oh my god Nog that's amazing! Congratulations!" he said, smiling at his friend's excitement. "Should I call you captain now?"

"Come on" he groaned, pushing Jake despite having a smile on his face. "You know I'm not even close to captain. But now I am a junior officer. Isn't that cool?!"

"It's cooler than cool! Ice cold" Jake exclaimed, and Nog grinned widely, tapping his shoulder. "I bet you are going to be captain in record time!"

"I wish" he chuckled, shaking his head and returning his attention to the ice cream. "So, what did you want to tell me?"

"Oh... yeah that, it's not half as exciting as a promotion" Jake chuckled, weakly, feeling as if the moment was already gone. Nog frowned and shook his head.

"Jake, no! I bet whatever it is will be very exciting! Let me guess... you finished your book?" he asked, and Jake shook his head. "No, I see I see... you started a new one? No? Okay you... you got a girlfriend?!"

"No Nog! Oh my, not even close!" Jake laughed because what else would he do. "No no no, none of that... it's just... it's nothing really."

"Nothing? Jake you never hid anything from me. Spill it out" Nog insisted, frowning at Jake, who felt bad for both of them. He sighed, nervously, and then nodded.

"Alright. Alright I will tell you. I love you" Jake said, like a band aid. Ripping it off. He looked down at his ice cream for a moment and then at Nog, who seemed to be waiting, and then became confused.

"Okay? I love you too. Now tell me what's up" he said, looking honestly concerned now, but Jake felt his cheeks warming up and shook his head.

"No Nog. That's it. I love you. I'm in love with you" he said, slowly, and Nog narrowed his eyes before they widened, his mouth opening slightly. "I told you, way less cool than being promoted."

"I..." Nog started, while Jake played with his ice cream, not really knowing how to make this easier. "Jake... What..."

"Yeah, I know it's a bit out of the blue, but it's the truth" he said, shrugging and looking at Nog with an awkward smile. "No hard feelings, I hope?"

"Jake... this... is this serious?" he asked, as if he didn't believe him, and Jake nodded as patiently as ever. "I... I don't know what to say..."

"Then don't say anything" Jake said, shaking his head. "You don't have to say anything. If you don't want to. Or you can say what's in your mind. Whatever that may be."

"In... my mind" Nog said, softly, and looked down at his dessert. "I mean... Ferengis don't really... have relationships with other species' males..." he tried, but jake shook his head.

"Okay don't... say what's in your head, say what's in your heart... unless your heart wants to punch me. Please don't punch me" he said, making Nog chuckle weakly despite his utterly confused face.

"I am not... going to punch you" he assured, in a way that didn't make Jake too confidant of the promise. "I just... don't... know."

"It's... it's fine if you don't know, I just don't want it to ruin our friendship. I just can't keep it to myself anymore. I was so worried about you during this mission and I was tired of being a coward that never... told you the truth" Jake admitted, sighing to himself. "At least this way, if something happens to you... you will know-"

"That you love me?" Nog finished, and Jake swallowed thickly before nodding. "Okay... I think... I think I have an answer for you."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah but it's not... verbal."

"It's not punching me, is it?"

Nog chuckled again, and despite that, Jake was still nervous, not really knowing what Nog was going to do. Then he shook his head, seeming a little calmer.

"No, I'm not going to punch you" he said, and leaned closer to Jake. "Do you trust me?"

Oh, Jake did. He trusted him with his life.

With a nod, he watched as Nog sighed, leaning over the table and getting closer and closer to Jake, tilting his head and gently, very delicately pressing their lips together. Jake's eyes fluttered closed, and he held the spoon tightly in his hand, never expecting but also wishing he could kiss Nog like this every day. Their first kiss after a childhood of hidden and repressed feelings, it sure felt much better than any girl or guy he had kissed before.

However, it didn't last long, because both of them heard a quite loud 'YES' coming from behind a set of flowers, and they pulled away to see no one other than Dax there, looking over at them, somewhat embarrassed.

"Yes, I just won... on tabo... yes" she tried, and then sighed. "They are not gonna fall for it, are they?"

"Absolutely not" Jake heard his father say, his head popping from behind the flowers next to Dax.

"Dad?!" Jake squealed, feeling even more embarrassed, but he wasn't alone. Julian appeared from Dax's other side, looking over.

"Well, at least we were able to capture this unique moment" he said, and Benjamin looked at him unamused, before Kira looked over with O'Brien.

"Can we please leave? This was such a waste of time" she complained, and Dax showed her the tongue just before the flower stand transformed into goo and then into Odo, who was shaking his head.

"Odo? Even you?!" Nog asked, clearly embarrassed out of his mind, but the shapeshifter just grunted.

"I was the only one supposed to be here. I don't trust you two together" he said, and then looked at the others. "They just decided to come with me, for a change."

"Alright alright could you all just leave or ask for something to drink? The boys are having a moment here, shoo" Quark complained from the bar, waving his hands at them while Jake let his head fall over the table and Nog shook his head, blushing up to his ears.

"This is the worst" Jake mumbled, and looked up at Nog as the others continued their discussion, accusing Quark of also being there to spy on his nephew. "We should probably get out of here."

"Could we go... somewhere we can continue what we stopped?" Nog suggested, seeming to blush even brighter, and Jake smiled at him before nodding, reaching for his hand and standing up.

"I know a place" he said, and pulled Nog out of the bar, heading to the lift so they could be alone while the... adults kept talking. "So... you like me back?"

"I did say I love you too, didn't I?" Nog smiled, more relaxed and almost softer than Jake had ever seen him. "Although... I never expected you to like me back."

"I never expected you to like me" Jake said, and then leaned closer, smiling down at his... friend? Partner? Lover? Boyfriend? He didn’t know yet. "But now that I know you do... I've always been curious to try out some of that oo-mox your uncle talks so much about."

"Oh my merchants Jake!" Nog squealed, pushing him away and getting a laugh out of him. "That is so inappropriate!"

"Not for a Ferengi is not. They do it all the time!"

"It's a business strategy and yes, my uncles does it too much. It is very intimate, no matter what he says."

"Has anyone ever-"

"NO! And I'm not like other Ferengi, I'm a star fleet officer!"

"Oh come on, just lemme touch it?"

"No!"

"Please?"

"M-maybe but when we are alone!"

"Like in our quarters?"

"... p-perhaps."

"Nice."

#my fanfic #jake sisko #nog #nohjay #noh-jay #jake/nog #nog/jake #ds9 #deep space nine #my favorite boys #first kiss #confessions #they are both 20 something and stupid #oo-mox #mention only

[aboyandhisstarship]

The Delta AU  (tinder AU reboot)

Notes:

Thanks to @forestwater87 for not only the name Greenwood but also a suggestion as to what Gwen’s new job should be. 

final order of business this fic poses a very serious (not really) question that i want to know your answers to so discuss 

also this bad boy is un proof read because i got a digital date tonight...also i’m lazy 

That’s right a reboot, so enjoy.

 Afghanistan:

David advanced covering the roofs Night vision googles over his eyes as he said into his radio “Sand Man to Dog Patch we are passing Salmon,” The rest of the team moving in a wedge formation towards the destroyed town.

Millers voice returned “roger  Sand Man.”

David crouched raising a fist in a stop motion as he heard a handful of voices walking in the street he whispered “Cool Breeze?”

Jasper shook his head “no weapons….”

Nurf whispered “uhhh they told us that were only dudes holding AK’s out here.”

David shook his head saying “Sand Man to Dog Patch?”

Miller returned “I heard Sand Man…Intel is saying you are Oscar mike.”

Tabii growled “we are painting a target for a bombing raid.”

David asked “Dog Patch…how sure is intel?”

Miller paused “they are saying 60%.”

David watched Kids enter the street kicking a soccer ball, one of the kids kicked the ball wide and it Hit Nurf square in the chest the kids ran up and then saw the 4 soldiers crouching on the ground.

The kids backed away scared as David lowered his weapon nodding for his team to do the same he pushed the ball back to the kids before saying “Sand Man Dog patch…Intel is wrong…we are aborting.”

David tried to smile at the kids who grabbed the Ball before running away.

The lights on the village lit up but by then the team was already gone.

North Carolina:

David stepped off the plane as Miller met him saying “Sir…you got to get those Intel guys straight.”

Miller sighed “they are not on the ground.”

David countered “maybe they should be…Sir…all I ask is that my team know that they are hostiles on the ground…before we are sent in.”

Miller sighed “I will pass on your request up the chain Sargent major, until then your team is off rotation until another Mission comes up.”

David gestured “yes sir, Jasper!”

Jasper smiled “cars running Davie.”

 The next night:

David was dressed in plaid as Jasper dragged out of the car saying “Davie, we both know you need to get out more…you work too much.”

David pointed out halfheartedly “we work the same amount?”

Jasper countered “but I have Sarah waiting for me…who do you have David?”

David sighed “Look Jasper….”

Jasper crossed his arms before saying “that’s what I thought…come on Davie let’s make you some friends.”

The bar much to David’s annoyance was busy and Jasper was waved over by Sarah Jasper's fiancee, David awkwardly stood around before bidding an escape towards the bar ordering a coke, he sat down drinking his coke scrawling through his phone, Tabii was with her girlfriend and Nurf was visiting his mother. So sadly he was stuck with Jasper and by extension all of Sarah’s doctor friends.

David took another sip as a voice asked “you get dragged here to?”

He turned to his right to see a girl about his age, wearing a sundress. She smiled “my names Gwen.”

David smiled “David.”

Gwen looked him up and down before nodding “outdoors type dragged here by a friend who thinks you need to get out more?”

David chuckled “is it that obvious?”

Gwen was about to answer when Sarah walked over “GWEN! I see you met the other recluse!”

David and Gwen said in unison “recluse!?”

Sarah rolled her eyes “Gwen this is one of Jaspers co-workers David, David Gwen was my roommate back in school.”

Gwen sighed “there goes my entire mystic.”

Sarah countered “David here has an enough for both of you!” before walking away enjoying her beer.

David took a sip of his coke asking “another doctor?”

Gwen mumbled “I’m an editor at a newspaper.”

David asked “what?”

Gwen said it again a little louder “I am an editor at a newspaper.”

David lit up “No kidding that is awesome!”

Gwen blinked “thank you.”

David took another sip saying “sounds like interesting work?”

Gwen nodded “it can be…”

She was interrupted as the TV said “breaking news at this hour, Country pop singer Cindy McGuire, has been kidnapped during her tour of South America…”

The bar tender turned off the TV as David’s phone pinged he glanced up to see Jasper pinged as well, he turned around to see Gwen was phone also went off. David opted not to question it saying “pleasure meeting you, but work calls.”

Gwen sighed “same…but I would like to talk to you again.”

David smiled before he threw some cash on the bar before holding his phone to his ear saying “go for Greenwood.”

Jasper following him out, Sarah appeared next to Gwen groaning “they just got back…but duty calls.”

Gwen glanced up from her own emails “what…oh yea…a real shame.”

Sarah smiled “so what did you think of David?”

Gwen frowned “Listen I have to go work.” Dodging the question

Sarah smiled “oh she is hooked.”

 Fort Bragg:

Nurf sat down groaning “man I had to leave my mom…again.”

Tabii groaned “And I lost date night…yet again.”

Jasper sipped some water saying “if it makes you feel any better David was making moves on a girl.”

The entire squad sat forward as David blushed “Wha…me and Gwen…no way, I mean I barely know her and…”

Tabii interrupted “Damn…he is already smitten.”

Miller burst in saying “sorry to pull you all away, but we have a developing situation, this is Cindy McGuire.”

Nurf smiled “my mom loves her stuff!”

Tabii blinked “wasn’t she in the news recently?”

Miller nodded “she was caught on video, doing a rather…caustic rant…and as such is on a tour of schools she helped build in South America.”

Jasper flinched saying “yea I remember watching the news with Sarah when the news broke, it was not pleasant.”

David reminded “we don’t have to like her, we just need to do the job.”

Miller nodded “speaking of, her publisher had the genius idea of publishing her route in advance…she got herself nabbed by a couple of wannabe El Chapo types.”

Tabii groaned “oh boy…”

David sighed “so untrained goons with Ak’s…what are their demands?”

Miller visibly scoffed “500 million dollars, and weapons…enough weapons to arm an air craft carrier.”

Japer took a sip of water “these guys need to manage their expectations.”

Miller chuckled dryly adding “since these guys have demanded weapons a rescue operation has been green lit, this job is going to be in the public eye…so make it clean.”

Elsewhere:

Gwen entered as her boss said “Gwendolyn about time you got here.”

Gwen sighed “sorry sir.”

Her boss rolled his eyes saying “Cindy McGuire got nabbed from her tour in South America, a friend of a friend in the FBI said the investigation just changed hands…and there is red tape involved! You know what that means! NEWS! So I want to know what is happening Gwen! Get on it!”

Gwen nodded “on it sir,” As she started to dive deep.

 C130:

David sat in his black camo the lights in the plane were dimmed as he napped only for jasper to loudly clear his throat “David.”

David replied without opening his eyes “Yea Jasp?”

Jasper took a sip of water before asking “sooooooo Gwen.”

David turned over and went back to sleep ignoring Jasper as Tabii grinned “I ship it.”

Nurf said “we have not even met her yet.”

Tabii exclaimed “who cares, anyone who can make the boss look like that is good in my books!”

Nurf shook his head as one of the flight engineers said “1 hour to jump get ready!”

 Peru:

David landed with a thump his night vision googles over his face as he said “dog patch we have passed RWBY.”

Miller responded “roger that Sand Man.”

The team started to advance toward the abandoned gas station where McGuire was being held as Tabii asked “RWBY? Isn’t that the name of like an anime or something?”

Nurf pointed out “it’s American so is it technically an anime?”

Everyone looked at him and he shrugged “what, just because I’m a meat head doesn’t mean I don’t dabble.”

Jasper sighed “I’m just mad they gave us cartons for this operation, come on not the coolest option.”

David dead panned “the last one was sea food.”

Jasper groaned “I know but at least it was at least somewhat cooler.”

Nurf sighed “are you going to brush past that this one is cartoons and the first one is RWBY?”

Tabii sighed “I thought you were not sure RWBY was an Anime?”

Nurf groaned “yea but…but cartoon doesn’t feel right.”

Tabii lunched into a counter point as David tuned them out. 

At this point this debate had been going on for about three hours when David signaled stop saying “Cool Breeze Dirt Diver give me an enemy count.”

Nurf and Jasper said “Wilco.”

David said “Dogpatch, we have passed…Danny Phantom over.”

David heard chuckling in Dog patch as he said “say again Sand man?”

David rolled his eyes “Dog Patch we have passed Danny Phantom.”

Miller could not keep  the amusement out of his voice having heard the previous conversation as it recorded over there com’s “roger Sandman you have passed Danny Phantom.”

Nurf smiled “now that’s a cartoon.”

David reminded “everything we say is being recorded for the record.”

Nurf paused before adding “Danny Phantoms dad is my spirit animal.”

David sighed “report on enemy Dirt Diver.”

Jasper responded “I got 4 tangos, all packing AK’s all facing east, having a smoke.”

David asked “any inside?”

Nurf this time said “negative.”

David flicked off his gun safety saying “Dog patch Sand Man…permission to engage.”

Miller answered “sand man your team has the Green Light.”

David responded already moving towards the building saying “roger.”

The goons were enjoying their smoke as David said “On my count…3,2,1.”

With that four gun suppressed shots rang out and the goons fell to the ground with holes in their skulls.

The team stacked up on the door as David nodded and they kicked the door open meeting the screaming face of Cindy McGuire.

David said “clear, Red cap.”

Tabii moved over to the tied down girl saying “Ma’am we are American’s we are here to rescue you.”

Tabii looked her over for wounds as she demanded in a high pitched voice, the type of thing you would expect from a rich snobby girl in a high school movie as she demanded “who are you people.”

David ignored her saying “dog patch we have passed courage the cowardly dog.”

Cindy called to David the clear leader saying “I said who are you! You have no right to treat me this way! I demand to speak to my agent!”

David and Jasper shoot each other a “is she for real?” glance before saying “like Red cap said we are American’s.”

McGuire furled her lips “the fuck kind of name is RED CAP!?”

Nurf pulled out his knife as she said “Woah sorry I asked sheesh!”

Nurf sighed “just relax I’m cutting you free.”

McGuire now free from her chair asked “so if she is Red Cap...” dragging on the word as if had personally run over her dog before finishing “what are the rest of you?”

David sighed “my name is Sand man that is Cool Breeze and Dirt Diver.”

McGuire looked Nurf up and down “oh you are a Dirt Diver that’s for sure.”

Nurf looked suitably offended as David said “ma’am we can’t stay here, sun comes up in 4 hours and we still have 8 kilometers to cross, to get to the chopper.”

McGuire laughed “oh that’s a short drive…wait…are you asking me to walk!? This is an outrage! Your treating me worse than my kidnappers!”

She snapped her fingers “I want to talk to this….what did you call it Dog patch…god another awful name.”

David groaned “ma’am we are in a hostile environment as such I am the highest authority you can speak to, if you wish to launch a formal complaint that is your right but will have to wait until after we are out of an active combat zone.”

McGuire groaned “I’m holding you to that…Sand Man.” She spat out the name.

McGuire started the walk as David said “Dog patch, we are passing Cyber chase.”

 3 hours later:

McGuire sat on a rock whining “ my feet hurt, is that helicopter coming or not! My lawyers will have a field day with this!”

David who was next to the girl groaned “chopper will be here in 20 mikes.”

McGuire demanded “I don’t speak baby killer!”

Tabii snapped “minutes!...the chopper will be here in 20 minutes.”

McGuire groaned “it better be, I can’t believe this happened I was supposed to get away without any consequence’s, because I’m hot popular and rich!”

The team looked at each other  yet again silently asking “is this girl for real?”

 Blackstone air force base:

McGuire was taken off the plane with a trauma blanket around her as she wailed “they were so horrible to me!” to the waiting camera’s

Gwen saw her reporters trying to get an interview with the star who clearly put on more make up before coming out to the camera’s but Gwen was more interested in soldiers in the back ground quietly slipping away chatting among themselves, including a tuft of red hear she could swear she could recognize.

 2 days later:

David plucked down on his apartment couch, the debrief for that last operation was a night mare, as true to her Diva ways, McGuire was suing the US government for her “rough treatment” everyone who had seen the transcript had determined that she in fact did not have a case, but the Army not in a mood for a long trial so they redacted anything classified and planned to release the transcript  to a news station.

David lay back already thinking of the memes that will spawn “should RWBY have been on the cartoon list?”

 News office:

Gwen re read the transcript chuckling at the teams moving in attics and groaning every time the letters HVT appeared on the transcript. She had found a picture of David on Sarah’s phone and had determined it was likely they were the same person. Gwen chuckled “I guess Sarah’s was not kidding when she mentioned mystic.”

#Gwenvid #Tinder AU? #idk might need a new name? #Cindy is the worst #Sand man!david #Cool Breeze! Jasper #Red cap! tabii #Dirt Diver! Nurf #news editor Gwen #Sarah Jasper's fiancee #is RWBY an anime?