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dearestones · 2 years

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The Kicker: Azul Flies Too Close to the Sun (Azul Ashengrotto and Reader)

Warnings: Azul being slimy as usual; unfortunately, no one was feral in this fic.

Summary: You catch the Housewarden of Octavinelle trying to fly. After offering your help, you end up doing more damage than you thought possible.

Classes had just finished and you weren’t keen on watching your friends have fun at their after school clubs. Instead, you wished to spend some time walking the grounds and enjoying the scenery. After having spent so much time in Night Raven College, you had become more than accustomed to the ins and outs of the prestigious high school, but there were days when you discovered new shortcuts and hidden alcoves previously unknown to you. It wasn’t that surprising, however, Night Raven College was expansive and so were the areas surrounding the institution.

Curiosity, forever your greatest strength and eventual downfall, dictated that you cut through the fields where physical education was held. It had been a while since you’ve observed the fields with leisure. More often than not, you were often relegated to either stretching with your fellow classmates or watching your peers fly high into the sky. Coach Vargas was melancholic when he realized that you couldn’t participate in his flight lessons because of your lack of magic, but he made up for it with his enthusiasm to train your muscles to be as firm and as bulky as they can be.

As you traipsed onto the grass, you saw that there was one lone student there, someone still wearing their PE uniform and huffing and puffing like one of those wolves from your homeland’s fairy tales. Surprised and all too willing to back away and give this student a modicum of privacy, you started to walk towards the wooded area when you realized just who you had been staring at.

The instant you saw his glasses glinting in the late afternoon sun and the shock of white curls messily gathered over his scalp, you knew who it was: the Housewarden of Octavinelle.

Now, what were you to do with such a discovery?

Should you be like any other NRC student and derive entertainment and blackmail from Azul trying his hardest to mount and fly a broom?

Or should you be a decent human being and leave right away?

As you pondered the question, your fingers on the trigger mechanism of the camera that hung around your neck, your decision was made for you.

Before you could say so much as a hello, Azul strode over to you, businessman persona in all of its scummy, capitalistic glory. When he was only a few feet away, you noticed that not only was his hair mussed up out of its usual style, but that it was also matted with sweat and his cheeks were flushed a light shade of blue. At first you were surprised, but you quickly remembered that he was technically an octopus and you had seen weirder from the various other beastfolk and of course, the Leech twins.

“Hello, Prefect!” His voice, as always, commanded a sort of presence that more often than not was accompanied by a proposition of some sort. And more often than not, when Azul got his way, he usually ended up with the better half a deal. However, just like his disheveled appearance, his voice wavered and his fingers trembled as he swiped his fingers through his hair. Nervous? Or was he simply tired from physical exertion? “What brings you over to the training fields, today?”

You shrugged. “I like wandering around campus when I have nothing better to do.”

Azul hummed. It seemed that the longer he stayed still and focused on something other than practicing his flying skills, he was regaining the bravado and composure that made him who he was. “You should talk to Jade sometime. He would appreciate a partner when going on his hiking trips.”

A corner of your mouth turned up at that. While the variety of mushrooms Jade foraged for in his travels were questionable, you could not deny that his fondness for fungi was rather endearing. Now, if only he could be as kind and as considerate when coordinating with the other students on other matters outside of poisonous flora…

“I’ll be sure to talk to him the next time I see him.” Your fingers drummed against your thigh before you asked, offhandedly and without ill intent, “Are you trying to fly?”

If it were any other student, you would have regarded the pompous and derisive act that he was putting on as nothing more than his true feelings. Many of the NRC students didn’t like that you were attending their prestigious school because you weren’t supposed to be there, you had landed yourself in a position comparable to the other Housewardens, and your one lone ward was known to be a nuisance at times. However, the light blue blush on his smooth cheeks refused to abate and the tremble of his hand against his chest did little to dissuade you from the notion that Azul was nervous.

You had seen Azul at his lowest, which had contributed to his Overblot, but you had never seen him break a sweat in normal affairs such as this.

Then again, you had never seen Azul sweat before.

“My word! Trying? I must tell you right now that I have flown and have managed to complete the required twenty meters for my first year!” Azul grinned, the manic look in his eyes somewhat amusing, but disheartening when you realized that he was trying to show off and market himself as something he was not.

You shook your head before lifting up both your hands in a placating motion. “I think everyone knows that you’re not one of the best flyers, Azul. Besides, aren’t you supposed to make it fifty meters for second year?”

You weren’t trying to antagonize him, but with the way he tried his hardest to stand his ground and not deflate, made you feel bad. Having to learn how to walk on land barely a year ago and then having to embrace the wonders and experiences of the sky? For someone more adventurous and daring like Floyd, it was a challenge that could be easily overcome with brute force determination. For someone like Azul… and by extension, Jade… Well, you weren’t all too surprised when Coach Vargas said that they valued their hard work and effort rather than their successes.

During your contemplation, you saw that the blue hue of his skin was rapidly darkening.

After having seen a number of Riddle’s breakdowns, you knew that could never be a good sign, differences in color notwithstanding.

“Hey! I have an idea,” you kept your voice an octave above a chipper tone, but with enough sincerity in it to make Azul think over your impending proposal, “why don’t I help you?”

The flush on his cheeks dissipated—thank goodness—but that didn’t stop the young man from massaging his temples in what you assumed was either in irritation or in awe of your audacity.

“How?” He narrowed his eyes at you through his half rimmed glasses, his arms crossed over his chest. “Last time I checked, you had no magic and had never flown a broom before. To be frank, I don’t think I can entertain a deal such as yours.”

Ugh.

Even when you were sure that there was no way you could possibly profit off of Azul, it seemed that he thought everything had to be a transaction.

“Look, I’ve listened to Coach Vargas’ speech about flight, determination, focus, etc. I’ve memorized it. Furthermore, I’ve also had my fair share of encouraging my peers whenever they needed help with flying. I’m practically his assistant when out on the field!” Among other things. Like an errand runner. Or a secretary. Or a school therapist. “The worst that can happen is that you don’t improve and I waste my time out here.”

You hadn’t planned on doing anything beneficial anyway, so there was nothing lost.

“I see.” He cupped his chin with his hand and asked, “What happens if I do improve? What do you want in return?”

“Honestly? Nothing.”

Azul’s eyes gave you an unimpressed look.

“You of all people should know how I work. You help me and I’ll help you out in return. So,” he leaned in close and you couldn’t help but think that even though he was much shorter compared to most threats you faced in Twisted Wonderland, he could be threatening when he wanted to be. “What will it be?”

You thought for a moment, considering.

“How about we negotiate terms after we’ve seen an improvement? I’ll promise to make my offer as painless and as reasonable as possible if that is the case.”

“Sounds fair.” And then his eyes—ironically a striking hue of sky blue—became mischievous. “However, if I see no improvement in my flying abilities, then you’ll have to go out hiking with Jade.”

A scream that sounded more like a bird squawking erupted from your throat. “What? Why?”

Azul shrugged, his gaze far away and distant. “I need someone to keep him on a tight leash… I’m worried that the mushrooms he hides in his room are flowering and spreading their spores around the dorm.”

Ah.

“Wait, if you think it’s such a health concern, shouldn’t you be talking to the Headmage about this?”

Azul shrugged again. “To be fair, when was the last time the Headmage has actually done his job as a caretaker and protector of this school?”

“Point taken.”

The next few hours were surreal.

You and most of the Night Raven College population would happily agree that having the only magicless student in the entire school tutor one of the Housewardens was something that not many could ever see happening. Riddle would never hear the end of it, Leona would have surely bit your head off for suggesting such a thing or ignoring you entirely, and the others would surely take offense to your offer of aid. Not that you would blame any of them, reputation was near and dear to most of the students.

As for Azul, you knew that he had his pride—just like the rest of your peers. However, he was also hard working, shrewd, and willing to go to great lengths in order to accomplish his goals. If that meant that he had to swallow his pride and listen to a student who barely knew the ins and outs of Twisted Wonderland, then so be it. At the very least, he had something to gain at the very end.

It was with a heavy heart that the surrealness of the experience was only because Azul agreed.

And it was that same surreality that faded after the first few minutes of instruction because you finally realized why Azul was so bad at flying.

It wasn’t like he didn’t want to fly.

It was the fact that he was desperate—almost too desperate—to fly.

Ruggie was right. When you observed Azul slowly ascend into the sky, his forehead glistening with sweat and his face fixed into a determined scowl, you saw that his flying technique was desperate. His legs wrapped too tightly around the length of the wood, his hands grasped the handle with something akin to a grip that you would often associate with prisoners on death row, and every second he tried to fly, you could have sworn that he looked like he was only seconds from crying.

After he made his hasty, but stuttering descent back to the ground, you realized why Coach Vargas had a somewhat hard time with Azul.

For all of his determination and willingness to study and plan ahead… It was certainly a let down to know that even after almost a year or so of attending physical education class, he had quite a ways to go concerning flying. Not that you could blame him, however. Walking was already a different beast when compared to swimming and flying was another hurdle that could appear to be insurmountable, even to the likes of those like Azul.

“It’s certainly not the best, but I don’t think you’re the worst.” Azul sent you a withering look. “Don’t believe me? I’ve been watching a few of the first years and there are a few who can barely get off the ground. I think you’ve done a splendid job so far!”

His lips curled into a sneer.

You backtracked, almost instantly knowing that flattery wouldn’t get you far in the presence of a businessman like Azul. “Okay, your form is too rigid.” You pointed at how his elbows were unnaturally too straight and that his back was hunched over in a manner that looked like the fetal position, except he was stuck gripping his broom. “You have to relax your elbow and gently curve your back. Instead of a full ninety degrees, try… I don’t know one hundred thirty five degrees?”

This time, Azul couldn’t help but snark at you, his facade as a cool thinking conman quickly dissolving like sugar in hot water.

“Prefect, I am not a protractor.” His glare would have been debilitating, but his glasses were slightly askew and he was still trembling from his flight.

“Yes, but I recall that you have arms. Furthermore, your back should be slightly straightened. It’s good that you’re leaning forward, but you should still relax your posture.”

Azul pursed his lips.

“Now would be a good time as any, Housewarden Ashengrotto, to actually take my advice." You thought for a moment, a little confused as a thought occurred to you. "Didn't Coach Vargas teach you this already?"

His cheeks colored a more vibrant blue than what you were used to seeing.

"Yes, but his instruction and bluster leaves a lot to be desired."

"And my instruction?"

He huffed. "Adequate."

After you coached him and helpfully adjusted his stance when you noticed that his starting position didn't have a solid stance underneath his broom to aid in a successful takeoff, you advised that he kick off again. This time, when he flew, his flight was markedly more stable, almost like those beginner first years after their first flight lesson. Not bad, but improvement was always necessary.

Furthermore, you noticed that Azul had gotten higher, almost to the point where you thought that if he had stayed in the air longer, had held onto that confidence for only at least a dozen meters more, he would have cleared the fifty meter requirement.

Progress.

Slow going, but steady progress.

At this point, the sky had become darker, the first twinkling stars began to peak out behind the clouds. The sun was gently setting as the hues of pink and violet began to playfully chase gold and orange away. Perhaps it would have been advantageous to let Azul rest and meet up for another day if he was willing, but you wanted to make sure that Azul could pass his flight requirement. While you had started out with mostly pure intentions regarding your private tutoring, a part of you wanted to prove to him that you were an adequate flight instructor. Pride had won you over and you wanted to ride that high of finally making Azul relax and acquiesce to your whims for as long as possible.

Even if that high was to last only a few more minutes, you would gladly accept it.

"Congrats! There was a lot of improvement!" You clapped, the sound pleasant but harsh on the ears in such a quiet environment. "If you would like, you can rest for five minutes before going again."

Panting slightly, Azul regarded you with eyes that flashed with the same sort of predatory gaze that you would often associate with his two best friends. Was it out of place on his disheveled figure? Perhaps. However, you were at ease. You had helped him out and even if you would stand by your words—that you did not seek out payment—you knew that Azul was going to pay you back somehow. He may twist the benefit to his whims, but he wouldn't hurt you outright.

"Prefect, I believe that this level of instruction is more than enough. I think that I can handle my next flight exam without further assistance." He pushed his glasses, which had begun to slip, up the slope of his nose. "Now, it appears that since you've been more than helpful—surprisingly—"

You refused to rise to the bait.

The insult, as subtle as it was, was more than customary within the walls of Night Raven College.

"—I would like to reward you for your efforts." His glasses glinted in the light under the rising moon. "What would you wish for?"

You thought for a moment before a thought rushed to the forefront of your mind.

You chewed the inside of your mouth to stop yourself from smiling too broadly.

"I wish for you to fly one more time tonight with the goal of reaching the standard flight requirement while also utilizing the tips that I gave you."

Normally, Azul would have been too proud and shrewd to even think about cracking his facade at the slightest demand, but it was late. And Azul had put his body through the ringer. Not only that, but you were the insignificant Prefect from Ramshackle Dorm. Even if word did get out that you had seen him in such a state, who would believe you? He was, after all, one of the more formidable students that Night Raven College had to offer.

He let out a shaky breath before nodding slightly.

"It's a deal."

He mounted his broom once again and sailed off into the night.

It seemed that although the conversation had taken his breath away, his posture resembled that of novice fliers instead of the desperate grip that he was employing from before. It wasn't perfect, but you were sure that Coach Vargas and most of the students in Azul's class would be surprised by how well he was taking to flight.

Up and up, Azul's broom went.

At the twenty meter mark, you silently urged him on.

At thirty meters, you saw Azul was slowing, almost hesitant to move on.

Forty meters in, Azul was stalling, idling in the air before stuttering forwards.

Finally, at fifty meters, Azul let his broom soar upwards one meter above your required payment as if to show that he was capable, before zooming back down.

You beamed up at his approaching figure, but you quickly noticed that something was off. For one, Azul was going faster than what was recommended. For two, you realized that there was a shrill scream in the air coming from Azul. And three—a very important observation—you realized that if you did not move out of the way, Azul was going to crash into you.

Instincts honed after dealing with more Overblots than what was healthy, you ducked out of the way, rolling on the freshly cut grass. Not a moment later, you were all too aware of the sound of someone thudding on the ground and a pained whine.

Rushing to stand, you nearly fell over your feet before stumbling towards Azul. There, you were greeted with a foreign sight.

There, on the ground, Azul was curled into a tight ball, his breaths low and shallow. His glasses had fallen off and lay near his head. As your eyes scanned him for any injuries, you noticed that his eyes were screwed shut and his hands were clenched between his legs.

Wait...

You knelt near his head and in a voice that was barely audible, asked, "Hey, ummm... Stupid question, I know, but did you get hit? Like in the... you know..."

Thank the Seven that the moon only gave enough light that you knew Azul was glaring up at you, but not enough that you could feel guilty over the part you played in this predicament.

"I think that's a yes." You hesitated, your hand reaching out to him before you stopped yourself from making contact. It did not help at all that Azul's eyes were watching your every move. "You know, I could help you with the landing next time?"

Azul huffed in pain.

"I'll take that as a yes as well."

If you want to donate a Ko-Fi, feel free https://ko-fi.com/devintrinidad.

TWISTED WONDERLAND MASTERLIST

#twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland azul #twst azul #azul ashengrotto #twst azul ashengrotto #twisted wonderland azul ashengrotto #reader #gender neutral reader #gn! reader #dearestones #devintrinidad

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rileys-battlecats · 2 years

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What school subject would be each micaclan cats favorite? What specific unit in that subject? Why?

oh heck you're gonna make me remember school subjects?? EVIL

let's see....

Mudpaw would be a fan of algebra, because once you know a formula you can apply it anywhere where you need it. There's clear cut right or wrong answers that can be found and proven, which makes thinking about it simpler in his head than something like literary analysis for example

Wrentail would like literature classes for the exact opposite reasons for mudpaw liking math; it's up to interpretation, and no one can tell you your interpretation is incorrect, since it's all subjective

Larkstar would also be a math fan, but particularly calculus. Long, engaging problem solving with clear-cut answers are right up her alley

Foxjaw would like science classes, specifically when they do those units where they write a hypothesis and make observations and then write about what you got right and what you got wrong. He likes learning :)

Owlpounce would enjoy history; seeing how events in history connect to each other and influence one another would be fascinating to her

Whitepaw would like literature classes, but mostly only for the reading. Especially classics from people like Shakespeare, I think he would appreciate the prose

Hawkpaw would like chemistry, because if you have a fun teacher you get to do crazy stuff with chemicals and Bunsen burners

Puddlepaw would also like chemistry, but only because they like learning the ways chemical chains interact with each other and learning the components of different molecules

Robinsong would like literary analysis like her brother, but mostly because she would like getting into an author's head and figuring out what they were trying to communicate through subtext

Gullytuft would like geometry, because it has the appeal of knowing there is a clear cut right vs wrong answer, but it also has a three dimensional element that makes it easy to apply in day-to-day life

Sandleap would like social studies classes, learning about how communities function and how people interact with each other to make a cohesive society, cause he likes people and learning about them :)

Laureltail would like grammar classes, since I think she would be very eloquent already and be very good at the class

Embertooth would say he doesn't like school but he secretly loves reading poetry

Pearfur would like art classes, specifically units where the class tries to emulate a specific artist in history, since it requires a steady hand and a sharp eye for details

Snaptail would like history classes, especially units on local history, cause they get to go on field trips to historical locations or museums :)

Birchspeckle would like PE cause you can hit people with dodgeballs and not get in trouble

#ask #micaclan #long post #I can't believe I just had to dredge up my memories about school subjects #I went with average middle/high school subjects for this #cause college classes branch out way more and are way more specialized lol

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friendly-user1 · 1 year

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Peter’s Pov

I walked into into the room to see my decathlon team members.Mr. Harrison was talking about something.”Ah welcome Peter take a seat”Mr Harrison says.I sit down next to Ned and MJ. “So guys as J was saying tomorrow we will have go to the Stark Tower for a field trip”.Everyone in the room was exited except for me.I was taking a field trip to my own home since I was Tony Stark’s son.

“Now let’s go over the permission slips”Mr.Harrison continues.”Make sure you get a parent or guardian to sign them and you may now leave guys”.I grabbed my backpack and walked to the school entrance.Happy was going to be picking me up today.

I waited for about 2 minutes before a black Mercedes came up in front of me.The windows rolled down to show a grumpy happy.(He should be called grumpy instead).

When we got to the tower I walked into the lobby to see a Familiar face.The receptionist,Bibian.”Hey Pete what’s the problem” she asks.

“Look Bibian I have a field to the tower tomorrow with my decathlon team.”Bibian looks at me with pity. “Well that sucks Petey”.I notice her brown skin licking very shiny today.I always notice small details about her.I was very much in love.

“I know how to make you feel better Petey”she says in a suggestive tone. “How will you do that B?”, I ask

“You’ll see but now let’s go to the penthouse”she gently grabs my hands and leads me to the elevator.

“Friday take us to the 93rd floor please”Bibian asks.Then she smashes her lips into mine.I slip my tongue into her mouth.Our tongues dance around together until the elevator door opens.

“Let’s go Pete I’m so horny”.We enter the penthouse and go up to my room.I quickly close the door and push Bibian onto my bed.Our lips connect again and we make out for 5 minutes.

I pull of Bibian’s top and bra in one go.”Wow you look gorgeous”.Bibian moans which made me crave more.I started licking her right nipple and twisting the left.Bibian starts to whimper.I take of her mini skirt and move her thong to the side.I connect my lips to her clit.

Bibian moans louder and louder. “Pe-pants-ter I’m going to cum.I speed up my pace as she cums.I lap up all her cum from her over stimulated cunt.

I open my drawer and pull out a condom. I slide it in my cock.I gather some of Bibian’s wetness to make it easier.

I push my tip into her and let a out a groan.God her pussy was so tight.3 minutes later I make Bibian cum again but keep pounding into her.

“Peter please slow (moans) down”.she tries to let out. “Bibian this is my cunt and I will keep pounding into you because you’re mine.Bibian reached her 7th orgasm which let out mine.

I shoot my hit cum into the condom and slowly pull out.Bibian whimpers because she still is very sensitive right now.

I clean my self and Bibian up and give her a t-shirt of mine.We put on some clothes and get ready to leave.Before she goes Bibian give me 3 hickeys in my neck.

Wow I am in love.

Authors note:Hey to whoever reads this there will be 3 more parts and please tell more peps about this if you liked it 😗

#peter parker #tom holland #smut #marvel #ocs

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crvptydgaming · 2 years

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Since I haven’t updated since Session Two, the text below the read more is a recap of all the sessions since.

It has been a time.

We went on a field trip to an ancient forest to learn some things, and some weird robots showed up and started burning the forest down. we made friends with a magical weed plant who became a dryad so that was cool and we curbstomped the robots. We rescued the fire elemental they were using and named it baby, he lives in a lantern now.

We were hanging out at school when a baby like...titan? or something? woke up and was threatening the school. The one pregnant girl [we'll come back to that] went into labor and our resident farm boy helped her until the nurse got there. we helped protect the little kids.

WE SOLVED THE PROBLEM WITH THEM NOT BEING ABLE TO HAVE BABIES. They were inbreeding too much lmao, and the one pregnant girl was like really respected and loved because she managed to carry a baby to term.

So we made 'friends' with a devil who had a stall selling random crap, he tried to sell us a bag of devouring in a bag of holding's place. we saw through it, got a contract out of him, so we became trading buddies. we trade him stuff from the outer realms, where earth is, and he gives us first dibs on his new stuff. we arranged with Management of the market to get him a permanent store. we purchased 4 storefronts. he swapped between them

So Management is like...an eldritch being. looking at him is terrifying. He has a halflink assistant that he mind melds with to communicate with people. If they are able to last a month they are able to retire with full benefits. Abby fucking negotiated with that guy. That's something i should have mentioned and a testament to how terrifying she is.

We take our transmutation teacher and the pe teacher to a concert! in our realm! we go to a nightclub after and accidentally teach humans magic.

Abby and Oliver also end up in a threesome with a girl we called McDonalds girl for the longest time [her name is Sadie]

abby's parents found out about her magic and that they could also do magic. they are...coping well, remarkably. less so wit the fact that she made a deal with a devil and LESS so with the magical weed smoking but that's fine.

Derek got a hold of the actual holy grail. he showed us, we went to our devil friend and went 'cool religious artifacts?' so he stole a heap from gods of the outer realm and we purchased them. Needless to say the gods got mad, sent their angels down, and started pummelling the devil. abby, and her balls of steel, told them she wanted to speak to the manager. SO she and the gang had a meeting with literal gods, including some greek gods, and God as well as ones like Inanna and 'lesser' gods of earth. God has a hard on for Derek but he refuses to do anything out of sheet shock lmao

Abby and Oliver become oracles of Athena and Inanna respectively.

We literally have a sit down with the magic council who are very hard to meet with to tell them how they fucked up biologically, and what they can do to fix it.

Oliver buys a house, uses our Illusion teacher, Alanysmith to pretend to be his dad, Abby's parents freak and that's how we learn we are half siblings.

Abby and Oliver find out they are HALF SIBLINGS.

Deep Breath. There’s more.

All that happened in around a month.

But first some notes;

Headmistress is kinda sus. So I asked the librarian if he could find me a book on the history of her or her family. He STOLE HER DIARY FOR ME. Turns out her sister had decided to fall in love with a Gnome or a Dwarf or something short and so prejudice did its thing. Her sister died before she graduated school and my character firmly believed that headmistress killed her. Still up for debate. The woman is emotional when it comes to her sister, who knows.

First time we went to the market we made friends with a Dragonborn and his half-orc godchild who had been left in his care after the parents died. Their names are Bimrap and Gram. The godchild is a toddler. Abby loves him and would murder for him.

Oliver transitioned using magic near the start of the game!

The gang got banned from all gold exchanges in Adelaide, because 1AUD = 80GP, and we went “Oh, we can exchange this for more money” so we did...So now Abby has hh... 10,080,120,000gp

We also invented the “Stall Market”

now back to what happened next

Everyone goes to church, Derrick puts everyone to Sleep after Yahweh [God] tries to hit on him again. We found out the priest was cheating on his wife it was a WHOLE MESS.

Back to the market and we find out that Bimrap his concerned about Gram because Gram has been ruining all his good swords by chewing on them??? CONCERN. Ask the school nurse for help. Turns out his gums keep healing over the breaks in them for his teeth to come through. Needs surgery to help.

It's time for the quarterly intercollegiate tournament - Enchantment edition! We like the teacher. Her ex was there, bullied her, we humiliated him. The prize was a dragon egg. Some idiots tried to steal it and we stopped them, egg hatched and imprinted on Derek. Derek is now a mum.

This was also the session that both Oliver and his player learned that Luggage eats people.

We learn how to turn spells into potions. Gram comes for surgery. We learn that half-species don't get fair treatment as that's why nobody would help the literal baby. Abby gets MAD. Oliver gets MAD. We start getting riled up and determined to change the way things are for half-species. Confront one of our teachers who according to the curriculum has to teach that half-species are lesser than their two parental parts. We convince him otherwise, pay him to change the curriculum. Now for the war on all this shit to happen when we have time.

It's time for Derek to Multiclass! He's multiclassing into Druid, as the school's land is actually owned by Elves, and they are all shoehorned into being Druids. Derek is chill with the Elves so he gets invited to their big gathering that they do where he gets to pick his multiclass. I think he picked stars. It was a very chill event.

Abby's Multiclass! She's a bard! We go to a music festival for bards after Briminox is invited to perform on the main stage! They arrive and see Count Voltaire. Abby is determined to fuck the man. She goes and looks over all of the different bard schools before actually deciding on Count Voltaire's, it's College of Eloquence and makes sense for her in character. She literally just acts aloof and like she has never heard with him to flirt with him. She and the gang do backup/roadie stuff for Briminox including fireworks and make his show good. She also gets to sing a song on stage with him! This impresses the Count. He had already invited her to the afterparty but now she succeeds. She goes, gets in an orgy with a bunch of potential teachers he introduced her to, but picks him lmao.

Oliver's multiclass! We get to go to the artificer festival, Tinker Town! First we visit the Kobold Artificers at the markets and teach them to make fireworks without glass. They literally snort the gunpowder, it's wild. We go to the festival. We let a lot of people in by paying too much at the ticket booth. We go to the showbags stall and get A LOT of showbags, and overhear a halfling mother saying that because someone nicely paid for their entrance they can get showbags for the kids. We slip 20 gold coins into her purse and run away. We then go to our friend who is a cobbler at the regular markets. We taught him how to make roller skates back in the first time we went. He got invited to the main stage to show them off, we offer to do tricks and shit on stage, and since Briminox came with us [we need someone to watch us when we go to other realms still] we say he should play on stage. He got fucking WASTED tho so we have to sober him up. Cobbler tells us about his enemy going on stage after him, a man who has claimed to 're-invent the wheel' we're like nah we'll have none of that son.

We go to this man's stall, use Disguise Self to make ourselves look like a Halfling, a Kobold and a 6-year old girl respectively and we RUIN THIS MAN'S WHOLE CAREER by bullying him into submission. Then, Abby calls Count Voltaire and is like 'hey you wanna perform with Briminox?' and he's like 'hell yeah' and so this little cobbler guy ends up with a fucking show for rollerskates with us doing mad tricks, fireworks, and 2 famous bards belting out music.

Time to introduce a new PC! The group head to Victoria by train for Abby’s cousin’s wedding! It’s in Rosebud, Victoria. They vibe for a bit after arrival before coming across some older members of the town holding a small riot outside a gaming store claiming it is a gateway to hell blah blah, satanic panic, and they spot a teenager clearly trying to distract them.

They decide to help, in their own ways, and eventually the adults leave. The gang notice that this kid has ended up with one of the letters they recieved that got them into their school. They freak the fuck out. More kids arrive, friends of this kid, whose name is Victor, also with fucking letters. This leads everyone inside and upstairs at the gaming store and explaining magic and stuff to them. They have pizza, chill, the usual.

The wedding happens, then the gang meet the other, newer gang at the beach, along with the Headmistress [who abby sent Brimanox to go get] who explains things properly to the new kids and she adds Victor to our group’s Cabal leaving the other four to their own. We take Victor to the market; he ends up with a weasel for a familiar, and gets on our mad collection of Crystal devices.

Anyway we're chaotic neutral at best with a few evil leanings from time to time. But its a great game and I love it.

#ts4 render #s4 render #my renders #ts4 edit #witchy school rpg

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oddlyspecificheadcannons · 1 year

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SDR2 characters as teachers

Mahiru- Art (and general education) I have a feeling that she’s definitely one of the more sane teachers there. She’s generally pretty responsible so I think she’d make a great Gen-Ed teacher. She also has a background in photography which means she would be great at fostering artistic expression in her students.

Kazuichi Soda- Physics. Physics goes hand and hand with engineering, so this one seems obvious. He’d be the fun teacher, encouraging his students to explore and bringing in a lot of hands on learning experience. Mahiru may be the most responsible and would keep all the kids under control, but Soda would be everyone’s favorite.

Ibuki Mioda- Music. Again, really obvious. I don’t know if she’d make a great teacher because she can be a bit all over the place and immature, but her enthusiasm would definitely get all the kids hyped up and ready for class.

Sonia- English/ History (though Gundham loves to help her out). Something about her just screams I love classic literature. Gundham would definitely help out on some of the poetry units and the unit on Shakespeare, though I could definitely see that getting a bit awkward for the students based on the romantic tension in the room. She’d also be really good with teaching grammar and I feel like she’d be the nice but strict English teacher. She also has a diplomatic background and as a princess knows a lot about history and international affairs. She’d definitely be the type to take her kids on frequent field trips to museums. She loves experiencing different cultures so I feel like she’d be pretty passionate about teaching history.

Gundham- biology, especially the animal side. He would be the teacher that was constantly taking the kids on field trips. He’s have so many class pets that he would guard with his life. He’d be super dramatic but in a fun way. He could get a bit out of control, but I feel like he’s responsible enough to keep track of his students. He’s really good with animals and I feel like he’d extend that same level of care to his students.

Akane- Physical Ed. She’d be a lot, but she’d be enthusiastic and she gives me that overly hyped PE teacher vibe. She’d be super competitive though so she would probably need to be supervised by Nekomaru. Together they’d make a great team.

Nekomaru- counselor. He’s an amazing highschool counselor. He’s really good at helping students decide on their career path and what school the want to attend. He’s also pretty good at cheering up sad students and brightening everyone’s day. He’d be the type to give students mandatory mental health breaks. He’d just be throwing tons of love and affection at these kids and most students wouldn’t feel intimidated by him. He’d be a good lifeline for a few students, but the outcasts would need someone a bit more like them which leads me to the next teacher.

Fuyuhiko- School's intervention counselor. He deals with the troubled kids, the ones going down the wrong path. He’d be there to deal with disciplinary action. He just seems like the type that would take the trouble makers under his wing. I feel like he’d treat the students as equals too which helps

Chiaki- Math. Hear me out. Cool math games. Need I say more? Also a ton of video games deal with math. She’d be a bit inattentive, but super patient. Overall I think she’d be a really chill math teacher.

Imposter- Theater. Imposter is actually really kind and caring. I can see him encouraging kids to give it their all and really embrace the art of acting and theater. He’d be super supportive and also observant. He’d definitely be the type to force his students to take care of themselves and make sure they’re all eating and sleeping and just generally staying healthy and happy. He’d be super protective. Overall I think he’d make a great teacher and everyone would love him.

Mikan- health class. Bit awkward as a teacher, definitely makes a better school nurse, but I feel like she would be gentle and caring to her students. She would definitely be the type of teacher to get bullied by her own class though.

Peko- she doesn’t regularly work with the kids but once every few months she takes over Akane’s gym class to teach basic self defense. She’s also used for discipline due to her intimidating presence and is seen as the schools principal. She’s super responsible in a scary way.

Nagito- assuming we found a way to get his dementia under control, he’d be a really good preschool teacher. He’s super tolerant and from ultra despair girls we can see he’s pretty good with kids. He seems like he would be really good with foster kids especially. He just has a calming presence about him (when he’s himself, and not being controlled by his dementia). Kindergarten seems like a solid place for him. That being said, he’s super smart and I can also see him being the most chaotic chemistry teacher known to man. But hey, everyone loves the chaotic chem teacher so I think it would work out for him. He also sounds like that one creepy janitor everyone’s afraid of, so do with that what you will

These are just a few. I came up with. My goal is to Eventually come up with a subject for all of them but this is what I have now,

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sparrowmoth · 3 years

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I keep daydreaming about a fic where poltergeist activity starts up at Hell Hall after Carlos breaks through the barrier. Just little things that add credence to rumours of the place being haunted, except it's not just rumours anymore. The cupboards slam open and shut at night, Cruella's cigarettes burn too hot and turn to ash in her hands, knives fly out the drawer and narrowly miss Jasper's head, Carlos wakes up with scratches and bruises that his mother didn't inflict (he assures the others over and over—it's not getting worse, just... stranger).

Things happen outside the house, too. Maleficent starts berating Mal in public and her robes start to smoke, then set ablaze; she turns her fury on someone in the crowd behind her, screeching at the nerve of them while Mal makes her escape. Jafar goes to raise a hand to Jay and a TV falls off a top shelf and knocks him out cold; Jay doesn't so much as check his pulse before leaving the junk shop. Evil Queen is smiling in that condescending way, assessing Evie with a look; she clicks her tongue and opens her mouth to say something cruel when suddenly a ruler flies past her throat, leaving a thin line of blood that begins to trickle down, threatening to stain her white-collared gown.

Evie's the first to notice the pattern. These things that happen... it's only ever when Carlos is present. But why? He has no magic. And it's not a trick, she's sure. He couldn't have planned it. More than that, he never shows emotion about these kind of things. He looks so... calm.

She doesn't mention it, though it stays on the back of her mind.

And then they go to Auradon.

Things escalate so quickly.

Evie and Mal are accused of hexing and cursing, and well, some of the... incidents might have had something to do with them (not that anyone can prove it), but what about the shower in the boys' locker room scalding a guy who'd been giving Jay a hard time? What about those who'd seen a locker door slam open, breaking someone's nose? Someone who had, not moments earlier, made a tasteless comment about Cruella. Carlos had heard it. He'd been meant to. But students around had sworn, despite how strange it was, no one was near that locker when it happened. Carlos, for his part, had been as surprised as anyone to hear the sudden shriek of pain and the gushing blood.

Never mind that Evie and Mal were on the other side of campus with airtight alibis, they were still the ones suspected, because who else?

Oh, but Evie wouldn't say anything, even then.

She wasn't certain yet, and even if her theory was true, the thought that Carlos would blame himself for something out of his control...

Things continue to escalate. In Goodness class, Fairy Godmother seems to lose control of the chalk. She's writing so hard, it sounds like nails on the chalkboard. Her smile is tight when she finally gives up and drops the chalk. Then, King Beast makes an appearance at a school assembly and barely makes it past "hello" at the mic when he starts to fidget with his crown. "It's..." He grunts and seems to try to pull it off, but it doesn't budge. After a muttered exchange, Belle tries to help him remove the crown. "It's too tight," is the last thing heard before he knocks the mic with his elbow and the feedback shrieks. The student body erupts into chaos as they watch the king collapse.

On a field trip to the museum, everyone begins to sweat as they enter the Hall of Villains. Nothing to stop their tour guide's fifty mile ramble about Auradon's dark history. That is, until the wax figures begin to melt. They are ushered out just as display cases begin to shatter.

Evie notices Carlos doesn't look as calm. He looks angry. Or at least, he did. When she glanced him before it happened. After that, it was just the same as always—he looked startled, confused, even afraid.

He's the one who tells her that night. He's noticed the pattern, too. But he doesn't know what it means. He doesn't have magic. And it doesn't make sense, from a scientific perspective, but...

"I think I'm bad luck," he confesses like a shameful secret.

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an-amalgamation-of-things · 2 years

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Innocenti Bugie

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Alex squinted in the light of the setting sun as he waited for Tom and James to join him outside the school gates, so that they could walk home together. Unusually, this term their timetables weren’t the same, so while Alex had been struggling to concentrate through Macbeth in English (seriously, whose idea was it to do Shakespeare as the last lesson of the day?), Tom and James had been in PE, slogging around the fields doing cross country. All of them were sporty, but none of them liked cross country, especially when it had been raining all day and the fields were muddy and slippery. And, in the middle of January, it was always muddy and slippery.

“Are you Alex?”

The sun shining into his eyes meant that he hadn’t seen the group of men walking towards him until it was too late.

“Who are you?” Alex didn’t like the way that they had closed in on him. They were inching closer to him with every second that passed. He was outnumbered and soon he would be completely surrounded; even now, he wouldn’t be able to slip away without them being able to reach out and grab him. He definitely wasn’t going to confirm that he was who they thought he was.

“Your uncle sent us. He asked us to pick you up from school.”

That immediately sent more alarm bells ringing. Firstly, Ian was away on yet another business trip so it would have been Jack sending someone (and not ten someones!) to pick him up. Secondly, Alex was sure that anyone Ian asked to pick him up from school would have referred to him as ‘Ian’ not ‘your uncle’; they would have known that Ian hated being called that, wouldn’t they? Thirdly, Alex had never met them before and he thought it extremely unlikely that Ian would send a group of complete strangers to pick him up. And fourth, he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but something didn’t seem quite right. There were too many things that didn’t add up.

“I’m not allowed to go with strangers,” Alex said hesitantly, although even as he said it he became aware of the fact that he was completely surrounded now. He also realised that he had basically confirmed that he was who they were looking for. He could have kicked himself! The men had formed an almost solid circular wall around him; he was trapped. And he wouldn’t be able to take all of them in a fight. “Maybe I should just wait in reception while you-”

“-No,” the only man out of the whole group who had spoken so far cut in. “Your uncle said it was urgent. You have to come with us.”

Five. They were trying to rush him and not give him time to think. This was really very not good. Whatever happened, Alex knew that he mustn’t get in the car with them.

“I’ve just remembered, I need to talk to one of my teachers about some work I didn’t understand,” he said, backing away towards the school, but the men remained static and Alex walked straight into the man standing directly behind him.

“You can ask tomorrow,” the man said, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the car.

“Hey! Get off!” Alex shouted. Maybe if he made enough noise, one of the adults in the school would hear and help him. It was the end of the day and there should still have been quite a few students and parents milling around but, inexplicably, Alex was on his own. A hand was clamped over his mouth before he could scream or shout though, and he was bundled into the backseat of the car.

“I’m sorry, Alex. We need to get you somewhere safe. And quickly.”

“What do you mean ‘safe’? Safe from what?” Alex shouted, even as he heard the doors lock and the car drive away with a squeal of the tires. “I don’t feel safe.”

He looked out of the window just in time to see Tom and James’s shocked faces as the car drove past. Alex mouthed ‘help’ and hoped his friends would understand. They stared at the car for another second before running back towards the school. The school had CCTV cameras; surely they would call the police and be able to give them a description of the car that he had been shoved into.

“We’ll explain properly when we arrive at the safe house. Your uncle is meeting us there.”

“What about Jack?”

“He’ll be there too.”

Well that settled it. Whoever these people were, they definitely hadn’t been sent by Ian or Jack. If only phones were allowed at school, he could have texted or called someone to say he needed help. But he was stuck in this car with three grown up men, with no way of telling anyone that he was in trouble and, he reflected glumly, they would have no way of tracking where he had been taken either. His only source of hope came from the fact that Tom and James had seen him. They knew that he had been kidnapped. Only that and the fact that, if it came down to it, Alex could possibly escape from the three men in the car with him with some well-timed karate strikes, were the only things stopping him from completely freaking out. There was a second car in front of them and a third one behind… if they managed to get him to wherever they planned to take him, Alex would be horribly outnumbered again and he wouldn’t be able to take out all ten of the men before the element of surprise wore off. This was really, really bad. He had to escape before they arrived at their destination.

They were heading out of the city and Alex was looking out of the blacked-out window, trying to work out how he could escape when the car in front of them suddenly went out of control and crashed. The men in the car with Alex immediately became uneasy, looking around and shouting.

Then Alex registered that there had been the sound like the crack of a whip, there was a hole in the glass of the windshield and the car had suddenly sped up. The driver was slumped against the window. Was he unconscious? What was happening? The driver’s hand slipped off of the steering wheel, pulling it around as it fell. The car turned violently and Alex was thrown against the door.

“Quick, with me,” the man in the back with him shouted, grabbing Alex’s arm before throwing his door open.

“I’m not going with you!” Alex shouted, pulling his arm away.

But the man had tumbled out of the door before he’d waited for Alex’s reply. Alex quickly looked out of the back window and saw the man rolling along the road, only narrowly avoiding being run over by the car behind them. He looked back around just in time to see the passenger in the front seat dive out of the car too. That just left Alex and the driver who was unconscious or something, and whose foot was jammed on the accelerator, in the car.

Alex dove forwards, leaning through the gap in the two front seats and grabbing hold of the steering wheel. He stared in horror at the cars coming towards them. They were on the wrong side of the road! And he had no way of getting over to the right side, thanks to the railing that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and now separated the lanes of traffic.

He tried desperately to pull the man’s leg off of the accelerator but it was no use. The angle was too awkward and he wasn’t quite tall enough to reach properly from where he was. If he wasn’t also steering, he might have been able to manage it… but right now there was nothing he could do other than try to avoid the oncoming cars.

He glanced in the rear view mirror and saw a motorbike coming up behind him. Whoever they were, they were catching up to the car incredibly quickly. Were they coming to try and help him? Was it the police? Alex desperately hoped that the answer was ‘yes’, although it looked like the bike was just going to drive right past him.

And it did; the motorbike sailed straight past the car, but, Alex noticed, there was no sign of the driver as it overtook him. At the same moment, there was a thud as though something heavy had dropped onto the roof of the car, and the motorbike crashed into a road sign. Everything was happening far too quickly for him to keep up. Just focus on the road.

Almost instantly, that became impossible. A man with piercing blue eyes thudded down onto the bonnet, blocking his view out of the windshield.

“Open the door please, Alex.”

Alex screamed.

“Get out of the way! I can’t see! And I don’t know who you are.”

“Ian asked me to keep an eye on you.”

“That’s what they said! Move! I can’t see!”

“Alex,” the man began but was cut off by more holes appearing in the windscreen.

Then Alex understood. They were bullet holes! What?!? No! Surely he was wrong! People couldn’t be shooting at them, could they?

“Hold on.” The man just seemed mildly irritated rather than concerned or scared, and Alex saw him pull out his own gun! And then he started shooting.

“Alex, open the door please,” the man asked again.

Why was he so calm? Why did he have a gun? Why were people shooting at them in the first place? Why had he been kidnapped? And was this man really on his side? Had Ian really sent him?

“Get out of the way! I can’t see!” Alex shouted again. Right now, his main concern was that he would crash into another car simply because he couldn’t see out of the window. He swerved sharply to avoid a car that suddenly appeared in front of them. Car horns were blaring all around him, as though the drivers thought Alex was both responsible for, and could do anything about his current predicament.

“Alex. Please open the door.” There were more gunshots. “I can’t help you unless you open the door. Ian asked me to look out for you.”

“Why?”

“This would be a much easier conversation to have not through the windscreen of a car, Alex.”

“Just get out of the way!”

The man was shooting his gun at the car behind them again. At the people who had taken him from school and who were now shooting at him!

“Alex! The door! Now!”

Everything seemed to happen very quickly but in slow motion after that. Something in Alex decided that he trusted this man… well, maybe not completely, but more than the other people. Maybe it was because he was shooting against the people who had kidnapped him from school. Maybe it was because ‘Ian’ had sent him not ‘his uncle’. Whatever it was, Alex reached forwards and managed to open the car door. What he didn’t see was that there was a car coming towards him and it crashed into the door, ripping it off of its hinges and sending it hurtling into the windshield of the car behind them. The sudden rush of air almost threw him back into the seat, but he managed to hang onto the steering wheel and keep the car under some semblance of control.

Now that he had leant further forwards to open the door, Alex was in a better position to attempt to move the driver's foot off of the accelerator, and managed to get it onto the break. The car slowed so violently that Alex was almost thrown through to the front of the car, but he managed to stop himself when his legs and hips slammed into the passenger seat. Then, and Alex had no idea how it had happened (after all, he hadn’t seen the car lose control after the door went through the windshield), the car that had been chasing behind them almost seemed to have jumped over the top of them and was now rolling down the road in front of them. Finally, the man on the bonnet had pulled the driver out of the drivers’ seat, swung himself through the gap where the door had been, and took control of the car.

Alex sank back into the seats, trying to catch his breath, and looked out of the rear window. The road was in complete and utter carnage. Had he made a mistake in trusting this man? Only time would tell. For now, all Alex could do was sit back and let the man drive them wherever he intended to take him.

“Are you alright, Alex?” the man asked, glancing in the rear view mirror. “Excellent driving. And impeccable timing in opening the door.”

It was taking Alex all of his strength to keep his composure and not freak out. The realisation of everything that had just happened was catching up with him and he could hardly believe it was real.

“Where are you taking me?” he demanded instead of answering the man’s question.

“Past this barricade of bad guys. Then I’ll stop and deal with them. And then I’ll take you to a safe house where Ian will meet us.”

“They said that too,” Alex muttered. He had barely finished speaking before they entered the tunnel and a sudden thunderous hammering sound reverberated through the car. Alex looked out of the window and saw flashes of light. It took a few seconds for his brain to comprehend that machine guns were being fired at the car! Just as quickly as it had started, it stopped; they were through the tunnel and the man was stopping the car with a squeal of the brakes.

“Get out of the car, Alex,” the man said, opening the door for him and guiding him to the front of the car. “And stay here in front of the bonnet. I’ll be back in a minute.” He headed back towards the tunnel and the ‘barricade of bad guys’, his own gun ready to fire in his hands.

Well, Alex certainly wasn’t going to stick around here. Whatever was going on, he wanted nothing to do with it. He took off at a run. He ran without knowing where he was going, but the main thing was putting as much distance as he could between himself and all of the men with guns. After a few minutes, he realised with relief that he knew where he was. There was a café just a couple of roads away where he and Jack went semi-regularly and he knew the staff. They would help him.

When the staff saw him, they knew that something was wrong and sat him down with a hot chocolate and a piece of cake. He briefly explained a little of what had happened - he didn’t really want to think about it too much - and they called the police. Alex found that he was too high on adrenaline to either eat the cake or drink the hot chocolate that they had given him.

He was sitting at a table in the corner, waiting for the police to arrive, his legs bouncing and heart still hammering in his chest. He could hear everything that was happening, like he suddenly had super hearing. The almost constant tinkling of the bell above the door as the customers came and went. The shrill hissing of the coffee machine. The chatter of the customers. The clink as someone put their mug back on its saucer. The sound of footsteps. How much time had passed since he had been standing outside of school waiting for James and Tom? How long would it take the police to arrive?

“Hi Alex,” a man said, sitting down in the seat opposite him. He looked up and gasped. It was the man from the bonnet of the car. Alex gulped. “Maybe I didn’t make it very clear, but we need to stick together for a little while.”

Before Alex could say anything, he heard the tinkle of the little bell above the door again and knew, without looking but by the way one of the waitresses had moved forwards and nodded in his direction, that the police had arrived. Worse than that, he knew that something bad was about to happen. He was right. As quick as lightning, the man had grabbed his wrists and pulled them into handcuffs behind his back. Alex cried out in shock as he was pulled out of his seat. He was spun around so that he faced the café, his back held against the man’s chest. One of the man’s arms pinned Alex to him… the other was holding the gun again. He fired a couple of warning shots into the wall. Alex flinched. His breathing was rapid and shallow. A few of the customers screamed. Alex’s heart was pounding. He was terrified. The knot of anxiety and dread twisted in his stomach again. Why was this happening?

“Easy. Easy,” one of the police officers - a kind looking woman - said. “Let the kid go.”

“The kid is my hostage. If anyone follows us, I’ll shoot.”

He pulled Alex backwards through the kitchen of the tiny café and out the back into the loading area. A fancy sports car was waiting for them there. The man shoved Alex in and was about to climb in himself when the officer who had spoken inside arrived at the back door.

“…getting into a-”

There was another gunshot. Alex only just registered that this time the man had shot the policewoman! The officer collapsed to the ground and the man crouched beside her, saying something that Alex couldn’t hear. Then he got up and climbed into the car. He strapped both Alex and himself in and then drove off.

“You… you shot the police!”

“They would not be able to keep you safe.”

“That’s their job!”

“Not against these people.”

“Who are you?”

“I am a friend of Ian’s.”

That stunned Alex into silence. Ian didn’t really have many friends and he definitely didn’t have friends who had guns! So this man was lying. He had to be. And that meant that Alex had to try and escape. He took a few deep breaths and focused his mind on his immediate problems.

The first one to deal with was the handcuffs. Luckily, thanks to Ian’s childhood obsession with learning magic tricks (Alex had found his old stuff once and Ian had insisted on demonstrating and getting him to have a go), he had a plan. One of Ian’s favourite tricks had involved escaping from handcuffs and he had taught Alex the secret to picking the lock. He was still wearing his school backpack and there was a random paperclip that he’d put on one of the straps after fidgeting with it in class once. He could use that to pick the lock and get out of the cuffs!

It was quite awkward getting the right angle as the bag as well as the cuffs restricted his movement and he had to make sure that the man didn’t see what he was doing, but Alex soon managed to grab hold of the strap. The paperclip wasn’t there! Was it on the other side? …No. It must have fallen off at some point during everything that had happened that afternoon! Alex ran his hands over the straps another couple of times to make absolutely sure that the paperclip was gone. It was. Then he remembered that there was another one on one of the zips where the little handle had fallen off. That would be even more awkward to get, but Alex persevered; he would not let this man take him without putting up a fight.

After what felt like an eternity, although the clock on the dashboard told him that it had only been a few minutes, Alex finally had the paperclip in his hands. Unlocking the cuffs would be child’s play compared to what he had just had to do to get it!

In just a few seconds, the cuffs fell away from his wrists and Alex unclipped his seatbelt, grabbed the door handle and threw himself out of the car. Except he didn’t fall. The man had moved impossibly quickly and grabbed the handle of his backpack with one hand.

“Alex!”

But Alex had already worked his arms free of the straps and thudded onto the road, his arms protecting his face and rolling over and over as he slowed down. Thankfully the speed limit on the road they were on was much slower than the one before so he hadn’t leapt out of a car going sixty miles per hour, unlike the men who had taken him from school. He had barely come to a stop when he heard the screech of tires as the car stopped. Then there was the peculiar whirring, whining sound of the gears in the engine as the car reversed back down the road towards him at speed. Alex looked up and saw trees lining the road. He ran. Hopefully he would be able to lose himself amongst them, especially in the dark of twilight that had fallen as night had began to properly draw in.

He was through the tree line before the car had reached him again but Alex didn’t stop to look behind him. He ran, stumbling over tree roots and other debris in the dark. His school shoes weren’t designed for running through woods, and he slipped twice on the muddy ground, only just managing to keep himself upright. He risked a glance around. The sight that met his eyes was not comforting. The man had followed him through the trees and was catching up to him. He didn’t even look like he was running! And if Alex had seen him, he had almost certainly seen Alex. He was already running as fast as he could. His heart was pounding. He was sweating. His school uniform, complete with blazer, shirt and tie, was also not designed for running in, but that was the least of his worries. Alex ignored his discomfort and focused on one thing; he had to get away.

Could he climb a tree to escape? The man would know where he was but he wouldn’t be able to make him climb back down. Then he remembered the gun. The man could just shoot him and if he fell from too high a height… okay, climbing a tree was not an option.

Before he could make a decision, he was tackled to the muddy ground.

“Get off me!” he shouted, trying to get the man off of his back.

“I’m trying to keep you safe, Alex,” the man growled, wrenching Alex’s hands behind his back. The cold metal of handcuffs closed around his wrists again and his stomach dropped like a stone. He had lost count of the number of times he had felt that sensation that afternoon.

“It doesn’t feel like it! I don’t feel safe.”

“Whether you feel safe or not, you are much safer with me than you are without me.”

Throughout the brief confrontation, and even with his hands cuffed behind his back, Alex had been struggling, trying to get away, but it was no good. The muddy ground was too slippery for his school shoes to get enough purchase to get back to his feet. He was stuck. The man’s grip on his arm was too strong to break free from but that didn’t stop Alex from dragging his feet and struggling as much as he could once he had been pulled upright. And he realised with a touch of panic that he had managed to lose the paperclip… there would be no getting out of the cuffs this time unless he found something else that he could use to pick the lock. He doubted that there would be anything in the car that he could use; this man seemed to know what he was doing in taking him. Alex had caught him by surprise once. He doubted that he would get a second opportunity.

“If you don’t stop struggling, I will just carry you back to the car.”

But Alex did not stop struggling - he didn’t want to go with this man! - but he was good to his word and after a couple more seconds hoisted Alex up over his shoulder as easily as though he were as light as a feather. He was able to walk as quickly as if he weren’t carrying Alex and he soon saw how the man had managed to catch up to him so quickly.

“Just let me go!” Alex was wriggling and struggling as much as he could, not that the man seemed to notice. With his hands cuffed behind his back, there wasn’t much else that he could do to try and break free. The way he was being held meant that he couldn’t even kick the man! The man did not reply.

They soon reached the car again and this time Alex was strapped into the back seat in such a way that he couldn’t move his hands. As the man closed the door, Alex saw him flick the switch to turn on the child lock. Even if Alex did manage to get free of the cuffs again, he would not be able to get out of the car without climbing through to the front. There would be no escape this time. His stomach felt like it was tying itself in knots and his mind was racing to the worst case scenarios. What was going to happen to him?

After driving for a while longer (from where Alex was sitting, he couldn’t see the clock on the dashboard anymore, so he wasn’t sure exactly how long it had been, although the sun had set completely and they were driving in the dark, so Alex guessed that it must be at least 5pm), the man pulled into a residential estate. He turned onto a side road and Alex briefly saw the road name in the beam of the headlights; Kingfisher Avenue. Alex didn’t recognise the name. He had absolutely no idea where they were. The man clicked a button on a little remote. The feeling of dread increased as Alex realised what the remote was; it must be for a garage. The man would be able to pull up inside and close the door before he let Alex out of the car… there wouldn’t be the slightest opportunity to escape.

The man turned the car onto a drive and Alex saw that he had been right. The garage door was open, like a mouth ready to swallow them. He heard the whine of the motor as the garage door closed behind them, sealing them in.

“Now,” the man said, turning around in his seat, “I can either uncuff you when we get inside the house or, if you are going to cause problems, I can leave your hands in the cuffs.”

“I’ll behave,” Alex lied.

The man just smiled and nodded before getting out of the car, helping Alex out and leading him into the house. Alex got a horrible feeling that the man knew that he was lying. And the fact that the man didn’t seem bothered by the prospect of him trying to escape again was not a cheering one. If the man didn't care, he must be sure that the house was secure. Not that it would stop Alex from looking and trying, but he knew that this would be an incredibly hard battle to win, although it would be fractionally easier if his hands were free.

Alex watched as the man locked the door to the house before unlocking his handcuffs. It was one of those doors which needed an actual key to unlock it, rather than being able to turn a knob, and the man took it and put it in his pocket. Unless Alex found a way to pick the lock or steal the key from under the man’s nose, the door was not going to be an option. A quick glance around the house didn’t seem very promising either. There weren’t any obvious ways to get out now that the door was locked and there was something off about the house. It felt just slightly too small and the view out of the windows (albeit patchy in the pools of light given off by the streetlamps) didn’t match up with the bits of the street that Alex had seen outside. After a few moments, Alex had the words to describe it. It was like a house had been built inside of a house. So if none of the windows opened onto the outside world and the door they had just come through was the only door he could leave through, the situation was worse than he could possibly have imagined.

“You could at least tell me your name,” Alex muttered sourly.

“It’s Yassen,” the man said with a smile.

“You said you were Ian’s friend but he’s never mentioned you.”

“That is… not surprising. His employers would not be happy if they found out.”

“Why would the bank care? Other than, you know, Ian being friends with a mad man who shoots police officers.”

“The police are not equipped to deal with the people who are looking for you. I am.”

“Oh yeah? Because you’re so much more powerful than literally hundreds of police officers?”

“Yes.”

“I want to talk to Ian.”

“I’m afraid you can’t at the moment. But he will be here later.”

“Where’s Jack?”

“You are the one who was in danger. I’m sure Ian will bring her later.”

Hmm. This man - Yassen, if he had given him his real name - did know that Jack was a woman, then. He must have been more thorough in his research.

“She’ll be worried that I haven’t come home from school. Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”

“By now the police will have identified that it was me who took you - there were three security cameras in and around the café. That will complicate matters for them. It is for Ian to explain to you what is going on.”

“‘Complicates matters’ how? Who are you?”

“Again, that is for Ian to explain.”

“So while we wait for him to show up you expect me just to sit quietly and ask no questions and behave like I haven’t literally been kidnapped?”

“Technically I stopped you from being kidnapped.”

“From where I’m standing, I was kidnapped twice.”

Yassen tilted his head slightly as though to say ‘fair point’. “I don’t expect you to sit here quietly, Alex. You are free to do anything you like in the house. What I cannot allow is for you to leave or contact anyone.”

“So not ‘anything’, then,” Alex countered, more bravely than he felt. “And for the record, I don’t trust you.”

“Noted.”

*Earlier that afternoon*

Hunched behind the steering wheel of his car, Ian Rider was sweating, although not from the heat. He was in Tangier, investigating a drug smuggling ring; there were reports that they had got their hands on something more dangerous than cocaine or heroin… something that would annihilate a city’s population if it was introduced into the water supply. Part of his brief was to identify their suppliers and their intended recipients, but he didn’t care about that anymore; the CIA also had an agent investigating and Ian had a new priority.

He was on his way to the airport to leave the city. He’d received an anonymous tip that the Triad was going to kidnap Alex, as revenge for his involvement in stopping their recent attempt to blackmail the British government. Ian shuddered to think what their plans for Alex would be once they had him. So he was leaving. The trouble was that once he was in the air, it would take him three hours to fly back to London, but by then, it would be too late. If he didn’t do something now, Alex would be gone.

Even as he raced to the airport, Ian rang MI6.

“What do you mean you ‘can’t spare any agents right now’?” he demanded angrily.

“We do not know where this… suggestion that Alex might be targeted has come from. It could be a distraction to divert resources to enable something else to happen. We will alert the police but unless more substantial evidence is provided, I cannot authorise anything further. I also cannot authorise you to leave Tangier.” Blunt was certainly living up to his name today. When he and John had first met the man, they had joked about how well his name suited him. Today, Ian wished he was anything but.

“Well I’m already on my way to the airport and you are not stopping me,” Ian snapped. “And this is the Triad, Mr Blunt. They’ll take out the police easily and they won’t care about the number of casualties.”

“Unless you can provide more evidence, Rider, I cannot justify moving resources.”

“What about Alex?”

“As I said, we will alert the police. And we will monitor the situation.”

Ian heard the click as Blunt ended the call. He swore. Of course Blunt wouldn��t take a threat on Alex seriously. Making a snap decision, Ian pulled out the secure phone that MI6 didn’t know about and made another call.

“You’re in London at the moment, aren’t you?” he said as soon as the call was answered.

“I am.”

“I need you to pick Alex up from school. I got an anonymous tip that the Triad is going to make a move on him and Blunt won’t do anything.” Ian reached the air field and was climbing into his waiting helicopter. “I’m flying home but it'll be three hours before I get there and by then it’ll be too late.”

“I’m leaving now. I'll take him to safe house three.”

“Thank you, Yas.”

Ian felt the tension in his stomach ease ever so slightly knowing that Yassen was on his way. It felt like hours passed as he sat behind the controls waiting, the seconds ticking by impossibly slowly, until he was given permission to take off. Ian ran through his final pre-flight checks, making sure that everything was in order, and then manipulated the controls and rose into the air.

He tried to focus on the flight, on only the instruments that were important to keep him safely in the air. He tried not to keep looking at the clock. It didn’t work. It felt like time was distorting and his journey was taking so much longer than it should have done. It was like time was taunting him. What felt like half an hour was apparently only five minutes, according to the clock. Why was it taking so long?

He was less than half way through his agonisingly long journey, flying over Spain, when he received a message from Yassen letting him know that he had Alex at the safe house. He breathed out a sigh of relief. Alex was safe.

The rest of the journey passed relatively quickly after that. Now that he knew that Alex was safe, time couldn’t taunt him with how slowly it was passing. His imagination couldn’t run wild with what the Triad could possibly be doing to Alex, either, and Ian was able to breathe without the constricting band of anxiety crushing his chest. Soon enough, the familiar skyline of London appeared ahead of him. His radio crackled back into life and he received his instructions and flight path for landing in Liverpool Street.

Great, Ian thought. The conversation with Air Traffic Control had reminded him that a conversation with Blunt was in his imminent future, and that was exactly what he didn’t want, especially after contravening his direct orders. But he confirmed the directions back to Air Traffic Control and soon touched down on the helipad on the roof of the MI6 offices. John Crawley, the ‘Personnel Manager’ was waiting for him. If he hadn’t already known from Yassen that Alex was safe, this would have confirmed to him that the Triad had, indeed, made a move on Alex.

“Mr Blunt and Mrs Jones need to speak to you,” Crawley said, his face impassive.

“What’s wrong? Is Alex okay?” He had to play his part, at least until he had decided what to do. Or Yassen decided for him.

Crawley didn’t answer but led him to the lift.

“John? What’s happened to Alex? Is it the Triad?”

“I don’t know anything, Ian. I’m sorry. All I know is that they wanted to see you as soon as you arrived.”

The lift doors opened. They didn’t have far to travel down, but they travelled in silence.

“I hope Alex is okay,” Crawley said as Ian walked out of the lift.

Ian nodded before steeling himself to walk into Alan Blunt’s office. Although he expected that this meeting would be to tell him that Alex had been kidnapped, there was always the chance that Blunt would throw a curveball and he needed to be prepared for that. He knocked on the door and entered without waiting for permission.

“What’s happened to Alex?” he asked before he’d even closed the door.

“Please, sit down Ian,” Mrs Jones said.

Neither she nor her boss looked entirely comfortable. Ian thought he could see the tiniest hint of something, remorse maybe, on Blunt’s face. Perhaps the man did have a heart then, buried somewhere deep beneath the surface.

“I’m afraid Alex was taken,” Blunt said as soon as Ian had sat down. “We were monitoring the CCTV outside the school. A group of ten men ambushed him and dragged him into a car. We have identified two of them as being known members of the Triad and are working on identifying the others.”

Ian let out a slow breath.

“Unfortunately,” Mrs Jones said, picking up the narrative, “someone else was involved too.”

“What do you mean?”

“We were following the cars on CCTV and putting together a team to intercept them and pick Alex up. However, someone else beat us to it. He took out all of the Triad members in the cars and then drove off with Alex.”

“Who took him?”

“Yassen Gregorovich.” Ian swore softly under his breath.

“Has he made any demands?”

“There’s been no communication from him yet. After Gregorovich drove away with Alex, they disappeared for a few minutes between cameras but we were then alerted by an emergency call to the police that Alex had shown up in a nearby café. He’d managed to escape but Gregorovich arrived a few minutes after Alex and took him as his hostage. We are still trying to find where he took him.”

Ian swore again. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, holding his head in his hands. At least he knew that Alex was okay. That Yassen wasn’t his enemy and that he would keep Alex safe. But Blunt and Jones did not, so Ian kept up the act for their benefit. It would not be good if they found out about his and Yassen’s friendship association.

Ian stood up abruptly and began pacing the room.

“Rider-” Blunt began.

“If you’re planning on telling me to ‘calm down’, just don’t,” he snapped. It was Blunt's fault that this was all happening anyway; if he’d listened in the first place and arranged for some agents to pick Alex up, Ian wouldn’t have had to get Yassen involved.

Just then, there was a knock on the door and Crawley stepped in.

“We’ve had a message from Gregorovich.” He hurried over to the desk, holding a laptop.

Send Ian Rider alone, unarmed and without any method of communication to the car that is waiting outside. Wire £1 million. The end of the message showed the bank details for the account Yassen wanted the money paid into.

Ian immediately put his MI6 issued phone and gun on the desk and removed his watch - the three things currently on his person that MI6 knew about and which went against Yassen’s demands. By leaving them here, they would be unable to follow him, which was exactly what he wanted.

“Rider-” Blunt began again.

“-If you are about to say anything that goes against his demands and will therefore put Alex in even more danger than he is currently in, don’t bother.” He took a deep breath. “I am going. I am going to go alone and unarmed. You will arrange the wire transfer.”

“We can't let you go into this without backup, Rider.”

“And if you send me in with backup, Gregorovich will kill Alex.”

“And what will he do to you when you arrive wherever he’s sending you, without backup?”

“If he wanted me dead, he could have arranged that easily enough. He sent a car here. He could just have easily come himself and shot me when I left the building. He could also have come here and taken me by force. You know as well as I do that there’s nothing he can do to me there that he couldn’t have done anywhere else. Now arrange the transfer.”

Five minutes later, Ian climbed into the back of the car that was waiting for him, idling on the curb outside of the bank’s entrance. There was a blindfold on the back seat beside him. The car also had a darkened screen between the front and back seats, so Ian couldn’t see the driver although, in the darkness of the evening, Ian wouldn’t have been able to identify them anyway.

“Put it on,” the driver ordered, the instruction coming through a speaker in the upholstery on the roof of the car.

Ian quickly complied and the driver set off. He sat quietly in the back, knowing that it was quite a drive from Liverpool Street to the safe house. After they had been driving for some time, he felt the car slowing down and the jostle as they pulled onto the drive. They were here.

“Get out and knock on the door,” the driver instructed.

When Ian took the blindfold off, he saw that they were in the garage. Yassen’s car was already there. He went over to the door and knocked. Yassen answered and let him in.

“What happened to you?” Ian whispered as he took in the mud caked onto Yassen’s clothes. He wanted to double check that MI6 had held up their end of the bargain without Alex overhearing, but Yassen’s appearance had momentarily distracted him from his original opening question.

“Your nephew,” Yassen replied with a smile. “He is quite the escape artist.”

Ian smiled. Alex was certainly proficient in the art of causing trouble and had managed to escape from Yassen! That was quite an accomplishment for a twelve year old without any proper training. “Have they sent the money?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Keep it for Alex,” Yassen said with a smile. “I don’t need it and, anyway, he’s the only reason I have it.”

Ian smiled back. “See. You do have a heart!”

“Tell anyone and you’re dead,” Yassen joked back.

“As if I would!” Ian retorted, mock offended. “Alex?” he called, and a very dishevelled looking Alex came out of the living room. His blazer and trousers were muddy and ripped, and his school shoes were scuffed too. “Are you okay?” he asked, pulling him into a hug.

“Yeah I’m okay,” Alex said, before whispering into his ear. “Is that man really your friend?”

“Yes, he is.”

Alex seemed puzzled by this. He looked from Ian to Yassen and back again. “Umm. You do know he has a gun, right.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“And he shot a policewoman.”

“You shot a policewoman?” Ian asked incredulously.

Yassen just shrugged. “She would have followed us. And it went straight through the muscle. No bones or arteries.”

Ian sighed. He supposed it would have been too much to hope for no one innocent to get hurt, but a through and through bullet wound was a much milder injury than it could have been. He focused his attention back on Alex. “You’re filthy. What happened to your uniform?”

“He tackled me in the woods,” Alex said, glaring pointedly at Yassen.

“You dove out of the car.”

“You handcuffed me and dragged me out of the café.”

“You ran away from the car when I told you to stay put.”

“You kidnapped me.”

“I stopped you from being kidnapped.”

Ian had listened to their back and forth in silence but now he spoke. “Why don’t you tell me everything that happened?” he suggested, leading Alex over to the sofa and sitting down.

After Alex had finished telling his story, during which neither Ian nor Yassen had interrupted (although Ian had been delighted when he found out precisely how Alex had managed to escape from Yassen - clearly those ‘childhood magic tricks’ had been worthwhile lessons to pass onto his nephew, as had subtly ensuring that Alex had an accessible paperclip on him at all times), he looked at Ian. “Can I have a hot chocolate?” he asked with a cheeky grin. “And Yassen said you’d explain.”

“Yes you can have a hot chocolate,” Ian replied with a smile. “And explain what?”

“Why those people kidnapped me. Why Yassen has a gun. Why you’re friends with him.”

“Ah,” Ian said, knowing that this had to have been coming but dreading it all the same. “They all have very big and complicated answers, Al… I’ll explain as much as I can, but first I’ll make your hot chocolate.” He looked at Yassen who had taken a seat on another sofa. “You want one?”

“I’ll have a coffee, thanks.”

Alex followed him into the kitchen and watched curiously as he flicked the kettle on and then got a saucepan out of a cupboard and the milk out of the fridge.

“Have you been here before?”

“Yes.”

Alex nodded as though he had expected the answer. Then he examined Ian for a moment, as if he were deciding whether or not to ask another question. “Are you a spy?” he blurted out.

Ian nearly dropped the bottle of milk that he was pouring into a saucepan.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, I got kidnapped today. Twice. And you’re here instead of the police when I’m supposed to be a hostage. You’re friends with my hostage taker and he has a gun. And the secrets. And you’re away a lot. And you get hurt a lot. This house… also you practically dropped the milk when I asked.”

Ian thought for a moment. Alex was only twelve - that was far too young to know what he did for a living. But, at the same time, he’d already worked it out. And it wasn’t like keeping him in the dark had kept him safe today… maybe it was time to tell him… enough to be able to keep him safe, or safer, anyway. If he knew, at least he wouldn’t get taken by surprise like he had been today. And he would know what types of people he was up against if anyone tried anything. He sighed.

“Okay, Alex. When I’ve made our drinks, I’ll tell you.”

“So you are a spy?” Alex asked again, this time with a triumphant tone to his voice. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Go and sit with Yassen.”

Alex begrudgingly walked back into the living room. Ian stood at the hob, stirring the milk until it was heated through and then adding the chocolate to melt.

He took it off of the heat and made Yassen’s coffee while the hot chocolate thickened up a bit. Then he poured it between two mugs, added some squirty cream that he found in the fridge, some mini marshmallows and grated a little more chocolate on top. Was he making them overly decadent to give himself a few more precious seconds to work out what he was going to tell Alex, and how? Yes… but it was going to be an extremely fine balance between telling him enough of the truth to answer all of his questions and not traumatise him… without just an ‘I’ll tell you when you’re older’ answer for everything.

“Oh yeah that’s an ‘I’m a spy and now I have to tell you about it’ level hot chocolate,” Alex said with a grin as he walked back into the lounge. Sometimes he reminded Ian of John so much that it hurt.

He set the tray down. A glance at Yassen told him that the assassin was very much looking forward to seeing him squirm under Alex’s questioning. That was something else that John had passed on.

“Okay,” he said once he had handed out the drinks and sat down on the sofa. “To answer your question in short; yes, I am a spy.”

“That’s much cooler than being a banker.”

“Being a spy isn’t like Bond, Alex,” Ian said with a soft smile.

“So what is it like?”

Ian thought for a moment. “Well, there’s a lot of paperwork that they never show Bond doing.”

“That’s not an answer!”

“Yes it is. In films like Bond, the spies jump from one mission to the next. It’s all excitement and adventure and action. But in real life, a lot more happens behind a desk. Yes there are missions, but they aren’t all explosions and high speed chases.”

Alex looked at him quizzically for a moment. Ian could tell that he wasn’t satisfied with his answer and was deciding whether to press the point or move on.

“So what was today about?”

“The people who took you from school are part of an organisation called the Triad. I stopped them from doing something bad that they wanted to do a little while ago, so they decided to kidnap you.”

“To get back at you?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.” Alex sipped his hot chocolate. “And you asked Yassen to stop them?”

“I asked Yassen to pick you up from school and look after you.”

“Why him? Do you work together?”

“I trust him. I trusted that he would protect you. And my boss said he wouldn’t do anything without more evidence and I wasn’t in the country, so Yassen was the only other person who was close enough to help.”

“So you don’t work together?” Alex asked suspiciously.

“Not officially, no.”

“What does that mean? ‘Not officially’.”

“It means that our bosses don’t know that we sometimes work together when we happen to be in the same place.”

“Or that you’re friends?”

“That’s right.”

“So they wouldn’t like it if they found out?”

“Not really, no.”

Alex seemed to ponder this as he drank some more of his hot chocolate. Ian really hoped that Alex wouldn’t continue with this line of questioning much longer. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could continue to sidestep what Yassen did for a living. If twelve was too young to find out that he was a spy, it was definitely too young to find out that he was friends with an assassin, and that he trusted him with his life.

“Is that why you said that I was your hostage when you took me from the café?” Alex asked, turning to face Yassen.

“Yes.”

“So people wouldn’t think that Ian asked you to get me?”

“Yes.”

“How did you find me in the café? I mean, you weren’t following me when I left.”

“I put a tracker on you,” Yassen said nonchalantly.

Alex’s mouth gaped open.

“It was a precautionary measure. Other members of the Triad could have taken you while I was dealing with the ones who took you from school,” Yassen explained. “I needed to know where you were.”

“Huh. So getting out of the car and running through the woods was pointless too?”

“Yes. Although I… did not expect you to get out of the handcuffs and jump from a moving vehicle.”

“Yeah, well from where I was sitting, it was a better option than going with you.”

“Evidently.”

Alex turned to face Ian again. “How long have you been a spy, Ian?”

“About seventeen years.”

Ian could sense the new direction that the conversation was going and he didn’t like it. A few seconds ago, he would have been delighted to think they were moving away from Yassen, but he realised with sickening horror that they were barrelling towards John and Helen… and that was an even worse conversation… the truth about their deaths… Scorpia… and that circled back to Yassen anyway! A glance at Yassen told him that the assassin was just as uncomfortable with the almost certain line of questioning that was to come.

“So… when my mum and dad died, you were a spy?”

“Yes.”

“Did they know?”

“Yes, they knew that I was a spy.”

“Why don’t you talk about them?”

Ian sighed and took a deep breath. “Because it makes me sad, Alex. Your mum and dad were the closest people I had in my life. They were my best friends. Even now, I look at something and think your dad would like it. Or I see something and I know it would have made your mum laugh. Or I say a stupid joke but your dad isn’t around to hear it and laugh with me. I see plays advertised at the theatre and I think we should buy tickets but then I remember that they aren’t here to go with me anymore. And it makes me angry. Because they had so much to look forward to. They had you and their whole lives to be with you as a family and it got taken away.”

Alex looked at him quizzically again but Ian couldn’t work out what he was thinking this time.

“Does Jack know?”

The sudden jump away from John and Helen took Ian by surprise. Maybe Alex had sensed his unease. Maybe he understood that once that conversation started, there would be no coming back from it. Maybe he wondered whether he was ready to hear it. Whatever the reason, Ian was glad that they weren’t going to have that conversation today.

“That I’m a spy?”

Alex nodded.

“No. She doesn’t.”

Alex nodded as though he had expected the answer.

“So… what happens now?”

“Well, we need to go home soon. But first we need to talk about what’s going to happen next. I don’t know if my bosses will want to talk to you, Alex, to get your version of events. If they do, I want you to tell them that Yassen brought you straight here from the café.”

“Tell them I kept you handcuffed and blindfolded in a room and that you didn’t see anything,” Yassen added.

Alex nodded as he took in all of this information. “And, I guess don’t tell them that you told me that Ian sent you?”

“Best not,” Ian agreed. “They would probably think that he was lying to you to get you to go with him, but it'll be best not to tell them anyway.”

“Okay. So he shot the people who took me from school. Then I ran away and he grabbed me from the café, and brought me here.”

“You’ve got it.”

“I’ve got some more questions.”

“I’m sure you do, but I’m afraid they’re going to have to wait, Alex,” Ian said, ruffling Alex’s mud splattered hair. “We have to get home and I have to let my boss know that we’re both okay.”

“What are you going to tell them?”

“Not much,” Ian admitted. “That I arrived and Yassen confirmed he got everything he asked for. Then he got you out of one of the rooms, and drove us home.”

Alex examined him. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

“Not exactly like this, no. But I have lied about Yassen before. Now finish up your hot chocolate and we’ll get you cleaned up a bit.”

Alex did as he was told and Ian wiped away his hot chocolate moustache before they got ready to leave. Ian was grateful that he’d had the foresight to keep a spare school uniform in the safe house. There would have been no way that it could go unnoticed that Alex was covered in mud when he hadn’t been at the café. Finally, Ian took a paperclip from the desk and put it back onto the zip of Alex’s backpack; MI6’s analysts would certainly be eagle-eyed enough to pick up such a tiny change in detail if they happened (or were instructed) to look.

“Here, put these on,” Yassen said when they stepped into the garage, holding out two blindfolds.

“Why are we being blindfolded and handcuffed again?” Alex asked. “We already know where we are.”

“My bosses will be on the lookout for us,” Ian explained. “If they find the car on CCTV and see that we aren’t blindfolded, they’ll know something’s up.”

“Oh. Makes sense.”

Newly handcuffed and blindfolded again, Yassen helped them both into the car. None of them said much on the journey. Ian knew that he and Yassen would need to talk soon, but it could wait until Alex wasn’t around. His nephew might now know that he’s a spy but he definitely didn’t need to know much more than that. Not for a while at least.

“I’ll drop you off on the other side of the river,” Yassen said after they had been driving quietly for a while. Ian would have guessed that they were nearly home and what Yassen had just said confirmed it.

“Thanks, Yas.”

The car came to a stop and Yassen opened the door to let them out. He pressed the key for their handcuffs into Ian’s hand and drove off again before he had time to uncuff himself. He quickly unlocked Alex’s too and they began the short walk home.

When they arrived at the house, Ian saw that Yassen had been right not to drop them off at the door. There were two agents waiting outside, and he had spotted several others in unmarked vehicles just on their short walk. Presumably others had been stationed along the other access roads to the house; if Yassen had driven up to the house, they would have closed in and attempted to capture him. MI6 would have gotten involved in a high speed pursuit across London and Yassen would have gotten away. That was the more likely outcome of the two, anyway.

One of the agents opened the front door to let them in and Jack almost ran to greet them. She had been going frantic with worry, and pulled Alex into her arms before he’d got both feet inside the house. In the busyness of the moment while both Alex and Jack were distracted, one of the agents told Ian that they’d be remaining on guard and would let Blunt know that they had arrived home, but that he was to ring the office as soon as he could.

He waited until Alex was in bed and Jack had gone to have a bath with a glass of wine to calm down before he picked up the phone.

“We’re home,” Ian said once the phone was answered.

Ian heard Crawley breathe a sigh of relief at the other end of the line. Although the agents on guard had already let Blunt know that he and Alex were home, Ian knew that Crawley wouldn’t have been able to relax until he heard from him himself. “What happened?”

“Not much. He checked me for bugs and confirmed that he’d received the money. Then he brought Alex and let me check that he was okay, blindfolded and cuffed me and shoved us back into the car. When he let us out, he just put the key for the cuffs in my hand and drove off. By the time I’d unlocked mine and taken my blindfold off, he was gone, so I unlocked Alex’s cuffs and took off his blindfold and then we walked home. He dropped us off on the other side of the river. Presumably he guessed that there would be agents waiting at the house.”

“How’s Alex?”

“Shaken and he’s got a few bruises. But he’s okay.”

“We’ll need a statement from him.”

“Not tonight, John. He’s already in bed and he’s been through enough for today.”

“Bring him to the police station on Kings Road tomorrow at 10am. We’ll debrief him there.”

The next morning was sunny with barely a breeze disturbing the frosty tree branches. A glance out of the window told Ian that there were still agents guarding the house. That eased the knot of anxiety in his stomach a little; he might know that the ‘threat’ from Yassen was actually non-existent, but the threat from the Triad was still very real and there was every possibility that they would try to get to Alex again.

Crawley had already informed the school what had happened yesterday and that Alex wouldn’t be in today, so Ian let him sleep in for a while - they didn’t have to be at the police station until 10:00, and it would only take ten minutes to get there. He, on the other hand, had been up at the crack of dawn and had already been debriefed by Blunt and Jones.

Alex made his way downstairs just before 8:30. He picked at his breakfast but Ian knew he hadn’t really eaten anything. He hadn’t been able to eat much either. Neither had Jack. They sat quietly at the dining room table, the ticking of the clock on the wall the only thing breaking the silence before Alex headed upstairs to get ready. By 9:30, Alex had showered and dressed and they were ready to leave. At 9:45, Ava, the agent who had been stationed inside the house, walked into the dining room.

“It’s time to go. There’s a car waiting outside.”

Ian grabbed his and Alex’s winter coats off of the rack in the hall - both of them had been designed by Smithers and there was a bulletproof layer hidden inside each of them, not that Alex knew about it - and they both also put on hats, gloves and scarves before stepping out into the frosty January air. Alex grumbled that they were wrapping up so well when they were going by car, but he did as he was told anyway. Ian was glad of that - their woolly hats had also been a present from Smithers; they too were bulletproof, and he wanted Alex to have as much protection as possible. Only his and Alex’s legs were completely exposed, but Ian still hurried Alex to the safety of the armoured car as quickly as he could. Jack was reluctantly staying home and waved them off from the doorway.

They climbed into the car, and Ian recognised their driver. Wayne Fairclough was one of MI6’s top evasive drivers. Ian would have pitied anyone who tried to make a move on them while they were driving today if it hadn’t meant that they were targeting Alex. And at least MI6 were now taking the threat seriously.

They pulled up outside of the police station and Ian counted five agents posing as innocuous citizens as he got out of the car. Even with the agents and the bulletproof clothing, Ian felt horribly exposed as he walked behind Alex, protecting his nephew’s back, as they walked inside.

“Good morning. You must be Ian and Alex?” Crawley asked when they entered the police station.

“Yes,” Ian said and Alex nodded.

“If you’d both like to follow me.” Crawley led them through to an office on the ground floor. “Can I get either of you a drink? Tea? Coffee? A glass of water?”

“Could I have a coffee please?” Ian asked as he sat down on the sofa beside Alex. “Milk, no sugar,” he added, as though Crawley didn’t know how he liked his coffee.

“Of course. Would you like anything, Alex?”

“No thank you,” Alex said quietly.

“Okay. Let me know if I can get you anything at any point.”

Crawley left to get Ian’s coffee, leaving the two of them alone for a couple of minutes. Despite not being in an interrogation room, Alex was obviously uncomfortable. Perhaps the prospect of lying about what had happened the day before was getting to him. Or maybe he was just intimidated by being in the police station.

“It’s okay, Alex,” Ian murmured soothingly. “They just want to find out what happened yesterday.” He had deliberately interpreted Alex’s nerves as the latter of the two options, knowing that there were cameras in the offices; he wouldn’t put it past Blunt to be watching them even now, before the ‘interview’ began.

Crawley soon returned with his coffee and a cup of tea for himself.

“Okay, are you ready to start?” he asked Alex.

Alex nodded.

“I’m going to turn on the camera, just so we’ve got a record of our conversation.”

Alex nodded again.

“Before we start, I want to reassure you that you aren’t in any trouble, Alex. We just need to get a statement from you for our reports. So, can you tell me what happened yesterday, Alex?”

“I was leaving school,” Alex began nervously. “I was waiting outside for my friends to join me because we walk home together and a group of men came up and surrounded me. They said I had to go with them… that Ian had sent them. I didn’t believe them and I didn’t want to go with them but they dragged me into a car.”

“Do you remember how many men there were?”

“Umm… there were three in the car with me - the driver and a passenger in the front and someone in the back with me.”

Alex closed his eyes and scrunched his face up as though he were trying to remember. Ian saw his fingers twitching too as he mentally counted the men who had surrounded him. Alex really was very good at this; he’d told Ian yesterday that there were ten men, and he knew from his conversation with Blunt and Jones that he had counted correctly. Ian wondered whether Alex’s nerves were, at least in part, an act too.

“Maybe there were eight or nine in total,” he said after a few moments.

Crawley nodded. “And what happened when you were in the car?”

“They were driving me down the road when something happened. There were three cars; one in front, I was in the middle one and another one behind. The car in front of us crashed suddenly. And then… I don’t really know what happened. Our car sped up and the man in the back and the front passenger both jumped out. They tried to get me to jump out too but we were going so fast… The driver was unconscious or something and we were on the wrong side of the road so I grabbed the steering wheel and tried to avoid all of the cars driving towards us. I couldn’t get his foot off of the accelerator so we just kept going.” Alex’s voice had become more panicked as he recounted the events of the day before, and Ian leaned across and held his hand. Alex glanced at him and Ian smiled supportively.

Crawley poured Alex a glass of water from the jug on the table behind him and nodded again, encouraging Alex to continue. He took a sip of the water before he did.

“A man jumped off of his motorbike and landed on the bonnet of the car. He started shooting at the people who took me from school… like, he had a gun and just started shooting it! And he kept telling me to open the door so that he could help me.”

“Did you open the door?”

“Eventually?”

“Why did you open the door for him?”

“I don’t know. He was shooting at the people who took me from school. I guess I just figured that meant that he was on my side.”

“And what happened after that?”

“Umm,” Alex said, pausing to think. “It all happened very quickly… oh he drove through the tunnel and … and people with machine guns fired at the car. Then we stopped on the other side. He told me to wait in the car but I didn’t want to and I ran until I saw a café. They called the police but then he showed up and took me. The policewoman followed us and he shot her and then drove off. Is she okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” Crawley assured him.

“He shot her…” Alex said again.

“What happened after the man drove off, Alex?”

“Umm,” Alex said, shaking his head as though he were trying to concentrate and remember. He took another sip of water. “He took me to a house somewhere.”

“Do you know where it was?”

“No.”

“Okay. And what happened when you arrived at the house?”

“He just put me in a room and left me there with my hands cuffed behind my back and a blindfold on. And then after… I don’t know how long it was, but Ian came. And then he made us get in the car and he drove us home. Or nearly home; we had to walk a bit.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“Not really. He kept saying that he wanted to help me when the other men were shooting at us. And then he said that I was his hostage to the police when he took me from the café but he didn’t really say anything after that.”

“Okay. Thank you Alex. Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“Umm. I don’t think so.”

“Do you have any questions for me?”

“Who were the people who took me from school? They knew my name. Why did they take me? And who was the other man? The one who took me to the house. He knew my name too.”

“We don’t know yet,” Crawley said carefully. “But we will do everything we can to find out and in the meantime there will be plain clothed officers watching you. They’ll be as unobtrusive as possible,” he promised. “We’ve also informed your school and security will be increased there too.”

So MI6 would be keeping an eye on Alex, at least for now. Well that was a relief in case the Triad tried again before they could be persuaded to leave him alone.

“Here’s my direct line,” Crawley said, handing them both a business card. “If you remember something that might be relevant, or you feel like something is wrong, give me a call.”

“Okay,” Alex said as he took the card. Ian just pocketed his with a nod.

“The officer who brought you here will take you home again,” Crawley said. “You are welcome to stay here for a few minutes before you go.”

They were driven home again and while Ian knew that Alex would be kept safe while Blunt and Jones sorted out the Triad’s threat, the whole experience had shown him just how vulnerable Alex would be if his work decided to go after him again. He could not leave Alex in a situation where he was unable to call for help if he needed it, so that evening when everyone was in bed, he sat down with an old distress beacon and began to modify it so that it would not be a frequency that MI6 would pick up as one of their own.

It took two weeks for the Triad’s threat against Alex to be neutralised; they would leave him alone in exchange for some of their imprisoned members to be released. And by then, Ian had finished modifying and testing his emergency beacon. It had worked exactly as he’d hoped it would. MI6 had been none the wiser and he had picked up the alert. If anyone ever targeted Alex and tried to kidnap him again, he would be able to call for help and Ian would know exactly where he was.

#alex rider #alex rider series #alex rider fanfiction #alex rider fanfic #ian rider #yassen gregorovich #alan blunt #mrs jones #tulip jones #john crawley #Jemima's fic #Jemima posts

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yurtletheturtlehenderson · 3 years

Text

COSMIC - S3:E2; Chapter Two, The Mall Rats - [Pt. 4 - FINAL]

A Will Byers x Reader Series

Baffled with Mike's sudden behavior, El seeks out Y/n and Max for advice while Will struggles to get through to Mike and Lucas. Billy takes his co-worker on a field trip, and Steve and Dustin enlist a helpful ally in their top-secret mission.

⚠️: s3 mike wheeler, y/n and mike angst. more google translate. the reader eating ice cream [if you're lactose intolerant, it's dairy-free xp], mama steve loving and worrying about his children, his little henderson ducklings especially 🥰 *heavy sigh* oh yeah, kidnapping and more possible allegory to r*pe :( as usual, a marker will be placed but it plays till the end of the chapter so you only need one

🔑: y/f/o = your favorite [ice cream] order

📝: idk if the tip seems small or not but either way keep in mind this was the eighties so inflation hadn't gotten quite as bad yet. As far as the Mike stuff, I know he wasn't being possessive, he was just worried she would get caught and taken away or worse but also he handled it badly, and then everything else in this chapter just kinda rode that angsty bad decision train outta here lmao.

|| 𝟑𝐫𝐝 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐏𝐎𝐕 ||

"если действовать осторожно... неделя длинная. серебряный--"

Robin pauses her pacing momentarily to point at the tape Dustin has in his hands.

"Wait, that last part, just one more time,"

The sounds of the wires hissing as they rewind fill Robin's thoughtful silence.

"если действовать осторожно... неделя--"

"Okay, that word!" She says, and Dustin quickly presses pause. "Um... it's pronounced... 'dly-nna-ya.'"

"'Dly-nna-ya'" Dustin repeats, nodding excitedly.

"Which is spelled—"

"-D... D, D, D..." Dustin mutters, springing up from his seat, scurrying towards the whiteboard as Robin grabs the book. "The— The chair! The chair-looking thingy!" He says, pointing to the Russian 'д'.

"Yeah, okay," Robin mutters excitedly, hurriedly scribbling into their notes.

The glass partition swings open with a loud clang alerting Steve at the counter.

"We've got our first sentence,"

"Oh, seriously?" He asks, turning around with two orders in his hands.

"Yeah," Robin nods. She drops her voice into a lower pitch and imitates a Russian accent. "The veek is longh,"

Steve's face falls. "Well, that's thrilling,"

"I know, but," she shrugs. "Progress."

With that, she retreats into the window and slides the door close leaving Steve to return to his ice cream slinging duties.

"Okay, here you go. You got uh, a vanilla with sprinkles and extra whipped cream and one y/f/o,"

Steve hands off the rest of the orders to El and Y/n who gladly take them. Max stood next to them, digging into the order she had already been handed. She only comes up to say 'thanks' in near sync with her friends.

"Wait a second," he says, a thoughtful look falling over his face as he frowns at El. "Are even allowed to be here?"

The girls freeze, once again pausing to share a knowing look with growing ice cream-mustached smiles and giggle. In a hurry, the three of them scurry for the door. Y/n nearly makes it before coming to a skidding halt that leaves her bouncing on one foot as she catches her balance. She runs back to the counter with a mischievous smile and a dollar in hand.

Steve watches confused as she tucks the dollar away in the tip jar, and sends him what he finds to be a childish wink.

"Keep this quiet?" She asks, and he almost laughs. But he could tell she was all too serious. "Also this is your tip! Thanks, Steve,"

Steve watches utterly baffled as she turns on her heel and makes a break for the girls waiting just outside and around the corner.

"Okay?" He says, beginning to trail off. "Wasn't gonna tell anyone anyway?"

She's nearly out the door when he realizes what her being here means. He hopes it's not too late to call after her.

"Hey, wait a sec!"

Thankfully, she hears him and turns back around. He motions her forward and while confused, she ultimately complies.

"Hey, uh, does Dustin know you're here?"

Y/n tilts her head as she thinks about it then shrugs.

"I'm not sure, why?" She asks, taking a lick of her ice cream.

Steve hooks a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to the window but he pauses when he realizes it's better she doesn't know what he's doing here. He quickly plays it off and plants both hands on the counter to lean against it.

"I don't, uh— It's just that he came by earlier and he seemed pretty down about last night,"

Y/n's shoulders slumped immediately, her eyes widening a little.

"He did?" She winced, nibbling nervously on her lip as she looked guiltily at her ice cream. And in doing so, any budding feeling of anger and protectiveness vanishes in Steve. "It's just, he wasn't there when I left and I assumed he went with the guys to Mike's."

With the same, guilty look in her eyes, Y/n glanced over her shoulder at her waiting friends and Steve instantly regretted bringing it up. He sighs, shaking his head.

"Look, it's—"

"If he comes back, will you tell him I'm sorry?" She laughed a little, very sheepishly. "That we can guilt Mom off the TV again so we can a have a monster movie night like we used to, or something?"

In that moment Steve decides not to be honest with her and tell her he's probably still too upset for that, he just doesn't have to heart to. Nor does Steve have the guts to say it wouldn't matter anyway, that he's right in the back room decoding a top-secret Russian communication. So instead, he forces his lips into a firm line that was supposed to be a smile and nods.

"Sure thing, kid,"

She perks a little. "Thanks, Steve. I'll see ya later,"

"Alright, take care," he straightens from the counter, watching as she retreats back out of the shop. He sighs again, almost hating how soft and protective he's become, and calls after her, nodding discretely in El's direction. It all comes out in the form of annoyance, though, naturally. "And don't be stupid, alright?"

Y/n smiles in response and returns to her friends. Together, the three of them disappear into the crowd.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

One of many sets of double doors swing open as Y/n, El, and Max step back out into the sunlight.

Despite their every desires to keep their special day at the mall going, the three girls knew the bus back into town was leaving shortly. Y/n takes another quick and frantic lick of her fastly melting ice cream as Max turns to El and gestures to her strawberry ice cream cone.

"Wanna trade?"

El responds with a giggle and eagerly trades off her vanilla cone for strawberry.

"No... fair," Y/n grumbles, nearly attacking her ice cream as it turns to a puddle before her eyes. She spares only a single second glare enviously at their still freshly frozen cones while she has spent between licks.

"You're not," lick. "making your," lick. "ice cr━ shit!" two licks. "melt."

The girls giggle again, wholeheartedly amused by the sight before them.

"Shut up," another lick.

"That's ridiculous," came a nearby, all too familiar whine. "Why can't I just—"

Max's face falls into a glower, pulling Y/n and El into a stop next to her. "Oh, you gotta be shitting me."

Just across the concrete entrance, fumbling to separate their bikes from the bike stands were Mike, Lucas, and Will.

Forgetting her melting ice cream momentarily, Y/n takes a moment to sigh at the ground when she realizes whatever is about to pass, will be far from good.

"—haven't got that much," Lucas says.

"Okay, what if we split it?"

"Split it with what? Does that even make sense?"

Two of the three boys continue to bicker, completely unaware of the three angry figures making their way towards them. More specifically, two angry figures and one slightly disgusted one who tosses out her nearly finished ice cream cone and the napkin she used to wipe her hands off with in the trash cans they all pass.

"Isn't this a nice surprise?" Max asks, plastering on a smirk as the three boys and their bikes come to a halt before them.

Mike's face pales when he realizes Max had caught him, and even more so when he realizes El is with her. His bike crashes to the ground, forgotten as he gapes at her.

"What are you doing here?"

"Shopping." She answers matter-of-factly, her icy stare never once wavering.

"This is her new style," Max says, eyeing him carefully. "What do you think?"

"What's wrong with you?" He spits, gesturing to El. "You know she's not allowed to be here."

"What is she, your little pet?" Max fires back.

"Yeah. Am I your pet?" El asks.

"What? No!"

"Mike, she needed this," Y/n says. "Besides, you lied to her! What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here either."

Mike finally turns his wild gaze to Y/n, utterly baffled at the stance she was taking.

"Are you kidding me?" He gawks, ignoring her eye roll. "You of all people should know about keeping her a secret,"

Y/n hotly takes a threatening step forward. "Meaning what?"

"Meaning you would know, you're good at hiding her,"

Everyone inched closer, apart from El who was seething at Mike. Y/n, on the other hand, scoffs loudly, throwing her arms up in frustration.

"You said you were over that!"

"Yeah, well, guess I'm not,"

She looked around quickly, her voice falling into a whispered hiss. "What, so I should be locked up all day, too?"

"Maybe!" Mike said, instantly feeling guilty.

"Mike!" Will snaps, stepping forward another few inches. And so did El, her shoulder subconsciously shielding Y/n. Shielding her from, Mike, or Mike from her, she wasn't sure.

But she knew she was livid. And hurt.

Mike sighs, putting his face into his hands and running them tiredly over his face.

"I'm sorry, that was over the line," he sighs, sounding embarrassed.

"-You're damn right it was," Y/n snapped.

"But that doesn't change the fact that she really can't be here," he corrects himself, looking El in the eye carefully. "You can't be here. It's not safe,"

"I can take care of myself," El says.

"I mean," Mike sighs again, frustrated as he trips over his own words. "you and a lot of other people could be in danger if anybody starts asking questions. I just care about you, alright? And I don't want anything to happen to you, not again,"

El shakes her head, all visible anger melting away leaving only sadness in its wake.

"Then why do you treat me like garbage?"

"What?"

"You said Nana was sick,"

The panic returns to his eyes, and he and Lucas desperately try to cover their tracks.

From over their shoulder, Y/n meets eyes with an exasperated Will, and the couple shares a look and tired shake of the head.

"She is. She is sick!"

"Yeah, sick— she's sick," Lucas nods. "She's super sick. And that's why we're here, actually."

Y/n silently meets Will's eye again and makes out the subtle firm line he presses his lips into and the small shake of his head 'no'.

Oblivious to Will, the two continue.

"Yeah, w-we're shopping! Not for us, but for her, for Nana,"

"For Nana."

"Also," Mike sighs, giving El an earnest look. "we're here to get a gift for you. It's just, we couldn't find anything that suited you and I only have, like, $3.50, so it's hard."

"-super hard." Lucas sighs, giving an honest, apologetic look to all three of them. "It's— It's expensive,"

"Speaking of," came Will's, softened voice. "Here ya go. Sorry it's not real,"

He takes a step forward and sheepishly offers the small goodie bag to Y/n. Everyone watches confused and almost a little intrigued as Y/n takes it curiously. Quickly, she dives her gaze and hand into the baggie and smiles as she pulls out the small y/f/f candy ring.

"Oh, a ring pop?" She flashes Will a beaming smile as she rips open the package and slips it on her finger. "Thanks, Will,"

He nods happily, completely relieved she was this happy to get one.

Y/n's smile drops instantly when she remembers what they're interrupting and she quiets, clearing her throat a little.

"Sorry," she mumbled, sending an especially sorry look to El as her hand graces her shoulders in a gentle apology.

El sends her a weak smile, eyes falling back down. Sadly, she looks to her ice cream and then deeply into Mike's eyes as the day's events all come crashing down on her. And it's with great disappointment she realizes what has hurt her, and what hasn't.

She shakes her head softly, the disappointment evident on her face now more than ever.

"You lie," she says finally, all the more saddened to see Mike squirm under her gaze, only confirming her words. El shakes her head again. "Why do you lie?"

She waits and waits and when Mike can't give an answer, the screech of the bus's tires in the distance tells her a decision must be made. And it's with a seething glare, El makes up her mind.

Everyone watches carefully in silence as she takes three tantalizing steps until she's staring up at Mike. He's frozen, as is everyone else as he fears her next words. And he has every reason to.

"I dump your ass."

Y/n's eyes find Will's once again, this time, regret clouding them when she realizes. Tonight was meant to be spent at his house, dinner with him, Jonathan, and Joyce at least but it seems the day had different plans in mind. She stood rooted to the spot, her lips parted in shock as she processed what had just happened.

She detected sadness in Will's eyes, as she was used she had in her own but reality came crashing down, breaking her from her spell.

"I'm sorry," she sputters, more so to Will than Mike and Lucas. "I didn't think she would," she breathes.

"What?" Mike's widened eyes land on her, flickering between her and El's retreating figure. "Did you tell her to do this?"

"Of course not!" She said, eyes darting between him and Lucas sympathetically. "But it's still their decision. I'm sorry. I am,"

"Y/n! You coming?"

Y/n looked over her shoulder to find El and Max moving up the line, nearly ready to board. From there, El looked between Y/n and Mike, as if she were worried Mike would take it out on Y/n more. Y/n gave her friend a weak, reassuring smile and turned back to the guys.

Will specifically.

"I'm sorry," she said to Will, beginning to back away even though she didn't really want to leave him. "But I think I need to be with them right now. Is it okay if we take a rain check?"

Will smiled, nodding and she felt a fresh wave of guilt. She could have sworn she saw a hint of sadness but if it was ever there, he had buried it for her sake.

In a spur of the moment, she ran forward and planted a kiss on his lips before pulling back. She shot Lucas and Mike a lingering look, not really knowing what to feel for them in the moment.

And then she took off.

The three friends stood baffled, reeling from how much everything had changed so quickly. Their legs kicked into gear and followed the crowds to the bus but the doors had just swung closed. From where they stood at the curb, they could make out three familiar lingering silhouettes from behind the tinted windows, all piling in together.

Max had nabbed the window seat, El seating herself next to her. It was only a matter of moments before Y/n had joined them, plopping herself in the seat directly behind them. She peeked out over the low backs of their seats, wedged right in between them with a breathless look.

For just that moment, the three best friends sat there in stunned silence before breaking into a breathless laugh.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

The sun had set behind even the lowest of valleys, bathing the town in a pale glow and unforgiving chill that couldn't be quenched even on the hottest days of summer. Starcourt mall was alive in every way but one; the hum of the neon lights reached every corner, but the mall had long since closed leaving it a beautiful, vibrant wasteland.

The only remaining occupants were tucked away in the backroom of Scoops Ahoy, standing before a whiteboard facing the daring truth they had worked so hard to uncover. In perfect sync, they read the words aloud with confusion muddling their brains and exhaustion filling their systems.

"The week is long, the silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west."

Steve, Robin, and Dustin stand before the translation willing something to make sense. But all they were left with when they turned in for the night, closing the grated metal gate that went with closing up shop was utter bafflement.

"I mean, it just..." Steve sighs into the ground, the keys in his hand turning in the lock. "It just can't be right."

"It's right," Robin assures. When Steve returns to his feet the three of them begin their lazy journey to the exit.

"Honestly, I think this is great news," Dustin shrugs.

"How is this great news?" Steve chuckles bitterly. I mean, so much for being American heroes. It's total nonsense."

"It's not nonsense. It's too specific. It has to be a code."

Steve's face screws up into a puzzled pout. "What do you mean, a code?"

"Like a super-secret spy code,"

"That's a total stretch,"

"I don't know, is it?" Robin scoffs.

"You're buying into this?"

"Listen, just for kicks, let's entertain the possibility that it is a secret Russian transmission. What'd you think they were gonna say, 'Fire the warhead at noon'?"

"Exactly," Dustin gestures, his gaze returning up to Steve to see the gears spinning in his head.

"And my translation is correct," Robin assures. "I know that for sure, so... 'The silver cat feeds'. Why would anyone talk like that unless they're trying to mask the true meaning of their message?"

"Exactly!"

"And why would anyone mask the true meaning of their message unless the true meaning of their message was somehow sensitive?"

By now, Dustin was rubbing his triumphant smirk in Steve's face. "Exactly."

"So I guess that confirms your suspicion," Robin says, looking to Dustin who remains triumphant.

"Evil Russians,"

Robin wears a tired smile as she looks back at Steve with a dry chuckle. "I can't believe I'm about to agree with this strange child, but, yeah, totally evil Russians."

"So how do we crack it?" Dustin asks, flashing his charming toothless grin her way.

"Well, I guess we translate the rest and hopefully a pattern emerges."

"A pattern. Right, like maybe 'silver cat' is a meeting place?"

"Or a person."

"Or a weapon,"

"It's probably gonna take a super genius to track it, but..." Robin trails off when she notices she is one dingus short. "Where's Steve?"

The new duo spin on their heels where they spot their missing friend a few yards down. He had a frown screwed onto his face as he stood in front of one of the many kiddie rides, his hands diving into his pockets no doubt searching for coins. Sure enough, the clinking of coins rattling together as he purs them out in his palm confirms their suspicions.

"Hey, Steve," Robin calls, her empty hand swinging limply out in a puzzled gesture. "What are you doing?"

"Uh, it's," Steve doesn't bother answering her question and the only time he picks his eyes up off his hands is to check the mechanical horse for its cost. "a quarter. I need--" he mumbles to himself, looking hopefully to his friends. "Do you have a quarter?"

Despite her confusion, Robin lets out a chuckle, and she and Dustin quickly shuffle over to Steve's side. "Sure you're tall enough for that ride?"

"Quarter!" He yells, jumping forward to catch the coin Robin flipped out for him.

He catches it with a clumsy spin and drops his knees to insert it into the ride. They watch was Steve remains huddled on the ground, a funny look on his face as the ride begins. Robin can't resist poking fun, and does with little strain on her voice to be heard over the music.

"You need help getting up, little Stevie?"

"Shh-shh! Shh!" Steve snaps, gesturing to the galloping horse. More specifically the music it plays. "Would you two just shut up and listen?"

Robin and Dustin are almost shocked at his seriousness, but the smile remains on Dustin's face from Robin's comment. That is until it eventually slips off his face when he realizes why the familiar tune being played before them was so familiar.

"Holy shit," he breathes, locking eyes with a grave-looking Steve. Dustin looks to Robin, helping her to connect the dots as he begins shedding his backpack from his shoulders. "The music,"

He had heard it all day. They all had while translating the tape. The very tune Steve had been complaining so much about.

"The music!" Dustin cries again, dropping to his knees as he desperately fishes his bag for the tape.

How had he not recognized it? Y/n and him used to ride the Indiana Flyer at the fair as soon as they were old enough. And then the caricell, over and over every year until they were old enough to ride the bigger rides. And even then, the tune carried out across the Fun Fair where it could be heard from as far as the top of the Ferris wheel. The two of them would drag their mother every year. It was the sound of his childhood.

Dustin presses play on the tape, and as he gazes up at Robin, silently pleading for the dots to connect the sound of the song on the tape is louder than Russian for the first time all day.

But Robin only shrugs between them.

"I don't understand,"

"It's the exact same song on the recording,"

"Maybe they have horses like this in Russia?"

"The 'Indiana Flyer'? I don't..." Steve shakes his head. The look on his face made clear he wished he was wrong. He looked... unsettled. "I don't think so. This code, it... it didn’t come from Russia."

And they that unease. They could feel it settling into their chests, making their hearts beat a little faster and their stomach twisting up into knots at what he said next.

"It came from here."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

The roads are empty, even still. Crickets sing into the night and the steady breeze taking itself through Hawkins back roads are momentarily swept up with the leaves when a lone Chevrolet Camaro pulls into Brimborne. The lot remained abandoned, seemingly, other than the figure stepping out of the car, with sweat on his brow.

The summer sun had set hours ago, taking the searing heat with it. But the humidity that clung to the air felt to be Billy like he was sitting far too close to an open fire. But still, he lumbers to the trunk where the reason for his being here lies.

The latch opens with a loud clunk, and the trunk lid opens slowly. His eyes find the contents immediately, as does the murky light from the trunk bulb onto his face.

She was still unconscious.

A foreign voice in his brain — the one who had brought them both here, the one to have put here — spoke up again without permission. And yet, it didn't exactly speak in words, but feelings. And all that shot to the surface was one thing — one word.

Good.

It was Billy who couldn't stop thinking about it. What he had done. The small part of him that fought.

[■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■]

- 𝗙𝗟𝗔𝗦𝗛𝗕𝗔𝗖𝗞 -

Among the pain, Billy feels tears building up inside him when he realizes what that tug in his gut is ordering him to do. He can also feel it happening again. He can feel himself slipping away, just as he had when he fled for the showers. But this time he fought it.

God, he fought it so hard.

But it wasn't enough.

His nails dug into the flesh of his knees that he had been clutching so tightly to his chest. That and the tears racing down his cheeks now blending with the water were the last things to happen that were truly Billy's doing.

"Billy, are you okay—?"

The last thing Billy sees before he loses control is his hand lunging for Heather's throat. His iron grip locks her in a chokehold and her hands fly to his. Desperately she claws at his hands, her nails raking into his skin but he never flinches. She feels her feet leave the ground, her toes grazing the tile floor as he picks her up and pins her to the stall doors.

Her widened, fearful eyes look deep into his but all she finds as he rips the curtain closed is the lack of human emotion within him. His eyes were hollow, the whites of his eyes running black and they are the last thing she sees before unconsciousness overtakes her.

- 𝗘𝗡𝗗 𝗢𝗙 𝗙𝗟𝗔𝗦𝗛𝗕𝗔𝗖𝗞 -

She's limp in his arms as he carries her throughout the darkness of Brimborne whose only source of light is moonlight spilling through the dirtied glass window panes hanging high above. He walks with all the time in the world, his eyes dead set on the last place Billy ever wanted to see again. The only sound to be heard within miles was the scuffle of his rubber soles scraping against the dirt and leaves sprinkled across the concrete.

The scratchy thumps of his boots turn to metal echoes as he disappears down the darkened stairwell. From there, inky blackness like the sludge coursing through his veins is all that can be seen. Little moonlight has survived the journey through the grated floor, but there was enough to illuminate Heather's body that he places onto the cement floor.

Soft, discomforted groans break through the duct tape over her mouth as she comes to. She rolls onto her back, confused as to why she feels pain in her head and cement digging into her spine.

But everything she needs to know becomes all too clear almost instantly when she sees Billy's hollowed eyes staring down at her from where he's perched above her. Panic sets in, and as she realizes all too late why she is unable to move her hands or feet. That doesn't stop Heather from trying as she fights against the restraints, eager to use her dried-out voice.

Her breath is knocked loose when Billy throws her back into the ground after she managed to sit up even an inch.

He keeps a small majority of his weight on her shoulders as he leans in close, his breath on her ear.

"Don't be afraid. It'll be over soon."

Tears tickle her temple when they escape her eyes. She prays for many things, but she'll even settle for the small possibility the sweat collecting on her skin is enough to weaken the tape on her mouth. Then maybe, just maybe she can scream for help.

"Just stay very still."

This specific hope fizzles away, drowning in her own confusion when, without moving his head, he looks to her and slowly peels the tape off of her lips.

She's too shocked to do anything. Too afraid. But she wasn't prepared to let that stop her. Heather was going to do something, she had to. She would.

But that all died when Billy suddenly stood up, looking almost disinterested in her as an eery, unnatural sound reverberates throughout the darkness before her. Slowly, her head turns to face the dark abyss when she catches movement out of the corner of her eye.

His face is as hard as stone though his eyes hold a flicker of struggle and pain when it all unfolds. Heather may be the only one in binding, but she is not the only one who is trapped. There is nothing at all Billy can do but watch as the large and bloodied mass of flesh stomps forward from the shadows, ready to feast.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

68 Ways To Donate in Support Of Asian Communities - [link]

FSFAPV Justice: "community family coalition that offers help and justice to families in the Twin Cities and nationwide that have lost loved ones to police violence" - [link]

30 Organizations That Are Boosting African American Educational Achievement - [link]

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

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thewidowsghost · 3 years

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Daughter of the Sea - Chapter 1

So, I started this on my Wattpad, and if figured I'd just put it on here! Just tell me if you want me to add you to the taglist!

Percy's POV

My name is Percy Jackson.

I am twelve years old. I'm a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York, and my sister, (Y/n), taking online schooling at home.

Am I a troubled kid?

Yeah. You could say that.

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan—twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

I know—it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course, I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that...Well, you get the idea.

On this trip, I was determined to be good.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwiches that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

"I'm going to kill her," I mumble.

Grover tries to calm me down. "I'm okay. I like peanut butter -" He dodges another piece of Nancy's lunch.

"That's it." I start to get up, but Grover pulls me back to my seat.

"You're already on probation," he reminds me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Mr. Brunner leads the museum tour.

He rides up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blows my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

He gathers us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and starts telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Brunner keeps talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickers something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turn around and say, "Will you shut up?"

It comes out louder than I meant it to.

The whole group laughs. Mr. Brunner stops his story. "Mr. Jackson," he says, "did you have a comment?"

My face is totally red, I think. I answer, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner points to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I look at the carving, and feel a flush of relief, because I actually recognize it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," Mr. Brunner says, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because..."

"Well..." I rack my brain to remember. (Y/n) would have known the answer. She was nuts for this kind of stuff. "Kronos was the king god, and —"

"God?" Mr. Brunner asks.

"Titan," I correct myself. "And...he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"

"Eeew!" says one of the girls behind me.

"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continue, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbles to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner says, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover mutters.

"Shut up," Nancy hisses, her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

I think about his question, and shrug. "I don't know, sir."

"I see." Mr. Brunner looks disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifts off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."

I knew that was coming.

I tell Grover to keep going; then I turn toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?" Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go—intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything. "You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner tells me.

"About the Titans?"

'"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he says, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, swordpoint against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C– in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.

I mumble something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner takes one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

He tells me to go outside and eat my lunch.

The class gathers on the front steps of the museum, where we can watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm is brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figure maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

Nobody else seems to notice, though. Some of the guys are pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit is trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds isn't seeing a thing.

Grover and I sit on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius, not like (Y/n). She seems to know everything."

Grover doesn't say anything for a while. Then, when I think he is going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he asks, "Can I have your apple?"

I don't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

I watch the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and think about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sit. I hadn't seen her or my sister since Christmas. I want so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. Mom and (Y/n) would hug me and be glad to see me, but Mom would be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I couldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.

I am about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appears in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumps her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grins at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles are orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

I try to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I am so mad my mind went blank. A wave roars in my ears.

I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy is sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"

"—the water—"

"—like it grabbed her—"

I don't know what they were talking about. All I know is that I was in trouble again.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds is sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turns on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"

"I know," I grumble. "A month erasing workbooks." That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds says.

"Wait!" Grover yelps. "It was me. I pushed her."

I stare at him, stunned. I can't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.

She glares at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she says.

"But—"

"You—will—stay—here."

Grover looks at me desperately.

"It's okay, man," I tell him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barks at me. "Now."

Nancy Bobofit smirks. I give her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turn to face Mrs. Dodds, but she isn't there. She is standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.

How'd she get there so fast?

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure. I go after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glance back at Grover. He is looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner is absorbed in his novel.

I look back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She is now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I think. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.

But apparently, that wasn't the plan.

I follow her deeper into the museum. When I finally catch up to her, we are back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery is empty.

Mrs. Dodds stands with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She is making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze as if she wanted to pulverize it...

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she says.

I do the safe thing. I reply, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugs on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes is beyond mad. It was evil.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me. I say, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."

Thunder shakes the building.

"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

I didn't know what she's talking about.

All I can think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

"Well?" she demands.

"Ma'am, I don't..."

"Your time is up," she hisses.

Then the weirdest thing happens. Her eyes begin to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretch, turning into talons. Her jacket melts into large, leathery wings. She isn't human. She is a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheels his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Percy!" he shouts and tosses the pen through the air.

Mrs. Dodds lunges at me.

With a yelp, I dodge and feel talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatch the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hits my hand, it isn;t a pen anymore. It is a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always uses on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spins towards me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees are jelly. My hands are shaking so bad I almost drop the sword.

She snarl, "Die, honey!" And she flies straight at me.

Absolute terror runs through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swing the sword.

The metal blade hits her shoulder and passes clean through her body as if she was made of water. Hisss!

Mrs. Dodds was a sandcastle in a power fan. She explodes into yellow powder, vaporizing on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes are still watching me.

I'm alone.

There is a ballpoint pen in my hand.

Mr. Brunner isn't there. Nobody is there but me.

My hands are still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

Had I imagined the whole thing?

I walk back outside.

It had started to rain.

Grover is sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit is still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she sees me, she says, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

I answer, "Who?"

"Our teacher. Duh!"

I blink. We don't have a teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I ask Nancy what she is talking about.

She just rolls her eyes and turns away.

I ask Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

"Who?" he asks, but he pauses first and he wouldn't look at me, so I figure he was messing with me.

"Not funny, man," I tell him. "This is serious."

Thunder booms overhead.

I see Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book as if he'd never moved.

I go over to him.

He looks up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."

I had Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I ask, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stares blankly at me, "Who?"

"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."

He frowns and sits forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"

Word Count: 3159 words

So yeah, this is the first chapter of this book.

Not much (Y/n) yet, but we'll get there.

Love y'all! Kaitlynn ❤️😍

#percy jackson x sister reader #sally jackson x daugther reader #demigod reader #fem reader #reader insert #percy jackson and the heroes of olympus #percy jackson and the lightning thief reader insert #percy jackson and the battle of the labyrinth #percy jackson and the titans curse #percy jackson and the lightning thief #percy jackson and the greek gods #percy jackson and the sea of monsters #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackson and the olympians reader insert

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platonic-prompts · 2 years

Text

I'm bored, and I saw a thing calling breeding cows r*pe and its like, my guy-- (Description of animal husbandry ahead)

Anyway, cows basically go into estrus every 18-21 days, estrus is what can be considered 'heat' so she's essentially minos's wife from the minotaur story but without the bestiality, and for the cow, this actually has the potentially to be very dangerous because no matter what people want to say, nature isn't pretty

In the field, if a cow in estrus and a bull are together, then the cow really has no control over whats going to happen to her, because the bull basically makes it so she can't run and can't breathe while he--- you know. With AI (artificial insemination) the cow just...does not care. They are for the most part chill, and please remember if cows don't like something, they very much can hurt you. They're not cute defenseless puppies, they weigh over a ton.

So either way, the cow is getting knocked up, one is much more painful than the other, and one carries much, much less risk to farmers (because they don't need to deal with a bull)

And before any militant vegans rise up with their bullhorns (no problems with regular vegans except the one teacher at my school who didn't understand the concept of how small dairy farms sell their product, like dude, you're also hurting small farms) animals aren't humans. They don't think like us, they don't have the same morals as us, and they certainly don't have the same wants and needs as us. If I held down a full grown human woman and forced her to take a pill, that'd be bad, but me forcing my cat to take her dewormer isn't. Not to mention that a lot of the descriptions used by sources are very misleading and honestly disgusting

Honestly I want to know if they think reaching into a cow to help her give birth without losing the calf or the cow is bestiality too

But main point here is: The cow is getting pregnant either way, AI has less chance of severely injuring or even killing the breeding stock (Bulls can trip, cows pelvis can get crushed, bull fights, etc)

And I think my favorite comparison from the article I read to double check everything was: Did your cat or dog sign a consent form to be spayed or neutered? What about giving them kibble or canned food?

Animals cannot give or withhold consent (which is why everyone who is a zooph*le can go burn in hell) to anything, but that also means you can't use that as an argument (ZPs THIS IS NOT AN EXCUSE BURN IN THE FIERY PITS)

Animal caretakers are just that they take care of their animals, which means making decisions that are in their best interest. And sure, sometimes those interests also line up with whats good for humans, but that's not a bad thing.

Also the so called 'r*pe racks' articles talk about, they don't exist. They're just things like squeeze chutes (used for vaccinations and other things) stanchions (Commonly used for vet visits), and various head-gate systems (keep the cow in place essentially. We had these in the milking parlor, they did not care, they loved headpats there though)

So, i hope that this has been informative for anyone planning to write a farm story, and also for people who've seen this and are not writing a farm story

Also have a somewhat graphic link to the page I read while doing this. I just think its good practice to look at the side who, you know, actually deals with the animals for a living rather than the people who've never stepped foot on a farm (looking at the vegan who was on the tennis team and keeps her hunting dog cooped up in a small apartment)

#not a prompt #me rambling about people demonizing farmers for an hour straight basically #ah yes lets make farmers out to be the bad guys for making things safer for both them and the cows

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marinetteplztakeabreak · 3 years

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okay now that we’re in the middle of a hiatus and the fandom is mostly calmed down

I’m one of the very few people who’s actually hoping for a Lila redemption arc? I don’t want her to be friends with Adrien or Marinette or anyone she’s really really hurt, but she is still like 14 and we don’t know her full story and I honestly want to see her grow and be a person and make some actual friends and get some hobbies. Again, I think she’s burned the bridge with a few characters, but that doesn’t mean she can’t ever be friends with anyone else

and anyway, my ideal takedown/ redemption arc for Lila is one where she unknowingly lies about having several disabilities that other students in the class actually do have

BUT I don’t want it in a “oh actually, Lila, you dumb fool, I have real medically diagnosed tinnitus, so I know that’s not how it works, haha everyone look at Lila the stupid liar” kind of way

I want them to be like stupid levels of understanding and try to bond with her

(detailed explanation of my Lila arc under the cut, obviously don’t read if you’re uncomfortable with the idea of Lila being redeemed)

Lila is like “oh... actually... I can’t participate in the PE final... I have scoliosis... that I just found out about right now” and Juleka is like “oh! I have scoliosis too!” and Lila is panicking because she’s about to be called a fraud, but instead Juleka just happily sits with her for the entire PE final and rambles about stuff and is super happy to have a bench buddy

Alix mentions that she has tinnitus and Lila is like “wait what? why aren’t you in front of the class?” and Alix is like “oh, for me it’s kind of a waves thing? on good days, I can hear her from anywhere in the classroom, and on bad days, nothing can really help me hear? so Ms. Bustier just gives me lecture notes that I can read and it works for me.” And Lila is completely expecting to be called a fraud but Alix is just like “it’s super cool that it does help you, though! everyone’s different! If you ever want to compare notes about what helps, you can text me!”

Lila starts to say the beginning of a well practiced and overly researched speech about how she can’t go on a field trip because she has a super rare medical condition and Max just pulls her aside and is like “hey, I know it can be scary and you feel like you have to justify yourself, but you really don’t have to give super personal information all the time. It’s totally fine if you are comfortable, but really, I know from personal experience that Ms Bustier and this class are super understanding. You can just say ‘personal reasons’ or something and we’ll all leave you alone. You’re allowed to have privacy.” and Lila is like “huh”

this is getting long but basically, eventually she talks to someone in the class with ADHD or anxiety, I’m going to say Alya for now, so she literally catches Lila lying about knowing some celebrity, and instead of being angry or judgemental she’e super discreet about it, she pulls her aside like “hey, I know it feels hard to make friends, but I promise you, people do think you’re interesting as you are, and we care more about you than the people you know.” and she doesn’t even call Lila out for lying? she’s literally just like “u dont have to know celebrities”

and then Lila actually finds out that there’s at least one actual compulsive liar in the class. And, if you didn’t know, Lila’s not an actual compulsive liar, and I’m not going to get into a rant about that now but... She lies on purpose, and tells planned lies with an agenda, whereas compulsive liars don’t usually plan to lie or have a reason for lying. So anyway, Lila gets actually caught lying, and someone, lets just say Nino for the sake of picking a character, is like “hey i know its hard but you do still have to apologize, even if you did your best, you still messed up and you’ve got to own up to it. I believe you that you’re trying to be better but you can’t just use mental illness as an excuse.” and Lila pulls out the fake tears and is like “you don’t understand-” and Nino is (not in a rude way, just trying to be kind) like “I can’t understand you exactly, no, but I literally did have a problem with compulsive lying and I have a therapist, so if you want to talk about it I probably understand more than you know” and Lila is like “oh.”

and anyway, Lila’s arc doesn’t come through someone she’s harassed trying to defend her, and it doesn’t come from her being traumatized into being nice, it just comes from her classmates treating her like a human person, and doing their best to understand her while also actually finding ways to make things accessible to her so she stops being able to get out of things. And then it turns to “hey Lila, just so you know, you don’t HAVE to give explanations for not wanting to go places, you can just SAY if you’re uncomfortable.” and she starts getting called out on it a little bit more, but in a friendly way. Her classmates are just like “Lila please just tell us what you want, I don’t need your medical history, I’m not going to do a background check, just, say you want to borrow a jacket and I’ll let you borrow it. I literally have an extra hoodie”

But simultaneously, everyone with a disability “in common” with her starts latching on to her and opening up, and they actually hold her accountable for listening to their needs. And Lila, who already has the mindset of “oh u are legally required to help Disabled Person or everyone will hate you,” which is literally the basis of half of her plans, is now surrounded by classmates who are asking for her help with reading things because they’re dyslexic, or asking her to grab a textbook from across the room, and asking her if she has any heating pads, and, well, Mylene actually bought her some heating pads when she was faking having cramps earlier, so she might as well lend those out so that she can get more credit with her classmates

And it’s not because she *cares* obviously, she’s just doing it to get them to rely on her, and to get on their good side

and then she’s invited to join the disabled students activism club, and it would look suspicious if she didn’t join, so she agrees, and then whoops, she is now working to do actual charity work-- because it’s really nice to have such solid evidence for her claims, and some charity work that she can actually point to solid evidence for if she ever gets called out-- and honestly it is pretty stupid that its so hard to get accommodations on tests for students with anxiety, because aren’t those the students who are the most afraid to talk to the teachers-- not that Lila cares. And it’s super dumb that no one even knows proper etiquette for helping people in wheelchairs,, and people keep Leaving Things in the Hallways that make it too narrow, and-- Lila doesn’t care at all though, and she definitely doesn’t care about her “friends” in the club because they’re not her friends, and she totally does not cry when she finds out that most of them are literally self-diagnosed, and then it turns out that Mylene was actually wrong, and she probably doesn’t have Lyme disease like she thought, and no one judges her or treats her any different? they’re all just like “oh thats great! glad you could keep getting new information!”

and Lila realizes that literally no one will be mad if it turns out she doesn’t have any disabilities. Except also, she’s starting to become more and more sure that she Does have several things wrong with her, because apparently it’s Not Normal to feel constantly on guard when she’s around other people, and apparently it’s Not Normal to just have days where you literally cannot drag yourself out of bed in the morning and then get hit with terror that if you tell anyone about how numb you feel they’ll immediately think you’re unworthy as a human being, and she’s like, oh, huh, i should look into that

and anyway Lila doesn’t even try to be a good person at first she just wakes up one day and is like “what the heck when did i get actual friends and passions and hobbies,, i did not sign up for this” but she does start making an effort to be worthy of them and she ends up growing a whole ton once she’s given a support system

and anyway i know lots of people are uncomfy with Lila and that’s fine, but i’m continuously a sucker for “evil devil child is actually a pretty decent human being once their basic needs are met and they feel safe” trope

#long post #lila rossi #miraculous ladybug #ml #i do not know how to tag this #trying to not tag my hate but also not attract the specific people who would hate on this #let me know if theres any tags that need to be added

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ahkaahshi · 4 years

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lucky [oikawa tooru x reader]

pairing: oikawa tooru x fem reader

genre: smut (18+) with some fluff :)

warning(s): explicit sexual content, orgasm denial/edging, roleplaying, penetrative sex, implied deep throating, swearing, alcohol consumption, mentions of gambling and casinos, and oikawa being a lovable dork as always

word count: 5.4k (a monster of a fic compared to my usual writing. whew)

overview: after a long weekend of work-related conferences, you’re desperate to let off some steam at the hotel bar. however, you don’t realize what you’re in for when you take to eyeing the man you couldn’t keep your attention off of when you arrived.

From the first moment you set foot beneath the sea of twinkling fairy lights adorning the patio of the luxurious hotel bar, you haven’t been able to take your eyes off him. Like a star, he shimmers in the gentle glow—his crisp, white button-up reflecting every hint of light that falls upon his figure. That bright smile of his he flashes the bartender as the two enjoy a casual chat is radiant, threatening to set your heart ablaze. With the warmth that his demeanor exudes, it’s impossible for you notto notice his presence in spite of all the other patrons chattering, swaying to the music, and enjoying a good laugh with friends in the large, outdoor space.

Oikawa Tooru. You already know his name after seeing his face on national television countless times, but you never could’ve expected that you would bump into him during the last night of your stay at this hotel in particular. Even from afar, he’s just as stunning—if not more so—than he appears on the volleyball court, and the instant attraction you feel to him is what has you carefully weaving between the throngs of guests to make your way over to the bar.

The seat next to him is open, but you think twice about taking it. Doing so would quickly put you in a rather intimate situation, you assume, given how close each stool is located to the next, so you settle on leaving a bit of distance between the two of you by perching on the plush cushion of a one a few seats away. Once you’ve placed your small purse securely on a hook beneath the counter, you flag the bartender with a small wave of the hand and a smile, making him abandon his conversation with the professional volleyball player to attend to you.

There’s a brief moment when your gaze meets his brown one tinged golden by the lights as he glances over to see the source of his conversation’s interruption, and, in that short span of time before your eyes dart away from his, you swear you catch a glimpse of a smile playing on his lips. After you’ve placed your signature drink order, you focus your attention on the man behind the counter instead, watching him grab and combine the ingredients necessary to fill your request. However, you can’t shake the feeling that you’re not the only one having a hard time keeping their eyes to themselves.

And your own inability to do so is what has you sending another glance down the bar in his direction, (e/c) eyes trailing along the intricate detailing beneath the counter’s resin surface as they make their way over to his. Trying to withhold the smile that almost instinctively spreads across your lips at noticing the one already gracing his when your gazes meet again is futile. There’s something about his radiant presence and the barely noticeable glint of rapture shining in his eyes that has your heart fluttering in your chest—and its pace soon increases when he lifts his glass, grabs the jacket draped over the hook by his knee, and stands so he can close the distance between you.

A giggle tinged with both delight and nervousness escapes your lips before you call out to him, “You don’t have to come over here!”

“Oh?” he questions coyly, raising an eyebrow at you as he ducks beneath the counter for a moment to place his jacket on the hook beside your purse, “What was I supposed to do, then? Just sit and stare until someone else came to chat you up?” His teasing remark fills you with warmth, as does the realization that only a few inches separate you from the impossibly attractive man you’d been admiring. As bold as you were to look him in the eye before, you find the feat to be a challenge now.

“Not exactly,” you suggest, suppressing your nerves enough to deliver an equally playful response of, “But I thought I’d receive a message from the bartender that my drink’s already been paid for by the handsome loner at the other end of the bar before he gathered the courage to approach me?”

His fingers swim through his brown waves of feathery hair as his lips quirk into a devilish smile. “Mm, but then I would’ve been doing exactly what you expected me to do! And where’s the fun in that, huh?” You follow his chestnut gaze to the man behind the counter when he sets the drink you’d requested down on the coaster near in front of you. Your hand’s journey to your purse is stopped by a light touch on your arm and the words, “You can put anything she orders on my bill,” leaving your new drinking partner’s mouth.

Traces of heat skitter along the skin his fingers graze like stray embers that have escaped the fire. Somehow, in the coolness of the night with not a drop of liquor in your system, there’s not a single goosebump on your body.

“Thank you…”

“Tooru.” He sticks his hand into the small void between you in a formal greeting.

You return the favor, sliding your palm against his and giving it a gentle shake. “(F/n).” A thought about how soft and gentle yet firm his grip is passes through your mind, bringing familiar prickles of warmth to your cheeks. “I appreciate it.”

Chuckling, he mentions, “Didn’t wanna ruin the little fantasy you seem to have all put together in that pretty head of yours by making you pay for your own drink.” The degree of rapture in his gaze, as if he thinks your face is the most enticing subject in his field of vision, slowly melts away your hesitation, and you find yourself raising your glass to his after it’s been refilled once more in an amicable toast.

The first taste always burns the most, but Oikawa’s presence seems to sweeten it ever so subtly. “So,” you hum after taking a deep breath to collect your thoughts, “what brings you here tonight by yourself? Thought someone as famous as you are wouldn’t be a moment without an entourage of adoring, female fans.”

He snickers, lips curling up into a grin that reflects his amusement. “It’s quite a large burden to bear, if I do say so myself, but I managed to escape their clutches just moments before you got here. Pretty lucky if I do say so myself,” he explains, his flirtations accompanied by a small wink. After taking another sip of the dark liquor in his glass, he adds, “As far as what I’m doing here; well, I’m here on business. But there’s no harm in mixing in a little pleasure, right?”

You shrug. “Might as well.”

“How about you?” Your gaze only leaves his for a moment to watch the way his fingertips graze the height of his glass, collecting droplets of condensation rolling down the sides. The silver rings he’s wearing on his right index and ring fingers shine when they catch a hint of the soft light pouring over your forms.

Returning your attention to his eyes, which appear to relax at having the pleasure of meeting yours once again, you elaborate, “Same reason. Wanted to find at least one fun thing to do after a long weekend of back to back work-related events.”

“In that case, feel free to have as many drinks as you want—on me,” he offers. However, before you can protest and tell him that you would never be so cruel as to exploit his generous offer, he comments, “But, if you’d rather sink money into something a little more rewarding and exciting than the frankly overpriced alcohol here, what do you say to joining me in the casino?”

You bat your eyelashes at him from over the rim of your glass while you take another sip as an indication that you’ll give him an answer when you can speak again. The invitation’s rather bold, you think, considering the fact that the two of you have only known each other for a grand total of about ten minutes. In any other situation, you’d most likely say no and do anything you could to shirk your conversational partner’s advances—depending on how they’d approached you, that is. But you find that you don’t want to say no to him.

Whether it’s the way his inviting gaze threatens to keep drawing you closer and closer to him so you can see the glimmer of the fairy lights in his eyes, or the air of warmth surrounding him that makes you feel as if you’ve known him forever, you don’t know—but you just can’t say no. You don’t want to. Sure, you’d gotten dressed up and taken a trip down to the ritzy hotel’s bar with the intentions of alleviating your boredom, but if you left with him, it would be because you wanted to be in his company rather than because you wanted a solution to your issue.

So, you answer him with a nod, but delay your next course of action for a while longer by asking, “Is it alright if I indulge in just one more of these overpriced drinks before we leave, though? I don’t know about know about you, but I only just got here.”

His smile doesn’t falter as he obliges with a dip of the head. “Really trying to bleed me dry, here, aren’tcha?”

“Might as well leave the bar knowing that you spent your money on something worthwhile before losing it all at the slots.”

“In that case, I’ll order myself another too.”

The two of you share a much-needed laugh, considering your long weekends of work, and continue your conversation over another refill. Though you’re sure the time the two of you spend on the plush stools at the bar top is relatively short, it feels much longer, and you find yourself abstaining from finishing your drink too quickly to prolong the moments you spend together—since you don’t want him to splash more of his hard-earned money on another rather average drink hiding behind a fancy name. In spite of all the commotion surrounding you as people dance, fill up the barstools on either side of you, or raise their voices to be heard over the chatter and music, his figure is the only thing you can see, and his voice the only thing you can hear.

You do snap back to reality once more, though, when you both come to the realization that your glasses are empty, but you’re happy that his idea to visit the casino means this isn’t the end of your night together. Once he’s slid on his jacket and you’ve slung your purse over your shoulder, the two of you head back into the hotel and stride down the ornately designed carpeting towards your destination. The slight sensation of the alcohol buzzing in your veins fills you with warmth that he seems to localize and intensify with his light touches to the small of your back as he guides you over towards the glowing slot machines.

Oikawa notices your hesitation when you sit down in front of one of the money-guzzling contraptions, and teases, “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you have to pay to play, princess.”

The affectionate nickname that leaves his mouth makes your heart jump in your chest and nearly takes your breath away. Quickly regaining your composure and dismissing his comment with a wave of the hand, you simper, “Of course I know that, Tooru. I’m just trying to decide if this is really worth it, since I never seem to have the best luck with the slots.”

A reassuring smile forms across his lips, and his eyelashes flutter ever so slightly as his eyes flit over your figure. “Well,” he sighs, leaning against the seat and nonchalantly slinging his arm over the back of yours, “you never know. Tonight might just be the night you get lucky.”

His comment seems innocent enough, but the seduction laced into his voice as well as the confidence behind the smirk that replaces his sweet grin has you believing otherwise. And his intentions soon become clearer as you make your rounds around the casino together.

At first, you think his advances a figment of your hyperactive imagination projecting your own desires onto him. That every bumping of your knees together while lounging in the cushioned seats at the machines is an accident, and that every graze of his fingertips along your arm is just a polite way of grabbing your attention. However, as the evening wears on, you stop second-guessing yourself. To be fair, it gets fairly challenging to deny that something more than just camaraderie is present between the two of you when his hand wraps around your waist as you make your way to the blackjack table—and eventually ends up running along your thigh beneath the cover the polished wood provides.

His touch ignites your entire body with sensation. It refuses to be ignored, just as his presence had when you’d seen him at the bar earlier, and it fuels a desire within you to have his hands on every inch of your skin. Oh, how sad they must be, only being able to travel the short expanse between your knee and the hem of your dress’s tight skirt for the sake of politeness, you think. But pity is the exact opposite of what you should feel towards him, since you know better than anyone else that you want more than anything to give into him.

He seems to sense—given the way your own hands never move to reject his advances and you lean into his touch when he experimentally puts an arm around you—that you’re on the same page as he is, and decides to beckon you closer to him for a chat before you reach your next destination. “Hey, whaddya say we make things a little more fun?” he suggests, tucking a loose strand of your hair behind your ear. Thankfully, the shuddering breath that escapes your mouth is lost beneath the ringing of the slot machines and upbeat music.

“What did you have in mind?” you wonder, feeling excitement course through you at the limitless options that he could be imagining.

“How about—” he pauses for a moment to lean down closer to your ear—“we make a little deal?” You follow his gaze over to the roulette table a few feet away before fastening your attention on him once more as he offers, “If the ball lands on an even number, I’ll give you a special prize.” He retrieves a small, plastic card from his coat pocket that you instantly recognize as a room key, making your breath hitch in your throat and your eyelashes flutter with shock.

You swallow thickly and ask, “And what if it doesn’t?”

The grin that tugs at the corners of his mouth is one you’ve seen before many times on television when he’d one-upped his opponents with an unexpected play, but being exposed to it in person and in such close proximity to him has your heart racing. “You’ll have to be willing to take the risk and play in order for you to find out the answer to that question, sweetheart. Trust me, you can’t lose.”

There’s a long moment of silence that ensues his proposition before you nod in agreement and strut over to the table to try your luck. After placing a bet on all even numbers, you watch with bated breath as the tiny ball whizzes around the outside of the wheel. Oikawa chuckles at your clear desperation, earning him a roll of the eyes from you. Because of your previously held belief that you’d probably end up losing more than you’d earned tonight, your heart leaps with excitement when the ball rolls into the slot with the number 22 etched into it.

“Well, look at you! What did I say earlier?” Oikawa muses, giving your shoulder a pat as you collect your winnings even though they’re not at the top of your mind like his hotel room key is. The sensation of the card’s smooth edges running along your fingers when he slides it into your awaiting palm gives you an instant adrenaline rush. “Off you go, then. I’ll be up in a minute.” Before you can even ask him what the alternate option to the deal would’ve been, he’s giving you a gentle nudge in the direction of the tiled floor leading towards the lobby. The parting words he whispers in your ear have your core flooding with heat: “Oh, and I’d really appreciate it if that dress was off by the time I got there.”

In an instant, he’s sauntering in the opposite direction, leaving you to walk to the elevator by yourself on shaky legs that continue to quiver the entire ride up to the eighth floor. Part of you wants to curse yourself for being so susceptible to his irresistible charm and sugared words, but there’s no point in doing so now. You’re going to get what you want, after all.

As you step into his room, you’re greeted by the subtle yet delightful scent of his cologne wafting from the suits in the closet on your way over to the foot of the large bed you see peeking out from around the corner. Nervous tingles travel down your spine as you kick off your shoes and reach for the zipper of your dress, making your skin erupt in goosebumps, but the sensation doesn’t stop you from slipping the garment off and settling down against the plush duvet.

Luckily, he doesn’t keep you waiting long, and you’re leaping to your feet when you hear the heavy door open, letting in the conversations of other guests wandering down the hall nearby. For a split second, you feel self-conscious and wish you had more covering your body than just a lacy bra and panties, but, when you see the way his steps come a halt and his gaze traces over the entirety of your figure, drinking in the beautiful sight before him, your hesitation immediately dissipates.

Slowly, he approaches you, shrugging off his jacket before placing one hand on your bare waist and using his other to tilt your chin up so he can look into your eyes. “You’re gorgeous, (f/n),” he breathes, pupils dilating as they trace and retrace the path from yours to your lips parted with anticipation and desperate to be kissed, “I got lucky too. So, so lucky.”

Your eyelids flutter shut as he presses his warm lips against yours. They’re soft and gentle, molding to fit the shape of yours as if they were created to be interlocked. As his tongue runs along yours after tentatively prodding your lower lip in a silent request for access, his fingers dance along the bare skin on your back. Soon, your kisses are becoming more and more heated, and your hands are moving to his shirt to undo the buttons keeping it clasped together.

“Lemme take these off, yeah?” he murmurs against your lips, tugging at the back of your bra with one hand and at the waistband of your thong with the other. All you can do is nod, since you’re too breathless to give a verbal response, and allow him to undo the clasp around your back. A gentle push towards the bed sends you toppling down atop it with a playful giggle before he finishes your job of ridding himself of his shirt and tugs your panties down your legs.

Through half-lidded eyes, you can see the strain of his erection against his trousers, making your mouth water. He smirks at your mounting desire for him and kneels down on the carpet, grabbing your hips and pulling you closer to the edge of the bed. As teasingly as you’d expect from him, he drags a long finger down your slit, dragging the juices seeping out of your core up to your clit and rubbing the sensitive bud experimentally, delighted by the loud moans he reaps from your vocal cords in response.

“Tooru…” you utter needily, arching your back, “More… please.”

Unable to resist your gentle plea, he brings his lips to the plush skin of your inner thigh and mumbles, “Keep saying my name just like that, princess.” His low hum of contentment sends vibrations through your entire lower region as his mouth presses against your entrance so he can lick a broad stripe from there to your pearl.

The sensation’s nearly too much for you, but you soon melt into it, your hands reaching for his head of soft, brown hair to bring his face closer to your heat as he pleasures you with his tongue. His fingers splay across your thighs and give them a tight squeeze before he moves them up to your hips so he can hold you in place when you begin rocking them against his tongue. The sound of his name leaving your mouth in more desperate cries encourages him to delve the wet muscle deep enough into your core to make you squeal and tighten your grasp around the strands woven between your fingers.

It only takes a few minutes for him to have you at the brink of your first orgasm with how skilled his tongue is in working your sensitive bundle of nerves. “Right there—ah—Tooru!” you whimper at feeling your stomach fill with heat, “Please! I’m… I’m gonna cum!”

You expect to feel your body succumb to the pleasure, but, upon hearing your words, he retreats from you completely and licks his lips. “So soon?” he questions in a manner that’s almost mocking. Chest heaving and glistening core still fully exposed to him, you watch him with dismay. “C’mon, I know you can last longer than that.”

Inadvertently, you clench your thighs together and complain, “Don’t tease me like that.”

Shooting you a devious smile, Oikawa rises to his feet once more and quips, “Whine all you want, baby; but I know you’ll be changing your tune when I make you cum harder than you ever have before.”

Your breath hitches in your throat, but you’re quick to regain your composure under his perceptive stare. “Quite a bold promise to make, considering you don’t have a single clue about my sex life, whatsoever,” is the comment that leaves your mouth in a grumble while you shift your position so that you’re sitting up on your knees. Intent on getting payback for being robbed of your orgasm at the last second, you reach for the belt holding his trousers up and task yourself with undoing it.

He chuckles wryly. “It’s not a promise—it’s a guarantee.” Your throat goes dry at his words and at the sight of his large cock when you free it from the restraint of his pants. “Besides,” he mentions, his voice taking on a low tone that has you looking up at him as you lean forward onto your elbows, so your mouth is level with the leaking tip of his erection, “it doesn’t matter who you’ve been with before. You’ll forget them all after tonight.”

With that statement made, he eases his hips forward as you open your mouth invitingly so he can slide his cock along your tongue. A gentle groan rumbles in his chest when you close your mouth around him and move further down his shaft at a painstakingly slow pace until the tip is nudging your throat. You don’t intend to keep him there, but you want to tease him with the sensation just enough to make him lose a bit of that cool composure of his. Spurred on by his gentle sounds of pleasure and the look of fascination he’s regarding you with, you bob your head along the length of his shaft, dragging his tongue beneath it in long, deep strokes.

“Fuck, (f/n), that feels good,” he hisses, gaze wavering as he struggles to keep his eyes from rolling back at how good your mouth feels enveloping his cock. A gentle hum of appreciation you let out in response to his compliment has him thrusting into your mouth in an effort to feel the vibrations along every inch of his length. The slightly bitter taste of his precum catches on your tastebuds when you swirl your tongue around his throbbing head. “So fucking good.”

Your needy pussy clenches around nothing at his praise, and you moan teasingly while picking up the pace, taking him closer and closer to your throat with each thrust. His hand comes down to brush a few strands of your hair away from your face in a surprisingly tender gesture before his fingers clench around them to keep one of his hands occupied. The other rests on the bedside table nearby, fingertips turning white beneath the pressure he’s applying against the hard wood.

Though it’s clear he’s enjoying every moment of this with the way his cock twitches appreciatively in your mouth, the last thing he wants is to finish before he’s taken care of you. “On your back, princess,” he commands, his voice gruffer than usual as he indicates he wants you to stop by tugging your hair in the opposite direction to his body. Obediently, you let him slide his cock out of your mouth and fall back onto the bed, spreading your legs wide open so he can see just how ready you are for him. Your core has been ablaze with yearning for too long for you to be shy now.

The shadow his body creates in the soft light falls over yours when he crawls onto the bed and hovers over you. The desire to be closer to him that hasn’t left since the moment you first saw him resurfaces once again, prompting you to throw your arms around his shoulders so you can unite your bare torsos. His lips dive down towards yours once more, pressing passionate kisses against them that—in combination with the feeling of his cock pressing against your clit—have you moaning into his mouth. Your fingers pressing into the muscles along his back indicate your desperation to have him inside of you, so he obliges; plunging into your warm, velvety core as he takes his lower lip between your teeth.

A wanton mewl escapes your lips at feeling so, delightfully full, and you wrap your legs around his back, adjusting your hips so he can reach deeper inside of you. The stretch is somewhat painful at first, but every sensation you feel quickly melts into pleasure when he begins thrusting into you slowly and gently. Soon, it feels too slow and too gentle, and every nerve ending in your body is screaming for more. “Faster!” you cry as he nudges your head to the side so he can litter the tender skin on your neck with love bites.

He listens and indulges you, but not for long. Each time he hears your breathing become more erratic and feels you clench around him tightly, he eases off, ignoring the whimpers and complaints that leave your mouth at each orgasm he prevents you from reaching. As he teases you with shallow thrusts or riles you up even further by pulling out of you, he moves his head down to your chest so he can take one of your pert nipples in his mouth while his fingers pinch the other.

“Tooru, please. Please, let me cum!” you find yourself begging after being edged to what you feel is damn near the point of insanity with how little you can focus on anything else aside from chasing the high he keeps within inches of you. You open your eyes to give him a look of longing that you hope is enough to convince him to finally finish you off.

“Don’t worry,” he breathes, sending a wave of fresh goosebumps along your skin glistening with sweat, “I’m gonna make you cum so fucking hard.” The sound of his gentle voice transforming into a low growl dripping with lust fills your entire stomach with heat. “Turn over.” His hands on your waist help you flip onto your stomach and bring your hips up into the air as he kneels behind you to position himself at your entrance.

In one, swift motion, he pushes the entirety of his length back inside of you, making you cry out at the feeling of every ridge and vein in his dick dragging along your hypersensitive walls. The plush duvet and high thread count sheets muffle your screams of pleasure enough to keep them confined to his hotel room alone as he pounds into you mercilessly, sending your body charging towards what you hope is the release you’ll finally be able to experience. With all the pressure that’s building up inside of you, you can hardly withstand the pleasure overwhelming your senses.

A few more thrusts that target your most sensitive spot have you finally toppling over the edge of your orgasm, and warm waves of ecstasy crash over you as your body shakes and stars fill the edges of your vision. Your pussy spasming erratically around his cock has Oikawa snapping his hips against yours at a maddening speed until he’s filling your core up with the warmth of his release. He moans loudly between the praises and expletives that roll off his tongue as you ride out your highs together. Though you hate to admit it, he had been right—while merciless, his edging had intensified your pleasure in the end.

The strength of your orgasm leaves you unable to do anything else aside from flop onto the mattress and let your eyelids flutter shut while you regain your breath after Oikawa pulls out of you. The bed shifts beside you as he lies down at your side, taking a minute to steady his own breathing as he runs his hand along your back gently. There’s a few, long moments of silence that fill the warm air of the hotel room before a gentle chuckle from your mouth permeates it. Without speaking, he knows exactly what the source of your amusement is, and he ends up snickering as well.

“You really do say some of the corniest shit, baby,” you remark, amusement glimmering in your eyes when they find his after you roll onto your side to face him, “But I guess you’re a decent actor. Just don’t go quitting your day job, now.”

He grumbles and nuzzles your chin playfully, pressing a kiss against your jaw before pulling away and defending, “Oh, come on. You have to admit that at least some of the things I said were pretty hot.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

His arms snake around your body to pull you against his chest. In one ear, you can hear the sound of his strong heartbeat, and, in the other, you can hear him answer, “Like the whole using roulette as a gamble to win my room key instead of just money situation. C’mon. You liked that. I know you did—I saw your eyes practically burning with desire at that point.”

“Mm? And how do you know I wasn’t just acting as well?” you retort, throwing one of your legs over his and shifting your position so you can see the face of mock irritation you know he’s making at you. Sure enough, his eyes are narrowed, and his lips pursed as he squeezes them shut. After planting a kiss against his lips, you reassure him, “I enjoyed it. You’re very creative, as always, my love.”

“So all the money we spent on this little sexcapade, so to speak, of ours was worth it, then?” His hand on the back of your head keeps your faces within close proximity as he gazes into your eyes expectantly.

With a nod, you answer, “It was. But, any time we get to spend together is always worth it.”

A gentle smile forms on his lips to mirror your own, and his nose brushes against yours when he brings you closer to another kiss. This one’s deeper and more sensual than the last, and it makes your heart flutter in your chest. “I love you so much, (f/n).”

“I love you too, Tooru.” The two of you take some time to bask in your mutual and deep feelings of adoration with your foreheads pressed together and hands tracing over each other’s features before you speak again. “Now, how are we gonna be able to top this roleplay, huh?

That very familiar, devious grin of his returns to his mouth as he answers, “Oh, don’t worry, baby girl, I have plenty of other ideas.”

treat me to a coffee! ⭐︎ kinktober masterlist

taglists (see pinned post on my blog for form)

general: @dinablossom, @newfriendjen, @devlovesramen, @ohbyunhunn, @aftcrlust, @mister-future, @kyleclxin, @kac-chowsballs, @osamusmiya, @nit-sir-hc, @arixtsukki

oikawa: @why-aminot-dead, @lotsoffandomrecs, @atsunakaashi, @heyhinata, @cuddlysoftbear

#haikyuu x reader #oikawa tooru x reader #oikawa x reader #oikawa smut #haikyuu smut #ahkaahshi gets wild #ahkaahshi's mini kinktober 2020 #x reader #reader insert #tw edging #tw alcohol #tw gambling #fran writes hq!!#haikyuu fanfiction

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hanibalistic · 3 years

Text

#807B36 | LEE FELIX.

genre | fluff

word count | 1479

warning | (a brief) mention of blood and injury

note | thank you so much for requesting! i hope you like this piece :D

request | from anon

your skin peeled today, and it didn't hurt.

the edge of the carving knife (you were using it to hastily finish your art assignment during lunch) scraped against your dangerously ungloved hands when you were busy exclaiming for felix to stop talking to you.

you might have been a little too harsh with your words and your tone. you could see a sense of fear in his yellow-petaled eyes when you snapped at him, the great bright halo around his face fading along with his smile when he finally realized his presence was unwelcomed at your table.

you felt bad, but you didn't regret what you did. you were infuriated with how he was unable to pick up the cues you let out by not looking at him as you unwillingly carried on with the conversation he suddenly started with you, and he just kept talking and talking and distracting you from finishing your art assignment.

you did what you had to do to give yourself peace. perhaps you should not have been so aggressive with your method, but ultimately, you did it for yourself, and you didn't regret making him feel bad that he was bothering you.

but, still, you thought that would surely have done it for you.

felix has been around you recently, for an unnecessary number of times. you did not catch onto the pattern at first; the first time he approached you was to ask you for your calculator, not after he went out of his way to lie about the fact that nobody in your class wanted to borrow him theirs. you didn't point out his deception, you simply handed yours to him and figured that would be the end of your encounter with the resident sunflower boy.

but there came a second time (with him missing his math textbook you saw he deliberately stuffed inside his desk drawer), and a third time (this was about the pencil he dropped all the way to your seat when he was five to six desks away from you), and a fourth time (it was a chain note he started but you swore it went straight back to him after you checked the question boxes).

he never went away, surprisingly. he has only gotten closer to you since the first time, partially because while not being familiar with the process of befriending others, you still wanted to have a friend you could stick around with, so you didn't directly tell him to get off your back.

no one has bothered you like him before. today was the first time you've had to tell someone to stop talking to you. you hadn't known what else you could do but panic and tell him to shut the hell up, which surely would be the last straw for felix.

nobody likes an awkward and mean person. someone who wasn't well versed in communication, and when they do manage to get involved in a social activity, they somehow piss everyone off. nobody wants to take the time to tolerate those people.

it was a hard pill to swallow, but some people are just better off being by themselves, and you thought you may be one of them.

"are you okay?"

you looked away from the water faucet to find felix standing under the shade with you. he was slightly panting, indicating he has run through the place to find you in the school backyard of all places. and his hands were fiddling with something—a band-aid, it seemed. he must have gotten it from the medical room on his way here.

"yeah, it's just a scrape," you said as you turned off the water faucet and waves your hand to get rid of the droplet.

he pursed his lips, still recalling the way you had snapped at him just then. you wouldn't have accidentally cut yourself if he had just let you finish your art homework. the fact that you got hurt was mostly his fault, he thought.

"i'm sorry," he said as he stepped forward, his hand timidly reaching out with the band-aid. "i was just trying to talk to you."

"well, maybe learn how to pick the right moment next time," you pointed out sternly as an instinctive response. but then you softened when you noticed to dip of his head, and you pursed your lips to hold your aggression down. you took the band-aid from him before you muttered, "thank you."

you struggled with putting it on perfectly. the band-aid continued to shift on your finger when you tried to wrap it around, but after some trial and error, you managed to stick it around your skin in a messy manner.

felix watched with caution, his feet urging him to help but he was ultimately unable to offer anything but an awkward smile at the end.

there it was again. the fatigue sparkling above his freckles shone under the sun that seeped through the leaves. you had a feeling that it was there because of you, and you wanted to soothe it somehow. after all, you didn't think it would be fair for you to pin it all against him for just trying to talk to someone. you didn't have to snap and scare him like that.

"i'm sorry about yelling at you too," you muttered under your breath. "i didn't know what else to do. i've never had to tell someone to leave me alone before, nobody ever talks to me."

felix's eyes widened a fraction.

a hint of vagueness melted into his sympathy that it stopped being sympathy anymore. there was something more hiding within him that he felt like he knew was love, possibly coming from the time you let him borrow your lap as a pillow when he fainted from dehydration on a school field trip.

his heart has never beat quicker than that morning when he saw a blurry vision of you above him, and he heard your muffled voice talk to the teacher about his condition, he felt your delicate hand card through his hair as a mean to lure him to get more rest.

you had spent the whole day with him, sitting with numbness in your legs and letting him sleep his sickness away. he had thought he saw you watch the other kids move about the field playing with each other, but the longing in your eyes faced as soon as you turned to him in concern.

he has given you his heart since then, silently and from afar.

"they should talk to you," he blurted honestly. there was shyness stored in his scared voice, one that made you look at him sweetly as if you have never been spoken to this way before. "they should... you're... you're a very good person to talk to."

"i just screamed at you, felix." you sighed.

"well! i was annoying, wasn't i?" he fumbled then, his voice going higher as he looked to the side with a heartened laugh. "i should have given you time to finish the assignment first. you were right about me needing to learn how to pick a good timing."

you chuckled to yourself. "you're always so nice, felix."

he smiled. "i try my best."

well, his best was better than enough.

you pinched your finger, almost forgetting the band-aid that wrapped around it because of the conversation you frowned yourself in. feeling the thick label around you, you sucked in a breath before you said, "thanks for the band-aid again... i should probably go back to class."

he followed you hastily, stepping to your side and matching his steps with yours. "we–we'll walk together!"

when you turned sharply to him, he gulped down a knot of embarrassment. he wondered if he picked the wrong moment again. you certainly didn't seem agitated or in a rush at all, though? he couldn't possibly be that bad at reading the room, could he?

"or not...? maybe not?"

it was as if he was trying to get closer to you little by little, one step at a time so he wouldn't overwhelm your shy heart. he wasn't the most subtle, but you reckoned he was trying his best. this was his first time getting close to someone who kept locking him in the stranger phase, after all.

"it's fine," you said with a faint smile.

felix blinked innocently at you, the quirk of his lips spreading wider when you waited for him to move before you walked to class.

it was right to give you his heart, he thought. and perhaps it was finally time he would have it given back to him.

"want to hear about what happened today during pe?" he started.

you gave him a quiet nod, pinching your finger to feel your wound.

your skin peeled today. with felix here, you forgot how it should hurt.

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olivarryprompts · 3 years

Text

Fanfic Friday #11

Welcome to Fanfic Friday! Each Friday I post a new here and on A03. Enjoy x

Read and save it on A03 here https://archiveofourown.org/works/33567529

{fancy suits from dad}

Ships: Peter Stark & Tony Stark, Pepper Pots/Tony Stark

Warnings: swearing, just fluff otherwise :)

Wc: 2,319

Here’s the thing, Peter Parker grew up in Stark Tower, which eventually became Avengers Tower of course. So whilst his whole class was buzzing about their field trip, all he could think was, “shit, shit shit.” His dad was going to embarrass the hell out of him. His Aunts and Uncles were going to endlessly tease him.

So, no Peter was not looking forward to the field trip. Not in the slightest. He still wanted to go, though. He knew that the rumors of his internship being fake were started by Flash, the annoying teen. He also knew that Flash had not once said his real name, preferring the name Penis Parker. It didn’t bother him as much as it used to. Also since highschool began, Flash had calmed down with his bullying. Well, maybe Flash hadn’t calmed down and high school was just bigger and he had thicker skin. And a new support system with plenty of people to go to.

Peter had been adopted by the Starks when he was a mere ten years old. At first, he was terrible at receiving any gifts or even too much attention. Slowly but surely, he got more and more used to it. Now, he wouldn’t not know what to do if any of that was taken away. Plus, he really did find a liking for expensive suits, however shallow. He looked good in them, and his father always insisted on buying him more and more. Tony would always find an excuse to spoil the kid a little more, however much Pepper tried to stop him.

“Peter, please see me after class regarding an urgent matter.”

Brough out of his thoughts, Peter swiftly nodded his head.

He looked at the board to see the words from before still written on them, “Field Trip to Stark Industries!” It might as well have said, “Dig Peter Stark’s Grave!”

“So, let’s get started with today’s lesson, graphing imaginary numbers on the complex plane!” He’d done this one a while back with his father. Something about not only learning applicable science and engineering. Peter tapped his glass, and the episode of Arrow he’d been watching on the car ride over began playing. He’d be ever grateful for his father’s gift of EDITH to him. Pepper had tried to ban him from wearing them to school, but hastily gave up when Peter pulled the spiderman danger card.

“Alright, class dismissed. Please remember to do this homework pages 11-18 on this unit’s homework handout.”

Peter, forgetting his teacher's previous request, was very glad to be on his way home. He was one foot out of the door when the teacher called his name. Now, his day had gone pretty well up to that point. Bucky made pancakes for breakfast, which were delicious. There was wayyy less traffic on the way to school. He’d aced an essay and a couple of quizzes, and then he even participated in PE effectively. But alas, all good things had to come to an end.

“Mr. Parker? The discussion.”

“Right,” Peter thought, joining the teacher at his desk.

“Peter, you are truly a great kid. I know you’ve been through a lot recently and in your life, but it is no excuse to make up an internship. We both know that it is not real. Now, acknowledging that you have a bright future, the administration and I have come forward with an offer. If you agree to write an apology, expressing that you understand what you did was wrong and immoral, you will both be allowed to come on the trip and no punishment will be given to you. If you choose to not take this opportunity, you will be banned from the trip and will be chastised.

Peter just stood there, not really comprehending. Apparently Flash’s little rumors were a lot bigger than he anticipated.

“I-i-I’m not lying,” was all he could manage. He had filed all the right paperwork and proved his internship.

“I’m sorry to hear that you will not come forward with the truth. You have up until the day before the trip to hand in the letter if you change your mind. Goodbye Peter.”

Peter just let his legs take him out of the classroom, then out of the school, and then to the road, a couple blocks away, where his dad picks him up from.

“Hello mini-me.”

“Hey,” Peter said, jumping into the passenger seat.

“‘Hi Dad, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to pick me up each and every day. Sick new car by the way! I’d love to drive it sometime!”

Peter just rolled his eyes with a smile, “Car looks great dad. McLarren’s are superior yet.”

“Ungrateful, so so ungrateful. What’s got you in a mood then?”

“Nothin,” Peter said, pulling out his phone.

“Oh come on, tell me. Tell me or I’ll call Ted.”

“Ned, Dad. We’ve been friends for like three years.”

“Not the point.”

“Just something at school.”

“Wow how very descriptive. You know I’m trying to do the whole feelings thing here, and you should appreciate that coming from my emotionally stunted self.”

“You’re so dramatic. Basically we’re having a field trip to your tower, and I’m not allowed to go because the teacher doesn’t think I really have an “internship.” Which, to be fair I don’t but that’s on you and not me.”

“Nah na na. I offered you an internship, and you said I’d be bored.”

“It would be. Doing a project for your company under strict supervision of some person would be sucky. I mean I can do anything I want from the lab you built me.”

“I know, but remember technically you are my intern. Remember we did that whole personal intern bullshit for the school.”

“Oh right. Is that why you keep harassing me about submitting all my completed projects.”

“No, that’s all your mother. Something about not wanting a lawsuit over a fake internship.”

“Make sense. She tends to be a lot smarter than you.”

“Ah, I feel so attacked. The abuse I suffer.”

“You’re terrible.”

“I am internally crying, kid. Sobbing.”

“Shut up,” we laughed.

“Who’s home?”

“You saw Buck and Sam this morning. Nat and Steve came back from their mission this afternoon. Thor and Loki are back for dinner tonight.. Strange might be coming round, not sure though. Cliff and the family aren’t back for at least a couple weeks. Oh and Bruce is wholed up in his lab as usual.”

“Shit. Everyone staying till the end of the week.”

“Yeah, oh the field trip. You’re screwed. You should have not told me.”

“Ughhhhh!!!”

“I love your life Petey.”

Peter walked into the kitchen and saw Steve reading a newspaper.

“Uncle Steve! Your back!” he smiled, dropping his bag off near the sofa. Steve got up to give the smaller boy a hug.

“Yep. Mission completed.”

“Nice. Can you tell me about it?”

“Yeah, it was nothing too interesting. We just needed some more intel into a terrorist organization stationed in the US. Most of the mission was recon. The next steps are being taken in a couple weeks.”

“Good to know there’s an active terrorist organization out there,” Peter said lightly.

Steve just smiled, not quite understanding the modern humor.

“Where is everyone else?” he said, realizing the living room was not in it’s normal chaotic state that he’d come to love. The chaos was his favorite reminder that he had so many people. He liked having lots of people, even after all this time.

“Nat and Buck are training, they invited you to join if you want. Bruce is in his lab, and dont worry he slept and ate last night. Not sure about the rest.”

“Right, thanks. I think I’m going to go train.”

Before he knew it, it was Friday morning, and his school was coming to his home. He was going to try very hard to ignore them. To do so, he asked his mum to let him sit in on some meetings. He had an easy in to the R&D and mechanical side of the company via the other interns. He was actually planning on hanging out with some of the “other” interns later that day. They were always happy to let Pete in on their projects and let him give them a hand. But he was always interested in getting more detail about the business side of the company, and he liked to get a window into it. Pepper was always happy to show her son the ropes. I mean he was heir to the company after all, even if he didn’t know yet.

He asked his mum to only schedule meetings after 12 as he requested a sleep in. Pepper was always happy when Peter slept as he was a little too much like his father. So, he woke bright and early at 11:00 o’clock.

After a scroll through his phone and a quick shower, he was ready to pull on his far too expensive Brunellio’s custom suit. It was one of his favorites. His father had got it custom made when he was in Italy, and told him he simply could not resist getting one for the kid. Pepper just smiled.

He had a large breakfast (enhanced metabolism) and headed towards the 34th floor where his first meeting was located. He’d been shadowing his mum for almost a year now whenever it was convenient, so he had the rointine down. He was almost sure he could take over a few of her meetings.

“Hi honey,” Pepper said, giving the boy a quick kiss on the cheek on the way to her own chair beside him. Peter blushed before resuming his professional posture and facial expression.

“Good morning everyone, as you can see Peter will be joining us today. I want to talk about some of the services we provide for our employees and their feedback. I’m aware we have a large portion to talk about so Kendra please take it away on that front.”

The first meeting went smoothly as planned. It was a discussion on the progress of the internal services, aka the IT department. Peter hadn’t learned much about their IT department, so it was good to listen in to. Pre these meetings, he, of course, does research into the background stuff, so he’s not completely lost. Pepper’s assistant usually provides him with a packet of info about the Stark Industries side of things. He is also given a list of key words and concepts he might want to make sure he understands. The research is fun for him, it makes him feel all professional.

Usually he spoke during the meetings, asking a couple questions and suggesting some ideas, but for this one he just learned and took in. The next meeting, however, was very much so his field. He’d spoken a lot with advertising, becoming very interested in the data analysis behind it. He even took a stats class so he could keep up. In that one he asked questions Pepper was on the verge of asking twice. He also contributed to the analysis of data once. Pepper usually liked him to participate as it was good for him, but he always felt bad suggesting stuff to the senior adults. He usually spoke to his mum or dad about projects for the company, preferring that.

They hung back in the room of the second meeting.

“Good job in this one Pete. Took two questions right off my tongue.”

“Thanks ma,” he said, always appreciating some approval.

“That’s all I’ve got for you today, kid. Rest of the stuff is, ya know.”

“Course. Thanks for these two. It was good to learn about internal affairs a bit more. Have a gap of knowledge there.”

“Yeah. Was that the first time meeting our CIT?”

“I believe so.”

“Well, next time we have a broader IA meeting, I’ll pull you outta school,” Pepper suggested.

“Really? That’d be epic.”

“Course, hun. Jarvis, sort that out please.”

“Of course Mrs. Potts.”

“Thanks J,” Peter yelled.

“Anytime mini-boss. No need to disturb the entire floor.”

“Are AI supposed to be so snarky?”

“Dad programmed it, what else would it be?”

“Valid point.”

“Right, got to run. See you later.”

“Bye, love you mum!”

“Love you too, Pete.”

“Jarvis, could you send me the tour plan for the visiting tour today?”

“Absolutely, sir. They’re on your phone now.”

“Thanks J.”

Looking at the plans Peter smiled. He had successfully avoided them the entire day. It said they were supposed to head back to school at 2:30, and it was about to be three. Smile on his face, he trotted down to the lobby to grab a coffee before going to meet Loki at the arcade. Don’t judge them, it was their thing. Taking the private lift down, and then walking straight to the coffee stand and ordering.

“Mr. Parker!” he heard the angry voice of his teacher, “How dare you show up here aft-”

Shit. shit. Shit.

“Edith, call dad, and tell him it’s urgent in the lobby.”

“Of course Peter.”

“Peter, are you listening to me! You are going to face extreme consequences for this.”

“Your coffee,” the man said, not realizing it was Peter, level ten personal of the tower, that was being yelled at.

“Thanks.”

“How dare you get coffee! In this building! Security!”

Tony arrived spotting his son instantly.

“Kid this best be impor- I see.”

“Hey Mr. Stark,” Peter said weakly.

“Mr. Harrington is it? Please stop harassing my intern.”

“H-he, he is y-your intern?”

“Yes. My favorite. Please exit the building and never question him again. You will be hearing from me.”

Let’s just say, Monday was an interesting day. At least Flash backed off, he was definitely an intern at SI, and no one embarrassed him on the trip.

#peter parker field trip #irondad #ironfam #iron man #tony stark #pepper potts #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #avengers fanfiction #the avengers #mcu fanfic #bucky barnes #domestic avengers

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