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mintmatcha · 2 days

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Inevitable Things: chapter five

Aizawa x reader fic

cw: cisfem reader, no quirks, office au, miscommunications, slow burn. full tags available on AO3 (linked in masterlist)

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Fridays are the only day you carve out time for lunch. Less than coincidentally, Fridays are also the only day lunch is catered.

“Here-” Izuku jams his bowl of take out into Katsuki’s face. “Does it smell like there’s peanuts in here?”

Bakugo Katsuki, Izuku’s fiance, is only half as ornery as he looks. A premature wrinkle has formed in between his brows, a sign of his almost constant annoyance. His straw colored hair is a sharp contrast to his deep red eyes, currently narrowed in disgust.

“Get this shit out of my fucking face,” he groans. “I’m not a fucking allergy alert dog-- I can’t smell peanuts.”

“To be fair-” Ochako interjects through a mouthful. She’s the opposite of Katsuki: dark hair, round eyes, a smile so sweet that it makes your teeth hurt. Her cheeks are always flushed, spots of broken blood vessels spattered like freckles. “Peanuts do have a smell.”

“Did you ask him to smell for penis?” Denki says, too loud to be genuine. “Kind of homophobic to ask a gay guy that.”

Both men give him identical deadpan stares.

“That’s just his fucking country-ass accent.” Katsuki brushes Denki off and turns back to the curly haired man. “Why would chicken have peanuts in it anyway?”

“The o’l.” Izuku stresses.

“The what?”

“Some places use peanut o’l.”

“Say oil.”

Izuku sneers a bit in return, smoothing out the curves of his accent. “Oy-I’ll.”

“Jesus christ, I’m marrying a hick.” Katsuki leans back in his chair and meets your eye with a jerk of his chin. “Can you believe this?”

You snap back into focus. Your own lunch is untouched, fork still in its little plastic wrapper. Hunger nips at your stomach, but nausea wins over today. The cafeteria isn’t very busy, but in the next couple minutes everyone will start pouring in. The lot of you arrived early to get the best seating-- a little couch and coffee table in the corner, a perfect place to eat and people watch.

“Oh, yeah, uh- Izuku, they have an allergen free option.”

“Well, yeah, but-” He tilts his head as he talks, watching you with those wide, green eyes, like he sees something just below the surface. “It doesn't have chicken-- are you good?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.” Katsuki fingers a piece of Izuku’s food and pops it into his mouth, much to the man’s dismay. “You’ve been making that sad little face all day.”

You pout a bit harder at that. Shit-- you thought you were being subtle. You haven’t been able to walk this whole Aizawa thing off yet, despite all of your attempts. No amount of emails, meetings, and other petty office bullshit managed to distract you from the absolute shock and humiliation of… whatever that was.

Embarrassment.

Embarrassment? You’re certainly not the prettiest girl in the office, but embarrassing? That makes your gums ache, like a punch to the nose, and it makes you feel dirty, like the fall to the ground afterwards.

“You’re doing it again.” Ochako points to your face and it’s apparently sadness. “What’s going on?”

You hem a bit, before condensing it the best you can.

“I’m having issues with a guy.” What an understatement.

A collective glance is shared between the group.

“Touya again?”

Again, Touya haunts a room he’s never been in. You debate what to say. If you admit to it being someone new, they might start sniffing around and jump to conclusions-- though Aizawa would certainly be the last assumption they would make, you still can’t risk it. Besides, you don’t need a gaggle of 23 year olds dissecting your every move. They’re going to jump to some stupid conclusion, like you’re dating Toshinori, if you aren’t careful.

“Yeah, it’s Touya,” you lie, as sheepishly as you can. “Oops.”

“Jesus Fucking Christ.” Katsuki rolls his eyes so hard that you imagine his brain must hurt. “Again?”

“Shh, just tell us what happened,” Izuku urges, elbowing his partner rather sharply.

“I don't know where I stand with him. It's so-- Ugh, I thought things were going to start going well and then it was just ice cold.” You press your palms into your eyes and sigh. The pressure feels good and helps with the remnants of your hangover. You need an electrolyte drink, stat. Maybe another fucking drink too. “And I’m not even sure why I’m surprised because it’s ice cold a lot.”

When you look up, Ochako is offering a hand, palm up and open. When you take it, she giggles a bit, squeezing gently.

“I think you need to prioritize yourself.”

Denki nods in agreement, cheeks stuffed with food. He’s finished his meal and started stabbing bits of yours. You just push the whole bowl towards him in defeat and slump down into the couch.

“Stop giving men who treat you poorly the time of day.” Ochako says. “When you let them in again and again, you’re basically, like, giving them permission to do this stuff.”

“Yeah!” Denki says through a mouthful. “Cut that fucker off! Don’t even talk to him!”

“Oh, I dunno--” You glance between them. “I think that’d be mean.”

Conflict makes your head spin. It’s so much easier to roll over and take whatever people give you, negative or otherwise. It’s what made your relationship with Touya work-- and it’s what’s allowed you to stay in this job for so long.

“Good!” Denki says. “He deserves it.”

“You deserve to be a little mean and a little angry when people treat you poorly.” She smiles again, wider this time. “Grow some balls. Stand up for yourself.”

“Yeah! Balls!” Denki agrees.

You suck on your bottom lip and turn the idea over in your head. Are you even angry at Aizawa? Or just hurt and confused? Right now, those things may as well be the same thing-- they certainly burn the same in your chest. Cruelty isn’t your usual indulgence…

But it’s someone else’s.

“What do you think?” You turn to Katsuki, who’s been scrolling through twitter for a bit now. His face doesn’t change when he speaks, locked into a general annoyance.

“I think you should kill that fucker.”

You turn to Izuku, the rational one of the couple. He shrugs, straw in mouth and completely unamused.

“Oh, I also think you should kill him,” he says, tone matching Katsuki’s.

Not helpful.

“Listen--” Katsuki leans forward, elbows on his spread knees. He uses a fork to articulate as he speaks. “I’m the expert on being a cunt-”

“-we don’t use that word!” Ochako grimaces.

“And it’s the most freeing and addictive thing you can be.” The tongs of the fork point directly towards you, as sharp as his gaze. “More people should be cunts more often. The world would be a happier place.”

Ochako gasps. “I don’t agree with that at all!”

“Oh please, miss goody-goody,” Katsuki sneers. “You wouldn't need to go to kickboxing five times a week if you let your anger out day to day like a normal motherfucker.”

The girl of the group puffs out her cheeks, but does not argue back. Izuku pats her shoulder affectionately. His food is still untouched, but his free hand guards it from Denki.

“I'm telling you. Try it out. You’ll like it.” Katsuki leans back into his seat. “Or don't. Your life.”

“Question-” The other blonde pipes up. “Did you, like, do something?”

“Kaminari!”

“I mean, like, was there a catalyst?” “A fight or a date or-?”

You know exactly what drives Touya away everytime, but Aizawa is a new beast. Did you breathe wrong or--

“Oh, I uh,” A realization hits you. “I ignored a couple texts, I guess.”

Suddenly, you’re very aware of the outline of your phone and how it presses into your pocket. If there wasn’t a chance of you flashing the group pictures of their boss, you’d check it immediately, but you can’t mentally handle the risk.

“What an overreaction,” Ochako sighs. “Dump him forever and move on-- Mr. Hizashi and his wife-”

“We aren’t like that.” Ugh. You love Hizashi, but the trio relationship isn’t your speed. “Besides, I don’t like blondes.”

The two toe-heads of the group roll their eyes in a practiced synchrony. Ochako’s smile changes a little bit, something tighter and brighter; is she excited that you aren’t interested? Interesting and a bit gross: she’s too young for that. They’re more than ten years older than her-

(How old is Aizawa? He went to school with Hizashi, so he’s at least 38-- but you could have sworn there were whispers of his fortieth last year. You’ll have to snoop.)

“We’re in agreement. Be a cunt, move on. The end.” Katsuki turns away from you, done with this topic. “Izuku, just fucking eat it already.”

The boy takes a deep breath and runs his fingers through his curly hair. “Well, alright, but if I get hives, you’re the one who has to deal with me.”

…

Be mean.

You’re written it on a sticky note and placed it under your computer monitor, like some sort of fucked up mantra. The mere idea of it feels antithetical to who you are at your core; you enjoy helping people, you love making the world better. That’s why you work like a dog for the company-- you know it’s improving the lives of its customers. If Toshinori wasn’t sick, you know he’d be doing even more too.

On the other hand, being nice has led to your own detriment many times. Touya has hurt you, your parents, and now even Aizawa. And you can’t even blame Aizawa, can you? Texting him was your mistake--

You rest your forehead against your desk. There’s still a sticky spot from when you spilled your coffee yesterday. God, yesterday feels so close and yet so far away. How does a man yoyo between yelling at you, sending you his weiner, then telling you that you’re embarrassing? The idea of ‘always wanted you’ goes flying out the window.

Just as you try and put yourself to work, you hear it. The familiar lopsided stomp. Fuck, it’s him, probably looking for his afternoon coffee. He’s been by much less than usual, a fact you’re very grateful for, so you haven’t even thought about the pot since before lunch. You glance over and see it’s empty. Crap.

As you start to get up, the sticky note catches your eye again. Be mean. That’s right. Why are you popping out of your chair for this, this, this--- total fucking cunt? Your chair squeaks with the force you sit down with. You try to embody Katsuki with your face - furrowing your brow and yet keeping your mouth unaffected-- and your worst nightmare turns the corner.

You keep typing and hope Aizawa doesn't notice that it's the same words over and over again, hit in the same rhythm. P-e-a-n-u-t-O-i-l P-e-a-n-u-t-O-i-l P-e-a-n-u-t-O-i-l P-e-a-n-u-t-O-i-l. He waits a long moment, then clears his throat louder. You don't gift him your attention until he grumbles something under his breath, shifting his weight on to his other leg. Just as he begins to say something, you interject.

“I had more important things to focus on,” you lie. “You can figure out how to brew coffee, Mr.// Engineer.”

You throw in that last bit without thinking, but the bite rolls so easily off of your tongue. It’s nothing like your usual tone, but it feels so, so right. From the corner of your vision you can see his literally reel back, blinking hard,

“That’s how it’s going to be?”

You don’t respond. P-e-a-n-u-t-O-i-l P-e-a-n-u-t-O-i-l P-e-a-n-u-t-O-i-l P-e-a-n-u-t-O-i-l. Your fingers shake from the adrenaline boost. Ochako was right; don't even give this man the time of day.

“It's going to be like that?” He yanks the pot from its stand. “Fine.”

You have to muster all of willpower not to grin as he starts slamming open the drawers and scrounging around for supplies. It takes a whole ten minutes before he presses brew, then another five before the pot is almost half full. The whole time he grumbles to himself, leaning his whole weight against the flimsy table.

This is good. Too good. The vindictive rush of power feels almost sexual in the way it satisfies. Teeth dig into your lip as you hold back a smile even harder.

Embarrassment? You'll show him what embarrassment really means.

Finally, he pours himself a cup. He doesn't fill his thermos nearly as much as he normally does, most likely trying to leave as quickly as possible. Just as he starts to turn, you get up out of your chair and walk over. You take one of the little disposable cups from the stack and take your time adding three sugars and two cream, each one at a time, as he lurks there. Then, you pour the coffee, thick and oddly gritty into your cup. You finally meet his eye when you take a swig.

Aizawa’s face is set hard, small eyes narrowed even tighter. His lips are screwed up with annoyance, wrinkling his low bridged nose. Pissed would be an understatement. Just as you brace for another yelling match, he turns away, marching down the hall.

“Enjoy the fucking coffee.”

Oh, Katsuki was right. Being mean tastes good.

….This coffee, however, does not.

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thelakesuite · 2 days

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The Rusty Lake Story in Bitchass Baby Terms

this is ALL off the top of my head (and i haven't experienced like 10% of it maybe?) so i might be wrong but i don't care right now

the lake itself isn't, like, that well established 'cause it's a mystery game or something so we don't need full exposition. it's some deity-like thing as old as the mammoths (not canon) that eats time. or rather memories that are stored in lil cubes. and it gives its zookeepers immortality so they can keep feeding it. they call themselves the Rulers of the Lake but we all know the truth. 'immortality', or rather enlightenment, is represented by you becoming your fursona and living maybe an extra century. mr. owl's looking for a new heir pretty quick in the process but we'll get to that.

corrupted souls are kinda a byproduct of all this. truly the lake's farts. when a person dies horribly, when their memories get extracted wrong, or when the plot demands it, they become corrupted. corrupted souls still talk, and some of them are even sensible (like your mom oooooh), but generally they're jumpscare beasts or wet little puppies. sometimes both. yes you can get corrupted when you're enlightened, and right now it's the more likely outcome actually. there's a whole 'elixir of immortality' that gets harped on, where one drinker gets corrupted and the other gets enlightened, but that is literally only a thing for roots and a little bit of cave so don't worry about it too much. unless you're making dramatic fanart in which case leverage that shit.

cubes come up a lot in cube escape, believe it or not! black ones are bad memories, white ones are good memories, blue ones are connected to the past in a way that's somehow not a memory, gold ones are connected to the future, red ones only exist in my fangame that ellesian recently unearthed, and green ones are jello yum. also suck it anyone who told me pre-tpw the gold cube thing was unestablished. anyway. it was a big thing mr.'s owl and crow were working on, creating a golden cube (presumably to extend their own lives) as seen in cave, but then one just kinda appears in the past within when albert does electric jujitsu. jury is still out on that.

onto the actual narrative i think.

in paradise, you're mr. owl pre-owling (1790-something). the lake's current suckass servants are your family who tried to sacrifice you to it way back, but your mom took your place for mom reasons. now mom's corrupted and guiding you to... well, to get sacrificed for real this time. but with your powers combined (yes mr. owl was two people, no it is never addressed) you get enlightened and tell your family to fuck off 'cause you're building a hotel on that island now. you also get a tease in the secret ending that dale and laura will do a similar fusion dance to be the lake's next suckass. we've been waiting 6 years for that to happen.

in roots, two alchemist brothers get that elixir shit going (1860-1935). one of them becomes mr. crow, while the other becomes a playable character for a game. and corrupted. you rope your whole bloodline into this, harvesting their body parts (usually after they die from other means, but you totally caused most of their deaths) for a reincarnation ritual involving a magic seed (that also only exists for this game). this is where the best characters come from because rusty lake actually wanted to tell a story with this game. you reincarnate into a woman! don't think about the implications.

in samsara room, the inside scoop of reincarnation is fuckin' weird, dude (1935). the original was made before rusty lake began, so it's not truly part of the narrative, but it got folded in for the fifth anniversary.

in hotel, you do not get the backstory of the third bird man (1890ish). instead, you get to kill mr. owl's family again, but one-on-one as animal people. how did they become animal people? fuck you that's how! mr. owl probably did it on purpose to spite them with shit sandwiches and bullets to the brain. oh, also, there might be an evil twin of mr. rabbit that shows up later.

in arles, you're vincent van gogh. that's it. he's not relevant. but it is funny seing the death date of paul gauguin in the timeline docs.

we're talking about the past within later but the 'past' segment takes place around here. 1926 iirc?

in birthday, your parents get shot (1939). you're going to be an important detective, dale, but like right now you're getting traumatized. or rather you're experiencing that memory, then doing blue cube magic to fix it and have your grandpa shoot evil mr. rabbit instead. is your grandpa actually mr. crow? no. shut up about it now.

in underground blossom, your mom gets abducted (1935-1972 maybe). okay, well, not you. this is the laura backstory metaphor game but you're actually playing as the third bird man who is both her stepdad and her pet. and her grandpa albert takes her mom rose for his own nefarious reincarnation schemes maybe probably. rose is surprisingly okay with it but characters rarely put up a fight with the plot anyway. laura's a lonely kid, starts dating robert, picks up art to soothe her nightmares, gets murked, then reaches some kind of epiphany that we just train ride away from before finding out what actually happens. she's your daughter, damnit, you should support her transcendence. not enlightenment importantly. also, no, laura's life didn't literally happen at train stops, it's just a vehicle. not even a pun don't fucking laugh i see you snickering.

in seasons, you set up a really interesting plotline that gets utterly countered by everything that came after (1960's-80's). it's just laura time in there, and she uncorrupts herself, thank you very much. the series has been struggling with how laura gets her corrupted self to 1980-whatever, and so far only one other game's even taken place after 1972. and that game's the past within which also counters every other plotline. sigh. maybe we're not smart enough for these puzzle games. at least harvey's cute and bird-shaped. key point that's impossible to fuck up is that laura dies in 1972, and it's unclear whether it was a murder or suicide. that's why we get a detective.

in harvey's box and the lake, uh i don't know really (1969). these are early games that are basically spinoffs of seasons. they help with the overarching stuff but aren't much for the narrative at this point. also they suck

in case 23, dale starts investigating laura's death and gets wrapped up in the lake stuff (1972). it was supposed to be just another murder case, but he got too into it and it got too into him, so he gets teleported to the lake chapel and ferried off to. somewhere idk. he goes into an elevator that takes him down memory lane to the lake floor.

in the mill, mr. crow is really trying to clean house before dale gets here (1972). this is where laura gets her ass corrupted by mr. crow, and we find out how the lake eats memories or whatever. it's supposed to overlap with case 23 and it almost succeeds. whatever skrunk is still there is forgiveable, this was the flash era after all.

in theatre, dale learns about ripoff hinduism, goads a man into suicide, and abandons his darling toilet fetus son (1971). it's like birthday again, where this is a memory we're seeing, but that is a light distinction. robert kills himself at the bar, and we take his memories for legal reasons. there's some sixfold wheel we learn about that doesn't matter much.

in the cave, mr. crow still cleans house before dale gets to the Magic Memory Machine (1972). mr. owl's kinda sorta dying, and dale's been elected his son or something. gotta get his mindmeats. you read a textbook about cubes, pilot a submarine to the lakefloor, put dale and laura in a surrogate fusion dance machine, then give dale the golden cube it makes before sending him up the elevator again. hotel did imply something serious was gonna happen when he gets to the top, but that was eight years ago. the devs probably forgot and fell too in love with albert vanderboom in the meantime.

in the white door, robert unkills himself and gets wrong psychiatry (1972). as it turns out, mr. owl has a front business running a for-profit psych ward to extract totally good and healthy memories from people. this one is an actual factual spinoff but is kinda relevant for the greater rusty lake metropolitan area.

in paradox, fuuuuuuuck who knows maaaan, isn't it all just a metaphor? (1972). there's a consensus that none of the stuff that happens in paradox actually happens, and that it's all in dale's head while he's in the Magic Memory Machine from cave. even though there's five different endings, he kinda walks away at the end, which might be the worst ending of the lot. the information's solid though; mr. owl spells out the whole heir thing, there's bits of backstory for dale and laura everywhere. also the movie's sick.

in the past within, albert becomes a mechanical engineer for the sole purpose of making plot armor (1926/1984). yeah, remember that guy from roots? the voodoo murderer who got third-hand alchemy information to make up for his lack of pussy? yeah, he invented a time machine decades ago. and he enlisted his daughter to talk to her past/future self to grow him back to life in 1984. with a gold cube that he somehow got. and somehow his scar is genetically coded in him. and we don't see his wiggly lineart dick. what does he do in 1984? trap his daughter in a time loop then who the fuck knows. he's stuck in his jumpscare beast ways from being corrupted for so long. how did he get corrupted when he was literally buried in the ground and salvaged bones from? next game!

there's an ARG that i never saw a thing of because i hated it, best kept memory. from what i gathered, it was another front scheme for memory harvesting, except in the 2000's. does that mean it's enlightened dale/laura doing this one, since mr. owl presumably passed on the title then turned into a fish? i'd like to know too!

also, a chapter of underground blossom i haven't completed, and a paper-based game coming out within the next two years or whatever. i don't know how much they'll clear up.

toodles!

#rusty lake #basically the cube escape era set up this 1972 arc without actually concluding it #and each of the steam titles have been more distinct stories while still playing to the overall plotline #kinda like spinoffs of spinoffs #a lot of us old folk are bitter that we still haven't resolved 1972 and there isn't much focus with the recent games #like they do just enough building on each other to make it irritating they aren't doing more. especially compared to the cube escapes

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