#the shoulders should be slanted the opposite way bc of her hands but I will put that off until tomorrow

[quillsareswords]

Could you do something with Damian and a really cuddly, clingy, touchy-feely reader? I feel like his brothers would be v confused about the whole situation bc Damian's just chillin and always seems neutral to what's happening while reader is just like, koala bear hugging him and stuff all the time.

Firstly. I love this concept with every fiber of my being because, oh good god, it's me. Thank you so much for bringing this to inbox, because I've been lacking on inspiration lately, and this is just what I need right now. Thanks doll!!

Prompt List // Masterlist (in bio)

Tim stops dead in his tracks, cereal bowl nearly slipping from his hand as he halts in the doorway to the huge living room. He pauses, before cautiously asking, "What is this? What am I looking at?"

Damian's arm twitches against your back, the only give away that he's been caught off guard. You seem just as relaxed, sprawled on top of him like you've been there your whole life.

You don't even look at him, eyes still glued to the phone screen shining up at you from the floor, which you're facing with your face pressed against Damian's shoulder. "You've known me for five years and you still haven't learned my name? Rude."

He blinks. "Sure, sure. Right. Because it's absolutely normal for anyone to successfully get within a foot of Damian and not get knocked out."

You snort, but it still isn't enough to pry your attention away from your phone. Damian either, as he reads a book over your shoulder, which is settled under his chin. He must be tired or in a terrifyingly good mood, if he hasn't shoved you off in hopes of hiding emotions from his family. That's what he usually does when he gets caught with you, anyway.

He's been tiptoeing around the subject of you for a solid year and half now. It wasn't exactly easy, seeing as you're also a family friend, what with being a vigilante and all. You're Damian's partner, have been for three years, and you're in the manor often enough that you have your own room, right next to Damian's.

Still, even with no clear answers from either of you, the whole family has suspected a relationship for a long time.

But Damian isn't very touch oriented. In fact, he's been known to go to nearly astonishing lengths to avoid being touched at all.

And now here he is, you laying on top of him, out in the open, absolutely unbothered by Tim catching it.

Tim decides quickly not to risk Damian's mood spoiling while he's around, so he backpedals and heads for his room.

• • •

Jason doesn't come to the manor often, but when he does, there's usually a decently concerning reason for it. This time, he's waiting out a possible kidnapping by one king pin or another. You haven't been paying as much attention as you probably should.

Now, he's trotting down the steps from Bruce's office to fix a suspicious rattling noise his motorcycle has been making for a shameful period of time.

However, he stops beside the super computer, looking a little aghast and far too dramatic for the sight.

Damian side-eyes him, still typing away, but his head doesn't move. It really can't, because you're resting your head on top of it.

You're resting your full weight on the back of the chair, which Jason now realizes isn't the tall backed chair that usual sits there, with your cheek buried in the soft looking bush that is Damian's hair. Your eyes are closed, and your arms and draped over his shoulders, hands laying on his chest.

Jason catches himself staring when Damian's side-eyeing turns into a curious glare. Tentatively, Jason points to you, and raises an eyebrow.

Lowly, Damian somewhat patiently answers, "She's half asleep."

Your eyebrows slant together. "Hmm?"

Jason's expression becomes more confused. "She sleeps standing up?"

"Apparently," Damian mumbles.

Jason, more than a little perturbed but Damian's oddly placid demeanor and your absurd sleeping habits, shuffles the rest if the way to his bike, grabbing the toolbox on his way.

• • •

Dick sitting on the floor, wrapped in a blanket—correction, three blankets, facing the rest of the living room, where Damian sits on one couch, and Duke occupies the other.

"No no, I'm not saying Bella wasn't smokin, I'm just saying that those facial expressions and life decisions were questionable enough to make a guy think twice," Dick tries to reason.

Duke makes a face. "Bro, are you kidding? If a chick stares at you from across a lunch room and you've never spoke to her, you don't even try."

Damian scoffs. Duke raises an eyebrow, and just when he's about to beg for the story of who tied him to a steel chair and forced him to watch Twilight, you shoulder the double door open.

Damian doesn't look up from his newest book, which could be deemed rude if you weren't so close and comfortable with one another. "Evening, Beloved, how was your drive?"

You say nothing. You drop your bag by his feet, crawl the rest of the way onto the couch, and collapse. Your head in on a pillow between Damian's thighs and the arm of the couch, the rest of you divided unevenly between his lap and the rest of the couch.

He glances away from the pages briefly. "Traffic?" His hand slips under your shirt to gently run blunt nails up and down your spine.

For a moment, you're quiet, and neither of the two older men know how to react.

Then, without warning, you wail into the pillow. "Who the everloving fuck drives a Winnebago through central Gotham at six o'clock going fourteen miles an hour?"

Duke barks a loud laugh, before he claps a hand over his mouth in fear of a punishment. But a man can only do so much, so he sits with his hand over his mouth, giggling like a fifteen year old listening to a dirty joke with his parents in the room.

Damian chuckles lightly, white teeth peeking through a little smile that he's trying to suppress, much for the same reason Duke is doing his best not to let you hear him laugh.

Dick is more focused on the two of you, and the fact that his baby brother has grown up and changed for the better so much—

• • •

Cassandra climbs the stairs with some difficulty, thanks to two new sets of stitches and a few too many fresh bruises.

It's nothing a few days of relaxation won't fix. It was worth it, to see Poison Ivy put back behind bars—even if it did take four of you.

Shortly after arriving back, you and Damian had disappeared up to his room, after you'd both been checked over by Alfred. Aside from some intense bruising and a fee cuts and scrapes, you'd both been spared.

She knocks on his door a few times. With no answer, she loudly turns the handle and pushes the door open slowly, giving you enough time to correct her if need be. She knows at least one of you are in here, because the light is on. "Alfred sent me to tell you that there's dinner, if you want–"

She stops. You are, in fact, both in the room. However, neither of you are conscious.

Damian is sprawled haphazardly across his bed, face half squished into a pillow.

You're flopped across his back, horizontal across his bed, likely also with a pillow, but she can't see your face to be sure.

For a moment that feels a little intrusive, she stares, eyes wide. Not because he's in only boxers and you're in shorts and a sports bra (neither are necessarily a new sight, with one makeshift locker room in the Cave and a city with way too many privacy-surpassing emergencies), but because she's never witnessed Damian allowing another person to be so close to him while asleep.

Even on week long stakeouts that confine them to one room, he claims one corner for himself and doesn't tolerate that invisible boundary to be broken, especially when he's asleep.

She wouldn't even be so surprised if you were passed out in his reading chair, or even on a pile of blankets in the floor, or hell, even if you were on opposite sides of the bed. But you're literally as close to him as you could possibly be. And he's still sound asleep.

She closes the door and backs away slowly, a little smile on her face, even though she was too tired to laugh at the joke Bruce tried to crack a few minutes ago.

• • •

Bruce sits, almost impatiently, on a stone bench by the fountain the middle of Gotham City Gardens. The whole family had come here for the day, on invitation of the organization's owners. Of course, not everyone was officially recognized as family by anyone outside the Manor, so there were quite a few plus ones—you being one of them.

Of course you were. You're always invited. Over the years, it's become a running joke. A trip to the grocery store? (Y/N) must be invited. Walking from the W.I. building to an ice cream parlor and back? I bet (Y/N) is invited. At one point, Damian became so simultaneously annoyed and amused by it that for a week, you really did join him on every single outing. No one knows how exactly you made it across Gotham in six minutes flat to help him pick up cereal but by golly you managed it.

Bruce is currently waiting on you and Damian, who swore to meet him here for a few pictures (at Alfred's request). The pair of you had gone off on your own after about an hour of meandering around with his family, and no one has heard from either of you since. He would be worried, but you were both too excited about this to get into any trouble that would risk being sent home early.

Your laughter finds him before you do. It comes from around a corner of tall hedges, and shortly after, so do you.

You're smiling ear to ear, giggling like a school girl, elbows balanced on Damian's shoulders, about as precariously as you are on his back. That is to say, quite stable. Damian is grinning as well, his arms linked around you're knees at his sides to keep you as stable as you are. You've got an ice cream cone in each hand, one obviously having had more attention than the other.

Bruce's heart swells in his chest at the absolute joy on his son's face.

Damian stops not too far, shifting your weight to free one hand. You help, carefully resituating yourself to hold yourself up easily. You hand him the neglected ice cream, resting your now free hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry, Father," Damian sounds a little winded, and Bruce wonders if the running he heard earlier had been you two. "Somebody found an ice cream bar and insisted we stop before meeting you." He doesn't sound apologetic in the least.

"Hey!" You laugh, flicking the back of his ear as payback.

As payback for payback, he takes the edge of his cone between his teeth, and uses his free hand to give the back of your knee a quick pinch, before he occupies his hand again to tilt the odds in his favor.

You squeal and jerk. "Damian! You're gonna make me fall, and if I go down, you're coming with me!"

Bruce laughs loudly.

• • •

Alfred is on his way to the library to finish the afternoon chores. All he needs to do is straighten up in there, and he can call it an evening. Just in time, too, as one of the local channels is running a Downton Abbey marathon tonight that he doesn't particularly want to miss.

He pushes open the doors to get a little extra fresh air, but pauses just inside the doorway.

Damian is stretched out in one of the plush leather chairs, his long legs propped up by his ankles on the coffee table, head resting limply on the back of the chair. You're curled up in his lap, head on his shoulder, legs folded up on either side of his thighs, arms wound around his back. His hands are folded together on your back. You're both fast asleep.

The elder man is suddenly flooded with memories of the boy's first few months in this manor. In this room, even. He was politely feral, as Bruce had once put it. He was so uncomfortable all the time, though he fought not to show it. It was so new to him, to be openly cared for the way his family tried to care for him. Most people he met back then treated him as the cold, rude, trained assassin that he presented himself as.

So many overlooked the terrified ten year old boy that shook beneath the armor and the weight of the mantels he was expected to take up in so few years.

Of course Alfred had been paying attention to him all this time, all the growing he's done and the man he's becoming. He's always been proud.

But it's here, in this exact moment, that Alfred really takes in how different he is now, compared to then.

Not only did he find the strength and the trust to forge a close bond with you, one that would arguably outlast just about anything it was forced to endure, but he'd fostered such a sweet affection for you. He's found the space within himself to make room for a great love for you, and his family, and his friends.

And you're so good for him. You remind him of the things he could be, if he wanted, and not of what he should be or could have been. You provide him a sense of normalcy when he needs it, and battle ready companion when he needs that.

You look past the blazing armor of controlled aggression and lessons learned to reach the beautiful soul he is. And most importantly, you love him for all of it. You manage to dig so far beyond what he's been taught and the walls he's put up, that you look at what was meant to be the perfect soldier and you see a pillow to sleep on. You trust him with everything, including your vulnerability, just as he trusts you.

Alfred marks the page of the open book on the floor, closes it, and leaves it in the table for you later. He leaves as quietly as he came, in hopes of leaving the two of you undisturbed.

#damian wayne imagine #damian wayne #damian wayne x reader #damian wayne headcannon #damian wayne blurb

[violetnotez]

hello!! how are u today? i hope youre well💖 may i request a baku crushing on a girl who is native eng speaker, but has never heard her speak. however one day the whole class is watching some eng movie n y/n starts dissing the movie in eng bc its so bad n the whole class is sHOCKED BC HER VOICE IS SO FLUENT N SM DEEPER IN ENG. bakubabe is just there like damn thats hot.

Hey babes! I’m doing well thank you, just doing some stuffs for my art blog! I hope youre doing well 💕💕also thank you to @gallickingun for the mangacap, it saved me so much time and I was actually able to color it! 😍

Also: IM ALIVE!!!! I LITERALLY WROTE THIS TODAY AND OMG I MISS WIRITNG! I’ll start on that Dabi x reader fic I mentioned in a little bit, just wanted to post this! Hopefully it’s good lmao

⤷ Genre: Fluff

⤷ Word Count: 2020

⤷ Warnings: cursing its bakubabe

⤷ Synopsis: Bakugo won’t admit it to himself, but he’s conflicted: he knows he has a crush on you, but his dumbass won’t admit it-well, until he hears your sexy American voice.

Song Recs: ⤷If I Cant Have You-Shawn Mendes⤷Thinking About You-Calvin Harris ⤷Rather Be-Clean Bandit

This was so stupid. Completely dumb and a waste of his time.

Bakugo slumped in his seat a little more, a grumble escaping his lips as he tried to focus on the screen in front of him, his broad shoulders crossed in front of him.

He should be sleeping right now, not sitting and watching this dumbass romantic American movie, especially when you were by his side.

There was no reason why his cheeks should feel hotter when you laughed at the movie, or his hands feel clammy with his sweat everytime you shifted your body closer to him.

It was pissing him off, because no matter how much he tried to ignore the pent up emotions in his chest, he had to admit it to himself-he had a goddamn crush.

On you, the goddamn exchange student.

Fucking great.

His lips pouted as he sulked in his seat on the couch, trying his best to glue his eyes to the screen instead of sneaking a glance at your profile.

The TV showed one of the most sickly sweet and horrific scenes he had ever witnessed: the main couple on screen were finally declaring their love to each other, their voices getting louder and more desperate as they tried to one up each other, almost as if battling to see who could last the longest.

“I love you to the moon!”

“I love you to the moon and back!”

“I love you to the moon and all the stars in the sky!”

“And I love you to-“

A laugh erupted next to him, Bakugo swiveling his head over to see you giggling in your seat, your pretty lips parted as those sweet sounds came from your mouth.

“God, this is terrible!” You chuckled, shaking your head as you said it.

Bakugo’s face reddened, his eyes widening from the sounds coming from your mouth.

Your sentence wasn’t in Japanese: it was foreign and new, American sounding.

Bakugo was used to your voice sounding light and airy when you talked in Japanese, like a leaf on a autumn breeze as it floated into his ears and danced in his mind whenever you spoke his native language. Sometimes you would fumble over the words, trying to piece the meanings together as a blush formed on your cheeks and your eyes turned up from embarrassment. He always made fun of you from it, usually telling you to “Spit it out Baka, I don’t got all day”, but really-he absolutely loved it. You sounded so sweet, so innocent and endearing: he just wanted to wrap you in a hug and envelope himself in your sugar sweet voice.

But right now, your voice was somehow the opposite-it was deeper and richer, like warm,auburn honey on a summer evening. It coated his mind in its thick numbness, the only thing he could think of was how deep and sultry, and well, sexy, it sounded coming from your lips.

He squirmed in his seat, hating how much that little change in your tone affected him so much as you continued to giggle at the wreck of a movie in front of you.

Your class turned to look at you, their faces clearly as shocked as Bakugo’s-they had never actually heard your voice when you spoke English, and they weren’t quite used to it.

You looked at your classmates, your face twisted in innocent confusion.

“What? What did I say?” You asked again in that sultry American voice, making Bakugo shift in his seat, his face looking away from you as he covered his mouth with his hand.

Damn you needed to get that voice under control-he felt like you were controlling his emotions when you spoke like that.

“Whoa y/n you know English!” Kamianri propped himself up, his face clearly in awe as he yelled it out the words.

Sero, who was sitting beside him, chuckled at his air headed friend, giving him a judging look.

“Uh, you do realize she’s from America, right?” Sero snickered, Kamianri looking sheepish as he realized his forgetfulness.

“Oops, Sorry!” He yelled out again, earning a laugh from you and the rest of your classmates.

Jealousy bubbled inside Bakugo like a volcanic eruption, the dangerous emotion barely being contained inside him as his fists clenched.

He hated when others made you laugh, especially his freinds, who unfortunately figured out the crush he had on you a few weeks back. Hearing you giggle at his idiot friends made him want to yell out in possession, declaring that they should know that you were his-well would be his- and they should lay off. But you didn’t suspect a thing about his feelings, and he really didn’t feel like looking like a possessive freak in front of you.

He felt your body shift next to his, his heart beating faster as your finger tapped his shoulder.

“Hey, Uh, Bakugo?” You whispered, the sweet tone of your Japanese voice making him shudder pleasantly, as well as long for your deeper American voice.

He grunted in response, his arms still slung across his broad chest.

“Did I talk in my American voice?”

He scoffed, his eyes rolling in his sockets at how adorably oblivious you could be sometimes. He sent you a shit eating smirk, his vermillion eyes dark like wine.

“What do you think?” He stated, but he didn’t say it in his language, no-he said it English.

He watched your face instantly light up, your eyes bright with excitement and awe as you gasped.

“Wait-you know English?!” You yelled out in awe, a smile erupting on your face. That smile seemed to shake his world, his mind eternally thanking that the room was so dark as his cheeks flushed.

“Of course I know English,” he scoffed, “what idiot doesnt.”

You giggled at his comment, your body shifting closer to his.

Damn it, his cheeks were getting hotter-he could feel your shoulder a mere centimeters away from his, your skin radiating a coolness that felt so soothing being near his permanently hot flesh.

You leaned in closer, your eyes watching his face with sweetness. “How long have you been speaking it?” you asked, but in that hot ass American voice-he was about to combust right then and there.

Shit-he would never admit it, but he hadn’t been exactly practicing his second language. He had learned it back in middle school, when it was a required class, and he had passed it with flying colors of course. Over the years though, he began to forget it, and he was pretty rusty now, now only remembering a few phrases (‘What do you think?’ being one of them)

“Ahh-“ he grumbled out, feeling stupid for not even understanding what you had said. He felt those pretty eyes of yours continue to stare at him, making him feel almost guilty for leading you on as you face fell slightly.

“You didn’t understand what I said, did you?” You asked sadly, back to using your airy Japanese voice. He hated seeing you look so disappointed, as if he let you down in some way.

“Of course I do, dumbass, I just-“

“It’s been awhile since you spoken it?”

He grunted in reply, your mind already translating that to a “Yes.”

Your face somehow light up again, your body even closer to his as you shimmied yourself near him.

“Then I’ll reteach you it!”

“Huh?” He looked at you, his eyes slanted as you peered at you with an almost judging look. What the hell were you playing at?

You nodded again, your lips letting out a slight hum.

“Yeah, I’ll teach you a phrase in English! To be honest, I miss having someone to talk to in my language…” you chuckled at your revelation, your eyes coated in embarrassment.

Well shit-if you needed someone to talk to in English, he was going to be the one to do it. With his damn luck Icy Hot and damn Deku would jump in and be your little English buddy. His skin crawled at the idea of you getting all cozy with one of those two bastards, his insides light up like a fire.

“Fine,” he huffed out, pretending like he was giving in, “but I’m not sitting through a whole damn lesson.”

You chuckled slightly, brushing a piece of hair behind your ears.

“Don’t worry, I’ll start off easy,” you smiled up at him, looking up slightly as if in thought.

“We’ll start with a something easy,” you instructed.

“I’ll teach you-“your sweet Japanese voice suddenly turned rich like syrup as it switched to American. ‘Hi my name is Bakugo”,

“Easy enough?” You asked, switching back to Japanese.

“Fucking elementary,” he scoffed, “yeah I can do it.”

“Cool!” You exclaimed quietly, still mindful of your classmates watching the crappy movie. You shimmied again, your face squarely staring at his as you waited for him to start speaking, your eyes expecting and wide with anticipation.

Shit he was supposed to be paying attention?

Bakugo cursed himself in his mind, as he was too preoccupied listening to your hot as hell American accent.

Damn, he was going to have a hard time talking to you in English, especially if you said his name like that. He hadn't realized how mezmorized he was by the way you spoke his name, your voice low and sultry as if you were telling him a secret, something he was only able to hear. His spine tingled and his hands clammed up again, making his mouth feel dry.

Shit, you’d be the end of him.

He opened his mouth, feeling uncharacteristically nervous as he tried to speak the words you had spoken. He could barely remember how you had said them though, the syllables coming out his mouth feeling cracked and awkward.

“H-hi my n-ame is...shit!” He cursed at himself, hating the way the words felt in his mouth. He couldn't say them right, knowing full well he looked like an idiot as his cheeks began to redden.

He heard you giggle next to him, the voice sounding sweet and kind against his ear.

“It okay,” you reassured him, “your just opening your mouth a little too wide...here-“

Before he could register what was even going on, your hand had wrapped delicately around his jaw, the floral scent of your perfume swarming his mind and making him unable to think straight. Your digits were pressing against his hot cheeks, forcing his lips to pout out slightly.

Damn, if he thought he was blushing, it was nothing compared to this-it felt like his cheeks were on fire.

You laughed at his clearly shocked face, his vermillion eyes wide and filled with confusion.

“Don’t worry, Bakugo, I’m just helping you,” you reassured him, your voice feathery as you whispered close to his ear.

Why the hell did that sound so hot?

You sent him another smile, speaking again in Japanese and then back to English, “Just say- ‘Hi my name is Bakugo’,”

he continued to star at you, actually beginning to like the feel your digits pressed against his mouth.

He swallowed, trying to coat his dry mouth with saliva.

“Hi-my name-is-Bakugo,” he stuttered out.

He wouldn’t ever say it out loud, but he had to admit it-his English voice did sound much better with your fingers pressed against his cheeks like that.

You clearly noticed it as well, your face triumphant and proud. “There ya go, that sounded so much better!” You congratulated him, your fingers retracting from his skin.

He already missed the feeling of your cold skin against his hot flesh, his cheeks feeling empty without your digits pressing against them.

He sucked the flesh of his cheeks into his mouth, moving his jaw.

“Shitty woman-need to give me a warning-“ he scolded you, his hands feeling clammy with the sudden change in events.

You rolled your eyes, lying yourself against the couch cushions and returning your gaze to the TV.

“Well, your going to have to get used to it if I’m going to teach you more-“

“Teach me more?!?” He practically yelled out, gaining a few confusing looks from his classmates.

“Of course!” you smiled as if it was obvious, “need to make sure your fluent enough for a conversation dumbie!”

“It’s also fun seeing you blush like that Bakugo,” you playfully nudged his ribcage, sending him a wink as you turned your gaze to the movie, unaware of how flustered you just made him.

Well shit-he thought numbly, a small grin playing against his mouth-you were something else.

Taggings:

@weebartistinc​ @orokayagi​ @leeeah-loooser​ @bakarinnie​

#bnha #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha x reader imagine #bakugo x reader #bnha bakugo x reader #bakugo x reder #mha bakugo x reader #mha bakugo katsuki #katsuki x reader #bnha katsuki x reader #mha katsuki x reader #bakugo x reader fluff #bnha bakugo fluff #bnha bakugo imagine #bakugo x reader imagine

[ravenvsfox]

Hey err lmao idk if I'm doing this correctly? But I love ur writing and sob at all ur one shots so I have to ask please can u write an andreil w a daughter??? Ik it's not their style tbh but I'm lowkey obsessed with my ships having kids. ANYWAY THANK YOU UR AMAZING AND I HOPE U HAVE A LOVELY DAY !!

(ur such a babe honestly this is too kind

There’s a blonde girl sitting cross-legged at the end of the hall, huddled amongst the medical waste baskets and supply shelving. Andrew spots her on his way to the vending machine, and she hasn’t moved at all by the time he makes his way back.

She’s maybe six or seven, utterly silent, her bangs long enough to get in her eyes.

He stops, holding a bag of skittles and a shitty mineral water for Neil, watching the girl try to look like nothing at all. If she were crying, the staff would notice, he knows. They would coddle her and take her to the bustling front desk and call for help and smooth back her straggly hair.

Kids are apparently only worth helping if they’re being cute or making a scene, and she’s obviously trying to do neither.

He realizes when he’s stalling his route back to Neil’s room that he’s seen this kid before. Last time Neil was in for a twisted ankle that he’d kept running on until it gave out, and they’d been in this emergency room, both of them stoic and impatient. That same girl had been in the waiting room with an intern crouched in front of her, her purpling wrist cradled between strange gloved hands. Andrew had noticed because the girl’s father had been on the phone, and he’d had one hand tightly holding the girl’s ponytail. A grip like fingers under a dog’s collar.

It could be a different blonde kid, but Andrew knows it’s not. He recognizes that silence.

“Hey,” he says. The girl’s little shoulders tense all the way up to her ears. He doesn’t get close. He keeps his back touching the opposite wall so she can see his empty hands and his relaxed posture. “Is someone hurting you?” He doesn’t put any effort into inflection. It’s like offering her an unused whiteboard.

Her mouth folds in on itself. She’s trying not to talk, and he can practically map out her thought process start to finish. He told me not to tell. He said it would be bad. He doesn’t lie.

“Is there anyone else?” Andrew asks. Her hands go up to her own knees and she grips them as she shakes her head. “Don’t go home,” he says. “Hide. Scream if he comes near. Say he’s a stranger. Do you understand?”

She looks up at him with frightened dark eyes. “Yes.”

Andrew nods. He drops the skittles in her lap and walks the first few backwards steps away from her, watching her blink down at her gift.

He swivels and grits his teeth, walking all the way back to Neil’s room with his grip hard enough on the vitamin water that it should burst.

Neil’s head jerks up when he enters the room, as always, which is a problem because he’s getting stitches down the curve of his brow bone.

The doctor groans, trying to pinch the skin closed with tweezers and steady Neil’s jaw with his other hand. “Steady, please,” he reminds for the dozenth time. “I’m getting more gauze. Don’t move. I mean it.”

Neil looks affronted at being ordered around but he doesn’t say anything. He bunches the covers to his chest and watches Andrew come close, looking eons more comfortable when the doctor is out of the room.

“No sugary shit?” he asks, reaching out for the water and looking amused at the warped, sweaty label. Andrew doesn’t answer, but he sees something change in Neil’s face; he stops unscrewing the cap and looks beyond Andrew’s shoulder. “Did you kidnap a child?”

Andrew turns and sees the girl in the doorway, holding her skittles with both hands and breathing shakily, like she ran to catch up with him. “I’m not supposed to.”

“Supposed to what?” Neil asks, bewildered. Andrew frowns between them.

“She followed me.”

“From where?” Neil squints at the girl, and then his eyes settle all at once, understanding. “She was here last month.” Andrew should’ve known that Neil has an eye for victims too.

“I’m here lots,” the girl says.

“You probably shouldn’t be,” Neil says, darkly unsettled.

“I’m hiding,” she whispers. He looks unimpressed.

“Hide somewhere else.”

She quakes, holding her skittles like a weapon. “He isn’t gonna like how long I’ve been gone.”

“Who?” Neil asks sharply.

“My dad,” she whispers. Neil’s expression twists drastically. He reaches one hand out, palm up on the bed. He doesn’t even seem to be conscious of having done it.

“Do you have anywhere you can go?”

She shakes her head. “I’m not supposed to run away.”

Neil looks at Andrew meaningfully and then back at her. “Sometimes you have to run.” She watches him with her face scrunched up, and then she steps forward unevenly, crossing the room to his bedside.

“What happened to your face?”

“He didn’t run fast enough,” Andrew deadpans, and Neil gives him the least impressed look he can muster when half of his face has been numbed.

“A mean backliner hit me with a big stick.”

“She doesn’t know what a backliner is,” Andrew drawls. She looks up at him indignantly.

“Sports,” she says. “It’s a sports player.”

“Nice,” Neil says, genuinely impressed, and Andrew rolls his eyes.

The door opens, and Andrew goes to step in front of the girl a second too late. The doctor stands in the doorway holding a package of gauze, his jaw slack.

“Uhh. She yours?” he asks, looking back and forth between the frowning little girl to the frowning men with their hands flung out in front of her.

“Yeah,” Andrew says.

The doctor looks unconvinced, and he paces warily forward, moving into a crouch when he’s close enough. “What’s your name?” he asks. She juts her lip, and lifts her skittles like they’re her ID.

“Mary.”

“Okay Mary, are these your dads?” he asks, gesturing up to Andrew and Neil without looking for their reactions. His back is tense enough that Andrew can tell he’s scared to.

She looks up at them, as if confirming.“Yes.”

“Where were you before?” he asks, voice slipping from high and condescending to something more genuinely confused.

“Daycare,” she says quickly. “They dropped me off when they heard my daddy got hurt.”

The doctor opens and closes his mouth, finally looking up and flinching at Andrew’s expression.

“Okay,” he says slowly, apparently defeated. “But you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says, voice unusually empty for a kid who’d been walking the line of a meltdown five minutes earlier.

The doctor stands, finally, reaching for his pocket. He surveys them for a minute and then shakes his head. “I gotta make a call.”

As soon as he’s gone, the tension seeps out with him.

“You’re a little liar,” Andrew tells her. “You’ll fit in with him.” He nods towards Neil.

“Fit in?” Neil asks. “You know she’s not actually ours, right?”

“You know that doctor is checking your records as we speak, right?” Andrew replies.

“They’ll make me go back,” Mary says, voice wobbly.

“She’s not going back,” Andrew tells Neil, and Neil meets his gaze head on. They’ve never discussed having kids, but they’ve discussed what it was like to be them. They’ve discussed saving them, if they had the chance. They know where they stand on this.

Neil sighs, resigned. “Social services?”

“Fuck no.”

Neil touches his own temple, right near his head wound. He cracks one eye open and slants it at Mary.

“Your name isn’t Mary, is it?”

She shakes her head quickly.

“So much for my clean record,” Neil says. “We have to go now if we want to slip him.”

Andrew nods once and turns on the kid. “Do you want to come with us?”

“Yes,” she says immediately. “Yes please.”

“Forget that word,” Andrew says, and he tips her chin up when her face immediately ducks. “You don’t have to say it anymore.”

#so.. like this is a thing I wrote very rapidly with apparent divine inspiration and very little substance #aftg #the foxhole court #andreil #tfc fanfic #kid fic #abuse tw #prompt #mine #Anonymous #ask

[tepidblood]

Title: Good Information Summary: "You have the prettiest eyes…" She's sighing, leaning forward just a bit, and letting her lips slant. "Such a pretty grey." She leans forward just a bit, her voice dropping just a bit more, as if she was going to tell him just how cute he was; she doesn't. "Gunmetal grey, even." Word Count: 1.5k+ Warnings: Alcohol mentions, some narrator dishonesty Notes: For @papahojo bc she’s gay and I kinda like her a lot and she got me fixating on this scenario this weekend.

Gratz hovers. She's not sure if he realizes it sometimes, what he's doing, but she does. He hovers over people, the card tables, the bar, and the wares. His fingers are sticky, dragging cards out of place, or scratching their corners. Money disappears around him, but it's always replaced. He pulls crisp, clean, freshly printed bills out of his pockets like he's made of money itself. He's not, because if he was, she might be staying in the bar tonight.

He hovers over her, sticky fingers grasping onto the point of her elbow, and his shadow falling along her jaw as he leans over her. "Where are you going Addie?" His grip isn't tight; she's not someone he has to yank back from the door. The back door wasn't for public access anyway. Guards were flanking them, looking opposite ways, and almost slinking back as well. They didn't want to get into the thick of a dispute. A dispute that would never come, not as she plucks his hand off her arm, and lets it go.

She smiles, blows him a kiss, and leaves her words to mingle with the clicking of her heels; "Out Gratz."

This bar isn't like Gratz's. It has a stage, of course, but nothing as grand. She's been up on Gratz's stage; she would own that stage if, well, it doesn't really matter. This stage is for the band, wonderfully animated under the glow of 'mood lighting', and she appreciates it. The band picks up the atmosphere, which would almost be too dismal for her tastes, even if she understands why. She's dressed simply for a reason.

She's tactile in how she avoids the little bumps and brushes of the hands of factory workers, smiling politely, while avoiding the collective gaze. She's in black, but her lips are not red. She chose something darker; more muted. She's not the only woman here, but she had the lowest neckline. She flashes it by tilting her chin up, smiling at one of the men that seemed to just a touch too stiff to merely be a man that had just gotten off work. He smiles back, politely, even as his eyes drop; she walks right past him. She walks past three men like that, all together, before she makes it where she wants.

The bar is fairly long, nicely polished and cleaned, if a bit scratched up. It's not over decadent, or grand, but again; she expected that. Most of the stools at the bar were full, but the end (closest to the opening, where it was the easiest to try to sneak behind the counter for this or that) is largely bare. There's truly only one man there, his associate pushing off from the counter shortly after she passed the second 'stiff man'; perfect.

He's well dressed, in a way that comes across as a bit sharper than the other men that were congregating here, without screaming it to the casual eye. He's nursing something cold and definitely not mixed when she slides just a bit too close; her clutch dropped delicately to the bar top. She knows he had seen her, she could catch just a bit of a twitch of his eye from the perspective glare of his glasses, but he still acts surprised. He's polite like that, even if he doesn't immedietely smile. She gives him time, by fixing her clutch, while he looks at his guards.

Three 'stiff men' weren't enough to stop her.

His glass clinks in that satisfying way when he puts it down on the bar top and she takes that as a cue to look up; she had been looking at him through her hair, after all. He's smiling now, his shoulders purposefully relaxed as he settles his hip against the bar, and she mirrors the body language. Even in (almost) modest heels, she still has to look up a bit too much for her liking. He isn't as tall as Gratz, but he isn't short either; she misses her other heels. "Well hello." His voice is nice, smoother than she had expected, and pitched just low enough to make sure that this conversation would stay private. She smiles, too easy and too sweet, and echoes a 'hello' back to him.

"I'm having a hard time believing you're here alone tonight." He's polite, his eyes only glancing down, before they trek back up. She leans her arms against the bar, settled against it in a way that only pushed her cleavage up, and she shakes her head just so. Her hair falls elegantly over her shoulders; shiny and black. He is a rapt audience already.

"Why is that?" She's playing coy; playing that silly little 'hard-to-get' facade that men like so much. He's not buying into it, she can tell, by the slightly tightened corner of his mouth. He plays it off well though.

"Women as pretty as you look like they belong uptown, not… here." He gestures, pride sparking in his eyes, and she wishes the perspective glare of his glasses would not hide it so much. She follows the gesture of his arm with her eyes, spots the room, and sees a man in a dark brown suit. He's watching them.

She's shrugging, her hair falling against her breasts, and she pretends to not notice it for a moment. "Not all pretty women have… accomodating men to take her uptown." His eyebrow arches, his hand is lax on the bartop, and his mouth is tight in one corner. She 'notices' the hair on her breasts, plucks it up, and tosses it behind her shoulder' the tightness of his mouth lessens some. "Perhaps you could accommodate me here? I like wine."

The hardest part was done and over with now. There's a wine glass next to her clutch now, when she wasn't actively holding it. Her 'accommodating man' was a good conversationalist at least; he helped keep the small talk from going dry, She has one glass of wine and he orders her another; the man in the dark brown suit is still watching. She laughs, a bit higher and more fitfully than before, and she can see the tightness has left her 'accommodating man's' mouth. The band hit a shrill high note, then the music suddenly drops. There's applause that she does not join in on, even as he does, and she watches the man in the brown suit check his watch. She watches as he gets up and moves out of sight.

She sets the wine glass down and draws up into herself. Her companion arches an eyebrow at her, his smile turning up a bit more in amusement; she's sure that her blush is more noticeable when she tilts her head like this. He must think she's tipsy, which she wants, and she plays into it. Her hand lifts, away from her wine, and she settles her index finger along his jaw. He showered earlier this night, not this morning; she can tell by the lack of a day's growth of stubble. "You have the prettiest eyes…" She's sighing, leaning forward just a bit, and letting her lips slant. He's rapt, neither leaning into the touch or leaning away from it. He lets her touch his face and his eyes crinkle just a bit in amusement.

"I do?"

"Oh of course…" She pauses, swallows, and her smiles straightens. "Such a pretty grey." She leans forward just a bit, her voice dropping just a bit more, as if she was going to tell him just how cute he was; she doesn't. "Gunmetal grey, even, like the colt that the blond man in the dark brown suit is hiding." His smile freezes, his eyes tighten, and she leans in just a bit more. She makes it seem like she has leaned forward too much, like she has to catch herself on the bar so she won't stumble directly into him, but she never loses eye contact. "He will be waiting for you to go back to your office for the night Elias; you should be careful."

He takes it in stride, she will admit. His hand covers her's, his smile tightens, but it does not fall. His eyes are tight too, even as he pulls her hand off his face. "Easy there." His voice is a pitch off, but it's nearly impossible to tell as the band comes back to life. That's his cue, she knows, for him to leave. The band breaks twice and their third start for the night sends him away from the bar. Even on his drinking nights the infamous Mr. McCue was hard at work. "I think you've had a bit too much to drink."

He's all purposeful movement now, laying her hand down gently on the bartop, even as she laughs. The laugh is perfectly timed, because the man in the brown suit is back in her field of vision. She pulls her hand from Elias' and reaches for her wine. "I'm going to go call you a cab home; don't go anywhere." He winks at her, even as he gestures at one of his guards, and stands up straight. Her wine glass has a slight smudge of her lipstick on it; she pretends to focus on it more than him.

"I won't be going anywhere until my wine is gone."

She's true to her word, because she does not leave until her wine is gone. It only takes her moments to drain the glass and set it aside. The tiny napkin that had been underneath it is used to blot the liquid from her lips; she leaves a new lipstick stain in her wake. She fishes out a nearly finished tube of lipstick from her clutch and applies a bit more; this time it is a brighter shade of red. She forgets the tube by the wineglass and moves. Elias and two of the guards were gone; the third guard doesn't notice her until it's too late. She's already out the door, into the dark, and a cab is waiting on her. She slides in, next to a woman in not the nicest suit, and lets the bar disappear behind her. She doesn't plan on going back.

She doesn't plan to see Elias again either, at least not so soon; not as he stands in her dressing room and gives her a brand new tube of lipstick. She smiles up at him, too pretty and now too straight, and he smiles back. This time the smile is genuine, even if he isn't relaxed. She can't blame him. "I'm glad to see you're still alive Mr. McCue." He is the one laughing now; low and familiar.

"I had good information."

#papahojo #:Writing #it's exactly what you think it is/