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fanby-fckry · 11 months ago

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Finally got around to posting this, lol. (I filled it out while the template was queued, but then I got distracted.)

Explanations below the cut:

☑️ Cannibalism as a metaphor for _____

Cannibalism as a metaphor for intimacy, cannibalism as a metaphor for fear of abandonment, cannibalism as a metaphor for loneliness, cannibalism as a metaphor for hunger, cannibalism as a metaphor for desperation, cannibalism as a metaphor- *I am forcibly removed from the stage with a comically large hook and returned several minutes later, panting and covered in blood* I’m normal now. (<- lying)

🚫 Speaks in a learned accent

So, I do know several different accents, and consider dialect work to be a hobby of mine (along with general voice stuff), but I don’t use any of them as my day-to-day speaking voice the way Alastor does. I use my native, run-of-the-mill CT accent (it’s not one of the recognizable ones like Bridgeport or whatever the fuck the rich people have going on; I sound like the most generic USAmerican ever) for most things. I have had to work on my speaking voice for my stutter, but that’s a different thing.

☑️ Aro

I am aro-spec, specifically nebularomantic. Romance and romantic attraction confuses the fuck out of me. I’m generally romance-favorable, but my attraction exists on a weird grey area, and I can’t wrap my head around a lot of neurotypical, alloromantic standards for romance. Sometimes I hear about NT allos describing “romantic dates” and go, “why tf would anyone want that; that sounds dumb as hell.”

☑️ Food-snob with questionable tastes

I probably have AFRID or something, but I’ve been calling it “picky eater-ism,” because I’ve been labeled a “picky eater” since childhood. I have actual medical consequences from my picky eater-isms, and I’m pretty sure actual food snobs would judge me for my eating habits. (Actually, I think my partner, a genuine foodie and trained chef, may have judged me before he realized it was like, a clinically significant mental health thing.) My tastes aren’t quite as questionable as cannibalism, but I feel like eating the same sandwich for days on end, then turning my nose up at mashed potatoes or lasagna or ham counts.

☑️ Babygirl-coded

I’m a girl when it’s funny and I’ve decided that this is funny. I will giggle and kick my feet and play with my hair while discussing horrible, horrible things.

☑️ Theater kid at heart

You can take the kid out of the theater but you can’t take the theater out of the kid. I was in drama club every time I had access to one, and loved every second of it. I still break out into song (with or without music), I give whole-ass monologues when I can get away with it, and the “doing voices” hobby is another common manifestation of my inner theater kid.

🚫 Momma’s boy

I’m certainly closer with my mother than my father, but I wouldn’t consider myself a momma’s anything. Maybe momma’s disappointment, but she’d argue against that.

☑️ Causes problems on purpose :)

Listen. Not. Not always. But I do sometimes, occasionally go looking for trouble. When it suits me. Or when I’m bored.

☑️ Touch-averse

Marked this one off because I think it happens enough to be noteworthy. I range from touch starved to touch-averse (*cough cough* just like Alastor) and sometimes I cannot stand to have people’s hands on me, even if they’re someone I love. My skin just crawls and I feel trapped. Also like Alastor (well, pilot!Alastor, anyways), being the one to initiate/control the touch helps, sometimes. There are also parts of me that are just super sensitive to touch in a bad, overstimulate-y way, always. Nobody touch my feet ever, please and thank you. A pedicure sounds like a torture session.

☑️ Edgy Deviantart OC-energy

I have vaguely emo fashion and BPD. I’m like the mundane, humansona of an edgy OC.

☑️ God complex

If you’d asked me a few months ago, I wouldn’t have selected this, but hypomania is a helluva drug. While in the “I can do ANYTHING” phase of my hypomanic episodes, I have persistent delusions of um. Actually being able to do anything. Like thinking I don’t need to eat. That, plus the control freak stuff in the next explanation is enough to count it for me.

☑️ Control freak whose life is out of control

My life has pretty much always been out of my control, and I think that’s what made me such a control freak. I desperately want to keep my life, myself, my image, and my living space in a very particular shape, and I am thwarted at every turn by circumstance or my own incompetence. In the past, I have attempted to force other people’s hands to get what I want, and sometimes I still catch myself trying to play 5D chess with social interactions. I often have to stop in my tracks and go, “Hey. Wait a minute. I care about this person and they care about me. I should just be honest with them about what I want and why. I should have a conversation about it on equal footing, instead of trying to push them towards the outcome I want, nipping at their heels like a border-collie without enough enrichment herding the family cat.”

☑️ *disappears under mysterious circumstances*

*nervous laughter* This is not my first tumblr account. And it will most likely not be the last. I disappear under mysterious circumstances so often I dropped out of high school about it. No, I will not be elaborating on that! (It would ruin the mystery!)

☑️ Masks by smiling

Once upon a time, there was a small child with big brown eyes and natural flat affect who got tired of hearing, “you look sad :(” “why are you sad?” “you know it takes more muscles to frown than to smile! :)” Sick of the grownup’s shit, the child learned to mask their flatness of affect by over-exaggerating their expressions (including their resting face and smile), and still does so to this very day. I look like a fucking cartoon character, but I get way fewer assholes telling me to smile.

☑️ Prey animal rage

My partner and I often joke that I am “prey animal-coded,” because of my exaggerated startle reflex and general anxiety (I even have a disorder about it!) and I am in fact, full of rage. My rage, like my need for control, often comes from a place if desperation. When I get into fights, it’s either because of a threat to my/someone else’s wellbeing, or a perceived threat. And I’m working on that last one, as well as trying to figure out when actual threats are fight-worthy and when it’d be more effective to play nice.

☑️ *bites you bites you bites you bites-*

I am extremely mouth-oriented. I bite to show affection, I bite to show frustration, I chew on objects and clothing and my own fingers. My parents had to change laundry detergents when I was a kid, because I would chew on my shirt collars and my mom was worried I was going to poison myself, so she picked the most non-toxic thing she could find. I tore buttons off once or twice, I think.

🚫 Predator fear

I actually don’t think I have this one? I was specifically referencing this tumblr post when I made the bingo card, and I would not consider myself “a successful hunter,” which is set up as the juxtaposition for prey animal rage. I identify somewhat with a few predator animals, but more like… • Caged tiger pacing its enclosure, suffering from zoochosis, descending into madness for humanity’s entertainment. • Under-socialized chihuahua shivering and shaking, more bark than bite – but only because its jaws are so small. • Declawed house cat who bites because that’s all it has left. Idk if that’s what op was going for or not, and I already had so many bingos that I just left it off, lol.

☑️ Thinks showing emotion equals weakness

I am working in it. As we say in DBT, my wise mind knows that showing emotion dies not equate to weakness; my emotion mind is still catching up. Humans are a social species. We’re supposed to be vulnerable with each other, we’re supposed to cover each other’s weaknesses. Part of the reason we have such expressive faces/voices/body language is to communicate emotions to other humans in order to ask for help. The very first thing we learn to do as babies is to cry. And yet, there is a small part of me that says, “Hm, no.”

☑️ Ace

No sexual attraction here! Took me a while to figure that out, because I was confusing aesthetic/sensual attraction with sexual attraction, and the conflation of sex and kink added a whole other layer to things, because I’m way more kink-favorable than sex-favorable. I consider myself a sex-oscillating, kink-favorable, stone top asexual as well as aegosexual, due to the disconnect between my attraction (0), the ways I engage with sex in fantasy (a lot, but not with me in it), and the ways I engage with sex irl (only in extremely limited and specific circumstances). This is like the only time you’re getting a full list and explanation of my ace labels all in one place out of me, so enjoy it, lol.

🚫 Knows how to dance

I did ballet and tap as a small child, and then avoided dancing as much as I could for the rest of my life. I have shit coordination and it makes me sad to have it on display like that.

☑️ “I would kill for you. Please let me kill for you.”

I mean, 1.) this is tumblr; we use absurd hyperbole here, 2.) I think if I was born a few generations ago when it was easier to get away with murder, I might’ve been literal about this. I don’t want to go to prison, and there are cameras everywhere now a days. But if things were still like John Mulaney’s

☑️ Violence is the answer

Sometimes it just is. Not always, but sometimes. Sometimes there are situations you just can’t peacefully negotiate out of.

☑️ Lies for fun

This kinda goes along with “Causes problems on purpose :)” but also, I firmly believe that acting is just artistic lying. And sometimes, I lie for necessity’s sake, but have fun doing it all the same.

☑️ Attention whore

If you can’t make your own self esteem, external validation is fine! (Haha, no it’s not; I am suffering.)

Inspired by @blitzwhore’s Helluva Boss bingo cards.

For a shuffled version, click here.

I’m planning on making more of these, so here’s the tag, in advance.

Posting a copy of the alt text under the cut for easy copy-pasting on mobile; please consider adding an ID to your card if you post it.

A blank 5x5 bingo card for Alastor from Hazbin Hotel; the columns are labeled with the letters B-I-N-G-O; column by column from left to right, top to bottom, they read: Column 1/B: Cannibalism as a metaphor for [blank]; Speaks in a learned accent; Aro; Food-snob with questionable tastes; Babygirl-coded Column 2/I: Theater kid at heart; Momma’s boy; Causes problems on purpose [analog smile emoticon]; Touch-averse; Edgy Deviantart OC-energy Column 3/N: God complex; Control freak whose life is out of control; [free space/picture of Alastor]; *disappears under mysterious circumstances*; Masks by smiling Column 4/G: Prey animal rage; *bites you bites you bites you bites-*; Predator fear; Thinks showing emotion equals weakness; Ace Column 5/O: Knows how to dance; “I would kill for you. Please let me kill for you.”; Violence is the answer; Lies for fun; Attention whore

#fanby’s fuckery #fanby adds #<- tagging both bc why not?#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor

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riiverstyyx-blog · 3 years ago

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can I have a ruggie oneshot please?

absolutely :]!

In which Ruggie Bucchi’s Gran helps him come to a realization.

Warnings: Tooth-rotting fluff, mentions of malnutrition, mentions of jealousy,

Song: Pretty Boy, The Neighborhood

normally, the feeling of his heart stopping would terrify him.

it feels as though everything is coming to an abrupt halt. he is frozen, and yet he is aware of the earth shaking beneath his feet. as if the tremors that escape his racing heart actively contain the ability to affect their surroundings. like the worlds light shifts and the gods smile down upon on him.

yes, this feeling is something he’s far too familiar with.

he can remember the overwhelming twist in hit gut, how the sweat enveloped his palms until it was all he could feel. most of all though, he can very clearly recall the embarrassing conversation he had with his gran a few weeks back.

ruggie originally assumed his malnutrition had finally gotten to him. that, or he got some sudden illness and would have to bribe leona to care for his family when he couldn’t afford to survive it.

so, when gran told him, ‘you aren’t dying, dear.’ he felt immediate relief. that was until she followed it up with, ‘you are in love.’

ruggie bucchi is a lot of things, but dumb isn’t one of them.

he could see the signs from a mile away. admittedly, he had just never experienced them for himself, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready too.

but he knew as soon as he saw the savanaclaw students staring at you like vultures do a dying morsel, he knew that he couldn’t allow any of their filthy hands to even enter your general vicinity.

ruggie isn’t clean himself - far from it actually. he just knows that in comparison to those beasts, which feels incredibly ironic coming from him, he is an alright option.

he has heard how they speak of you. how they talk of your body and not of your soul.

your name drips like venom off of their tongues, dangerously lingering in a cloud of fervor. he simply thinks they should not have the pleasure of even breathing in your direction, with all that they have done.

though, he will admit, if it had been anyone else that his dormmates craved - that they starved for - he likely wouldn’t have cared. it wouldn’t have been his problem. as long as it doesn’t interfere with his survivable, he will leave things alone.

you just so happen to interfere with his survival.

you are the cause for his fidgeting hands, his inability to properly pick-pocket exclusively because your eyes lingered on his a moment too long. the reason his devilish tongue can no longer appose any and all virtue. the source of his bouncing legs and speedy words.

it’s out the window with all his confidence, and that’s all because of you.

ruggie has long since been aware of that being a fact - he realistically can not see any other explanation for his feelings or thoughts, but after his chat with his gran, he was absolutely sure of himself.

when winter break came to an end and the student body begin to fill up the campus once more, he was quick to settle and track you down.

originally, he had assumed that would be a rather difficult task, but when he found himself bobbing and weaving through his peers, he realized how absolutely oblivious most of them were. he concluded that, if you were to reject him, he could still consider his journey a win, seeing as he got a pocket full of shiny knick-knacks out of it.

when his eyes finally fell onto you and your friends, he practically tore you from their grasp. ruggie was quick to ignore whatever words they shouted, and in turn offered them a half-hearted excuse that he doesn’t have any reason to remember.

vaguely, he is aware of your confused questions and concerns, but he simply laughs them off, telling you to ‘hold on, we’re almost there!’

‘there’ just so happen to be the empty library.

when he abruptly comes to a halt, your body collides with his, sending him to the floor with you on top of him. he was almost positive that you could feel his sweating palms.

his lips form a shaky grin as he gazes up at you. “so... do you come here often?”

he’ll consider your choked snort a win too.

“oh, i don’t think i do, but i could?”

it’s his turn to choke.

while you’re pulling yourself into a seated position, he is fighting to form a single coherent thought.

“what’s this about ruggie? y’know grim’s going to be pissed if you take the dorm key from us again.”

he blinks before laughing. “yeah, yeah. i know.” ruggie rolls his eyes. “that’s not what i brought you here for, i’ve uh-” he places his palm on the back of his neck, quickly grimacing and wiping it on his shirt. “-got something to tell you?”

you raise a brow. “why does it sound like a question? we can wait until you’re sure, i’m sure there’s no rush, right?”

oh, how wrong you are.

ruggie groans, rubbing one hand down his face while he ruffles your hair with the other, successfully taking your attention off of him.

“nah, it’s gotta happen now. i’m not sure what’ll happen if i wait.”

your hands part your hair just enough for your eyes to crack through, and his breath hitches. it’s now or never.

“-you’re beautiful.”

oh no. that wasn’t in the plan.

“ruggie?”

his ears go down, nearly pinning themselves to the side of his head as the heat rises, his eyes coming back to you.

“listen,” he starts, fiddling with the bracelet on his wrist. “i like you, like a lot. i’m already pretty sure i’m not your type or whatever, but i just... had to tell you. and not just because my gran told me too.”

“you talked to your gran about me?”

he playfully gasps. “of course i did! the better question is who haven’t i talked to about you.”

ruggie is almost positive he can see a grin rising onto your lips, and he thinks the last time he felt this much relief was when you pulled him from leona’s overblot.

“well, do i have great news for you, mr. bucchi.” your grin widens, eyes shining. “i happen to think you’re quite neat as well, but i do have some bad news.”

his slowly rising ears are quick to drop, he’s lucky you spoke again before he broke the news to gran.

“-i do think my feelings for you are stronger than a ‘like’, probably closer to a ‘love’. so, if that’s not alright i uh-”

with a wagging tail and a laugh, ruggie leaps forward, pulling you into his arms as he places his face into your neck, muttering incoherent words.

your hand is quick to raise itself, scratching the back of his head with a smile. “you do know i have no idea what you’re saying, right?”

he pulls away slowly, eyes crinkling as he rubs his nose against yours. “i was saying thank you.”

you raise a brow. “what for?”

ruggie leans forward, placing a soft kiss on the corner of your lips as your eyes widen. “for saying the word ‘love’ first. it would have been like, super embarrassing if i told you i loved you and didn’t feel anywhere near the same.”

“you love me?” you gasp playfully, covering your reddened cheeks with your palms.

ruggie snorts, pushing your face away as you fall to the floor with a cackle.

he simply can’t get enough of you.

#Ruggie Bucchi #Ruggie Bucchi x reader #TWST #TWST Ruggie #Twisted Wonderland #Twisted Wonderland Ruggie #TWST Ruggie Bucchi #Twisted Wonderland Ruggie Bucchi

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thewertsearch · 3 years ago

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Yeah, I think what each individual Aspect ‘means’ is being left intentionally vague. Hell, the closest thing we ever got to a Title explanation came from Jaspers, which says it all, really.

Let’s take a quick look at the kids’ four Aspects, through the lens of the Players who embody them.

Breath is not a traditional element. Wind is, but Hussie chose Breath, which feels very deliberate.

I think this is evidence that we’re supposed to be looking at Aspects symbolically, because Breath is highly unlikely to be literal. I really don’t think John has powers that relate directly to people’s lungs - although that would be pretty funny, so I kind of want to be proven wrong.

Anyway, John has (maybe) done one thing with his Aspect - he (possibly) created a gust of wind. Not much to work with, but that, plus the name of his Land, does imply that this is indeed the Wind-substitute element. There’s definitely more going on with Breath, though - because, again, it could have just been called Wind.

Rose ‘likes’ LOLAR, but she’s generally more into shadows. Why did the game assign her the Aspect that seems like her natural opposite?

Jaspers, uh, tries to explain, but it’s all sort of mixed up.

JASPERSPRITE: [...] you are what some people around here call the Seer of Light. JASPERSPRITE: And you dont know what that means but you will see its all tied together! JASPERSPRITE: All the life in the ocean and all the shiny rain and the songs in your head and the letters they make. JASPERSPRITE: A beam of light i think is like a drop of rain or a long piece of yarn that dances around when you play with it and make it look enticing! JASPERSPRITE: And the way that it shakes is the same as what makes notes in a song! JASPERSPRITE: And a song i think can be written down as letters. JASPERSPRITE: So if you play the right song and it makes all the right letters then those letters could be all the letters that make life possible.

So Light is... music? It’s vibration? Thought? String? Language? DNA?

There’s a throughline here of information, but that’s clearly riffing on Rose’s role as a Seer, a role which revolves around information. None of this really explains Light - if anything, it sounds like Jaspers is struggling to relate Rose’s Quest to her Aspect, and I’m no clearer on what it really means.

It might not mean anything, or - and this is a possibility I’ve been considering for a while - it might mean whatever its Player thinks it means. Players shape the Medium through their prototypings, so maybe they shape their own elemental system the same way, and Jaspers is deliberately being vague so that Rose can make her own judgement about what Light ‘is’.

Anyway, this one is weird, because I think Jaspers is talking about Rose’s Class as well as her Aspect, and I can’t untangle the two yet. I think I’ll table the Rose Light Analysis until we get another Light Player, and we can compare and contrast.

Time seems pretty cut-and-dry - it symbolizes time. Dave’s a Time Player, so he’s the time traveler of the group, he’s the one messing with timelines, and he’s the one who’s going to have the most time duplicates floating around. If Time is more than that, we haven’t seen it.

Dave's settled into his Aspect better than anyone - although it is notable that he doesn’t seem to have any time powers, as such - he’s just using an item.

If Time is straightforward, then Space should be too, right? But Jade’s Aspect seems like the complete opposite of what her deal is, even more so than Rose. Jade was literally the team seer for a thousand pages - she was all about Time, and hasn’t really done anything that relates to space.

Rose is the one with an observatory, and John is the one with a telescope. Maybe Jade will get a teleportation item during her alchemy binge, and we’ll see the Witch of Space start to put her Aspect to use.

#asks #full liveblog #act 5 #classpect #homestuck liveblog #theories

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neonun-au · 4 years ago

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for old times’ sake | kwon soonyoung

pairing: kwon soonyoung x reader genre: soulmate au (ish), fluff, angst (?) warnings: none word count: 1.5k completely unedited

i have no explanation for this, it completely overtook me.

“For old times’ sake,” he used to say with a wink and a coy smile. And you would always give in. You would have anyway, but somehow any mention of your lengthy past together just made the decision to comply with whatever whim he had even easier.

“For old times’ sake,” he would say, and then you would find yourself on a skateboard in the middle of the road at night despite the fact that you had to work in the morning, or the fact that you were maybe too old to be skateboarding in residential roads at 2:00am, or the fact that he would laugh at you every time you fell (before hoisting you up and planting a soft kiss to your forehead, of course.)

Soonyoung did a lot of things “for old times’ sake”. As much as he liked to pretend he wasn’t the sentimental sort, anytime you pulled up your old photos together from college (or your second date, or that one time you took a spontaneous road trip to the sea), you could see the memories welling up in the corners of his eyes. So needless to say, this sort of sentimentality–paired with his general carefree spontaneity–fuelled a lot of his ideas.

Even now you remember fondly the time he talked you into a three-hour long train ride north of the city to visit an ice cream shop he remembered going to as a kid. It wasn’t until you arrived that you realised he had not so much as googled the address and you just ended up wandering around a town you had never been in–lost and in love–until the next train home arrived. He apologized once–while you stood in line at the convenience store, arms full of snacks–and washed away any vague annoyance you might have felt with a smile and a hug.

It was never easy to be mad at him. Not in the beginning of the relationship when he would forget you had plans and show up an hour late drenched in sweat and remorse. It didn’t take long to figure out that his scattered thoughts were all well intended regardless, and you didn’t really need to watch that movie anyway. Instead you spent most of your time together wandering aimlessly by the river, hand in hand, talking as if you had all the time in the world.

It wasn’t easy to be mad at him even when he flubbed his vows–stumbling over each word in such eagerness that you were halfway convinced you had committed to marry a puppy in a human suit. Instead it made the ceremony one to be remembered. Soonyoung with his wide eyes and wide smile, grinning in front of you bedecked in a suit and tie and more put together than you had ever seen him in your life.

You couldn’t be mad at him when he forgot your anniversary. He was always so busy, and he more than made up for it–showering you in attention and love. An explosion of your favourite flowers, music, songs, kisses. Anything and everything you wanted or needed, he was willing to give.

You couldn’t even be mad at him when the relationship eventually broke down. Tired minds and tired eyes meeting over the dinner table in silence (something so uncommon for Soonyoung), trying their best but unable to manage. Two hearts drifting apart on the river of life, untethered and unstable. You wanted to be mad at him. Wanted to blame him, to accuse him, to hate him–anything to find a reason for everything that was happening–but you just couldn’t. If anything it was mutual. If anything you were more mad at yourself.

So you let yourself drift. You let yourself make new memories devoid of him. Devoid of his laughter, of his smile, of his love. And you can only assume, from what you heard, that he did the same.

You moved cities–found a new job, a new home, new friends. Took your own spontaneous road trips, and carved out your own happiness from the rock of sadness that had settled into your heart during the separation. They say time heals all, but it doesn’t really. Some things cannot be healed. It’s more accurate to say that time adapts. That love that you felt for him for all of those years was still there–it just had to find a new shape inside of you, and you had to find a new shape around it.

But sometimes something would remind you of it. A song on the radio, a tiger print shirt in the department store. At first it brought you nothing but a bitter wave of sadness; but overtime that too adapted. Soonyoung was always there in those moments, but he was smaller. Overtaken by new people, new lives, new loves. Sadness flowed into a heartwarming remembrance.

Remembrance that smacked you full on in the face one day when you chose to take that spontaneous train ride to a vaguely familiar town in search of something you felt you lost once. Maybe it was fate–maybe it was luck–but something drew you back there all those years later. The sleepy town still nestled into green hills, still alive with the idyllic countryside hustle and bustle that you remembered.

With a strange feeling that you were walking in old footsteps, you wandered through street after street–searching for what, you weren’t sure, you were just trusting this strange urge that kept pushing you forward.

It reminded you of Soonyoung, honestly. Sometimes his ideas were so out there you couldn’t help yourself but question him:

“Why are we doing this? Where are we going?”

He would shrug and throw you a wide grin before answering, “just trust me.” Jeonghan used to tell you years ago that Soonyoung was driven on pure instinct–like a child, or a dog–and while he was mostly saying it to tease the both of you, you did start to believe it after a while. Things just seemed to find him–luck, money, adventure. It was like he was magnetized to the world.

In retrospect now, you don’t know how you didn’t know that that was what was happening. That when you felt the strongest pull and turned one final corner back towards the train station he would be standing there. Looking mostly peaceful with a tinge of confusion. You don’t know how you didn’t know it was him pulling you there all along–that you were always going to be pulled back to him one way or another.

You did know that when you saw him, it felt like the first time he had rushed towards you after a long time apart. You had been overseas for a study abroad while he stayed behind to focus on music and dance. It all felt so cinematic at the time–your carry on hit the ground with a thud as he hoisted you in his arms. The tightest hug, the sloppiest kiss. Nothing but laughter and happy tears during the cab ride back to your apartment while you regaled him with stories you had already texted him about and he filled you in on everything that had happened in the friend group while you were away. During that initial hug in the arrivals section of the airport, it felt like the wind had been knocked out of you.

The same feeling returned to you standing in that small, vaguely familiar town, as you stood stock-still staring at the back of his head. A part of you itched to flee–to run in the opposite direction, but you knew you couldn’t even if you tried. It had been maybe 5 or 6 years since you last saw him, but as he turned around to face you–his expression taking on one that mirrored how you felt–he looked exactly as you had on the day you met him in college. Fresh faced and slightly bewildered. Your favourite.

And then he smiled. And maybe that was your favourite after all. For that was how you knew him best, for all of those years you spent together. A smile and a laugh. Soonyoung could always be counted on for a smile and a laugh.

Whatever urge you had to run melted out of your body and into the earth as he began to approach you–still grinning, but the closer he got the clearer you could see the mist of remembrance in his eyes as well. That old sentimentality rearing its head.

“What are you doing here?” he asked you with a laugh as he approached and it took everything inside of you not to fling yourself into his arms in spite of everything.

“I don’t know,” you answered back–your own bewildered laugh escaping along with the words. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know,” he laughed again and this time you really did throw your arms around him. It took him slightly off guard, and you could feel him lose balance for a second before he could right himself. Before he could wrap his arms back around you. He smelled different–a new cologne–but he felt the same. The same warmth, the same shuddering laughter shaking his frame as you clung to each other.

“Do you want to get some ice cream?” he asked as you parted; dazed and confused but happy nonetheless.

“For old times’ sake?” you added, causing another peal of laughter to light up the air between you.

“For old times’ sake.” he nodded.

#svt #seventeen #caratblrclub #kwritersworldnet #kpopscape #svt x reader #seventeen x reader #soonyoung x reader #hoshi x reader #svt scenarios #seventeen scenarios #hoshi scenarios #hoshi fluff #seventeen fluff

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veliseraptor · 3 years ago

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AU ask: 5 headcanons about your reluctant shishi-verse!

oooh this is a fun one. okay, haven't been in this au for a while but here goes

so Xiao Xingchen doesn't know what's going on, obviously, but he knows something is going on, and I think he...doesn't know about Song Lan but he has some vague memories that mostly feel like those dreams you sort of remember but don't really, and also has always had a vague feeling of somebody missing who should be around but he always just kind of chalked it up to general loneliness, and it did get better when he started seeing Xue Yang, so. but after the most recent fic he definitely suspects something, and he's much more inclined than Xue Yang is to look for or think of a supernatural explanation, though I don't think he has one yet. but he does know this all feels very funny.

there is a distinct possibility that as Xue Yang gets more and more paranoid and desperate to figure out who the fuck Song Lan is and why he keeps lurking around and what he wants that he will put together that Song Lan shows up when he's in trouble for whatever reason and, like, walk in front of a car because it's the only way he has of fucking finding the guy and talking to him. it's not out of the question. he'd definitely at least think about it.

he doesn't even consider the idea that this is a friendly thing. doesn't buy that for a minute. he knows the vibes he's getting off Chinese Batman and they aren't positive! this is a guy who keeps saving his life but consistently gives off "desperately want to murder you" vibes. it's very confusing and makes no sense and honestly that's one of the more concerning things about this whole bizarre situation, other than the fact that he knows, intuitively, that he has to keep Chinese Batman and Xiao Xingchen from interacting with each other because something undefinedly awful will happen if they do.

Song Lan, meanwhile, is just. having a time of it. I mean, obviously, he's been having a time of it for a long time now, he's spent more of his life having a time of it than otherwise, but this is a new level! and also he is concerned that his "I am doing this for Xingchen's happiness only" line is maybe not a good enough explanation, and he sort of wonders if Xue Yang is still somehow fucking with his head even though he's not a demonic cultivator anymore, and he kind of hopes that's it because all the other potential explanations are worse.

also now his problem is that Xue Yang seems to be actively trying to stay on the (more or less) straight and narrow (or at least the less violently illegal) and now he doesn't have an excuse to stalk him anymore, particularly since Xue Yang seems hellbent on tracking him down, which is problematic in a lot of ways, and really Song Lan should just move on and go somewhere else but that would mean leaving Xingchen again even though he's not even technically with Xingchen, just kind of hovering awkwardly in his vicinity, and-

(like I said, having a time.)

honestly though I really do feel for Xiao Xingchen in all of this because he's got all of the anxiety about his risk-taking boyfriend generally and the "something is going on but I have no clue what" confusion of Xue Yang and none of the context that Song Lan has for any of it.

#conversating #silvysartfulness #i feel like i want to revisit this one but i'm not sure where to take it exactly #aggressively headcanons #i feel like i had a tag for these but idk what it was anymore #song lan #xue yang #xiao xingchen #the sad queer cultivators show

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drwcn · 4 years ago

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ok but for fem!wwx au does lan zhan believe the rumours? and if so what does that mean for the whole 'i birthed him with my own body!' cause lan zhan did the maths and was like 'no it was just the once and this child is too old' but if he thinks he was just one in a line does he go back to bm after nightless city to rescue a kid he thinks is wei ying's but with another man? does he spend the three years in seclusion cursing every jin whose name he remembers as cowards only to step out, take one look at sizhui, and have an 'oh. i know why wei ying was so determined to save wen qionglin' moment???

Answer: Haha, nah, Lan Wangji was fairly sure Sizhui wasn’t Wei Ying’s, for several reasons. One, Wen Yuan was born before the wen remnants even went to the Burial Mount. Lan Wangji saw the small child amongst the escape party that rainy night at the concentration camp. Also, Wen Ning was several years younger than them, which would make it kind of weird if he were the dad. Before Wen Ning became the Ghost General, everyone just knew him as Wen Qing’s kid brother. Lan Wangji, however, absolutely believed Jiang Yan to be Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s child even before Wei Wuxian was resurrected...

《the midnight sun》 —

[original], snippets [x] [x] [x] [x], other posts found under #lanyan or #midnight sun

midnight sun [snippet 7]

When Yan’er turned ten, Jiang Cheng decided it was time for her to accompany him to Cultivation Conferences. Most sect heirs began their training this way; Jiang Cheng still remembered his first time, trailing nervously in Jiang Fengmian’s wake.

Heiresses, in comparison, were few and far between. Even head disciples were rarely girls. Jiang Wanyin had no children. His head disciple was his heiress, and his heiress was Jiang Yueqian (江月千).

长烟一空 - when the smoke clears; 皓月千里 - the moon casts a thousand miles of light 浮光跃金 - which dances upon the water, golden 静影沉壁 - the shadow of the moon itself like jade underwater*

A jade underwater indeed.

“Shifu.”

Speaking of the devil, here she comes, walking measuredly down the long stairs of Jinlintai towards Jiang Cheng, the epitome of an obedient, filial disciple. It had only been a day and Jiang Yan already had the world fooled. Only Jiang Cheng knew how impossibly obstinate and utterly uncontrollable she was when her mind was fixed.

"Ah, Jiang-zongzhu, this is..." Spotting her, Lan Xichen glanced beyond his shoulder, the question dangling in the sentence he did not deem necessary to finish.

Unbeknownst to Lan Xichen, the child that made her way over was his niece by blood. Jiang Cheng was acutely aware that Yan'er actually resembled Lan Wangji a great deal, and despite having weighed the risks and gains against each other repeatedly before deciding to bring Jiang Yan along, now he was no longer so certain in his calculations. Lan Xichen was not a simple peasant; what if he detected a trace or a hint of her heritage between the furrow of her brows or the curve of her eyes? What if...

Jiang Cheng turned, raising an arm towards Jiang Yan, an introduction ready, but whatever words he had prepared in advance died on on his tongue when he laid eyes on the girl. Suddenly, he was no longer worried that others would suspect her to be Lan Wangji's child.

There was a red ribbon in her hair.

Yan'er stopped at a polite distance from the two older men and bowed in perfect form.

Jiang Cheng's heart stuttered violently in his chest at the sight of that red ribbon falling sideway over her small shoulder. If souls could travel, his would have left him in an instant. He stood in disincorporated panic, wrestling with the nauseating sensation of being ripped from his reality and tossed so far into the distant past that he felt whole again.

"Shifu, Lan-zongzhu." Yan'er greeted.

Shifu. Lan-zongzhu. In another world, another life, she would not need to be so formal. She could easily bound up to them, carefree, cooing jiujiu and bobo and ask to be bailed out from whatever trouble she caused.

Instead, he was only her shifu, and Lan Xichen, a stranger in her life. It would be laughable, if fate had not dealt them each such a wretched hand.

Jiang Cheng stepped towards her. “Where did you get this?”

Jiang Yan looked up in surprise, her hand reaching up and making an aborted motion to touch the red ribbon in her hair.

“Qin-shenshen gave it to me. Is it not nice?”

Qin Su. Jiang swallowed down a sigh of relief. Earlier, the Jin servants had sent word that Jin-fu'ren had baked treats for Jin Ling, and the boy had wasted no time dragging his favourite person - his Yan'er jiejie - to his aunt's place with him. Clearly, Qin Su had seized the opportunity to dote on the girl in place of the daughter she never had. Qin Su meant well. She couldn't have known. She's never even met Wei Wuxian.

In this state, Jiang Cheng could barely bring himself to look at his disciple, but he forced himself nonetheless to kneel and tuck an errant strand of baby hair behind her ear. “Very pretty.”

Yan'er smiled.

Jiang Cheng could cry.

They'd been lucky thus far. Yunmeng's Jiang-xiao-guniang was born a taciturn girl who did not like to smile or laugh, not even when she was expected to for polite society. Whether she was happy or sad, one would be hard pressed to tell. Only in front of her master Jiang Cheng or her Jin Ling-didi did she elect to reveal the full expanse of her emotions. Yet, whenever Jiang Cheng bore witness to that smile as warm and incandescent as sunlight, he could not help but shudder somewhere deep. Recalling the radiant days of years gone by, he could still see - every time he closed his eyes - his er-shijie smiling at him in the very same fashion.

Aiyo, Jiang Cheng ~

So...they'd been very lucky thus far, that Yan'er was not so like her mother in that way, not so free and generous with her smiles. Or else this devastating secret —Wei Wuxian's only wish — would not be able to withstand the test of time.

"Very pretty, Yan'er." He reaffirmed. "Did you thank Jin-furen?"

"I did."

Jiang Cheng stood and turned back to face Lan Xichen, and realized they were being joined by two others: Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji. The latter of two stared directly down at Jiang Yan, visibly stricken and unblinking, as though he'd just seen a ghost. After all, he had often been on the receiving end of that signature smile once upon a time. It was probably not a smile he'd ever expected to see again in this life.

In hindsight, perhaps Jiang Cheng should have made Yan'er wear her uniform like all the other disciples instead of her favourite indigo robes.

“Ah, Wangji, shufu -” Lan Xichen was quick to react, sensing animosity brewing in the disquiet that stretched taut between his younger brother and his fellow sect master. "Jiang-zongzhu, perhaps you would introduce us?"

The First Jade smiled kindly down at Yan'er. She returned his kindness with a polite nod.

Lan Wangji finally dragged his gaze up to meet Jiang Cheng's, a rarity since their violent parting at Nevernight. The venerated Hanguang-jun had developed a habit of pretending that Jiang Wanyin of Lotus Pier did not exist at all. He probably preferred, dreamed of it even, if Jiang Cheng had been one to fall of the cliff that day. He probably hated himself for not shoving him into the molten abyss when he could to avenge the love of his life.

Love. What did Lan Wangji know of love? Jiang Cheng sneered inwardly. One did not compromise one's love and abandon her, ill and with child, to bleed out alone in a cave tainted by demonic spirits.

One did not watch idly as one's love and her people are reduced to ashes for the power and greed of men either....

Jiang Cheng buried the offending thought, too familiar with Wen Qing's ghost that still haunted him in his moments of weakness. Without breaking gaze, he laid a hand on the crown of Jiang Yan's head and said, "This is my first disciple, Jiang Yan, Jiang Yueqian."

"Yueqian greets Zewu-jun, Lan-lao-xiansheng, Hanguang-jun."

Jiang Cheng watched as the icy fire within Lan Wangji's eyes flicker, fizzle, and extinguish entirely. Jiang Cheng's vague silence had allowed him the space to make his assumptions, and he had assumed the most insane explanation.

Is it so difficult for you, wondered Jiang Cheng. To believe that she could be yours? So impossible, that you would choose to doubt Wei Wuxian instead?

Fine.

Hanguang-jun. The venerated Second Jade of Gusu. That's all you'll ever be. Yan'er will never call you Father.

Jiang Cheng decided he had spent enough time today making nice. "Zewu-jun, it's getting late. If nothing else, I will be taking my leave. The conference continues tomorrow. I will see you then. Yan'er, come."

Yan'er bowed again to the senior cultivators, perfectly well-mannered. A dash of surprise crossed those bright eyes, however, when Jiang Cheng took her hand to lead her away. She followed wordlessly, trusting him, and did not look back once at the Lans she left behind.

Now that Yan'er was out in society, there would surely be rumours. No matter. Rumours were nothing Jiang Wanyin could not withstand. How ironic, indeed, that this was to be his lot in life.

For the first time, Jiang Cheng felt he could understand his father.

Note:

The poem is from the Song dynasty, by poet 范仲淹 from his work 《岳阳楼记》

Jiang Cheng of course is also working off a lot of assumptions about Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji's relationship. He has his reasons for hating and blaming Lan Wangji, but not all the blame is deserved.

#Anonymous #corie replies #cql #the untamed #lanyan #midnight sun #corie fics #cql ficlet #yes jiang cheng stringed enough brain cells together to come up with a half decent name #ly7

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asexual-abomination · 4 years ago

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Hi 🥺 I saw requests were open? Could you maybe do platonic Phantom Troupe with the reader having echolalia? If the troupe is too much, maybe just Chrollo and Feitan? Thank you in advance 🥺

Thank you so much for this request! I had a lot of fun writing it!

I know that echolalia and a lot of other symptoms show up differently in different people, so I had to base this on my own experience, and I have a tendency to echo literally anything, words, sounds, rhythms, anything.

I decided to have this take place in a scenario where reader copies each member individually!

Chrollo

Probably the one who has read up on any and all of your symptoms, since he considers it his responsibility to be educated on your needs

When, after you happened to be sat in a meeting with the Troupe, you began muttering to yourself, he wanted to see if you were alright

As he walked up to after, hoping to speak with you, he was surprised to see you repeating a seemingly innocuous phrase from somewhere in the middle of the meeting

Chrollo would recognize this as a stim, but he wouldn’t understand immediately why you would be stimming something he randomly said

He would be a bit thrown off when your explanation is very simple, telling him that it just sounded right, felt right in your brain

He wouldn’t tell a soul, but a little part of him was proud that you found his voice that nice to listen to that you’d imitate it for fun

He definitely doesn’t mind, and even encourages any stimming in general, since he can see that it makes you happy

Machi

While most of her medical training is in more physical things, after it was mentioned that you were autistic, she decided to go and top up her knowledge of neurodivergency.

At one point during a mission, she murmured to herself to remember a safe’s code, not realizing that she was within earshot of you

Several hours after the mission was over and everyone was celebrating the spoils of victory, she overheard you repeating the code to yourself over and over again

She expressed her confusion to you, reminding you that the mission was over and there was no need for the code anymore

When your response was to tell her that the code simply sounded nice, she would probably get confused for a moment

Machi doesn’t quite understand how some random string of numbers can ‘sound nice’ but she also knows that your brain functions differently from hers

I don’t see her making too big a deal out of it, but she’d actually make a sly comment about how much you listen to her

Other than that, she happy to let you stim as you please!

Phinks

Probably not educated at all about the intricacies of your stimming or any symptoms in general, but he'll never get upset with you, since he understands on some level that it's just how you are

I'd imagine that the way you'd echo from him miiight come from overhearing him death threatening a scared hostage

Definitely spooks him when he hears you mumbling the harshest and longest string of curses he's ever heard

Mostly because you're spitting the words with the exact same tone as he did, and he thinks that you're trying to threaten him

(He doesn't wanna mess with you 😆)

When he finally figures out that you're copying him, he jumps to the next conclusion that you're mocking him

"What? Am I not intimidating to you? I sure scared that scum back there!"

"What are you talking about?"

His face when you explain yourself to him is nothing short of flustered, and he begins profusely apologizing

He gets super caught up whenever he's accidentally ableist, since he wants you to feel safe around him

Once you've cleared up the situation, he actually takes joy in seeing you copy him, and if he gets the chance he'll want to teach you how to be more intimidating

Uvogin

Another case of not really knowing what stims are, but being respectful of them anyway

I mean, man is literally eight feet tall, he doesn't care about whatever weird things anyone else might do

He roars at the back of his throat once, and that's it

When he's walking past you after a mission, Uvo's almost shocked to hear you making a vague growling noise constantly

Since he likes to lean into his animal side a bit more than others, he'll jokingly ask if you're trying to intimidate him, much like Phinks

When you explain to him to you thought that his roar was fun enough to copy, he also takes an odd sense of pride in it

He's not normally a man for any kind of subtlety, but if you actually found his roars pleasing to listen to, he'll see if he can roar at a volume that won't immediately burst your eardrums without protection or distance

If you do a lot of vocal stimming in general, especially imitation of his roars, I can see him taking you out to some mountain or cave or whatever to practice your roar for some fun bonding

Nobunaga

Okay so we know that he spends plenty of time around Machi, so she's probably explained some of the main symptoms of your autism at some point when he asked

But when he sits next to you and hears you trying to imitate the sounds that his sword makes when he charges it with his Nen, he looks at you incredulously for a moment

You may not have even noticed that you were echoing at first, so you'll probably be confused when you see him looking at you

"Oh, sorry, your sword just sounds nice!"

*Cue even further confusion from him*

Completely doesn't get how a sword sounds nice, but kind of has this "You do you, kid" attitude about it

May or may not invite you to listen to his practice and then wait until afterwards to listen for your echoes because he finds it cute

Shizuku

Okay I'm gonna be honest, when Blinky first appeared in show and made that noise, I was taken and kept trying to make the same noise for hours whenever it appeared

"Shizuku, why did you summon Blinky? Is something wrong?"

"What are you talking about? I didn't summon them?"

"Oh that was me, sorry."

Definitely has a giggle about it when she finds that you enjoy echoing her Nen ability

Will summon Blinky whenever you want to 'have a chat' with them

Very openly thinks you're absolutely adorable with it, and it's one of the first things she'll do every time she gets to see you

Shalnark

Honestly, he says everything with such a happy, upbeat tone, anything he says can be copied for fun

His laugh is the best, so you're probably echoing that

He's probably not too shocked when he hears an attempt his own laugh coming from down the hallway, thinking someone's trying to play a prank on him

But he'll be a little confused when he finds you

When you reveal the truth of what you were doing, oh god, be prepared

"Aww, you like my voice that much??"

"You do a pretty good impression of me, must spend a lot of time listening, huh?"

He WILL NOT stop until he gets to see you blush, though if he does overstep and upset you, he'll tone it back down immediately

Might not change anything especially big with his usual way of talking, but will take a moment to appreciate his own voice whenever he catches you imitating him

Bonolenov

THE MUSIC!!

Okay I know that they're mainly used for battle and injuring people's ears, but he definitely has more calm songs that he plays for his friends

When you first hear it, the tunes are so enchanting that you will be humming or whistling it for weeks afterwards

He's sitting and relaxing when he hears you attempting to hum the tune of a sweet lullaby he had once played for the Troupe

It's probably not a perfect replication, since it takes a while to learn the songs he makes, but it makes his heart melt to think that you want to try your hand at his beloved music

When he overhears you, he jumps in to begin gushing about the song you found so lovely

Asking if you'd like to hear it again - he'd certainly love to play it for you again!

He might seem really overexcited, but he's genuinely happy that he can bring you joy with his ability

Franklin

Took me a moment to think of something for him, but after a while of thinking:

He speaks slowly and calmly quite often, so I can imagine that he can sometimes say things in very rhythmic fashion, which will catch on very quick

You're walking away from a quick chat with him, when he hears you whispering under your breath

Normally wouldn't even make a note of it, but he wants to make sure you're okay

(Definitely isn't worried about you and wanting to keep you safe)

His reaction when you tell him that you liked the way that he said something is a mix between "Oh, that's nice" and "What are you on about"

Has probably the least amount of education on stimming, but also one of the most open to learning, since he wants to do what he can to keep those he cares about safe and happy

Will be a bit put off by the way you seem to copy him at first, but definitely doesn't mind after a while

Silently thanks you for making him take a moment to appreciate his own voice

Pakunoda

Sweetheart hums a meteor city anthem one day, and isn't really shocked when she comes upon you humming it yourself

Since she's looked into your mind with her ability, she knows the way that you like to echo certain sounds, and doesn't mind at all

If she's listening from around a corner or such, she will smile joyfully and quietly wait out of your sight

Unless you catch her in the act, she's actually quite happy to not let you know of presence while she enjoys the thought of you enjoying her culture

But, if you do catch her, she'll probably start gushing to you about the origin of whichever song you wanted to imitate

She wants you to feel happy, however you wish to pursue that, and will absolutely hype you up in any sort of stimming you need to do

Whether you want her to ignore your echoing, or to join in whenever she hears, she's happy to do whatever you ask to keep you happy

Feitan

If he catches you copying something he said in broken language, at first he will assume that you were making fun of him

Not because he thinks that you're mean spirited, just because he's used to people mocking

With most members of the Troupe, he would show no mercy at this point, but since he actually likes you, you get one chance to explain yourself

Once you tell him about why you're copying him, he'll be seriously confused for a moment

Yeah he's never heard the word echolalia before

So you'll have to explain it to him

Probably doesn't immediately get it, but he lets you off the hook for it, since he does understand that you're very different from him and the others

Doesn't really think too much of it once you've cleared up that you aren't mocking him, although he finds it interesting to listen to you talking about how stimming works, even when he doesn't understand half of it

Kortopi

Actually another case that assumes that you're mocking him

He's used to being acknowledged as a weak link in the Troupe, and would get quite internally upset if he thought you were also in on the joke

I can't explain why I think this, but I actually see him as one of the most educated members of the group when it comes to any sort of neurodiversity, since I think he's neurodivergent himself, but he probably doesn't catch on immediately that this stems from your own autism

Wouldn't confront you straight away, but when he does, he tries to be as professional as possible about it

Cue a string of quiet apologies when you explain yourself

Quickly tries to explain himself to you, and you probably bond over how annoying it can be to have stimming misunderstood

Tries his best to let you know from then on that any symptoms you need to express are accepted around him, since he knows that you accept him as well

-----

Thanks for reading!

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nemycchi · 5 years ago

Text

Enter the Deep Golden Ocean

A Childe X Lumine Fanfiction

Secret Santa gift to Dandeleon from the Chilumi Nation Discord

Tags : Eye Communication, Maskless Delusion Childe

Childe’s eyes, at first glance, seems fittingly dead.

For someone of his profession, Lumine does not wonder why this is so. Perhaps, years of witnessing various immoral deeds have snuffed the life out of them. Really, she is not anymore surprised.

What she is very interested in though, is the fact that even without the sheen in them, his eyes seem to tell a story of a thousand words. If she would describe it in some way, Lumine thinks that the ocean is the best descriptive to use. Deep, dark and mysterious. Precisely—maybe a storm in the sea, with the swirl of his blue depths expressing what he truly feels.

Now, do not get her wrong. She does not make it a habit to go staring at people’s eyes for a long period of time, but for her, it was just too easy to use his as a predictor of his emotions.

“Ojou-chan!”

Ah, speak of the devil and he doth appear.

The outlander turns around and her gaze automatically locks on to his. The sea of turmoil seems absent today. He’s quite… happy.

“Childe, what are you doing here?”

They are currently in Cuijue Slope and it is not common to come across this man in this place—away from his station at Northland Bank.

Lumine takes note of the way the dark blues of his eyes swirl in mirth before it closed and crinkled on the sides.

“No reason in particular, I just want to tag along!” he says in a sing-song voice.

She sighs. There is no purpose to shoo him away— after all, traveling alone can be quite lonely and she must admit that right now, without Paimon—for the little pixie decided to ditch her in favor of Xiangling’s food-filled adventures, she can feel the dredges of melancholy swimming quietly in her body already. Perhaps, things might get a little interesting with Childe around—what with the man’s penchant of bringing some kind of trouble wherever he goes.

“What are you up to anyway?” he snaps her back to reality.

“Oh, I was just about to go fight the Pyro Regisvine. I need some Agnidus Agates.”

She watches as the colors shift again at the mention of fight and she sighs once more. This fightsexual man.

“Well, what are we waiting for then? Let’s go kick that plant, ojou-chan!”

--**--

“Say, do you like staring at people this much or am I just a special case?”

Lumine chokes on the half-eaten Jade Parcel in her mouth at his sudden remark.

Picking up her tea, she sips slowly first, patting her chest lightly to soothe the pain from earlier. Upon setting the cup down, her gaze moves up to stare back at his.

There is definitely mischief swimming in those depths, but there’s also a challenge there as he tilts his head to the side as if testing to see if she will lie about her ‘habit’.

Two can play at this game.

The traveler spies the myriad of blue shades pass in a split-second when she returns the look in his eyes with her golden ones as she rests her chin on her palm propped on the table.

“What do you think?”

He obviously tries to fight the smile from appearing on his face but his eyes are a dead giveaway of what he feels right then. Lumine cannot be more thankful that she has learned to read his mood in another way than just his general demeanor for it makes challenges, such as this, way easier to pick up on her end.

“Come on, ojou-chan. How about you just tell me in return since I’m paying for this dinner anyway.” he playfully replies.

You already know, don’t you? What’s the use?

She knows that he knows that it is exclusively a thing she does reserved for him and him alone. The way his eyes regard her in that moment tells her that much.

Again, she is not one to go look directly into other people’s eyes but somehow, in some way, the deep blue ocean of his seems to pull her right in—asking hers to read, to understand that which lies beyond the azure abyss.

And so that is what she does most of the times. Does she like him enough to extend this much effort into knowing him? It is quite hard to tell. Maybe, maybe not. She does not want to put a name to the feeling but watching the way various shades of blue shift in his blank-looking gaze fills her with warmth.

“How about you try to pick up food successfully with your chopsticks first?”

“Ojou-chan!”

--**--

Yaoguang Shoal has been known to be quite a refreshing place to be in for peace and quiet and so, it is quite a surprise to Lumine when she finds Childe there, lying on one of the jutting rocks on the beach, holding a starconch to the sky in his hand.

Noticing her arrival, he sits up and acknowledges her presence with glee.

But his eyes tell a different story. He’s… conflicted.

“Hey there, ojou-chan! What brings you here?” the turmoil in the blue depths betray the smile on his lips.

Seeing that he isn’t about to share whatever the cause of his distress is with the way he greets her, she decides to drop it and not pursue it at all. The shadow of gratefulness for her avoidance flickered in his gaze for a second.

“Just collecting some starconches.” she mumbles, walking towards the closest one to her.

“Oh? What for?” he stands up and walks to her direction.

“No reason. It’s a habit.”

She notes how he slowed to a stop a few feet away from her. Lumine turns around and frowns when he avoids her stare and he instead looks out into the ocean, the pretense of being happy a ghost on his lips.

“Mhm. That reminds me. Aren’t you supposed to be with Zhongli-sensei for the finishing touches to the rite of parting?”

A cold breeze washes across the shore and she closes her eyes, feeling the moment.

“He’s away for some business right now.”

“I see.” his voice sounded a lot closer.

The outlander opens her eyes and was almost taken aback, not by the considerably shorter distance between them, but by the intensity with which his blue gaze regards hers.

There lies a question left unsaid.

“I see, then.” he uncharacteristically reiterates in a quiet manner.

Her eyes of gold unabashedly search his for some kind of understanding and for a reason she cannot quite explain, she feels as if she heard his voice through their connection.

‘When the time comes, will you be able to stop me?’

Lumine does not know what to think of that. Perhaps, she is just trying so hard that her mind came up with the most random explanation for the look in his eyes.

Instead of dwelling on it, she just hums and picks up the almost forgotten shell in the sand.

--**--

The ground cracks beneath her and she falls down, down, down below.

There she is, in Golden House, facing Childe—no, facing Tartaglia, the Eleventh Fatui Harbinger, in a battle set to decide the fate of Liyue. She vaguely remembers seeing a flash of purple before the floor collapsed and as she falls, Lumine is oddly reminded of that day in Yaoguang Shoal.

Perhaps, that really was the question hidden beneath his ocean eyes. Will you be able to stop me?

Can she?

She grunts as she slams against the cold, hard ground of the mint.

“Lumine!!!” she hears her fairy companion shout from somewhere behind her as a looming figure clad in an armor of grays and violets lands in front of her.

She abruptly stands back on her feet, sword in hand, as she raises her gaze to meet her enemy. Right there and then, she realizes how much she hates this situation she found herself in—not because of the blood slowly trickling down her arm. Not because of the fatigue thrumming in her veins. Not because of the sorry state of the Golden House.

But because of the unfocused and unreadable look in his stormy ocean depths.

She grips the hilt of her sword tighter, anemo and geo energy bubbling back up in her system. She hates this. She hates this.

With resolve, she charges ahead—a sole answer to a perhaps forgotten question burning across her golden eyes.

‘Childe… I will stop you.’

#genshin impact #childe x lumine #chilumi #genshin impact fanfiction

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shadow-assassin-blix · 4 years ago

Text

A Picture is a Poem without Words

Chapter 13

A/N: Canon typical violence. Some spice at the beginning but nothing too detailed. I rewatched ep 2x06 and realized that Marta’s husband is named Diego. For the purpose of this fic, and to create less confusion, I have called him Antony. Dress is number 10 found here. Gif from @scntacruz

Pacho tags: @yungkvte @mcrmarvelloki

Everything tag: @mikeisthricedeceased

It had been 3 days since Blix had woken up. She had gone through her antibiotics and was now able to move a bit more freely.

The stitches were going to be removed today, and she couldn’t wait for it. The stitches were itching terribly.

When the doctor finally arrived, she was practically bouncing in her seat. It didn’t take him long to remove the stitches, with a small warning of ‘don’t do anything too strenuous.’

He left a moment later, and Blix spent a few minutes gently stretching. It was about 10am and Pacho had briefly left to go give his men some orders for the day. He came back in as Blix was about to stand up.

Pacho moved over to her, slowly. He stood before her, his hands cupping her face. He leaned down kissing her firmly and passionately.

She kissed him back with as much as enthusiasm. She started to lay back down onto the bed, her hands gripping his silk shirt tightly as she pulled him down. Pacho pressed his body against hers, and one hand moving down her body, while his other buried itself into her hair.

“I believe you mentioned something about spending the day between my legs?” Blix murmured against his lips.

“I did indeed. I plan on doing exactly that. Cleared my schedule and everything,” Pacho joked lightly as he moved down to press kisses to her neck, nipping here and there.

Blix giggled lightly at that, a moan escaping her mouth as he bit a particularly sensitive area.

He paid intense attention to that spot, as his hand slipped under her cotton shorts. His hand slid past her panties, his fingers running up and down her slit.

She moaned lightly at his teasing, her hips jerking up wanting more. They removed their clothes with some urgency, the both of them sliding under the covers.

The two of them spent most of the day either chasing their highs or simply lying next to one another, enjoying each other’s company.

The next day rolled around and the two of them finally untangled themselves from each other. They showered and dressed, before heading downstairs.

Gilberto & Miguel were downstairs waiting for them discussing next steps.

“Ah. Blix, lovely to see you moving about more freely. I hope you are feeling better?” Gilberto greeted her cheerfully.

“Yes, much better. What are our plans?” Blix asked them as they walked into the dining room to have breakfast.

The four of them sat down to eat and talk. As Blix made her plate, Diego appeared next to her, and after quickly kissing her head, he sat down next to her. Blix smiled softly at him, telling him good morning.

Gilberto began to explain his thoughts to Pacho about next steps, as Blix checked her phone for missed calls. Upon seeing there was nothing there, she placed it on the table and listened to Gilberto.

“… Mrs. Moncada has reached out to Don Berna. I suspect she is attempting to make as many allies as possible to hurt Escobar. We will let her do whatever she pleases. Our priorities will be taking over his production lines and starve him of money,” Gilberto informed them.

“Where do we begin with that?” Blix asked him curiously.

“We’ve already begun. We are taking out his production sites, starting with the ones Mrs. Moncada informed us about to the ones Escobar doesn’t think we know about,” Miguel spoke up.

She nodded her head in understanding, glancing down at her phone when she saw it was going off. She answered it, standing up and strolling into the living room.

“Hey Javi, what’s up?” She greeted.

“We have a new colonel. Martinez. And the ambassador has insisted that DEA have an overseer. Messina. The ambassador is not too happy with any of the agencies currently. I would suspect he will be reaching out to you soon to bitch at you, just so you’re aware,” Javier warned her.

“Good to know. What’s Martinez like?” She asked him.

“An ass. Extremely by the book. I have never felt more frustrated with Search Bloc. Hell, I’ve never felt more frustrated in general. I… hmm. I have a terrible idea that may bite me in the ass later but… if it means Escobar goes down,” Javier said in an exasperated tone.

“What do you have planned Javi? Please don’t do anything stupid,” Blix begged him softly.

She knew from experience that Javier would have half-assed plans that usually ended up with him being in all sorts of trouble.

“I’m going to reach out to some CIs and go from there. That’s all you need to know. I’m not going to risk your career by telling you too much,” Javier’s voice lowered as he spoke.

“Javi…” Her tone turned admonishing.

“Anyway, when you find yourself back over in Bogota let me know. We can go on that date,” Javier stated somewhat loudly.

“Do not use me as your cover,” Blix growled at him, hearing chatter in the background.

“Yeah, see ya soon sweetie,” He ignored what she said and hung up.

“That motherfu-” She groaned staring down at her phone.

Blix sighed heavily, as she pocketed her phone, and running a hand down her face in frustration.

She returned to the dining room, re-taking her seat. The brothers had continued to talk out their plans with Pacho and she half listened to them. Blix was far too distracted to fully pay attention.

Halfway through one of Gilberto’s explanations his phone rang, and he answered it excitedly.

“Good morning Marta, light of my life. What can I do for you?” Gilberto greeted.

He listened to her for a moment, before passing the phone to Blix.

“She apparently wants to speak to you,” He stated as he held it to her.

Blix took the phone, “Hello Marta. What’s up?”

“Hi. I need help. We moved up the wedding and I am freaking out over what to do. My mothers are driving me nuts and I cannot stand their opinions no more. Please help,” Marta sounded close to tears as she spoke.

“Okay. Tell me where you are and I’ll be there,” Blix said calmly as she stood up again.

“I’m at my father’s favorite home, thank you so much,” Marta vaguely explained, hanging up.

“Uhh. Okay. Gilberto? Which of your 10 mansions do you consider your favorite?” Blix asked him as she placed his phone on the table.

“Navegante will take you. I assume it has to do with her wedding plans?” Gilberto waited for her nod. “I assumed so. She has been panicking over the plans for the past week.”

“Vagueness runs in the family I see. ‘Kay. Just gonna go grab my bag I guess… as I’m led to an unspecified location. Not like that ever turns out terribly for anyone in a horror movie,” Blix mumbled as she made her way upstairs to grab her bag and some shoes.

Blix, after grabbing her things, stepped outside and got into the waiting vehicle that held Navegante and Maurice.

It took about an hour and a half for them to get there. Blix stared up at the house with an eyebrow raised as she took in the grand home.

“This man…is ridiculous…” Blix said quietly, shaking her head.

Blix strolled up to the front door, smiling at Marta who was waiting for her.

“Alright. What’s wrong?” Blix asked her as they stepped in.

“So, a great deal of it is taken care of, but so many small details need to be taken care of,” Marta began leading her to the backyard porch, to a table that was covered in books and samples.

The two of them tackled each item: place settings, decorations, dresses, accessories and the like. The entire process took about 4 hours to get everything decided and ordered.

“Now, what else do we need to do?” Blix questioned her as they finished up.

“Well. I was hoping… would you be willing to sing our first dance song?” Marta quietly requested.

“You want me to sing… for your wedding?” Blix clarified, staring at her surprised.

“Yeah. I love the way you sing. Plus, I’m sure Pacho would love to hear you sing as well,” Marta teased lightly.

Blix shook her head at that, before replying, “I’ll sing one song. That’s it.”

Marta squealed happily and hugged her, yelling, “Thankyou!Thankyou!”

Later that week, while at Pacho’s place, the news reported the first murder committed by Los Pepes.

Blix quietly listened to the news report, glancing at the men around her who appeared unbothered by the grisly murder.

Blix slipped outside, as she called Javier. However, there was no answer, which said to her that he knew she’d be upset with what had happened and was avoiding her.

Over the next several weeks, Los Pepes became embolden and were murdering Escobar’s men left and right.

Gilberto drew the line when the latest macabre display took place at a Christmas light show, where small children saw the scene.

Gilberto attempted to reach out to Judy Moncada to talk to her and Don Berna about the murders. To tell them to tone them down.

Unfortunately, they no longer cared about the Cali Cartel; they were focused on exacting their bloody revenge on Escobar.

Blix spent most of that time helping Marta with wedding plans and getting the venue ready. The wedding was this weekend, and time was of the essence.

Marta insisted that everyone get their hair and nails done the morning of the wedding. Pacho, who was not expecting guests at 6am, stared at the bride to be with some confusion when she appeared in the doorway of his bedroom.

“Hello uncle! Can you please make sure Blix is up and downstairs in 15mins? We have a busy day today!” Marta said cheerfully.

Pacho raised an eyebrow at her, before glancing down at Blix who was buried in his blankets and pillows, Diego laying half on top of her.

“Was she aware of these plans beforehand?” Pacho inquired as he looked back at Marta.

Marta gave him a toothy smile, before disappearing.

“That’s a no,” Pacho answered to himself.

“My love? My beautiful shark? You have to wake up,” He gently spoke, kissing her shoulder.

“….why? wedding not until tonight?” Blix grumbled, shaking her head.

“I know but… Marta made plans apparently… and she’s downstairs waiting for you,” Pacho informed her, pulling the pillow she tried to hide under away from her.

Blix lifted her head up, eyes blearily staring at him.

“What do you think would happen if I said no?” Blix asked him, turning her gaze to the doorway.

“Marta would be upset, and cry which would then upset Gilberto and he would make you go through with it anyway using threats,” Pacho answered.

“… so my chances are good?” Blix questioned jokingly.

Pacho chuckled, “Get up. It won’t be that terrible. I’ll see you later on.”

Blix quietly crawled out from under Diego, who had flopped onto her back at some point during the night. Blix learned very quickly that Diego was the kind of person who very rarely slept in one spot all throughout the night and very much like to spread out and take as much of the bed possible.

Blix, who was crawling over Pacho to get out bed, mumbled, “This better not be terrible, or you are making this up to me.”

“I had already planned on it. I look forward to seeing you in the dress Marta picked for you. She says it’s quite… salacious,” Pacho teased her, kissing her on the cheek.

Blix simply rolled her eyes and changed out of her night clothes into some shorts and a tank top, with some flipflops. She wasn’t going to get overly dressed up for a day of hair and makeup. She stepped into the bathroom, brushing her hair and teeth. As she walked downstairs, she clipped on her shark necklace.

Marta smiled at her and said, “Good morning! We are going to have a wonderful morning and then tonight is going to be amazing!”

Blix smiled softly at her, still trying to wake up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

The next several hours were a whirlwind of hair, nails, and makeup. By the time, they were ready to put on the dresses, it was late in afternoon/almost evening and Blix was exhausted. They had arrived at the venue and were doing last minute preparations.

Blix had finally put on the dress that Marta insisted she wear, with red pumps to match. She stared at bejeweled bodice of it that had a nude material backing it to give it some modesty. The dress itself was made to fit her like a glove, so even without proper shoulder straps it was able to stay in place.

Her hair had been done up in a high bun, her makeup as bold as the dress.

“Marta, I thought all eyes were supposed to be on you? Not on me looking like I stepped out of a romance novel?,” Blix lightly joked.

“Ahh. The beauty of it is though… if all eyes are on you no one will pay attention if me and Antony slipped away for some alone time,” Marta whispered conspiratorially.

Blix chuckled at that, “I see. I’m the distraction.”

Marta nodded, causing the two of them to giggle some more. Marta turned and looked at herself in the mirror in her wedding gown, nervously running her hands over the material.

“What’s up?” Blix asked her, standing beside her.

“The wedding jitters everyone warned me about. I always thought I wouldn’t get them, because I love Antony so much. But I am feeling them now,” Marta responded, trying to take a deep breath.

“I’d say that’s pretty normal. This is a big step in your life. It’s not an easy one to take. No one would blame you if you decided to postpone. That boy worships the ground you walk on, and if you said you wanted to wait, he would do it. So, tell me. Do you want to wait, or do you want to go marry the man you love?” Blix posed the question to her, smile on her face.

Marta took a moment to calm herself before smiling and nodding at the mirror, “I don’t want to wait.”

“Alright then, I’m going to go take me seat. I’ll see you out there honey,” Blix stated as she stepped out into the hallway.

Gilberto stood nearby, waiting to walk her down the aisle.

“Hey, give her a minute. The wedding jitters have hit her. She may need some words of encouragement too,” Blix said to him, stopping in front of him.

“Ahh. I had a feeling they would hit her soon enough. I’ll go check on her,” Gilberto replied with a knowing smile. “Blix. If I may say so, you look beautiful. I get the feeling you are going to knock Pacho off his feet.”

Blix smiled, feeling her cheeks warm up as she made her way into the main hall. Her seat was next to Pacho near the front. She made her way down the aisle, spotting Pacho with Miguel and Antony.

Miguel was the first to notice her, and nudged Pacho on the arm, motioning to look her way. Pacho turned to look at her and stared at her in awe.

“Hi. We should probably take our seats, it should be starting soon,” Blix noted, as she got near them.

Pacho quietly led her to their seats, his eyes roving up and down her figure. He eventually leaned over, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“You look like a goddess in this dress. I cannot wait to see what it looks like on the floor as I worship you tonight,” Pacho whispered into her ear. “Who knows? I may not even wait till then.”

Blix cleared her throat softly, turning to meet his gaze. She gently gave him a kiss on the lips and whispered for him to behave.

He smirked at that, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, keeping her close to him.

The ceremony began 15 minutes later and lasted for about an hour. Pacho noticed during the ceremony, that Blix was not one who cried easily; many got teary eyed during the vows. He noted at one point that she had looked down at her own left hand, her gaze blank. He desperately wanted to know what was running through her mind, but knew he wasn’t going to get an answer anytime soon.

He reached over and held her hand in his, while the ceremony continued.

When it was over, they all headed to the reception to celebrate.

Miguel was the last family member to give a speech. Pacho looked around trying to find Blix, who had disappeared a few minutes after they had arrived.

“Good evening everyone,” Came her voice on the microphone. “For those of you who don’t know, my name is Blix. I am a friend of Marta’s.”

Everyone turned their attention to her, as she stood on the dance floor directly in front of the bridal party.

“A few weeks ago, Marta asked me a very important question. She asked me if I could sing the first song of the night. I agreed on the condition that I got to choose the song. She was a bit… hesitant to say the least. In fact, I had to bargain with her… a trait I am most definitely positive she got from you Gilberto,” Blix joked.

Several people chuckled, as Gilberto stared at his daughter with pride, pressing a kiss to her head.

“Per her request, she got to choose what I am wearing, hence why I look I belong in a telenovela or a romance novel,” She gestured to her dress with a wave of her hand. “And I get to choose the song to start our evening.”

Blix looked back toward the band who gave her a thumbs up to say they were ready to go. Antony, who knew what the song was going to be, led Marta to the dancefloor. Blix took up a spot in front of the band, looking at the couple with a smile.

“This is going to be a cover version of an oldie,” She hinted, softly clearing her throat.

The music began, and everyone stared at her curiously trying to figure out the song before she started to sing. Antony and Marta began to sway softly to the music, Marta was tearing up slightly as she recognized the song. It was one of her favorite songs

As Blix sang, her gaze moving about the crowd. Her eyes eventually locked onto Pacho’s who was smiling softly at her. She sang a couple of lines, keeping her eyes on his, subtly singing to him.

She broke her gaze away once she got closer to the end, moving it back to Marta and Antony. When the song ended, the crowd clapped and cheered. Marta after hugging Antony, strolled over to Blix to throw her arms around her in a huge hug. Blix hugged her back.

Blix handed the microphone to one of the band members who took over and began to play the playlist that Marta gave them.

Blix after giving her congratulations to the happy couple, made her way over to Pacho. She collapsed not in the empty chair next to him, but onto his lap.

“I am exhausted,” She said with a small yawn.

“Don’t fall asleep just yet… we still have to get through at least another hour before we can slip away unnoticed,” Pacho informed her.

Blix quietly nodded, before the two of them got up to get food and mingle. The party was in full swing, and she was standing near the brothers listening to them as they told stories about Marta. Blix noticed out of the corner of her eye, that Marta and Antony had slipped outside.

She smirked, turning to look over at the wedding cake. Blix tilted her head as she looked at it. Something about it wasn’t right, she just couldn’t put her fingers on it. She shook her head, thinking she was being paranoid.

If only she had listened to the paranoia.

One moment she was talking to Gilberto, the next all she could hear was a sharp ringing. She was aware of something on her legs, pinning them down, and several screams and shouts. Blix opened her eyes trying to focus on something, anything. Her vision was blurry, all she could see was disfigured shapes and splashes of colors.

A voice was calling her name, growing louder as it moved closer. The weight on her legs disappeared as a face came into view. It took several blinks for her vision to clear, and she was able to see Pacho’s face staring down at her.

“I’m starting to think someone out there wants me dead,” Blix mumbled as Pacho helped her sit up.

Pacho chuckled weakly at that, whispering, “You’re okay.”

The two of them slowly stood up, looking over each other, inspecting the damage. Blix could see several bruises on his face, and blood coming out his ear. He grasped his left arm, that she assumed he had landed on.

Pacho, looking her over, could see some blood coming from her nose, with various bruises on her body. He noticed she was favoring her left leg, probably due to the dead body that had landed on her right.

The two of them looked around, as Miguel made his way over to them, holding his shoulder. The three of them found Gilberto, and after making sure Marta and his family was okay, sent everyone home or to the hospital. The 4 of them somehow made it to one of Gilberto’s home, each of them covered in soot with some sort of injury.

The four of them made it into his office where Gilberto collapsed into a chair and stared off into space. Pacho lit a cigarette and Miguel stood there with his arms crossed.

Blix had one of the guards grab a first aid kit so she can fix everyone’s injuries. She set the kit on the coffee table, before going over to Gilberto’s glasses and decanter of whiskey. Her hand trembled for a moment, and she shook it thinking that would steady it before grabbing the decanter and pouring everyone a drink.

Blix passed them out once they were all poured out, and Miguel nodded his head in appreciation. Gilberto took the drink, blinking slowly.

Pacho took the drink after taking a drag of his cigarette. Blix took her place next to Pacho, leaning against a chair.

“That man… has no decency,” Gilberto began, standing up. “To attack my family like this… my daughter on the night of her wedding. Only a madman would do that. A crazed animal, dangerous.”

A moment passed, as Gilberto began to shake with fury.

“I want him dead. Not next year. Right now. Kill all of them. I don’t just want you to kill his lawyers, accountants, and bankers… I want you to kill his secretaries, anyone who lifted a finger to help that man. I want to see them dead,” Gilberto’s once calm voice began to shout. “ANYONE WHO HAS EVER LICKED A POSTAGE STAMP AND PUT IT ON AN ENVELOPE IN HIS NAME, I WANT TO SEE THEM DEAD! AND THEN I WANT YOU TO FIND ANYONE WHO EVER SHOOK HIS HAND AND KILL THEM TOO!”

Miguel during his tirade, placed his hand on his shoulder, nodding his head quietly.

Pacho paced slightly, fury on his face as he took another drag of his cigarette.

“That son of a bitch. From this night, we’ll show no mercy,” Gilberto declared with a shaky breath.

Blix looked at the 3 of them, knowing there was nothing she could say in this moment that could help them. There was something she could do however as she quietly guided each of them to a chair. Grabbing the first aid kit, she began to tend to their injuries softly. All 3 tried to wave her off, but a firm look from her made them back down.

“Can’t rage war against Escobar, if you let your injuries go untreated,” Blix murmured to Gilberto as she looked over his wounds.

Gilberto sighed heavily and allowed her to tend to him, along with Miguel. Pacho didn’t complain, having learned his lesson from the last time he had been injured.

Once all 3 were patched up, Pacho turned the tables on her and insisted that she let him look over her injuries. She let him tend to her minor injuries with a small sigh.

A few minutes later, her and Pacho were stepping out of the office. Diego greeted them; his face full of concern as his gaze roamed over the both of them.

“We’re fine. Could’ve been worse to be honest,” Blix assured him as the 3 of them walked out to a car, to drive home.

After the both of them took a shower, and changed into cleaned clothes, Pacho went to bed, Diego trailing behind him. Blix sat in the living room, not ready to go to bed just yet.

It was late in the night, and Blix couldn’t sleep. She stared at the proposal that Gilberto had drawn up and given to her the day before to give to the ambassador. With a heavy sigh, she called him not caring that she will probably be waking him up.

“Ambassador… I need to talk to you… and the CIA. The Cali cartel want to make a deal,” Blix began.

The next morning, in the early hours, she had flown out to Medellin, proposal in hand. The trip to the embassy didn’t take long, but it sure felt like time was moving slowly.

Blix stepped into the ambassador’s office, her face blank as she took a seat next to Stechner. She was grateful to have thought about putting on makeup this morning to hide her bruises, to lessen questions.

“So. Cali wants to create a bargain, eh? Is that what you’ve been doing with your free time Agent Lage? Hanging around cartel members?” Stechner said in a mocking tone.

Blix ignored him, as she pulled out the documents that Gilberto and the other Gentlemen had signed, setting it on the ambassador’s desk.

“Listen. I am well aware that no one here is innocent when it pertains to the Cali. I would know, since Gilberto informed me that the both of you are on his payroll. This meeting was bound to happen soon enough, so cut the crap. Let’s get this show on the road,” Blix spoke calmly.

“So, Gilberto wants free reign for 6 months after the death or capture of Escobar, and all 4 are willing to turn themselves in?” Ambassador Crosby asked in clarification after spending some time reading it over.

“Yes. All four of them have agreed to turn themselves in 6 months after Escobar’s death, or capture, without interference from law enforcement. No interruptions to production lines or sales. They spend 6 months making themselves rich, and then they’ll gladly let us arrest them,” Blix explained further.

“What about your bestie? Pena? Don’t think he’ll be too happy to know you made this deal for them. What are you going to about that?” Stechner questioned looking at her.

“Currently? I don’t care. He’s not focused on Cali. When that time comes, I’ll tell him the same thing I am telling you. It’s one less cartel. Who cares how it’s done?” Blix nonchalant answer disguised her worry.

She knew one day she would have to face Javier about her decisions, but it was not going to be anytime soon. She would deal with it when the time came.

Stechner stared at her somewhat impressed, “Living in Cali definitely made you more cutthroat. If you ever think about switching agencies let me know.”

Blix rolled her eyes at that, and watched as the ambassador approved the proposal, making a phone call to the president of Colombia. A few minutes later and the signed document was being filed away, signed by all in the room.

Blix stood up preparing to leave, when the ambassador stopped her, “Agent Lage, the annual Christmas party is tonight. You should come.”

Blix nodded once, making her way out into the hallway. Stechner sauntered outside beside her, his hands in his pockets.

“So, tell me… How is Mr. Herrera? I’ve noticed you no longer have been living in that lovely little townhouse of yours. However, I guess it is hard to stay there after Escobar’s men destroyed your door,” Stechner commented as the two of them walked toward the elevator.

“I’m not dignifying that with an answer,” Blix replied, shaking her head.

The two of them stepped onto the elevator, Blix not sparing him a glance.

“Not sure what happened recently for you to come forward about this deal suddenly… however… I hope you are prepared for the potential fallout if anyone else finds out about your relationship with him,” Stechner warned her.

Blix continued to ignore him, walking forward once the elevator doors opened. Blix was well aware of the consequences; she currently did not care about them.

Blix checked in with her team.

“What’s happening guys?” Blix asked them as she stepped into the office.

Theo, Cynthia, and Robbie all looked up from their desks, before grabbing files, holding them out to her.

Blix took all of the files, with a short laugh. They filled her in on current assignments they were working to help DEA. Cynthia & Robbie traded off on who monitored the airports. Theo listened to chatter and translated phone calls. She took a seat, going through each file and approving them when she was satisfied with the work. The work took about 2 hours before she sent off the files to various other departments to be filed.

Once she got caught up on paperwork, she left the embassy. She was not in the mood to go to another party, so she hopped on a plane back to Cali.

Returning home, she smiled softly at Pacho who was on the phone giving out orders. He finished up his call as he spotted her walking toward him.

He leaned down, kissing her softly.

“So… I was thinking you and me could go out for dinner this evening?” Pacho suggested as he straightened up.

“I like the sound of that. What are our plans to deal with Medellin?” Blix inquired as the two of them strode over to his corvette.

“I’ll tell you later this evening,” Pacho answered her, driving her into the city.

While the two of them ate, Los Pepes with the new knowledge being fed to them from Cali, attacked the Medellin cartel hard. Pacho eventually informed her of what was going to go down, and she had a feeling that this war was going to get bloody on both sides.

#pacho herrera #pacho herrera x oc #narcos

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logically-asexual · 4 years ago

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okay i'm already procrastinating and i don't plan on sleeping any time soon so here we go.

☆ ✩ my personal ranking for every season 1 Sanders Sides episode. ✩ ☆

i think it's going to be pretty similar to @dukeofonions' but let's see if i find something new to contribute haha. i see you didn't include that one about Patton in the Big Game or whatever, so i'm not including it either xd. also i think i'm going to count Accepting Anxiety as one episode only.

edit: i finished and now i dare you to drink a shot of water every time i say the word spanish or a version of the word comfort and become very well hydrated.

#16 I'm in a Disney Show

(i agree with dukeofonions here) i always forget this episode exists. it was ok in terms of being happy for real life Thomas but as a Sanders Sides episode it didn't do anything. the sides were just giving their opinions but it wasn't very funny or interesting. also i'm bitter because it made me look up the episode he was in and i didn't like it at all. i don't know if i'm too old for those Disney shows now but Thomas was literally the only good part of it, everything else was really dull and boring imo. a waste of time.

however, Logan supporting clickbait is one of the funniest things ever, and i'll never forget it.

#15 Becoming A Cartoon

i didn't hate this episode but it was just .. meh.. you know? several factors contribute to this. one, i couldn't feel much nostalgia for Butch Hartman's shows because i watched them in Spanish, and everything feels really weird when they speak English, i don't like how my old cartoons sound in English. two, it was disappointing to me because we were all desperately waiting for Plot™ and instead they give us this short episode about nothing (oh how the tables have turned now it's the other way around haha). and three, i didn't like the style of the animation :/ their faces and expressions freaked me out, Roman's douchey face still haunts me.

#14 Way Too Adult

here i'm biased because i don't like Patton much, and i didn't back when i watched the series the first time either, so this video was a little disappointingwithout the rest. also it wasn't relatable to me because i am still too young and dependent on my parents haha. but Patton is funny and it's funny to laugh at Thomas' struggling.

#13 The Dark Side of Disney

i've never been a fan of Disney movies. i actually never watched Mulan or the Lion King or Aladdin as a kid, so meh. i liked the ending, though, it was cool to see Virgil have fun and be right for once. it does make me a bit uncomfortable because the way Thomas tries too hard with Virgil's mouth movements and his low voice reminds me of a guy that had made me v uncomfortable not long before watching that video. so an icky feel overall.

#12 A New Year of Lying to Myself

this video was actually kind of fogettable to me. i had a hard time connecting the voices in the song to the characters and idk. i don't love it nor hate it, just .. neutral.

#11 My True Identity

pretty much the same opinion as dukeofonions, again. it's a good introduction and it's good that it was the beginning of it all but on its own it's not very special. i think it's awesome on Thomas to have come up with such a clever idea, like choosing the dad, the teacher and the prince and putting them together and match them with thoughts?? that fit so perfectly?? it really is just very impressive when you think about it, that it was just a random idea he had for a short 5 minute video.

#10 Taking on Anxiety

i liked this video a lot because when i watched it i had recently been a lot on tumblr, and found out through relatable posts that i had anxiety. so watching this video was really fun and it made me happy to feel so seen, specially the intro when Thomas just talks about what it's like to have Anxiety and Virgil is so smug about it.

- ★ -

okay now that those are out of the way things are going to get hard... all the following i love with all my heart so i'm going to rank them based on the smallest things.

#9 Growing Up

once more, Patton isn't my favorite. so that's why i'm putting this here, plus the echo at the end askjhsahg, but i love love this video. i remember we were waiting and oh so ready for the angst of nobody taking Patton seriously. and we received!! i love that though Roman and Logan are antagonists here, they're both so happy about Thomas wanting to have a healthy life. and i just adore the way Logan admits his mistake at the end and asks Patton directly. my heart... also aw.. the nostalgia. i remember none of us knew how to spell Patton's name and were writing it in very funny ways until Thomas and Joan told us lol.

#8 The Mind vs The Heart

when i watched this video the first times i didn't like it much, because i only had eyes for Virgil, but later i came back to it and loved it. so taking that into account i'm putting it here. logicality was the first ship i ever shipped in the show because i saw a gifset on tumblr of Patton screaming "what do you know about love?!" and Logan "apparently more than YOU" and the caption said "MARRIED", and i thought hey yeah... anyway. i love them. they're both my dads since that day.

this video is so so so relatable and i love it. Logan and Patton are so much fun arguing and i love how they compromise at the end and work together. im reconsidering.. i might move it higher? no, fine i'll leave it here.

#7 Making Some Changes

this video was absolutely hilarious. i personally couldn't see it as the Sides still once they were acted by Thomas' friends, i enjoyed it more as that bunch being silly and trying to be the sides but failing in so many ways, while sometimes nailing stuff suddenly. i really don't take this one too seriously as an episode. except Joan!Logan and Valerie!Logan, my beloved... i love how Joan acted as Logan and their voice and that they kept their ace ring on.. there's a reason i had them as my icon for so long. and Valerie looks a bit (a lot) like me with the glasses and dressed in dark colors, plus she spoke Spanish and there's .. no words to describe the joy i felt when seeing/hearing that. wait i'm getting emotional...

#6 My Personality Q&A

when i watched this Virgil was my favorite side and i didn't care much about the rest lol. when i heard his answers i related to him SO much it was scary, and also his voice is so soft and it was all very comforting. it was also when i first starting looking at Logan with more attention, because when he brought up Big Hero 6 and Fall Out Boy and said he didn't sing and would recite it like a poem? it only took a couple seconds but my brain said "me" and never went back.

now this video is a little underwhelming to watch for me, most of the appeal for me was in finding out the answers, and also watching it when we didn't know a lot about the sides. now we know more and want to know more so it's not as fun to me as it was first.

i wish so bad they'd do another one, although i know it would be more difficult with a much bigger audience, i think they can manage and i just need it. the chaos.. the energy.. they all being so savage with each other, learning little random facts about them you didn't expect.. i need it.

- ★ -

oh boy top 5 here we go. the next three are practically a tie. i can't choose.

#5 Alone on Valentines Day

i love Valerie, and the idea of this video was perfect and so perfectly excecuted. every side just giving their crazy opinions on how to woo a random stranger, i laughed SO much. first with Logan speaking simlish out of nowhere? at that point i didn't know practically anything about the sims except that it was some video game and the whiplash of Logan going AYO and the rest killed me. then when Roman whipped out that dialogue in Spanish??? my life was completed. i've never felt more happy than i did in that moment gosh. just the hilarity of Roman's drama, the shock of them speaking Spanish suddenly like that, the absolute JOY of seeing a creator i like speak (may i say) perfect Spanish, the other characters' faces after that.. never been happier.

also the conclusion was so cute. Virgil solving the whole problem without wanting to. i loved it.

#4 Am I Original

i think this video speaks for itself. it was fun to watch them all do the ideas Roman had, plus Logan and Virgil nodding at each other, (i love them so much), plus the angst at the end of Roman's perfectionism, plus Roman's just perfect name. this video has it all.

i think Thomas posted it kind of late at night and i watched it at 7am in the classroom as i waited for my classmates to arrive and the class to start. (i usually was like 40 minutes early to school due to mom’s work). i had to contain my laughter and it wasn’t easy.

#3 Losing My Motivation

i started loving this video after a while, when Logan passed Virgil in the position for my favorite side. but once he did this episode was beautiful. it's so funny and i love Logan and Patton's dynamic so much. and the video also so damn relatable in general. i felt so seen with it because they named all the problems i have when procrastinating, down to Patton's vague explanation of his feelings, it's exactly how i feel every time i want to do stuff. and the plot twist! i can hear the dramatic sound effect and see how they all turn to Logan clearly in my head, and it always makes me smile. plus there's so much Logan angst that can be dug up and overanalized. i love to watch it over and over.

#2 Accepting Anxiety

this video was perfect. everything we wanted. we knew it was coming and it delivered perfectly, better than any fanfic done in the waiting time. the week between the parts was agonizing but in a fun way somehow. i remember precisely when i was watching part 2 in my living room. i screamed. and i cried, a lot. i was feeling terrible at that time in my life and Thomas was such a comforting presence and i can't begin to describe how this episode made me feel.

and later it is always fun to rewatch with all their different reactions to being in Virgil's room, the energy of that was on point. Thomas is such a great actor and the characters where just amazingly performed. plus it gave so much to talk adn think about, the idea of the rooms, lots lots of insight into the characters, foreshadowing, so much. it's just perfect i have nothing else to say.

#1 (for purely emotional reasons, ironically) My Negative Thinking

i think Accepting Anxiety is the best episode of the season objectively but my favorite is My Negative Thinking. because i love Virgil and Logan so much and seeing them argue together was and is great. the comfort.. i can't repeat that word enough throughout this post. it's such a soft video while not being overwhelming with Patton and Roman's outbursts. just quiet (mostly) and clear and with perfectly timed humour.

Logan my beloved.. learning spanish... helping me with my own anxiety.. and their debate was so good. and the fact that they were friends i- i can't. Virgil didn't think Logan liked him and Logan told him explicitly that he did and the casual softness of it i cant even. Logan is happy that he tried.. it's just marvelous. Virgil and Logan as best friends will always be my favorite pair, and their dynamic will always be what i strive for in any relationship i might form, with both sides silently comforting each other within their own limits and realistic perspectives. so nice.

- ★ -

so yeah. that's all. thank you if you read all the way up to here. ♡ ♡ ♡

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders

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romance-geek · 4 years ago

Text

sleep my long, unbroken sleep (niragi x oc)

warnings: violence, blood

author’s note: heyy guys! so this chapter is mostly about chiyori's parents and how they came to the borderlands. like the summary says, she was born in the borderlands so she's like a native of this "country" - i wanted to explore such a concept. the next chapter will be more chiyori-centric. let me know what you guys think! (also the tech from her parents' era are a bit diff so instead of smartphones and such, i had to change it a little)

summary: Kuroba Chiyori may be born in the Borderlands, but no way in hell does she want to die in it.

AO3 LINK

20 YEARS AGO ; SEASIDE PARADISE RESORT

I just want to stay like this forever, without the boring routine of life.

The sun begins its slow descent towards the horizon, painting the sky in oranges and pinks and purples. Children screaming in delight, splashing each other with pool water. Couples lathering each other up with sunscreen. Lifeguards diligently looking over everyone.

All her life, everyone praises her wit and loads her with expectations. So, so many expectations that weigh heavily on her shoulders.

Expectations that she wants to meet.

But you can’t exactly please everyone, can you? Or maybe you can, but at the expense of your health.

Being with Kuroba Asuma is a breath of fresh air. He never expects anything too much from her, content with what she has and who she is. She first met him at a crime scene, which isn’t exactly how most love stories go but she didn’t mind because after he took her witness statement he stopped by at the library everyday for lunch. He courted her for almost a year before he asked - quite nervously, might I add - if she could be his girlfriend.

(Of course she said yes. In fact, what she said was: “Wasn’t I already your girlfriend?”)

Fast forward through the happiest years of her life and now she’s here at the Seaside Paradise Resort, a thoughtful surprise from Asuma. It’s the week of their first wedding anniversary, can you believe that? How time flies when you’re with the person you love.

A smile forms on Kuroba Kaname’s face as her husband helps her rise from the pool. Her hand automatically rests on her bulging stomach while Asuma wraps a towel around her.

Like her, he can’t help but caress her stomach, knowing that in just about a month there would be a new addition to their little family. A daughter…

“Let’s get you dried off now, dear.” He brushes off the water droplets on her face, sneaking in a quick kiss.

Kaname presses her fingers together, batting her eyelashes. He immediately catches on to what she wants and rolls his eyes. “What’s the little one craving for now?”

“Congee, some mango, aaand,” she hums for a second, “a chicken sandwich with lots of mayo!”

Asuma sighs resignedly. “I’ll order room service while you wash off.”

They walk into the elevator - or in Kaname’s case, she waddles - and press the button for the third floor. The elevator lifts up smoothly, but Kaname sways in her spot. “Woah!” She presses a hand to her head. “I feel a bit li-ligh—um, what was that word?”

“Light-headed?” Asuma asks softly, putting one of his wife’s arms over his shoulder so that he could carry her weight lest she fall down and potentially harm the baby. “I think you’ve had enough fun for today.”

The elevator dings open and they step out, Asuma nearly bumping into a man who seems almost like he’s sleepwalking. Kaname keeps her gaze on him out of curiosity even as her husband leads them to their room.

“Doesn’t that guy seem strange to you?”

Asuma throws a nonchalant glance over his shoulder. He shrugs and unlocks their room. “Probably had too much to drink. It is Paradise, after all.” Wagging his eyebrows as he says that last sentence, he gathers a giggling Kaname into his arms and closes the door behind them.

“I wish we can stay here forever,” Kaname says.

“Me too, dear.” Asuma kisses her forehead softly. “Now, let me prepare a bath for y—”

Darkness.

Drenched in heavy, silent darkness.

Silence except for the thudding of their heart, their heavy breathing as they try to understand what the hell is going on.

“D-dear, what’s going on?” Kaname trembles against him. He could see the whites of her eyes even in the dim room, eyes searching for an answer.

Asuma runs to the window and peeks behind the curtains. He freezes, then pulls them apart completely. Kaname trails after him in confusion, asking again, “What’s happening?”

“Gone,” Asuma whispers.

“What?!” Kaname gasps. “Wh-But—How can that be?”

He turns to her with a serious look on his face, repeating, “Everyone’s gone.”

Kaname’s brows crease in a mixture of worry and trepidation, biting her lip as she rubs her belly. “That’s impossible. How can everybody disappear in a blink of an eye? Did we miss a fire alarm or something? An earthquake drill?”

“I don’t think so.” Asume grabs his phone from the nightstand and flips it open. He presses the home button to turn it on, but the screen doesn’t light up. “That’s weird.”

Again, he presses it, this time longer.

The black screen stares at him, almost mockingly.

“I was just charging this,” he says to Kaname, scratching his head. “Let me see your phone.”

Kaname’s phone yields the same results.

“Maybe our phones overheated?” Asuma suggests.

Kaname shakes her head. “It’s barely hot out. Let’s just put some clothes on and ask around. If we take too long, we might not be able to catch up to everyone.”

They dress up in a hurry, question after question popping up in their heads. (Asuma discretely takes out a gun from his bags as well as its holster.) They take the stairs when it seems evident that the electricity is out in the whole resort. Their trip is longer than it should have been, mainly due to Kaname’s state.

“You’d think a resort would have backup generators,” Asuma mumbles to her. It didn’t feel right to talk louder than a whisper, like someone may be watching them. The thought unsettles him.

Finally, they exit the resort building.

They are greeted by even more silence and darkness, with only the pale moon as their source of light.

Asuma pulls his wife close to him. “You know, I pride myself in being completely unflappable at whatever the world throws at me, but this is a little too much. The only reason I’m not freaking out right now is because you’re here with me and I don’t want to seem like a wimp.”

This prompts a giggle out of Kaname. “My goofy knight in shining cargo pants.”

“It’s so creepy,” she says after a beat. “Did we black out or something during an evacuation?”

“We’re the picture of health, dear, I don’t think we’d black out. Especially not at the same time.”

She nods. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s just walk until we see someone or something that could tell us what is going on.”

“Don’t worry, babe.” Asuma flexes his biceps, shooting her a charming smile. “I didn’t get a job at the police force because of my exceedingly handsome good looks, you know. I’ll protect you.”

Kaname rolls her eyes, placing a hand on his still-flexing bicep. “Whatever you say, dear.”

They continue walking in a vaguely uncomfortable silence further out of the resort’s grounds. It takes them almost an hour before something bright pops up in the distance.

“Hey, there’s some light over there!”

They quicken their feet, eager to get out of the darkness. What greets them is a LED TV inside an otherwise dark electronic store that says…

𝐖 𝐄 𝐋 𝐂 𝐎 𝐌 𝐄、 𝐏 𝐋 𝐀 𝐘 𝐄 𝐑 𝐒

𝐓 𝐇 𝐄

【 𝙶 𝙰 𝙼 𝙴 】

𝐖 𝐈 𝐋 𝐋 𝐂 𝐎 𝐌 𝐌 𝐄 𝐍 𝐂 𝐄

𝐈 𝐍 𝐀 𝐌 𝐎 𝐌 𝐄 𝐍 𝐓

“Game?” Kaname whispers. “What the hell?”

“Is this some kind of government experiment type of deal?” Asuma asks rhetorically.

The text on the screen changes.

𝐓 𝐇 𝐈 𝐒 𝐖 𝐀 𝐘 𝐓 𝐎

𝐓 𝐇 𝐄 𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 𝐀 𝐑 𝐄 𝐍 𝐀

⬅

“Should we go? I mean, there might be people there?” She rubs her belly, as if to comfort her daughter even though it looks like she’s the one who needs comforting.

He thinks for a moment, then nods. “Well, it’s not like there’s anything else to do or anywhere else to go.”

Asuma leads the way, hand clasped tight on Kaname’s as they near what looks like a karaoke bar complete with a blinking GAME sign in neon pink and the background instrumentals of a pop song. When they cross the threshold, what feels like the sense of imminent danger falls over them. Inside is a small group of people, the majority of which glance at the husband and wife pair. All of their eyes trail down to Kaname’s protruding stomach. They give her looks that are a mixture of a grimace and a pitying look.

“Are we playing a singing game?” Kaname chirps into the awkward silence. Asuma now has his arm around her shoulder protectively. “I’m not a bad singer, but if we’re going based on scores I’m definitely gonna fail.”

Silence.

“Tough crowd,” Asuma remarks. He notices a small sign that says 𝐒 𝐂 𝐀 𝐍 𝐇 𝐄 𝐑 𝐄 and below it what looks like a fingerprint scanner. Above those two is a TV screen. “Are we supposed to scan ourselves?”

“Yes.” Surprisingly, one blank-faced man with sleeves rolled up to his elbow replies.

Asuma waits for an explanation, but the man doesn’t say anything else. “Ooookay, then.” He pulls Kaname closer as he presses his thumb to the biometric device.

𝐅 𝐈 𝐍 𝐆 𝐄 𝐑 𝐏 𝐑 𝐈 𝐍 𝐓 𝐑 𝐄 𝐂 𝐎 𝐆 𝐍 𝐈 𝐓 𝐈 𝐎 𝐍 𝐈 𝐍 𝐏 𝐑 𝐎 𝐂 𝐄 𝐒 𝐒

𝐏 𝐋 𝐄 𝐀 𝐒 𝐄 𝐖 𝐀 𝐈 𝐓 𝐀 𝐌 𝐎 𝐌 𝐄 𝐍 𝐓

“Please wait for the game to commence.” A robotic feminine voice says, the TV suddenly turning on. A timer appears on the screen. 00:59… 58… 57… “One minute until registration closes. There are currently eleven participants.”

They wait another minute through the stifling silence, but no one else seems to come. Finally, the speakers emit a tone. “Registration has closed. The game will now commence. Game: ‘Singing Contest.’ Difficulty: Ace of Hearts.” At the announcement of the difficulty level, most of the group seems to sag in relief although some still seem tense. Kaname feels a bemused smile slide over her face. So it really is a singing game? And yet, everyone looks so serious.

“Rule: Each player has thirty seconds of singing time. After each player, everyone else has to vote whether that person is a good singer or a bad singer. Condition: Guess the majority vote correctly within one minute.”

A door to one of the karaoke rooms creaks open.

Asuma and Kaname exchange a look as they follow everyone into the room. All this fuss for a simple singing game?

Someone, a young college student, clears her throat to gain the attention of everyone. “How should we decide the order?”

“Whoever wants to go, goes,” replies a gruff voice. It comes from a man whose biceps are nearly as big as his head, with eyes that scrutinize every person in the room. Asuma doesn’t feel as intimidated as he is probably expected to be because he knows that he has a trump card hidden under his jacket. He hopes he doesn’t have to resort to using it.

Everyone stands there in silence for a moment, eyeing each other with suspicion and anxiety. Asuma can feel his patience beginning to wear thin, so he lets go of Kaname’s hand and grabs the microphone in the room. “I’ll go,” he says, flipping through the songbook and inputting the numbers for the song he wants.

When the music starts up, Kaname cheers him on. Everyone else remains silent as he sings for the required thirty seconds, even incorporating silly dance moves that make the rest of the group look at him weirdly. When he finishes, the TV flashes again, text appearing on the screen as the voice dictates. “The voting period has begun. Singer, next to the songbook is a notepad and two pens - take one piece of paper and one pen. You may place your guess inside or outside, but it is required for you to wait outside while the audience submits their votes. Audience, write down your vote and fold it. You may not discuss your vote, nor can you persuade others. Once everyone has voted within one minute, the singer can return to the room. The audience will one by one reveal their votes, and afterward the singer will reveal their guess.”

“Fun.” Asuma tears out one page and takes a pen. It didn’t matter whether he actually sang well, because no one in the room is obligated to write down their actual opinion. He sweeps a quick glance around the others, but he isn’t a mind reader. What he can gather is that they are too solemn for what seems to be a trivial game, therefore there is more than meets the eye. There is also still the question of the city-wide blackout, as well as the disappearance of hundreds-maybe thousands-of people almost in a blink of an eye. So you can’t blame him for feeling nervous as he writes down his guess.

He leaves the room, flashing a smile to his wife as he does so.

“We only have one minute to vote, so let’s vote now,” Kaname says once the door shuts. One by one, they each tear out a piece of paper and write down their votes. When Kaname’s turn comes, she keeps a poker face on while tearing at the notepad.

She bends to write down ‘GOOD.’

Soon enough, the voting period has ended and Asuma returns to the room.

“Audience, you may now reveal your votes.”

Kaname feels her heart pounding as the votes are being said, her hand holding tightly onto Asuma’s. It’s neck to neck. Tears gather at the corners of her eyes ( Why is she being so emotional? It’s just a stupid game. Stupid hormones! ) when she is the last to reveal her vote. “Good,” she croaks out. But it doesn’t matter.

Because there are 6 votes for BAD and 4 votes for GOOD.

Asuma pats her hand reassuringly as he holds up his paper, which says BAD. “Lucky guess, huh?”

She feels the tension in her body leave and a slightly teary giggle erupts from her throat.

"I think I'll wait a while before my turn," she says.

The next two singers successfully guess correctly, and it's during the fourth round when something happens. The guy with muscles drops down like a sack of potatoes as a red laser comes for him, prompting shocked gasps all around.

Asuma immediately kneels down and takes his pulse, but… Nothing. "He's dead," he announces, but it looks like everyone except his wife already knew that. "Alright, can anybody tell us what the fuck is going on?!"

"He didn't follow the rules," says the man with rolled-up sleeves. He was the second singer. His glasses glint in the neon light as he points with his chin to the muscled guy's hand, which clutches two pieces of paper. "The rules stipulate that singers may only take one piece of paper."

Kaname gapes at this.

Almost as if setting the tone for the rest of the game, nearly every singer up next guesses incorrectly and meets the same fate as the muscled guy. Not before long, she is the only singer left. Aside from the first three singers, only one other person had guessed correctly, so four people would be voting.

She starts to move, but Asuma holds her back by the wrist and pulls her in to kiss her, hoping it wasn’t their last. Not wanting to prolong it any more than it has to be, she quickly takes a piece of paper and brings it outside.

Asuma stares at his paper for a while before he scribbles down 'BAD.' He didn't know how he could cement her guess as the majority vote. Eyes burning, he kicks himself inwardly for not fulfilling his promise of protecting her.

Kaname returns with two clenched fists, a determined look in her eyes.

"Audience, you may now reveal your votes."

"Good.”

"Bad.”

"Good.”

What?

Asuma stares at his folded vote, then slowly opens it to show everyone. “Bad.”

The young college girl, who survived, reels back in surprise. “It’s a tie? Does that mean whatever her answer is, she’ll live?”

“No,” interrupts the man with rolled-up sleeves. “The rules say—”

“Enough with your fucking rules, man!” Asuma barks.

The other survivor is quiet. She almost looks like she could blend in the shadows with all the dark colors she’s wearing as well as the shades she has on.

Asuma wraps his arm around Kaname to comfort her when her shoulders start shaking. “Don’t cry, dear,” he says, but his assumption is wrong when she suddenly bursts out laughing.

Kaname holds up not one, but two pieces of paper.

GOOD.

BAD.

“I guessed correctly after all.”

9 YEARS AGO ; TOKYO METROPOLITAN CENTRAL LIBRARY

Eleven-year-old Kuroba Chiyori strikes a match and a tiny little flame appears.

She guides this flame to a tall candle on her favorite bronze candle holder. In the Borderlands, electricity is reserved for the game arenas, which her parents forbid her from entering until she is at least 18 years of age. She hasn’t been able to witness a single game yet, but she knows it’s only a matter of time before her parents let her.

Because if she doesn’t know what to expect, how can she emerge a victor?

Chiyori shifts her focus back to the book on the table. Her mother, Kuroba Kaname, said that she used to work as a librarian in this very library, before she and Chiyori’s father, Kuroba Asuma, became citizens of the Borderlands. It’s her goal to read every single book in the library before she turns 18, but Kaname says that she needs to be realistic. Her mother is right, of course. The Tokyo Metropolitan Central Library has literally thousands of books, so how could Chiyori possibly read every book?

Nice to have a goal though, she muses as she flips to another page. It’s not like there’s anything else to do in here, not while her parents are gone probably watching over tonight’s games.

It wasn’t always like this. When she was younger, her parents weren’t the Queen of Diamonds or the King of Spades yet. But then two years ago, the face card representatives were finally killed off by that cycle’s players, and the positions were up for grabs. There were only a handful of citizens in the Borderlands, victors from certain cycles that chose to stay after conquering all the cards from Ace to King. Her parents decided just that almost eight years ago.

It mustn’t have been easy for them, her mother especially. She was due to give birth to Chiyori in a mere two months when they became players. Perhaps this was a good thing though, as it gave them the drive to not die. For her. For Chiyori.

As far as Chiyori knows, she’s the only person to have ever been born in the Borderlands. But there isn’t really anyone to ask, or to give her answers.

Her first memory is of her father returning home, looking as if he took a quick swim in a pool of blood. Chiyori’s fingers clutching at her mother’s clothes as she drank her milk, eyes wide as her father dropped down on one knee to ruffle her then-short hair.

Now that she’s a bit older, her parents started leaving her alone at night, in this quiet library. These books are her only friends as she wasn’t yet allowed to make her presence known to the players.

Sometimes there are game arenas close by and she watches through the windows as numbers of players enter and only a few come back out. None of the players she has seen are anywhere near her age.

Maybe that’s why she wants to join the games when she turns 18. Loneliness.

The books she’s read tell her of companionship, adventure, friendship… love. What interesting concepts. Would she ever experience such a thing?

She startles when the light from her candle burns out. Pouting, she places a bookmark on her book and closes it. That’s her last candle.

As if on cue, flashes of red catch her eye. Outside the window, lasers from the sky come down, and some people scream when they do.

There’s someone standing outside the library.

He looks young, almost as young as Chiyori. Maybe a highschooler? He locks eyes with Chiyori just as a laser comes for him.

She doesn’t move as his body sprawls on the pavement.

Books tell her that she should feel sad when people die. How can she feel sad for this stranger? At least he has experienced life before death. At least he’s out there, while she’s in here almost longing to exchange places with him.

… Well, she may be young, but so is the night.

Chiyori sprints to her closet, which is really a display cabinet that used to house heavy encyclopedias. She tugs off her pajamas in a rush and grabs a clean teal t-shirt along with cream-colored cargo shorts. Her feet are already clad in socks, so she just pushes them into her ratty sneakers.

Most games usually last until midnight, there are some that last until sunrise, and a select few can last for days. It usually depends on the difficulty of the game itself, not just the game levels.

The gamemasters and dealers use the Takebashi Station in Chiyoda City, Tokyo as their headquarters, so the distance from there to here would be… She visualizes a map of Tokyo for a moment. Around 8 to 9 kilometers! It’s far enough to watch one game and get back before midnight.

She giggles when she realizes it’s almost like that Cinderella fairy tale she read as a child.

TWO HOURS LATER

She comes home drenched in blood.

#alice in borderland #niragi x reader #niragi x oc #niragi suguru #niragi

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land-of-brains-and-chocolate · 5 years ago

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fic for @bakageta, who made a VERY generous charity donation request for more meditations on human/symbiote differences! i always want to write about language and relationships, so i made eddie and the symbiote read poetry together. it’s set some time before the hunger. i hope it Scratches the Itch.

Wind roars through the streets. With desperate anger, it tears at clothes, sends litter flying. Rain beats down relentlessly. It claws at exposed skin, sharp and cold. Desperate, but directionless.

This isn’t the kind of rain that was sent in a biblical flood, terrible, but purifying, divine in strength and purpose. This rain smells foul. It can do nothing but rise from filth and return to filth, over and over, and the storm screams it for everyone to hear, but no one to listen. No one but Eddie, anyway.

Eddie lets it lash out against him, back to the wall. He can taste it, vaguely metallic, when he licks his lips. If it was the kind of rain that carries out a calling, it’d drown him, him and the rest of the rats scurrying through the gutters, but all it can do is run down his face, dripping from his chin.

Protest, at the back of his mind, as he watches water stream down the street. Nothing could drown them.

Of course not, Eddie thinks. He does have more effective protection from the elements than the traditional bundle of newspapers.

The rain doesn’t bother said protection - or rather, protector. It doesn’t need to be kept cool and wet, but it likes to be. It produces an excess of heat, and it has no skin to stop it from directly absorbing the water it needs.

Thunder is another matter. Far off, at first, an approaching rumble, and the mild anxiety it caused hardly registered. Coming in close, now, echoing in ways no one else can sense, crashing against the symbiote's exposed body. A wince, each time. Then, with another clap of thunder, a seizing of muscles, a grimace.

“You’re right,” Eddie says, strained, in response to an unvoiced plea. “We should… We should go.”

He sits there. The next nearby lightning strike feels like it’s hit its target, the symbiote rippling across his skin. Resistant to any impact, but easily disturbed at the cellular level by sound and heat.

Eddie groans. “Right,” he says, again. Slowly, he pushes himself onto his feet. He’d probably slip and eat pavement if it weren’t for the symbiote’s grip. Been feeling kind of tired, lately. Can’t have been more than three days since he slept, either.

Eddie drags himself down the alley, gritting his teeth whenever thunder digs into their flesh with hot fingers. The symbiote hurries him along, taking on half the effort of moving. It's not injured, of course. Just uncomfortable.

Memories burn through their body, prolonged exposure, dissolving biomass.

“Alright,” Eddie mumbles. No need to remind him. He can feel it, too.

Soon enough, the symbiote stops them. The mental nudge goes unnoticed, but the tendril that wraps around the door handle yanks him back with stumbling steps.

It’s a public library. Quiet, warm, dry. Many qualities the sewers do not possess.

Libraries have been a place of refuge to him throughout his life. One of the few places he could go to get out of the house without neglecting his work, back then. Now, one of the few places he can inhabit as an imposing, penniless, unwashed man talking to himself. Or growling to himself, admittedly, when they’re there to do research on some wretched waste of life's wrongdoings.

Most places, that doesn’t go over too well. A public disturbance, that's what they call someone trying to do some good. Tells you a lot about what the public's like, left undisturbed. Exactly why Eddie doesn’t like to face it, doesn’t want it to face him.

Fine, Eddie thinks. Fine. Just for a little while.

He opens the door. The foyer’s got some carpets to drip on, some people to get the stink-eye from. They’re far from the only ones seeking shelter from the storm.

Eddie pushes past them. They don't need a fancy seating area, they only need some privacy. Try as they might, though, it’s impossible to escape humanity in here. It’s not just the students, writers, readers. They can avoid those by heading into the poetry section, practically abandoned at this time of year. No, it's that they’re still surrounded by culture, art, science, wherever they go. Things that used to mean something to him.

Still do, maybe.

It’s hard to tell, sometimes.

Hard to tell what they’re here for, if not this, and not these people.

Not that he’s doubting their mission. It’s more that he’s underestimated how it would escalate, how far the rot has spread, how precious little there is left to protect. It’s them against the world, at this point. Bound in purpose, he thinks, and the sentiment echoes, drained of its satisfaction. Bound in purpose, still. Bound in purpose, at least.

Eddie stops walking, slowly, and leans against a bookshelf. Closes his eyes. Sweeps away the hair clinging to his forehead, then places his hand on the shelf, fingers catching on the edge. Stands there and breathes, and thinks, and knows that something’s wrong.

“We haven’t changed,” he says, tongue heavy. “The world has.”

But it feels like it. It feels like something’s changed between them. If Venom used to be a song they belted out together, joyful and sure, then now, it’s only background noise, easily ignored.

“Maybe,” he says, and swallows. He opens his eyes, takes a quick breath. “Maybe we should…”

Talk. Connect. Take a break. It’s been rough, he won’t deny that. They’ve been working as one, too preoccupied with trying to survive to even try to make a difference. Tirelessly treading onward, even in the face of loss and failure.

Wistfulness, in response. Memories of when they first met, when they were foreign to each other, explored each other, discovered each other - and themselves. When he would focus on it, feverishly, and every thought drew it deeper into him. Into itself, given form by his attention. Into them.

It had so much to learn. He had so much to teach.

“We haven’t run out yet,” Eddie says, softly.

He walks among the shelves. “I used to have a penchant for poetry,” he says, out loud, just to be certain that it knows these thoughts are directed at it. “It wasn’t relevant to anything I had to do, but that made it… special."

In his journalism major, a flair for poetic language was largely considered inappropriate. Complex, ambiguous, emotional, opposed to reporting the facts. A small-minded view, in Eddie’s opinion. Any story is only as big as the words used to tell it.

Regardless, that disconnect could be liberating. Poetry was a reprieve, the one thing he didn't force himself to excel in, the one intellectual pursuit he took for inspiration, for escapism, for enjoyment, for what it was. He'd known that poetry was antithetical to everything his father stood for, that neither he nor his peers ever would’ve approved of that particular interest, so he never had to hope. It'd been liberating, doing something for himself. It'd limited the time he spent on it, of course. But it'd been liberating.

There's an undercurrent of care to these memories, and he recognises it as the symbiote’s interest, approval, affection, carrying them along. Eddie smiles.

He’d bring a book home, now and then. Wrap up in a blanket with it, feel a little less lonely, or a lot more lonely, depending. And eventually, he even found someone to share it with. Someone to whisper to, curled up in his arms...

The current cuts off. It doesn't seem intentional, not like the warmth leaving him, but like the warmth leaving it. There’s no explanation offered.

Eddie clears his throat. "Well," he says. “That was then. This is now.” He forms a thought, hesitantly. "Would you like to… read something? While we're already here, I mean."

It pushes his own feelings back at him. Seems like it'd make him happy.

"Right."

The symbiote doesn't actually care for poetry much. Conceptually, it feels like it's developed out of limitations it doesn't experience. Something it transcends. It needs no words to express itself.

"You could appreciate it," he says, as he examines the line-up, "from a place of pity, at least." He thinks of writers it might enjoy, in subject matter, maybe in structure. Maybe-

Eddie's hand comes to rest on a book's spine. "This one," he says, "this one reminds me of you."

That seems to pique its interest. It probes at the nature of the association.

“In a good way, of course,” he says, flipping through the book. “E.E. Cummings. The way he handles language has a certain… boundary-breaking character, but only in the service of truth, and love, and hate. As if the enormity of it cannot be contained, and he’s setting it free.”

In his mind, Eddie draws parallels to their bond. The symbiote follows each of them like it's being led through the dark, one hand warm in another.

“He’s known for doing strange and untoward things to syntax. Very accessible, at the same time. Nothing like what I would write, but I appreciate…”

Eddie trails off, eyes drawn to a gap between shelves, where a woman stands some distance away, expression blank, lips slightly parted, and seems to be listening in. For a moment, they feel horribly exposed, and whatever shows in their face sends her off with hurried steps.

“I appreciate it,” he says, book in hand.

The symbiote, discreetly, raises a tendril from Eddie's sleeve, pointing at a page in the book. Let's read this one, it suggests.

Eddie blinks down at it. He does know that one. If they’re going to try to reinspire some faith in humanity, then he supposes they could do worse.

They look around for a spot they'll hopefully be left alone in, some nook or cranny between shelves. They settle down, and the symbiote spreads out, cushioning him. Surrounded on all sides but one, they manage to stop feeling out of place by turning inward.

Wrong, the symbiote balks.

"Wrong?"

Wrong! The I-letter is capitalised, always. The first letter is capitalised, always. If it turns out that those rules cancel each other out, it's going to throw itself into the nearest furnace.

“No, no,” Eddie says, amused. “This is what I meant. Boundary-breaking. Rule-breaking. Poetry gets to do that.”

And everyone still understands?

“Of course.”

Then what was the point in the first place?

“Well,” Eddie says, knees drawn up to his chest. “Rules do make things more understandable… More standardised. That’s just not the purpose of poetry. Well-tread ground needs to be dug up to be made fertile.”

The symbiote hardly follows. It's too busy experiencing visions of the book torn to pieces between its teeth, paper shreds flitting through the air.

“Alright, just listen,” Eddie says, undeterred, “or whatever it is you do.”

i thank You God

The symbiote is directly linked into his conscious and subconscious thought processes, so he’s doing the work of translation for it. There's the effect. The speaker, "i", small, insignificant, deferring. The addressee, "You", “God", standing tall and singular.

How is this supposed to feel? Comforting? Intimidating? Denigrating?

Something about awe, Eddie thinks. But it’s up to you.

i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes

Natural-Infinite-Yes. That’s the closest he could come to transcribing the way it communicates emotions. It speaks to a web of associations, all the potential of the underlying concepts, disregarding the prescribed use of these words.

The symbiote wonders: What about the spirits? Are they creatures he’s imagining, carrying his own joy?

“That’s… not bad,” Eddie says, head tilted. “Spirits are complicated. But you’re right to assume that it says more about his own than theirs.” He blows a strand of hair out of his face. “He just really likes trees.”

(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)

The symbiote understands the what of it, if not the how. It’s swept up in the feeling of union, reunion. It can hardly imagine anything else it might mean.

That’s the thing about poetry, Eddie muses. It speaks to your personal experiences. Someone from a different background might take something completely different away from it. The writer certainly intended something else.

The symbiote grows pensive, faced with the uncertainty of human communication. One of them has to make signs from meaning, the other has to make meaning from signs. No direct exchange at all, no guarantee that their sign-meanings match up. They may not even want them to.

Eddie hums. “Countless theories of communication start from that line of thought. Remind me to introduce you to Stuart Hall someday.”

That only spurs it on, digging deeper into his understanding of language. What Eddie thinks of as a ‘medium’, sound, writing, image, is actually something that encases and constricts, everything that stands between them in their permanent state of separation. How can they just accept it? How does any human cope with it, being unreachable?

It takes Eddie a second to respond, surprised by how easily he finds himself lost in the way the symbiote weaves an argument, as fluidly and formlessly as it moves. In response, it traces the shape of his own thoughts, edged and curved around the boundaries that words lay around concepts in his mind. They missed this, they realise.

Eddie runs his thumb along the page. “I suppose you understand why some of us resort to poetry, now.” If not for their bond, he might’ve been among them. But then- No. He would be dead.

how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any--lifted from the no of allnothing--human merely being doubt unimaginable You?

Though no human being, the symbiote can see itself in the speaker’s position, easily. Lifted from the no of allnothing, made real in an act of creation: Perceiving and being perceived. Given form, name, purpose. Someone to be. Brought into a richness of experience, a depth of feeling that can only carry the truth.

(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

The kind of worship described here, though, seems intent on reducing the worshipper. Their worship never elevated one of them above the other. It elevated them above the world.

Eddie swallows.

At that moment, it’s not a connection to someone else he’s struggling for, but a connection to himself. There’s a feeling that should be available to him, but isn’t. Not quite. Like watching a lit fireplace, but finding it cold to the touch.

Well. What is poetry for, if not that?

Eddie flips through the book. Looking for something, this time. He finds it, and with it, a flash of warmth, recalling the words and the place they hold in his life. The symbiote seems almost taken aback.

He doesn’t even need to read this one to share it. It made him ache, but it was an ache for possibility, not absence. One soul, irreversibly marked by another, inescapably tied to it, and yet, unashamedly so, without regret or reservation.

With something like a laugh, Eddie rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes. Tries not to let the tightness between them distract him, or the odd dryness of his skin, or the strange taste in his mouth.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)

Eddie’s throat seizes, hot and heavy, and for all its lack of regard for words, the symbiote curls around my dear, my darling like a wounded animal hiding its underbelly, even the sound of it suddenly seeming sweet instead of clunky. It’s okay, Eddie thinks, it’s okay. Me, too.

They use those metaphors a lot, has it noticed? Someone running through their veins, carrying them under their skin, letting them inside their heart? Humanity may fear it, use it, scorn it, but unknowingly, without prejudice, they dedicate love songs to it.

i fear no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

The structure, the seamless transition from thought to thought, with concepts simply being available instead of being repeatedly reproduced to be put into sentences... Needless to say, that’s a lot like the symbiote, too. Beautiful, in an alien way.

Eddie blinks away tears. He realises, suddenly, that they aren’t his, and they aren’t the product of overwhelming emotionality. They’re tears of grief. Grief that reaches down deep enough to make him retch. What’s wrong, he thinks, what’s wrong, it’s you, it’s for you, listen.

here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

Something in the symbiote snaps.

It rises with a rumble threatening to turn into a roar, sharp-edged as if sketched in a hurry, with a set of talons that swallows his chest with ease. Eddie can hardly begin to worry about drawing attention before he’s paralysed by pained confusion.

Why would he do this? It knows it doesn’t bring him any satisfaction to taunt it. Nothing seems to. They’re no longer what they were, when they were everything it ever wanted, and now he involves it in his imagination, his reminiscence, his lyricising?

Eddie can hardly untangle the mess of emotions, and the symbiote hardly seems to slow down for him. He suppresses, just barely, the urge to tell it to shut up, get away, just until he knows what’s going on, and…

You broke up with me and now you’re making me read romantic poetry.

Is that it?

That’s not…

That’s not true.

They stare at each other, dumbly. The symbiote deflates into something more like its usual form, letting Eddie push himself back up from where his neck was uncomfortably craned against an Emily Dickinson collection.

Approaching footsteps interrupt them, and the symbiote melts back into his clothes as if it was never there at all. A man comes around the corner, looking down the shelves to see… nothing out of the ordinary, apart from the man sitting on the floor.

“And what’re you looking at?” Eddie snaps.

The man looks him up and down, suspicious. Inspects the books for damage.

“This is a library,” he says.

“This is a patron,” Eddie replies, gesturing down at himself.

“Well, as such…”

“We’ll be quiet.”

The man stands there for a moment more, confused, then nods to himself, clearly wanting nothing more than to leave. Eddie mutters an insult under his breath.

Their mind feels like prickly static. Eddie looks over at where the book's fallen from his hand, still open on the same page, and sighs, deeply. He picks it up, rests it against one raised knee. He offers his hand, as if asking someone to dance - or to join him, rejoin him - and waits.

The symbiote begins bubbling forth from beneath the skin, then slides between his fingers, settling into a delicate, clawed hand. The imagery isn’t lost on it, nor the associated memories, and Eddie raises it to his mouth, slowly.

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

It churns with it, conflicted. Still?

“Of course,” Eddie says, brows furrowed. “If not anymore, I’d at least... tell you.”

The symbiote’s mass extends into an arm, a shoulder, enough of a torso to crowd him against the wall, and it thinks, very decisively: No. Those are words.

Words aren’t what makes a relationship. They can designate it, but they can’t create it. A relationship is real. It has a smell, a taste.

It’s a state of being. It’s who you are, together.

If that changes, he can’t just tell it that it hasn’t.

Eddie’s expression grows dark. "So it's my fault," he says, and his hand clenches, dissolving the symbiote's mass between his fingers. "I'm not good enough for you, is that it? Not anymore?" His lip curls, eyes cast downwards. "You, of all people."

They sit in silence.

No, it thinks. It’s not him. It’s the world. The rottenness of the world.

They were angry before, but it was anger that stoked, anger that drove. Now, after being beaten down time and time again, it’s anger that drains. Anger that drains him of love, leaking from him like a physical thing until there’s nothing left for it.

“Love’s more than that,” Eddie says, voice rough. “I know I love you. I swear, I- I love you in ways that make it seem senseless to even say it, to try to...” He tenses up, looking for the words, then releases. “It’d have to be poetry.”

Guilt washes the symbiote’s other emotions away, wave after wave. It soothes, settling back into him, around him. Pulls back his hair and drapes around his neck. Eddie nuzzles into his shoulder as it takes on the soft, fluffy texture of a scarf, hidden in plain sight.

“You know what a relationship is?” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. “It’s a promise. It doesn’t end until that promise is broken.”

What promise?

Eddie exhales, half a laugh, half a grin. “You know,” he says, half desperate. “‘Til death do us part.”

#played with the thought of making the symbiote's thoughts more abstract but ultimately decided it would be nice if it was readable #and alas i am not actually a poet

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askkrenko · 4 years ago

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Krenko’s guide to Pokemon: Lapras

Named for French Mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace, because all the world’s ten year olds are going to understand that.

DESIGN:

Lapras is pretty clearly the Loch Ness Monster, plesiosaur style. There’s some minor style differences like the ears and the horn, but the only notable difference is the huge turtle-like shell on its back… that doesn’t go all the way around. What kind of creature has a shell that doesn’t go all the way around? That part bugs me a lot. The shell sort of reminds me of a Yoshi’s in that it’s just sort of… stuck onto its back. Is it doing the ankylosaur thing where parts of its body just have very hard scales? It’s vaguely reminiscent of a sea turtle, but the shell should really cover the blue parts all the way down to where its body changes color.

I know there are creatures out there, mostly mollusks, with partial shells that don’t go all the way over, but it really takes me out of it with Lapras. I’m sure you could come up with some weird scientific explanation of how it might work, but this is a plesiosaur turtle. I know all Pokemon are fake, but Lapras looks faker than most because I’m pretty sure that shell just pops right off if you use a bit of rubbing alcohol.

Gigantimax Lapras is just bigger with an even larger, even less attached shell. The artificial tiers on the shell just add to it. This is not a Pokemon with a shell. This is a Pokemon that someone built a shell for and glued on. The shell’s curves don’t even line up with its limbs.

Now despite all this, I still MOSTLY like Lapras. I like the idea of a plesiosaur turtle, I like the colors, I like the shape of its face, and I even like the rough bumps of its shell. I just really, really wish its shell covered enough of its body to look like it was part of it and not just stuck on.

Art by the-sixthleafclover

TYPING:

Lapras is a Water/Ice type, which is solid offensively with super-effective coverage against six types and resisted only by other water types. Defensively, it’s not so good, with four weaknesses and only two resistances, but it’s still a step up from what a pure ice type would be. It’s also worth noting that two of its weaknesses, Grass and Rock, are also weak to Lapras’ STAB attacks.

STATS:

Lapras is a mostly-balanced tank. 130 HP is just a lot, and while its physical defense is average its special defense is a bit above. Its offensive stats are both a fine 85, and while its speed is below average, it’s not awful, just… below average.

Pokemon Snap - Light Snack by Seranalu

ABILITIES:

Hydration heals Lapras of paralysis, sleep, burn, and poison when it’s raining. While all these things could be issues, the requirement of rain is a pretty hefty one, and the simple fact is that Swift Swim pokemon are better to take advantage of a rain team.

Shell Armor is an ability I’ll always respect but never really like. Immunity to Critical Hits is good, but with critical hits being so unpredictable, and Lapras not really built to spike its defense or special defense, Shell Armor just doesn’t do that much.

Water Absorb is generally Lapras’ best ability. In singles, this is used to switch Lapras in to catch water attacks and heal it up, or just ignore an incoming attack instead of just taking half damage. In doubles, Water Absorb allows your other Pokémon to heal Lapras, either by targeting it with a water move or using Surf to hit all Pokémon on the field.

Perish Song by Ishmam

MOVES:

And here we get to Lapras’ weak point.

Lapras has all the attacks a special attacker could want, like Surf, Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, and Psychic. Sure, that’s not a hugely varied list but it’s enough to have a solid hit on basically anything. The problem is… that’s all Lapras really has.

Lapras’ buff moves all increase attack, not special attack, but its physical attack lineup is worse than its special lineup. Its tech moves are passable but unspecial things like Sing, and without Poison, Burn or any real strong damage over time, its only way to truly leverage its bulk is to use Rest while doing small amounts of damage.

There is one particular combo Lapras has, which is Whirlpool + Perish Song to ensure a dead enemy, but there’s many counters to that combo, and it still gives them a few turns to attack mercilessly. Lapras can use Protect on one of these turns, but that’s another move in its pool used up. It’s useful, but niche, primarily for killing other tanks.

All that said....

Art by SatsukiManyula

G-Max Resonance.

G-Max resonance is one of, if not the best G-Max move, doing 130 base damage off Ice Beam (or 120 off Freeze-Dry) and reducing all incoming damage by 1/3 for five turns (eight with Light Clay.) This seriously frees up the rest of the team to do whatever it wants for a while after Lapras has gotten its hits in, and Lapras has enough HP normally that taking it down while Gigantimaxed is a serious feat.

OVERALL:

Lapras had really fallen over time, with decent stats but a mostly offensive movepool and poor resistances for a tank. The addition of a Gigantamax form helped a lot, and G-Max Lapras is actually rather potent, but that’ll only last for games that have Gigantamaxing, and it really doesn’t solve the core issues.

Lapras needs a few more moves that can leverage it into a proper tank. Scald, Aqua Ring, and Taunt are reasonable options that could really make Lapras into a solid defender.

Also, it needs to pull its shell down. Seriously. That thing’s going to pop right off.

Art by Curly-Artist

#Krenko's Pokemon Guide #Lapras

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spockina · 5 years ago

Text

Kiss Your Best Friend

100% came to after i watched a bunch of ‘kiss your best friend’ tik tok challenges. no i’m not great with titles

the biggest thank you ever to @hearteyesforbuck for being the kindest, nicest person, welcoming me into this community, and reading this and giving me valuable feedback. thank you. <3

4.1k words / fluff

this is my first 9-1-1 fic. pls be kind to me

ps.: this was also posted on ao3!

Buck will be the first one to tell you that he isn’t the greatest person with pop culture – and that extends to technology. He’s not even embarrassed about it; it just never piqued his interest, and that’s about it for explanations. So, no, he doesn’t know that the Jonas Brothers are back together – in fact, he only has a vague recollection of who they are –, and the only reason he keeps getting new iPhones is because they keep calling him to offer a trade (and everyone knows shiny new things are always fun, okay?).

Chimney, on the other hand, is a pop culture pro.

“There’s no such thing as too old for apps, Buck,” he says, waving his phone around as if to prove a point, “because if I still have a phone in my hands, then I can still enjoy the damn apps that go in them, right?”

Buck nods, unsure of what else to say. He hates feeling unsure, more so if the subject is as dumb as popular-things-he-doesn’t-know-and-or-care-about.

“What I’m tryna show you,” Chim continues, as if Buck isn’t about two seconds from tuning out of this conversation entirely, “is a funny series of videos on Tik Tok. I promise you’re gonna laugh at ‘em.”

“What’s… Tik-Tok…?” Buck asks instead.

Chim sighs, but then laughs a little. “Ok, Buck, it doesn’t matter, come watch the videos!”

It starts with a soft, mellow song, and on screen he can see some pictures, all accompanied with text explaining them, that'sthats my best friend, we been best friends for 3 years now, he doesn'tdoesnt know i like him, and then it cuts to a cute moment of a blonde teen leaning in and placing a tentative kiss on said best friend’s lips. They laugh and then hug, and then the video ends. After that one come a few more in succession; some go horribly wrong, and some are funny. Most of them work out as planned, though.

Then Bobby calls Chimney from downstairs, and Chim pockets his phone to leave.

“That’s the ‘kiss your best friend challenge’, Buckaroo.” He says with a grin, all teeth. “Thought you’d enjoy it.” He winks at Buck, and then goes, yelling coming! and leaving behind a very confused and only somewhat amused Buck.

That’s how it starts.

So, no, Buck doesn’t really know the first thing about apps in general, what’s trending and what’s not, but he does know how to work the App Store. Knows how to find apps. Knows how to download Tik Tok.

It’s innocent enough at first. The videos are funny, for the most part, and it’s a mindless distraction, even if only slightly better than the games he’s used to, and only better because of the amount of variety he gets.

He can’t help but come back to the stupid videos (and why even call them challenges anyway? What’s challenging about them?) about kissing your best friend.

They’re mostly adorable, but some are heartbreaking. He’s soft, okay? No shame in his game. He’s a soft guy, who’s (mostly) in touch with his feelings. Some of the rejection ones are upsetting; God knows Buck has faced a couple of rejections in his prime, and they hurt.

He keeps watching them anyway.

This week has been a rough one. Eddie picked up an extra shift, which made Buck decide to pick one up, too, because why the hell not? Christopher wasn’t even going to need anything Buck could help with, as he already had plans with Abuela. That extra shift, it turned out, was a horrible mistake.

(Not really. Buck really, really does love his job. Loves doing what he does, loves knowing he’s helping people. Sometimes it gets exhausting, though. Sometimes he’s made to face what losing his friends, his family, Eddie would feel like, and those hurt days like a motherfucker.)

A huge house fire reached the two neighboring houses. They needed backup, the whole thing was insane. Half of the roof collapsed not even two inches from where Eddie was standing, twin girls in his arms, Buck watching from the ladder where he was ready to take the girls. It doesn’t matter how many times they go near death; every single time it happens in slow-motion. Everyone came out alive, but the bitter taste followed Buck’s mouth into the truck, where he places a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, and leaves it there until they reach the station.

“Plans for the evening?” He asks softly. They feel extra raw tonight.

“Not really.” Eddie replies, and the silence stretches. Buck thinks that’s all Eddie’s saying, until he clears his throat, continues. “Christopher’s staying with Abuela, and then Carla’s picking him up and taking him to school in the morning.” Another pause. “I’m just tired, Buck. I need to crash.”

Buck nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. I just. I won’t be able to,” he says, complete honesty without even thinking, and that’s probably his favorite thing about his friendship with Eddie. No filter, just truth. Mostly.

Eddie nods, but it’s more of a jerky motion. Buck doesn’t inquire further.

“You wanna grab a couple pizzas and some beer? We can pretend to watch a movie until we collapse.”

The suggestion sounds heavenly. Buck grins, nods, already picking up his phone.

“Domino’s fine? The usual?”

Eddie nods. “Your place or mine?”

In the end they only get the pizzas because Buck has more than enough beers for the two of them at his place.

They have three mostly empty pizza boxes on the coffee table, beer in hand, a half a dozen other bottles around the boxes, a movie they’re pretending to watch – but even as it plays on screen, Buck can’t pretend to know what’s going on. He’s sitting on the far end of the couch, with Eddie right beside him, head on his shoulder.

Buck’s a naturally tactile person. Craves physical touches, and the warmth of another person’s skin. Eddie wasn’t always like that; it took him some time to open up, and Buck doesn’t know if this is for him only, or if he’s as open with any of his other friends, but that doesn’t matter to Buck.

Buck moves his arm behind Eddie, so that they can both be more comfortable, and Eddie looks up a little startled, soft around the edges and glassy-eyed, which means he was probably on his way to falling asleep when Buck moved. He smiles at Buck, a small smile that’s open and honest and free. And Buck… Wow. Buck realizes, then and there, that he wants to kiss Eddie.

It’s only a second, and then Eddie’s looking back at the screen, burrowing just the tiniest bit more into the space Buck has made for him, taking a sip of his beer, sighing very softly.

And, oh. Oh. Buck understands now. Buck knows, deeply and suddenly, why they’re called challenges, and what the challenging part is about the whole kiss your best friend thing.

It’s a bet he’s not sure if he’s willing to take.

Buck can’t stop thinking about it.

He doesn’t remember when he knew he was in love with Abby. That’s always where their relationship was going to go, there wasn’t another option. They weren’t ever in it for anything other than being together. Sure, Buck tried, for the first time, to be a better man, and that was what moved them along, but Buck always knew how they were supposed to end up. Together. Which is why he doesn’t know when he realized he was in love with Abby. If the goal was to get the girl, then being in love with her was an integral part of the plan. He just doesn’t fucking know, which is making everything worse.

Because he’s pretty sure he’s in love with Eddie.

Because he didn’t know, and then he did.

Because it was easy to figure out.

Eddie looked at him, open and carefree, even if for just a minute, and Buck thought yes. And that was it. Buck thought yes, Buck thought he would do anything to just keep Eddie looking like that, soft, and safe, and tranquil. In his arms. Buck thought all those things in a millisecond, and he knew what they meant. He knows what they mean, because he hasn’t stopped thinking about them ever since they materialized in his mind.

I’m in love with Eddie.

Buck wanted to be a better man for Abby, and he was, but Eddie makes him a better man.

He hates knowing this. He doesn’t know what to do with it, because, while he would never do anything to jeopardize what he has with Eddie (this friendship, this trust, this love – that is above the romance part of things, and involves everything else – namely, Christopher, and the feeling of belonging he gets when he’s with them), he also knows himself. He knows this isn’t going to last very long before he bursts and makes a mess of things. He needs to think, but he has, has been doing nothing but think about this.

He needs to do something.

He just hasn’t figured out what just yet.

The idea comes, funnily enough, when they’re at a call.

The universe sure loves a good dose of irony.

Some (dumb) teenager stuck in the air vent, was what the 9-1-1 operator said. There’s a really big, sour looking man yelling at a teenage girl – who’s yelling right back at him – outside when they get there, a lady watching them, clear from her face that she’s both the girl’s mom and the man’s wife and that she’s given up on whatever’s going on. He half hears as Bobby tries to placate things enough to understand what’s going. The girl outside starts sobbing, but now he’s concentrating on the girl inside, upstairs in a bedroom, stuck in the air vent.

“Hey, can you hear me?” He says loudly, and gets some noise back that he’ll take as an answer. She’s already all the way in the vent, save for one foot hanging out from where she got stuck trying to move, a knee up and one leg straight. Stupid, stupid idea. “What’s your name?” He asks, and then they start to work.

“Sage,” she answers, loud. He’s not sure if she’s yelling or if the sound’s carrying, but he keeps being loud just to be sure.

“Ok, Sage, we’re gonna get you out, don’t worry! Wanna tell me whatcha doing in there?”

“Looking for a rat,” she replies, and Eddie huffs a laugh beside him, shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, I just panicked!”

“Hey, don’t worry about my feelings, Sage, we’re fine. You wanna tell me what happened for you to hop up there?”

“What’s your name?” She says, and that takes him by surprise. His eyebrows go up, and he looks at everyone around before answering.

“Uh, it’s Buck. My name’s Buck.”

“Look, Buck,” she starts, and she sounds so, so angry, but also so very sad, “Baileya’s dad hates me, ok? I haven’t seen her in a month! She’s my best friend!”

“Ok, Sage, I’m gonna need you to take a few calming breaths before we continue, ok? Do you want me to breathe with you?”

“No, no, it’s okay,” she says, and then she’s quiet, and they can all hear her breathing deeply. “Okay, sorry. Look. Baileya’s dad he, uh, he thinks I’m a bad influence. He was supposed to be somewhere, fuck if I know, but he was only supposed to come back tomorrow. I haven’t seen B in a month –” that last part sounds so sad it breaks Buck’s heart a bit, “– and I just. I missed her.” She’s silent for a little bit, and no one presses for more, but then she speaks up again. “We saw his car outta the window and I just panicked. This air vent hasn’t had a pane for the longest time and I’m a fucking gymnast, so I thought I could just jump up here and hang out for a minute. I know it was stupid, but he would kick me out if he found me, and I mean that very literally.”

Buck looks at his team. They all know what this means.

Finally, Bobby says, “Well, Sage, you’re gonna be out of there in a minute, and you’re gonna get to see your best friend, and no one’s touching you under the protection of the LAFD, okay? Don’t worry.”

She sounds shaky when she says thank you.

When they get her out, she asks them to stay at the door so she can get all her things in her backpack, and Buck notices her phone was propped up against some books in a table in front of the bed. Everyone trails out and he lingers behind to protect her, but also to say, in an almost-whisper:

“Hey, Sage, why was your phone propped up like that?”

She turns tomato red in a second, flat-out. ��I was, uh. I was. Um. Filming a thing.”

And of course Buck knows. He knows that angle. “A challenge?”

She looks surprised. “Yeah. For, um, for Tik-Tok.”

“Did you get to do it?”

“Yeah, Buck,” she says, and he wouldn’t ask, normally, but her voice says it all.

“Did Baileya like it?”

She smiles at him, almost as if she can’t keep it in. “Yes.”

He decides then and there that he’s not going to look them up, but he can’t stop thinking about the smile on Sage’s face when she said yes.

The whole way back to the station he keeps watching Chimney, who has noticed, but hasn’t asked what he’s looking at him for. He wonders if he was always obvious to everyone else, and only oblivious to himself. He wonders whether he’s obvious to Eddie or if Eddie is oblivious to him.

More than anything, though, he’s pretty sure he found a way to do something. He feels silly. It was staring at him this whole time. Or, well, he was staring at it, really, for quite some time, in fact.

It’s another Saturday, and he’s been psyching himself up for a week.

Sure, he’s figured out what to do, and he doesn’t wanna risk anything. That doesn’t mean he’s not jittery about it. So much, in fact, that Eddie notices as soon as he walks through the door.

Christopher jumps up as soon as he sees him, saying a long and excited Buck! and all but flinging himself at Buck, who has just enough time to drop the bags he has on the floor carefully and pick up Christopher in the same motion.

“How’s my Superman doing?”

“Good, Bucky. How are you?”

“Ready for a fun day with my favorite boys,” he replies, easy as anything.

He drops Christopher, and Eddie gives him a quick hug before picking up the bags he brought.

“What are these?”

“Well, it’s a nice day, thought we could, you know, make a day of it? You said you didn’t have plans and I have everything for a nice picnic.” He shrugs.

“I don’t see a basket,” Eddie teases.

“It’s in the car, you jerk.”

Eddie laughs. “Hey, Christopher, what do we think about a picnic?”

“Picnic!” is all the reply he gets from a very excited Christopher. “I’m going to change,” he says, already shuffling to his bedroom, and Eddie shakes his head.

“I also got us some beer, but that’s more for later in the evening. Thought we could order a pizza after Chris goes to bed, maybe?”

Eddie looks fake-shocked. “You want a whole entire day of eating not really health stuff? Who are you and what did you do to my Buck?”

And Buck knows, okay? Buck knows he’s just joking, but it still tugs at his heart, makes him feel like those butterflies people talk about are real: his head feels light, there’s a tingling on the tips of his fingers. Instead of any of the stupid things he wants to do, he just shakes his head, smiles.

“Nah, man, just wanted a nice day with the two of you, that’s all.”

Eddie’s smile is blinding. “Sounds good to me.”

“I’ll tuck him in and you order the pizza?”

“Yup.”

“‘K. Chris, go say good night to Buck.”

Christopher moves slowly. They’ve had a fun, long day.

“Good night, Bucky. I love you.”

“Good night, Chris. I love you, too.”

Buck listens to the sounds of the two of them as he orders the pizza. He thinks about how familiar it is, how at home he feels.

How he is, maybe, about to mess the whole thing up.

He sure has his excuses in place in case things don’t go the way he wants them to – “it’s just a joke, look, I can show you the other videos. It’s a challenge for Tik Tok. I just wanted to be down with the kids, Eddie! I thought you’d be game! It’s just for show!” – but it’s not going to stop things from being awkward for a little bit until they get back to normal.

When Eddie comes back, the pizza is there already, and Buck is nursing a beer that’s already halfway down, but has one out for Eddie, cold and fresh. Eddie collapses on the couch with a grunt.

“That boy’s getting big, por Díos, where did the time go,” he says, sitting up nicely, taking a swig of his beer.

They’re having a good time. But they’re never not having a good time. This is it, Buck realizes. He can’t imagine ever again feeling so at home in the presence of someone else. He can’t imagine loving a child so deeply; can’t imagine loving a man more for the way he loves his own son. This is it.

Eddie goes to the bathroom, and it’s Buck’s chance.

He puts the phone up against a vase Eddie has on the coffee table; knows Eddie enough to know he won’t notice, especially after two beers.

“Alright, what did I miss,” Eddie says as he walks in the living room, more conversationally than interested, and Buck knows it’s now or never.

“Hey, Eddie,” he says, slowly, which makes Eddie look at him immediately, confusion and worry written in the lines around his eyes.

“You ok, Buck?” He asks, placing his beer bottle on the coffee table in front of them, worry making him move more into Buck’s personal space.

Ok, Buck. Now or never. Do it.

“Yeah, yeah, I just. I. Look, Eddie, I just need to –” Buck cuts himself off in favor of moving entirely into Eddie’s personal space, meeting him in the middle where Eddie already was. The air between them mingles, Buck can feel the warmth they’re creating back on his lips.

“What are you doing?” Eddie whispers, sharp, and for a second Buck feels as if he has lost; this exact moment is suspended in infinity for Buck to commit it to memory, to remember his loss, forevermore. But then. Then, Eddie looks down at Buck’s lips, and licks his own. Buck needs nothing else. He goes in.

Eddie is very still when their lips touch, but Buck can absolutely not help but notice how soft they are. Eddie is all hard angles and big muscles, but his lips are so soft, how’s that even possible? And then Buck notices he isn’t moving. He isn’t even breathing, actually, holding himself taut. Buck’s thankful for his foresight of not touching Eddie anywhere besides the lips.

Buck backs away slowly, hoping that Eddie won’t look at him too close, hoping Eddie will take pity and just let him run away for the night. But Eddie is watching him intently, looking into the blue eyes that already feel wet, so obviously they look wet. But hey! Buck tried, didn’t he?

All the apologies and speech he had ready die in his throat. He’s not going to lie to Eddie; he doesn’t want to lie to Eddie. He should know. He should know that Buck is in love with him, heart-achingly so. He needs to know. So Buck doesn’t say anything. He looks around; for a second he had forgotten the phone was even there. He starts to get up, his mind a mess.

Eddie holds his wrist. Buck looks at where they’re touching as if it’s burning. Eddie tugs, hard, making him sit down.

“Did you mean that?" He asks, voice only above a whisper, but still crystal clear.

“What?” Buck says, confused.

“Buck. Did you mean to do that?” He asks again, eyes on Buck’s.

“Yeah,” he breathes out. “Yeah, Eddie. I’ve been meaning to. For a while now.”

Buck closes his eyes, then. Eddie's eyes are too bright, too beautiful for Buck to keep looking at. And then, Eddie’s hand is up against his neck, his jaw, against his cheek, resting there, thumb awfully close to the corner of Buck’s mouth. And then, Buck’s being kissed. For real.

Eddie kisses exactly like he does all other things: quietly, not showing off, but assured of himself and of what he’s doing; he’s a pro and he knows it.

Buck is about to shift into ‘two can play at this game mode’ when he remembers the phone recording.

He pulls away slowly, softly, regrettably, but covers Eddie’s hand on his cheek with one of his hands, moves it to his mouth to kiss Eddie’s palm. Free. Able and allowed to do this.

They smile at each other. Buck could stare at Eddie’s smile forever.

He reaches for his phone on the coffee table and says a fuck so heartfelt Eddie moves away from him on the couch.

“Buck?”

“It. Wasn’t. Recording.”

“What?”

Buck is, admittedly, a little late on the uptake of how bad that sounded. It takes him a while to explain the whole thing to Eddie, which of course includes showing him a few challenge videos.

"So you had a speech ready in case I flipped out on you,” Eddie concludes.

“Yup, correct."

A beat, and then: "You didn’t say anything, though."

Buck looks up at him, confused. "What do you mean?"

"You pulled back, and you didn’t say anything. You were just going to leave."

And, wow. Buck forgets, sometimes, just how perceptive Eddie is. He looks away for a second, but decides Eddie deserves honesty, even if it’s at the cost of baring his soul. He already did a lot of that tonight, might as well keep going.

"I realized I wanted you to know. Our friendship is the most important thing I have, and so I knew that, whatever happened here, you needed to know that I’m in love with you. I was sure we could get over it and back into our friendship eventually, but I just needed you to know."

Eddie nods, understanding, taking one of Buck’s large hands between both of his.

"Thank you, Buck. Not just for your honesty, but also for taking a chance on us."

They kiss.

A lot.

Eddie, bless him, not only is a good sport and has fun with the whole thing, but also helps Buck find pictures of the two of them.

"Hey, Chim! Come up here!” Buck yells as soon as he sees Chimney coming in through the station gates.

He’s happy. He feels like he might burst with happiness.

The past week has been everything he dreamed of, and more. Christopher was so happy he cried, which made Buck cry, which made Eddie sniff, which the two other boys in the room knew meant Eddie was trying not to cry. Buck was finally happy.

Sure it had only been a week, but he was ready to share that with the world. And he was going to start with Chimney.

“What’s up, Buckaroo? You look awfully chirpy for this early in the morning.” He then noticed: “Oh, hey Eddie. You’re up early."

"Someone had to contain Mr. Buckley over here. He’s excited."

”…Okay. Buck? Anytime now.“

"I just gotta show you this video on Tik Tok."

"Wait, what? You got Tik Tok? Look at you, Buck!"

Buck can’t help the blush. "Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He places his phone in Chimney’s hands. “Watch."

Chim presses play, and his mouth does some weird things, but he looks positively pleased.

"I knew it!” He yells when he’s done, excitement he can’t contain.

They hug, and Chim promises not to tell anyone until they do, offering them well wishes and relationship help, which they both wrinkle their noses at, but say thank you all the same.

Eddie moves into the kitchen, and Chimney takes the opportunity to say, so that only Buck can hear: “I knew you’d enjoy the challenge, Buck."

Buck knows he’s a sap, but he can’t help the smile. "Yeah, Chim. I’ll owe you one forever."

Chimney shakes his head at him, his smile so fond even Buck can see.

"Nah, Buckaroo. Just be happy. That’s all I want."

#buddie #eddie diaz #evan buckley #buck #911 on fox #buddie fanfic #i don't know what else to tag i'm shaking!!!!!! this feels like so much pressure #pls give me feedback i need it to breathe #lol ok #my words #i don't even know if i have a writing tag lmao???#ok here goes nothing

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