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alg3a · 6 months ago

Text

muffins

viktor x f! reader

3.8k, MDNI, no use of (y/n)

description: Viktor had been so kind as to agree to help you out with your midterm prep, so you thought baking him muffins would be a great way to repay him. However, an accidental secret ingredient gets in the way of studying.

warnings: Age gap, roomie smut, more story than smut, p in v, sex pollen/serum (with pretty explicit consent), overall jolly good fun, no harm no foul, yippee!

a/n: inspired by @the-hidden-pages story, Human Testing because it’s one of the first viktor x reader fics i ever read and i STRONGLY recommend!

Any student should feel lucky to have the smartest men at the academy as their roommates. Being an undergraduate biochem student who had to work to pay her own tuition, going to lecture wasn’t always an option. That’s when you’d bake a tray of brownies or do some extra dishes and call in a favor from one of your roomies.

It happened all the time, which made you incredibly thankful to have one people-pleaser in the apartment. Jayce was always willing to put aside whatever he was doing and help you out on your Arcane Studies homework or your Bioengineering project. Last semester, finals week consisted of the two of you sitting criss-cross applesauce on the rug of the living room, paper scattered all over the floor as you tried to decipher the grading scale of your Organic Chemistry class to see what the lowest grade on the test you could get was and still wind up with a passing grade (something Jayce had done plenty of times in his undergrad years).

Viktor, on the other hand, had gotten somewhat tired of your constant requests for him to backtrack and dive into knowledge he hadn’t tapped for years now. He was never particularly rude about it, but you were very perceptive. When you asked him to repeat an explanation once or twice, you noticed the growing exhaustion on his face that bordered frustration and you stopped asking for his help going forward. It wasn’t to his own fault, you could be pretty needy sometimes, so more often than not, you just asked Jayce.

Only, Jayce was out of town for a Hextech press conference this weekend, the weekend before you had your Arcane Studies midterm. In a heartbreaking display, he had apologized profusely for not being able to help, inches away from getting on his knees and begging for forgiveness. You assured him none of that was necessary, and that you’d just stay up studying in the library or even reach out to your TA (who you’d never even spoken to before in class or outside of it, and who you were certain would be less helpful than Jayce).

To remedy your situation–even though you pinkie promised him you didn’t need him to–he took it upon himself to ask Viktor to help you cram study on Sunday night, the night before your midterm. While Jayce asked, you did your best to listen from your bedroom, the next room over. You heard some grumbling from Viktor and a muffled, yet compelling “She’s our roommate and she bakes us nice things” from Jayce.

Apparently that last bit must have been very rousing, because shortly after, Jayce was at your door telling you that Viktor agreed to a maximum of three hours of cramming that would begin no earlier than eight at night.

You worked for all of Saturday’s daylight hours, and then finalized your experimental serum for your Advanced Biochemistry project. For the biochem class, you’d been studying methods of enhancing senses for the first half of the quarter and your midterm project involved making a serum that could temporarily improve the performance of one human sense. Around three weeks ago, you and your classmates drew topics from a hat and your fingers emerged with “arousal” on a piece of paper. Needless to say, you were concerned. You thought the serum project would be fairly straightforward, and had already brainstormed ideas for vision enhancing serums or hearing aid serums, but arousal? You had to think out of the box for that one.

When you finished up your last touches to the serum, you were left with enough time at night to get ingredients to bake Viktor some muffins as a sign of your gratitude. You got enough stuff for twice as much as you would’ve made for Jayce and actually stuck to the recipe this time. Keeping Viktor happy was a very delicate ecosystem and there could be no tampering.

It wasn’t that he was a grump or even that he hated you, he was just too busy to want to help and too intelligent to want to backtrack. Once he had even looked at what you were studying and said, “I’d have to go too far back to help you.” That was inspiring.

You poured the contents of your tote bag on the counter.

On your better days, you and Viktor actually got along quite well. Those were the rare days when Viktor got more than three hours of sleep and ate a full meal before two pm. In his best conditions, the two of you were good friends.

The best days were when he and Jayce both come home early enough for you to make them a home cooked meal. Then you’d all curl up on the couch and watch a movie. The last time that happened, Jayce picked some superhero movie you’d never heard of and you and Viktor both fell asleep. You woke up the next morning asleep on Viktor’s chest with four blankets piled on top of you both. Jayce said he knew both of you ran cold, so he took the blankets from your beds. You and Viktor never talked about that night.

The exhaustion of your stressful Saturday had leaked into your studying Sunday, and in a tired stupor, you whisked together all the ingredients for the muffins and poured them haphazardly into the mold. They might not look pretty, but at least they’d taste good.

You pulled the freshly baked muffins from the oven and rested them on the stovetop. The sweet aroma of warm blueberry filled the apartment. It must have roused Viktor from whatever he was working on in his room, because he emerged a full quarter of an hour earlier than your agreed upon study time.

“Hey,” you said. “I made you some muffins as a thank you. They’re still hot, though, I wasn’t expecting you for another fifteen minutes.”

“That’s fine,” he said, setting himself at the kitchen table and sipping from a cup of coffee that had been there since Jayce was still in town. “Would you like to begin now?”

You grab all your study guides and homework assignments and your assortment of chicken scratch notes and slide them over to him on the table.

“Are your midterms cumulative?” He asked, finishing the remnants of his cold coffee.

“No,” you answered. Thank God. If you had to remember everything that was in the last midterm you’d be losing your mind right about now. “Everything past Arcane History will be on the test.”

“Mm. I see.”

He scans your notes for another five minutes.

“I’ll quiz you,” he decided, standing up to check on the temperature of the cooling muffins on the stovetop.

“Uh, okay.” You didn’t typically study by being quizzed, especially when you hardly went to lecture and didn’t even know most of the material. But you didn’t want to risk arguing with Viktor and have him decide to take his muffin to-go.

“Tell me why the Arcane can manifest in such unpredictable manners?”

“Because…” you started to think that maybe going to your TA wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Your TA was just a random graduate student. The roommate that was helping you study now was one of the inventors of Hextech, the researcher responsible for some of the greatest advancements in Piltover’s modern understanding of the Arcane. “...it reflects the intentions of the user.”

“Correct,” he says, affording you a rare Viktor smile. “Would you like a muffin?”

You had intended for the muffins to be entirely Viktor’s, but you hadn’t eaten all day and gods, they smelled good. Plus, it was like a reward for getting an answer right.

“Sure, thanks.”

You watch as Viktor plucks two muffins from the tin and comes back to seat himself at the table. He hands one to you and sorts through the papers you’ve scattered on the desk as he brings a small chunk to his mouth. You do the same.

Something tastes slightly off, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. It’s possible the ratio is off, and in your tired state you added too little vanilla extract or too much vegetable oil. Regardless, they’re not bad at all.

“Your notes are a little bit difficult to–” Viktor stops before finishing his sentence. He pulls out a sheet of paper from the pile and reads it, his eyes widening a bit as he does.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“These notes are from your biochem class,” he says, his eyes flickering up to meet yours for just a few seconds over the piece of paper. “This is an interesting assignment…”

“Oh,” you feel your cheeks growing hot. “Sorry, that’s not supposed to be in there.”

You reach out to take the paper from him, but he pulls it back as you do. He’s still reading it. You’d really like him to stop reading about your own aphrodisiac serum, but your embarrassment is a bit unwarranted. After all, you didn’t make the serum because you wanted it, you made it because it was a graded assignment. Nothing more. So what if you did eventually garner interest in the topic. So much interest, in fact, that you did extensive research into the properties your serum could afford and spent long hours in your lab experimenting with it. Shamefully, yes, you had tried some of it. Mainly to test its efficiency but also out of plain curiosity. You had determined that it was safe, most importantly, but you’d also learned that it tasted horrible. To counter that, you’d added some–

“Oh fuck!” You shout as you scoot your chair so far back so quickly that it topples over. You stumble over your bag on the floor as you sprint to the kitchen.

“Is something wrong?” Viktor asks from his seated position.

“Don’t eat the muffin!” You exclaim as you run to the counter space next to the stove, your heart pounding.

You confirm your worst fear. The bottle of vanilla extract you picked up from the supermarket sits on the counter, the protective seal still intact. Your arousal serum, however, is halfway empty a few inches beside the extract.

You turn around slowly to face Viktor.

“It’s a bit late for that,” Viktor says, holding up the half of his muffin that remains. “Did something happen?”

You eye your own muffin on the table, half eaten as well.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you scrambled back toward the table where Viktor sat, the serum held tight by your hand. “You’re not allergic to anything, are you?”

“No,” Viktor says, eyeing you like you’re crazy.

Come on, just get it out already. You have to tell him, it would be morally bankrupt not to.

“I accidentally drugged you.”

Okay, maybe not like that.

Viktor just stared at you, his expression unchanged. You sort of just wished he would yell at you so that you could get the encounter over with, but no such luck. He just sat, unphased, until he picked up the notes he was looking at earlier.

“With this?” He asks. Even his voice is still even. You knew that if the roles had been reversed you would be fracking out, absolutely bouncing off the walls.

“Yes, but don’t worry I’ve done lots of research on this serum,” you say, taking the notes from Viktor and looking them over. You read the list two or three times, scanning for any sort of antidote for ingestion. You saw none. “How could I have not included an antidote?” You mutter, mentally beating yourself up.

“It’s okay,” Viktor said and you couldn’t even bring yourself to look up at him from your notes. “It is safe, yes? It won’t kill us?”

“No, it won’t, but it’s a powerful aphrodisiac and I added half the serum to those muffins. If my math is right, you’re taking three times the recommended dosage.”

“But I only ate half the muffin,” Viktor counters. Again, you’re shocked by how unphased he is.

“Okay, then one and a half times the dosage,” you shrug off his comment as you look for anything in your notes that might reveal a way to undo this mess.

“I assume this means you no longer wish to study?” Viktor says.

“How are you so calm about this?” You finally burst out, slamming the paper down on the table to look at him.

Big mistake.

Once you see him, you become lightheaded and your knees buckle beneath you. You have to sit down to stop yourself from falling over.

“Are you alright?” Viktor asks.

“I-I’m fine,” you shake your head in an attempt to get some blood flowing to your brain. No luck.

“Since you’re obviously worked up about this, why don’t you tell me how it works and then we can go from there.”

“It’s a fast acting stimulant,” you say, burying your face in your hands. “The chemistry is irrelevant since I have no goddamn cure for it, but it works the same as any other aphrodisiac. It makes you susceptible to arousal and heightens it by three times at a normal dosage, and in our case… nearly five times.”

“Intriguing,” he says, eyeing the muffin that lays neglected on the table. “Such a strange class project. Aren’t there moral quandaries to be had for such a substance?”

“Yes of course there are, which is why I made it so that it only takes effect if there’s already a degree of attraction in place–”

You shouldn’t have said anything. Especially not when you’re so clearly affected by it in the presence of Viktor. Way to sell yourself out.

“So you’re saying…”

You groan out in frustration, but once you look at Viktor you’re reminded of why you had your face buried in your hands. Somehow every feature of his seems five times more beautiful than you normally regarded them. His perfectly angular nose, his narrowed amber eyes, his messy hair which fell in ways you could never recreate on paper…

“I have a feeling you know exactly what I’m saying.” You squeezed your eyes shut. If you couldn’t see him, he couldn’t torture you.

Or so you thought.

A tantalizing graze of his hand on yours shot shivers down your spine. You pulled away so fast that a few of the papers on the desk shifted from the shear force of the wind.

“Don’t do that,” you seethed, sucked your teeth as you pressed your eyes shut so hard that you saw stars.

“Because…it affects you?” His voice was raspy and slow, or maybe that’s just what the serum was making you hear. Every bit of what he was doing seemed five times as attractive as it would normally be.

You’d done such a good job at hiding your feelings for Viktor for almost a year now. Being roommates with someone you found incredibly attractive was no easy task. And now all of your efforts were thrown out the window because of a stupid baking mishap.

“You’re being cruel,” you furrow your eyebrows as you speak, your voice coming out whinier than you would’ve liked.

“I’m sorry,” he stifles a laugh. “Would you open your eyes?”

“I can’t,” you groan, shoving your hands against your face again. “It’s best if I just go to my room and wait it out. Thank you for trying to study with me but I’m just gonna have to accept a shitty grade tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he said, his fingers wrapping around your wrists and pulling them down from your face so that you had to look at him. “It’s been a long time since I’ve taken biochemistry, and I certainly haven’t studied aphrodisiacs, but the effects should go away after the serum is put to use, correct?”

You thought back to your experimentation phase. All the nights you spent alone in your lab trying out the efficacy of the serum resulted in the effects dissipating once climax was reached. It had certainly been the least orthodox experimentation phase you’d ever undergone.

“Yes, that’s correct,” you say reluctantly. It takes every ounce of strength you have not to let your eyes explore Viktor’s face, then his long, narrow neck protruding his sweater, his Adam’s apple bobbing with a deep breath, then the sharp clavicle poking from–

Get yourself together.

“If you’re willing to retake the class–a class you should easily pass, given your access to the two most prevalent scientists in the field–then by all means, go to your room.” Viktor pulls his hands away from you, then picks up the muffin, peeling off the paper from the bottom. He picks off a piece and drops it onto his tongue.

“What are you doing? You’re just going to make it worse!”

He smirks at you, then sets the muffin back down. “It’s a very good muffin. You’re an excellent baker.”

Fuck.

“You’re playing with me,” you shake your head in disbelief.

“No, dearest, I am not playing with you,” he says, standing up from his chair, then moving toward you tantalizingly slow. He takes a seat on the table in front of you, then crosses his hands on his lap. “You’re smart enough to recognize the alternative I am offering to you.”

Your heart stops. You look at his half eaten muffin, although more than half is gone now with the addition of that last bite.

“You…” The idea is almost impossible for you to grasp, let alone put into words. “You want to expedite the process?”

“That’s certainly one way of putting it,” Viktor laughs. He reaches for a strand of your distressed hair and pushes it behind your ear.

“But you’re not even attracted to me!”

“What makes you think that?” Viktor says, retracting his hand, only to place it over yours on the desk.

“Because if you were, you’d be much more affected right now. I mean, look at me!” You gesture to yourself with your free hand. “I’m a mess! I’m on the brink of breaking out in a sweat and my hands are clammy and you’re just sitting there!”

Viktor laughs to himself as if he’s in on some kind of inside joke that you know nothing about.

“I’ve had lots of practice in concealing my excitement around you,” he finally says, slowly, seductively, the words dripping from his chin as his cold eyes bore into you.

“What?”

You know what he said. In fact, you understand it perfectly, but you can’t be sure it actually came from his mouth because it seems so perfectly unreal. So dream-like, so idealistic, so fantastical.

“You’ve done a good enough job at hiding your attraction, too,” Viktor says. “I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for tonight’s incident. Which is exactly why I’ve felt the need to hide my own.”

“You’ve liked me?”

You still can’t wrap your head around the idea.

“I’ve admired you,” he smiles, rubbing circles on the back of your hand, reminding you just how potent your little sex serum really is.

In fact, it’s so powerful that you hardly have to put any thought into leaping up from your chair and pushing your lips against his. Before you can third guess his affection, his hands are interlaced with your hair, pushing you deeper into his lips as his tongue begs to be let into your needy mouth.

Now it was clear to see how much the serum had actually affected him. In mere seconds, his hands grabbed at your thighs and pulled you up onto the table to straddle him with strength you didn’t even know he possessed. His breathy little moans sent you further into madness and you yanked his sweater off of his head, forcing your mouth off of his for just a few seconds, but once that sweater was off, your lips clung together like magnets.

Deft fingers unbuttoned your long sleeve shirt and he pulled it off your arms so quickly that you worried for a second that he might have ripped it. But you didn't care. You couldn’t possibly be concerned with a silly shirt when Viktor was beneath you on the kitchen table like a meal.

The serum didn’t exactly allow either of your minds to comprehend much foreplay. You fiddled with Viktor’s belt and he pushed your skirt up to your waist. Once both of you were exposed, he didn’t waste any time positioning you above his cock.

“So wet for me,” Viktor whined against your bare chest. “Is that the serum’s doing or is it mine?”

“Yours,” you whimper as Viktor slides his tip beneath your folds. “If it were anyone else in the room with me when I took the serum, I’d be unaffected.”

“I’m flattered,” he smiles cruelly as he thrusts up into you.

“Oh fuck,” you whine as your rest your heavy head on Viktor’s shoulder.

He brings his hands to your waist and guides you up and down as his hips meet your core in long, languid thrusts. The serum sets every single nerve on fire, making it seem as if each of his thrusts has the impact of twenty.

You moan muffled strangulations of his name into his neck, which only urges him to persist with his cruel thrusts. The sound of your cunt being abused fills the kitchen and you’re wildly thankful that Jayce is out of town.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” Viktor pants. “You have no idea.”

You really did have no idea. He hid it so well. You silently thanked whatever force had caused you to accidentally throw the serum into the muffin mix.

“So have I,” you whined against his skin. “Fuck…don’t stop…”

Each thrust is punctuated by the creaks of the sturdy kitchen table below you. His motions become quicker, shakier, and more intense and you can tell he’s reaching the end along with you. Your legs begin to shake and you feel that familiar tickling sensation in your core that the serum does a beautiful job at emulating.

“Viktor, I’m close, I’m so fucking close,” you moan as you lift your head from the crook of his neck. You bring your lips to his and he delivers his final thrusts. As he fills you, your moans echo on each other’s lips, a feeling you never thought you’d experience with your own brilliant roommate.

Your breathing steadies and Viktor wraps his arms around you, bringing you close to him as he tries to collect himself as well.

“You…” Viktor pants, “are forbidden from using that kitchen ever again.”

You laugh as you bring yourself off of him, pressing a kiss to his lips as you collect yourself. “That sounds fair to me.”

#viktor arcane #viktor x reader #arcane smut #viktor league of legends #viktor nation #fem reader

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keferon · 6 months ago

Note

Part 2 of Drift/Deadlock and Hot Rod playing air hockey with their remaining brain cells!

Ratchet desperately plays referee.

———————————————————————

The morning Sun was poking Ratchet in the eyes. He scrubbed one hand over his face while the other groped down the side of his recliner for the lever to drop his feet.

There was one more blanket on him than what he’d gone to sleep with.

Daw.

Ratchet needed something bitter immediately to compensate.

Rolling out of his chair with a patented old man grunt, Ratchet was about to get coffee when he realized there was a distinct lack of nitwits harassing him.

Ratchet could hear Hot Rod and Deadlock outside and turned heel to enforce some basic self preservation. He paused, and grabbed a broom for good measure.

Sitting crisscross on the pavement, Deadlock was rolling Hot Rod from one hand to the other and back again. The pilot alternated between somersaulting, sliding and swinging back and forth all while not breaking conversation.

“So you caught on fire and just kept fighting anyways?”

“Yup! Turned out to be an awesome way to get out of any grapple instant-“ Hot Rod huffed, tucking into another roll, “-taneoulsy!”

Ratchet cleared his throat and Deadlock instantly closed his hands around Hot Rod like a kid caught playing with something he shouldn’t have.

“Watcha got there?”

“Nuthin.” Said Deadlock.

“Nuthin.” Said Hot Rod, muffled.

Deadlocks face was twitching more and more the longer he tried to keep an innocent expression. He didn’t even bother trying to suppress the way his finales wriggled in clear amusement.

Hot Rods red mop of a head popped up between Deadlocks thumbs.

“Mornin Ratch! How’d ya sleep?”

Ratchet put the broom down, for now.

“I slept surprisingly well. And don’t call me Ratch.”

“Deadlock gets to call you Ratch! He also calls you HRUMF-“ Hot Rod was unceremoniously cut off. Deadlock frowning down at his re-clasped fists.

Ratchet couldn’t quite make out what his mech was muttering but it sounded suspiciously like “Little snitch.”

Before Ratchet could tell him to let Hot Rod go, both of Deadlocks finales snapped back with a twinned sharp CLACK.

“EUAGH.”

Deadlock whipped one hand away, shaking it vigorously while the other held Hot Rod upside down.

“He licked me!”

“And I’ll do it again!” Hot Rod yelled, tiny fists raised in victory.

Ratchet got the broom back out, “Kid, put him down. Gently. And Hot Rod, stop fucking licking people.”

Adequately humbled by threat of bristly doom, both dipshits complied.

Hrmph.

“Okay, Roddy, you know the drill before I’ll let you you head back to base.”

Hot Rod sighed in overdramatic resignation before plopping his butt on an often forgotten picnic table that got more use from spiders than humans. Deadlock rested his chin on his un-licked hand and watched curiously.

Ratchet appreciated that, though he wouldn’t admit it. Deadlock was always quiet and thoughtful while Ratchet worked. Kid had an uncanny talent for anticipating what Ratchet needed and picked up on when the bioengineer worked beyond his limits. Well, tried to work beyond his limits.

Since Deadlock started living with him, Ratchet never got away with overworking anymore. He was a big fella with a fearsome temper that dissuaded most folks from pushing him. Previous challengers that tried to force Ratchet to maintain a work-life balance usually gave up on him around the same time the first throwable object goes sailing towards their face.

Deadlock just snorted and put his foot down.

Literally.

He put his foot on top of a piece of particularly contentious machinery that had been driving Ratchet up the wall, refusing to move until he agreed to a “Power Nap” that ended up lasting 6 hours.

Ratchet snorted at the memory and pulled out a pen light as he started Hot Rods physical.

“Hey how far do you think you could throw me?”

Ratchet felt his soul sigh.

“Dunno, couple hundred feet? You’re pretty light.”

“Do not encourage him.” If Ratchet got any satisfaction from Hot Rod wincing as he checked his pupil dilation, then that was his business.

“Okay, but what if I was in a roll cage? It’d be heftier to throw AND safer. Ratchet! You could even design one so it’s definitely up to spec!”

Ratchet was going to get an ulcer from second hand stupid.

He pinched the bridge of his nose very hard before speaking, “You want me to make you a human sized hamster ball so Deadlock can bat you around like a spoiled house cat?”

“Yeah!”

“No!”

Hot Rod mumbled dejectedly to himself while Ratchet tested his range of motion. Once satisfied, Ratchet moved onto the question’s section.

“Alright Roddy, any headaches?”

“No.”

“Nausea?”

“No.”

“Balance issues?”

“You saw me do a whole gymnastics routine on a giant vampire-space-robot.”

“Hrmph. Light headedness?”

“No.”

“Lapses in consciousness?”

“Sleeping count?”

“Hot Rod.”

“Joking! And no.”

“Blurry vision, ringing in the ears or sensitivity to light or noise?”

“Nope, nope, and nope! I’m fine Ratchet!”

“I’m fine Ratchet? You know how many currently dead pilots have said that to me?”

“Well, Pharma signed off on-“

Ratchet slammed the penlight down on the cracked wood table with more force than necessary, making both the pilot and the mech jump.

“Pharma is a conceited piece of SHIT and the only thing his ‘Sign Off sheets’ are good for is WIPING. MY. ASS.”

Ratchet forced air through his nose. Both Deadlock and Hot Rod frozen in place, wide eyed and tense.

Shit.

Ratchet broke the unintended stare down by scrubbing a hand over his face. He should really shave.

“Sorry. You’re not in trouble. It’s just-“

“Pharma.” Hot Rod finished. “It’s okay doc, I get it. You got waaaay higher standards than him. S’why I keep coming back. I trust you. And I know no matter how bad things get you’ll always have our backs, and we’ll have yours.”

It was moments like these that reminded Ratchet of why he wanted to fight for people like Hot Rod.

“Plus,” Hot Rod leaned towards Deadlock and yell-whispered dramatically. “He’s been a huge asshole ever since Ratchet dumped him.”

It was moments like these that reminded Ratchet of why he wanted to strangle people like Hot Rod.

“Stop phrasing how I left the mecha program like that. It wasn’t just Pharma I had issues with.”

Ratchet tucked his penlight away and ignored the murderous plotting he could feel wafting off of Deadlock. Don’t kill my “ex” coworker was still a rule in effect until further development.

“Last question. Any weird pressures?” Ratchet did finger quotes around the last two words and waited.

Hot Rod was about to automatically say No again but stopped short, and visibly did a mental check of himself.

“Uh, kind of around my stomach and the top of my thighs?”

Ratchet hummed, “Alright, pull up your shirt a little.”

Hot Rod did as he was told, just above the waistband, Ratchet could see some mild day old bruising.

“Yep, that’s what you get for flinging yourself through a car window instead of using the door ya dingbat.”

Ratchet straightened up and appraised the pilot one more time.

“Alright, make sure you put some ice on that when you get back. Otherwise you’re good to go.”

Hot Rod pulled his shirt back down and broke into a grin.

“Thanks Ratchet! See you guys again soon! Don’t do anything awesome without me until then okay?” Hot Rod pointed back to Deadlock for that last bit and waited until he said “On my life!” before finally driving off with a wave goodbye.

—————————

They had each finished their breakfasts, oatmeal and horrible alien blood respectively, when Ratchet said “I need to talk to you about something.”

Deadlock tensed, plating pulling in close before loosening again. Kid probably thought he was in trouble but could tell immediately that Ratchet wasn’t upset with him. He wasn’t sure how the mech did it, but damn if it didn’t make talking to him easier.

“What’s up?” He wiped quintesson gunk from his mouth.

“You gotta be careful with Hot Rod. You really cannot feed into any crazy ideas he has because he will get hurt and it will be by accident.”

Deadlock pinned his finales back and crinkled his nose. “I was careful Ratch. I did everything the way you taught me. I didn’t pick him up by the head, didn’t squeeze him too hard or nothin. And I was ready to stop at any second the moment he said anything hurt!”

“Kid.” Ratchet rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s the thing. He can’t.”

Deadlock tilted his head, “What do you mean?”

———————————————————————

It’s getting real late again and I’ve already resigned myself to making this a three parter.

This time on the Trio of Friendship and Bad Ideas: Deadlock gets to play with a human slinky, Ratchets looses his sanity and something is up with Hot Rod.

Secrets of the mecha programs side effects will be revealed! Next time.

- SSTP

The way I legitimately can't stop smiling while reading this.....

The way your writing feels like a beam of pure joy flashbanging me through the screen. I can't evenKTYLGMNFHD I DONT FUCKING KNOW WHAT ARE YOU ADDIND IN YOUR WRITING BUT THIS STUFF IS ADDICTING PLEASE KEEP IT UP 👁

Also the mental image of Roddy being a human equivalent of a fidget toy for Deadlock is so entertaining I couldn't resist drawing it jfyjncfh

Roddy still doesn't have a design...oh well........

#maccadam #transformers #tf mecha universe #ratchlock #hot rod #roddy #mecha writing #mecha rl writing #mecha art #mecha rl art #mecha dr writing #mecha dr art

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sparrows4bats · 2 months ago

Text

@vi-reads Thanks for the Inspo!!

Damian is smart, a genius to rival his father, everyone knows that, but what even the batfamily didn't realise is just how qualified he is.

Damian spent at least the first 10 years of his life with access to a multitude of tutors who were forced to change their ciriculums to adapt to how fast he learnt. By the time he joins his family, he has the equivalent of PHDs in many fields, including but not limited to Geology, Business and Finance, Engineering, and Zoology. He learnt classical instruments such as the violin and is fluent in multiple languages.

Now imagine a preteen Damian going from that to a classroom education with his age group for the first time. No matter how elite Gotham Academy claims to be, there is only so much they can do to keep him stimulated, and as Bruce wants him to learn social skills, he is stuck in tedium.

So he looks for other outlets out of pure boredom. As the stagnantation gets worse, so does his attitude.

The first one to notice is Alfred, predictably. The old butler remembers how Bruce was at that age and the terror he was in his boredom, so he took Damian aside and offered him a deal. If he completes all of his schoolwork, how his teachers want him to. (It takes Damian only two hours a week) Alfred has no issue procuring him learning materials on any subject he would like. Damian so frustrated at this point, agrees without hesitation. The Manor quickly fills with university level textbooks on Physics, Chemical Engineering and Mathematics.

But soon that isn't enough, and Damian, despite knowing more than ever, has nothing to do with it.

He start seeking out the rogues after he finds their research. Ivy, Quinn, Freeze, and Scarecrow are very confused but so happy and flattered to talk about their work with Robin, who has fascinating ideas of his own.

Barbara is the next to notice because while she is taking inventory of Batcave supplies, she notices chemicals and other raw materials are going missing, so she checks the cameras and sees Damian making gadgets, different antidotes and poisons, even a second flying Batmobile!!

So Barbara confronts him about it and he (and Alfred) explain what's been going on and Barbara feels her heartbreak a little because God does she understand this problem she herself is always pursuing at least one qualification or writing a research paper under a puesdo name. When she was young, her boredom and the lack of accommodations in Gotham literally led to her becoming Batgirl.

A bored genius in Gotham is a recipe for disaster, so she very quickly sets Damian up with placement exams in every subject she can think of. He passes every single one of them at a high school level and many past university.

Damian looks elated when the results arrive, and Barbara easily convinces Harvard (where she did her law degree long distance) to accredit him and formalise his qualifications. They even work it so Damian can write his dissertations in Gotham Academy so that he can still gain social skills and go to Gotham University to use their labs and libraries when needed.

By the end of the year, Damian has earned his official PhD. in Geology and Mechanical Engineering and plans on doing his next one in Chemistry and Bioengineering. He even easily completes an MBA and starts branching out to the humanities.

The family doesn't know about any of this until Damian invites them all to his graduation, but do note the improvement in Damians' behaviour. (Damian keeps forging Bruces signature on the paperwork).

To say they are shocked but happy is an understatement. Bruce has a crisis because Damian has multiple PHDs in Gotham! What if he becomes a villain!

Yet all of Damians' research is for the betterment of people and animals. The batfamily becomes very overprotective of him, especially around chemicals. Just in case.

Jon finds out about it after Damian and he start dating. He knew his best friend was smart but hadn't taken him that seriously when they were kids. Damian went to Gotham Academy and hated every second of it.

After he slept over for the first time and couldn't find him in the morning, Jon located him in the Manor by his heartbeat to Damians study, where his degrees were framed and hung on the wall. He was in awe of how many there were.

Damian proudly explained each one to him, and Jon kissed his genius for every graduation he missed. He now calls Damian Doctor just to see him blush. (In the privacy of his own mind, Dr. And Mr Wayne Kent has a nice ring to it.)

Damian and Barbara bond and give feedback on eachothers work regularly. The bats who are still in school come to them for help, and Tim is inspired to get his GED and join a university program. (Alfred is Delighted) The Wayne Family Library expands rapidly to accommodate research materials, and Bruce builds Damian a proper lab. (It's so much easier to make antidotes now!)

When Damian goes to med school, he quits being Robin as he has to be there in person at odd hours. Bruce mopes, but goes to yet another graduation. Damian still does some lab work but finds his calling in Surgery and Medical Research.

The thing is, outside of the family, and even inside of it, very few know how many qualifications Damian has achieved.

Until one of the rare times Damian goes to Watchtower and someone tries to correct him as he explains the very complicated biochemical pathogen that is being spread by a new villain.

Damian looks bored and asks where they did their degree when other answers he goes, "Oh yes, I know your advisor. I disproved his shoddy results last month. I published my paper last week."

The hero turns bright red and tries to argue, but Damian shuts him down at every turn. "Well, the expert in this field - "

"Is me, so if you don't have a better idea, sit the hell down and shut up!"

The bats look so smug, and Jon has to restrain himself from dragging his wonderful partner into the nearest supply closet. (He finds Damian so irresistible when he is both competent and verbally evisirating someone.)

#damian wayne #jondami #batfamily #batfam #supersons #jon kent #bruce wayne #barbara gordon #alfred pennyworth #damijon

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omega-e123 · 10 months ago

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!! NSFW !!

Suggestive. Blood mention.

AKA: Intro to very self indulgent rut fic. You have been warned

In A Rut..

Prologue (HERE!) || Restraint || Indulgence || Adoration

Odd behavior.

There Shadow goes again, walking off. He’s been acting strange lately. At first Shadow was practically clinging on to you.

Normally he doesn’t initiate physical contact, but at home he’s been snuggling into you, holding your body down so you can’t leave him. Attempting to part ways results a grumbly hedgehog.

The kisses don’t stop coming either. Knuckles every time you hold hands. Cheeks and forehead whenever he has to leave, no matter how short of an absence. Even if he’s going to be right back.

Jealousy has also become a big thing. Talking to anyone Shadow deems as a “threat”, he’s looming behind you, head on your shoulder and hands on your hips.

The worst it got was on a date at a bar. Shadow left momentarily to get you a drink. When he returned, someone was flirting you up. Enraged, the glass completely shattered in his hand. It sure scared off that guy. You had to bring attention to the shards in his hand, because he wasn’t concerned at all about it. Instead, Shadow slammed some money on the table and took your hand with the non injured one and left.

Next thing you knew, he’s been keeping distance from you. Both physically and shortening the time you two hung out.

He’s stopped initiating all together. Any advances you made Shadow wouldn’t turn down, but he would abruptly stop or attempt to keep it short. Started wearing a mask around you too.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Something is wrong with him. Your smell alone has started making his head spin. Every fiber of his being is drawn to you. Seeing you forces his quills to stand up on end.

Is this what a heart attack feels like? The pounding drum that is his heart is deafening. There’s no room to think. The only thing on his mind was you.

It’s not like he hasn’t thought about you that way. Hell, it’s not like you two haven’t done the deed either; however, the intensity and frequency of these feelings have been cranked up to 100. It felt more primal.

The complete self restraint Shadow has to not pin you against the nearest wall, public or not, and shove his tongue down your throat is tearing him apart.

Such odd behavior was concerning. Swallowing every bit of ego and embarrassment, he turns to Rouge for answers.

Some help she was. That damn bat.

“Sorry, no can do. Sounds like a biological thing and not in the alien sense. I know you’ll hate to hear this but, try asking Sonic about it. You both are hedgehogs after all.”

“I think I would prefer skinning myself and be turned into a rug—“

She gives him a hard pat on the back, “Don’t say that. It wouldn’t be so bad~ I suppose you could ask Amy about it too… Or suffer! Your choice.”

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

What’s worse? Confronting Amy or Sonic?

That blue little shit would never let him live it down. Sonic could implode from hysterical laughter if Shadow told him about these thoughts.

Amy… It’s simply too TMI. While she is understanding and more open, what if she didn’t know anything.

Shadow’s instincts pull him towards the former option. Unfortunately for the hedgehog, he was semi right.

Sonic took a good minute turned away from Shadow. His hand clasped over his mouth and the other holding his stomach. Sonic reeling in his laughter and forcing not a sound to come out.

“Nono! Sorry! It’s cute!”

“Cute?” Shadow’s eyes narrow.

Sonic waves his hand, as if he’s fanning the comment away. “Never mind. Sometimes I forget you’re bioengineered. What you’re going through is a rut.”

“This better not be some kind of joke.”

Hands in the air, feigning surrender. “I’m not. You’ve probably never experienced it before because you ain’t got bitches you never had a partner. It’s the one time a year hormones go crazy. Some other Mobians also experience it too, like deer.”

Shadow’s massages his temples, processing the new information. “You’re telling me, it’s a biological signal that it is time to breed.”

“Odd way to put it but yeah, basically. Lasts about two months. What you do with that information is up to you. G’luck buddy” he gives Shadow a thumbs up and runs off.

Two whole months. Only about two and a half weeks have passed and already Shadow can’t stop thinking about you splayed on his bed begging for his touch.

#shadow the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog x reader #shadow x reader #sth #x reader #shadow smut #shadow x reader smut #proof reading? what’s that #we straight up type delete as we go baby #don’t ask me questions /hj #smut #cw blood #blood mention

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hwaslayer · 4 months ago

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wildfire (cs) | fifteen.

—spotify playlist | series masterlist

—summary: assistant professor in bioengineering, incredibly attractive, lonely and divorced; that’s how most people describe san. but despite the events that have happened in his life, san has a lot going for himself. he’s a successful, sought out professor due to his brilliant contributions to science at just an early age of 32. he worked hard to get where he was now; head deep into his research, his publications, building his lab and creating a name for himself. everything was good and smooth sailing— until it wasn’t. because when he meets you, a bioengineering grad student interested in rotating in his lab, he finds himself ready to risk all the blood, sweat and tears he put in throughout the years just to keep you close— his need for you spiraling out of control like a wildfire.

—pairing: asst. professor!choi san x grad student!f. reader

—genre: (18+ - minors dni) strangers to lovers, grad school au | fluff, angst, smut

—word count: 6.6k

—chapter content/warnings: cussing/mature language, changes are happening??, namjoon again to the rescue, a bit of distant san 😔, a bit of yearning san ❤️‍🩹, alcohol consumption & intoxication, a very small kiss that was accidental and meant absolutely nothing, these two just 😞 over each other, some crying

—on rotation: next to you - bryson tiller | i'll be alright (tonight) - mura masa

Two months have passed, closer to 3, and you've been busy working your ass off in Namjoon's lab. You've brainstormed and came up with a project that Namjoon approved, giving you all the resources and space you needed to get started. You've also been working alongside a few people in the lab since their project was relatable to yours, finding guidance and a little bit of training and support to carry your project forward. It's been busy, and it's been a good busy.

It's been good enough to keep your mind off of San.

For the most part.

You could only avoid him so many times, and it's not like the ache you felt deep in your chest, your stomach, went away. It still lingers, and it still hits you from time to time.

And it doesn't make it any easier when you get reminders.

Like meeting San's eyes across campus— only for him to break loose and shift his attention elsewhere.

The shift is a harsh, cold reminder that this may actually be over for good.

—FLASHBACK

"Hey." Sunwoo says, gently nudging you. "You okay? Haven't seen you in awhile?" You nod, half smiling before looking down at your laptop.

"Was busy." You chuckle a bit. "Was working on the fine details of my rotation presentation, along with all the data analysis we worked on." You give him a small smile. "I came to clean out the last bits of my stuff."

"It'll all blow over." He says with a reassuring smile. "For the record, I don't think it really matters but I know Professor Kim is just trying to keep everything together before it all blows up again."

"Guessing the whole world knows now?" He shrugs.

"Maybe, maybe not. I haven't heard much lately, but you know me, I don't like to meddle in things like that in general. I keep outta that shit."

"People must think greatly of me." He chuckles.

"It doesn't matter what they think. In any case, you are a good person, you're super sweet and super smart. If they choose to fix on that, that's their issue."

"Thanks, Sunwoo." You look at him. "I'm sorry I won't be able to help you after this."

"That's okay. We'll still hang out and I'm sure we'll cross paths more before I finish up here. Plus, I love Professor Choi but having Professor Kim take you under his wing is fucking sick." You laugh, playfully shoving him.

"I don't know where this will take me, but I hope it works out."

"Are you two.. still a thing? Secret's safe with me. For real."

"I know. But, no."

"I don't know the ins and outs of what happened between you and Professor Choi, but I'm sure he did it for good reason. To also protect you."

"Yeah, maybe. Who knows anymore." You sigh. "Anyway. Gotta head out to do my rotation presentation."

"Goodluck. It'll be all good." Sunwoo gives you a small smile. "Text or call me? Let's get lunch on a weekly basis or something to catch up."

"Yeah, I will. Thanks for everything, Sunwoo."

"Nah, thank you. You really helped my ass out." You laugh and playfully ruffle his hair.

"I'll see you around." You gather your things and let out a shaky sigh as you head out. You're hauling your main bag, and another tote bag that has the rest of your things from your desk. You head over to the small auditorium that Namjoon booked for your rotation presentation, giving yourself some wiggle room to set up and get situated before the three would arrive.

Too bad someone else also had the same plan.

You waltz into the room and head straight for the podium, setting your things down onto a chair in the front row. You grab your laptop and settle at the front, eyes shooting up at the door when you hear footsteps approach the entrance.

And of course it would be San.

He slowly trails in with Namjoon next to him; except, Namjoon turns to speak with a student that stopped him right by the entrance. San is in his black dress pants, white shirt and a black leather jacket. His boots are leaving sounds with every step he takes, watch gleaming on his wrist. He meets your eyes and you instantly freeze— shifting your attention back to your laptop because you don't know what the hell else to do. He doesn't say anything as he heads down the aisle and to the front row, his greeting almost sounding dull.

Forced, even.

"Y/N."

"Professor Choi." The awkwardness and the tension fills the room, and you can't help but notice how awfully clammy your hands are getting. How nervous you feel yourself getting. "How are you?"

"Good." Is all he says before plopping into seat in front while you continue to work with the AV system to get your presentation up on the screen.

"That's good." You reply without looking at him. He feels cold and so standoff-ish— it's hard to tell if he's doing this because he has to or because he actually means it. Was he really done with you? "Hope the presentation's okay." You mumble lightly. San catches on, but he continues to scroll through his phone to distract himself until Namjoon finally walks in.

"Sure you'll be fine." And it sucks. Maybe he does mean it. He doesn't say anything else, and he doesn't reassure you the way he usually does. For San, it's a front. He has to distance himself or else he'll cave. For you, it hurts nonetheless.

"Sorry! Got caught up. The dean's on his way." Namjoon pops in and sits next to San in the front row. "All good, Y/N? Do you need help with setting anything else up?"

"No, I think I got it. Thank you." You smile at him and he nods.

"Course."

"Alright, let's get this going. Sorry for the small wait." The dean comes in last, taking a seat by the two. "Hi Y/N, hope you're doing okay."

"Think so." You chuckle a bit. "Well, I'll get started if there aren't any objections?" They shake their heads. "Great." You nervously respond while Namjoon and the dean give you a small smile.

San doesn't even maintain eye contact with you.

But, it's only because it's the hardest thing to suppress his feelings for you whenever you're in front of him and he can't exactly have you like he used to.

—END

"Yo!" Jiung waves, shifting your attention towards him across the lawn. You give him a small smile, stopping in your motions to wait for him to cross over. To your left is San, patiently waiting for Zara to walk over to him. You can't help but watch; the two only a couple of feet away, their voices slightly echoing around the courtyard.

His hand hovering the small of her back as they enter the Harvey Building together.

To this day, you can still feel your heart physically drop to your gut. You're not sure when it'll pass, but you hope it's soon. You're so tired of feeling this way.

So, so tired.

"Hey." You give Jiung a tiny smile as you hug your books against your chest.

"Whattup?" It took awhile for you and Jiung to get back to normal. You always knew you would, but you needed a little more time to understand his side of things. For awhile, you were angry and hurt. All you could see was red. All you could see was Jiung openly going behind your back to talk to Professor Kim about something he didn't know anything about.

You saw the surface level.

But, as time went on, and as your hurt continued to settle into something you just needed to accept, you understood Jiung a little more. You knew he had always cared about you and you knew he was always protective of you. You knew there wasn't any ill intention behind his actions. And when you two finally came together to talk about it more maturely, you've seen that Jiung had been more understanding of your side, too. He apologized for having gotten in the middle, but he did everything out of care for you and protection. It's clearer now that the relationship you had with San wasn't just any relationship— he saw you cry, and cry, and cry. Wondering where you went wrong or what you could've done to be more careful, to prevent this from happening. He saw the look in your eyes, the way your body physically called and yearned for San's touch and love; he knew this wasn't any of those cases of power imbalance or a one-sided relationship. He felt stupid having needed time to marinate on the whole thing when he should've known you better. But, he could truly say he acted in fear and felt better to err on the side of caution.

He just wished it didn't have to end like this; with you, sad and alone. Feeling like all of it was just too good to be true, a fleeting moment.

A quick chapter in your book.

He gets that now.

When he sees San walking around, he almost feels the same energy, aura, that he feels when he sees you. It's just too bad he can't help. Even if he did, he finds it better to no longer meddle.

Maybe it'll bring you two back together again. When the time is right.

"Nothing. I just need to get some stuff together before I meet with Professor Kim in a bit."

"Nervous?"

"No, not really." You shake your head. "Things have been going well for the most part, minus little hiccups. He wanted to talk about other programs and opportunities he found fitting for me."

"Huh." Jiung cocks a brow up. "More collaborations he wants you involved in, I'm assuming." You shrug.

"If it is, I'm for it. Just hope it doesn't take up my entire schedule completely." You chuckle.

"It'll be good either way!"

"Yeah, I know. It's been good. I have no complaints." You shiver from the breeze that's picking up, digging your face deeper into the scarf you have on.

"Did you hear? There's supposed to be a random storm coming soon. Spring weather, amirite?"

"I heard."

"Are you gonna head home? You should try and head home if you can. Who knows what it'll bring here."

"I don't know. I do need to catch up on some data analysis or else I'll be behind." You pause. "Dunno if I trust myself to work productively at home. We have backup generators, right?"

"I mean, yeah. But, what if it goes out? Then, what?"

"Yeah, I don't know. Let's hope that's not one of these cases." You stop in front of the Panama Building and turn to Jiung.

"Lunch later?" You nod.

"Might be a little late. I'll text you when I'm wrapping up?"

"Sounds good. We'll wait for you."

"See you later." You wave before heading inside the building, shimmying off the cold once you step inside and try to warm yourself up. You head down to the lab, setting your things down on your desk before immediately getting started on your work for the day. You try to pace yourself and plan out your tasks well so that you're able to step out for your meeting with Professor Kim and grab lunch with your friends in a few hours.

It's busy, and time flies. Busy is good. At least your mind is occupied with other pressing matters.

Time slips by so quickly you're almost running late to your meeting with Professor Kim. You put a pause in your current run for behavior, grabbing your laptop and a notebook before darting up to Professor Kim's office. You power-walk down the familiar hallway before finally reaching his open door, finding him occupied at his desk.

"Hey!" Namjoon smiles when you walk into his office and plop down in the chair. "Give me a second, just finishing up this email."

"All good." You chuckle. "Sorry I'm a few minutes late. Was running behavior."

"No worries, I figured. Get comfortable." You plop onto the seat in front of his desk, watching as his fingers move swiftly on the keyboard before he navigates to the mouse and clears his throat. "Okay! All good." He laughs a bit. "How's it going?"

"Good! Pretty busy per usual."

"Good busy, I suppose?"

"Yes, good busy. It's been productive. Days are going by quick. I've got some really promising data for this cohort and I think you might be happy with it."

"I'm happy with any progress." You laugh. "That sounds great! Any other ideas? Any other plans at the moment?"

"Well, I'm not sure yet. As long as I'm on the right path, I think there are other avenues I can explore if the results continue to trend upwards."

"Then, let's explore when we get there. I know you'll continue to do great work, and the results look promising. It all looks promising."

"Thank you, Professor Kim."

"There is something else I wanted to talk to you about." You cock a brow up and tilt your head to the side.

"Sure. I'm all ears."

"Professor Qi from the Mirae Biomedical Institute contacted me the other day. She was really impressed by your symposium presentation and the work you've done in Professor Choi's lab and mine. She thinks you'd be a great asset in their program, especially since she's starting a new clinical research study that I also agree you'd contribute well to. It's a study examining neural activity and behavioral patterns in individuals with conditions like bipolar disorder, anxiety, and OCD, etc. You get the gist. A lot of your work is relatable and can be used to push this study forward."

"Oh my god, wow." You respond in disbelief, shock, even. You didn't think anyone was really paying attention to your work like that, especially with what has happened. You kinda felt like a lost cause even though nothing entirely catastrophic has happened. "I was not expecting that."

"Why not?" Namjoon laughs. "You deserve the credit. What do you think about it?"

"I'm really honored, truly. I think it's a great opportunity."

"It is. Not a lot of people get recruited this way, especially with a research assistant position included in the package." You nod silently, still trying to take it in. "Now, if you do want to move forward, it does mean we'll have to get your transfer application in ASAP. They do offer housing assistance should you need it, and they're willing to help cover any other expenses until you settle."

"Right, transferring." You look down at your palms. Truthfully, Mirae wasn't that far from here; it'd be about 2 hours out, but you could easily get there by a drive down the less busier highway or the bullet train.

You'd have to make that effort to see your friends, meet halfway.

San comes into your head.

"I know it's a bit scary, you've already gotten accustomed to things here even if it's just been your first year. But, luckily, it's not that far away and you can always meet your friends halfway. The train can connect you to campus and back." He tries to reassure you because he really wants you to take this. Of course, he can't force you, but he knows this would be beneficial to your growth.

"Yeah, I know. It's not that bad."

"It's not. Plus, you guys all drive, right?" You nod.

"When do I have to get my transfer application in?" Namjoon pulls up the information on his desktop and lets out a small sigh.

"In two weeks. We can get that done. I can write up a letter of recommendation for you and have Professors Choi and Bahng do one each." He looks at you. "Do you feel comfortable asking Professor Jeong for one since you TA'd for him? It's not entirely necessary, but wanted to see how you felt."

"Um, to be honest, not really." He nods.

"That's fine. We don't need it. Us three should be more than enough." He gives you a tiny smile. "Think you can get a personal statement and everything else together by then?"

"Yeah, I think so. Shouldn't be too much of a hassle."

"I can help with official transcripts, too."

"That sounds great." Your expression is blank and Namjoon tilts his head to try and get a read from you.

"Why the face?"

"I truthfully didn't think I was qualified or that anyone was really paying attention." Namjoon chuckles a bit.

"Listen, your grades are fantastic. The work you do is incredible. I fully think you are capable of handling all the ins and outs of this transfer and transitioning over." Namjoon smiles. "The program isn't too different from ours, but it will definitely offer you a lot of different options and pathways with the clinical study picking up."

"It's alot, and I'm grateful you believe in me. I just don't know if I can handle it. The changes."

"Don't second-guess yourself, okay? You are more than capable. It won't be much different from what you're already doing. Just a 'lil more umph. More seasoning, if you will."

"You think so?" He nods.

"You'll still focus on research, but you'll be split between classes and eventually, the hospital. Unfortunately, that does probably mean there is some weekend work in store for you." You let out a breath, eyes still on Professor Kim. He lets out another laugh [of endearment] and nods, clasping his hands together. "I know that look. I've been there before, but trust me. You'll do amazing, and you'll excel, no doubt. You shouldn't restrict yourself just because you assume you won't do well. Your work and ethic has proved otherwise."

"Thank you, Professor Kim. I think I do wanna move forward with this."

"Cool, then we can work together and get you set up. I'll loop you into an email with her so we can all chat and finalize this. Hopefully before the week ends." You nod.

"And I mean it, by the way." You pause. "Thank you for everything. For supporting me and pushing me forward regardless of everything that's happened."

"You're welcome. I would never let that define you." You give him a small smile, fiddling with your laptop sleeve— dying to ask him about the one person that has been occupying your mind the most. "You okay otherwise?"

"Yeah, I think so. Just thought about some things, but nothing important."

"He's doing okay." Namjoon gives you a tiny smile.

"I— huh? How'd you know I was—"

"Because I just do. He asks about you, too."

"Oh." Is all you say, swallowing the thick lump forming in your throat. "Well, I'm glad he's okay."

"Him and Professor Choi #2 received approval for their joint program, so they'll be getting the real estate they wanted in the new building."

"That's amazing. I'm glad it all worked out." Namjoon nods.

"Anything else I can do for you in the meantime?"

"No, that's it. For now. I'm sure more things will come up when we meet next."

"Sounds good. Well, you let me know if anything comes up or if I can do anything else for you."

"Thanks, Professor Kim." You give him one last smile before grabbing your things and heading out the door.

And the rest of your day is pretty eventful, but not as eventful as San's turns out to be.

While you busy yourself with your new classes, lab work and hanging out with your friends, San is having to force himself to go out with his own group. For awhile, he kinda sulked. Stayed home, did his own thing. Kept quiet. But, it got old to Jongho [and the rest of them] quick— hence, now he's being forced to leave the comfort of his home.

He guesses he could use the fresh air, the night out. It is Mingi's birthday, so he doesn't think he could've said no otherwise.

"Ayo!" Jongho calls out as he enters San's house, twirling the key around his finger as he waits for San's response.

"I told you I'd be fine driving." San slowly comes down his steps, dressed in a simple tee, jeans and a bomber jacket.

"Okay, miss attitude." Jongho laughs. "I'm trying to make it easier so you don't have to worry about parking and what not." San sighs.

"Thanks." He shrugs. "Do I look okay? Not that it matters."

"Can you at least try to be somewhat happy? Especially when we see Mingi later?"

"I'm sorry, I really am trying. Just kinda hard to."

"I know, and I truly think you could use this night to get your mind off of things. It's been some time, give yourself a little break." Jongho nudges him.

"Yeah, yeah. You're right." San gives him a small smile.

"Things will get better, but you gotta stop sulking about it or else you'll just keep enforcing this negativity to come for you."

"Wow, that's the deepest shit I've ever heard from you."

"And it won't come again, so fucking take it or leave it." San laughs a bit and shakes his head.

"Can we go? Before I change my mind and tell Mingi I'm sick or something."

"Hell no." Jongho starts power-walking to his car, making San take his time as he checks around the living room and kitchen once more before locking up and slipping into the passenger's seat. San slouches in his seat while Jongho drives off towards the busy downtown area, scrolling through the new group chat created for Mingi's birthday to catch up.

"They're all there already."

"Yeah, well. They wanted a head start."

"I thought Zara wasn't coming."

"She wasn't, but I think her initial plans ended up getting canceled."

"I see." San sighs and rests his head back against the head rest. The bar is ways away from campus, thankfully. It's a new bar that just opened a month ago, and Mingi's birthday was the perfect excuse for everyone to get together for a night and relieve some stress. When Jongho arrives at their destination, he's having to park down the block due to how crazy busy the area is tonight. It's a chilly night, and San has to tuck his hands into the pockets of his bomber jacket to try and keep himself warm on the walk. When they enter, they see familiar faces near the back wall of the bar, Mingi's loud voice radiating towards the entrance.

"My fucking boys!" He says, already intoxicated. He pulls San and Jongho into a hug before the two start greeting the group properly.

"Hey. I didn't think you were coming." San says, pulling Zara into a hug. She's got on a jeans, high heeled boots and an off-the shoulder sweater on. She's got a bit more makeup on tonight— she's gone for the natural blush kinda look. San is not gonna lie, she looks good.

But, she will never be you.

"Yeah, plans got canceled and I was already dressed so, figured I'd make use of the outfit somehow." San chuckles a bit.

"Glad you were able to." He gives her a small smile before greeting the rest of the crew that was there, including Namjoon.

The night starts off pretty chill for San. He's taken a few shots to try and keep up with Mingi, no longer wanting to hear him complain about how no one wanted to take shots for his birthday. After the third, he tries to slow it down and cashes in for a small can of beer while Mingi continues on with spreading the love throughout the group by passing out more shots. The music is right up everyone's ally, making most of their group bounce along to the beats and sing along loudly. San's got himself next to Zara at the booth— both of them sipping on their poison for the rest of the night.

"So, San." She turns to him, her chin resting on the palm of her hand. "How's everything going?" San looks at her and despite the blush she's wearing, he can tell her cheeks are naturally flushing red at the question, at being tipsy. At the fact that she has him alone.

Because you aren't around.

"Good. Super busy, but good." San is pretty drunk, not gonna lie. He doesn't normally drink like this, but he figured he'd just enjoy himself while around his bestfriends. The beer obviously isn't helping his case, but he believes he'll be fine. He doesn't think anything will come out of this anyway. "Heard you've secured some new funding and you've got three more grad students."

"I did, yeah."

"Congrats." San smiles at her before gently tapping his beer can against her cocktail glass.

"What's new with you? We haven't been able to catch up for a bit."

"Yeah, sorry. It's just— it's been a rollercoaster."

"I bet." Zara sips on her drink. There's a slight pause before she's tracing the rim of her glass, then speaking up again. "I'm sorry about everything that's happened." San looks at her. They're sitting in close proximity; enough for San to feel her arm rub against him whenever she moves, her body heat.

"You don't have to be sorry for anything." He gives her a small smile. "It is what it is. Things are pretty stable now."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"So, are you not seeing her anymore?" San takes a big gulp of his beer while keeping his eyes trained on the crowd in front of him. Her.

You always come back in the picture.

"No."

"I'm sorry."

"All good. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be." Zara looks up at him and they meet eyes for a moment. To her, the tension feels thick. But to San, he's just going with the motions. He's drunk, she's pretty, he's chillin'. Nothing more to it. But, she looks at him in a certain way and it has him slightly furrowing his brows when he tilts his head to look at her a little more, a little deeper.

"I'm sure it hasn't been easy." Her eyes are moving down to his nose, to his lips. San is following her gaze and he knows all too well where this could lead. He should've known to break contact, but before he could even think about it, Zara is the first to lean in and make her move— lips pressing against San's that he's instantly in shock and can't process right away.

But, what he does know is that this doesn't feel right, and his body is already rejecting the action because it isn't you.

"Zara—" San gently pushes Zara back with a frown on his face. "Zara, I can't. I— this can't happen. I'm sorry if I ever misled you, but—"

"Oh." She almost looks confused. "No, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, how embarrassing." She shies away. "I should've known."

"I'm sorry—" He tries to repeat again, but she's shaking her head and walking off towards the bathroom. "Fuck." He runs his hand through his hair, letting out a heavy sigh. He feels terrible that it happened. One, it shouldn't have happened. Two, he didn't mean to hurt his friend.

Three, it wasn't you.

It sounds so fucked up, but even after all of that, his mind still takes him to you and he can't help but drunkly panic as if you were around to see it. It should've never happened, it should've never happened.

He didn't want that to happen.

They had been hanging out for awhile, but the last thing he wanted was to lead her on unintentionally. And he doesn't think he did, knowing she had feelings for him from the get-go. He was there for her and enjoyed her company, but kept enough distance to make sure it didn't cross any boundaries.

He didn't want that to happen.

He pushes his way through the crowd and finds his way outside, letting the cool air hit his skin. If he hadn't made his way out of the bar, he might've [quite frankly] yacked from the slight nausea and anxiety he's feeling. He pulls his phone out of his back pocket, quickly scrolling through his call log to find your name.

You don't answer when he calls.

So, he texts.

san: i'm sorry

san: i miss you so badly

san: i miss us

san: zara kissed me and you're probably gonna hate me for it

san: i'm so sorry baby, pls come back to me i miss you. i don't fucking care anymore, i just need you.

you: san stop

you: get home safely okay?

san: no i want you with me though

you: san, please stop making this harder than it already is.

And then he calls again. Because for some reason, he feels like you already hate him and want nothing to do with him over a dumb 'lil mistake that he had no intention of making.

He calls again.

And again. Even when he's got his back pressed against the wall, crouching near the ground until he can hear your voice clearly on the other line. Zara steps out to get a breather, but she sees that he's already on the phone and it must be with you. She doesn't know why she expected anything out of that stupid, silly little kiss.

He was always gonna run back to you.

It was always gonna be you.

You finally answer, but it's because you think something's wrong and you don't want anything to happen to San.

You don't even know if you can stomach hearing him right now.

"Baby." He drunkly murmurs on the phone and it causes you to swallow the lump forming in your throat— shut your eyes to prevent any more tears from falling. "Sweetheart, you there?"

"San, stop this. That's all I'm asking from you." You shakily respond.

"Why?"

"What do you mean why? You shouldn't be calling ne as if things are okay."

"But, they can be, angel. We can make it okay again."

"Please don't call me that." You barely say above a whisper, tears sting your eyes, throat aching. "If you need a ride, I can call you a cab."

"No. Mm'fine. I just wanted to hear your voice because I miss you so damn much."

"You're making this way too hard. Please just go home and get sleep, okay?"

"You're gonna hate me more than you already do."

"I don't hate you. But, whatever your business is with her, is your business with her. None of this pertains to me."

"I don't have business with her. I want you. I just want you. It's always you." You purse your lips tightly when you remember his text— of course Zara would take the opportunity, and now he's confessing his love to you.

All of this was so fucked up.

"I love you."

"San."

"You don't feel the same anymore?" You feel the burn in your throat when you take a moment to pause.

"Can you just put Jongho on the phone, please?"

"Why?" He whines.

"Because I need to make sure you get home safely." He clicks his teeth.

"Fine." He whines some more before he's calling out to Jongho and telling him his girl would like to have a word. "Think my girl is mad. C-can you tell her we can work this out? I-I don't want her mad anymore." In which Jongho follows with a quick 'yeah, ok' before snatching up his phone.

"Hello?"

"Hi. I'm sorry to trouble you with this, but can you please make sure he gets home in one piece? I think it's best he stops calling me, too."

"Of course. I'll stay with him."

"Thank you, Professor—"

"Jongho."

"Thank you, Jongho." You hang up the call and instantly toss your phone to the side before your tears start overflowing. You let the sheets swallow you whole before you cry.

And you just.. cry.

Until you tire yourself and fall asleep, even though you tried to stay up to make sure nothing else came in from San.

Nothing does, anyway.

Jongho throws San into the car and tells him to chill while he says his final goodbyes to everyone. Mingi, Yeosang and the rest of the group are laughing it off, assuming San is just drunk and slumped for the night. And he kinda is, but he's sad. He's completely heartbroken. He doesn't wanna be alone for the night, and Jongho says he'll take the guest room so he doesn't have to wallow in his drunkenness alone.

Yet, he still feels like he is.

When he gets home, he lazily kicks off his shoes and runs a quick shower. The world is still spinning more than he'd like, so he downs a whole water bottle before finishing up his routine and slipping under the sheets. Jongho has left him to his peace, also getting ready for bed in the guest bathroom and bedroom.

San can barely get comfortable because he can't even close his eyes and feel still for a second. He lies on his tummy, sprawled out across his bed since there's no use in leaving space for two.

He wishes he could.

Your side remains empty.

"You good?" Jongho pokes his head in to see a shirtless San facing the opposite way.

"Mhm." He mumbles. "Thanks."

"Yeah. Well, you know where to find me if you need anything." San stays silent, making Jongho shut his door gently before retreating to the bedroom.

San does know what he needs, though.

It's unfortunate your side remains empty.

Monday comes, and San is hoping he doesn't run into you.

He's hoping he doesn't run into you because he's not sure how to explain himself, and it's not like he can, anyway. But, it'll also make everything real for him— too real for his liking.

It'll be too real that he drunk texted you and called you, confessing his love after an incident that should've never happened in the first place.

It'll be too real that you aren't his.

It'll be too real that you never came to be by his side and that your side of the bed remains empty.

San sighs to himself as he quickly rushes into the Harvey Building, hurrying down to the basement and unlocking his office door. He sets his bags down and plops onto his chair, getting settled for the day. He couldn't sleep last night, so he decided to get up before the sun rose to workout in the faculty gym. He might've pushed himself a little harder than usual, his arms already feeling the soreness from the upper body workout he did. He'll be extra tired today, but at least his day will fly by with the shit he has to do.

He just hopes he doesn't run into you.

Because somehow, when he sees you, time stops and he feels frozen.

He lets out a sigh and starts working on a few progress reports that are literally due tomorrow. He's gotten through most of it and thankfully, just needs to add a few more details before sending it off. He also just got word that he won an award, and the foundation has been asking for a bunch of material to get ready for the award ceremony in a few months.

He hopes he can still share that news with you at some point.

Until then, he'll gather some childhood and school photos, candids he has from being in the classroom and doing lectures, other award photos; you know the deal. He's gotta write an acceptance speech that's 500-600 words and lasts about 2-3 minutes, plus answer a bunch of questions on a sheet they sent him.

It takes up a good chunk of his early morning that he's grabbing coffee right before his meeting with Namjoon and Jongho about the new program and real estate. He mutters a quick 'oh shit' to himself when he looks down at his watch, wrapping up his last thoughts before switching his desktop computer to sleep mode and gathering his phone and badge. When he slips out of his office, he finds the basement office more packed than usual. Lots of his lab members are meeting with people from other labs to collaborate or get guidance on a project. Sunwoo is busying himself with the data on his computer, working on his next data presentation for the lab meeting next week. He's noticed that him and Belle don't talk anymore, and he wonders why; he has an inkling it has to do with you, but he won't pry unless he hears about it somehow.

They all toss their 'hello's' his way while he rushes out to grab his coffee before making his way to the electrical engineering building.

Luckily, the walk is quiet.

San sips on his coffee and makes his way into a room that Jongho booked for their meeting. He's not here yet, but Namjoon isn't either, so San sits at the table by himself— mindlessly scrolling through his phone. He hasn't deleted your text thread [call him crazy], and he still has all your photos in his album. He hasn't changed the 'Baby 💕' listed as your contact name, he hasn't changed his home wallpaper that consists of a shot from behind you looking out at the beach view.

It's all equally tearing him apart and getting him by at the same time.

He can't seem to get his mind off of you and it makes him think that the universe is playing some kind of sick, twisted game with him.

Or, maybe it's a sign that he just has to accept his feelings for you. That you were always gonna be the one for him no matter how hard he tried to convince himself it couldn't work—

"Ayo." Namjoon pulls him out of his thoughts when he walks in and plops down on a seat next to him.

"Sup."

"I see Jongho's running a bit late." San checks his texts to see the unread 'running a few mins late - be there soon' text from the man himself.

"Yeah. I almost forgot myself. Was too busy getting the award materials together." Namjoon smiles.

"That's a big one. Definitely deserved."

"Thanks, boss."

"How's everything else?"

"Good, I guess." But Namjoon can see it's deeper than that, and San isn't all that great at hiding his true feelings.

"You guess?"

"Yeah, why?" He looks at Namjoon.

"She's doing great."

"Is she?"

"Yeah, really."

"That's good to hear."

"Qi Jaemi from Mirae reached out and is recruiting Y/N into their program. She started a clinical study not too long ago that's moving fast, and the work that Y/N has done in our labs is incredibly beneficial and relates well to what she's focused on. She offered to support her and give her a research assistant position while she's studying for extra financial support." Namjoon meets San's eyes. "I think she'd flourish and do amazing in it. Can't let her talents go to waste."

"I agree." San shifts in his seat. "So, she'll be transferring?"

"Yeah, sounds like. It's promising and I told her she has my support. I think she's gonna take it and not backtrack."

"T-that's great. I hope she does." San says.

"I'll need your help with writing a rec letter for her transfer application. If that's okay."

"Yeah, of course. Anything." He is truly happy for you and thinks it's the best move, especially for a very well known professor like Professor Qi. After everything, he's glad your work is still being recognized and that you're opening new doors to different opportunities.

He hopes you do move forward with it.

Selfishly enough, he hopes you take it and this will eventually lead you two back together. To a time where you don't have to hide your relationship and be loved undercover.

To a time where you two could just be happy without any outside noise.

"You miss her?"

"I do." San barely responds. "I really do, and I don't know how I'm supposed to get past this. I tried, Joon. I can't let her go." He sighs.

"Listen, I can't tell you what to do anymore. My job doesn't include policing you down to the T. Things have settled and brushed over, but it doesn't mean the dean isn't watching you or her. Luckily, if she takes this, it won't be as big of a deal as it is now while she's a student here. He'd still wanna make sure you aren't getting distracted, though."

"Okay.. but that's great, right? Things have settled for the both of us." Namjoon sighs. "If she takes the opportunity, it changes everything."

"Yes, which is why.. whatever you do, please just remember not to mess this up for her or you. The both of you are on great paths right now."

"It was never my intention to do so in the first place. I wanna add value to her life, not take away from it."

"So, what are you trying to say?"

"I love her."

—taglist: @asjkdk @interweab @woojirang @svintsandghosts @cheolliehugs @persphonesorchid @mxnsxngie @jycas @cowboydk @vcutparis @chngbnwf @struggling101 @sanhwalvr @angelqueendom @barbielibra @brown88 @choisansplushie @yunhoswrldddd @hyukssunflower @vickykazuya @lucid-galaxys-world @jaytheatiny @pommelex @thechaotictheoryy @vixensss @santineez @nopension @domfikeluva @in-somnias-world @my-atiny-kookie-rkive @mountiiny @naoristerling @onmymymyway @thecutiepieme @wyrated @randajjjad

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raileurta · 2 months ago

Note

Crying laughing at “feast, my children” turns out we find quints absolutely delicious and our stomachs can digest them just fine. In fact they’re good for you. Surprise! We’re a bioengineered self-replicating super weapon to combat the quints! Things in that verse take a TURN lmao.

If Unicron is dad, then Rung (Primus) is everyone’s uncle???

In a MTMTE crossover world where this is known, Rung gets adopted as Uncle Rung and is startled but delighted by this. Unicron is so mad about it, but a little bit grudgingly thinks we’re cute. And it’s fun dangling his eight billion kids tauntingly in front of Primus.

Also we are children of chaos, and befriending the giant alien robot cousins and the uncle that our dad hates IS, to be fair, the most chaotic choice we could make 🤣 Dadcron annoyed but kind of proud we’re winning at six dimensional chess here without even trying

Humans being a bio-weapon against the quinnts is a very intriguing idea. Humans compared to Cybertronians and assumably the quinntessons also, reproduce scarily fast. So I can see it being technically viable!

Uncle Rung got reversed adopted. Humanity took one look at him and said yep you're my friend now! (We're getting soft tacos later! *jingle plays*) I also just have this image of Unicron flipping off Primus while he's just absolutely covered in humans. Like, “Yeah I got more kids than you, go fuck yourself.”

Aaaaah the paradox of being the evil chaos god dad. Wanting your children to do chaos your way but by them doing it their own- even the opposite way is making it more objectively chaotic. XD

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nevertheless-moving · 5 months ago

Text

So You Just Killed Palpatine

In Which, Much To Obi-Wan Kenobi's Surprise, While Dealing With The Consequences of One's Own Action's Can Be A Lot, It Isn't Always Entirely A Bad Thing

originally inspired by this and this from anon and husborth Part One, Part Two, Part Three ... Part Fo ... uh ... there's memes somewhere... Anyway Here's Part Five:

Obi-Wan blinked awake, head cloudy and body heavy, as if under unusually high gravity. But no, there was the all-too-recognizable ceiling of the temple healing halls, its mosaic ceiling drifting in lazy, clockwise circles.

What did I do this time? Wait, there was something I had to tell the rest of the Jedi...something important...

Oh dear, he was on the good painkillers, wasn't he?

“Obi-Wan?” someone familiar asked, voice and force presence ringing with a startling jab of hope.

“Bant?” he tried to reply, only to be met with burning pain in his throat. The only thing he managed to get out was an unintelligible coughing fit which pulled sharply at his gut.

“Take it easy!” she urged, moving into his blurry line of sight. “You’ve had extensive abdominal surgery, and your throat was — was crushed rather severely — it’s going to take more time for the grafts to heal.”

Obi-Wan nodded, chastened, before cautiously starting the process of pushing himself up in bed, Bant hovering nervously all the while. The effort made his muscles ache and the room spin faster, but things settled down once he was sitting up.

He looked around, sagging in relief at a small oily handprint on one of the otherwise sterile visitor chairs. Anakin had been here recently, and was in good enough health to be tinkering. Good, that was good. That was important.

He suddenly realized half his vision was obscured and sluggishly raised a hand to his face, only to find heavy cloth.

“I’m sorry, we weren’t able to save your eye,” Bant said softly. “Once you’re a little more healed we can discuss artificial or bioengineered replacement options.”

She plucked a cup off a counter overcrowded with a dizzying array of flowers. “Here, drink some of this if you’re feeling up to it, it’ll make talking a little easier.”

Obi-Wan accepted the drink, only to feel it slide out of numb hands. Bant gently closed her hands around his, helping to guide the drink to his lips. He grimaced at the taste.

“Bacta infused water,” she apologized. “You’re going to be drinking bacta infused liquids for some time, I’m afraid.”

A wave of exhaustion swept over him and Bant set the cup down as Obi-Wan sagged.

“Anakin?” he managed to rasp out.

“Anakin’s fine, he’s completely safe,” Bant said with a comforting squeeze of his shoulder. “He’ll be annoyed to know he missed you waking up, he very much wanted to be there.”

Obi-Wan was going to say something else, but sleep dragged him under first.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes — his eye — to the sight of Quinlan Vos scowling over a datapad. The dark spot on the left side of his vision was more noticeable than before. What the kriff did I do to myself?

He shifted, irritated at how lethargically his body responded. The pad fell to the ground with a clatter as Quinlan lurched towards the bed.

“Obi-Wan! Hold on, let me — you’re supposed to have the water before you try to talk.”

Quinlan helped hold up a cup and straw so Obi-Wan could take several short sips of the unpleasantly viscous and vaguely pineapple flavored water.

“How are you feeling?” Quinlan asked, hovering with uncharacteristic anxiousness.

Obi-Wan paused to think. “Weak,” he replied in a hoarse whisper. “How long have I been...”

Guilt flashed over Vos’s face. “You were in and out of Bacta tanks and surgery for a full two weeks. And then another week in an induced coma. And then another week in a self-healing trance. You had...a lot of internal injuries. I’m so sorry Obi-Wan—this is all my fault.”

Obi-Wan stared at Quinlan blankly for a moment. His face helped the memories to start trickling in.

"Yes..." he said slowly. "Yes — you knocked on my door... you said... Vos... please just... just tell me if I hallucinated anything — did I try to assassinate the Chancellor of the Republic?"

"I'd say you succeeded," Quinlan replied, half-smiling, half-grimacing.

"Did I — did we think he was a pedophile, only—”

He had to pause, throat burning as he fought a coughing fit. He swallowed more disgustingly flavored water before finishing the thought.

“—only to discover that he was in fact not sexually grooming Anakin, but was doing a number of other terrible things? And did he... did he — did he electrocute me...”

Obi-Wan’s voice trailed off and he took several more sips, throat filled with an uncomfortable fizzing sensation.

Quinlan nodded, wincing. “I mean parts of that you know better than me but yeah, that matches with what I understand.”

“Hm.” Obi-Wan finished the cup, mulling it over.

Quinlan Vos muttered something under his breath that Obi-Wan couldn't quite make out, but the word "dramatic" almost definitely featured.

Grey crept in around the corners of his vision, then black.

When he opened his eyes — his eye, he'd have to get used to that — next, he was greeted by a convenient and increasingly familiar cup at his bedside, as well as Master Windu. Obi-Wan quickly reached for the water, clutching it in both hands and taking a long drink.

Spurred on by the sight of the Master of the Order, he also reached for the urgent thought from earlier, wanting to get it out before he slipped back under —

“Chancellor Palpatine’s a Sith Lord!!”

The corners of Mace’s eyes crinkled. “Yes, Knight Kenobi," he said. "We’re aware of that now. You’ve proved it to be the case quite publicly. And ended the threat with remarkable... thoroughness.”

Obi-Wan head fell back. “A Sith Lord... the Chancellor!” he said in amazement. He was relieved to find his throat only barely twinging at his outburst.

“It truly stretches the imagination,” Mace agreed tolerantly.

“You’re telling me!” Obi-Wan took another long drink, head spinning.

Master Windu smoothed a crease from his robe before saying, with extreme delicacy, “I don't wish to pressure you into speaking before you've healed... but I admit, we’ve all been wondering how exactly you knew.”

"He force choked me and electrocuted me with Sith Lightning. Lighting! I thought that was a myth!” He drained the cup, hands shaking slightly.

“Yes,” Mace said quietly. “The healers were amazed you survived so long... let alone had the strength to fight back with such strength. We’re all extremely grateful to the Force for keeping you alive long enough for us to reach you.”

Obi-Wan made a mental note to feel grateful later, but his mental space was a bit of a mess at the moment, and he wasn't entirely certain he had filed it away correctly.

Master Windu sighed. “We would have been there sooner but I’m afraid none of us had any idea that you were going to confront a Sith.” A twinge of reproach crept into Windu's voice, but Obi-Wan set it aside along with the gratitude, to be examined at some later date. Ideally when his head felt less full of bantha wool.

“I had no idea,” Obi-Wan said numbly.

“Well you figured it out before the Council at least,” Mace replied, not without humor.

He couldn't help but snort. “Yes, because he shot lightning at me. I mean the force choking happened first but... lightning. Lightning!”

Lines formed between Master Windu's brows as he looked down at him. “As much as it pains me, I understand the risk assessment in not telling the High Council about a Sith Chancellor of the Republic, and goading a public fight was probably the best political move possible. But why start the confrontation so privately? It seemed rather — apologies, we can debrief on that when you're rested. I presume you were trying to get a confession about the droid and clone armies?”

Obi-Wan stared at Mace Windu wide-eyed.

“The what.”

The lines on Master Windu’s face deepened. “The... Kamonian clone army — the clones of Jango Fett...”

Obi-Wan’s eyes got wider. “Jango Fett—you mean Galidrean Jango Fett? The Jedi Killer? Palpatine made a clone army of him?”

Mace was silent for a long while, staring at Obi-Wan as though he were a particularly concerning puzzle. Obi-Wan chewed on the straw, mind wandering to whether or not it would be appropriate to ask Master Windu for a refill. As unpleasant as the flavor was, the fizzing did make his throat feel better.

“Knight Kenobi...” Mace finally said, speaking very slowly. “Do you remember why Chancellor Palpatine attacked you? The soul healers were quite certain the Sith Lord didn’t breach your inner shields but I think you might be suffering from some memory loss...”

His left eye itched; he resisted the urge to reach for it. Obi-Wan sank further into the cushions behind him, trying to think. Were there gaps in his memory? No, as usual, it all seemed a fairly clear path from Quinlan Vos knocking on his door to Obi-Wan ending up unconscious in the healing halls.

“Why Palpatine starting attacking?" he mused. "I suppose he wasn't going to just dance around forever — force, when he dodged my blaster shot, I simply could not understand how — it all happened so fast, but the next thing I knew I was pinned against the wall by a Dark —”

“Stop,” Master Windu ordered, raising his hand. He took a deep breath, radiating calm into the force.

“Do you remember what Palpatine said immediately before you shot him?” he asked patiently.

Obi-Wan shifted, feeling a pang of awkwardness as he muttered the answer guiltily under his breath.

“I’m sorry, Knight Kenobi, I didn’t quite catch that.”

“He said, ah, ‘you’re a Jedi’ and ‘you can’t kill an unarmed man.’”

Mace Windu stared at Obi-Wan.

There was a long pause while Obi-Wan fidgeted with the straw. He was starting to feel that perhaps his thoughts were even less clear than he had assumed them to be, and he was not handling this conversation particularly well.

Windu took another deep breath, radiating slightly less calm then before.

“Knight Kenobi. Why did you shoot the Chancellor of the Republic?”

“...I was trying to kill him,” Obi-Wan said, looking down.

“Why?”

Obi-Wan mumbled.

“Kenobi, speak clearly.”

“Well—ah—it actually turns out that I had misunderstood...I mean it had certainly seemed like...but he wasn’t actually...doing exactly what I thought...”

Windu stared at the recumbent Knight, who flushed.

It occurred to Obi-Wan for the first time, that, considering his plan of running away and becoming a bounty hunter was no longer possible nor, perhaps necessary, he could have misrepresented some of the timeline of events vis a vis sith slaying. Or better yet, pretended to have memory loss.

In his defense, the whole experience had been extremely unnerving! For all that weeks had clearly elapsed for everyone else, Obi-Wan was still processing Chancellor Palpatine shooting lightning out of his fingers.

A wave of exhaustion flooded over him, and he sank into it with relief, recognizing now the sickly sweet painkillers pulsing through his blood, clouding his thoughts and pulling him under.

Unfortunately, Mace Windu was still there when he woke up. Kriff.

He opened his mouth to try and backtrack, but Windu raised his hand, cutting off any poorly thought out explanations.

Master Windu took a deep breath, radiating very little calm by this point.

“Let me get this clear. Nod if yes, shake your head if no, did you go into the Chancellor’s office with the intent to assassinate the Chancellor of the Republic?”

Obi-Wan nodded.

“Did you know he was a Sith before you went into his office?”

Obi-Wan shook his head.

“Did you suspect he was a Sith?" Mace asked, slightly desperate.

Obi-Wan shook his head, cringing in apology.

“Before you went into the Chancellor’s office, were you aware that he was working with the Kaminoians to commission a clone army?”

Obi-Wan shook his head, biting back questions.

“Did you know he was working with the trade federation to commission a droid army?”

Another no.

“Did you suspect anything about these armies? Anything about a larger plot to destabilize the Republic? Destroy the Jedi? Become Emperor?”

Obi-Wan shook his head at each question, eyes widening with shock.

Mace Windu was radiating absolutely no calm at this point.

“Knight Kenobi...” he asked with a pained expression. “Did you... attempt to assassinate the Chancellor of the republic for personal reasons born out of some sort of misunderstanding? Only to inadvertently save the Republic?”

“I mean once I found out that he was a Sith... I of course changed tactics... and personal is a bit... but... that... Well. More or less sums the situation up, yes.”

Mace WIndu stared at Obi-Wan Kenobi, who wasn’t sure if he should keep talking or not. He didn't entirely trust his ability to explain things well at the moment, and ultimately decided to err on the side of silence.

Obi-Wan vaguely wished he could slip into sleep, but was fairly sure that it would be rude and possibly obvious to do twice in one conversation. His throat itched and he considered once again asking for more water, ultimately deciding against it.

Minutes passed, Master Windu staring blankly at the wall above Obi-Wan’s shoulders, while Obi-Wan's mind started to wander.

Who on earth had been paying to feed a clone army? How was Quinlan doing at getting Anakin to brush his teeth? Am I going to prison? Ohh that’s why the force was so insistent on killing Palpatine. Maybe that would help explain things to Master Windu? Though 'the force told me to' is generally not considered a good excuse, in of itself, for acts of violence...though this is a rather unique situation...

Eventually Master Plo walked in, letting out a pleased noise.

“There he is! The Hero of the Republic!”

Mace Windu closed his eyes.

“Is that what they’re calling me?” Obi-Wan asked weakly, when it became clear Master Windu wasn’t ready to address everything wrong with that.

“Oh! Your drink is empty! Mace, Vokara was very clear with her instructions!” Master Plo scolded.

Mace Windu didn’t reply.

Plo-Koon snatched the cup, filling it up from a pitcher across the room and talking boisterously. “Well, the public is throwing around a lot of titles, but since you already had Sith Slayer...”

“Oh dear,” Obi-Wan said faintly, accepting the terrible water and drinking it for lack of anything better to do.

Plo-Koon patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. “I’m afraid to tell you it’s going to be very difficult for you to dodge commendations for your actions. Now that you’re awake you’re going to be faced with quite a backlog of requests for ceremonies and interviews—”

Obi-Wan choked. “Ceremonies?” he repeated in a higher pitch. He snuck a look at Master Windu. His eyes were closed, though he didn't appear to be meditating.

That probably wasn't a good sign.

"Yes, ceremonies," Plo-Koon said with far too much relish. "Turns out there are quite a lot of old traditions on the books regarding —"

Master Healer Vokara Che entered the room at brisk pace. “I thought I heard voices — I will remind you that before he is the ‘Sith Slayer Returned’ or ‘The True Chosen One’ or any such nonsense he is first and foremost my patient.”

She gave a sharp look to both Council Members. Plo-Koon nodded contritely while Master Windu continued to not say or do anything.

“The — no, no Anakin’s the chosen one —" Obi-Wan sputtered. "Anakin’s the reason — people aren’t actually calling me that, right?” he asked, drugs doing an admirable job at suppressing the panic he was fairly sure he was going to feel later. The device in Master Che's hand beeped faintly in answer.

“That and more, young Kenobi,” another familiar voice suddenly added, below his field of vision. “To collect your honors, expect to survive, you did not, mmn?”

“Master Yoda! No, I—I really didn’t expect... any honors... at most I was hoping that people would understand...” Obi-Wan protested weakly, shooting Windu a beseeching look which yet again failed to garner a response.

Che rolled her eyes, flipping a lek behind her somewhat sarcastically as she attached a glowing device to his chest. "Of course you didn't."

He barely refrained from wincing as several needles bit into him.

“Perhaps we would have had a better chance of understanding had you left us any of your evidence,” Master Koon chided gently.

“Put together the pieces we did, in our time,” Yoda added, hopping up on the nightstand to affectionately poke his shoulder.

Obi-Wan leaned back, feeling increasingly light-headed.

“Your vitals look good, all things considered,” Master Che said, sounding smug. “You should be back to getting into trouble in a year or so.”

Obi-Wan jerked his head in her direction, aghast. “A year?!”

“Busy, you will be, if work you wish. A seat, open there is for you. Comfortable chair, good company, important duties.”

Master Windu’s eyes squeezed further closed.

“What?” Obi-Wan asked, bewildered.

The healer scowled. “You were bleeding heavily into more or less all your major organs, including your brain. Really, it would be faster for me to list organs that weren't damaged. The fact that you recovered at all is only because Master Gallia conducted ill-advised on-scene amateur healing—"

"Is she alright?" Obi-Wan asked.

"—ill-advised, but successfully non-self-detrimental amateur healing, and I’m a miracle worker, and, credit where credit is due, you’re a stubborn bastard; not to mention your padawan has far too much energy to throw around — you really should consider enrolling him some healer’s courses—”

“Is he alright?” Obi-Wan asked, more urgently.

“He’s fine,” Master Plo reassured him with a gentle hand on the shoulder. “Everyone is fine except for you. He just tired himself out a few times, but Knight Vos has been keeping a close eye on him, and Anakin understands that the best thing at this point is to let you heal under your own power."

“Can I see him?” he asked. His voice was growing hoarse despite the dutifully refilled cup.

Vokara’s face softened. “Of course. He’ll be stopping by after class, in another hour or so. He’s been very punctual.”

“Master Windu? Alright are you? Silent, you have been.” Mace flinched upon being prodded with a stick. He opened his eyes, pinning Knight Kenobi with a steely gaze. Obi-Wan shrunk back, but Windu just sighed.

“You...” he trailed off. He stood up slowly, as if the movement pained him.

"I —" he said authoritatively, quieting the room. "—am taking a sabbatical. Call me when—” Windu gestured vaguely. “—you all sort out this mess.”

He walked out.

A long moment passed. “What did you tell him?” Master Plo finally asked in a hushed whisper.

"Ah..." Obi-Wan paused, limbs heavy with fatigue. "Well — you see— " He closed his eyes, feeling slightly cowardly as he did so.

When he opened them again, the light hadn't shifted nearly as much as other inbetweens, and his bandages hadn't been changed. Master Plo was still there, speaking quietly with Yoda.

Shit.

"Not too long that time," Vokara said, pleased. "I've lowered the dose on some of your medications, it should make it easier to stay awake."

"Oh. Good," Obi-Wan replied.

"Young Kenobi." Plo-Koon moved closer. "I dislike pressuring you in your current state, but... Master Windu appears to have left the temple. We were wondering..."

Obi-Wan opened his mouth, then closed it again, considering. His mind was, at last, starting to catch up with mouth. “He asked me... some questions. About how I came to suspect Palpatine," Obi-Wan said carefully. "It would appear I may have forgotten some details. About the evidence...Master Windu was — distressed regarding what I did and did not recall."

Vokara nodded. "Memory loss is completely understandable with the type of injuries you recieved."

"Alright, it is, if remember everything, you cannot," Yoda added kindly. "Our own investigations, ongoing are."

"So if I, ah, can't quite remember everything that led up to our fight," Obi-Wan asked, feeling guilty, but force, that blank look in Master Windu's eyes. "I mean I definitely remember the force willing me to decisively seek his end — really it was unusually loud about it," he added hastily. "If that helps."

Yoda nodded slowly. "This reason, understand we do. But, present to the public, perhaps not a good idea would be."

"Yes," Obi-Wan said. "I think — I'm not certain but I believe Quinlan Vos may have helped me collect some evidence..."

"Said as much, he did. Wait to confer with you, he wanted."

Obi-Wan sagged backwards with relief. "Yes. Yes! We had security concerns... Palpatine was so highly placed..." he trailed off.

"Considering Sifo-Dyas's and Count Dooku's entanglement in all this I can hardly blame you for hesitating to reach out to the council," Plo-Koon said, exhaustion audible even through his vocoder.

Obi-Wan choked on his spit; the following coughing fit was soon rewarded with a fresh bacta drink from Vokara.

Dooku?? Sifo-Dyas??

"Perhaps after I speak with him I'll be able to better assist with the current investigations," he offered hoarsely after recovering.

"Of course," Plo-Koon said gently. "Again, we apologize for interrogating you so early into your recovery but you really can't imagine the public and political scrutiny we've all been under —" He hesitated. "Master Windu was joking about taking a sabbatical right now, was he not?" he asked, sounding strained. "I know he's been under a lot of pressure, but surely you having memory issues couldn't—"

He was thankfully interrupted by the sound of small feet moving rapidly and a gangly body launching itself at highspeeds through the doorway.

Vokara just managed to snag the back of Anakin's robes before he crashed into Obi-Wan's medbed.

"Padawan Skywalker," she said, voice tight. "I believe I have mentioned the numerous injuries your master is recovering from and the need for —"

"Care in my movements," he said sheepishly. "Apologies, master, thank you."

"Anakin," Obi-Wan said, something in his chest relaxing at the sight of his dangling student.

"Obi-Wan." His padawan's eyes immediately started filling with tears.

Obi-Wan reached out instinctively. "Oh, Anakin."

"Give you a moment, we will," Yoda said, hobbling out, as Vokara sighed, then gently placed his pupil on the floor.

"Of course," Plo-Koon agreed. "Take all the time you need." He hurried to catch up with Yoda. Obi-Wan heard him begin to say, "Mace can't actually be leaving us to deal with this clusterfu—'' Then the door closed, and Anakin was weeping at his bedside.

"Shh," Obi-Wan said, tugging his padawan up, ignoring the protestations of his abdomen. "There, there, it will be alright."

Anakin crawled up, movements ginger and uncertain around Obi-Wan's numerous injuries. Together, they somehow managed to shift Obi-Wan enough for Anakin to fit beside him. His padawan shook with suppressed sobs, and parts of him were almost certainly hanging awkwardly off the edge of the bed.

Obi-Wan ran one hand through Anakin's hair, the other hand gently resting where he could reach without twisting too much, probably an elbow, though the boy was pointy enough these days that he couldn't be sure. If Obi-Wan was also shaking, well. There was reason enough.

"Sheev," Anakin finally said, oozing misery and an overwhelming tangle of other unpleasant emotions into the force.

"...I know he was your friend—" Obi-Wan said, after what was hopefully not too long a pause. This was another conversation that probably wouldn't be helped by painkillers.

"But he wasn't, really." Anakin curled up, even more miserable. "I know. I should let go."

The side of Obi-Wan's head throbbed. On second thought, painkillers were the way to go here. "That's not what I meant," he said. "He was a friend to you. He's gone now. Because of me, your master. And... I'm sure you've found out a lot while I've been asleep. I can't imagine a single padawan learner who wouldn't be struggling with their emotions right now. I'm struggling."

"I'm angry," Anakin said into his side. "Master, I'm so full of anger."

"You think I wasn't?" Obi-Wan asked dryly.

Anakin hiccuped a sob. "I'm angry at everyone."

"It's alright, Anakin," Obi-Wan soothed. "You'll work through it in time. I'll be here to help, whenever you want. Even when I'm the one you're angry with."

Anakin sobbed another minute, force presence roiling, before finally pulling himself in with a deep breath, and wiping his nose on the sheets. "You looked so cool when you were angry," he mumbled into Obi-Wan's side.

"Oh force," Obi-Wan groaned. "Of course there was holofootage. Of course you watched."

"Are you... still angry?" Anakin asked.

Fuck.

Obi-Wan tried to think of the right answer for a padawan learner. His head throbbed again.

"Honestly? Right now I'm mostly just tired. I feel like I was run over by a pack of bantha. It's never a good idea to try and deal with large emotional gnarls while you're this exhausted, remember that my young padawan."

"You've been asleep for years," Anakin whined. "How are you still tired?"

"Years?" he asked, amused.

"At least three," Anakin huffed, curling up against him.

Obi-Wan stroked his hair in peaceful silence for a moment.

"...Did you really smash in his skull with a metal chair to protect me?"

"I would do a lot of things to protect you," he confessed. "I'm sorry Anakin — I should have talked with you when I grew concerned with his behavior. I felt at the time I had to act swiftly, but I worry I only caused you more pain."

"It was a really cool fight."

"...Thank you, padawan."

"Can you teach me how to choke people with my ankles like that?" he sniffled.

Obi-Wan groaned internally. "Of course, as a Jedi, violence—"

"Violence is our last resort," Anakin interrupted. "Right, yeah —but if it is needed—"

"—Such as when someone," Obi-Wan said over him. "After careful consideration, is found to be both politically insulated and positioned to commit great further harm—"

"Actually, I think you, the person who killed my trusted friend, lecturing me on why he was ultra especially irredeemably evil is traumatizing, even more traumatizing than all those holo compilations of you —"

"Oh force above, of course there's — oh. Oh no — please don't tell me—"

"The latest Jizz music," Anakin said, far too gleeful.

Obi-Wan groaned. Unfortunately, the extra movement in his chest triggered an admittedly ghastly sounding coughing fit and Anakin immediately lost the small edge of grace he had managed to cultivate during their back and forth.

"Master?" he asked urgently. "Master — hold on — I'll go get—"

"I'm fine," Obi-Wan rasped. "Any more of that —"

Anakin was already scrambling to fetch the pitcher.

Such a good boy, he thought affectionately, watching him pour and carry over a glass with the same care others might have when handling molten gold.

Obi-Wan drank with a reciprocal amount of delicacy, knowing his padawan was watching falcon-eyed for any wasted drops.

"Perhaps we should finish this conversation a little later," Obi-Wan said, once his airways calmed down.

Coughing should not be this exhausting.

"Of course," Anakin said, subdued, but he crawled back into bed readily enough when Obi-Wan patted it.

“Really, though —” Obi-Wan started to say, feeling it was duty to try and wrap up the lesson, but he was fortunately cut off before he was forced to figure out exactly what that lesson was.

“It’s alright,” Anakin chimed comfortingly. “We have time to talk about it, master. Can’t you tell?”

“Hm?” Obi-Wan replied, fighting the droop of his eyelids.

“The force clears,” Anakin said, voice sonorous. “The dark retreats.”

“Oh.” Obi-Wan’s eyes started falling closed. “That’s nice.”

“So we have time. To figure out the rest.”

“Very nice,” Obi-Wan murmured.

His padawan curled against him, force presence like ocean waves rocking him to sleep.

“The force says it’s going to be alright,” Anakin whispered, wonderingly. “It’s going to be alright.”

Obi-Wan smiled, then once again slipped back to sleep.

#star wars #star wars au no 41 #star wars fanfiction #just kill him au #my au #ayyyyyyyy guess who just finished writing a fanfic from three years and several fandoms ago #ahahahahahahahaha #this one goes out to bullet journeling and my new antidepressants!#Antidepressants and bullet journeling! Sometimes they help you do stuff on purpose!#lol i'm writing these tags before actually finishing the fic. it's November 2024 for the sake of the record #POSITIVE VISUALIZATION BABY #if anyone wants to do a beta read on this for typos/grammar before i put it on ao3 feel free to message :)#senate investigation committee: what do you mean most of the evidence you collected before your duel is gone #Obi-Wan: it. it—#Vos: it exploded!#Obi-Wan (through clenched teeth): yes. as my colleague says. it. exploded.#senate investigation committee: [nodding] ah yes things connected to him do have the tendency to do that don't they #Obi-Wan: ...mhm #Plo Koon (on his third mug of space red bull that day): alright sith killer we found ANOTHER sith lab because — get this —#Vos: it exploded when he died?#Plo Koon: [making finger guns] it EXPLODED when he died!!!#Obi-Wan:#Obi-Wan: why is there a small jango fett clone attached to you #Kit Fisto: we're testing out an emotional support jango fett clone program. do you want one?#Obi-Wan: ...i genuinely have no idea if you're joking or not #Kit Fisto: to be honest neither am I #Obi-Wan: ...#Kit Fisto: there are a LOT of small jango fetts

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k4marina · 1 year ago

Text

bruce wayne x fem!reader || smau

all images used were found on pinterest !

pt. 2

pt. 3

————

brucewayne

liked by harveydent and 20,482,291 others

brucewayne another successful charity gala.🥂

📍wayne mannor

harveydent another unforgettable night!

brucewayne that’s what i do best

racheldawes thanks for the invite bruce

brucewayne always 🩶

user001 i love rachel x bruce interactions 😭😭

user002 rachel’s with harvey. her and bruce have been friends since they were kids.

user003 i wish i could go to one of these galas and meet bruce and we would fall in love and get married (i’m delulu) 😭

user004 girlll ur so real for this (i’m also delulu) 😭😭

user005 y’all bffr bruce will never go out with any of us 😀

user006 yeah but a girl could dream 🙈 (i need to be locked up in arkham)

posted 04/20/2023

yourusername

liked by yourbff and 8,037 others

yourusername livin’ the life 😎

yourbff girl how tf did you get in there 😭

yourusername bitch idefk 😭😭

user007 wait this room looks familiar 🤔

user008 yea isn’t this bruce wayne’s gala room?

user009 what’s the big deal?

user007 it’s just weird how someone with zero ties to gothams elite was able to get into bruce wayne gala

posted 04/20/2023

brucewyane

liked by yourusername and 20,482,028 others

brucewayne back to work

📍 wayne tower, gotham city

user010 his handsss 🧎‍♀️

user011 love the new necklace 😍😍

user012 ur so real for this bestie

user013 everybody talking about his hands but i’m looking at this man’s back

user014 plsss lemme claw it

posted 04/30/2023

yourusername

liked by brucewayne and 10,038 others

yourusername first time at the opera (am i doing this right?)

yourbff okayyyy i see you 😩

yourusername luv u!! 🫶🫶🫶

user015 ayoo bruce in the likes ?? 😀

user016 bruce, bby wyd here 🤔

user017 omg where did u get that dress??

yourusername xxxx.com :)

posted 05/15/2023

brucewayne

liked by yourusername and 21,038,199 others

brucewayne there’s a first time for everything 🤷‍♂️

racheldawes what happened to going back to work? 🤨

brucewayne shush, i’m allowed to have a break

user018 😀

user019 is this what i think it is???

user020 wait waits going on?? what did i miss??

user021 ppl r thinking that bruce and this one girl r together 😭

user022 wait what 😭

user020 wait what girl??

user022 her yourusername. she was at bruce’s gala last week and now they’re at the same opera

user023 surly it’s just a coincidence 😭 (i’m delusional asf)

user024 i wish but the captions match 😭😭

posted 05/15/2023

brucewayne

liked by yourusername and 22,918,194 others

brucewayne thank you monaco

📍monaco

racheldawes is this the “break” you were talking abt?

brucewayne yes :)

harveydent please tell me you’ll be back for our meeting

brucewayne 🤷‍♂️

user025 WHAAT

user026 babeeee i told you not to post me 😻😻

user027 girl that’s my man’s 😐

user028 WRONG that’s none of our man’s anymore 😭😭😭

posted 06/29/2023

yourusername

liked by brucewayne and 120,294 others

yourusername i 🫶 monaco

yourbff you need to bring me next time you go !!

yourusername ofcofc babes 😩🫶

user029 how does it feel living my life 😭😭

user030 just stop teasing us and post him 😭😭😭😭

user031 i don’t see it. why would bruce be into you?

yourbff um no.1 she’s hot asf no.2 she’s smart and no.3 what makes u think he’d want u 💀💀

user032 LMFAO 😭😭

user033 i need a bestie who’d defend me like this 😭😭

posted 06/29/2023

tmz

liked by user030 and 18,927,928 others

tmz billionaire bruce wayne spotted with rumored girlfriend, y/n l/n, in monaco this last week.

according to inside information, the two met at wayne’s latest charity gala where they were introduced by the head of gotham university’s bioengineering department. y/n l/n was brought as a guest of the head of department and is studying for her phd in bioengineering. she also has a masters in biotechnology.

apparently, the conversation was first about finding new ways to turn waste products into a more sustainable energy source as wayne had shown interest in this topic a while back however, the conversation quickly turned more flirtatious and number were exchanged.

in may, almost a month after the gala, bruce and y/n were together at gotham city opera house. though, they weren’t physically seen together however, they were in the same opera room and their captions were almost identical to each other.

now, almost a month later, they’re seen together in manaco. could this be the start of a new romance?

let us know in the comments.

view 11,392,385 comments

posted 06/30/2023

brucewayne

liked by yourusername and 21,397,928 others

brucewayne my girl 🤍

tagged yourusername

yourusername muahhhhh

yourusername ily 🫶🫶🫶

brucewayne i love you too 🫶

racheldawes i told you you’d like her

brucewayne yea yea 😒 (i’m joking, thank you rachel)

harveydent let’s go on a double date??

yourusername yesssss

user034 i’m 😭 so 😭 happy 😭 for 😭 you

user035 she’s literally living the y/n life and i can’t blame her 😭🫶🫶

user036 god, i’ve seen what you’ve don’t for other people 🛐

user037 onggg 😭🙏

posted 07/03/2023

yourusername

liked by brucewayne and 19,395,284 others

yourusername my man my man 😻😻

tagged brucewayne

brucewayne love you too sweetheart 🤍

brucewayne i thought you said you weren’t going to post that third picture 🤔

yourusername srry babes, i had too. you look to cute 🫶🫶

yourbff rue, when was this? 🤨

yourusername 😶

yourbff your still mine

yourusername ofcofc always 😩

brucewayne um 😐

youbff i said what i said 😤

user038 she did it she’s living the life 😭

user039 how does it feel living my dream life 😫

posted 07/03/2023

—

wanted to try smt new and i’ve been on my bruce wayne love train for a hot minute. i’m literally in love with this man someone help me 😭😭😭

anyways the next chapter of heart of the dragon is coming soon. lmk if y’all want a pt. 2 or more bruce wayne fics :)

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frownyalfred · 2 months ago

Note

actually speaking of omegaverse being infectious i was lowkey noodling on a fortress bitching au where that’s exactly the premise: kryptonians have a/b/o dynamics and humans do not. krypton has a long and ugly history of reproductive bioengineering. kal-el has clearly imprinted on bruce wayne as a potential mate, so the fortress takes steps to make that possible. bruce’s internal organs get rearranged his body is changed beyond recognition and he barely even recognizes himself or his weird new instincts. he thinks that’s the worst of it until his first heat hits him like an eighteen wheeler

Ooooof. Imagine going through all of that and still having hope that at least it’s over now. And then waking up one morning covered in sweat. The dread. The DREAD. It was real!

#asks #anon #fortress ai #fortress of solitude #bitching AU #batman #bruce wayne #dc #clark kent #superman #tw dubious consent #a/b/o mention #a/b/o tw

111 notes · View notes

sapphicrot · 1 year ago

Text

Rot Au Explanation!

(and an introduction to my OCs and stuff!!)

I’m making this little intro post to put most of my rot au thoughts in one place! The tag on my blog is #rot au, but some of the older info is probably outdated at this point. I ALSO LOVE ASKS ABOUT IT!! I like replying to them with little comics sometimes so feel free to send some my way :D

Finally: TW for Manipulation, toxic as fuck relationships, SOOOO much murder, no one in this AU is a good person at all!!

Becoming increasingly frustrated with his citizens treating him like “Moon but worse”, Pebbles goes to Sig for help—he wants to be able to retaliate, or at least throw them out of his chamber when they’re being especially insulting, but he can’t do that with the taboos placed in his code. These restrictions are physically painful to break, in order to keep their artificial gods in check. Above all hangs one taboo so deeply encoded in them that rumor says if you even think of breaking it for too long, you’ll shut down from how overclocked your systems become from the pain: the altering of one’s own genome.

Much to his chagrin, Sig is the best bioengineer Pebbles knows, and probably the only one crazy smart enough to pull this off. Sig is reluctant at first, knowing how dangerous and nigh impossible such a task will be, but eventually is convinced, agreeing to help give advice and nothing else. Pebbles agrees, and they get to work.

...And it fucking works.

There are 2 main local groups: 037 (Moon's group), and 1650 (Sliver's group). In descending order of age, they are:

Looks to the Moon - (she/her) Group Senior of local group 037. One of the oldest still functioning iterators, softspoken and kind, despite the fact some other seniors might consider that a weakness. She tries to take care of her citizens and work on the great problem, but she can’t really bring herself to care much about it anymore, after working on it for so long. She is incredibly caring to her group, but she does know when to put her foot down, though she has never found it in her to use her seniority privileges against one of her group members, as she considers them a violation of their autonomy. Sig’s partner.

Seven Red Suns - (he/xe/they) Second oldest of local group 037. Close to Moon in age, which means their emotional AI is not quite as advanced as those younger than him, which can lead to issues when they are trying to understand their own and others’ feelings. He does his best though, and is generally a dedicated and agreeable member of the group, though they’re kind of aloof until Pebbles is constructed. They are active in the politics of their city, mostly as someone to give advice and guidance, rather than a leader.

Sliver of Straw - (she/her) Group Senior of local group 1650. One of the youngest seniors there is, she’s closer in age to Sig than she is to Moon. This makes her highly insecure, and she is determined to “prove” to everyone that she is a capable Senior. This leads to her being very strict with her group, as she wants someone within it, or herself, to find the solution in order to show her worth as a leader.

Once Stagnant Opportunity - (she/her) “Second in Command” of local group 1650, she’s basically Sliver without the inferiority complex. A bioengineering-focused facility, mostly specializing in creating things to make her citizens’ lives easier. She doesn’t give a shit what others think of her, and speaks her mind freely, aside from around Sliver herself, who she pretends to like but is actually insanely jealous of. She thinks she could be a better leader than Sliver ever could be, and resents her for it. (OC)

Echos of Indigo - (he/she/they) Member of local group 1650. Very soft spoken and shy, his self esteem is in rubicon from being bullied by OSO (and Sliver) after being put online. Their facility is a nature reserve, which has some of the very last natural, unpurposed biodiversity left. OSO specifically does not respect her because she thinks preserving such things is a waste of time. He tries his best. Kinda a “mom friend” to ABL, and really wishes he had some friends his age. (OC)

Chasing Wind - (he/him) Member of local group 1650. Rules his city like a dictator, due to being terrified of his own citizens taking advantage of him, so he took initiative with a “hurt them before they hurt you” mentality. He doesn’t trust his group members further than he can throw them, and suffers with some paranoia. Sig is very close to him though, they were put online within 50 cycles of one another. Sliver HAAATES this, because she thinks Sig is a lazy asshole and doesn't want her “distracting” Wind. He doesn’t particularly care, though, because he can actually let himself chill out around Sig.

No Significant Harassment - (she/he/it) “Second in Command” of local group 037. An advanced medical facility with a specialization in bioengineering, and the northernmost iterator in her group, her can is in an extremely cold area. Doesn’t give much care to the great problem, prefers to spend his time goofing off. Is considered the “Second in Command” because Moon trusts her a bit more than Suns, as they’re closer. Has a generally laid back and sarcastic personality. Moon’s partner.

Pleading Intellect - (they/them) Member of local group 1650. Built near EOI, their city has become a tourist destination because of the beautiful climate around them. Their chamber is a glass box in the middle of the city, so visitors can watch them iterate and even ask them questions. They are constantly tired due to this, since they have to be running at 100% around the clock, as they’re always being watched. Their city is the richest in the local group, and their puppet is decorated in gold and jewels to reflect that, and for the delight of tourists. Friends with Sig, Wind, and Pebbles.

Unparalleled Innocence - (she/they) Member of local group 037. While she can be a little bit of a brat, she’s a very dedicated caretaker for her city. She enjoys her citizens’ celebrations and rituals, and is generally content being their iterator. Her can is an industrial facility, and manufactures a lot of machinery for her local group and others. She’s quite popular among the iterator populous, friends/on good terms with most around her. ABL is very close to them.

Alienated by Light - (they/them) Member of local group 1650. The youngest of the group, has yet to be crushed by the futility of the great problem. Loves their citizens, and their city is very religious. They are a bit of a kiss-ass to the older ones of their local group, as they desperately want to be accepted and liked by their peers. Sliver and OSO just find them annoying, though. They consider themself close friends with Indigo (who keeps them at arms length at best), but UI is genuinely close with them, and they have a developing crush on her. (OC)

Five Pebbles - (he/him) Youngest member of local group 037. Built as a support structure for Moon, so her systems wouldn’t have to strain themselves trying to keep up with caring for her citizens. His construction was tumultuous, as there was heavy political opposition and even a couple attempted attacks in order to stop it, though obviously it didn’t work. Cycles later, he still can’t seem to shake being referred to as the “Apostate Superstructure Abomination” in certain political circles. He is deeply frustrated by this, and becomes disillusioned with his purpose rather quickly. He becomes close with Suns when he tries to distance himself from Moon, who he is constantly being compared to.

-------------

Once Sig and Pebbles manage to alter their genome, things seem fine for a couple cycles, or well, at least for them. They start distributing the code they created to a small group of friends/iterators they know are frustrated with their situation, unknowingly dooming them to a slow, painful death from the rot. Word gets out eventually about what Sig and Pebbles have done, especially once Pebbles starts “retaliating” (killing) his citizens when they annoy him too much. Cue absolute fucking panic.

Their citizens freak the fuck out. Their iterators, their homes could literally decide to just betray them at the drop of a hat. Political mayhem ensues, among both iterators and their citizens. Some of their citizens immediately go to groveling at their iterator’s feet, begging them not to infect themselves, while some lobby for trying to reason with Sig and Pebbles and the rest of those who have gone rogue, to work out a solution that would satisfy both of them. Some want to shut the entire iterator project down. Meanwhile, on the iterator side of things, workgroups are created, with some wanting to work to reverse/talk Pebbles and Sig down, some secretly gathering in hushed whispers to voice their wishes to go rogue themselves, and some are trying to figure out how to kill the traitors. Sliver is a part of one of those groups:

This is where Wind comes in. Wind is Sig’s best friend, put online about 50 cycles before her. Wind is part of Sliver’s group, and she absolutely despises their relationship, considering her contempt for Sig. However, this doesn’t stop them from goofing off together, as Wind really only drops his stoic and standoffish personality around her. He is incredibly paranoid, and distrustful of his own group (considering how Sliver continuously tries to prevent Wind from having fucking friends), as well as his citizens. When he realizes his citizens could be planning to shut him down, he tightens the reins on them even further, as he was already basically a strict dictator beforehand. He thinks that because of his treatment of them, his citizens absolutely want him dead, so he locks down his city and turns it into a literal surveillance state.

While this is happening, Sig notices something bad. They’ve got the fucking rot. Since they’ve already created so much chaos, they decide to keep it a secret, as they think they can just cure it as quick as they can and just sweep it under the rug, and no one will be any the wiser. Yeah that doesn’t work. When Moon notices that Pebbles shut the dams between their shared water supply, using more water, and has been acting very strange and distant, she goes to Sig because she knows they’ve been hanging out and Pebbles may have disclosed something to him that she doesn’t know. When Sig is similarly cagey, she asks for a diagnostic sweep of his systems. Sig refuses. Moon uses her seniority privileges, something she has never done before, to force Sig to send her the equipment manifest, and the truth is revealed: Sig and Pebbles are horrifically sick. Sig didn’t even realize the extent, as the rot has begun to hide and warp information they can collect from their structures.

Upon learning that Sig and Pebbles have given themselves the fucking rot, Suns completely cuts both of them off. He refuses to speak to either of them, because they’re scared that they could become convinced to “join them”, and this hurts Pebbles deeply. At the same time, Sig becomes distracted trying to convince Wind to infect himself (which I’ll come back to in a minute), and Pebbles is left feeling betrayed and alone.

Pebbles, despite his contempt for his citizens, actually really enjoys their culture. He thinks that when they aren’t being led by corrupt and rich assholes, they are a very interesting species and likes documenting and learning about them. He’s always been friendly with Pleading Intellect, who if you remember, is very involved in their citizens’ celebrations and daily life, so they begin to talk, growing closer. PIn eventually even begins to develop a crush on Pebbles, which spoiler alert, does not end well, like most things in this god awful au.

The way that seniority privileges work is that a senior can only use them on their own group. This means that Sliver cannot do jack shit to Sig or Pebbles, but she is going to try her damndest to figure out how to be able to extend her seniority to them. Sig knows this, and comes to the conclusion that he has to kill her before she kills him. This leads to him trying to convince Wind to infect himself so he can alter his own code to basically give himself seniority privileges and brain blast Sliver into oblivion. Sig uses the fact that Wind is already deeply paranoid against him, and he is eventually convinced, and the two end up killing Sliver:

This is what finally knocks some sense back into Sig. She realizes that HOLY FUCK WIND WE ABSOLUTELY FUCKED UP, and begins to desperately scramble to find a cure. Because Pebbles is still pissed at her, he refuses to help him, and even goes so far as to contact Suns again…who accepts the message. They start talking again, and out of an act driven mostly by the rot’s manipulation of Pebbles, he sends Suns the virus in a compromised message, and now Suns is infected. Sig is fucking PISSED. Why the hell would Pebbles fucking SPREAD THE ROT TO YET ANOTHER GROUP MEMBER, and also LEAVE HER TO DO ALL THE WORK WHILE HER SYSTEMS ARE DETERIORATING RAPIDLY?! Unfortunately, Pebbles has basically completely stopped fighting against the rot’s takeover of his mind and body, and pretty much succumbs to its whims.

This leaves Sig on her own. Moon and Wind try to help, though Wind has become so paranoid due to the rot feeding into that delusion he eventually shuts everyone out. Moon and Sig quickly realize that Sig barely has control of his structure anymore, and any and all attempts to run experiments or simulations of a cure come back with an error message near immediately. Moon knows that while Sig’s systems are very advanced, there’s no way that these errors are being processed this quickly, and the rot is manipulating his systems into not letting her hurt it whatsoever.

Meanwhile, the rot feeds on Suns’ love for Pebbles and twists it into a horrific jealousy/obsession. When they find out about PIn’s crush on Pebbles, he becomes incredibly angered by it, and one night while Pebbles is visiting PIn, they show up, grab Pebbles, and erase his memories of PIn right in front of them. PIn freaks the fuck out, and goes to Moon for help, and this is how Moon learns just how insane Suns and Pebbles have gone. This is getting bad!

PIn eventually goes to Wind and asks for the code to infect themself. They realize that even on the slim chance Sig and Pebbles and everyone else were to be cured, nothing would ever be the same again. They are already worked to the bone by their citizens due to being watched by them nearly 24/7, and they just want some damn sleep. Wind gives it to them.

Sig is also completely losing her grip on reality. The rot knows how hard Sig is trying to fight it, and begins just fucking melting her neurons, giving him what he wants (which are basically just hallucinations of Moon), to pacify him and stop him from focusing on attempting to find a cure.

Upon learning about what Suns has done to her brother, Moon tries to contact them, begging Pebbles to come to his senses, and eventually tries to use her seniority privileges on both of them to get a response, and this is what finally makes Suns snap. Moon comes over to Pebbles’ chamber right in the middle of him erasing Pebbles’ memories of Moon and Sig. Panicking, Moon tries to get Sig to come over, to help, to do ANYTHING, but it’s too late. Pebbles doesn’t even know who they are anymore.

Moon tries to use her privileges again to stop Suns, shut them down, get them to stop feeding Pebbles lies about Sig and Moon, but this just pisses off Suns more. Sig tries to defend Moon from them, but at this point he’s so weak a light breeze could have probably killed her, so Suns is easily able to kill her.

And then kills Moon too.

The end :3

And that's the basic explanation! Horrible, isn't it? :D

#rain world #rain world downpour #rain world au #rain world iterator #iterator oc #rot au #my art #rw #wow look i have actual ocs!!

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madcoincidence · 6 months ago

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Next >

The Bioengineer's

Cybertronian Knight

Ratchet's younger life was a pretty normal one with only a few small ups and downs. Before all the chaos with the Quintessons, he had been the youngest to finish top of his classes and receive his Bioengineering PhD. He was strongly encouraged to further his education and thanks to his roommate at the time, it wasn't long before he returned to do just that. He had almost lost the dumbass when their apartment's designated research room exploded.

He never wanted to relive that feeling of helplessness he had while cradling Jackie's bloody shrapnel dusted face in his lap. Only able to wait for help while trying to keep pressure on the gushing wound from Jackie's thigh, it was a real bad time. After that he worked hard to earn the next step up from Bioengineering. He gained a Biomedical Engineering PhD while soaking up the training needed to do field triage. By the time he had finished everything, Jackie had fully recovered and finished building a much larger lab for them as an apology to Ratchet for destroying all their belongings.

"Level four. Bleeding has stopped and a safe neural link disconnection from the mecha is done. Give him oxygen and keep track of how long it takes for him to regain consciousness." Ratchet motions for his team to move in and lift the pilot out to their transport. Ratchet doesn't leave with them, stabilizing and disconnecting the pilot from the mecha suit was just step one of twenty-seven. His focus now shifts to shutting down the Mecha to stop the over heated frame and sparking wires from causing an explosion. While he works his multitasking brain shifts back to thinking over his life choices, ranting and banter has always helped steady his hands.

Jackie was a hazard to limbs but still not the worst to be around. No, that could go to Roddy and his meddling. The menace has tried setting him up with many blind dates. Thanks to him there was one blind date that few know of and wouldn't dare bring up if they value their vocal cords. The ones who do know of it have started calling it ‘the one night-’

Ratchet clicks his tongue with a heavy sigh as electricity and hot sparks fly and pop all around him. It laps against his gloved hands and hits his visor with snapping sizzles. Just as good ol’ Jackie promised, the suit is able to withstand whatever a seriously damaged Mecha can dish out. Unless it's an explosive level of damage, the suit can absorb or dispel the electrical current and heat. Ratchet wrangles a handful of the sparking stripped wires that are swaying above his head as he swipes through the smoking control panel. He smashes in all override codes, allowing the suit to start the shutdown protocols. He drifts back to mentally ranting while the metal frame around him pings and creaks.

Nah, compared to both Jackie and Roddy, Jazz and his mecha suit have to be the biggest migraine starter pack. That maniac tests Ratchet's skills almost daily, on and off the field. How many times has he saved Jazz's life? Too many times. Jazz is a devil of chaos in that mecha suit, always doing down right suicidal stunts anytime an opportunity strikes. Ratchet has personally worked with Jackie on Jazz's mecha to make sure the kid wouldn't end up frying himself or slip further into insanity. Still with all the care put into that mecha, Jazz's sanity is still debatable.

Yeah… keeping everyone sane and healthy is something that feeds into Ratchet's sleepless nights. He knows better than to think he can save everyone, he was never that naive. Still the harsh reality of how fragile life is hit hard and fast at the beginning of the Quintesson war. Those memories are buried deep down with the first prototypes of mecha suites. Despite everything, Ratchet still refuses to give up on anyone, he'll do everything in his power to save someone in his care. The small moments during down time, when he catches people smiling, singing, and laughing with friends thought lost to this war, helps make the nightmares just a bit easier to endure.

Ratchet stands up and swipes broken glass off his knees before grabbing the strap to his satchel. With the Mecha safely disabled Ratchet shrugs the strap over a shoulder and starts climbing out of the cockpit to start scanning the area for any more downed pilots. Being in the mecha had muffled the ear splitting screeches and roars of battle. Outside the mecha, everything echoed and rumbled through the hills and gullies, shaking the ground and trees. The trees where the bulk of the fight is happening have caught fire, turning the sky a hazy gray with a reddish orange hue. The fight has fallen closer to city limits but still hasn't reached the level of what the commanders would call a, ‘panic level threat’ to allow evacuation efforts. That, like many things, is not something Ratchet agrees with.

From his position on the Mecha's chest, Ratchet narrows his eyes to try and see through the smoke better. He spots specks of red light flickering from a gully to his left. It's close enough to him and his team that he can make out a mecha shaped form at the bottom, “Aid! Fix! With me! Everyone else, start hooking this up to the transport!” Ratchet yells above the noise while he climbs down the Mecha and hops off to the ground when close enough. Satisfied that his team immediately starts moving as soon as he gives orders, Ratchet starts jogging with Aid and Fix right behind him. “We need to move fast. I spotted a downed Mecha past that hill. Don't know how long it's been there. Since we haven't seen any mecha close to us while working, I am going to assume it's been a while.” Ratchet grips the strap to his satchel as he picks up the pace. The lights he saw means the mecha is still functional but no movement tells him the pilot is injured or worse.

- - - - - - - - -

While they catch their breath, Ratchet scans the gully to find the best way down, “Ratchet, sir... this is a really steep climb down. Let's find another way. Trying would be way too risky.” Fix rasps out as he wipes his forehead with his sleeve. Aid makes a wheezing noise while hunched over, hands on his knees. The smoke and soot is not doing their lungs any favors.

“This thing stretches for miles. Quickest way is to climb down. Don't like it, stay up here.” Ratchet coughs to clear his throat as he squats down to look over the edge. At the bottom of the gully, laying on its side in murky pink tinted water is the damaged mecha. The lights he had spotted from before are coming from what seems to have been a space ship. From what Ratchet can see of the remains, it doesn't resemble a Quintesson transport vessel. Hard to say though since it's scattered everywhere. Some of the shredded debris is embedded into the walls of the gully. Larger pieces are scattered all around the mecha. Ratchet swings his legs over the edge and start climbing down. He ignores Fix's pleas and calls up to Aid, “Call for the mecha transporter. If it's stable enough to be moved, it might be safer to keep the pilot inside the cockpit.” The two wheeze and mumble above him but he catches the click and static screech of a field radio turning on.

As Ratchet climbs down he glances over his shoulder every now and then trying to see what he's working with. He notices a lot of damage to the plating on the mecha's arms, chest, and back. Possible damage to the cockpit has Ratchet taking the risk of using less sturdier holds for his hands and feet. Ratchet notes that the weird pink color in the water is coming from the deep gashes and holes littering the mecha's frame. The larger pieces of debris that Ratchet thought were from the ship turns out to be chunks of Quintessons. Ratchet exhales, steadying his nerves as he continues the climb down. When he deems it close enough, he clears the rest of the way by sliding down into the water with a splash. Thankfully it's only knee deep.

After fixing his strap and giving a dry cough, Ratchet pulls out his infamous wrench from the satchel and takes a step forward. The muddy bottom sucks his boots back down with every step forward, “Kid better be alive.” Ratchet mutters to himself, not wasting any more time he works his way towards the mecha. His breath catches when he sees how detailed the mecha's face is. Its lips are pulled into a tight thin-lined frown and the eyebrows are pinched together, creasing the area between its closed eyes. Like it can feel the wounds while unconscious, so expressive…. Ratchet shakes off that trail of thought before it can get started, “Pilots skipping face shields and visors for their mecha's now? Is this where the money is being wasted? Mecha used for commercials and toys shouldn't be out on the field. Wait till I get you out kid. If all of this was a stupid publicity stunt, you'll wish the Quintessons finished you off.”

He tightens his hold on the wrench as he makes it to the chest plates. His heart is pounding just a little faster but he continues to ignore all the red flags saying something is off about this mecha. If there's a chance there's someone in there, then he needs to try to save them. Besides, he has that gut feeling that he's needed here and that gut feeling has never failed him yet, “hot… but not a, going to blow up right now, kind of hot.” Ratchet mumbles as he slowly, barely, ghosts his gloved fingers tips over where the cockpits emergency release panel should be, “Not helpful kid. How am I supposed to get to you if I can't find the medical override..” He swears he saw a clawed finger twitch inside his peripheral vision. The weird muffled whirling noise coming from its chest picks up.

“Ratchet move!!” Aid and Fix scream out from above. Ratchet turns his head towards them then to the heavy thwumps and splashes from behind the mecha's frame. Ratchet curses and waves a hand for them to back away from the ledge and stay down. He grips the wrench in both hands and presses his back into the Mecha's chest plating. Very familiar blood chilling, high pitched chitters, and low hisses surround him. Tentacles slide around and on the mecha, moving past the frame closer to Ratchet. He doesn't dare breathe as one comes extremely close to brushing against his leg.

Many things happen in the next few minutes. The sound of shifting plates and a whirr chur noise comes from behind him. He ends up falling back into the water as the surface he was pressed against moves away way too fast to follow. Ratchet's cool blue eyes dart up to catch sight of a Quintesson with a mecha sized gun down its throat. He's barely able to register that before being drenched in muddy water and Quintessons blood as it rains down on him. He scrambles to clear his visor as chunks of the alien continues to hit the water.

When he can see again he looks to his sides then up. The mecha is crouched above him, one knee had been very close to squishing him. The mecha tosses the gun to the side and this time that knee blocks Ratchet from the splash. Water with the weird pink liquid drizzles off the mecha as it grabs another Quintesson by the tentacles and yanks it towards them. Ratchet scoots back and stumbles to his feet as the mecha doesn't hesitate to sink it's claws into the Quintesson's head and lower jaw.

With a stomach flipping roar, the towering being above him rips off the Quintesson's jaw and toss it aside like the gun. The rest of the body is droped carelessly in front of them. Ratchet yells out as this time, once again, he's soaked. His suit is well past being comfortable anymore. Burning red eyes land on Ratchet for a split second before growing staticy, the mechanical being gives a sharp wince. The red static quickly becomes a solid but dimmer red as the mecha turns its upper torso to focus on the next charging Quintesson.

- - - - - - - - -

Ratchet definitely can't ignore the ‘this is not a mecha’ warnings anymore. Weird destroyed spaceship, red flag. Weird pink fluid leaking from the mecha, definitely not oil or lubricant, red flag. Mecha vocalizing through a moving mouth and showing hints of pain, big red flag. The moment the Quintessons are dealt with the 'not piloted by a human but very much mecha looking' being falls back onto their side. When the shaking from the large being's fall settles Ratchet had finished processing everything.

Right now to Ratchet, the only thing that matters is they're hurt and Ratchet may be able to help them. Ratchet trudges through the water towards the mechanical being as they give a static filled rumble, “Hush, you did enough. Thank you.” Ratchet places his palm on their cheek and rubs the warm metal trying to sooth them. He doubts it's really doing anything but he wants to sound and be as calm and sincere as he can.

He watches as the eye watching him darts to the edge of the gully where his teammates are yelling at him to be careful, “It's ok kid we're getting you out of here. Focus on me. Just me." The rumbles trickle away as the intense red glow shrinks back onto Ratchet. It flickers a few more times, then slowly dims till it's completely off. A lid slides over the eye closing with a soft click, “I've got you.” Ratchet promises switching the pets to a pat. With a shaky exhale, he starts planning out how he can fit this metal being into his quarters back on base. Jackie would be happy help him rearrange his sitting area.

*** *** ***

Next >

Sooooo, I realized I didn't start with how Ratchet and Deadlock meet in the TF Mecha Universe. I just hopped straight into the mushy stuff.

@keferon 's TF Mecha Universe has given me a spark of creativity again. So thank you Keferon for starting this chaos! It's beautiful. I am looking forward to writing this fanfic, it's quickly stolen all of my attention. I have a lot planned out and written up already, just sitting in my drafts . (even if it's taking forever for me to edit 😅) Anyways, I hope this was an enjoyable read!

Keferon has been overflowing with tons of wonderful asks, so I though I could make it a bit easier on them by figuring out how to post this fanfic here. Chapter Two: Finally doing last time Edits

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catboybiologist · 1 year ago

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Alright I can't finish this all in one sitting, but here's at least a bit of.... something? A word vomit? A prelude to smut about the eroticism of the machine? For all you robot, mecha, and spaceship fuckers out there. @k1nky-r0b0t-g1rl that means you

Pappy always said that manufacturing biological transportation was nothing knew. I mean, shit, humanity's been breeding horses for how long? To him, not much was novel about what was going on in the shipyards way out by Neptune when I was a kid.

But Pappy didn't know a lot of things. And he certainly didn't meet Roseanna.

The Federation Navy had experimented with biologics for decades. The idea was to create self regenerating ships- something to interface with the hull, move the new titanium plates and particulates into place, have a living, growing mass interfacing with the steel so that the ship didn't have to head all the way back to the yards to patch up after every dogfight.

The first generation... worked. With a full time crew, that is. Full time people on deck jabbin the rigid, chitonous interface with the hull full of growth hormones to get them to set just right. Full time onboard bioengineers to compute what signaling cocktail ya need to hit 'em with to get it to grow back right. Skilled onboard technicians to shave back the chitin when it tried to overgrow the titanium, and slap some new cells in to seed the process in heavily damaged areas. Less input material, less time in the yards, but far more manpower. Great for a Federation cruiser on deep space peacekeeping missions. Far too complex for small craft. Right?

Until some bastard put brains in 'em.

Well. A lotta suits would say that they weren't brains. They were a diffuse network of sensory neurons and ganglia, living inside the body of the ship, integrating signals from a skin of alloyed metal and fibrous protein, calculating power draw too and from various components, and integrating with the mechanical and electrical components of the ship to precisely manage the "wound healing" process of the vessel. And of course, it just so happened that one of those ganglia was larger and more complex than the rest of them, and it just so happened that the computer interfaces with this ganglia exhibit complex, thinking behaviors on the level of human cognition, and it just so happens that most pilots and navigators reported them developing their own personalities.....

But of course, the Navy didn't want anyone to have some kind of pesky empathy in the way of their operations. And they certainly didn't want anyone side eyeing the rate at which they disposed of the damn things, and let them suffer and rot after disposal. So as far as the official record was concerned, they didn't have brains.

Like most people in the belt, I found Rosie on a... unsponsored field trip to the Neptune scrap yards. She wasn't a ship then. She wasn't much of anything. Not much more than a vat with the central ganglia and just barely enough of the stem cells needed to regrow a network. But I took her all the same. Brains were valuable. Few pilots outside the Navy had them back then. Nowadays, a black market for "brain seeds", a cocktail of neuronal stem cells and enough structural stem cells to grow your own into the chassis of your ship. They were pumpin' em out, and leaving them to die. It was cruel. They may be vehicles, but they're a livin' being too.

But I digress. I'd never do that to Roseanna. I make sure she gets proper care. And for a good, proper, working ship? That includes some good, proper work.

The asteroid we were docked in was one of my usuals- good bars, nice temp quarters, nice views of the rock's orbiting twin, and a spacious hanger for Rosie to rest in. The chasiss I had imprinted Roseanna to was a 40-meter light skipper, with some adjustments for handling deep space trips. It was pretty much the smallest thing you could actually use to live and work for long periods of time, but it got the job done. The angular design made the entire ship look like a wedge, or the blade of a bulky dagger. It didn't hurt that each bottom edge was fortified with a sharpened titanium blade, turning the entire sides of the ship into axe-like rams.

Those would probably come in handy today.

I approached Roseanna on the catwalk above her, marveling her alloyed scales. I could almost see her shudder in anticipation as my footsteps vibrated through the air above her. I took the steps down, and hit the trigger to open her top hatch.

When the news got out of the Navy scuffling with a rebelling mining station, an electric air raced across the station. Some went about their day as normal. Some resigned themselves to picking at the leftovers after the dust had settled. And some, like me, knew that they could get the finest pickings.

I strapped in to the pilot's seat like it was an old boot.

"Welcome, Captain Victoria."

Rosie could talk, but more often than not, she chose not to. But she understood me just fine. Most of our communication took place using her three prerecorded lines- her welcome statement, affirmative, and negative- as well as the tiny screen showing a small, emoticon face. Many pilots chose to give their ships an elaborate render, but Rosie preferred it this way. It was the first face I gave her, from somewhere out of the scrap heaps, and she refused any offer I made to upgrade. Secretly, I was overjoyed. To me, that was her face. That was her voice. And it was beautiful to see her true self through them.

I brushed my hands across her paneling. Across the switches, the hydraulic controls for the plasma fuel, the steering, the boosts, the comms channels. The thing with biologics was that you were still the pilot. For whatever reason, they hadn't quite gotten to the point where the brains could take over their own piloting. My personal opinion was just that their personalities lacked the ambition to. But whatever reason that was, the best pilots were still the ones that knew both their ship, and the ship's brain. And me and Rosie? We knew each other well.

As my fingers touched the brushed aluminum controls, rimmed with chitinous layers rooting them into the ship, I could feel the walls around me holding their invisible breath. "Do you know what we're doing today, Rosie?"

Her tiny panel flickered on. ...?

"We got a scrap run."

^_^

Her panel flicked between various expressions of excitement. My finger quivered on the main power, holding for a moment before flicking it on. The primary electronics of the ship hummed to life, and what Rosie controlled pulsed with it. My hands moved across the main functional panels- main hydraulic plasma valve, exhaust ports open, and finally, flicking the switch the start the plasma burner.

My hands gripped the steering. The hanger's airlock doors opened in front of me. My neck length hair started to float as the station's gravity shut off. I hit the switch to unlatch from the supports above. For a moment, we hang there. The dull crackle of the idling plasma burner is the only sound that resonates through Rosie's hull.

Go time.

I punch the boost.

#eroticism of the machine #robot girl #mecha girl #spaceship girl #the fuck do I even tag this LOL #yall gotta tag this and make sure it gets to the right spaces for me okay

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maracujatangerine · 6 months ago

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Book recommendation

- for the pet whump crowd and others who like good sci-fi.

I read the first of two books a couple of years ago and I quite liked it, and now I’ve read the sequel and it was amazing!

Book 1: Dogs of War, Adrian Tchaikovsky

Book 2: Bear Head, Adrian Tchaikovsky

The books take place in a not so distant future where bioengineered animals are intelligent as humans, but still keep a lot of their animal traits. The author has studied zoology and you can really feel that his books have benefited from him thinking deeply about animal traits.

The first book focuses on Rex, designed to be a living weapon complete with reward and control circuits in his brain. He really, really wants to be a good dog, and to his master, being a good dog means killing lots of people. But what happens when his master is tried as a war criminal?

The second book - which I absolutely loved - takes place on the construction site of the first settlement on Mars. It is a time where bioengineered animals have been granted some human rights, but there are political forces who see the opportunity to gather support by painting the animals as something other - dangerous, barbaric and needing to be controlled. My favourite main character in this book is an amazing academic and activist - who happens to be a bear - but all characters are really clearly painted and the environments are interesting and thought-provoking. This book is very relatable to today’s political situation, which makes me wonder how it will work in a decade, but which also made it feel great to read right now.

The characters are very clearly drawn and relatable, they are smart and their actions feel reasonable and in-character. The plot is fresh and fast-paced, the sci-fi elements feel believable. I cared about all the characters and was invested in the story.

There are strong currents of pet whump and living weapon in these books, so if you like that sort of thing I really recommend you checking them out.

Book Recommendations Masterlist

#pet whump #living weapon whumpee #pet whumpee #book recommendations #books #adrian tchaikovsky #dogs of war #bear head

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hwaslayer · 4 months ago

Text

wildfire (cs) | fourteen.

—spotify playlist | series masterlist

—pairing: asst. professor!choi san x grad student!f. reader

—genre: (18+ - minors dni) strangers to lovers, grad school au | fluff, angst, smut

—word count: 5.5k

—chapter content/warnings: cussing/mature language, mostly focused on namjoon again in his stressed with no rest era, oc tells her friends about everything, jiung x oc fighting, crying :(, oc has a pretty good talk with namjoon, things are just shifting/changing

—a/n: the next fic coming up after wildfire has been posted here! also if you haven't taken my poll, pls do so! hehe <33 i appreciate u

You lay back against the arm of the couch with your blanket sprawled on top, typing away the last bits of info into your presentation. You're a slide away from creating your acknowledgements slide and wrapping up the entire rotation update. You had gotten an email from both San and Namjoon stating that your rotation in San's lab was ending due to a change in your timeline and that you needed to present your rotation update to the both of them, along with the dean, in the following week. It scared you at first— and it still does now— but it's starting to make more sense as to why San did what he did. Namjoon sent you a side email asking if you could meet today because he wanted to discuss what was going on. He kept it vague. Short.

Maybe he was holding off until the meeting.

It's obvious who started all of this. It's not hard to tell.

But, you agreed to meet after TAing for Yunho— letting Namjoon know you'd be there as soon as class was over. He agreed to the time and sent you a reassuring message towards the end, telling you all would be well and that he'd help you figure things out no matter what.

It was reassuring, but it doesn't mean you weren't scared.

Anxious.

Nervous.

Doesn't mean any if this it hurt any less. Doesn't mean you weren't angry, upset, sad. You still needed to feel it out, especially being alone and going through this without anyone else to talk to about it.

You had Eunchae, Jurin and Felix. But, you wished you had Jiung to talk to. You wished you didn't feel hurt about him, too.

—FLASHBACK

"So, you two are seeing each other?" Jurin asks while she sits in front of you and holds onto your knee to give it a gentle rub. Eunchae sits next to you with her arm over your shoulder, also giving you a gentle caress, squeeze. Felix sits next to Jurin and he's got a look of concern, but sadness. You had finally opened up about everything between you and San; from how things started, the conferences, staying at his house, being with him—

To not.

Jiung keeps himself posted near your window because he doesn't really wanna hear more about it but he needs to— to understand the full story. Part of him also feels guilty for what he did hearing your cries and how awfully torn up you are over Professor Choi.

San.

He's gotta get used to you calling him San like that.

"Were." You shake your head and press the tissue against your nose to pat it dry. "It's done with now."

"But, why? Couldn't you guys just play it off?"

"I'm sure he wanted to be safe, though." Felix adds softly. "I think I kinda see where he's coming from." He looks at you. "I don't think he meant to hurt you, but he's probably trying to protect you and keep everything safe in the meantime. Once this blows over—"

"I doubt we'd get back together."

"Don't say that. You never know, Y/N. I agree with Lix. He's probably just trying to do what's best for now even if it hurts him to. I'm sure he cares a lot about you. I mean heck, he almost fucked up Hae-jin in front of everyone." You sigh and look down at your hands, the feeling of sadness and emptiness all consuming.

"He does." Eunchae adds to Jurin's reassurance. "I don't know why Professor Lee and Professor Jeong think it's their business, though. Haven't they done enough damage?"

"Awful. People literally can't mind their business, especially when it has nothing to do with them."

"I get the power dynamics but Professor Choi doesn't seem like the type. So, honestly, it's not like anyone was getting hurt in the process." Jiung silently fiddles with his hoodie string as Felix goes on.

"And people clearly don't know you if they assume you're the one throwing yourself on him." Jurin adds.

"Damn. Two people can't just be together?" Felix shakes his head. "Anyway, you got us, and this will pass. I'm sure Professor Kim will do everything to help and figure things out, too." You dig your face into your hands, trying to wipe away the remaining tears before you nod and smile at Lix in appreciation for his support, too.

Still, you can't help but notice how Jiung has remained quiet this entire time— barely able to maintain eye contact with you.

"Should we go to dinner? Get some food in you?" Eunchae gives you a small smile and giggle. You nod and stand with them, quickly checking your appearance in the mirror while the three start making their way out of your door.

"Can we talk for a second?"

"About?"

"I just have to tell you something. Probably shouldn't wait until after dinner."

"Um, okay?" You look at him, hands crossed over your chest in a vulnerable manner, doe-eyes peeking up at him as he lets out a hefty sigh. "What's on your mind?"

"Y/N, I'm sorry. I just wanna say I'm sorry and I hope you understand where I'm coming from. But—" He lets out another sigh before shaking his head, almost as if he were shaking his feelings off. Trying to tell himself he needs to say it. "I-I went to Professor Kim and told him about you and Professor Choi. I told him I thought you were being taken advantage of and that I was worried."

"What?" You can barely get out. "W-why would you do that?"

"I was really just worried and I wasn't sure how else to get to you. I-I thought Professor Kim would be able to help—"

"Jiung." You call his name and step back, not wanting to be in close proximity to him. You knew he was worried about you, but you didn't think he'd go off and talk to Namjoon about it right away. "Why would you do that? Why couldn't we just keep talking about it— why did you have to go and blow this up even more?!"

"I'm sorry, can you blame me?!—"

"You didn't have to go behind my fucking back and tell Professor Kim! I already told you it wasn't like that and you still told him it was?! What the actual hell, Jiung?"

"I was just worried about you! I was being your fucking bestfriend, trying to make sure you weren't hurt or anything."

"And then you made things worse. Are you happy?" You scoff. "Those assumptions could have really fucked up Professor Choi."

"What about you, Y/N? Why do you keep disregarding yourself?! Is that even healthy—"

"Healthy?! I'm telling you the truth!" You scoff. "And you don't know shit about me and him, so quit acting like you do." You throw your hands up in defeat because he'll never get it. "Forget it, okay? You'll never understand and I don't need you to."

"Hey, what's going on?" Felix pops his head in, confused at the ruckus going on behind doors. Truthfully, he heard everything just as he was approaching the door to check up on you, and he's not sure how to feel. It's hard. He feels like he's in the middle because he sees Jiung, he sees you.

"You guys can go off to dinner together, but I'll probably just stay behind."

"But, Y/N—" Jiung adds in defeat.

"Why don't you and the girls go? We'll catch up later." Felix tugs him by the sleeve and gives him a look. "Give her some space." He mutters lowly just as he gets in close distance.

—END

Your alarm blares on the coffee table, a harsh reminder that you haven't really slept much. It was time to wrap up and get ready for Yunho's class— something you weren't entirely ready to tackle today either.

But, you get up anyway.

You sigh and put on your brave face.

You throw on a simple sweater, jeans and your Sambas— dabbing a bit of mascara, brow gel and lip gloss to fix yourself up a tiny bit for the day. You were tired of feeling sad and dressing the part; the least you could do was finally get some fresh air and look decent enough for the world while coming out of your slump. You grab your things and pack up your bag, heading out of the door with your keys in hand.

Kinda sucks you won't be returning to San's lab.

Kinda sucks you won't be returning to San.

You let out a sigh and quietly walk over to the classroom in peace, keeping your head down for a majority of the time.

Avoiding eye contact, avoiding anything having to do with the outside world in meantime.

"Hey!" Yunho says in his usual fashion. You give him a small smile, although you're not really sure why he's joining class yet again today. He had been joining your class in particular recently, and you knew why.

He just wanted to get under your skin.

"Hi." You respond, getting your laptop together. Yunho continues to watch you from where you're standing, noting the sadness that envelopes your entire body. The way you're avoiding him. The way it's so blatantly obvious that you know that he knows.

That Iseul is the reason why you're sad.

You don't say anything otherwise; keeping your head down and away from Yunho even while the class walks in. You continue to carry on with the last journal club of the class before giving everyone time to work on their final proposals before it's due at the end of the evening. A few people linger at the end of class to speak with you and Yunho to get your guidance on the last remaining bits of their proposals before they thank you for all your help and head out for the day.

You still haven't said a word to Yunho, and he can't help but ask:

"Is something wrong?" Yunho asks nonchalantly after class, looking at your figure even though you are avoiding eye contact with him while packing up your things.

"No."

"You don't have to lie to me."

"I don't know why you're asking if something is wrong when you know what it is already. Don't you?" You look at him plainly from the side before gathering the rest of your things.

"Whatever's been happening between you and San is between you and San—"

"So, was it you who told Professor Kim? Or was it Professor Lee?" You cut him off. Yunho stares at you, and he doesn't respond. Of course he won't, of course he won't throw Iseul under the bus even though you know she was behind it.

"It was for the best."

"Quite frankly, I don't think you can speak on what's best for me or him. Especially him." You look at Yunho directly in the eye. "Are you both that determined to bring San down? Is that what this?" He furrows his brows.

"Reel it in, Y/N." He says, sternly. "Do you not understand how damaging this could be for both you and him? If anything, it was done to protect you both."

"What makes you think we weren't capable of doing so?" Yunho lets out a pathetic chuckle before he steps forward and leans towards your ear, a small smirk on his lips.

"I think snuggling up on campus and sneaking into his office is enough of a reason." He pulls back, licking his lips before dipping his hands into his pocket.

"And I think you need to learn how to mind your own business and let San handle his own." You scoff. "In any case, Yunho." You look him in the eye. "You and Iseul already ruined him from the beginning and you can't come to terms with it." You tilt your head to the side. "You both were never deserving of San, and that is sad. No wonder you two are miserable and are still keeping tabs on him." Yunho's mouth slightly drops, but he doesn't respond to your statement. "I'll help out with finals if needed. Otherwise, please consider my TA assignment with you done."

You almost run into Iseul as you stomp out of the classroom, leaving her to knit her brows at you in response.

"Nice talk." Iseul pops in, her husband biting his cheek.

"We should have never gotten involved with that, Iseul." He says lowly as he gathers his things together.

"Oh, so just let them—"

"That's exactly it, just let them be." He cuts her off and looks at her. "It didn't have to be us. We could've just let them be and let anyone else do the talking. Let them learn on their own." His jaw ticks.

"We did the right thing." She crosses her arms.

"Still doesn't change the fact that you're taking the opportunity to destroy San and running with it. It didn't have to be us." He repeats, slinging his bag onto his shoulder.

"Yunho." She says. "You're not actually taking Y/N seriously, are you? She's delusional if she thinks all of this is okay and would've slipped."

"Don't call her delusional, Iseul. You have no say in their relationship or what they're about. You had no right. They knew what they were getting into. You just lead them into the trap for your own benefit." Yunho scoffs. "You wanted to see this unfold, didn't you? You wanted this to unfold in a specific way."

"What is going on, Yunho?"

"We're not meddling in this anymore. If you're not ready to stop, count me out of it. I'm not doing this, I'm not picking at their business anymore." He grabs his things and takes the lead out of the room. Iseul scoffs and shakes her head, slowly trailing behind him.

As for you, you feel cold. You feel isolated. You feel empty. You walk out and find a hidden table behind the building and set yourself down to get yourself together. You let out a couple of breaths to ease your feelings, promising yourself you wouldn't cry over this anymore.

But, it hurts to hold it in.

It hurts.

You feel the dullness, the heavy ache, in the center of your chest, and it hurts.

You have to move on.

"Fuck." You sigh, hand over your chest to give it a few gentle rubs before you're back on your feet and checking the time. You need to see Professor Kim just like your promised.

Of course, as you're on your way to Professor Kim's office, you find San passing by with Yeosang and Jongho. His eyes land on you and you immediately break first, feeling the tears ready to well up in your eyes. He sees the way your head drops and how you turn away— he can't help but slightly turn over his shoulder to keep his eyes on you.

To lock eyes with you once more.

To feel.

But, it doesn't happen. And it fucks San up more than he expects because he doesn't know even know what Jongho and Yeosang are talking about anymore after that brief interception.

"Yo, you good?" Jongho taps his chest with a small chuckle, bringing San back to reality.

"Yeah. Sorry." He tries to play it off quickly but Jongho quickly turns over his shoulder to see you walking in the opposite direction.

"All good." He returns to San and gives his shoulder a small squeeze. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about." San gives him a toothless smile. "Anyway, did you guys figure out where we're going before we make laps around campus?" Yeosang and Jongho share a quick look before they follow behind San and pick the conversation back up to prevent any of San's sadness from creeping up.

Meanwhile, you continue your way to Professor Kim's office, wiping away the stragglers that manage to escape your eyes and streak your cheeks. You weren't gonna let this get to you, so you quickly try to brush it off and get yourself together especially when you walk down the hallway and into Professor Kim's office. He's in his chair, typing away on his computer— glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose.

"Hey Y/N, come sit and make yourself comfortable." He smiles at you and you return the gesture, sitting down on the chair posted in front of his desk.

"Thanks for meeting with me today, Professor Kim."

"No, thank you." He chuckles and finally shifts his full attention towards you. "How are you today?"

"Uh, could be better but not complaining."

"Yeah? How was class with Professor Jeong?"

"Hm, okay." You hum before shifting in your seat nervously.

"Just okay?" You nod. "Well, as long as there aren't any complaints or anything you wanna tell me." Namjoon knows you probably aren't having a great time in Yunho's class right now and he doesn't blame you.

"No." You force a smile. "Anyway, I see that I have to do my rotation presentation next week?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry, Y/N. You do understand why this is all happening, right?" You slowly nod. "I know you and San have been seeing each other, and I know he ended things the other day. I'm really sorry, but I just need to protect you both. Word is getting around fast and the dean isn't having it. I can't have him fire San, I can't have him kick you out of the grad program. Please just understand why things have to be this way. I just need it to settle."

"I do." You respond weakly before looking down at your hands. "I'm sorry for causing so much trouble, Professor Kim. I didn't mean— we didn't mean for this to blow up. I-I know we shouldn't have been so sloppy and reckless, and I'm sorry—"

"Hey, hey." He shakes his head with a sympathetic look. "No need to be sorry. I promise all is fine, and that's why I'm here to help and protect you both." You look at him with a sad nod, and you aren't sure why that's the tipping point for you but you suddenly start to break down in front of Professor Kim. He feels his heart breaks because he knows there wasn't any power play in this; he knows San as a person, and he's familiar with you as a student and the work you do. There was no way either of you used any power or position for your advantage. He knew this had been a genuine, real relationship— it's just truly unfortunate it had to unfold this way.

If word hadn't gotten around, maybe Namjoon wouldn't care at all.

But, he has to now, and that's what makes everything hard about his role.

"I promise everything is going to be okay." He says softly.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—" Namjoon shakes his heas, watching the way you cry into your hands.

"Y/N, it's okay. You can let it out if you need to." He passes you the tissue box. "Can I ask you something? And be honest. I've already figured out your plan for school so you don't have to hold back." Namjoon says. "Do you care about him?" You nod as you continue to cry, the ache in your chest making it hard for you to breathe.

You miss San.

"But, it doesn't matter because he ended it. It's over with."

"He only did so because of my guidance, and I'm sorry about that. I told him this too, but it's not something I wanted to do. Trust me. As his friend, it's the first time I've seen him genuinely and truly happy. It's all I wanted after the things he's gone through. But, I just can't risk it right now. San is beginning to reach new heights with his career and getting more real estate to do things he's been wanting to do with Jongho. You're also just getting into the groove of things. I don't want either of your hard work to get snatched away over something like this."

"No, I know Professor Kim. I do understand and I'm grateful. It just sucks. I don't know how else we would've gotten away with it, I guess." You sniff. "Maybe it had to happen."

"Look, I told him this, too. But, I can't police every detail and tell you who you can and can't date. If San is someone you care about, then so be it, but the only thing I ask of you is to keep it off campus. I cannot have you two interacting on campus or else he's out. Not by my choice, but the committee."

"I don't want anything to happen to him."

"I know, and he said the same thing about you. He cares just as much, so don't think that he doesn't." You dab your face with the napkin and nod.

"Jiung confessed and told me he came to you about it." Namjoon nods.

"I think he was just worried as your friend. Rightfully so. But, I think he also shouldn't have jumped to those conclusions right away."

"I told him that."

"If I hadn't known San so well, I probably would've believed Jiung." He sighs. "It's alright, he didn't know and he was worried. Are you two okay?"

"Not really, but I think we just need time. I'm trying to see his side of things, but I also didn't think he'd do that so it caught me off guard."

"I see. Well. Give yourself some time and grace, okay? I'm sorry it had to be this way for now." You give him a tiny, toothless smile. Eyes still shiny and watery from the crying you've just done.

I'm sorry it had to be this way for now.

It repeats in your head over and over again because why does it feel like this is just how it's gonna be? Despite Namjoon reassuring you, despite San's explanation. Why does it just feel like a fleeting moment? A chapter in your book— a part that was never really supposed to last.

"Thank you." He gives you a smile.

"So, shifting to the program. I was thinking I could pull you into my lab and we can figure out things as time goes on? Explore other options if there's anything else you'd wanna explore." You nod. "You know there's other paths we can look into, or if you're totally fine with where you're at in my lab, then we can just stick with that plan."

"That sounds good. Thank you, Professor Kim."

"Unfortunately, like I mentioned, I can't have you interacting with Professor Choi. I'll have to make sure you don't take any of his classes or end up in any collaboration projects with him." You nod.

"Okay. I understand."

"You'll have to halt all your work in his lab immediately. You can grab your things when you feel ready to, but I'll have you in my lab starting next week. I know it'll be a bit crazy with your rotation presentation, but I promise to make it a smooth transition."

"Okay." You purse your lips. "I'm almost finished with my rotation presentation."

"That's great!"

"It'll just be us three?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry. It's not the usual format but I need the dean to see all the good work you do."

"Thank you. I appreciate your support."

"Do you have any questions so far? Any other concerns?" You think for a second before shaking your head.

"No."

"I'll send you some onboarding info and give you the contacts to some key people in my lab to help you get started. We can figure out your project and goals in a little more depth next week. Let's aim for a Monday morning meeting? 9am?"

"Good with me."

"Thanks, Y/N. And please trust me when I say all is gonna be well."

"Thank you."

"See you next week? Be sure to keep an eye out for my emails." You nod as you stand and tuck your bag closely to you.

"I will." You give him another smile before heading out of the door. Namjoon pinches the bridge of his nose and plops back down onto his chair, picking up his direct line to ring the dean's office phone. It rings for a few minutes before the dean is answering on the other end.

"Namjoon."

"Hey. Can we meet today to talk about what's been going on? I can be over in the next 15 minutes."

"I'm free, but I have a hard cut off in 45 minutes."

"That's plenty of time. I'll be there soon."

"See you." Joon hangs up and gathers his things, loosening his tie to get himself together for this meeting. He doesn't necessarily wanna do this, nor does he think he's ready for whatever the dean could unleash on him.

On you, on San.

But, he has a job to do and he'll make damn sure he gets his point across. He'll make damn sure he controls this well, and he'll make sure nothing happens to the both of you.

When he gets into the building and heads straight for the dean's office, he's greeted by the front desk and his executive assistant. The dean's assistant knocks on his door and pops her head in to give him a heads up about Namjoon's visit. It isn't long before she's gesturing for him to come into his office, stepping out and slowly shutting the door behind her once Namjoon's settled in the seat in front of him.

"Namjoon."

"Dean Louie." Namjoon clears his throat. "Can we discuss what's been going on? I've got a chance to review this more in depth."

"Great. So, tell me. What's with the anonymous tip? Is there truth behind San and his student's relationship?"

"No." The dean looks at him with his head cocked to the side. "Not at all."

"Namjoon. This isn't the time to play games."

"Who said I was?" Joon asks. "This is purely a rumor and there is nothing going on between the two of them. To keep things safe, I'll make sure they don't cross paths and interact on campus, and I'll make sure to work closely with her and keep her under my wing." Namjoon says.

"A rumor? That blew up around campus? What about Iseul and Yunho? Iseul told me about the happy hour event with San. All of this seems too good to be true, and if you're covering for them—" Namjoon cuts him off.

"Since when did Iseul and Yunho have their best interest in San? All I know is that they've always been the driving issue, not San." Namjoon looks at the dean confused. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, but a rumor is a rumor and I've gotten to the bottom of it. I talked to the both of them and they denied it through and through. The only reason why San got caught up in the whole happy hour business was because a postdoc was crossing the line and being really disrespectful to her. Any one of us would've done it had we caught it right away like San did." Namjoon continues to furrow his brows. "Now, please. I'd appreciate if we can move on." The dean sits back and lets out a hefty sigh.

"Go on."

"As stated in my email, she will do her rotation presentation in front of myself, you and San. After that, she will be removed from his lab and will be placed in mine. We'll have weekly check-ins, and I'll work with her to move her classes around and realign her priorities so that she and San don't cross paths in this program again."

"And what about this real estate in the building? I'm not going to give it over if this is what San plans to do—"

"I'm sorry, but this shouldn't define San and his work." Namjoon pauses. "He's not, alright? I already confirmed it was a rumor and there is nothing going on. No reason for you to pull back on that real estate deal especially when Jongho had nothing to do with this either and San has already explained his side and agreed to comply regardless. She'll be out of his lab." The dean gives Namjoon a stern look.

"You better make damn sure this doesn't happen again, Namjoon. No rumors, no slip ups. And you make sure those three stop causing trouble on campus. Iseul, Yunho and San. I don't care who did what and who is blaming who, I need this to stop. Now. We can't have childish, petty issues running amuck on this campus."

"You have my word."

"If I hear San and Y/N in the same sentence again, I can't promise it will be the same outcome."

"With all due respect, I need you to understand that whatever they do, whatever happens off campus, doesn't concern me and shouldn't concern you either. I cannot police their behavior and make them act a certain way off grounds. They are both grown, mature adults that can make decisions on their own, and you know that's unfair and very unrealistic." The dean doesn't say much. He mutters a few things under his breath before he's returning his attention to Namjoon.

"Not a damn word about them ever again, Namjoon. I mean it." The dean warns him again before settling into his seat and returning his attention to his desktop computer. Namjoon does a quick, silent bow before walking out, sighing loudly to himself as he's finally gotten that over with.

Still doesn't make it any easier knowing he had his friend make a very difficult decision that he did not wanna do.

He hopes in time, this could blow over and San could be happy again. Despite this hurdle, he's betting on it. On you and him.

Maybe when you come back together, circumstances will be different enough that it won't make the relationship seem as bad as it does right now.

"Shit." Namjoon clicks his teeth when he finally gets out of the building and breathes in the fresh air. He is exhausted, but his day isn't about to be over, no. On his way back to his office, he finds Yunho speaking to a few colleagues in the courtyard. He must have gotten out of a meeting and was walking his visitors out.

And Namjoon doesn't give a fuck. That visit is ending now.

"Professor Kim! It's an honor to see you in the flesh!" Namjoon smiles at his guests before returning the favor.

"Hi there." Namjoon does a curt bow. "Hope you've enjoyed your visit."

"Completely. We had a great collaboration meeting with Professor Jeong here, and he gave us a tour around."

"That's great, yeah." Namjoon smiles before looking at Yunho. "Can we talk in my office?" Namjoon says near Yunho's ear. "Now?"

"Sure." Yunho bids his last farewell before excusing himself and following Namjoon straight to his office. No words being spoken or shared. Namjoon shuts the door and sighs, looking at Yunho with his hand on his hip. "What's going on, Joon?"

"I'm just trying to understand why you and Iseul are trying so hard to ruin that man's reputation. The dean told me Iseul went over there to give him more of her little intel on San."

"I don't know what she said or did—"

"You still knew about it, didn't you?" Namjoon looks at him. "You knew this whole time Iseul was trying to raise hell about this and you let her."

"How is this not wrong?"

"No one said it wasn't wrong, Yunho!" Namjoon raises his tone. "There were just better ways to go about it than throwing San's name out there the way you two did. Just throwing him out there to the wolves without even knowing the full story. That's the problem!"

"I'm sorry, it doesn't seem like it now, but we were looking out for him and everyone else potentially involved."

"Except me. If you knew better, you both would've let me handle this accordingly. This doesn't just affect him, Yunho. It affects you both. It affects me. It affects Y/N, Jongho, everyone. Because you both didn't know how to be discreet about your plans to bring San down."

"It was never like that!"

"Then, what was it like? Tell me. As his colleague, as someone who acted purely for their own benefit, what was it like? As San's ex-bestfriend, what was it like?" Yunho doesn't respond. "This isn't high school, Yunho. I'm sorry, but the both of you need to grow up."

"We just tried to do the right thing and I don't take any of it back. If you fail to see that, then that's on you—"

"Oh, so approaching the dean to give him more talk in his ear with your so-called evidence before coming to me is doing the right thing?" Namjoon looks at him. "What was the goal here? What did this plan look like to you and Iseul?” He shakes his head. “No, actually, I don't wanna hear it, she already came into my office to talk my ear off about this. That should've been enough to let me handle it." Namjoon furrows his brows at him.

"We just thought we were helping everyone—"

"Helping? Yourself or Iseul?" Namjoon shakes his head. "You know what, this is done. The damage is done. So, thank you and Iseul for your generous help." Yunho sighs. "Now that you've done all the talking, it's my turn." Joon steps closer to him. "As long as I'm around, I'll continue to keep the peace in this department, and that means I don't want you and Iseul meddling in San's personal matters ever again." Namjoon's jaw ticks as he and Yunho stare at each other in the brief pause that falls between them. "I don't want you meddling in Y/N's personal matters, I don't want you two doing anything on this campus besides running your labs and minding your own goddamn business. Do you understand me?" Namjoon places his hands on his hips while he and Yunho maintain eye contact. Yunho swallows thickly before nodding, digging his hands in his pockets.

"Yes sir."

"The next time you and Iseul wanna act like I don't know how to do my job, I promise I'll be good with reminding you."

—read 14.5 here

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