#who is also grumpy and tired and easy to annoy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

echo-exco · 18 days ago

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❝DOCTOR, I'M CHASIN' A GHOST, DO I LOOK LIKE HIM?❞

୨⎯ ┊BATFAM X NEGLECTED!HEALER!READER ꒱

✰ ৎ──────SYPNOPSIS: all you ever wanted was a purpose. something that would give meaning to your existence, your power. healing others was the only thing that ever made you feel alive, needed… until you ended up in that awful place.

✰ ৎ────── masterlist. | prev. | next.

You were in the same corner as always, sitting by the desk, your feet dangling slightly from the seat, elbows resting on the wooden surface, an open notebook in front of you and a pencil between your fingers. You weren’t writing at that moment. Just reading. One of the many pages you seemed to have copied and rewritten over and over again.

Medical records. Detailed, meticulous, with personal notes and small fragments of thoughts the patients themselves had said out loud without realizing it. Those were your favorites. You liked jotting down those details, even when they were repetitive or confusing. Masashi always said that was a good thing, that using boredom for something “productive” was a valuable habit for someone like you.

Back then, you almost laughed in his face. Not out of any personal contempt, really, it just struck you as funny, ironic, that Masashi, of all people, would talk about productivity like he actually knew what it meant.

Sometimes you wondered if he even understood what work really was. You loved him, of course you did. After all, he had saved you, given you a purpose, a name, a pretty room, white coats with sleeves that were just a little too long. But you also knew that, no matter how fond you were of him, he was downright hopeless at certain things.

If anyone was shouldering the responsibility in that clinic, it was you. Always you. The one who organized the files, the one who remembered to clean the instruments, the one who had to go fetch him because he forgot he had surgery scheduled with a new patient. The worst part wasn’t his messiness—it was the way he reacted when you tried to point out the problem. He laughed. Apologized. Sometimes he picked you up and spun you around like an angry little pet. “Oh, my grumpy little doctor, you scold me more than my supervisor in med school,” he’d say, as if that were somehow endearing.

You were grateful to be here, away from him. At least for now. Sometimes it was just too exhausting to deal with his pleas. You supposed it was because Masashi had a very peculiar way of asking you for things. They weren’t orders. He never phrased them that way. It was more like… “Wouldn’t you like to wear this for me?” or “Wouldn’t it be nice if you sat on my lap while I read your reports?” And since it wasn’t an order, it wasn’t that easy to say no. He asked with that gentle voice, like it was for your own good.

You, of course, wanted to do things right. You wanted him to be happy.

Even with Charlotte around, a girl who was brilliant, efficient, and didn’t have the annoying habit of talking in her sleep, Masashi still kept chasing after you to accompany him in things that had absolutely no clinical purpose. As if only you could meet his ridiculously specific standards for companionship. He said Charlotte was “too artificial.” That he could actually talk with you. That your complaints were endearing.

Charlotte was useful, sure, but she didn’t have a “soul,” he sometimes said. She lacked your charisma and sweetness. Masashi said it while laughing, but also a little too seriously. You, on the other hand, had a soul. And expression. And soft hands, he’d say.

You theorized that maybe that’s why Masashi preferred asking you to try on a new dress in front of the mirror, or to sit with him while he fed you like an ill infant. Sometimes he even held the spoon for you. You always said you could do it yourself, but he insisted you’d get tired.

It was obvious he cared about you deeply. You knew it because he said things like, “Can you smile a little more? My head hurts when you look sad.” And you didn’t want him to hurt. So you smiled, even if it didn’t always come out naturally. He noticed, of course. But he’d say you’d look beautiful when you smiled for real.

Still, you thought it would be wonderful if he put that same level of care and enthusiasm into his work as a doctor. He had so much talent. You’d seen him operate. When he focused, he was brilliant. But it was rare. Lately, he seemed far more preoccupied with you than with his patients. Sometimes you worried he wasn’t sleeping well because of you.

Once again, all you truly wished for was that he’d put that same effort into his medical duties. How many times had you had to remind him that scalpels don’t belong in drawers with pencils? Or that lab reports do not make good bookmarks? It frustrated you sometimes, how he didn’t seem to realize just how important he could be if he simply did what he was supposed to do.

But instead, he came looking for you to ask how you’d slept. Or to fix your hair with those combs he collected like they were family heirlooms. “You look so serious when you frown. It’s adorable,” he’d say. Adorable? What part of asking him for the fifth time to prep the operating room was supposed to be adorable?

But he said it with such affection that it felt rude to say no. Besides, who else would go through so much trouble just for you?

Still, there you were. Sitting with your feet dangling, going over a page full of names and symptoms, trying not to think about the fact that you kind of missed having to scold him.

Just a little. A very, very little.

You quickly straightened up in your seat when you saw Alfred entering your room silently, carrying a box of tissues and a set of fresh bedsheets. Not because anything was dirty, you hadn’t stained anything, or made a mess, or moved a single thing in all those days, months, but because he found it unbearable that your room felt so... inert.

Almost as if you were purposefully avoiding leaving any trace behind.

“Good afternoon, master Y/N.” He greeted in a soft voice.

You didn’t answer. You only lifted your head a few centimeters and gave the faintest nod, as if speaking would have been asking too much of you.

Alfred walked over to your desk. He began wiping the edges with a dry cloth, even though there wasn’t a speck of dust. He adjusted the pencils that were already perfectly aligned. He picked up a folded sheet of paper with a tiny butterfly drawn in the corner.

“You don’t have to do that.” You murmured suddenly, without looking at him.

Alfred gave a faint smile. “I assure you, this is part of my job, master Y/N.”

“There’s nothing to clean. I don’t make a mess. I don’t even use the desk. You can skip this room.”

“Impossible.” He replied with a slight bow of his head. “It would be a grave discourtesy to a resident of this house. Everyone has their space. And their space must be properly cared for.”

You shrank in on yourself a little more. Your shoulders dropped slightly, as if the mere presence of another person in your room made you uncomfortable. As if someone choosing to spend time with you was some sort of overdue obligation.

Alfred didn’t say it out loud, but he’d thought it before: she’s just like Master Bruce.

The way you withdrew. The silence that clung to you. The expression of someone who had accepted that they shouldn’t ask for anything, or need anything. Who believed that simply existing was already a burden to others.

It was the same look he’d seen on a little boy standing in front of two coffins, with an empty face and trembling hands doing their best not to reach out for comfort.

Only now, it was on the face of his daughter.

It was like watching time in reverse. As if the past had returned with a new face—but the same eyes.

And it hurt. He didn’t say it. He never would. But it hurt.

“Can I ask you something, Mr. Alfred?” you said suddenly, your voice soft, seeking permission.

“Always. And there’s no need to be so formal with me, Master Y/N.”

“Why… do you help me?” You asked out of nowhere. It wasn’t a question laced with bitterness or sadness, and certainly not with scorn or hatred toward the butler.

It was a genuine question. You were simply curious about the strange and direct care Alfred always showed you. It wasn’t the first time he’d done something like this, you’d long since lost count of how many times you’d tried to make him stop, tried to let him know you didn’t need to be treated like someone who belonged to this family.

You can’t understand it. You thought you’d made it perfectly clear that your relationship with this person was strictly formal. You didn’t need him to clean anything in your room or help you with anything, no matter how small or insignificant. You had no power over the city, and you didn’t do anything like your other siblings.

You’re not useful in this house.

And you’re definitely not anyone in this family.

Alfred paused for a second, without lifting his head. He pretended to adjust the corner of a notebook.

“I do it because you live here.” He said with all the solemnity of a butler. But his voice was lower than usual—gentle, as if he were speaking to a small, frightened animal. “And because you deserve to be comfortable. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you need help. Sometimes, it’s simply okay to receive it. After all, you’re family.”

You lowered your gaze. You didn’t argue. You just sighed, with a kind of childish resignation.

It wasn’t that you didn’t believe him.

It was that you didn’t even know how to believe it in the first place.

Because the moment you show your true self… will Alfred really be able to look you in the eyes and say those same words? Gotham is no place for beings like you. This city, your own family, they would all deny your power, your purpose, your very existence and reason for being alive.

It’s painful, suffocating even, to think about what will happen if Bruce or anyone else in this house ever finds out about your powers. You don’t think they’d be capable of understanding. You had to find Masashi just to give meaning to everything you were, something to keep you sane and delay your inevitable collapse.

But was that enough? Was it really worth having that purpose at the cost of your innocence?

You can’t save yourself, so how do you still expect to save anyone else?

Alfred finished straightening the desk, crossed the room, cracked the window open to let in a bit of breeze, and then moved to check the wardrobe to make sure everything was in order. There was no need, of course. Every garment was folded as if no one had ever touched them.

“Would you like me to prepare something for tea?” He asked softly, pausing near the door. “Perhaps some vanilla cookies. Or a bit of fresh fruit.”

“I’m fine.” You murmured. “Thank you.”

You always said that. Always with that same awkward tone. As if being around him, or anyone else in this family, was somehow improper.

Alfred nodded. He didn’t press.

As he closed the door, he stopped in the hallway, hand still on the doorknob. He allowed himself a sigh.

Have I failed her too?

I failed Bruce… and now I’m failing his daughter?

Or is this family simply doomed to grow up believing they’re not allowed to ask for anything?

He knew Bruce was doing everything he could. That he was obsessed with that figure in the shadows, the nameless man who might still be out there, posing a threat to your safety while he remained free.

From the moment you arrived, you kept to the sidelines. Not out of rebellion, or visible pain, or even shyness. You simply acted like someone who was… passing through. As if it didn’t matter whether you got used to this place or not, because you weren’t planning to stay.

According to the files, you’d been through several families. None of them were especially terrible. No marks, no signs of neglect—just returns. The kind that never get recorded as damage, but leave scars on the soul. Families that “didn’t connect,” or “weren’t ready.” Families that got tired.

Alfred had read those reports on a night when Bruce couldn’t sleep. Because he couldn’t sleep either.

And yet… something didn’t sit right. Something felt artificial about the entire sequence of events. Alfred was far too old not to suspect when a story seemed too carefully designed to be harmless.

You… you knew it wasn’t true.

You had seen those documents by accident, stumbled across them by mistake. You flipped through those reports like they were silly stories someone else had written about your life.

You’d never been in any family at all. You don’t even think you’re capable of remembering your own mother.

Masashi had mentioned that he knew your mother. Apparently, they were close friends. Unfortunately, the woman died during childbirth, and poor Masashi took a couple of years to learn of your existence so he could help you.

Of course, there’s no reason for your newly discovered family to ever know about that.

Alfred knew Bruce felt guilty, for whatever you had been through and whatever uncertain future might still await you—even without knowing the details.

He understood.

Because he felt it too.

Maybe you would never see him as more than an old butler. Maybe you’d never understand why he changed your sheets every week or left a glass of warm water by your bed. But he would do it anyway.

Because you are part of this house.

Even if you didn’t believe it.

Master Bruce, he thought as he finally stepped out of the room, this time you won’t be able to postpone the conversation. She looks too much like her for you not to see it.

He closed the door carefully.

The tray remained on the table.

The cookies, untouched.

The tea, lukewarm.

You looked at the butler for a brief moment, then at the snack, a quiet gesture of goodwill. You lowered your gaze. You didn’t nod, didn’t refuse. You just went back to writing a note in your notebook, as if the conversation had never happened.

Eventually, Alfred would forget this conversation.

At least, that’s what you hoped.

Damian knew before the others. Not because Bruce told him first, but because he noticed.

The hushed voices between Alfred and his father. The long phone calls. The sealed file on the Batcomputer with restricted access. The closed-door meetings that not even Nightwing knew about. It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together—not when you’d been trained by the League of Assassins.

A daughter.

A biological daughter.

Another one.

He said nothing for an entire day. He just thought about it.

He remembered his mother’s voice, sharp as a blade over tempered steel, repeating for years what he already knew: “You are the only son of Bruce Wayne. The rightful one. The heir.”

But it wasn’t true.

Now there was another.

A blood daughter.

A sister.

Damian felt a strange stab in his chest. It wasn’t jealousy exactly. It was… disorder. Something was wrong with the world, and it needed to be corrected.

He met you three days later.

He expected something. A threat. A fraud. Someone who walked with the arrogance of someone claiming what wasn’t theirs.

But no.

He saw you sitting in the corner, feet dangling from the couch, a cup far too big between your hands. Your gaze still, almost vacant.

You didn’t try to speak to the others. You didn’t approach when he walked in. You didn’t even look at him properly.

Damian felt irritated by that. By your calm. By your weakness. By your silence.

You were… soft. Fragile. Kind, even. When you spoke, your voice was patient. Nothing like what he expected.

You didn’t challenge him.

You didn’t confront him.

You didn’t look at him like an equal.

She knows her place, Damian thought with satisfaction.

That was good. That was right. The world needed order.

And you weren’t part of his world. Not really.

He watched you for days. Always on the sidelines. Never interrupting. You didn’t train. You didn’t ask for missions. You didn’t even complain when the others ignored or interrupted you. Not a grimace. Not a single unnecessary word.

You weren’t useful, but at least you knew you weren’t.

Damian clung to that idea tightly. He needed to believe it.

Not necessarily because he hated you. Not yet.

If you weren’t a threat to his family, then there was no need to eliminate you.

Only to keep an eye on you.

Sometimes he found you alone, reading medical reports or staring out the window. You always pulled away when someone entered. Including him.

That bothered him, too.

Not because he wanted to talk to you. Not because you wanted to talk to him. But because you were supposed to be his sister. Blood. And yet you slipped away like you weren’t.

He convinced himself that it was fine. That it was for the best. That you knew your place. That he, as the true son, the one meant to protect the legacy, would protect you, too.

Even if you were weak. Even if you didn’t deserve it.

Because now, you were part of this, too. And he wasn’t going to let anyone else touch what was already his— his family.

Not even you.

Damian couldn’t fully explain it. It was irritating. Exasperating.

The way you were always there, so quiet, so… out of place.

He had expected anger. Competition. A challenge. Something to prove you had the right to be under the same roof as him. But all he got was that damn look.

That look that held no fear, no defiance, not even a hint of submission.

Just… pity.

The same look he sometimes saw in civilians’ eyes when he returned from a mission covered in blood, before they recognized him as Robin. A blend of judgment and unwanted sympathy.

But from you, it was worse. Because you kept it to yourself. Barely looked at him, and still, you knew. As if you understood before he even spoke.

“Why didn’t you fight back?” He asked once. His voice low, barely a whisper.

It wasn’t a real question. It was meant to provoke.

You only looked at him from the floor, rubbing the arm he had twisted. “…Because you didn’t want to kill me.”

The answer froze him. Froze his chest and burned his ribs all at once.

What the hell did you mean by that?

You had said it in the same voice one would use to list a dosage, to recommend rest, professional. That’s what sickened him the most. That it sounded like you’d lived through it before. Someone yelling at you. Someone hitting you. Someone hurting you.

You just... accepted it.

"...It’s like you’ve dealt with tantrums before." He muttered later, alone in the training room, throwing his katana with such force that one ended up embedded in the steel wall.

Tantrums, he thought bitterly. You made him feel like a spoiled child, not the blood heir to the Assassin League’s throne he once was, not the son worthy of his father.

Still, no one said anything. No one took your side at that moment.

Not even Alfred.

As if everyone agreed. As if you had done something to deserve it.

And that sealed his idea.

You weren’t worthy. You weren’t strong. You weren’t useful. You had no training.

You had no instinct. You had no history. You were just... Bruce’s biological daughter.

That was enough.

Enough to be in his house. Enough for everyone to pretend they cared about you. Enough to take a seat at the table you hadn’t earned.

Damian didn’t want you in his house. He didn’t want you near, but he wasn’t going to let you go either.

It wasn’t because he didn’t want you. It wasn’t because you were his sister. Damian had already seen what the world does to the weak. If you were going to be so stupidly fragile, so pathetically useless, then he would handle it. He would watch you. He would decide what to do with you.

You were his responsibility. His burden.

His sister.

Later, when he recalls that first time he threw you to the ground, he realizes that what made him angriest was your emotional distance. You weren’t a victim. You didn’t cry. You didn’t run away. You didn’t even shake.

You just... waited for it to pass.

As if you already knew him. As if you knew that this too, over time, would heal.

The worst part was that, deep down, he was right.

Cassandra was never good with words.

Nor did she care to be.

She never considered them reliable. She saw them as disguises: fragile tools people used to hide, not to reveal themselves. She had learned from a very young age that lips could lie with elegance, but the body rarely knew how to do the same.

That’s why she didn’t need them.

That’s why she never relied on them to understand someone.

She preferred silence. The stillness between one breath and the next. The tremor in the fingers, the tension in the shoulders, the stiffness of a back, or the way someone avoided a glance. All of that spoke louder, with more sincerity, than any carefully crafted conversation.

With you, from the very first moment, everything was painfully clear.

No greetings or long introductions were necessary. Just a few seconds. Barely ten. That was all she needed to understand you.

You didn’t want to be there.

You didn’t want to talk.

You didn’t want company.

And the most obvious thing: you didn’t want her.

But she didn’t take it personally. It didn’t feel like a direct rejection. It was more like an old barrier, a resistance built with years of experience. A discomfort without a clear name, but dense, thick… as if you had been carrying a weariness for so long that you no longer knew how to let it go.

You were no stranger to the feeling of not fitting in.

She, who also understood that weight, decided not to push you. She didn’t force closeness. She didn’t try to sit next to you at the table, nor did she offer you forced conversations while you flipped through a book or ate in silence. She kept close, yes, but always on the periphery. She measured her steps. She guarded her presence like someone trying not to scare a wounded animal.

Because every time her footsteps got too close, you would tense up.

And that, though she tried not to admit it, hurt.

Not out of ego. Not because she felt rejected by you. What truly hurt her was seeing how that discomfort seemed more directed at yourself. As if being there, surrounded by people who wanted to accept you, was some kind of punishment you had to endure in silence.

Cassandra understood that. And decided she wouldn’t add her shadow to the pile. She wouldn’t be another burden, nor a presence that forced itself.

As the days passed, something started to change. Very little. Almost imperceptible, like the first hints of dawn after a long night.

Your eyes would follow her briefly. You lingered in the common spaces for a few seconds longer. Sometimes, you stayed in the living room, behind the couch, saying nothing, as if simply being near her was already an effort. A silent way of saying you wanted to belong, even if you didn’t know how.

As if you were trying to fit into a home you still found too painful to face directly.

Cassandra didn’t reproach you for it. But she noticed.

She observed how each of your attempts seemed to be born out of exhaustion. How your smiles seemed borrowed. How every word you spoke seemed to come from a corner of obligation, never from a genuine desire to be part of things.

You were forcing yourself to fit in.

That... that was what frustrated her. Not the fact that you kept your distance. Not your silence. Not your emotional awkwardness.

What infuriated her was the falseness of your effort. That lukewarm performance that tried to show affection, but only revealed your guilt. Or your fear.

Cassandra, who had spent her life deciphering these masks, couldn’t ignore it.

One night, she just couldn’t take it anymore.

She found you in the kitchen. You were holding your notebook tightly, pressed against your chest like it was an invisible armor. She had only gone to get a glass of water. She wasn’t expecting anything. She wasn’t looking for a conversation.

But you spoke.

"Do you like jasmine tea?"

It was a light phrase. Empty. Like a rope thrown into the abyss, with no intention of anyone grabbing it.

Cassandra, who had been watching you pretend a closeness you didn’t feel for weeks, responded without embellishment. Without softness.

"Why are you pretending you want to be here?"

The question wasn’t aggressive. It wasn’t sharp. But it cut deeper than any scream.

And she knew it.

You didn’t answer. You just lowered your gaze, as if you’d been caught hurting someone, when in reality, you were just lost. Confused. Unable to fully understand why you were pretending something you didn’t even get yourself.

The silence that followed was thick, unbearable.

"You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to." She added. Her voice was still firm, but it no longer sounded like an accusation. "Just… stop pretending you’re trying. It’s fake. And you know it."

That’s what hurt the most.

Not your distance. Not your walls. What really stung was your insistence on faking an affection you didn’t feel. That small lie, repeated in every gesture, every look, every awkward effort.

For Cassandra, who could recognize good intentions disguised as lies, it was the breaking point.

She didn’t speak to you again. For days, not a word, not a glance, not a greeting. Nothing.

If she’s honest with herself, she doesn’t remember looking at you the same way after that.

Cassandra didn’t hate you.

It wasn’t hatred.

It was incomprehension.

It was helplessness in the face of your silent pain and your determination to keep pretending you wanted to be a part of it, even though every action screamed the opposite.

What bothered her the most… was that she still wished you would try for real.

But she did the right thing. She repeated that to herself many times.

You, on your part, never sought her again. There were no more words directed at her. Not even a glance, not even one of those tense sighs you used to let out when her presence overwhelmed you. You became a shadow that avoided hers. You slipped through the house as if she were a presence that hurt you.

In a cruel irony, that hurt even more.

Cassandra clung to the idea that she had done the right thing. That telling the truth, even if it was brutal, was better than continuing to feed a comfortable lie. That at least now you were honest. That you no longer pretended you wanted to be close.

Clearly, you didn’t want her company. Clearly, you couldn’t stand her. Clearly, you had stopped pretending.

So… why didn’t it feel better?

Why did she wake up in a foul mood? Why, when she saw you walking down the halls with your head down and your steps measured like you were an intruder in your own home, did she feel a twinge of frustration she couldn’t shake off?

Why did she keep watching you in the room, alone, hugging that notebook like it was an excuse to exist, her eyes lost in a dead point... and filled with rage?

It wasn’t at you.

She had already resigned herself to your presence. To the way you didn’t truly be there. To your absences even when you were right in front of her.

The rage was with herself.

With that part of her that kept waiting. That wished, at least once, you would turn around. That you would look at her. That you would say something real. That you would make that rejection, at least, feel personal. That it would hurt for the right reasons.

Because before, you used to pretend you wanted to stay.

That hurt.

But now, she couldn’t even have that.

Now, you were a wall.

Cassandra knew she should feel at peace with it.

She should.

Because she hadn’t pressured you. She hadn’t insisted. She hadn’t become a burden. She had done what was supposed to be right: leaving you in peace.

But every time she saw you interact with others in the same distant way, every time you disappeared for hours, every time you avoided any emotional connection as if breathing out loud hurt, she felt something inside her grow heavier.

Sharper.

It wasn’t guilt. Not like what others felt.

It was something else. A dull premonition. Like her intuition, the one that always guided her with such precision, was telling her that the wall was no longer just yours.

That now she was on the other side, too. That she had helped build it. That she, too, hid behind it.

Because it hurt.

Because she didn’t know how to face the pain with words.

So, she did the only thing she knew how to do: she ignored it.

Or at least pretended she could.

She told herself that it was just a matter of time. That you would eventually open up. That you couldn’t stay alone forever. That one day you would sit with them, without fear. That maybe, just maybe, you’d look at her again without that shadow in your eyes.

That one day, you would speak… with truth.

She would be there, waiting.

Because she did the right thing.

Right?

Even if now, for the first time, she no longer knew how to read you.

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cryinggirlnamedhelen · 3 months ago

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Isagi - childhood best friends, friends to lovers, mutual pining, athlete x mathlete

“You're an idiot,” you mutter, wiping the grime off his knee. “Going out on a rainy day just to play soccer? You're going to get sick along with these scrapes and mud.”

He grinned at you. “I think that's way better than staying inside all day and studying, of all things. There's a reason you're so unathletic.”

“And there's also a reason why you're failing all your classes.”

“Ouch. Thanks, love you too.”

Bachira - childhood best friends, “Am I weird?” “Yeah, but so what, everyone's weird”, mutual pining

“Why are you always helping me?”

You stopped wrapping the bandage around his arm for a moment, looking up at him. Tears filled his large amber eyes. “Because everyone's weird, and yet they're bullying you just because you express it differently. I think they're mean.”

“...you're very nice. I like you a lot.” he muttered, wiping his muddy hands on his pants.

“Uh-huh.”

Chigiri - tomboy x femboy, enemies to lovers, “I hate you (I'm so in love with you)”

“God, you're so damn annoying!”

“Well, same goes to you! Who cares if my hair is long? Your hair is so cropped and short that you look like a boy!”

“Well, your hair is so long that you look like a girl! What, you want a period or something?”

“Fuck no!”

Your classmates peeked from behind. “They're arguing over hair again…”

Kunigami - next door neighbors, “You Belong With Me”, best friends to lovers

“You're the best, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. You tell me that every day.”

“And I mean it every time.”

You burst out laughing. God, he was so serious about this, it was hilarious. “What? What's so funny?”

Reo - arranged marriage, mutual pining, childhood best friends

“And you--you went out in the freezing rain because you saw a rock that you thought was pretty?”

“You're never impressed whenever I buy you jewelry or expensive food, so maybe this would make you happy…?”

“Happy? Reo, this is so sweet! Thanks, I love you so much!” You exclaimed, pinching both of his cheeks. He huffed, narrowing his eyes.

“Girls are so weird.”

Nagi - hardworking smart x lazy smart, deskmates, eventual friends, slowburn

“I feel tired just looking at you. It must be such a hassle to study.” Nagi muttered, the clicking of his console reaching your ears.

“You're so lucky. You get 90's and 100's without even trying.” You muttered. He turned his head from the soft pillow of your bed.

“What? School is so easy.”

“You're so annoying.”

“What?”

Barou - “I hate you (I'm so in love with you)”, opposite of his type, grumpy x sunshine

Barou looked close to fainting as he entered your room. “This…is your room?”

Clothes were everywhere, your bed was unmade, and your curtains were still closed. “Yeah. I'm too lazy to clean it, I hope you don't mind. Anyways, how do you want to do the proj--”

But he seemed more invested in picking up, cleaning, and folding your clothes rather than the project worth literally 50% of your grade.

“Uhhhh, Barou?”

Rin - childhood best friends, sunshine x grumpy, mutual pining (I've written wayyyyy to many Rin fics to write another one rn)

Karasu - ACADEMIC RIVALS. childhood best friends (they don't admit it), slowburn, mutual pining (Same with Rin)

Shidou - serious head of the student council (with childhood trauma) x person who brings the fun out of them (too lazy to write for him rn lmao)

Sae - childhood crush, (not so) secret admirer, next door neighbors, mutual pining (same with Rin)

Aiku - “Casual" (both are mutually in love), misunderstandings, slowburn (I don't respect him enough to write one for him right now)

Kaiser - CHILDHOOD BEST FRIENDS. mutual pining, slowburn (Same as rin)

Ness - childhood best friends, “am I weird?” “yeah, but so what, everyone's weird”, mutual pining (Too lazy to write)

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ghost-proofbaby · 2 years ago

Text

FIRST IMPRESSIONS (a barista!eddie x barista!reader au)

summary: eddie faces the perils of being a coffee shop opener, and meets you. you, who's so damn optimistic it should be annoying. you, who makes the job that has given him trouble seem like a cake walk. you, who seemingly bleeds sunshine. god, he should really hate you.

warnings: TWO uses of "y/n", fem!reader (use of she/her pronouns), PHYSICAL descriptors used for reader (she has a nose ring and a septum piercing! that's all), eddie is just a bitter and grumpy idiot.

wc: 5.2k

a/n: i apologize in advance for all the technical 'barista' talk in reference to positions. i tried to elaborate on a few of them, haha. also... yes. i gave reader two nose piercings. it's definitely not even more self-projection psh. (because i have three)

the full menu

Eddie Munson is not a morning person.

So, why, for the life of him, he ended up as an opener, he couldn’t tell you.

It had been a snowball effect. He got tired of working odd jobs here and there to produce enough cash to slip Wayne for bills, decided the quick change made off of fixing up neighbors’ cars or mowing lawns just wasn’t cutting it for his desired spending habits. He was tired of being so restricted by his misfortune; he was tired of watching Wayne pull long shifts only to continue living paycheck to paycheck. He was tired of his friends like Harrington and Buckley having money from their part time gig at the movie store to freely agree to impromptu late nights at Benny’s or seeing the latest slasher films in the theater as they premiered while he had to deliberate over counting change to see if he even had the funds to join in. He was tired of eyeing that guitar in the mall and constantly telling himself one day.

Eddie Munson had been tired. But now, as he forced himself awake most mornings before the sun even rose, he was exhausted.

Originally, he’d wanted to be a closer. He didn’t mind being the clean up crew, having to spend late nights in a coffee shop sweeping up grounds and scrubbing away the stickiness of the day. But then the hiring manager that interviewed him had hinted towards the fact that their store already had enough closers when he’d spotted Eddie’s availability, made a few off comments about how what they really needed was a couple brave souls to take over opening shift, and that tiresome cycle rang in Eddie’s ears. Before he even had the chance to think it through, in his desperation, he’d insisted that oh, actually, my availability is completely open. I don’t mind working earlier than that.

What bullshit. Eddie definitely minded working earlier than that. He more than minded it — he loathed it.

Long story short, it had been a series of unfortunate events that led Eddie to where he was now. In his van, fifteen minutes early, staring out at a parking lot bathed in the lingering night as he fought to keep his eyes open.

The clock on his dash read 4:46 in a taunting blink, flickering against his bleary eyesight and making him question every decision in his life that had led him here. Adjusting to the new job had been easy enough — his trainer was nice enough, learning how to make drinks and what routines were required in the morning had been meticulous but rewarding — except for the time. It wasn’t just his start time that tortured him vehemently; shifts seem to pass miserably slow, the seconds dragging their feet in no hurry to get anywhere in particular. The clock didn’t care if Eddie yearned for his bed and a few extra hours of sleep gifted by a nap. Traffic didn’t either, when he’d hit the highways and catch just the beginnings or the tail end of the morning rush.

You’d think he’d complain more about the commute. But the gas spent on the twenty minute drive to the town over was the least of his concerns.

“Fuckin’ John,” Eddie mutters when a large truck pulls up to the drive thru, a notable regular he’d begun to recognize after not even a month of working there. They had just recently changed their opening time (they used to open an hour earlier, his manager had informed him. Eddie had nearly burst into grateful tears that he’d never experienced that crime of humanity.)

None of his coworkers had arrived yet. Most lived closer, able to garner extra snoozes on their alarms and shorter drives of contemplation. Eddie only ever envied them on mornings like today.

“We don’t open for, like, another forty minutes, asshole,” Eddie curses out loud to himself, counting down the time until John gives up and drives away. The man would just circle the store like a vulture anyways. He always did; he always had to be the first customer, grabbing his ridiculous coffee order before scurrying off to play cards at the casino, “How do you come here every fuckin’ day and not know that?”

It took the older man a full four minutes before he finally roughly shifted his truck back into drive, being the farthest thing from gentle as he hit his gas and jerked his vehicle out of the drive thru line. Eddie couldn’t see him clearly through the stubborn darkness, but he could easily imagine that look of irritation at not receiving the caramel frappucino with a quad shot that he seemed to feel entitled to.

God, that man was a dick.

Eddie nearly misses another coworker pulling up to park beside him during the spectacle.

By this point, he’s learned what cars all his coworkers drive.

Carmen, the fellow barista who had trained him but he now rarely worked with due to her availability being a bit later in the day, drove a bright red 2012 Kia Soul that had certainly seen better days. Nicole, one of the shift leads he worked with often during his opens, drove a small and silver Nissan Versa. The year is lost on him, but he’s willing to bet it was a few years old at this point. James, another shift lead who went by Jamie and never had much to say, drove a Volkswagen that looked to be straight out of the 70s. And that was just the beginning, the ones he could think of off the top of his head while he was still waking up inside his van.

The car parked beside him wasn’t any of these. He didn’t recognize it at first glance, and found himself doing a double take as his face scrunched up.

A Jeep. A two-door Jeep Wrangler with vibrant, chipped yellow paint now sat idle beside him.

Who the fuck drove a yellow Jeep?

He can’t even bother to be annoyed or fatigued anymore with the mystery presently before him. He can’t see through the tint of the windows, can’t make out the silhouette of who it was. He was well aware that he hadn’t been acquainted with all of his coworkers quite yet – there was a plethora of baristas in the store he’d only heard spoken of in passing rather than properly meeting – but it had seemed like the people who opened always came from the same rotation of sorry suckers.

Nicole’s car pulls up. So whoever drove the Jeep was not one of the shift leads.

Five minutes to 5:00 AM, Nicole’s car door opens first and Eddie can hear the Jeep’s engine kill. He’s quick to fumble with his own keys, pulling them from the ignition in a haste and throwing a hand out to blindly grab his apron from his passenger seat.

A deep shade of green. Everyone had one or two of them laying around, and they were the root of the nickname for all new hires: green beans. He had just finally gotten the one embroidered with his name a little over a week ago, and his manager had apologized profusely as she swore it usually didn’t take that long.

Eddie really didn’t care. The moment he started wearing the apron with his name on it, customers had taken to randomly addressing him by it, and it made him fucking uncomfortable.

“Rise and shine, campers!” Nicole’s voice echoes through the parking lot the moment all three openers are out of their cars.

Eddie doesn’t answer at first (which isn’t unusual; Nicole was used to his ever-present sleep-deprivation induced silence). He’s too busy nearly tripping over himself as his eyes stay glued on that Jeep, on the door that swings wide open roughly from two parking spaces away as he waits with bated breath.

Would this new coworker he was about to meet even like him?

“God, Nicky,” a new voice groans – a girl’s voice.

Ah, fuck.

Eddie had noticed the mysterious phenomenon of the way everyone who worked here seemed to be attractive to some extent. Nice on the eyes, always smiling and always flirting in a friendly manner to garner more tips. He’d had plenty of bisexual panics in the bathroom anytime one of his coworkers extended that friendly flirtation his way. All the fellow guys (as few as there were) and all the confident girls he’d been in the trenches with – it didn’t matter, they all affected him.

Hawkins didn’t have nearly as many pretty people. Eddie sort of felt cheated for having lived a mere twenty minutes from a goldmine of such people for so long, completely unaware. But he also felt sort of relieved, knowing that if he were still a teenager barely scraping by in high school, this coffee shop would have been his downfall with awkward stumbles and feelings caught from all those faux smiles and joking winks that his now coworkers laid on heavy with their regulars.

With this in mind, he doesn’t know why he wasn’t prepared for when you stepped out of the Jeep. Slamming the door shut behind you, your arms were full with an apron that was definitely not green, along with an oversized water bottle and what he thinks is either a cardigan or jacket. A tote bag slung over your shoulder looked to be stuffed full as well. You were a walking cliche for the type of person that people would expect to work at a coffee shop. The type of person that embodied all those jokes of if an alternative person isn’t making my coffee, it’s not going to taste good.

Eddie should know; he’d been the butt of many of those style of jokes given that he also fit into that category. With his long hair, with his sparse tattoos, with his new nose ring – he knew he was as much of a cliche as you were.

Didn’t stop him from staring at you, suddenly wide awake.

“Aren’t you just a ray of sunshine?” Nicole jokes as she rounds the front of your Jeep, stopping and looking between you and Eddie before she says to you, “You’d think after a month’s vacation you’d be happier to see me.”

You take two steps forward, lining up right between Eddie and Nicole, and suddenly contort your face to be such an over-exaggerated smile that it’s nearly a grimace. Eddie is so caught up in the scrunch of your nose, he nearly misses the way you grit out a sarcastic “Better?” from between your teeth.

“Oh, that’s the winner,” Nicole cackles, keys jangling as she shakes them and leads the two of you towards the front of the store. Over her shoulder, she continues to joke, “Keep on smiling like that, and I sense a twenty dollar tip in our future.”

Eddie still hasn’t said a word. What is he supposed to say? All he can do is trail slightly behind you, doing everything in his power to not let his eyes roam over your legs or backside. You were just wearing black jeans, in line with the same dress-code everyone else followed, but they were doing you favors.

“Y’know, I think I already saw John’s truck this morning,” your voice was surprisingly pleasant despite the insinuation Nicole had made that your first impression should be grumpy. Far less gritty than Eddie’s would have been had he spoken up, “Think I can sweet talk that out of him? Maybe I’ll ask about his wife. Or- Oh!” you exclaim, bursting with sudden energy that should give Eddie a headache this early, “Put me on bar! I’ll douse his drink in caramel how he likes, that’s sure to tug on his wallet- Sorry, I mean heart-strings.”

Nicole continues to laugh as she fumbles with unlocking the door, and it’s not lost on Eddie that he has never made any of the fellow baristas laugh like that. Although, to be fair, he has never been quite as enthusiastic as you. He didn’t seemingly bleed sunshine like you. Here the three of you were, outside in the dusky beginnings of a morning, and he could have sworn that the sun had already risen from the light that seemed to emit from you.

It should have made him nauseated. It kind of did, actually.

You turn suddenly, just as Nicole finally turns the lock, and face him. Your smile is subtle, eyes so wide he wouldn’t notice the bags even if you had any. “I’m Y/N, by the way.”

You stick your hand out and he can see you sticky with it – with hopefulness, with friendliness, with kindness. His stomach churns.

Nope. Not a chance.

The moment Nicole opens the door, he’s barely muttering his name back to you, and is rushing past you to enter the store. His shoulder brushes against yours, and he has to tell himself repeatedly he did not just shoulder-check you. He has to tell himself that it’s okay he didn’t meet your level of enthusiasm. He has to tell himself that you’re just another barista, someone else who makes coffee for a living and that this new energy you bring is just due to that vacation that Nicole mentioned.

It’ll fade. He’ll be fine. At some point, his stomach has to stop churning.

—

It doesn’t.

Your energy doesn’t falter, to his surprise. Not only are you sunshine personified, but you’re also damn good at your job. Eddie can only imagine how sluggish he’d be if he had a month off from anything, especially a job, but it doesn’t even seem as though you have to dust any of your skills off for the day.

You offer to take over opening up the ‘drive thru’ aspect of the store, brewing all the coffees and teas without complaint as Eddie lingers in his misery of shuffling through the tasks of opening up the food portion of the store. As he’s sorting the croissants to be replenished, implementing the technique of FIFO (first in, first out), he can hear Nicole still cackling at whatever you’re saying in the back of the house as you clean the syrup pumps. When he’s labeling all the new breakfast sandwiches for the day with their best-by dates, he can hear you humming a few feet away from him over the clicking of the sticker gun in his hand. And when the clock finally reads 5:30 to signify the time of opening, you’re putting on your apron, tying it around yourself more securely than Eddie always lazily did. Even your black apron seemed to fit on you better than his did, as if you were more made for this job than he was. As if you had years of experience to carry on your shoulders, and God, were you carrying them with grace. Constantly smiling, constantly joking. He’d once thought Nicole incapable of even breaking a grin, but he’d hardly gone longer than a minute without hearing her laugh during the time of your opening together.

God, he sort of hated you.

You never even mentioned how rudely he’d shrugged off your introduction. Occasionally, he’d even caught you looking his way during the conversation, a soft expression on your face as if you were ready to include him in all the inside jokes at a moment’s notice.

He made sure to consistently stare straight ahead, never once seeming to glance your way when you wore that expression.

You were just too nice. You were putting all the other openers to shame right before his eyes, himself included, and he hated you for it.

Once the store is open, John is the first customer in drive, as always. Eddie wears the headset (the one you’d grabbed for him, sanitizing it and slotting a freshly charged battery in without him even asking. God, he hated you.) and listens in to you greeting the awful bastard, and his stomach does another flip.

“Good morning, John,” you chirp happily. He couldn’t see your face from around the corner, but he could only imagine that you were wearing a smile. Maybe you even had that damn camera on so that the customers could see you just as you could see them.

He waits. Anxious to hear John’s grumpy reply, be reassured when someone else also didn’t match your energy. The man had never been pleasant a single day that Eddie had worked thus far. Simply barking out his order, acting offended when someone didn’t recognize him.

If anyone was going to be cruel to you, Eddie would bet all five dollars in his pocket that it would be John.

But even John wasn’t fucking mean to you.

He had replied in the most cheerful tone Eddie had ever heard leave the man’s throat.

“And who am I speaking to?” he almost sounds teasing. It fans at Eddie’s irrational irritability.

“I’ll give you three guesses.”

He hates the way your customer service voice was so similar to just your normal voice. A bit squeakier, a bit more polite, but still bottled sunshine. He hates how nicely it caressed his eardrum as compared to the grate of some of the other barista’s tones while on drive thru. He hates that some deep part of him secretly hoped that Nicole stationed you there your entire shift, and that if she did, he would fight tooth and nail to keep this damn headset on. Just to hear your voice. Just to hear your light.

“Only three?” John’s gruff voice scoffs, “There’s only one person who works here who is this damn cheery before eight in the morning.”

Nicole laughs from where she’s bent over to put down a few of the sanitizer buckets by the bars, shaking her head as she also listens in over her headset.

“I’m making it easy on you, then,” you say as you suddenly come into view for Eddie. He’s trying to replenish the sandwiches and protein boxes that the store keeps on display for the customer by the register, still working through his morning tasks as he realizes you’ve completed yours.

Man, he fucking hated you.

You don’t miss a beat as you begin to tap one of the espresso machines awake, punching all the right buttons to pull John’s espresso shot before you turn to make your way towards the cold beverage station. “You still drinking the same thing, old man?”

“I’m not old.”

“Right, and I’m not already over-caffeinated,” that’s a lie. He hasn’t seen you touch a drop of coffee this entire time, “Just pull on up. It’s a billion dollars, or whatever your total normally is.”

John’s cackle is cut off by him pulling away from the speaker box, effectively disconnecting the two way mic. Even Eddie finds himself nearly grinning at your reply, but he stops himself. Because you’re annoying. Because no one should be this witty this early. Because the ability to make others laugh this often should be a cardinal sin.

He stops the grin because he hates you… right?

You do manage to get a tip out of John. Eddie sees it with his own two eyes. It’s a quick deposit of whatever spare change the stingiest man Eddie had ever had the displeasure of meeting has lying around his car, and it happens so quickly while you’re leant out the window to pass the man his receipt that he always requests that Eddie almost convinces himself it didn’t happen. But it did. He saw it with his own two eyes, as he tripped over his two left feet, effectively nearly knocking Nicole over with him.

The look she gives him makes his stomach twist this time as his heart lurches. It’s a knowing look. It’s despicable.

She doesn’t say a word until later into the shift, once more baristas are scattered across the floor and peak is in full swing. Eddie isn’t kept on food, and you aren’t kept to manage taking orders or run the window – he’s the one reassigned to the window position as you are moved to the cafe bar. He’s tasked with quick connections before handing out drinks to bored business people, as you fly through making drinks for both mobile orders and any customers that choose to physically walk into the store.

Nicole puts herself on the position of ‘DTO’ – she greets the drive thru customers over the headset and takes their orders, her tone not nearly as honey-sweet as yours had been. She’s lacking in jokes, she sticks to a script that must have taken her years to make sound even remotely natural.

Eddie’s just grateful he doesn’t have to wear a headset and listen to her directly in his ear.

Rush has died down when she turns to him and cocks a brow with her hip. He has the window shut, fiddling with his thumbs as he anxiously awaits for the partner on drive bar to finish making the iced white mocha for the customer currently sitting on their phone. He’s sure the look she shoots his way is in regards to the fact that he isn’t ‘connecting with the customer’ or putting himself through insufferable small talk.

It isn’t.

“Do you not like her?”

His head shoots up, fully meeting her curious gaze, “Excuse me?”

“Y/N,” she clarifies, “Do you… not like her?”

“I don’t know her,” he weakly defends himself.

He had been a dick to you this morning, hadn’t he? What a weak defense for being a bad person to someone who makes this entire store glow simply by being here.

“You should give her a chance,” Nicole speaks softly as she leans back on the counter that holds the order screens, “I… She can be a lot, but she’s one of our best. Think of her as the people’s princess, so to speak.”

He knows you’re one of the best here, just in the short few hours he’s caught glimpses of you. He has no idea how you’re so quick with making drinks, or how you manage to hold such genuine sounding conversations with all of the customers who stand right at the hand off plane. He just gets irritable when they stare at him with prying eyes as he tries (and fails) to keep up his pace.

“I… I can see it,” he nods, bringing a hand up to pinch his bottom lip, “I mean, John clearly loves her.”

Nicole gives a pointed look, “He does. She doesn’t take his shit – him and his wife bring her gifts for every holiday. They know her damn birthday and bring her cards. It’s insufferable.”

He cracks a shy smile at that, “They bring her birthday cards?”

“They bring her birthday cards,” she echoes back to him. Eddie finally receives the drink he was waiting on and turns, quick to hand it out with a soft mutterance of ‘have a good day’. Once he’s finished and the drive thru is officially empty, he faces her once more, “You don’t have to like her as much as everyone else. I know you’re still new and adjusting but… she’s one of the best for a reason.”

“Because she can turn out drinks like it’s no one’s business?” Eddie questions, side stepping and lifting his chin in your direction as you finish yet another drink, as if to prove his point.

“That,” Nicole shrugs her shoulders and pushes off the counter, “And because she actually gives a damn.” Eddie’s brows shoot up as he waits for her to continue, “She knows these customers, man. Learns about their lives, hears them out. Remembers the small things. She’s the same way with all of us, too. She once got turned down from being a shift lead because she’s too nice. Have you ever heard of someone being shot down from a job for that?” Nicole pauses, and Eddie can only shake his head, feeling the ends of his ponytail brush the back of his neck, “She has the management experience – she knows how to run this place. Sometimes, I see it. The way she steps up and takes responsibility. She chooses to be that kind even if it makes her seem like a nut job. She chooses to let people hear walk all over her, because she cares. She cares more about treating us as humans or whatever than she does an upgrade in pay.”

“Makes sense they wouldn’t make her a shift, then,” Eddie dares to say, which earns him a sharp look, “I mean, management positions aren’t for the weak of heart. You have to make tough decision-”

“Once, a man was harassing one of our baristas. This dude who was married. Came in like clockwork and picked up a mobile order under his wife’s name, wouldn’t take no for an answer and kept flirting with one of our poor girls. I’ve never really been afraid of her, but I was every time that man stepped foot in here,” Nicole grabs a rag and starts to wipe down the counters with a low whistle, as if she isn’t spilling serious store lore right now to Eddie. As if she isn’t bringing on more questions than answers, “She’s not weak of heart. She’s good of heart. And if she hadn’t been on vacation, she would have been your trainer. You don’t have to like her, like I said, but it would do you well to give her a chance.”

Trainer?

Carmen had mentioned something about another barista being the usual trainer. She had even tried to joke around with Eddie that he would have liked the other girl better, something about how she was funnier and easier to get along with.

You. You were the girl she’d been talking about. The people’s princess, as Nicole had put it.

Eddie opens his mouth to say something in reply, although he isn’t quite sure what he can say.

God, he had been a fucking dick. And Nicole was matching sure he felt all seven levels of Hell, of guilt, for it.

It ate him alive for the rest of his shift. His stomach churned with it. All that guilt gnawed on him from the inside out, using his bones for toothpicks, and he already knew what he needed to do without Nicole saying it.

—

“Did that hurt?”

The two of you got off your shifts at the same time, as most openers do. At ten o’clock precisely, Nicole was shooing the two of you off the floor, two fresh baristas taking both your places as you scurried to the back.

He’d overheard the joke made ten minutes prior, Nicole speaking to a fellow shift lead about who would be replacing you, already mourning your absence. She didn’t make such a joke about Eddie.

“Huh?” you look up quickly from where you had been carefully rolling and folding your apron into a bundle.

Eddie gestures vaguely to his nose again, repeating himself, “Did it hurt?”

It was the best he could do – pathetic small talk about the nose piercings of yours that had caught his eye.

You grin radiantly, and he tries to swallow down that instinctive voice that whisper hate, hate, hate. “Which one?”

Right. You had multiple nose piercings. A hoop that matches Eddie’s own, only on the left nostril rather than the right like his, and that septum piercing. He’d probably look dumb to ask about the nostril considering he had his done, and should already know that it definitely doesn’t feel nice.

“The septum,” he clarifies, “That combination, though, um… It looks sick.”

Oh, he sounds so fucking stupid right now. He wishes the sticky floors beneath the two of you would split and swallow him whole.

“Eh,” you shrug, finally glancing away from him to finish wrapping the strings of your apron snugly around the bundle you’d made of it, “My nostril honestly hurt worse. If you’re thinking of getting one,” you pause, and look up, offering him a look of pure mischief. Heart, stomach, mind. They all lurch with that look as you whisper, as if letting him in on a secret, “Do it.”

“I don’t think I could pull it off,” he’s quick to blurt out, eyes widening, resisting the urge to take several steps back and put distance between you two.

Fuck, he didn’t hate you. It hits him like a truck – this shift had managed to slip through his fingers so quickly. The fastest one to date. Between all of your jokes, all of the laughter you managed to pull out of others and that he had to fight down, the day had flown past as easily as a shift really could.

He regrets spending the shift moping. He regrets ignoring your introduction. He regrets not giving you a chance.

“I think you could,” your tote bag now hangs from your shoulder, and you have your keys prepared in one hand as you hold your water bottle in the other, “Everyone says that, but if you can already pull off the nostril, adding a little septum to the mix never hurt nobody.”

Is your face stuck like that? Stuck with a subtle and shy smile pulling at the lips, making the corners of your eyes crinkle in the slightest?

He hopes not. If it is, he’ll never be able to have a normal conversation with you. He’ll always be too distracted, too infuriated, too overwhelmed.

“You’re a very optimistic person,” he almost lets it slip out as a scoff, but refrains, Nicole’s words echoing in his mind. It would do you well to give her a chance.

“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” you casually say to him.

“Did you just quote Star Wars to me?”

Eddie is aghast, staring at you with even more awe than before. And you – oh, you look so goddamn proud of yourself and the way you’ve left him shellshocked, smugly lifting your chin and smiling more intentionally. You’re smiling so widely that your eyes pinch nearly fully shut and even more of that sunshine is now flooding the backroom up to Eddie’s knees.

“I don’t know,” you start to step around Eddie, carrying an air of arrogance that would only be so endearing from someone who had been proven to be as kind as you were, “Did I?”

You never give him the chance to answer. You leave him there, standing in the middle of the back of house and not even clocked out yet as you walk away with a bounce in your step and a quick have a good day, Eddie! over your shoulder.

When he’s finally off the clock and having given a half-ass goodbye to everyone on the floor (which no one replied to as enthusiastically as they had yours, by the way), you’re still sitting in your damn yellow Jeep. You give him a slight wave through the windshield as he makes a beeline for his van, and he doesn’t even bother to return it. Pretends he doesn’t see it. Looks straight ahead. If Nicole is watching from the drive thru window that serves as a front row seat to the entire interaction, she’s going to rip him a new one next shift they work together.

God, Eddie wishes he hated you.

Instead, he’s left hoping that next time he opens, you’re there to make the time fly. Maybe he’ll be the one quoting Star Wars to you. If he can ever get the stick out of his ass, that is.

taglist: @josephquinnsfreckles

(tag list is open - if you'd like to be added, let me know!)

#my writing #coffee shop blues #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fanfic #barista!eddie munson #this is what i do with my free time before and after work #and on my breaks lol #makes the grind more bearable #we needed some fluff #can i come out of jail now?

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baronessvonglitter · 11 months ago

Text

Cherry, Cherry 🍒 Chapter 15 🍒

"Shameless"

pre-outbreak! AU!Joel Miller x f!Reader

Word count: 3,469

Summary: secrets are revealed at Sarah's birthday party

WARNINGS: 18+ Only! Mature and Explicit, age gap (reader is 18, Joel is 35), takes place July 2003, (not-so) secret relationship, morning quickie, unprotected piv (reader is later mentioned to be on birth control), Joel being a grumpy protective dad, jealousy, oral (m receiving), someone walks in on you and Joel during an intimate moment, revelation of your relationship (at last!), no use of y/n. If I've left out any tags please let me know!

Author's Note: there was a lot I wanted to cram in here because the next chapter gets quite serious. Also, anyone interested in the "Shameless" song can find it here. Fun fact: it was written by Billy Joel about a decade before Garth Brooks covered it and quite honestly, Garth sings it better. I feel like it just perfectly captures Joel’s feelings about helplessly falling in love.

Series Masterlist

Your phone rings on your nightstand, the tinny Nokia ringtone interrupting your morning quickie with Joel.

"Don't answer it," he pants behind you, slamming into you as he grabs your hips.

"Wasn't going to," you gasp, closing your eyes when he leans down to kiss your neck.

The phone rings again.

"Who's calling at 5:30 in the morning?" he grumbles, lips grazing your ear, his breath hot on your skin. He pulls you upright, his movements slow and steady. He palms your breast in one hand and toys with your clit, enjoying your little cries of pleasure as you snake your arm around to bring him to you for a sloppy kiss.

It doesn't take long for you to come, Joel hitting that hidden spot inside you this way. He stills long enough to relish the sweet, strong pull of your walls seizing around him. "That's it, my beautiful darlin'," he whispers against your neck. The scent of your skin keeps him spellbound, your pulse pounding just beneath his lips. He's going to think about this moment all day at work.

The phone rings again and, frustrated, you reach out to shut off the noise. Joel doesn't part from you, flattening you to the bed as you scramble for the little silver phone. "Not gettin' away that easy," he grunts, his chest pressed to your back. You turn off the phone ringer, cutting the annoying ringtone in mid-play and toss it on the floor where your clothes from last night are discarded.

Joel sweeps your hair to the side, his thighs on either side of your legs as he pumps into you, hands on your waist. Trapped between his legs you feel him even more snugly inside you, the friction almost too much. "Joel!" you moan, half-muffled by the pillow against your cheek.

"That feel good? You gonna come on my cock again, babygirl?"

Just him mentioning it causes an automatic reaction, your body so acclimated to him by now that his pleasure is yours and vice versa. "Yes," you moan again, pushing yourself up slightly to be heard clearly. "Harder!" you eke out.

He rumbles low in his chest, pulse racing, heart feeling like it might just give out, but what a fucking wonderful way to go. Your pleas for more are answered as his thrusts become aggressive. "Fuck!" you whimper, your body on edge as he continues his hard work.

"I can feel ya grippin' me so tight, sweetheart.. Jesus, I never get tired of feelin' you this way."

"Joel.." you beg. "Don't stop, don't stop..."

He sustained his pace, beads of sweat starting to surface on his skin and yours, his hands on your shoulders for leverage. When you break apart, cunt throbbing, hips and ass arching up to get every inch of him soaked with your sweetness, he can't help but finally let go, slamming into you one final time as he spills every drop into you, staying still, keeping you at an angle so that you get all of it, all of him.

With Joel in the shower (it took a lot of willpower not to join him, but he was already late for work due to your morning fuckfest), you find your phone on the floor and see who called you.

Of course it was your mom.

Three calls, two voicemails, and plenty of texts.

Suppressing a groan, you dial her back, quickly wrapping a blanket around yourself and heading out to the hallway.

She answers with an annoyed tone. "What are you doing that's so important that you can't call back immediately?"

You roll your eyes. "Mom.. it's super early and it's my day off. Can't I sleep in?"

"You should start waking up early, go outside, get some exercise, it's good for you. Plus school is starting soon anyway. Don't you want to pursue good habits?"

"Yeah," you tell her, though it's honestly the last thing on your mind. This summer has distracted you from everything you hoped you'd do, and given you something even better, something you never thought you'd have.. love.. sex.. things most people took for granted but you'd been gifted with simply for being in the right place at the right time.

"Tell me why I have a bill from my insurance for a gynecologist visit."

A large lump forms in your throat, as if a natural instinct to block the truth from coming out. You'd rarely lied to your mom simply because she was good at hounding the truth from you.

"I had a UTI. Sofia recommended a good doctor." In truth you'd gone to get on the pill, a decision you'd been proud of, taking care of your sexual health. Not to mention it made Joel more excitable than ever, and almost every night had been spent with him filling you up.

"Okay.." your mom doesn't sound completely satisfied with that answer, but she lets it go. You talk a little about your summer so far, talk about her boyfriend and the road trips they take. You pray she never makes the trip out here to ruin the peacefulness of the newfound independence you've forged for yourself.

"What're you doin' out here?" Joel asks, finding you leaning against the wall. He's freshly showered, dark hair slick, skin scented with Irish Spring soap. His dark red tee clings to every muscle, even the little belly you're so fond of that he sometimes feels insecure about.

"I had to make a call," you tell him, exhaling sharply as he removes the blanket hiding your body.

"Come on, lemme see."

Your heart thuds in your ears as you open your legs, the remnants of his cum leaving a sticky trail on your skin.

"God damn.. I never get tired of that sight.. gonna fill ya up again soon, babygirl. And don't forget about tomorrow."

Tomorrow.. Sarah's birthday barbecue..

"Sure thing, darlin'. Oh by the way, I put some air in your tire, it was lookin' a little flat. Don't want you runnin' off the road and gettin' hurt," he says.

"Thanks," you're genuinely touched by his gesture.

"Next weekend I'll change the oil," he says, putting the blanket back on you. "But only if you bring me some lemonade while wearin' a cute little skirt." He narrowly evades a swat from your hand as he ducks, laughing. "All right, all right, I'm goin'. Love you." He kisses your lips softly.

About to head out to the mall to get a birthday present for Sarah, you spot a CD on the console of your car. It's Garth Brooks' Ropin' the Wind. The blue-eyed country singer poses on the cover, clad in a black and blue dress shirt against a blue sky background. You had this poster when you were a kid. It's probably still in your room if your mom hasn't redecorated.

On the back of the CD there's a sticky note: play #6

You smile, seeing what track that is, and as you make yourself comfortable in the car, starting it and letting the AC cool your heated skin, you listen to 'Shameless'. The lyrics feel like they come from Joel himself, the passion and devotion, how you've transformed him, stripped away the person he used to be for someone better, happier.

A teardrop splashes onto your lap before you realize you're crying. No one has ever shown you this kind of love, this much love before. If Joel was here now you'd kiss him.

You put the song on repeat, the anthem of your love, the anthem of your last innocent summer.

"Ice cream cake? In this heat?"

"Do you have any extra towels? And sunscreen? I forgot mine."

"I think we're gonna need some more aluminum foil."

Your house is bustling with guests, mostly friends of the Millers, other people you know, and kids Sarah hangs out with. Not one for attention, she's still enjoying celebrating her day, even more so because Joel allowed (hesitantly at first) for her to invite boys.

"One boy," he said at first.

"A boy with a bunch of girls? At that age? He'll be scared shitless," you told him.

"Good. Then he'll leave early."

You and Sarah managed to sweet talk him into agreeing on inviting two boys.

Right now they're both in the water with Sarah and her friends, splashing, being kids.

"How's it feel to have a fourteen-year-old?" you ask him as he prepares the meat to put on the grill. The air is scented with seasoning as he expertly adds it to the chicken and ribs. Tommy's at the other counter making a margarita.

He shrugs a little, glances outside at the pool where the teens are shouting and diving. "Makes me feel old."

"You're not." You rest your head on his shoulder, and hear Tommy behind you saying, "Aww. When's the weddin'?"

"What?" you force a little laugh as you turn around, watching him watching you and Joel. Joel ignores him, face turning red as he prepares the food.

"I'm just sayin'.. y'all are cute together."

"I--" there's no other reaction you can think of on the fly except to act dumb, as you're woefully unprepared for his remark in the first place.

"Let her be," Joel grunts. "Babygirl, can you open the sliding door for me?"

Following you, Joel gives Tommy a look.

Hailey from the cafe shows up, bringing some Smirnoff Ice. You sit in the shade, sipping your drinks as you surreptitiously eye Joel at the grill, listening halfheartedly as she talks about the latest guy she dated, what a disaster he was in bed. Little could she possibly know the fun you've been getting into with your own man.

"He's so hot," she says suddenly.

"Yeah," you agree, still in your own daydreams. "Who?" you ask, alert.

"Joel Miller," she answers, eyes looking past you and at your boyfriend, at the grill, laughing at something Tommy's saying.

"Oh.. yeah.." Her assessment comes so suddenly that you aren't sure how to answer. What feels like jealousy starts to bubble in the pit of your stomach.

Hailey's eyes don't leave him, and it starts to irk you. You feel a smidgen of what Joel must have felt when that idiot at the saloon had his hands on you without your permission.

"I'm fucking him."

The look on her face is priceless. "What? You're kidding.. I thought you were a virgin!"

"Was," you say with some smugness.

"Damn, girl!" Hailey looks impressed. "Is that why you asked me about what it's like with older guys?"

"Sort of. Well, yeah."

"What's he like?" she asks in a whisper.

Now this is the part you want to keep to yourself. Let the world know this man is yours, but you won't give any more details than that. It's private, it's sacred. But now Hailey thinks it's just physical.

"I'm not wearin' that," Joel chuckles at Tommy, averting his eyes from the navy blue apron his brother has produced from a shopping bag.

"At least try it on."

Sighing deeply, Joel removes his old, faded black apron and puts on the new one, unable to take himself seriously.

It reads, EAT MY MEAT on the front, with a picture of a perfectly placed hot dog.

"I ain't wearin' this," Joel repeats.

"You don't gotta. It was just a joke. That's supposed to be your birthday present by the way, so happy early birthday."

"Thanks." Joel rolls his eyes, stuffing the apron back into the bag and tending to the barbecue.

"So.." Tommy sips the margarita in his hand. "How'd an old sourpuss like you land a college girl?" He motions to you, walking back towards the house. "And don't tell me 'nothing' because that ain't true. She was leavin' your house that one mornin', you brought her home the other night, carryin' her though the front door like it was your honeymoon. You're with her all the time."

Joel shakes his head, purses his lips as he ignores his brother's look. He's tempted to say, 'She's just a cute, feisty eighteen-year-old who takes care of my daughter and gives great head.' But he doesn't have it in him to denigrate you to his own kin.

"Keep this between us," Joel warns him. Tommy nods. "But yeah, we've been seein' each other."

A little smile forms on his little brother's face. "I knew it! Sofia owes me twenty bucks."

"Don't tell her. Not yet."

Tommy nods. "Okay.. but you might not wanna wait too long, brother. Makes you look guilty."

"Sometimes I feel guilty," he mutters. "I'm twice her age. What's she doin' with someone like me?"

"I'm askin' myself the same thing," Tommy laughs. "You deserve to be happy," he adds.

"I appreciate that," Joel says warmly. "And she does.. she makes me happy."

Coming back outside from taking a break in the AC, the first thing you zone in on is Joel. And Hailey is next to him, flipping her blonde hair. Touching his shoulder. They're laughing together.

Jealousy is not an attractive trait in a woman, you can almost hear your mother say, but for the first time in your life you feel it, like a cold spike in your belly, altering your brain chemistry, blinding you to everything except them.

Before you realize what you're doing, you're marching over to them, looping your arm through Joel's, telling Hailey that you need to talk to him.

You're on autopilot, your brain screaming at you to be normal, to stop while you still can, but the green-eyed monster has taken over, and it's this monster that brings you to your room, closing the door behind you as you tear his stupid apron off him and unbutton his cargo shorts.

"Babygirl, what--"

"Why were you talking to her?" you ask, relieved that he's not hard because of Hailey and disappointed that he's not hard because he's alone with you.

"She was askin' me when the food was gonna be ready," he replies, a little exhalation of surprise when you get down on your knees before him and stroke him. "What's this about, baby? Are you.. are you jealous?"

"Of course not." You seem offended he would even suggest it, but there's a desperation to the way you're handling his cock, as if you're afraid if you stop touching it it'll go into someone else.

"Baby, it's okay. I don't like her. Don't even know 'er."

There's silence, a small grunt as you get him worked up for you, finally hard and pulsing in your hand.

"She knows." you tell him, licking the salty precum off his tip. "I told her."

His dark eyes narrow a moment before going wide as he thrusts against your touch, needing friction, either the softness of your hands or the wetness of your mouth. "I told Tommy," he admits.

There's a brief moment where the air is filled with a sense of harmony. It's a relief to you both.

With a heart full of warm, fuzzy feelings, you bring him to your mouth, cupping his ass with your hands.

"I want to do the cake!" Sarah announces, emerging from the pool and wrapping herself in a towel. Her friends follow suit, still kids at heart despite the fact that they're about to go into high school. Sofia brings out the ice cream cake, perfectly thawed out, and Tommy places the candles on - trick ones that don't extinguish - as everyone begins to gather around.

"Wait, where's Dad?" Sarah asks. "Wait, let me go find him."

The house is calm and cool inside, chilling her still-damp skin. Joel's nowhere to be seen, so she searches deeper into the house.

Getting closer to your bedroom, she hears something, a soft sound, a sigh or a moan. She doesn't think about what it could be, only who.

Your bedroom door swings open silently, and it's a long moment before Sarah can grasp what she sees: you, on the floor in front of her dad, the soft sighs coming from both of you.

It's just a second but it feels like an hour goes by as she leaves, closing the door behind her louder than she intends, walking back out to the party, a thousand-yard stare on her face.

She walked in on an intimate moment between you and her dad, and though she'd teased you about it, even predicted that something like this would happen, seeing it was very different. If she's walked in on you kissing it would've been different, but it's as if you've ruined her hopes, as if you've skipped the fairytale ending and shown a cruder, lewd side of being an adult.

When she returns, brushing the tears from her eyes, she simply says that she doesn't feel well, they can skip the birthday song, please serve her friends first, she's going home next door to lay down.

Joel's a little disappointed when he learns Sarah left early, attributing it to her burgeoning teenage attitude, which he'd rather not deal with at the moment.

Selfishly, you're more preoccupied with whoever it was who closed the door on you and Joel earlier. Obviously someone had seen you, accidentally, and left quickly. It could be anyone at this party. Walking back after your hookup feels like going in front of a firing squad. A glance from this person means one thing, a word from another person means something else.

As the day grows late you keep at Joel's side. He doesn't try to push you away. You make yourself comfortable, sitting next to him as you eat, letting your thigh brush his. You even lightly brush an imaginary piece of lint off his shirt, your hand lingering on his shoulder as you talk with the other guests.

You forget who's idea it is to tie knots into cherry stems. You've never heard of the challenge, and when a bowl of leftover cherries from the cocktails made earlier that day is brought to the table, you bite the sweet bulb of red fruit and easily tie a knot on one with your fingers. Joel teases you, telling you, "No, babygirl, with your tongue."

A little moment passes between you, a shared look that is not lost on the others. You take another cherry and he bites off the fruit while you take the stem and place it in your mouth.

It's a hidden talent, one that impresses the table when you effortlessly tie a knot into the stem using only your mouth.

And that's how you get the nickname Cherry.

"You know what this is s'posed to imply, right, darlin'?" Joel rasps, twirling your tongue-tied knot in his thick fingers.

"No idea," you smile, lost in his eyes.

"It means you're good with your tongue," he murmurs.

It happens so quickly, so naturally that you don't realize it until it's happening. Your lips are on his cheek, loving the feel of his stubble against your soft skin, and everyone else is looking at you.

"What?" Joel asks, addressing the table, pink showing up on his cheeks. "My girlfriend can't give me a lil' kiss?"

Cleaning up the kitchen later on, Sofia comes next to you, busying herself with packaging leftovers and rinsing off dirty dishes. You can feel the tension between you.

"I don't approve," she says sternly, not looking at you.

"Of what?" you try to sound innocent, but you know she can see right through you, that it's pointless to lie.

"Of you and Mr. Miller," she says, using the formal surname you should have been using all along.

"You don't have to approve," you say, scrubbing particularly hard at a stubborn spot on the stove.

"He's twice your age, cousin," she says with concern. "I'm supposed to be looking out for you while you're staying with me. How's it gonna look, me letting you date someone older?"

"That's all you care about? How it's affecting you?" you shoot back. "Please. You sound like my mom."

Sofia sighs. "This kind of relationship can't be healthy. He's done more, he knows more.."

"I know."

"Please don't tell me you've-"

"We have." There's no pleasure in telling her this, but it's a massive relief to tell someone.

"God damn it," she mutters. "Are you at least being careful?"

"Of course!"

Sofia's at a loss, unsure of what to say, the warnings countless on her tongue, but unwilling to part from her lips.

"I love him," you tell her. It's whispered confession, as if your own truest feelings carry the worst sin of your life.

Another author's note: just wanted to clarify that Sarah didn't see anything too inappropriate, but she definitely understood what was going on.

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dividers by @saradika-graphics 👑

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ishtates · 8 months ago

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I don't hear you talk much about the normal neighbors. Any Personality headcanons for them?

Ooo ok ok

Roman: kind of grumpy and cold to most people, pretty serious and not very humorous. Around people like Lois, however, he's more loving and sweet, he feels comfortable around her

Lois: a sweetheart, but a bit intrusive and a gossip. She can be really nice but wants to know a little too much about you and is too curious. She has quite a temper when she thinks someone's being rude. She's a rich girlie from a rich family so sometimes she doesn't realize she might come off snobbish

The Peachmen: they have internalized misogyny due to their upbringing that they're working on, they recognize that it's bad and are trying not to be, y'know, misogynistic. They're both quick to apologize when they realize they've come off bad

Albertsky: a bit of toxic masculinity but he's not insufferable. He can be pretty rude and brash but when you get to know him, he's pretty alright and easy to get along with

Robertsky: he's more intimidating and colder towards people, perhaps a little judgemental, too, but he tries not to be toooo mean.. just a little harsh. He's not as outgoing as Al and just likes it that way. He can be pretty calm and caring to his loved ones. He's not heartless at all though, do know that he's willing to help if you're in trouble

"Angus Cippriani": this is not Angus. Angus isn't real. This person has changed their whole identity several times and ran away to escape shady people and run from their crimes. What's their real identity ? Do they even know ? Man ? Woman ? Something else ? Early doppel prototype ? Are they actually as sleezy, silly, and tactful as their Angus persona ? They also are far more intelligent and quiet than they let on. Who knows, maybe they'll suddenly disappear one day... Maybe come back as someone new

The Twins: they're actually quite different from each other. Elenios is kinder, sweeter, more shy, and a bit aloof. She's very quick to befriend people and adores all of her loved ones, and she's very attached to her sister !! Selene issss.. well she's not mean. She's colder, harsher, more distrustful and can be snappy with quite a temper, but hyper protective of her loved ones, she WILL fight you if she must orwantstongl

Arnold: a darling ! Not a bad bone in his body. He's very passionate and very considerate. He makes a note to remember all of the things people like so he can surprise them or bring them up, maybe get them a book on the thing they like. Arnold, as silly as he is, is very intelligent and far from naive, he loves to see the best in people but can read people like a book and prefers to stay away from negative people

Gloria: a little more serious and reserved but still a sweetie. She's the type of person you can go to and she'll quietly listen to you, probably give you a hug, she's a very comfortable person to be around :] The most common sense of anyone in the building alongside Alf

Margarette: like her last name, she's very bubbly. She's like your wine aunt and will be there to point out how someone was in the wrong and how cool you are !! She's very confident and can't just be knocked down like that. Nacha n Francis' best friend and maybe just maybe something yurious with Rafty

Izaack: hahasofunfactInearlyforgotabouthim he has that typical energetic, charming, passionately news reporter persona on camera, and he can keep it up around other people, but if you pay attention well enough, his emotions are quite.. forced. He's quite suspicious, he never lets people get too close to him personally and may be subtly vindictive. He's a lot more pessimistic than he looks and sounds coughcoughDDDemployeeWOW WHO SAID THAT

Francis: don't let his resting tired face fool you, he can be annoying and comedic as ever, basically my Yog but tamer. Think of Jian Hao but sillier, he'll gladly tease his neighbors and absolutely annoys the fuck out of Nacha like any good best friend should. He's not great academically but his other smarts are pretty good ! And he's a very considerate friend. Though he does get annoyed easily. No he cannot flirt.

Mia: a bit.. eerie, actually. Much like how Izaack fakes his emotions but far more obvious. She smiles but her eyes don't, she sounds caring but she doesn't look it.. she doesn't actually care or feel anything for anyone who isn't W. She has little sense of boundaries but not in the way that she's touchy, no, in the way that she'll suddenly show up and act like everything is normal even if she's very obviously frightened people. She genuinely loves and cares for W, and feelings are mutual

W: muted and fake emotions except W doesn't put so much effort, he doesn't see the need to make such an elaborate fake of himself and actively pushes away and shuts out his Neighbors. The residents think he's cold and hard to get along with, but if it weren't for the DDD maybe that wouldn't be the case.. he and Mia wish they could feel things again, even if it's sadness or guilt, but at most they can love each other and just recognize evil, but not feel guilt or much of anything else..

Nacha: MY WIFE MY WIFE MY WIFE MYWIE MITEIFE GEHINDUTDUJT. Yeah she's my favorite. She's a great person, although a bit of a people pleaser, and she gets attached to friends easily and it's hard for her to let go. She's gone through a lot but has pulled through, she's had episodes of depression she tries to mask but Francis, Ana, and Mar see right through; besties and kid squad GO !!!!! She's very passionate and encourages others a lot to do their best and pursue their dreams. She herself can be a bit of a worry wat but she's brave !

Anastacha: not nearly as mean and bitchy as everyone thinks she is. She comes off snippy, rude, and short, but when you're a queer kid in a world that hates you for several reasons, you live in the apocalypse, and 3 of your neighbors are sketchy AND you still have school stress then of COURSE you won't be all happy and sunshiny. She takes after a mix of Francis and Nacha; Francis' humor and stubbornness, Nacha's kindness and determination, and now we have Ana. She tends to drown herself in school work to escape the reality of her life, so that does make her a great and smart student but overwhelmed and burnt out, causing a few residents and obviously the people that brought her into this world to worry. Yes, she does have some teenage angst, getting annoyed at affection, getting annoyed at the adults constantly trying to help, sometimes arguing a little with Nacha, but that's to be expected

"Steven" Rudboys: Mulan. Steven is a woman pretending to be a man so she has an easier time in the work force and just life in general, she's pretty good at pretending but wishes she could easily live her life as a woman. She's pretty upbeat, social, and humorous while still staying serious and alert, as much as she loves to just hang out she knows she can't get too distracted

Mclooy Rudboys: typical silly old cowboy man. He tries to be accepting as best as he can and is a fun loving guy, but don't get him mistaken, he's very strong and scary if he wants to be, he'll beat your ass if you dare be bigoted or an asshole in general, he doesn't tolerate such people. He does know he has working to do himself due to his upbringing, he doesn't understand many things but he won't let himself be as prejudiced as he once was

Alf: in a Lavender marriage with Rafttellyn. In a similar boat as Mclooy where he knows prejudice and bigotry is wrong, sometimes it slips but he corrects himself quickly. As a lawyer, he dreads becoming unfair and unjust. Raftt was his first exposure so close to someone LGBT, with her being a lesbian. Having known her so long, he was surprised, but yet.. why should he care? She's not hurting anyone, that's still the Raftt he's known all his life. He helps keep her queerness a secret and they're honestly more like best friends. He's jolly, sweet, and very sociable and friendly, but he immediately flips a switch when he's working, being strong and serious, he does not back down easily at all.

Rafttellyn: pretty reserved, not very talkative, but a nice presence to be around. As introverted and closed off as she is, she's welcoming and warm, easily making friends and getting on people's good sides andhasacrushonMaroooooooo. She is a menace when playing board games You Will Not Win

I'm sorry I cannot see anyone as completely bigoted or something. Obviously quite a few neighbors might say or do something unintentionally offensive and many are growing out of the harmful stereotypes and lies they've been told, that's a given, it's the 1950s, none of them are perfect people. It's a miracle and a wonder that the apartment has a below average bigotry compared to the rest of the world, good thing is that they're all growing and becoming better people

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cryingatwindermerepeaks · 22 hours ago

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Would love to hear more about your thoughts on little van and going to bed.

I feel like when she’s younger she’d have a really hard time sleeping because she hates being bored and has a hard time calming herself down.

She’d hyper focus on the little things like her scarring is a little itchy and she wants Tai to put cream on it, she can’t sleep because she has a little bit of pee in her bladder and keeps getting up to go to the bathroom, or she’s a little bit thirsty and needs to go downstairs for a sip of water, or needs a snack

Would refuse to close her eyes or take deep breaths to try and sleep

Laura Lee sometimes taking over because Tai needs to sleep

Van being really fussy in the mornings because she’s tired from the night before. She’d get really annoyed when she was hungry too so yeah mornings are not easy

After she eats she’s fine though

-🐨

yes I absolutely adore these! Van gets so fussy at bed time, which is extra hard because Tai herself is always already dreading going to sleep.

She needs the bathroom, she needs cream for her scar, she needs water and she will cry if it’s in the wrong cup (she’s just overtired). She has so many thoughts and needs to voice all of them, getting upset if Tai hushes her. She wants to go check on Mel? What if Mel is playing and Van is missing out? Can she go find Wasp? What if he’s hungry, who would feed him if they are all sleeping? Tai only read one story so far tonight, and Van wants to hear a chapter of the boy in the dress. Is Nat ok? Nat scraped her knee this morning, matbe Van should go check on her. There’s also a lot of trauma for her around sleep - both surrounding the wolf attack and Tai’s sleepwalking, so she needs a lot of reassurance.

Anyway - it would go on for ages. And eventually when Tai gets stressed about not being able to sleep, and being more tired and stressed making it more likely she’ll sleepwalk - Laura Lee takes over. Laura Lee is calm and gentle and will let Van do everything she needs to feel safe to sleep. She helps her into a pull-up so it doesn’t matter if she needs the bathroom, she gets her cream AND ice for her scars, and she lets Van come pick out her cup herself. While Tai absolutely would want to do all these things for Van, night time isn’t the best time for her. Van isn’t usually too fussed though, and will always fall asleep once Laura Lee starts reading to her. Being read to really helps with boredom but she usually has a lot of questions, which after a while Laura Lee will just start saying she’ll search it up in the morning so Van gets over it faster.

Mornings can be hard too. Van gets grumpy when she wakes up and is always whining about something or other. Breakfast perks her up though and once that’s dined as you said, she’s fine.

#sfw agere #fandom agere #age regression #yellowjackets agere #yellowjackets age regression #safe and sound agere au #little!van palmer

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teddybeartoji · 10 months ago

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MICKEY'S SELFSHIP STATISTICS: ALTERNATE WORLDS

▹ miji - detective au; he's the grumpy and older, more experienced one and i am the weird new guy who manages to surprise everybody with my skills (i am autistic)

▹ mitoru - con-artists au; aka idiots in crime. we keep fucking each other over but there are no hard feelings other than the lovesick ones. i hate to admit that we do work really well together though......... but we're not partners. we are not. we're not. (he disagrees)

▹ mizai - office au; he doesn't seem to be working ever, just constantly bugging his coworkers instead of actually sitting down to do anything. he's also blatantly following me around the building; if i go to the cafe, he's in the cafe. if i go to the printer room, he's suddenly now in the printer room. he's really annoying and when i realized that i might have a crush on him i actually just slapped myself.

▹ misu - apocalypse au; please don't make me go into detail abt this i don't think it'll end well.

▹ mikuna - pirate au; he's the captain and i sneak on board his ship and just pretend that i've been there the whole time. of course he notices right away, but he doesn't say anything bc he's a little shit like that. gives me some gnarly tasks just to try and push my buttons, he wants to see for how long i'll keep this up before trying to just jump ship the next time we board but i never do. he has an eyepatch. i fear that i am his main entertainment there.

▹ michuu - bodyguard au; he's just trying to do his job but ever since i found out that he blushes kind of easily, i haven't stopped trying to make it happen over and over again. he's really sweet though. i think he likes me<3

▹ mihime - royalty au; the princess and her devoted knight. a brat and her loyal dog. but she's very easy to tease and she gets really easily flustered aswell and i just love love love her cute little angry face. it's very obvious that she has a crush on me:333

▹ misho - partners in crime au; but the crimes are way more serious than mitoru's theft and robbery:33333 let's just say we get our hands dirty a lot, yeah? (something ghostface duo something something)

▹ miwa - volleyball rivals to lovers au; he underestimates my darling smile and gets his ass beat in a match and he's not the same after that. plans for a death rematch but then finds himself getting pushed against the wall in between games with me inches away from his flushed face. (he is a loser)(i will make him my boyfriend)

▹ miten - strangers stuck in a lift together au; this is not an actual au i realize but i am still going to call it that nonetheless. it's only the two of us in there and we're both trying to act very cool bc the other person is so good-looking and so neither of us want to embarrass ourselves. but we are in there for like literal hours and so by the end of it we're making jokes about dying then and there and it's just the perfect way for us to bond, yk? he asks for my number when we finally get out (he stutters just a little).

▹ miromi - meet-ugly au; another one that's not really an au but just a trope buuut fuck it we ball. we run into each other at the grocery store and he drops his carton of eggs all over the floor (and me). and this happens more than once. one time i dropped a can of soda and it just exploded fucking all over the place. oh and btw we both always clean it up ourselves, so now just imagine this tired looking guy in a full suit mopping up soda alongside with a tired looking guy in hello kitty pants. it's uhh.. very romantic<3

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legendofmorons · 1 year ago

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Rank the Links from most compatible to u to least and y? Not who ur favorite is or whatever but like relationship compatibility. I’m sad bc I love Wild and ik him the best but we’d be pretty incompatible. He loves nature and adventuring and rather chaotic. I don’t like physical activities and I like more calm down to earth people.

Most to least compatible with me

This took a while to figure out, some like Legend and Wind I knew immediately, but for others like Warriors and Four, I had to really think about it.

Eventually, I think I'd be good with all the links, but I think I'd get so with some better/ faster than others. Content under the cut

Legend -

most compatible off the bat. He's a grumpy jerk at first but hot damn do I vibe.

I'm stubborn, happen to think I'm funny, and sarcastic. Obviously I care about people and spread kindness but I enjoy sarcasm.

I think he's funny, and I think he'd find me funny too

I know we'd get along several of my friends have similar personalities

I appreciate his honesty

Twilight -

I hear his accent and am home.

We understand eachother, he's hardworking and loyal, I am loyal and always looking out for loved ones. We both love kids, we both love animals, we both are tired of the red neck jokes.

At heart we have similar values and would get along well

Time

Time seems a little stand off-ish at first, not rude just- reserved

That's fine, though. I don’t mind reserved.

We'd bond over trying to keep the others alive and sane.

Wild

My little gremlin best friend

We both enjoy cooking and have a general lack of regard for our safety

Not to mention the love of outdoors and creatures

Wild would help me find and raise a snake

Warriors

He's a charmer but I feel awkward if I pick up on flirting.

I think we'd get this sorted out sooner than later. He respects women and I appreciate honest people who do the right thing.

We'd probably bicker but that's okay.

We would definitely go shopping, I would drag him through the farmers market and we'd get distracted by shiny things

Wind

Look man I understand this little gremlin. He just wants ants to be treated like a person not a kid

I'd act like I do either all kids. Like their capable, he's old enough to start a fire and fight monsters he's old enough to be trusted

Annoying little brother acquired, I'd die for him

I'd also kick his ass in Mariokart

We'd go to the beach with a metal detector and find stuff

Sky

I love Sky so much but we would not get along as fast as I would with others.

Sky comes off as passive at first (to me at least). I don't think I'd hate him or anything but I prefer people who are passionate about things

After we got past that (perceived) lack of fire we'd be cool.

Sky is laid back and once again, honest. He loves deeply and he loves birds

He'd befriend the crows with me!

We could just hang out doing different things and I love that.

Hyrule

Kind of the same boat as Sky6 comes off a little too calm and easy going for me.

I wouldn't know how to handle him, and realistically he might feel the same about me. I'm stubborn, passionate, loud about what matters, and reckless.

But we'd figure it out. His healing and my interest in medicine would be a fast bond

Also he'd see a lot of me. I get into weird accidents a lot.

Hyrule and I would share folklore and info dump together

Eventually, I think we'd be close but it would take a while

But we both have a HUGE sweet tooth and I think we'd bake together

Four

I love him okay? But we'd have some problems

He obviously wouldn't be upfront about the colors. And I'd probably pick up on the fact he's hiding SOMETHING

I HATE feeling lied to/ left out. I wouldn't confront him outright unless I felt it was a dangerous secret but I would NOT trust him

I wouldn't think he's like out to get me or the others, but still.

This would damage our compatability

After I found out I'd wonder what else he's hiding

And we'd probably get along fine but I do better when I trust you and he would probably want to be fully trusted

Eventually I'd trust him fully but it'd take a while

#lu #linkeduniverse #misty answers #lu four #lu hyrule #lu legend #lu sky #lu time #lu twilight #lu warriors #lu wild #lu wind

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foster-the-world · 7 months ago

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Thanksgiving was more stressful then fun. Which is lame of me because I have to do zero cooking/planning. We have it so easy compared to other people. Not sure why its still hard. We had the nephews over the night before for a sleepover. They are great kids but were both tired/grumpy. Which resulted in lot of normal but still annoying behavior. Bee also woke everyone up an hour earlier than normal. Then I could tell the sleepover was a bad idea for baby boy. He slept fine but too many people in our house seems to be really not good for him. He was terrrible on the car ride to my inlaws. I made him stay in the car and take a nap. Everyone felt bad for me because I missed dinner but I was quite happy in the car. Baby boy was fine after that, thankfully. The kids were happy. My inlaws who planned a really nice meal were happy. So overall a good day, even if I felt more stressed then normal.

I'm all in for Christmas. Elfie arrived last night. Kids each got an advent calendar. We watched Jingle Jangle. I attempted to do mimic the main character's hair style for Bee. We picked out our Christmas tree and had it delivered. Still need to get the decorations/ornaments from the apt building basement so we can decorate. So happy I ended up taking off six work days for Christmas. We will fly to my parents for 12 days. Going to be there for New Year's, also. I find being at my parents the most restful time of the year for me. I'm really looking forward to it. I hope baby boy can enjoy and be his sweet self. He keeps confirming we will get "12 family days for Christmas." My Mom and Aunt are coming the week before Christmas. We are going to do Macy's Santa, the windows, the Rockettes, a trip Upstate. My favorite time of year.

The girls wrote their letters to Santa. One asked for a ninetendo switch. That's a hard no for me. My nephews brought theirs for the sleepover. It only caused fights over whose turn it was. The girls have ipads that they only use on vacation. They watch plenty of TV but I don't want them to have their own devices regularly.

Husband is taking them ice skating with friends. Then they will do an early dinner. I'm happy to keep baby boy home with me. I think giving him quiet/alone time at home on Sunday night helps set him up for a better week at school. I get bored with playdoh or sand but he doesn't.

I'm going to the book club for the "Friday afternoon club" tmrw night. I didn't finish the book but think hearing from the author will be good.

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viperwhispered · 6 months ago

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Jamemi moments: caretaking edition

This ended up dealing with kinda bloody matters (periods and nosebleeds), oop.

Also I swear I was thinking of these things even before Dio's recent Lou post.

The things Jamil has to deal with, no matter the universe.

You can find more information on my yuusona Emi and her relationship with Jamil here on the masterlist.

Being the good, considerate boyfriend (and a chronic ball of overthinking & worrying) he is, at some point Jamil starts carrying pads with him.

But Emi just never seems to need them, or even mentions having her period in general. That's weird, is she just super shy and discreet about it, or...?

Eventually, the topic comes up, and Emi's just all: yeah when I had my first period here and had to go to the nurse, I jumped so fast on the opportunity when she told me there's a potion to just be rid of my periods for a while. Alchemy truly is a wonderful miracle.

Honestly, sometimes she kinda wishes she could just hand out her uterus to someone who actually wants one. The first period was nice for feeling all mature and grown - up until to the point when the cramps started. Now it's just an annoying hassle. No need to celebrate her womanhood with a monthly bleeding if she can help it, thank you very much.

Sometime after book 6 Emi ends up catching a cold. Not a wonder, really, considering the stress she's been under - and while chilliness in itself may not cause one to fall in, the condition of Ramshackle certainly doesn't help.

So Emi's there all grumpy and tired, going through tissues at a steady pace while curling up by the fire at Ramshackle. Jamil's in the kitchen, preparing some warm soup for her.

But when Jamil returns with the bowl of food, he finds Emi laying on the couch, a pile of bloody tissues next to her.

"What happened? Are you alright?"

Before Emi knows it, Jamil's set the bowl on the table with a forceful thud, hovering over her side with definite concern.

"Oh, just a nosebleed. Happens with the constant blowing of my nose and stuff, don't worry about it," Emi says, annoyed but mostly just resigned to her fate.

Yeah, right, Jamil's definitely gonna listen to that.

So Jamil sees to instructing Emi on the proper method of dealing with a nosebleed - clearing her nose and pressing the nostril closed until the bleeding stops. And most importantly: sitting up and leaning forward so she's not swallowing all the blood like she's definitely been doing so far.

"Sorry. I'll clean up the tissues in a moment, just-" Emi says, all apologetic, watching Jamil fuss over her, her feeling like such a bother.

"I've dealt with worse. Just let me take care of you," Jamil says in his usual stern manner, a hand still lingering on her back.

And before Emi knows it, she just bursts into tears - which makes things all the more tricky and messy, with the nosebleed, and her already stuffed nose, and still trying to somehow breathe through it all and dab all the mix of fluids away from her face.

Sure, she's been finding herself getting emotional before when Jamil's been insisting on doing things for her or just checking on her - or with anyone else genuinely asking how she's been doing. But now, tired and sick and everything, she just cannot hold it back at all, as embarrassing as it is.

Girl really has been hanging on by a thread trying to shoulder everything mostly by herself ever since ending up in Twisted Wonderland, ready to shatter with the slightest bits of genuine care.

Cue an embarrassed, messy Emi, trying to squeeze apologies out through the sobs - and Jamil, totally out of his depth, trying to figure out what he just did wrong and what he can do to fix this.

After all that awkwardness, Emi soon finds herself with some topical treatments to keep her airways clear and moisturised - and also with a nice, easy to clean water bottle, because “the hydration starts from the inside, the treatments can only do so much if you're not drinking enough”, according to Jamil.

And to wrap this up from the other side of the equation:

“My beloved.”

Jamil recognized that chiding tone, braced himself for receiving Emi’s displeasure.

“Why are you still working?”

Good question.

Well, of course Jamil knew why. Whether he had an explanation that would sway Emi, that was another question altogether.

"I wanted to get these ready for tomorrow."

That only got Emi to purse her lips further.

"Yeah, well, I can sort those out. You, meanwhile, need to rest." She wrapped her hands around his wrists, physically pulling Jamil away.

"Emi," he protested.

How was it that someone as soft as his habibti could be this forceful with him? So unflinching under his stare?

But perhaps he indeed was tired enough not to offer her the full sharpness of him.

It wasn't often that Emi would actually manhandle Jamil away from his work, but when she did...

Perhaps it was the confusing mix of indignation, surprise and something murkily sweet and warm that made him yield in the end, offering only a token of protest as she practically dragged him with her.

Basically, if Indulgence is a jamemi vibe, then so is Rest.

Taglist: @scint1llat3 @diodellet @moonyasnow @bibi-cha

If anyone else would like to be tagged for Emi / jamemi things, just let me know!

#ner talks #ner writes #twisted wonderland #twst oc #twst yuusona #emi lind #jamil viper #twst oc x canon #jamiyuu #so if people asking you how you're doing makes you feel like crying #you should probably see about getting some help #(don't ask me how I know 🙃)#also yes emi's willingness to fight for the people she cares about also extends to fighting *with* the people she cares about #(I'm sure there's been tickle fights at the very least)

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frosity · 1 year ago

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First Day

Pre story,

It was the beginning of the new school year in Paris. It was a sunny day, perfect for the situation."So this is our new school huh? "said Marinette, staring at her school with an unreasonable expression with an even tone. She wore a blue chinese inspired shirt with a knee length brown skirt and shoes. She was still unsure about everything that happened.

"Come on sis it's not that bad. It could be fun!!" Judai pointed out, wearing a big grin on his face.He was wearing a brown jacket,a grey shirt and black pants. He was more excited about it. After all,he thought of it as an adventure. He also had a thermos full of hot chocolate.

"I hope you're right Judai."said Marinette with unease." Have I ever been wrong about something like this?"he asked confidently. She gave him a deadpan look"Do you really want me to answer that?".

Judai nervously chuckled"Fair point sis"he admitted.

They entered the building. Compared to their old school it was more new looking. It was also pretty large which made it easier to get lost. Finally they reached their new class room. There were a few students already there .

"Hey guys"Said a girl in a pink dress who waved to him. "Rose!!!"Judai grinned, happy to see the blonde girl. "How are you doing Lavillent?"Marinette asked, also happy to their friend.

"It's amazing!!!"she replied. "Everyone here is super nice except well... "She stops with her expression dulling a bit

She noticed it and asked"Should we be worried about something?" Rose kept quiet"It's nothing"

The twins go to their seats.They went to the 1st row to sit down.

" So you're the new kids, huh?"a boy beside them asked. He had a red baseball hat and wore glasses. He was in a black shirt with green pants.

"Yep!!! Name's Judai Yuki and the grumpy butt is my sister Marinette Cheng!" Judai answered with a smile. Marinette in contrast simply said "Hello" to the boy

The boy responded "Nice to meet you dudes! I'm Nino Lahiffe. "He said with a grin."Also fair warning about that seat.You dudes should think about moving"he warned.

"Why's that?"Marinette asked."Because you are in my seat,losers!!!" a blonde girl with sunglasses on her head said with a rude tone. She was in a white dress with a black belt and high heels. She looked annoyed with the duo.

"Sorry man, didn't know that seat was already taken."Judai said, genuinely apologetic about what happened. He rose to get up with Marinette doing the same.

The girl smiled at them smugly"Good you know your place. Now scram losers!! I swear this school has no standards"

They went to another seat. Marinette stared at her"Well she seems like something.."

"Yeah,that was Chole . She's the mayor's daughter and kind of a pain"Nino explained. "Best to avoid her"

"Thanks for the advice Lahiffe" Marinette said instantly wary of the blonde.

"It doesn't sound too hard"Judai added"We just stay out of her way. Plus this place seems easy to handle". Little did he know how wrong his words were

. Throughout the day Chole made it her mission to mess with them. The worst prank was the bubble gum in the locker key hole and the inside of a locker. That one was as annoying as it was in a way impressive.

Even not counting Chole,the day was still not a good one. They kept getting late to their classes and were pretty unprepared for the day. The only saving grace was lunch .

By the end of the day,the twins were tired.

"Pretty easy to handle,huh Judai?"Marinette said her voice,dripping in sarcasm. "I said I was wrong Mar"Judai said defeated by the day. "Buy hey"He countered"It wasn't all bad .After Rose is here and Nino seems pretty cool."

Marinette nodded in agreement "Touche ,but right now I just want to go home and get some designs done"

"Amen to that"

As they walked to the exit, someone bumped into Judai, making him spill some of his drink. Thankfully it was cold but unfortunately it landed on Chole.

"YOU!!!" She exclaimed to anger, looking at him. You'll pay for this Yuki!!" Judai sighed thinking "This is going to suck". Marinette meanwhile glares at her.

Later

Sabine Cheng smiled."Welcome home, how was your day you two?" she smiled hoping it was good.

"Well it was something plus I kinda have someone who hates my guts, so yeah"Judai shrugged.

The end

@zexal-club @insomniac-jay @bakawitch @writing-heiress @starry-night-rose @nproduction626 @abyssthing198 @achy-boo @marrondrawsalot @gritsandbrits @liviavanrouge@kousaka-ayumu @yugirl @sayuricorner @punkeropercyjackson

#crossover #fairy tail #just like magic #yugioh gx #miraculous ladybug #rewrite

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sonicasura · 9 months ago

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Lol. Yeah Kafka would do that just to make sure he just that little bit safer. Giving his upbringing, especially in the early awaking path, Kafka is a lot more conscious about remaining hidden in plain sight. Given how he has had to hide his kaiju heritage since he was 4, his a lot more iffy about who gets to know.

And Soshrio would of course be laughing. Though maybe not so much if it should happen while he is wearing No 10. Also, some of the monster lovers might find it even better as they get a 2 for one deal that way.

And speaking of baby Kafka, yeah he was more then worth it. Kafka was a sunshine baby the moment he was born, all laughter and smile unless in need of his bottle or a new diaper. He was for the most part an easy babe to take care off. Sure he had his days were he was grumpy for no reason or cried suddenly when something scared him but that is always the part of the deal with babies anyways no matter the speices.

But he brought much joy to both his parents and grandparents. And would cause them all to have a good time and brighten their days with his silly little antics.

Also, remember how one of the few times Akari has accidently transformed before Kafka was when he was just a babe? Well it was also the first time the DF got an actually image and footage of Akari's kaiju form as well due to the circumstances at the time.

See, when Kafka was a handful of weeks old, both Akari and Tabiki was on their way to Proto and Hina's place for some help in looking after the boy. As easy of a babe Kafka was, there was still a lot of care that he needed and the newly minted parents was in for a deep learing curve. As well as being as tired as one can be when dealing with a newborn.

However there was some issues getting to the grandparents place. One of which was road construction work that made it so the road was rather packed when driving to the country side. Add that it was also near the holiday seasons as well and you got yourself quite the slow and annoying road trip. Both Akari and Tabiki was greatful that Kafka is a deep sleeper or else it would have been much worse for them.

It also helped that there was some police officers around as well, and through pity lead the parents faster out of the jam upon seeing little Kafka inside the car and with how exhausted the two looked.

But things got worse anyways when a giant kaiju decided to show up and wanted to reek havoc on that very same road Akari and Tabiki was currently stuck on as they waited their turn.

Soshiro just runs out of that situation cause he already has a fan club who copies his hairstyle to handle.

I can only imagine the chaos around the Defense Force office once they get a clear image of Akari's kaiju and realize she has gravity powers. Meanwhile Tabiki is no doubt looking after Kafka while mama deals with the current threat.

At least it took years for his kaiju form to awaken. Imagine the chaos if Kafka shifted when he was just a baby. Tabiki goes to check on his son only to find a small kaiju whelp in the crib instead.

Be even more chaotic if Kafka was born in kaiju form first and gone human after awhile.

#sonicasura #sonicasura answers #asks #anonymous #quarter anon #kaiju no. 8 #kaiju no 8 #kn8 #kaijuno.8 #kaijuno8 #kaiju number 8 #monster no 8 #monster no. 8 #hibino family

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fmp2ofeuanbaxter · 3 months ago

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Grand company arcs 3 - University part 1:

The party arrive at the University of Bayeux, going to the desk of the local roamer's guild to meet an incredibly nasally and weird man at the helm managing applications to the university. Turns out they haven't mad too many applications and are doing things on a first come first serve basis, the party join the university right away. When they get there, after a little wait, they and a bunch of other aspiring students stand at the gates, greeted by a tired, grumpy and annoyed teacher called Adelheid Koch.

(This is actually Adelheid's new sprite, not the original one. I refuse to show the original one, it is terrible.) Adelheid shows the party around the 3 different buildings in the university, that being the dorms, service halls and the lecture halls. The party are then given their dorm rooms and instructed that lessons begin in roughly an hour. I rushed the application process through unrealistically since waiting months for your application to be processed and then accepted is not exactly riveting gameplay.

In the halls leading to their class, the party run into a little girl called Rebecca who is most certainly NOT old enough to be at the university. She demanded snacks, in which the party reluctantly obliged. When the party arrived in the classroom, they found out that the little girl was actually their teacher.

The lesson she teaches is arcane fundamentals. Mana in this world actually works more like electricity with positive and negative charges. In order to cast a spell, you need to draw in mana and expell it using your imagination to shape the mana into a spell. It takes the party a long time but over the 3 month course they all practice enough to develop their own spells.

Exploring the library after being told that a student went missing there they run into a robot girl named Grace who is a long term student at the university. Grace doesn't know too much except that it happened in the underground halls that the name of the student who went missing was Elizabeth Magistrate.

Before the party went down into the underground I gave them their university rewards for month 1, which are special permanent passives that change how they play in unique ways. This will be a thing in every university arc as they provide stat buffs, unique passives and the opportunity to develop custom abilities.

The party wander through the halls before 2 of them go missing. Running to where they went missing, the party finds themselves in a gigantic chamber of flesh, their first taste of a dominion spell, Mikiiwa. The name is based off of the myth of the 3 wise monkeys, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Of course though, Elizabeth does plenty of evil.

After battling several puppet zombies, Elizabeth decides to take matters in her own hands, summoning her avatar, a power unique to the new world.

This fight also ended up being too easy and quite confusing which led into a discussion about the campaign and what my party liked and didn't like. They wanted characters who were permanent, a way to have more access to magic shops as they travelled (zora is only in Leyvenholm) and felt confused by the fight which involved fixed turn counts. One of the biggest issues was hard croud control which I addressed in the following PSA.

I made changes to how fights worked inspired by MMOs such as World of Warcraft & Final Fantasy 14. I didn't want crowd control to be rendered redundant so I made some abilities interruptible and this helped clear a lot of confusion while opening more complex mechanics down the line. I took on as much criticism as possible and going into the future it really helped make the second half of the campaign so much better than the first half.

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thalassophis · 1 year ago

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1. Who makes the other blush all the time and who finds it adorable?

Aquilo makes Ingo blush because it's very easy to fluster him idk ... Aquilo definitely thinks it's cute. He feels a sense of accomplishment when he can get Ingo to blush or act shy lol

Ingo can turn tables easily if he's the slightest bit forward or assertive with Aquilo, Aquilo gets totally stupid awestruck every time ... he's too far gone

2. Who sings in the shower?

Aquilo. Ingo sometimes not always. I think they both just sing showtunes around the house together though because they are that kind of obnoxious. And Ingo is of course really loud

4. Who embarrasses the other in public with kisses and pet names?

Oh Aquilo for sure. Cuz again he's good at embarrassing Ingo... but they both call each other pet names and don't think much of it because they're just like that

5. Who curses, and who reprimands the other for it?

Aquilo curses, Ingo doesn't really. Ingo might gently tell Aquilo to watch his language but he doesn't push it or get mad, just kinda annoyed at most

6. What small quirks do they love about each other?

Ingo loves when Aquilo relaxes enough to drop all the wannabe Instagram influencer stuff and just kinda rambles listlessly about bird facts or whatever else he thinks is interesting... He likes when Aquilo smiles and really smiles like the kind of showing too much teeth and your nose gets scrunched up smile that Aquilo tends to think is something ugly about himself. Ingo loves when Aquilo smiles like that because he knows it's genuine.

Aquilo also treasures Ingo's smiles even though they tend to be smaller/look like weird grimaces. But when he gets a BIG SMILE or chuckle from Ingo... well he dies and goes to heaven... anyway... Other than that I think he appreciates most of Ingo's quirks, Aquilo is an observant person and likes to be tuned in to Ingo's emotions from his body language alone.

7. Who makes the other laugh more?

Aquilo makes Ingo laugh more I think. Aquilo's just got that desperate class clown energy about him and Ingo doesn't always know how to make jokes.

8. Who gets jealous easier?

Aquilo. He's very insecure, sorry. Ingo doesn't really get jealous, because on the opposite end of the spectrum, he feels very secure in his relationship with Aquilo. He's the kind of guy who is totally committed once he decides he is committed y'know. So there's really nothing for Aquilo to be jealous of. He just has issues.

9. How did they know they were right for each other?

Aquilo is already a kind of "love at first sight" kind of guy... even though rationally he knows it's not a mature love, I think he was pretty much infatuated with Ingo from the point of their first major interaction onward. But the moment he felt serious about it is probably when he was feeling doubtful about his future as an athlete and Ingo just goes all in on hyping him up and taking an interest in his career. Aquilo was like I'm going to marry him and let him get me pregnant or something idk.

When Ingo knew... I think he is more slow and cautious with relationships, at least compared to Aquilo. But when Aquilo, as previously stated, started to let his mask slip a little and just spoke honestly about his weird bird facts or something... and then more realistically probably when Aquilo was like "oh yeah and I like trains too I guess."

10. Who brings up the subject of kids first?

Ingo does. I don't think Aquilo thinks of himself as a parent or a future parent for a long time, but he's willing to consider it for Ingo because he knows it's important to him. And it's not anything he was pressured into. Aquilo has agency in his relationship OK I promise.

11. Who's adorable when they're sleepy, and who gets grumpy and irritable

Aquilo is a little grumpy, I think Ingo is the cuteful one when he's sleepy. Ingo's a morning person so I think he's more tired at the end of the day when he comes home from work.

12. Who's more protective?

I'd say Aquilo initially. If we're talking about Hisui/Warden Ingo, both of them are pretty protective. Warden Ingo's got some brand new attachment issues so once he takes a liking to Aquilo he probably would highkey die for him. And it's mutual. They're like that.

13. How do they express their feelings?

Aquilo is more verbally expressive, kind of a bit poetic and cheesy about it when he wants to be. Since he lacked that kind of verbal affection as a kid, he can lay it on thick sometimes. But he really is well-intentioned about it. Aquilo feels like this is the best way to get people to understand him.

Ingo definitely speaks his mind and speaks it loudly, but he's aware he doesn't always know how to express himself in the most nuanced ways. So he is more of an acts of service guy - he really values taking care of people he loves. Sometimes to the point of coddling a bit. For Warden Ingo, the overprotectiveness can definitely come into play. He's a little too self-sacrificial sometimes.

14. Where would they go on a 3am adventure?

They're on that subway bro. They actually bond a lot initially on those late night routes. That or maybe sitting in the trainyard in Anville Town looking at the stars. Or the beach in Humilau or Undella for something a little more summer fun and flirty...

17. Who picks flowers for the other?

Ingo!

18. Which one wears the "I'm with stupid" t-shirt

Neither... they would not call their beautiful wife stupid..

19. Who's the better dancer?

Oh Aquilo no contest. But he still likes to dance with Ingo and Ingo's okay at it

20. Who infodumps and who listens with heart eyes?

It goes both ways they are AuDHD power couple...

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morlao · 2 years ago

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Headcanons: Friends to Lovers

Daiki Aomine x reader

- You and Aomine have known each other since you were little kids. Your moms are best friends, so you two basically grew up together and as a result you started to get pretty close. Not a day goes by where you don't hear from each other and you have sleepovers almost every weekend.

- When the two of you were younger you spent almost every afternoon on the basketball court. You sat on a bench and enjoyed the warm weather while Aomine showed you his tricks. He always made sure you watched his each and every move.

"Watch this y/n!"

"Did you see that?"

"There is a new trick I want to show you!"

He always got so excited when he saw how impressed you were. Of course you tried to play it cool, but he could read you like an open book.

- One time you asked him to teach you how to play.

"That's super easy, just watch this!"

And he dribbles you out and doesn't even give you a chance to score once. Maybe basketball wasn't exactly your thing (especially with Aomine as a teacher).

- Aomine is not exactly good with words. Whenever you feel sad he doesn't know what to say and when he tries to cheer you up, he often comes off as grumpy or annoyed. But he still wants to be there for you and comfort you. Therefore he will rely on physical contact instead. A long lasting hug, stroking your hair, lying down next to you and cuddling until you fall asleep.

- As you grow older you often go shopping together. Most of the time Aomine will complain about how long it takes you to choose the perfect skirt or the perfect dress, but he secretely loves how you always ask him for his opinion whenever you try something on.

"What do you say, Dai? The red shirt or the white one?"

- Of course you still visit his basketball games but you don't hang out at the basketball court anymore during the week. After all Aomine thinks he doesn't need practise anymore. His famous words "the only one who can beat me is me" is the only answer you get when you ask him if he planned to skip training again. And yes, each and every time you want to punch him in the face for that. At the same time, however, it breaks your heart to see that his passion for basketball is gone. He always seems bored, tired of it even. It has been a very long time since you last saw him smile while playing. You miss this happy version of him.

- There is something about Daiki Aomine, you definitely can't deny it. The way he smiles (he does smile a lot around you), the way he always seems so relaxed. You like joining him at his naps on the roof and resting your head in his lap while he grumbles something you can't understand. Every touch (no matter how small it is) makes your heart flutter. You try to ignore it though, thinking he would never see you as more than a friend.

- While you never told Aomine about your little crush on him, you do tell him about your crushes on other boys. He's your best friend, so of course this is something you want to talk about. Aomine often teases you about it, as he loves seeing you blush and cover your face with your hands. Lately, however, he cramps every time you rave about another boy. He also finds himself glaring at the boys you fancy during his classes while wondering what the hell you saw in them. He's absolutely not good at hiding his jealousy so he will be grumpy the whole day. Of course he doesn't tell you the reason for his behaviour but starts to distance himself instead.

"It's nothing, y/n, stop bothering me!"

His behaviour really starts to upset you lately. Why was he acting so different? Did you say something wrong? You start to keep a comfortable distance. You're used to Aomine's mood, but this is the first time he also starts acting bitchy towards you.

- So the next time you have a crush on someone, you don't tell him. Instead you start hanging out with this boy more often and you two really get along very well.

- Of course it doesn't take long until Aomine hears about it. Y/n hanging out with another boy? Jealousy starts burning inside of him and even though he knows exactly that it's none of his business who you're meeting, he can't switch it off. With his hands clenched into fists he stomps through the streets, not caring if he bumps into someone.

- When he finally finds you in your favourite cafè, drinking your favourite drink and laughing about something this boy had said, he can't take it anymore. He storms over, grabs your hand and pulls you to your feet and away from that boy. Of course you are more than upset about this and soon the two of you start screaming at each other.

"Who the fuck is that?"

"Why do you care, Daiki?"

- A very good question that he has already asked himself several times. You were his best friend, the one person who knew him better than everyone else, the one who always supported him and accepted him. The one who always forgave him whenever he said something rude or acted like a total idiot (which happened very often). Of course he also thought you were beautiful. Even hot. Why didn't he want you to flirt with someone else? The answer popped up in his head all of a sudden. Maybe he knew it all along. He loved you. He fucking loved you.

- Again, Aomine isn't good with words so he doesn't know what he should answer you. Instead he just pulls you towards him and kisses you. A deep and passionate kiss, filled with everything he wanted to say. After a few seconds he breaks free, breathing heavily.

"I want you to be with me."

- You're absolutely shocked. Yes, you have dreamt about kissing him several times, but you have never thought it would actually happen. You didn't even think he likes you like that.

"Didn't think I would ever see you speechless", he smirks.

That stupid smirk that always makes your heart melt.

"You can't just ignore me for days and then crash my date and kiss me."

Your eyes search for your date but the boy' s seat is empty. You didn't notice him leaving. Aomine's gaze still rests on you.

"Didn't I just show you I can?"

You roll your eyes and Aomine finally sighs, scratching the back of his head. He is nervous, yes, and he can no longer hide it from you.

"I love you, y/n. I guess I always have. Give me a chance to proof to you that we're the perfect match."

His words make your heart flutter while at the same time you know exactly that it's up to you to decide.

"Dai..."

You look in his eyes and see panic. Quickly you take his hand.

"You're an absolute idiot! But you're my idiot! Come here."

You grab the collar of his shirt and pull him in for another kiss.

#daiki aomine #knb x reader #knb headcanons #aomine daiki #daiki aomine x reader #kuroko's basketball

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