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holllandtrash · 1 year

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haunted | daniel ricciardo

pairing: daniel ricciardo x driver!reader (part 2 to fragile line)

Can't breathe whenever you're gone Can't turn back now, I'm haunted

you're racing. daniel isn't, but he's not gone either, is he? word count: 7.6k (im so sorry) warnings/tags: angst really, more incorrect f2 stats but whatever, time jumps again, platonic love all around, not as big of a rollercoaster as part 1 but just wait till part 3 lol

“Do you know?”

“Do I know what?” You asked, wondering why that was the first thing your teammate said when you opened the door to your flat.

Lando didn’t even bother with a ‘hey, how was your day, what’s up’, he was just straight to the point, only you had no idea what the point was.

He was still on a high after coming in second place the other day, so you let the impoliteness slide. Usually Lando didn’t look like a mix between a sweaty mess and a confused child, but you assumed he was like this because whatever was on his mind was important.

“You haven’t- did you-” Lando stammered over his words. “When’s the last time you checked your phone?”

You felt around in your pockets and glanced over your shoulder with a bit of a shrug. If you were being honest, you hadn’t looked at your phone in a few hours. Your morning was spent training and running errands now that you had some time and were home for a little while before the next race. You were still carrying a lot of energy after your successful finish in Silverstone that sitting still and scrolling through your phone was the last thing you wanted to be doing right now.

“Can you just find your phone, please?” Lando asked, because he didn’t want to be the person to break the news. He came over to talk to you, to walk you through it, to be someone to vent to if you needed it, but the last thing he wanted was to be the one to say it.

It took a minute, but you found it in your bedroom, the screen lighting up and vibrating with each notification. As you walked back towards Lando, you scrolled through them all, trying to see which was the most important.

Eventually, you landed on one from the official F1 app.

Daniel Ricciardo Replaces Nyck de Vries

Daniel Ricciardo was returning to the grid.

Daniel was coming back.

But did he ever really leave in the first place?

You hadn’t spoken to him since that day in Monaco, almost a year ago now. The day your relationship fell apart, crumbling to pieces around you.

You thought maybe, maybe, he’d call you before the next race or at least try to find you somewhere in the paddock to have a civil conversation but that didn’t happen.

Of course, neither of you had time for a conversation anyway.

Daniel released his video 24 hours before media day in Belgium, announcing he would be leaving the team. It broke your heart watching it in your hotel room, knowing he was only a few floors up and probably struggled to record it. You could picture him retaking it a few times, just to get the words right, his tone right. He didn’t want to paint McLaren as being at fault for this decision, even if that was the case.

If you weren’t the driver who was set to replace him, you would have been there in that room giving him encouraging nods and telling him to just speak to the fans. You would have been there when his head fell back against the wall in defeat, eyes closed as the weight of his unknown future crashed down on him. You would have crawled onto his lap and held him, telling him that another team was going to be desperate for him.

Instead you were in your own room, watching the video like the millions of other followers he had. The only difference was, none of those followers asked themselves if they were to blame.

It was just you, wiping the corner of your eyes and asking yourself if this was your fault.

Surely when your news dropped, people would start pointing fingers, people would talk.

Daniel Ricciardo trained her, they would say. He helped her get to this point and now she’s taking his seat.

They’d throw assumptions into the wind about how this was probably your plan all along.

It wasn’t, of course. Your plan was to get a seat in Formula 1 and see Daniel as friendly competition when you stepped onto the grid. You wanted to keep the support system alive when you moved up, knowing you had someone watching your back when you climbed out of the car. You wanted to be able to go home with him at the end of the night on Sunday and watch the race back with him, playfully critiquing each other's moves and ideally celebrating your victories, together.

You never wanted to leave him without a seat.

But part of you must have known he wasn’t driving next year, right? You never brought up the contract, he never talked about leaving, nor did he talk about potentially moving to another team, which seemed like something you’d talk to your partner about.

Daniel said nothing. You said nothing. And in the back of your head you knew he wasn’t signed to another team, you just didn’t want to accept it.

You didn’t want to admit that part of that was your fault.

Zak Brown put you in the worst position possible. He was giving you the chance to make your dream a reality, but in doing so, you were losing the one person who shared that dream with you.

It shouldn’t have been hard to put on a smile during that post-race interview in Spa. You finished second, your hot streak had continued despite the turmoil your heart was going through. So not only was the adrenaline pumping through your veins from the podium, but McLaren had decided that morning was the perfect time to announce you were replacing Daniel.

They didn’t word it like that, though. They just stated that you were to race for McLaren for 2023. No mention of Daniel, even if that was all anyone had questions about.

“Second place in Spa, how are you feeling?” The reporter asked as you struggled to get comfortable in the white leather chair, your trophy at your feet.

You weren’t surprised he, Richard from the official FIA reporting team, jumped directly to you, bypassing any questions for Liam Lawson who finished third. No one had yet to get a comment on your official move to F1, not having any time this morning since the news was announced.

“It's exciting, it’s good to be back as well,” you nodded, turning to Felipe on your right who nodded as well. “A break is always needed, but there’s really no better feeling than getting back behind the wheel.”

“You’ve never podiumed here before,” Richard pointed out, “There’s quite a difference in performance from last year to this year, we’ve all noticed.”

“Is there a question in there somewhere?” You laughed, not caring at all if it sounded forced, and you knew it did because Liam raised his hand to mouth to hide his chuckle and tried to play it off like he was just scratching his jaw.

“Well it’s just no wonder that McLaren has snatched you up for the 2023 season, with how much you’ve shown this year what you’re capable of. Care to comment on that?”

There it was. The first official request to talk about McLaren.

“I mean, we’ve all seen the news at this point,” another laugh but this time it was more out of discomfort.

You looked at Felipe, he nodded again but it was short and encouraging, silently telling you it was okay to take the spotlight even though it was him who had won this race.

You cleared your throat, thinking about what the PR team from McLaren told you. You’re focused on Prema. McLaren knows this. McLaren is supporting you while you finish your F2 season and by all means, shut down any topic regarding Daniel Ricciardo.

“Really, I’m just focused on finishing the season off strong with Prema,” you told Richard, feeling your smile start to slip because how could you be excited over that or a trophy when you knew what he was thinking and what the whole world was thinking.

You prayed he wouldn’t bring it up, but the media world was hell.

“And Daniel’s departure-

Liam promptly lifted the mic to lips, cutting off Richard before he could finish that thought. “We’ll all miss her, I think that’s safe to say. But maybe it’ll be a bit easier for the rest of us to podium when she’s gone.”

Quiet laughter spread through the audience and you just turned to Liam and mouthed a quick ‘thank you’. He didn’t say anything back, just dropped his head to your shoulder for a second and smiled, playing up the whole we’ll miss her statement. It wasn’t an act, though. Most of the guys you raced with had stopped you at some point this morning sharing their congrats and giving you a hug, telling you that you deserved that spot in F1.

Even Felipe said it and meant it, and he was on the fast track to win this year, also eyeing a spot in F1. You had a good support system in this series.

He dropped his head to your other shoulder and your lips fell into a playful pout, raising your hands to the sides of both driver’s faces. It made a cute photo. The F1 social media team really played into the love you had from your competitors.

You had a lot of support in the paddock, surprisingly, from other drivers.

Mick found you before his own race started. He was your first teammate during your rookie season in F2, it only made sense he was the first current driver to congratulate you.

“You deserve it,” Mick told you, arms tightly wrapped around your body as he gave you a comforting embrace that almost compared to the one you were craving from Daniel, but still something was missing.

Mick’s contract was up at the end of 2022, and no one knew where he was going but he assured you that no matter what, he’d be on your side.

You sort of interacted with Lando on Sunday after your feature race. When you passed him in the paddock, he held his hand out for a fist bump and gave you a wide smile. The cameras caught it, they caught everything apparently, and it was the first photo you saw on social media when you got to the airport late Sunday evening.

First of many celebratory fist bumps, McLaren’s caption said. It was a nice photo, truly.

Too bad the comments were anything but.

Not McLaren hyping up the fact that Danny’s girlfriend is replacing himIsn’t she only fourth in the driver standings in F2 lol We don’t want her we want the honey badgerEven worse when you think about the fact that they are literally in a relationship and she’s taking his seatNo class from any of them

No one seemed to know that you and Daniel were done, but how would they know? Your relationship was private, your break up would be too.

Your break up.

And then it hit you. Right there in the airport. After the adrenaline of a podium had worn off. After the excitement of signing with a new team had passed. After you were finally left alone after being surrounded by your team and drivers and press all day, you broke down.

It was embarrassing. The only saving grace was the fact that you were sat in the corner of the premium lounge, facing the windows, so at least no one could see you cry. You weren’t quiet though, you knew your faint sobs could be heard from anyone within a 3 metre radius.

And you knew how immature this was, crying in an airport. But when you felt things you felt them with every fibre in your being. You were overjoyed beyond words, shaking when you got first podium in F2, and then feeling that multiplied by fifty when you won in Monaco.

You were madly in love with Daniel, despite only dating for a year. It wasn’t young love, puppy love, a whirlwind romance, or any of those sappy headlines. You were head over heels, ready to spend your life with the man who lifted you up above the rest of the world. Who not only put you on a pedestal, but made sure other people did too. He was always in your corner, even before you started dating. He loved you long before you even realised you could also love him.

As an athlete, as a future world championship contender, as a friend, Daniel loved you.

The day you knew you loved him, you knew you were screwed, you both talked about the risks.

Fragile line, you called it, walking a tightrope, he joked. There was such a huge margin of error, so many things that could go wrong by falling in love with, not only a driver but the driver who mentored you.

The media would turn against you. Sponsors would shake their heads. Your future could have been jeopardised. You’d be labelled as a poor role model for girls in motorsport.

You walked a dangerous and delicate line with Daniel, but you didn’t think it would snap beneath your feet. You never thought you’d be the one to break it.

So yes, you were full on sobbing in the airport as you waited to board your flight to Amsterdam.

“Pretty sure podium winners aren’t usually this distraught.”

You heard the British accent and immediately sat up, wiping your eyes and sniffling to at least try and make it seem like you weren’t crying. You turned your head and watched as Lando sat down next to you on the dark blue chair, resting a leg over his knee.

You didn’t say anything, you just stared at him, worrying that if you did try to talk, all that would come out would be more cries.

Lando reached into the front pocket of his backpack and pulled out a travel size pack of tissues, tossing them to you without so much as a word. He waited a few minutes as you composed yourself, using some of the tissues and pocketing the rest for later.

“You okay?” Lando asked, sounding concerned for your well being because he had a point, podium winners aren’t usually this distraught.

“Am I okay?” You repeated back followed with a playful scoff. “Do I look okay?”

“You look awful.”

“I feel awful.”

Lando nodded, clearly unsure what to do in this situation. His current teammate, his friend, was leaving at the end of this year and his new teammate, a girl he had barely had 5 conversations with, was having a breakdown in the airport.

Lando, whether he liked it or not, knew he would be caught in the middle of whatever this mess was for the next few months or so.

He knew you and Daniel were an item. Daniel told himself shortly after Silverstone, and only because Lando had asked, simply curious.

“You and Y/N,” he started off, hesitantly, seeing the two of you interact much more flirtatiously then you had before. “You two are..” he didn’t know how to word it.

Daniel just winked, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

That pretty much confirmed it. And then when you started showing up in the back of the McLaren garage during race weekends, Lando sort of accepted it, quickly getting used to seeing you around.

You were always friendly with each other, but your attention was always on Daniel, too. Lando saw the way you were quick to rush to his side after a difficult race. How you were the first one Daniel looked for when he stepped out of the car, eyes searching the sea of orange for you. Lando heard the way Daniel talked about you, the way he praised you, telling everyone who would listen that you deserved a spot in Formula 1. That man had a note saved on his phone of your stats, race wins, qualifying times, records broken, all of it.

Daniel loved you. Everyone who knew him saw it, and Lando was no exception.

So one could imagine the uncertainty he felt as he approached you in the airport. Surely you and Daniel weren’t together anymore, right? Or were you somehow going to work through this? Could you work through it? Taking his seat?

Lando, like everyone else, was dying to know.

“Has he said anything?” You asked him before Lando had a chance to get a word out. That question alone confirmed that you and Daniel weren’t on speaking terms at least.

“About you?” Lando asked and when you nodded, he saw the devastation hit your eyes as he shook his head. “Honestly he wasn’t very talkative today, left right after the post race stuff.”

“How is he?” You then asked. “Has he- is there any word on him finding a seat next year?” You pulled your knees up to your chest, staring hopefully at the British driver.

It pained Lando to shake his head again, “Not yet, but it’s still pretty early. I’m sure he’ll find a seat.”

You nodded, praying that Lando was right. When you dropped your chin to your knees, averting your eyes when you felt the tears well up again, Lando’s chest grew tight. He felt bad for you. This was a hard position for you to be in.

“It’s not your fault, you know,” Lando assured you. “Danny’s one of the best there is, but the results just aren’t there. Zak didn’t see any point in continuing if it’ll just end up being more of the same.”

Lando tried to be encouraging, really, and you were thankful for that, but he got the hint after a while that you just didn’t want to talk about it. Before leaving you alone, he gave you his number and told you that if you needed anything, to just reach out.

You were always friendly with Lando, but that was the start to your friendship.

It was Lando who shared your picture when you claimed first place in Zandvoort, celebrating your success with a cheeky caption stating how he better see you bring the hot streak to McLaren next year. He was the one who interrupted your post-race interview in Monza, spotting you in the paddock being interviewed by Will Buxton. Lando, despite needing to follow his own pre-race schedule, came and draped an arm over your shoulder and playfully interrupted whatever Will was trying to say.

“Look at that,” Will laughed when you struggled to shake Lando’s arm off of you, “Future teammates. Lando, how excited are you to be working with this incredible talent next year?”

“Oh extremely excited,” Lando answered, leaning into the mic gripped between your fingers. “She won’t be able to keep up with me though.”

And that it was it. He ruffled his hand through your hair and took off again.

He checked in on you between races, whenever a new headline was trending, whenever someone from social media had the audacity to compare yours and Daniels stats and pin you against each other as if there wasn’t already enough you were struggling with.

Lando didn’t want you to come into the new season already feeling defeated. He was still friends with Daniel, he always would be, but he had a kind heart. He wanted you to know that he wasn’t on anyones ‘side’, but more importantly, he saw you as a driver, as his next teammate. He didn’t see you as Daniel’s ex who was now stealing his seat like half of the world did.

It was also his car that you drove during the practice sessions in Austin and Abu Dhabi. Lando happily stepped aside for you, giving you a supportive pat on the back and strategically blocking your line of sight towards Daniel as he got ready for his sessions as well.

You still hadn’t spoken. You hadn’t even looked at each other. You tried, honestly, to catch his eye but he refused to even glance your way. He was in and out of that car so quick, finding any excuse to leave the garage while you were there.

It hurt. You knew his mind was made up. He was upset, he was hurt, he wanted nothing to do with you and seeing you in his garage sent him spiralling.

All you saw was Daniel turning his back on you, but what you didn’t know was this situation was giving Daniel constant headaches. He couldn’t look at you, the girl he loved, and watch you climb into the McLaren knowing that you’d be doing that throughout the entire next season and he wouldn’t.

All he ever wanted was to see you in a Formula 1 car, but not like this.

You stood in Lando’s side of the garage during the last race. You wore your McLaren jacket, you had the orange headphones on as stared up at the screen. Your back was towards Daniel’s car, so you missed the way he did actually look at you. It pained him to see how well you blended in with the team, his team. He almost told himself it looked like you belonged there, but he quickly put his helmet on and climbed into his car, gearing up for the race.

He finished 9th. Lando finished 6th. And with that, the season ended.

Daniel was done.

You watched him celebrate with those closest to him. You stood off to the side and thought about how if things were different, you’d be clinging to him, sweaty race suit and all, waiting to congratulate him in your own way back at the hotel. You would tell him you loved him, that he didn’t need McLaren. You’d joke and say that you two could form your own team, because that’s what you should have been till the end, a team.

But that wasn’t the case anymore. McLaren was your team now.

It was only a matter of days until Daniel spoke to the media about his departure.

“I can’t speak ill of her,” Daniel said, shifting uncomfortably on the couch. He knew that coming on this podcast that he’d be asked about you and your contract. He was advised against it but the second his working relationship ended with McLaren, he agreed to talk, to share his side.

“But she’s the one who took your seat,” Jaycee so politely pointed out. “As happy as I am to see a female in Formula 1, it’s bittersweet knowing a driver such as yourself is left without a spot.”

Daniel sighed into the mic in front of him, “McLaren handed her her dream on a papaya platter and she grabbed it. I think a lot of drivers would do the same in that scenario.”

“But it stings a little more, doesn’t it?” Greyson, her co-host asked. “Because you two were-

“Friends, yeah,” Daniel interrupted. “Yeah we were close.”

“You mentored her,” Greyson pushed for more of an admittance as to what their relationship was. “You were seen with her and the Prema team during a handful of weekends. She even said you were her mentor.”

Daniel naturally hesitated, “I saw her potential early on and I wanted to help her grow. I really did want to see her in Formula 1, despite what anyone says about the situation she’s an incredible driver.”

“Everyone who follows Formula 1 knows you have a strong connection,” Jaycee said, subtly trying to pry for more as well. “After her Silverstone crash in 2021 you were in her garage. And then you were seen in Monaco together a few weeks later. You two weren’t just friends in the paddock, you worked closely together outside of race weekends too-

“Did your girlfriend take your seat or not?” Greyson blurted out, earning a glare from Jaycee on his left, but he couldn’t hold it in anymore. He wanted to know, the whole world wanted to know what was going on between you and Daniel now that you were signed for McLaren.

And you had to give props to Daniel, he played it off about as smoothly as he could.

“McLaren sees more potential in her than me,” he said, still smiling because that’s who he was. A people pleaser, always grinning, always a breath of fresh air. “If they can give her what they promised me, then that’s good for all of them. Do I like how the situation went down? No, but that’s the reality of Formula 1. You’re not safe unless you’re winning and I wasn’t winning.”

“And your relationship-

“She doesn’t need a mentor anymore, does she?” Daniel asked, disregarding any ideas of the two of you dating. “She made it to Formula 1. That was what she wanted. I wish her well.”

That was the closest thing to confirmation of your break up that anyone would get.

And the interview ended shortly after that, doing wonders on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You listened to it also, just waiting for Daniel to say something horrible but of course he didn’t. That wasn’t him. He was the good guy. He was the hero. He got you to Formula 1 and was holding his head up high, wishing you well and thanking McLaren for the last 2 years.

You wished it ended there, the conversations surrounding you. It should have ended there.

But fast forward to the awards dinner at the end of the year, just shortly after the last race of the season.

You sat with your mum at a round table with Felipe and his partner and few other people involved in Formula 2.

You had finished second in the standings, not first like you had dreamt of, but Felipe told you that first place in the championship would come in F1, don’t worry.

And you weren’t sure who had made the seating chart, but from where you sat, you could easily see Daniel at his table, only a few metres away from your own. He sat with some of his friends and some people from his personal team. He was also purposely avoiding looking in your direction, knowing that if he did, he’d be making eye contact for the first time in months.

He’d see your stunning features and bright eyes standing out among the rest. He’d see the low cut, thinly strapped black dress, showing off the collarbones he used to mark with his lips, the trail between your breast and down to your navel that he used to make with his tongue. If he looked at you, he’d think of all the ways the night would have ended if things were different.

If he looked at you, he’d be reminded that the girl he loved was the one who broke him. He’d be reminded that as hurt as he was by your actions, by taking his seat, he couldn’t forget the memories you made, the moments he shared, the way he used to admire you.

He didn’t love you anymore, though. He couldn’t. He forced those feelings out, replacing them with regret for ever deciding to help you because if he hadn't helped you, it wouldn’t have been you that took his seat.

So Daniel looked at the stage, his friends, his food. He didn’t look at you.

He didn’t even look at you when you walked up to collect your trophy, choosing that moment to be the perfect time to walk up to the open bar. He ordered a few more drinks and a shot on a whim, downing it back before walking to the table, 2 freshly poured glasses of rum and cokes in hand.

Daniel got drunk that night. He didn’t mean to, but it helped him deal with all he had going on. It was a good way to end the 2022 season, to put it behind him. You, McLaren, all of it.

Someone should have stopped him when he noticed you about to leave at the end of the night, a white coat draped over your shoulders. That should be my blazer, Daniel thought, thinking of the countless nights he had given you his jacket for warmth.

You were in the middle of a conversation with someone from Prema when you felt a tug in your arm. When you looked up and saw it was Daniel who was pulling you off to the side, your heart sank. There were no butterflies anymore, just a lot of anxiety and guilt eating you from the inside.

You could tell he hadn’t thought through what he was going to say. For a split second, his gaze was soft, almost like he thought about congratulating you for a successful season. For a moment, proud Daniel was back and for a moment, you got your hopes up. Maybe this line you broke could be fixed.

It was a bad sign when his eyes grew cold, features hardening along with them. This man, who was all you wanted, stared at you like you were a stranger, and maybe you were now.

He opened his mouth and the room around you fell dark and quiet. It was your mind playing horrible tricks on you, putting a spotlight in this moment in time so it would haunt your memories after tonight. You knew the earth was still spinning, that people around you were still moving, but you couldn’t trust anything, frozen in this space with Daniel.

“I hope you’re happy,” Daniel spoke softly, but his words cut through you like a knife. If someone told you that your heart was bleeding, you’d believe it. That’s certainly what it felt like.

He didn’t want you to be happy. He didn’t want you taking his seat. He didn’t want to see you live out his dream. He put on a beautiful charade for the press, but deep down you knew, he saw you as nothing more but a mistake. He no longer wanted you to succeed, despite telling the world he wished you would.

"Daniel-"

You automatically reached for him and he flinched backwards. It hurt, seeing him react how he was. He didn’t want you touching him, he just wanted to get one more word in, wanted you to know that he was still bitter and would be for a while.

You stood there and watched him walk away, haunted by the pain and broken trust in his eyes, a look that would become burned into your mind during your restless sleeps.

And then there was the week where you just didn’t sleep. The week after Daniel’s contract with Red Bull was announced.

He wasn’t driving with them, but he wasn’t leaving Formula 1 either.

He’d still be around the paddock during selective race weekends. He’d be there, putting on a show for the fans because everyone loved him. Everyone wanted him on the grid, and if he couldn’t race, at least he was still there in the garage as a reserve driver.

The same excitement couldn’t be said for you.

Despite forming a close bond with Lando really early into the pre-season, it helped that he was only two years younger than you, you were not met with open arms and loud cheers.

You had some supporters, a lot actually, but nothing compared to Daniel’s fans. You were pulled alert and critiqued for every move you made. You could understand the questions that circulated when you didn’t even finish the first race in Bahrain, retiring early because of an engine problem. Did Zak really make the right move by replacing Daniel with you? What could you bring to the team if this was how you started the season?

But it was the talk about what you did off the track that really got to you. You didn’t care if people weren’t a fan of your driving, you knew F1 fans had their favourites and you knew you weren’t everyone’s.

However social media had a way of spinning everything. You lost count of the ridiculous rumours. Apparently, you were now replacing Daniel with Lando because that playful interview you did talking about red flags in relationships really gave away the fact you were sleeping together.

Oh you were also sleeping with Mick Schumacher, because you had a thing for reserve drivers, it seemed. And the way he found you after your second race without points again in Saudi Arabia made it so obvious that you were with him.

And you couldn’t forget about how big of a bitch you were, choosing to not acknowledge Daniel in Australia when you walked past him in the paddock. It was his home race, he was the reason you were even racing, and you couldn’t even stop and give him a smile?

These rumours were truly getting annoying.

Of course, you couldn’t come out and tell people that Lando was seeing someone because it was so new and private and not your story to tell. No one cared that Mick was your teammate at Prema in 2020 and you guys had always been friends. No one would believe you if you said that you didn’t even see Daniel in the paddock, being too engrossed in your conversation to notice that the Australian was walking past.

You grew to hate seeing him during race weekends.

It was a constant reminder of what could have been.

What if you had waited a year and signed with McLaren then? Would Daniel still hold this hatred towards you if his contract played out like it was supposed to?

What if you signed with a different team like Williams instead, and someone else replaced Daniel? If Oscar Piastri had taken his spot, would Daniel be this resentful still to see you driving? Or would he happily walk by your side in the paddock, him in Red Bull polo, you in your Williams racing suit? Would he have accompanied you during the race weekends when he didn’t have Red Bull duties?

Was there ever a scenario where he stood in your garage and watched you race? Cheering you on, despite what place you finished? Despite where he was in his own career?

Or was that just a far fetched dream?

Because let’s face it, if Daniel was still racing this year, it would be hard to support you and focus on his own season. How could he be happy if he DNF’d and you finished in the points? How could you be happy if the media would say that you were only using Daniel to get ahead?

If you had signed for Williams and Daniel was still replaced, it would be difficult for him to watch you race, to watch you do what he loved. How could he be in your corner when he no longer had a corner of his own to stand in?

Maybe you were doomed from the start. Fragile line, you said. How true that was. It was always going to snap.

You heard through the grapevine that Daniel had said you taking his seat before his contract was even up was the worst thing you could have possibly done.

Was that in regards to McLaren? To your relationship? From a sportsmanship standpoint? You had no idea. You just knew Daniel wasn’t impressed that you were racing and he wasn’t.

You hated seeing him during the few races he attended. You were petrified to run into him in the paddock, in the pit lane, in the hotel for christ sakes, you didn’t want to see him. At one point, you were desperate for even just a smidge of attention from him and now you felt sick whenever you heard he would be in attendance.

You went five races in a row without scoring any points. You could practically hear Daniel’s smug expression when you crossed the finish line each time. He was probably eating this up, knowing you were the one struggling now.

The only difference was, you didn’t have him to turn to after a shitty run in the McLaren.

Lando tried to be helpful, but he was struggling too. People called the car a tractor and honestly, so did you and Lando in private. You had a group chat with your personal trainers and the four of you called yourselves the farmers. The jokes made and lighthearted conversations shared were the only silver linings during this depressing start of a season.

Monaco was better, sort of.

You finished 10th, so at least that was a point under your belt.

But Daniel was everywhere.

He loved Monaco, he lived in Monaco, of course it was no surprise he was there that weekend.

You found yourself jogging past his flat the Thursday before the race, and you didn’t do it on purpose but it was the same route you had taken all of those times you had spent days on end at Daniel’s. Sometime he joined you for those morning runs, sometime you’d return and he was making breakfast.

But you came to a stop on the opposite side of the street and stared up at it, recognising his balcony instantly. You saw the plant in the corner that you had given him a few months into your relationship and despite him claiming he wasn’t a plant guy, he managed to keep it alive.

Your heart felt heavy. All you wanted was to knock on his door and be welcomed in with wide arms and that stupid smile of his. You wanted to not feel anxious when you saw him in the paddock. You wanted to not be holding your breath every time you got out of the racecar, wondering what Daniel thought of your run.

You were simultaneously on edge at all moments while also still dying to make him proud. You didn’t think that would ever go away.

Even during the weekends he wasn’t there, you were looking over your shoulder constantly. Even if you knew that he was on the other side of the world, he was still on your mind. He haunted your thoughts from the moment you walked into the garage to when you got out of the car at the end of the race weekend.

Lando called you out on it that Thursday in Silverstone.

“You’re in your head,” he told you, seeing how your main focus wasn’t racing, it was Daniel. You were unsure what he was referring to though and Lando just rolled his eyes, “Well actually, Daniel’s in your head. And he’s keeping you from being the driver I know you can be.”

That was all he said on the topic.

And he was right.

You were so worried about Daniel. About what he would think of your races. About trying to avoid him during the weekends he was there. About still trying to make him proud but not too proud where he resented you more for taking his seat. About the hundreds of scenarios that could have happened if you had made a different choice.

Because of all of these thoughts, that seat at McLaren was still very much Daniel’s. You allowed it to be.

You needed to stop telling yourself you took his seat because that’s what it would always be then, his seat. Lando stood up, patting your knee after dropping those few words and you decided right then and there that it was your seat.

You wouldn’t let Daniel haunt you anymore.

And qualifying was where this new mentality really showed.

You were buzzing with energy when your engineer told you that you had gotten P3 and were starting on the second row for tomorrows race. You climbed out of the car in parc ferme and ran directly to Lando. He hugged you, he was proud of you.

“That’s the driver we all know,” Lando said when he pulled his helmet off. His hand was on your shoulder, both of you were wearing identical smiles of pure joy. “Where the hell has she been all this time?”

You didn’t even have an answer, too excited about what this meant for you, for the team. You post-quali interviews went by in a blur, your hands were shaking the entire time. You blacked out during it, still trying to process the fact that you had finished third in qualifying, but you did remember Lando reaching over at one point and dropping his hand to your knee. It was polite, it didn’t mean anything more than a playful stop shaking you’re making us all look bad, but god did the media run with it.

You didn’t let anything on social media get to you, telling yourself that you had to stay focused for the race. In fact you even gave your phone to your trainer, Oliver, asking him to take it for the night and to just wake you up in the morning.

And Oliver was a good trainer, he had also become a good friend since you joined McLaren so you trusted him with your phone.

Which meant he knew your password.

So when he saw your phone light up that night with a text from Daniel, Oliver panicked. He knew the right thing to do would be to just leave it alone, you’d see it in the morning. You’d see the message. The short but seemingly sweet;

P3, nice job

But a text like that would send you spiralling and you didn't need that before one of the most important races of the season for you, Oliver knew this. He knew you were supposed to be getting over Daniel, he knew how much the Australian just being in the paddock messed with your mind. He knew you had to focus on racing.

There was so much uncertainty with the text. Was this him extending an olive branch? Was he genuine, or was this supposed to be taken with a bit of salt? Oliver could read it both ways. Either Daniel was truly happy for you, or this could be dripping with sarcasm. P3, sure, but remember who’s seat you’re in.

Oliver decided to delete the text. There was no trace of it when he handed the phone back to you the next day.

Maybe that was for the best, no one knew.

All you knew was you were starting third today.

All Daniel knew was you had ignored him, and now you were walking right past him down the paddock, side by side with Lando as you talked about today’s race. Daniel turned his head and saw the two of you, drawing his own conclusions.

Whatever was going through his mind, one thing seemed certain. You didn’t need him anymore. You had the seat, the team, someone new supporting you, why would you still need Daniel?

You went about your day, the same pre-race rituals. Lando checked in more than normal, it was an exciting day for both of you, but he knew he was also a good distraction to keep your mind off of Daniel, he knew you would be struggling to keep from thinking about him.

“It’s you and me,” Lando told you right before the race. “It’s our day, yeah? We’ve got this.”

Lando was in your corner. You were in his.

Which meant you were there to celebrate after the race when he took home second place. You had claimed fourth, which was also something to be proud of, and you were, but you were also craving that podium. You could almost taste it, it was so close.

“Next time,” Lando assured you, having full confidence that you’d be holding the trophy at the following race. He handed you a bottle of champagne, telling you to drink up and enjoy and for once, you did.

You were happy. You finally felt like you could accomplish something amazing at McLaren, despite the horrible start. Lando had gotten a podium, yours was coming, you could feel it.

You didn’t think about Daniel at all that night. It was the first night in a long time where you didn’t see his face when you closed your eyes.

And you would have loved to keep celebrating after that night, to keep the high of Lando's podium and your 4th place finish last until the next race, but all good things must come to an end.

You stood in front of Lando now, unsure how to take the news about Daniels’ return. Were you allowed to be happy for him? Of course you wanted to see him in a seat, this was the ideal situation, both of you driving this season. What would this mean for the two of you moving forward?

But he had done the exact same thing you had done by replacing a driver before their contract was up.

Daniel made you feel awful about that decision and now here he was, making the exact same one. He was no better than you. He was no hero, he wasn’t the good guy. He was a driver, desperate for a seat, as were you. As was every single person wanting to race in this series.

You were on the same playing field now.

He was going to be at every single race for the rest of the season, as a competitor on the grid. Something you once dreamt of, both of you dreamt of, was finally coming true.

But that’s all he would be. A competitor. Another driver. Another car to overtake. You always thought that when this moment came, you’d still be a team when you left the track at the end of the day and that just wasn’t the reality you found yourself in.

“He’s back,” Lando said, hands shoved in his pockets trying to gauge your reaction.

Daniel was returning to Formula 1, but you knew he was never actually gone in the first place.

He was in your thoughts, your dreams, your memories, he was everywhere all of the time. Even when you crossed the finish line in Silverstone, there was still a part of you that was wondering if Daniel was watching. As much as you tried to avoid him, your eyes still scanned every single crowd for him.

And now you didn’t need to look anymore.

part 3 gone

----

taglist: @yunnie-f1 @torossosebs @whatthefuckerr @jspitwall @oconso @tsarinablogs @landowecanbewc @somanyfandomsbruh @christianpulisic10 @storminacloud @sunnytkm23 @formula1mount @azxulaa @icarus-nex @spideyspeaches if i forgot someone im so sorry

#daniel ricciardo x you #daniel ricciardo x reader #daniel ricciardo #danny ric #dr3 #f1 fics #formula 1 x you #daniel ricciardo imagine #daniel ricciardo au

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pretzel-box · 28 days

Note

Hiya! Im the anon that requested fir male reader that’s similar to Sebastian which was LOVELYYYY 10000000/10!

Now i have two ideas (?) You know that meme where we’re in his shop and out of no where either a baby wall dweller or a mini Sebastian pops up crying and he asks us if we wanna buy it? WELLL

1.) Male Experiment Reader that’s similar to Sebastian is roaming around the facility since we’re his assistant and find a baby experiment that’s like him and Sebastian

2.) An expendable stumbles upon an area deep within the facility with Male reader that is one of Sebastian’s sibling in a pod that is a completely different monster

3.) Another idea is that we’re pretty much chill with every single entity in the facility and Sebastian is beyond confused

These are just little ideas I came up during with! Also love your octoboy fics! Also could I be 🍀 anon? Have a good day, night, or afternoon!

Tags: Can be read as GN reader! Reader being besties with entities/j

Words: 1k

Authors Note: Ofc! Welcome 🍀 Anon!! ♡

Sebastian leaned against the wall of his dimly lit shop, tapping one of his arms against the rough surface. His fluorescent blue eyes scanned the shelves stacked with scavenged goods, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about you.

You, with your impossibly calm demeanor, even in the darkest corners of the facility. It wasn’t the most comforting place to be—a labyrinthine nightmare filled with creatures most people couldn’t begin to understand. Yet somehow, you navigated it all with an almost baffling nonchalance.

The chime of the shop vent opening interrupted his thoughts, and he looked up to see you stroll in, as casual as ever. Your relaxed gait was at odds with the usual tension that gripped everyone who set foot in the shop. You were different, though, and Sebastian still couldn’t wrap his head around it, trying to make sense of your weird behaviour.

“Hey, Seb,” you greeted, sliding onto one of the stools at the counter. “Found a new stash of batteries in Door 30. Thought you might like some.”

Sebastian blinked his three eyes at you, still trying to fathom how you could be so calm. “Yeah, thanks,” he replied, taking the batteries from you. “But… you were at Door 30? Alone?”

You shrugged, a lazy grin spreading across your face. “Yeah. I mean, it’s just Pandemonium’s turf, right? No big deal.” You waved it off, seemingly unbothered.

Sebastian nearly dropped the batteries. “Pandemonium?” he echoed, his voice a mix of disbelief and concern. “And you’re just… standing here, like you didn’t almost get torn apart?”

You chuckled, leaning back against the wall, watching the shopkeeper. “Oh, Pandemonium? Yeah, it showed up. Big creepy shadow thing, right? It did that whole ‘screaming at the top of its lungs’ bit, tried to smash through a wall, but I just told it to chill out.”

Sebastian’s mouth fell open. “You… told Pandemonium to ‘chill out’? And it worked?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” you said, still smiling. “It just kind of… stopped, you know? I don’t think it’s used to people not freaking out. Then it slunk back into the darkness.”

Sebastian shook his head, still trying to process your words. “I don’t get it. Every other person who’s seen Pandemonium has barely made it out alive, and you’re just… hanging out with it?”

You chuckled again. “I wouldn’t say we’re hanging out. More like… coexisting. Besides, it’s not just Pandemonium. Ran into Angler, too.”

Sebastian’s eyes widened even further. “Angler? The one that rushes through the room and kills people left and right?!”

You nodded, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “Yep. Caught me off guard at first, but I just told it I wasn’t looking for an fight and that I just wanted to see what it was all about. It seemed confused at first, but after a while, it just swam off.”

Sebastian leaned forward, his curiosity piqued. “You’re telling me… that Angler, the creature that literally lures people to their deaths, just left you alone because you weren’t looking for an fight?”

“Pretty much,” you replied, a grin still plastered on your face. “I guess they’re not used to people who don’t want to run away or fight them.”

Sebastian stared at you, a mixture of admiration and bewilderment in his eyes. “How do you do it?” he finally asked. “How are you so… calm around them?”

You shrugged. “I dunno, man. I guess I just don’t see the point in being scared all the time. They’re just doing their thing, you know? And as long as you don’t get in their way, they’re not that bad.”

Sebastian shook his head, still unable to fully comprehend your attitude. “You’re one of a kind, you know that?”

You chuckled, leaning back on the stool. “Maybe. But I think you’re just as unique, Seb. Not many people would run a shop in a place like this, selling supplies to people who barely make it out alive.”

Sebastian smirked, finally relaxing a bit. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But someone’s got to do it.”

The two of you shared a quiet moment, the tension in the shop easing into something almost like camaraderie. For once, Sebastian felt like maybe there was some sense to this strange, chaotic world. At least, as long as you were around.

Just then, a low growl echoed from the front of the shop on the other side of the vent, and the shadows seemed to stretch and writhe. Sebastian tensed, his tail flicking in anticipation. “Looks like we’ve got company,” he muttered.

But you just grinned, standing up and cracking your knuckles as you prepared yourself for another monster interaction. “Relax, Seb. It’s probably just Pandemonium again. I’ll handle it.”

Sebastian watched as you casually walked toward the vent and the shifting shadows, his three eyes following your every move. Despite everything he had seen, he couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of calm watching you. Maybe, just maybe, your way of looking at things wasn’t so crazy after all.

As the shadows closed in, you held up a hand and spoke in that calm, easygoing tone of yours. “Hey, Pandemonium, long time no see. How about we keep things chill today, yeah?” Your voice wasn't hesitating at all and Sebastian could hear how chill you were about the whole thing as if it's a natural thing to tell your death reason to chill out for a day.

The growling seemed to subside, and the shadows stopped moving, as if considering your words. Sebastian shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips. Maybe there was more to this place than just danger and fear. Maybe, with you around, there was even room for a little peace.

“Unbelievable,” Sebastian muttered to himself, not able to believe it and yet still smiling. “Absolutely unbelievable.”

And as he watched you stand there, unafraid and unfazed, he couldn’t help but feel just a little bit safer, knowing you were on his side.

#sebastian solace #sebastian solace x reader #sebastian solace x you #sebastian solace fanfic #roblox pressure #pressure

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godmadeaterribleerror · 2 months

Text

Chapter 2 - A New Kind of Tension

Series Masterlist

Author's Note: Chapter title from American Idiot by Green Day.

Word Count: 5.8k

Chapter Summary/Warnings: Soldier Boy is woken up, and you have to deal with the pitfalls of your idea. Contains usual tags.

Read on A03!

Chapter 1 - Chapter 3

Want to be tagged? Just ask!

When he was forced into this type of sleep, Ben didn’t dream. This type of sleep was more like death, with no part of him alive in any way that mattered. But in the few seconds before he woke, with chemicals leaving his system and consciousness returning, he felt pain.

Borderline unbearable, exhaustive and consuming pain. The last few times he had been woken up, the pain had made the bomb in his chest start to tick, tick, tick, building up and up, off the beat from his heart until they found a rhythm, and he would explode.

It never relieved all that pain, but fuck him if it wasn’t cathartic.

Every time he had woken up in Russia, he’d fought the scientists like a fucking animal. When that assfuck, traitorous Brit and his cum guzzling team had found him, Ben hadn’t hesitated to use teeth and fire, hellbent on getting out, on getting home. This time wasn’t any different, the beat in his chest was already banging against his ribs, save for the stark exception of his surroundings.

He wasn’t in a clean lab or disgusting tube. He was in a suburban living room, complete with potted plants, one of those new and weirdly flat TVs, and some of the most boring paintings of roses he had ever fucking seen. Not a single person was in sight, no tubes were hooked to his body, and no cannon barrels or gas-filled vents sat in his vision. A small part of him hesitated, wondering if he was suddenly dreaming, his body having adapted to fight back and allow him some hazy peace. But the fever in his chest was growing, and there was no goddamn world where he would ever find suburbia and floral-patterned carpets peaceful. No, this was someone’s attempt to trick him, to make him compliant. Maybe Vought, maybe the Reds, maybe the CIA, didn’t matter. They all died the same.

The nuclear explosion from his chest lit the room, tearing out of him with a rush. Ben braced himself for bullets and grenades as his captors realized their little plan had failed, but none came. And as the dust cleared, he realized that not only were there no soldiers dropping from the sky or weapons hurling at his body, but everything was… exactly the same. Well, the plants had been burnt to a crisp, but that was the only evidence of his power having ripped through the room. The TV was still smooth and clean, the sofa hadn’t moved an inch, and the paintings hung evenly on the walls.

What the fuck.

He paused, the drum in his chest having stilled, and listened. Bird song, running water below the floor, electrical hums through the walls, and…

There it was.

Heartbeats.

Five heartbeats. All sped up, all bouncing around in the chests of their owners. Three moved heavily and quickly, one rapid and staggered—that one reeked of terror—and one beat only a single mark off from steady, almost as if it were devoid of any fear. Interesting.

Ben searched the room for a camera, but settled on looking in the direction of the heartbeats.

“I know you’re there,” he drawled. “I can fuckin hear you. Come out, you pussies.”

There was a pause, all five heartbeats having stuttered at his words, before a door creaked down the dark, sconce lined halls, and footsteps sounded towards him.

The people who stepped from the shadows into the living room should thank the Lord that Ben didn’t kill them the moment they were in the light. Grace Mallory, the thin-lipped bitch, watched him wearily, with the backstabbing Billy Butcher to her left. Only a step behind them was the blonde broad that had blasted him in the face at Vought Tower, accompanied by her and Butcher’s gangly cocksucker. The only one he didn’t recognize stood at the very front, a woman who was looking at him with sharp eyes, arms crossed in front of her body and legs planted apart. This was the holder of the steady heart, unsurprisingly given her collected stance and cold gaze. It was almost amusing, the way she was looking at him, like she was a lion and he was a gazelle, like if she glared her lovely eyes at Ben enough, he might drop dead. But he turned his eyes from her tiny fury to Butcher and Mallory, giving them a smirk that made his murderous intentions clear.

“What the fuck is this?”

It was Butcher who answered, returning the false smile. “This is an intervention, mate. You have a problem, and we’re here to help.”

“The only problem I have is you. If you had half a brain, you’d start running.”

“Really? Because to me,” Butcher’s smile didn’t falter as he gestured around the room. “It seems like you’re having some performance issues.”

“Don’t make him angry,” the cocksucker mumbled from the back. Butcher only rolled his eyes in response.

“This, Soldier Boy, is an opportunity. We’re giving you a second chance to help us with Homelander.” Mallory said, watching Ben carefully.

“A second chance?” It was Ben’s turn to roll his eyes. “You should be grateful that I might not kill you all when I leave.”

“I’d start playing nice, Soldier Boy.” The blonde stepped forward with a scowl. “You don’t have the upper hand here."

"Oh, please, you blast me down once and think you’re some sort of god? You caught me off guard that time, doll. This time, you won’t be so lucky.”

Blondie opened her mouth to retaliate, but Butcher snorted first, a newer, more twisted grin on his face.

“Starlight’s no god, but she is,” Butcher nudged the steady-hearted newcomer forward. “Meet your new babysitter. Go on, Love, say hello.”

The woman stumbled slightly at the push, her already strong frown deepening, and had barely turned her anger to Butcher when Ben started to laugh. All eyes fell to him as he gave a loud snort of amusement, a broad grin on his face.

“Jesus,” he wheezed. “Didn’t think you were funny, Butcher, but that’s a fucking riot.”

“We’re being serious,” Starlight snapped. “You answer to her now.”

“Yeah,” Ben rolled his eyes, giving his alleged keeper a once over. “Sure. Sunshine over here is going to stop me from ripping all your heads off your bodies. Fuck, she won’t even stop me leaving this room.”

“Wanna bet?”

Ben paused as the woman spoke for the first time. It wasn’t just her heartbeat that was level and even. Her voice was smooth, unbreaking and calm with not a trace of anxiety. Her eyes were still watching him coldly, her pretty face set like a mask.

“Excuse me?”

“Would you like to bet that I can’t stop you?” She repeated slowly, as if he were a child. “I’d advise you not to, but I don’t think you’d care for my opinion.”

“You think you can stop me, Sunshine? Are you fucking stupid?”

“No, but I don’t think my intelligence matters here. You’re not walking out that door.”

Part of Ben wanted to start laughing again. At her blatant lack of self-preservation to go up against him and not flinch. At her smooth claim of intelligence but painfully clear lack of understanding about the situation she was in. At her companions, who had all stepped back, undoubtedly realizing that their gambit had failed and leaving her in his line of fire.

Part of him wanted to be quick and brutal, make her an example before he left. But it wasn’t worth it, and her face was too nice to ruin, so he settled to just walk past her. He’d kill Butcher on his way out and figure out what he wanted to do from there.

He only had to take three long strides to reach the hall, making to just move past the woman, but she side-stepped, blocking his path. Ben looked down at her, finding his amusement at her misguided boldness fading into annoyance.

“Move, Sunshine. I’ll only ask once.”

She met his glare, no break in her resolve. “I’d say the same to you, Grampa.”

“I’m warning you. I’m not above hitting a lady.”

“I thought you were only going to ask once.”

That was it. Ben moved to grab her, to shove her aside and end her pointless little charade. He didn’t have time for her frivolous, self-indulgent bullshit, he had tried to warn her, and at this point her blood was really just on her own hands.

It happened fast. He reached to push her, she didn’t flinch, her face looking almost bored as Ben lunged, and his hand had barely landed on her arm before he let go, recoiling from her with a roar.

“What the fuck!” He looked at his hand, now raw and red, with blisters fading as soon as they had formed. His gaze shot to the woman’s unbothered face, she herself having neither flinched nor wavered. “Did you just fucking burn me?”

“I warned you,” she said. “I don’t play games I can’t win.”

Ben looked past her, where the small group remained, having retreated down the hall. Butcher’s face was painted with deep amusement as Starlight and Mallory held twin looks of satisfaction. Only the cocksucker still looked afraid, but his nervous eyes were trained on the woman, as though she might blow to pieces at any second.

“Somebody better start talking,” Ben growled.

“We tried to tell you, Governor,” Butcher said with an overly dramatic sigh. “She’s in charge here.”

“You think this will hold me? I-“

“You were unprepared, we got lucky, it won’t happen again. We all heard the speech you gave Annie.” The woman cut him off with a snort. “You need to start getting it into your head. You do not have the upper hand. The sooner you do, the sooner we can actually do something productive instead of peacocking like idiots.”

Ben stared at her, the drum in his chest growing loud once more, his anger serving as fuel. He didn’t bother to try and control it, simply letting it set to his heart and build and build. Just before the sound could drown out all his other senses, he heard the woman yell.

“Everyone out!” Her voice was slightly alarmed, but laced with no panic. And as the door slammed down the hall, Ben realized her heartbeat hadn’t retreated. She was still right in front of him. He hoped this hurt.

As the smoke cleared, Ben opened his eyes to, tragically and annoyingly, see the woman completely intact, unbothered, and in one piece. Most he could tell, she had only taken a step back.

“Are you done?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Bitch,” he said. “I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

“Lovely,” she sighed. “You just tried that. Didn’t work. Won’t work. Not on me. Like I said before you started acting like a toddler, the sooner you accept that, the sooner we can help each other.”

“How could you possibly help me?”

She grinned. “I’m so glad you asked. Hughie! You’re up!”

The skinny little coward appeared over her shoulder, anxiety painted over his face. “Can’t Mallory or Butcher do this?”

“Nah, Mallory has a powerful resting-hater-face, and Butcher would get himself killed all over me, which would be gross. I don’t need that right now.”

The cocksucker pouted. “Annie?”

“No, I don’t think he’s her biggest fan, especially after the whole tower thing-“

“Stop talking about me like I’m not right fucking here,” Ben cut in.

“Fine, you baby. Hughie,” the woman nudged Cocksucker forward. “Give him the pitch.”

Ben didn’t listen to Cocksucker as he rambled, catching only the beginning and electing to ignore him once the words “article B-55XP2 allows” were said. Instead, he focused on the woman, whose brow was furrowed as she listened to her companion talk. Small tendrils of smoke were rising from her body, and Ben noted the way Cocksucker stood off to the side, attempting to somehow paradoxically hold and elude both Ben’s and the woman’s attention. Her lips were in a tight line now, and she was hugging herself slightly, curving into her own body. The smoke from her had begun to choke the room, and though Ben could hear her level heartbeat, he could also hear her gnaw on her lower lip and the tap of her foot on the floor. When her gaze abruptly slid to his, Ben held it unblinkingly, and the crease in her brow only deepened.

Before Ben could figure out what sat behind her sharp eyes, Cocksucker let out a cough and said a name that made the woman turn.

“Can you turn it down, please?”

“Oh, shit. Sorry, Hughie,” she mumbled, taking another step back as Cocksucker gave a nod of thanks.

“So the big thing to know…” Once again, Ben didn’t hear whatever it was being said. No, he was now fully staring at the woman, her name playing in his head. It wasn’t a supe name, like how Butcher had referred to Blondie. Almost every supe Ben had known preferred being called by their fancy little brand name, but he hadn’t even learned if this bitch had one. Fuck, he hadn’t even heard of her. Last time he had been introduced to a large number of new players, most of them weak, whining pussies with pathetic powers, but this woman was far from pathetic. He hadn’t heard anything about a fire-supe, let alone a doll faced, angry, bitchy one who had to have the resting heart rate of a whale. He bet he could pick it up to match the Cocksuckers, if he really tried. He bet he could make her scream, maybe from being ripped limb from limb, maybe from cumming her brains out all over him. A smirk started to grow on his face as he imagined it, her ice-queen demeanor crumbling from his irresistible charm-

“Are you fucking listening?” The woman herself broke him from his thoughts, her fingers snapping in his face.

“No,” Ben sneered. “Why should I?”

“Well, if you��d pay Hughie half the attention you seem to be paying to my tits, you’d be able to answer your own dumb question.”

“Don’t fucking flatter yourself-“

“Please, I’ve been told you stick your dick in anything with a hole.” She cut him off again, an action that, if she kept it up, would result in her being punched. “Tell you what, I’ll get you a real nice watermelon to play with if you just fucking listen.”

“Fine.”

She paused, but was thrown for only a second. “Ok, great, Hughie-“

“But you do the talking.”

She almost snorted. “Are you that fucking crow-brained that you can’t listen unless it’s something shiny?” She paused. “Sorry Hughie. No offense, you’re plenty shiny.”

The Cocksucker, Ben knew his name was Hughie at this point but couldn’t find himself fucked to use it, just shrugged. “No offense taken.” His attention shifted back to Ben. “Will you really listen if she talks?”

“She talks like a person. You talk like a boring army manual.”

“Could’ve just said book,” Cocksucker said with a frown, but stepped back nonetheless.

“This is fucking stupid,” the woman said with a glare that was somehow stronger than before.

“You wanted me to listen to your stupid little sales pitch, Sunshine. This is what will make me listen.”

She rolled her eyes further back than Ben had ever seen before, but started to speak, her voice dripping with contempt.

“Here’s the deal. You help us with our Homelander problem, we give you immunity for all the definite war crimes you’ve committed and keep you from being Sleeping Beauty for a third time. You’ll stay here, with me, until we have a clear and safe shot at Homelander. You’ll do your little Oppenheimer magic trick, and we’ll take care of the rest. After Homelander's dead, you’ll be free to leave America for good, and live out your shitty immortal life on some stupid island where no one knows who you are.” As she came to the end of her speech, Ben grinned at her.

“See? Wasn’t so hard.”

She didn’t even blink. “Any questions?”

“Questions? Nah. But you should know, this is fucking stupid, and I’m not participating in it. All I’ll get is a vacation, and I could have that right fucking now.”

“Really? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you can’t leave this room, let alone go on vacation. And I’d say what you’d ‘get’,” she used air quotes, and Ben wondered if he could throw her out a window. “Is us not knocking you out right now.”

“Also immunity,” Cocksucker piped up.

She nodded. “Also immunity. We’re offering you this once.” She gave him a sickly-sweet smile. “Act now and we’ll throw in a second watermelon.”

“I’ll fucking break out.” Ben snarled.

“Take your best shot. This safe house is more durable than a cold-war bunker, inside and out.”

“I’ll kill your team.”

“Try it. I’ll burn off your money maker.”

“I’ll heal.”

“Doesn’t mean it won’t hurt.”

“I’ll go back to Vought.”

“Please, you hate them almost as much as me.”

“I doubt that.”

Her voice was coated in visceral, hot rage when she answered. “Don’t.”

Ben paused at that, squinting at her. “Why do you hate them?”

She shrugged. “Not your concern. But for the record, if you did try something that ass-brained, I wouldn’t just burn your face.”

Ben almost flinched when he saw her eyes flick down.

“What if I fail?”

“You won’t.” Her tone made it clear that there wasn’t room for debate.

“What if I want to stay here after, then?” Ben snapped. “I just spent forty years away. I’m not going again.”

“Fucking earn it.”

Ben let out a slow breath. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew when he was backed into a corner. But he had been against walls that were far more dangerous, and far more painful. He would play this little game until he figured out how to take her, the only player aside from him that mattered, out. But he wasn’t going to make any of this pleasant. If they wanted pleasant, they shouldn’t have crossed him in the first place.

“I want my fucking shield and suit back.”

She smiled with teeth for the first time. “I’ll see what I can do.”

——-

This had been a mistake. Now that everyone had left, you could admit—to yourself and no one else—that this was a stupid, arrogant mistake.

The first day had been… rough. There were three bedrooms, all with identical queen beds and equally generic decor. Solider Boy had insisted on laying on all of them to “test their durability." When you had told him they were all the exact same, he had called you an “uncultured hick." You had explained that you were from Boston and currently lived in New York, two urban areas that rendered “hick” an unsuitable title for you, offering “street trash” as a replacement. He told you he’d call you whatever he wanted, utilizing his nickname of “Sunshine” once again. You reminded him of your threat to burn off his favorite part of himself, he said that you would be only depriving yourself of it, and you left the conversation before you could make good on the promise.

Eventually he came down the stairs and gruffly told you that the bedroom with the attached bathroom was his, before stomping back into the said room to do something undoubtedly disgraceful .

Day two was only worse. You had collapsed in the bedroom with the five horse paintings, as it had been closest to the stairs, and you were exhausted from a day of verbal sparring and worrying if you’d have to go back to MM, tail between your legs, and admit you’d been wrong. Now, having gotten a whopping 4 hours of restless sleep, you just wanted coffee. Mallory told you she would send someone to drop groceries overnight, the safe house door having a bank-like slot for packages, and she had made good on her word. You had been able to tell this because when you walked into the kitchen, it looked like a food bomb had detonated.

“What the shit is this?” You said, your voice more tired than angry.

Soldier Boy, sitting at the counter, glared at you. “You’re up late.”

“It’s 7am. In nobody’s world is that ‘late’.”

“I’ve been up for 2 hours.”

You shrugged. “That sounds like a you problem.”

“I had to eat a sandwich.”

“Yeah, that happens.” You survey the mess for anything that you can use, hoping to see a box of cereal buried somewhere. You find what you’re looking for, along with some coffee that you put into the filter and stare at with blank exhaustion. In your sleepy haze, you block out Soldier Boy’s ramblings of hunger and shitty, crunchy peanut butter, hoping he tires himself out and leaves you alone.

You were startled out of your head by the sound of your name.

"Huh?"

“Whatever you’re making, I want some too.” That gets through to you, and your head snaps up.

“How do you know my name?”

"Cocksucker said it."

"Cocksucker?"

"The little puppy that follows Butcher and Starlight around."

"Hughie?"

"Sure." He rolled his eyes. “So, what are we eating?"

"We?"

"I asked you, very nicely, to cook me some of whatever you're making too. Or are you fucking deaf?"

“I’m not cooking anything.”

His brow knit in confusion. “You’re not going to eat? I thought all the feminist shit stopped that.”

“I’m going to eat, Jackass. But I’m not going to cook anything, I’m just going to throw cereal and milk into a bowl. You can do that yourself.” You decided not to touch the feminist comment, focusing on pouring your coffee instead.

“Well, what are you going to cook for lunch.”

“Well, if Mallory followed my list, I’ll heat up chicken tenders.”

“Dinner?”

You tilt your head. “Not sure. That’s like, twelve hours away.”

“But you’ll. You’ll cook something.”

“No.”

“Why?”

You sighed. “I don’t know how to cook.”

“What?!” He looked horrified now. It would almost be funny, if it were any other circumstances. “How?”

“I never learned.”

“But you’re a woman!”

“Yeah, no. We’re not having this conversation.” You turned on your heels to leave the room, coffee in hand, trying to ignore the hot feeling bubbling under your skin. You paused only to call back over your shoulder. “And clean up your fucking mess!”

Thankfully, after that, the morning was uneventful. You avoided Soldier Boy, he avoided you. All the way into lunch, you were almost able to forget your situation.

Almost.

“Fuck!” You tripped over a bag of apples on the floor, your eyes having been glued to your phone as you entered the kitchen. You looked around, seeing the mess from this morning sitting just as you’d left it.

“Keep it down!” Soldier Boy’s voice carried down the stairs. You ignored his request, raising your voice to a shriek.

“Get your manwhore ass down here right now, before I make you!”

You stepped further into the room, the bubbling feeling returning, and surveyed the area that somehow looked worse than before. Picking through the melted frozens, scattered produce, and loose cans and boxes, a dirty knife and plate on the counter.

“What the fuck is a manwhore,” he grumbled as he walked through the door.

“What the hell is this?” You ignored his question, gesturing around you.

He frowned. “The kitchen.”

“No, you ass. Why is all the food still out.”

He glared at you. “Because I’m already doing enough for your sorry ass, I’m not cleaning too.”

“You didn’t even put away your dishes!”

Soldier Boy just gave you an annoyed look, turning to walk away. Your vision went red.

“Shit!” He howled, running backwards into the room before turning with a glare. “You bitch!”

It took you a second to understand what he was talking about. You only managed to clue in from the fading scars on his face, and the realization that the feeling in you had boiled over.

If you were a better, less tired and angry person, you might have apologized. Thank god you weren’t.

“I am not going to spend the next who-knows-how-many months cleaning up after you. If you want to make this as difficult as possible, turn this house into a shithole, feel fucking free. I won’t stop you.”

“You don’t know how many months we’ll be here?”

“There’s a lot of moving parts to this operation that don’t concern you, and-“ You held up your hand as he started to interject. “That’s not the point. Clean up.”

“You should be thankful I’m even still here, you bitch. If it matters so much to you, do it yourself.” He growled back.

“Are you really that fucking stupid, or did you not just hear me say that this is not my mess to clean?! Either you do it, or it doesn’t get done.”

“You couldn’t make me with a million dollars and a blowjob.”

“Good thing I’m not offering either.”

A cold silence settled in the room, your arms crossed over your chest, trying to keep yourself from exploding once more. His glare had developed a murderous glint in his eyes, his fists clenched at his side.

“Bitch.”

You raised your chin. “Cunt.”

“You know, if I didn’t think it’d be a shame to ruin such a nice face, I’d slam you into the oven and burn yours off.”

“Oh, so you are that stupid.”

“Watch yourself.” He said your name in a low voice, taking a rough step forward.

“Sorry, for a second there I thought you said you believed you could burn a supe with fire powers. I must’ve misheard you.”

“I could make this very painful for you.”

“As opposed to your cheery compliance so far?”

“Do you think I’m just going to roll over?” He hissed, taking another step forward. “Be you and Butcher’s little lap dog?”

Something grew taut in your gut, but you held his gaze. “I think that if you don’t back the fuck up, I won’t make you roll over so much as physically harm you until you’re crying on the floor.”

"You're fighting a war you can’t win, Sunshine. I’ll kick your ass.” He sneered. “I’ll make you sob back home to Daddy Butcher.”

Your blood felt cold, your jaw almost cracking from the pressure in your chest. “So do it. Or move.”

Soldier Boy’s face was a portrait of rage, and you felt like he was dissecting with his cold green eyes. Looking for any weakness, any exploitable fallacy on your mask, any crack in your head that he could pry open and fill with poison. Make your lungs collapse into your ribs, make you claw and claw in desperation-

“Hm,” he grunted. He pulled himself to his full height before turning and leaving, leaving your anger sizzling at nothing. You watched as Soldier Boy, with controlled and rigid movements, stepped away from you, leaving the room without another word. Leaving you in the slop of the kitchen. He was getting further and further away from you, too far you to do anything about it, except maybe-

Before you could stop yourself, your hands were wrapped around the knife on the counter and the knife was flying across the room. It bounced off of Soldier Boy's back with a pitiful sound, but he stopped in his path, turning slowly. He glanced down, eyes finding the abandoned utensil on the floor before he dragged his gaze back to you.

“Did you just throw a fucking knife at me?”

“Clean up.”

He stared at you with the same eyes as before, the only betrayer of his emotions the twitch of a muscle in his jaw.

“It’ll take more than a bad throw to make me pussy enough to be your maid, Sunshine.” With that, he was gone.

———-

Ideally, the woman Ben would be forced into a lockdown with would be fun. She would give him sweet smiles and syrupy words, laugh at his jokes, and sprout similar ones. She wouldn’t be a sulking, useless, bitter prude whose greatest talent seemed to be finding issue with every word out of his mouth. Every time they had spoken, he had felt that beat in his ribs grow and grow, and it was nothing short of a fucking miracle it hadn’t gone off.

He hadn’t cleaned the kitchen, and he wouldn’t. It was beneath him, and she was the one who had chosen to be here, not him. In a brief moment of weakness, the stench from the rotten produce almost breaking his resolve, Ben had eyed a vacuum cleaner, only to realize he couldn’t use it if he wanted to. There were far too many buttons, weird twisty things lining the handle and bag, and he would take the first flight to Russia before he asked her for help.

They skirted around each other with success for two days after the knife incident, sneaking into the kitchen at odd hours to look for somehow edible food and leaving every possible door in the house locked behind them. A beautiful and well executed arrangement, broken only by her sudden appearance in the living room a few days later, standing behind him as he watched TV.

“We need to talk.” When Ben didn’t answer, she walked around the sofa, and grabbed the remote, turning off the screen. “Now.”

Ben scowled. “I was busy.”

“Watch a re-run of Jeopardy? With categories you don’t even understand?” She crossed her arms in front of him.

“I understood enough.”

She snorted. “One of the categories was ‘Celebrity-Inspired Products’. Name one modern, non-supe celebrity.”

Ben paused. “Marlon Brando.”

“Marlon Brando died in 2004.”

“Gene Wilder.”

“2016.”

“That one funny guy who was on the rise. In that stupid book movie.” Ben frowned. “William Robinson.”

She titled her head. “William Robinson… Do you mean fucking Robin Williams.”

“I was close,” Ben said with a shrug.

“Yeah, well, not really, cause he died in 2014. Now can we please talk.”

“Are you here to apologize?”

“Yes, actually.”

That got Ben’s attention. “Well then. Go on."

She had started to chew her lip again, her nose wrinkling like she smelled something bad. Though, to be fair, she probably did. The milk in the kitchen had become a problem. “I am sorry.” She took a needlessly labored breath through her nose. “I shouldn’t have thrown the knife at you. It was childish.”

Ben waited for her to continue, and when she didn't, he leaned forward. “That’s it?”

“Yep.”

“So you’re going to clean the kitchen?”

She let out a dry laugh. “Nope.”

Ben lounged back. “Then your apology is worthless.”

The now-familiar look of anger had returned to her face. “I am not your maid.”

“And I’m not yours.”

“I didn’t make the mess. And I’m not going to clean it just because you think you’re better than me.”

“I don’t think I’m better than you,” He retorted. “I am better than you.”

“Because you’re a man?” She jeered. “A big whiny baby with muscles?”

“Because I built up the company that gave you your little sparkle show. I am Vought. Those ungrateful backstabbing assholes wouldn’t be anywhere without me.”

She fell silent at that, the victory pumping its fists inside Ben’s head slowing the drum in his chest. If he had observed one thing about her, it was that there was almost never a time she lacked in words. Also, she listened to her stupid music deafeningly loud and had an impressive arm. He had felt that knife hit him, sharp end first, right on his spine, still burning from the heat of her touch. Another deep breath escaped her, a fog that had formed on her face clearing.

“Power and greatness have nothing to do with cleaning. Vought won’t hear about your refusal to run a dish washer and grovel on their knees for your forgiveness.”

“Because when I’m through with them, they won’t have knees.” Ben smiled at the fanstasy on a wheel-chair bound Stan Edgar.

“No, because they couldn’t give a shit about it. I don’t love being here any more than you, but I have to be. This is a marriage of convenience, so we-“

He snorted. “I'm not marrying you, Sunshine. You’re pretty, but too much of a bitch for my taste.”

“It’s an expression, you fucking idiot. It means a weary alliance hinging on a favor. We don’t need to like each other, but we can’t kill each other, or this will be a net loss.“

“Sure.” Ben gave her his cockiest grin. “Whatever you need to tell yourself.”

“You couldn’t handle me, Grampa.” Despite her mocking voice, her small step back didn’t escape Ben’s notice. Though her heart was steady, he dismissed it as anxiety. Obviously, nobody had helped her relieve any of that clear, needless stress plaguing her in a while. He would. Make this whole situation a little more bearable. Maybe, once she had a good fuck, she’d turn out to be just half as pleasant as his fantasy.

“I fucked Marilyn Monroe. I almost made her leave that pussy, Kennedy. You’d be lucky if I looked at you.”

“I’d say I’m lucky right now. You’re too busy trying to fuck your own reflection to look anywhere else.”

“And my reflection thanks me every fucking night.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” she gave him a toothy, arrogant smile. Ben knew she thought she’d won.

“If you ever want someone to pull that stick out of your ass, I’d be happy to help.”

Her smile faltered quickly, but was plastered back onto her face just as fast. “I’m sure it’ll fall out on its own.”

“In case it doesn’t, my door is open.”

“Thought I was a bitch?”

“You said we didn’t need to like each other to get hitched-”

“Never said hitched.”

“So if you ever want to ‘not like each other,’” he winked at her. “As hard as possible, my door is open. I’m a gentleman, you’d have fun.” He reached to take her, and he had hardly brushed their fingers when she jumped back, recoiling like he was covered in warts.

For the first time, Ben thought that the look on her face might be fear. She rubbed her hand like it had been burned, a part of him thought she might bite through her lips, and her heart had become erratic. But when she spoke, her voice was just as level as always.

“Clean your dishes, and keep your door fucking closed. Or next time I throw a knife, I’ll aim for your eye, and I won’t miss.”

She stomped up the stairs, the room lingering with smoke long after she left.

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leonw4nter · 6 months

Text

Silver Screen

RE2R!Leon x F!Reader modern AU (The 300 followers special!)

You walk into the room, an iPad opened to the latest installment of the fanfiction series you’ve been following for quite some time carried in the nook of your arm and salted caramel boba tea in the other. Setting the sugary drink on the table beside your spot on the couch, you temporarily put your iPad down to get into a comfortable position in the small pillow and blanket nest you’ve made for yourself. With a pleased sigh and an excited grin, you take a long sip of the beverage before finally picking the iPad up and have the coziest time of your life.

You were having a solid few hours of the coziest time of your life until you heard some soft sniffling coming from somewhere in the living room along with the faint pads of feet against the wooden floorboards. You look up, your eyes finally focused on something else other than pixels that formed words on a bright screen. There, you see him: your roommate Leon whose face is in his hands, ears red, and what seems to be muffled crying– no, sobbing as he walks around in circles.

Concerned for your friend and roommate, you get up from your place and walk up to him. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

You place a hand on his broad back, patting and gently stroking it back and forth. Leon finally lifts his head up, wiping off his tears with the sleeve of his dark green sweatshirt.

“This author was not playing around, ended up crying.” is all he said which prompted you to try and hold back a giggle. So he’s been reading fics too, you think to yourself.

“Can I read it?” you ask, to which he nods and fishes his phone out from the pocket of his plaid pajama pants.

“Lemme find it real quick,” he responds. He’s still sniffling, the waterline of his eyes occasionally brimming with a new batch of salty tears before he blinks them away. He finally finds the fic he’s been reading, handing you his phone while he walks over to the kitchen to grab himself a glass of water to stop hiccuping.

“You sure you’re fine?” you call out before you read.

“Yeah! Fic was just really… it was just something!”

You start reading the fic, your eyes trailing on the words on the screen. The words seemed familiar so you guessed that Leon had stumbled on a fic you’ve read before. Wrong! It was your fic, a fic you finished updating around last night. No wonder it was too familiar. You stared at the phone in your hand with wide eyes like a deer in headlights, a child caught with a jar of sweets in her hands when she shouldn’t have been eating sugary things. Your gaze drifted to Leon in the kitchen, who was still somehow trying to control his breathing while chugging down water like his life depended on it. He didn’t seem to notice the sudden drain of color in your face so you continue to scroll down, checking if he left any likes or reblogs or comments on your work. Another bombshell dropped: he’s the top reader of your work and the one that’s been keyboard smashing in the comments, along with the… soulful, emotional reblogs. His account is the one that’s religiously kept up with whatever you post, whether it be new fics or just random vents. BiohazardBard, the sweet account who comments nice stuff like “Don’t worry about us, take some time for yourself! U got this!!” and reblogs with tags like “UEIXGOFQWV CRIED SO HARD U DONT EVEN KNOW IEWBRXXR”on angst fanfiction is your roommate and also your crush.

You stand there in silence, mouth ajar as you continue to stare blankly into his phone, unable to process the fact that he’s aware of your online persona but he doesn’t know that it’s you. You exit the app and turn his phone off, walking over to him in the kitchen and give him pats to his shoulder to really make sure that he’s okay. If he’s calmed down then you’re not– internally, that is.

“That fic uh… it truly was something,” you sympathetically say. “Guessed that the part where uh- she leaves him was the one that got the water works going.”

“Oh um nope, it’s the part where things were slowly spiraling down. Got anxious for them then just full-on bawled when shit hit the fan,” he explains with a sheepish smile. “This fic is just bars, I love it so much actually– Might print a copy of this to take to work when I can’t be on my phone.”

To have your fics reblogged and your account be compared to the unburned version of the Library of Alexandria is one thing but to hear your number one dedicated reader say that to your face? After a breakdown? Nothing will ever top that and he doesn’t even know he just ugly-cried in front of the author he keeps up with.

“Imagine someone coming up to the front desk to be like: “hi someone stole my bike” or something and they call you over and their resident cop is just red as hell and all slobbery,” you joke.

“Shut up! I’ll try not to cry, I’m going to build immunity,” he half-jokes before taking another gulp of water.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

You lay awake at night, staring into the dark nothingness of your room. Your feelings are all convoluted– joy, fear, embarrassment, amusement, excitement– and it’s hard to pinpoint what is ruling over you. Finding out that the man whom you’ve been hinting your feelings for is obsessed with your writing? In complete adoration with the products of your mind and skill? Hopefully he doesn’t suss out on your more romantic and sappy fics, inspired by real-life events you experienced with him (with more romantic and glittery bits). It doesn’t take even a minute to decide that you’ll be keeping this secret from him in order to not make anything weird between you two. Leon already seemed embarrassed after having been caught sobbing like that by a mere set of pixels on screen so you decided that this would be best for both of you. Unable to sleep due to the combined combination of boba tea and adrenaline, you sit up and reach for your phone because reading a fic or two before bed doesn’t hurt, right?

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

It’s been a few days after the little “incident” and Leon’s been more open with showing you some fics he enjoys, occasionally giving his own reviews and recommendations for you. He’s still the same guy that keyboards smashes on your comments and on his reblogs, which makes you giggle since you know who’s been sending you that. He finally came home from a long day of work only to do some more work outside of office hours, catching up on reports that some absent cops left behind and was handed over to him. Making himself a cup of coffee, he stretches his arms and hands before typing away on his dingy laptop for the next 3 hours. A few hours later, you hear some giggling coming from him so you bring your head up and spot his head once again buried in his hand, ears red but from giggling this time. He swings his legs, accidentally nudging the leg of a chair so he yelps a bit, which tugs a little chuckle from you. His ears pick up on the jolly noise coming from you, his face glowing when he sees you smile (or are you just seeing things?). He asks for you to come over to him and points at something on the screen of his laptop.

“Thought you wanted uninterrupted time for work,” you ask.

“I’m on a break, I think I deserve it,” he confidently says. “Anyways, take a look at this. Starting from here until here.”

You expected that you’d see another fic of yours but it was from another account’s instead, which disappointed you a slight bit but not that you minded too much. You finished reading the lines, the corners of your lips tugged skyward with a subtle splash of baby pink tinting your cheeks.

“Damn, that’s sweet,” you comment. “Gosh, I want what they have.”

“Me too. Like, hey God I’m still here ya know! I’ve seen what you’ve done for others!” Leon adds on.

Um, hey Leon! I’m literally right here! Do you need glasses? I’m right beside you!

Since you two were having a nice moment sharing fics and fic lines, you decided to show Leon some lines from fics you love.

“Take a look at this one,” you say as you hand him your iPad. “His description of her had me clawing at walls and biting my fist.”

Leon takes the gadget from your hands with care and places them beside his laptop, reading the lines. He reads in silence and it appears that he’s going over the line again and again.

“Who wrote this?” he asks.

“Uh, scottfree.”

“I don’t think I’m getting out of this scot-free,” Leon jokes. “Pun intended.”

“And why is that…?”

“Because I wrote that.”

You look at him in confusion, two neurons in your brain making a very, very, very slow connection in this moment.

“You’re scottfree?! And also BiohazardBard?!,” you exclaim. So he’s also scottfree, the writer whose lines you’ve screenshotted takes up about a third of all images on your phone. Amazing.

“How do you know I’m BiohazardBard?!?!,” he exclaims even louder as he gets up from his seat.

“Because um– the fic you cried over some days ago is mine! And I saw your account name and profile and I found out that you’re one of my loyal readers!”

He looks like he’s ready to wither away into nothing, become dust and probably get sucked in a vacuum cleaner.

“God that’s embarrassing,” he quietly mumbles. “Tell me: is that fic the first fic you’ve read from me? My other account, I mean– the one where I post fics.”

“Scottfree? Um, no… I’ve read like– quite a lot, actually.”

He stares blankly at you, unsure on how to absorb the information dumped on him. He’s only got a half-asleep half of a brain cell now since the rest of them were allocated on getting those papers done with the other half of the remaining brain cell, which he thinks is now gone.

“While we’re at this, um. You must know that the descriptions I write for the love interests are usually what I wished I could say to you or how I’d describe you. When he’s telling her how magical it is to be around her presence? I’ve daydreamed one too many times about really saying that you,” he quietly confides in you. “If I want to write another story, I hope I could write it alongside you.”

They really weren’t playing with slow-burn romance where both of them are too shy to confess their feelings. It’s happening to me right now! I’m in the confession part of the story!

“I guess it’s a writer thing for writers to include parts of someone they like in their works because I did the same thing for my works, actually. If I wanna come up with a real sweet line, I just think about you and I wish that I’d say these to you. Maybe I’ll wish that whatever I write the love interest to say, I’ll hear you say them to me too and uh… manifesting is real I guess, I dunno,” you awkwardly laugh. “Guess the feeling’s mutual, huh.”

“Yeah. Wow, this is… this is amazing. Real amazing,” Leon softly says.

“Mhm.”

“So…”

“So… what now…?”

“I guess this makes as mutuals in terms of accounts and feelings," the blond grins.

NOTE - Once again, thank you to the lovely 310 people who decided to follow me and keep up with whatever I post :)) I first came up with this while I was washing my cats' bowls and I intended for it to be a drabble but I just decided to make it a fic in the end. Still working on other reqs rn so expect some more posts in the coming days <33 If your usernames are somehow the same as the usernames that I made up for this fic then I didn't mean that and it's just a coincidence 😭🙏 Also y'all gotta hear me out on Francis Mosses from That's Not My Neighbor, he's cute :3 Judging from my mlist, I'm not sure if I love RE2R Leon hmm I'm not too sure 🤔 Anyways, that's all and thank you for reading my fics!!!!!!!!! I <33333 UUUUUU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The dividers are made by @benkeibear , the images are made by me (sourced from Pinterest).

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nmakii · 2 months

Text

ALL BECAUSE I LIKED A BOY?

— watching your life falling into catastrophe before your eyes. all because of a boy, because of oikawa tooru.

— fem!reader, oikawa lowk just plot device, vent draft 🤨, its me im reader, nonfiction 🤣, reader highk whipped

a/n: dawg… just had liek the WORST day at school tfff my whole lunch table dropped me can’t believe i wasted ingredients on a bitch that cant even return my chinese textbook 😒

oikawa tooru has a lot of fans. even that might be an understatement. but, it’s true nonetheless. even you’ve fallen for that cheeky loser’s spell.

in your defense, there are many things to love about him; how funny he is, how much he cares, how devoted he is, not to even mention his looks.

so, yes, you may have fallen for him. a lot of girls have.

“but it’s different this time. we have the chemistry. if he wasn’t so busy with training, if i’d be able to run into him again and hang out with him, then i’m sure he’d feel the same way.” you tell your friends over lunch. one of them scoffs. “suuuure, keep telling yourself that. i watched that latest game he played in, there were at least 10 other girls who were thinking the same thing.”

“you don’t get it, you just don’t get it! we have so many mutual friends, it’s almost as if we were meant to meet, y’know?” you explain, sounding almost desperate as your heart stirs thinking about him.

and, among the many exploits you did to impress him, you started doing volleyball. “s/o-chann! what are you doing here?” oikawa walks over to you, new kneepads in hand. “oh— hey! just buying some things.” you explain to him, handing the cashier some money as they wrap up your new volleyball. “what about you?”

“ahh, just getting some new gear since mine is getting pretty old… i never knew you did volleyball!” he notices things quickly. “well, yeah… i just have a lot on my plate, so i don’t do it as often anymore.” you tell him. “really noww? well, we should play together, okay?” he offers, a competitive edge in his voice.

oh my god. this is your chance to hang out with him. sure, this was what you were hoping for, but not right now… what if you fail to serve so miserably that he ends up laughing at you? but, again, it’s hanging out with him!

“sure! i’m down to play!” you quickly recover from your anxious thoughts. “erm— while we’re both here, you wanna hang out for a while?” you ask, words falling out of your lips without your own accord. “aww, no can dooo… i’m here with iwa-chan, and he’s gonna get mad at me if i bring a girl back with meee…” he pouts. “next time though! i won’t go easy on you!” he laughs before waving you goodbye.

next time.

that meant he wanted to see you. right?

“ughhh, enough about oikawaaaaa… he’s not even that cute, you’re far too good for him.” your friend frowns. you do talk about him too much, but what’s there not to love? all that could spill from your mouth were words of love for him. she was probably sick of it, your whole class was probably sick of it. so many people knew of your crush on him, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he knew and decided to just ignore it.

you couldn’t help it, you just loved him so much.

but, nothing ever came out of it.

he continued with his life, and you moved on with your’s.

soon enough, all the love in your heart for him was drained from his lack of reciprocation. you couldn’t blame him, he has so many fans, it wouldn’t be fair to pay attention to just one.

but still, even if he never got to be your boyfriend, you still got a best friend.

“agh!! s/o-chan, don’t, i look ugly right nowww!” oikawa whines as he runs away from your phone camera, nimbly maneuvering himself through the convenience store’s thin aisles. “come back ‘kawa!” you catch up to him, pulling on his arm so he couldn’t run away and snapping a blurry photo of his face.

“noo, s/o-chan, don’t post it!!” oikawa shakes his head in distress, trying to grab your phone. “too late!” you laugh, hitting post on your new story, oikawa tagged. oikawa falls on top of your body, trying to grab your phone. “delete!” he demands, trying to reach for the phone you held up in the air while keeping you stuck on the ground.

you laugh at his feeble attempts, politely waving hello to one of your classmates walking into the store. “get up!! you’re so embarrassing, ‘kawa!” you try to push him off.

it was a good day, a really good day.

even without that romantic chemistry, there was definitely something between you two. and, everyone could feel it; the way conversation just flowed so naturally between you two when you were simply being yourselves, it was like breathing after drowning for so long.

it was like laughing for the first time. you’ve never gasped for air so much as you did when you were with him.

just friends now, nothing more. and, that’s okay.

the next day, you’d walked into school, still happy from the fun you had after school yesterday. when you overheard someone’s conversation.

‘you know, s/o from class 3-3 is lowkey… so loud. all she talks about is boys. it’s like she thinks she’s someone special.’ you hear someone snicker.

‘her hair is so bad… it’s like… why would she go out looking like that?’ you hear from the long haired brunette in front of you, turning her head to look at you not so subtly.

‘she thinks she’s so funny… she needs to learn when to shut up…’

where did all this come from?

you frown as you try to get along with your day. it’s still alright though, even if most of the school population is against you, you still have your friends.

“s/o, we took a vote and most of us don’t want to eat lunch with you anymore.” your friend tells you, if you can still even call her your friend. the shock can barely even register before you nod. “oh. alright then.” you take your things to eat on one of the benches at school.

“ah! s/o-chan, what are you doing hereee?” oikawa sees you, staring daggers into the gardens. “huh? oh, i…it’s nothing…” you mumble. “don’t you have your own lunch table? why’re you here all aloneeee?” he asks.

and that’s when it finally sank in.

“i just wanted a change of scenery today, i’m okay.” you assure him, using all your willpower to hide the tears that threaten to fall out. oikawa frowns, feeling as if there’s something else, but decides not to pursue it. “hmm, okayyyy… well, if that’s all, i guess there’s no problem. i’m gonna go eat now then!” oikawa waves goodbye, on his way to iwaizumi’s table.

and when he’s finally gone, is when you finally let all the tears fall. this is such a stupid thing to cry about… being kicked out of a lunch table? there are so many other problems you could cry about…

you go to the bathroom to splash some water on your face, eyes all puffy from crying. when you get back to your classroom, you see two of your friends, or… ex-friends. it’s just for a split second, but they run out the other side of the classroom, trying to avoid you.

what was all this even for? because of being friends with a boy you liked? you never even dated, so what harm was done?

you’re so many things; smart, athletic, quite awfully pretty as well. you have your own interests, hobbies, and likes. why do you have to be reduced to liking oikawa? sure, you did talk about him an awful lot, but never recently.

“why did everything go wrong?

all because i liked a boy?”

#haikyuu oikawa #haikyuu #haikyu x reader #haikyu angst #oikawa toru x reader #oikawa x you #oikawa x reader #hq oikawa #oikawa tooru #oikawa fluff #oikawa x y/n #oikawa torū #oikawa toru #toru oikawa x reader #tooru oikawa x reader

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seabirdtxt · 1 year

Text

.Irminsul checkout -b <Realm Within>

You, the Creator, explore the possibilities the teapot realm has to offer and try to make accommodations for your surprising new roommates [< prev] [Blog tag] [next >]

Notes: Genshin SAGAU, reader is the Creator but no cult shenanigans. all relationships are currently platonic! WC. 3k

----- ⚘ -----

Meeting Tubby was just as entertaining as you’d hoped it would be. The flustered teapot spirit nearly dropped her porcelain hat when she saw you, offering to give you a personal tour of the realm mansion (as if you hadn’t designed the interior yourself), calling up Chubby (who was mortified to admit that he hadn’t brought any new stock today), and frantically rearranging furniture as your group roamed the mansion grounds despite your protests that everything was fine as it was. In the end, she settled for hosting you and your two companions over a pot of tea.

The Traveler remains silently amused as they watch you trying to behave politely while Tubby continuously refills your cup with fresh sunsettia tea. Beside them, Wanderer discreetly tosses the contents of his cup over his shoulder with a grimace.

Inevitably, between her stuttered rambling and your patient reassurances, Tubby notices the empty cup and refills it with more tea. Much to Wanderer’s displeasure.

“- and if you need anything to eat, a- any snacks or meals, I would be most honored to procure them for you, Your Grace!” Tubby continues, with you nodding along politely. It seems better to let her vent it out than to stop her, at this point.

“Tubby, would it be very troublesome to get a teapot realm for Their Grace?” the Traveler interjects, saving you from having to placate the bird adeptus once more. “It would be practical for them to have a place of residence while they stay in Teyvat.”

“O- of course!” Tubby nods so quickly you almost fear that her hat will fly off her head. “I can contact Streetwise Rambler posthaste! If you have any preference in shape or colour, Your Grace-”

“Anything you might have readily available is alright with me,” you reassure her. “As long as it has space to accommodate multiple guests, I don’t mind too much what the outside of it looks like.”

“T- that can be arranged!” the teapot spirit exclaims, topping up everyone’s cups before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

The three of you stare awkwardly at the space where Tubby used to be. Eventually, Wanderer gets up and disappears into the mansion, effectively trading places with Paimon as the little sprite returns from within after apparently having raided the Traveler’s pantry.

“Hey!” She exclaims through a mouthful of cookies. “Where did Tubby go? Did you guys drink all the tea?”

“She just went to get a teapot for Their Grace!” the Traveler explains, snatching a package of cookies from Paimon’s tiny hands, to the sprite’s protests. “She should be back soon. I can pour the tea for you, if you want.”

You sit back and enjoy the mindless chatter between the two, and sometime later Wanderer emerges from the mansion with several boxes stacked in his arms. The Traveler jumps up with a noise of surprise.

“Hey! What’s all that stuff?”

“I’m moving out.” Wanderer states, as though it’s obvious.

“Good riddance!” Paimon says, waving a biscuit at him threateningly. “It’s about time you moved out, young man! How are you supposed to learn about the human world if you’re cooped up in the Traveler’s realm all the time? Go outside and touch grass!”

“There’s grass in the realm, Paimon,” the Traveler points out.

“Argh! You know what I mean!”

“Of course, I’ll be moving in with the Creator, ” Wanderer continues as if Paimon hadn’t spoken at all. “Someone needs to keep the other two clowns in check so they don’t wreck the nice home Their Grace will surely build.”

“And that someone couldn’t be anyone else?” you ask, and immediately cringe when his piercing eyes turn toward you.

He huffs with amusement. “Nobody knows them better than me,” he shrugs and shakes his head. “Plus, who knows what my second incarnation will get up to? We don’t know how Irminsul resolved his appearance in this world, so he may yet be part of the Fatui, for all we know.”

“If he’s like you after the Joruri workshop fight, y’know, after you lost the gnosis and all? He’ll probably be weak and powerless,” Paimon says. “Just completely incapable of fighting in any meaningful way. Yes offense.”

“Offense taken.” Wanderer replies with the same tone, shooting a glare at the sprite over his shoulder. “I’ll have you know I’m more than capable of wiping the floor with you, with or without a gnosis.”

“You realize you’re bragging about your ability to beat up the physical equivalent of a two year old?” you interrupt before they could start arguing. They both send you equally scandalized looks, and Paimon splutters and mimes stomping as she tries to defend herself from the accusation of being a child.

“Guys, let’s all calm down for a second,” the Traveler sighs, rubbing their head just as Paimon launches herself at Wanderer and knocking over cups and the magic tea kettle, and Wanderer fends her off with one hand, balancing his stack of boxes with his other arm. He swings around to avoid her tiny fists, knocking over the table and chairs in the process as he dances out of her reach.

“Guys, seriously! Tubby will be back any minute now-”

Just as the words leave their mouth, the adeptus in question suddenly reappears with a lovely little porcelain teapot in her wing-hands. She takes in the scene, of you and the Traveler standing with your arms outstretched to restrain, and Paimon and Wanderer having a spat amidst the wreck of her tea set and furniture.

With a choked gasp, she promptly drops the new teapot.

----- ⚘ -----

After some profuse apologies on everyone’s part, Tubby repairs your new teapot and her furniture with her adeptus magic. She hands you the teapot with reverence, quickly running you through how the Realm Within works (even though you already know) and then ushering you out of the Traveler’s teapot excitedly.

“I hope you like it!” Tubby chirps, feathers fluffed with happiness. “Your teapot spirit is a good friend of mine, I’m sure he will take excellent care of your realm!”

You and Wanderer are ejected from the realm, finding yourselves standing in the glowing Irminsul chamber, outside the Traveler’s golden teapot with the stack of boxes and your porcelain teapot. Somewhere in the distance, you can hear Nahida speaking, likely addressing Scaramouche and Kabukimono.

“Okay! here goes nothing,” you exclaim, placing down the teapot reverently. You grab the realm dispatch that Tubby had given you, visually identical to the one you remember seeing in your game’s inventory but with a red and gold tassel. You hold the strip of wood in your palm and allow yourself to attune to the magic inside it.

Despite not feeling any different after a few moments, you hand over the dispatch to Wanderer, who attunes as well. Once the process is complete, the two of you place your palms against the sides of your teapot and allow yourselves to be warped to the new realm.

Immediately upon appearing in the realm, which you notice is modelled after the same landscape theme as the Traveler’s, a cheerful little basketball-sized grey and yellow teapot spirit floats up to you.

The spirit, looking very much like the little cockatiel-coloured finches from the overworld, greets you with a happy whistle. Where Tubby and Chubby are usually sitting in a fancy teapot-shaped vessel, this one is sitting in a small, but equally ornate, teacup.

“Hi! Hello! Are you my new master?” the tiny adeptus chitters, clapping his wing feathers together. “I’m your teapot spirit! I’m so happy to meet you!”

“Oh great, another one.” Wanderer snorts, then pushes past you and into the mansion with his boxes. You gently hold the teapot spirit to avoid him getting knocked back by the motion.

“Don’t mind him, he’s not very social,” you tell the finch, who looks up at you with adoration. “How about you tell me about yourself?”

The finch reluctantly extracts himself from your hands and floats in front of you, feathers twisting shyly.

“Th- this one doesn’t have many interesting things to tell,” he admits. “Not like Rain Calmer and Jade Seeker… This one hasn’t even been granted a small-name yet…”

“Oh…” you reach out and pat his head. “That’s okay, I can give you a nickname if you really want one.”

“Will you?” the finch gasps, and surely if beaks could smile…

“That can wait for a minute,” Wanderer calls from the mansion’s front door, leaning against the open door frame. “Can we get some furniture in here first? This place is emptier than Dottore’s soul.”

“Oh! Of course!” The teacup spirit hurriedly follows Wanderer into the mansion, with you trailing behind them at a slower pace.

As you walk through the mansion, a collection of Inazuman and Sumerian-style furniture begins popping up around you. You follow Wanderer as he moves from room to room, decorating the first one in purely Inazuman decor, the second with a blend of Inazuman and Shneznayan furniture, and the last with simple Sumerian amenities. Satisfied, Wanderer dumps all his boxes on the floor of the third room.

“Okay, great.” He nods at the nervous finch, then points at the door. “Now you guys, get out.”

You beat a hasty retreat with the teacup spirit in your hands, just barely making it out before Wanderer slams the door behind you. You peer down at the little finch, trying to smile in an encouraging way.

“How about we check out the other rooms while he settles in, shall we?” You offer, and the teacup spirit nods enthusiastically.

You deck out the remaining rooms with whatever nation’s theme inspires the teacup spirit’s artistic expression. For your own room, the last one you two decide to tackle, you choose a mix of all the nations’ furnishings. It creates a bit of an aesthetic mess, but it seems fitting to want a piece of each place.

You clap excitedly for the little finch, who blushes fiercely and coos under your attention.

“Aw, shucks,” he warbles. “I was just doing my job…”

“Nah, you did great, bud!” You reassure him, patting his fluffy head again. “Now, how about that nickname, huh?”

“Wow, really?”

“Sure thing! How about, hmm…”

You squint at the teacup spirit, thinking really hard about a potential nickname. You know Tubby and Chubby’s nicknames aren’t really related to their adepti names, but it still would seem helpful to have something to go off of…

“... Cup…” You mutter to yourself, eyeing his little teacup seat, and the finch spirit perks up at the sound.

“Hm?” The adeptus makes an adorable noise of confusion, head tilted to one side as it eagerly awaits your final decision.

“... Cuppy.” You finally say, more confidently. The newly named Cuppy vibrates with excitement. “Yeah, I kinda like that. Well, nice to meet you, Cuppy!”

“Wow! Thank you so much!!” Cuppy exclaims, crashing into you and doing his utmost to hug you with his stubby little wings. “I’ll cherish this name forever!”

“That has to be among the dumbest names I’ve ever heard, Your Grace,” Wanderer’s voice sounds behind you, and you turn around to stick your tongue out at him.

“W-wait, Your Grace?” Cuppy suddenly lets go of you with a gasp. “You’re the Creator?!”

Before you can say anything in reply, the poor teacup spirit promptly faints in your arms. You quickly make sure Cuppy is alright before giving Wanderer the most exaggerated frown you can muster.

“What? Don’t look at me like that,” he scoffs. “That's what you get for picking such a stupid name.”

“Says the guy who came up with ‘country destroyer’,” you retort.

“It sounded cool at the time!” Wanderer snaps, clearly embarrassed by his past self’s taste.

“Maybe for a ten year old.”

“Well of course it sounds dumb in Common, in Inazuman it’s a lot better.”

“Sure, keep telling yourself that.”

----- ⚘ -----

You and Wanderer exit the realm after Cuppy wakes up again, and you comfort the teacup spirit by telling him that you’re not mad at him and that he’d done nothing to displease you. Reassured, but only barely, Cuppy tearfully accepts your praise and promises not to let you down.

You resurface in the Irminsul chamber for a second time, to the hilarious scene of Nahida restraining both Scaramouche and Kabukimono within glowing green cubes a few feet above the ground. Scaramouche is beating against the transparent walls and furiously shouting, from what you can tell since the cubes appear to be soundproof. Kabukimono is sitting in the far corner of his cube, sulking with his arms crossed.

“- and that’s why it’s important to try and let go of any leftover resentment you harbor toward one another,” Nahida appears to be mid-lecture, wrapping up one of her points as she addresses the two puppets. “Otherwise you will fill up with anger and anxiety like a glass of water that is overflowing, and you will eventually release the surface tension and spill all your negative emotions and make a huge mess that everyone else will have to deal with. You may not realize this now, but the result of your quarrel will be very tiresome to those around you. If you spill water on a very important research paper, or a valuable book, or even a quick pencil drawing on a napkin, you will create irreparable harm to those you have affected, no matter how big or small the consequence appears to be.”

“The metaphor got away from you again, Buer.” Wanderer decides he’s heard enough and brings his hand down on the small god’s head, patting her. She looks up at him with a patient smile.

“Wanderer, Your Grace! Have you sorted out the living arrangements?” She asks cheerfully, releasing the Dendro cubes and allowing the puppets in time-out to drop to the floor in ungraceful heaps.

“We did!” You confirm with equal enthusiasm. “We even have a nice teapot adeptus named Cuppy who helped us out with the decorating and everything!”

“That’s wonderful!” Nahida nods and gestures to Scaramouche and Kabukimono to approach, which they do with some measure of caution. Especially on the Balladeer’s part. He eyes Nahida with newfound suspicion, making sure she doesn’t perform any more Dendro abilities on him.

“Are we going to teleport into your new house?” Kabukimono asks, eyeing the porcelain teapot with intrigue. “The same way you and the Traveler teleported earlier?”

“That’s right, you just need to hold this piece of wood for a minute so that the realm magic recognizes and authorizes you as a guest,” you tell him, holding out the dispatch. Kabukimono takes it delicately, staring at the dispatch with wide eyes even though nothing obvious happens.

After his minute is up, Scaramouche snatches the dispatch out of Kabukimono’s hands and grumbles in annoyance as he looks anywhere but at you guys, allowing the magic to attune to him as well.

Once everyone is ready, you bid Nahida a quick goodbye and show the two puppets how to use the teapot to teleport. As you feel yourself warp in, you watch their expressions.

Wanderer is the most composed, having grown used to teleporting thanks to the Traveler, while Kabukimono seems a little dizzy but not overly bothered. Scaramouche, on the other hand, looks positively nauseous, much to your amusement.

The four of you land in varying degrees of balance on your feet, with Cuppy stuttering out a greeting and ushering you all into the mansion.

Kabukimono is most pleased with his room, plopping down onto the floor mat with a wide grin. An array of tools lines one of the walls, and the adjacent wall opens to a sheltered view of the outside and a small forge. You turn to look at Wanderer as an awestruck Kabukimono takes in his accommodations.

“... What?” Wanderer scowls when he notices your look. “I just know what he’d like, okay? Don’t think too hard about it.”

Scaramouche’s room is next, and he walks in a few paces, has a look around at the very specific combination of aesthetics, and then kicks the door shut in your face. You’re not sure what else you expected from him.

Wanderer’s room is last, and though you already saw it as he was having it customized, you have a quick peek into it.

The Sumeran decor, though relatively plain, is used to great effectiveness. A desk takes up half of the far wall, accompanied by a mostly empty bookshelf and a tall lamp. A few boxes are pushed against the bookcase, unopened so far but you can guess what the contents will be. On the other side is Wanderer’s dresser and bed, and while you know he doesn’t necessarily need to sleep it’s nice to know that he included a bit of comfort for himself anyway.

“Okay, see ya,” Wanderer says, but you interrupt him with a gentle tug on his sleeve. He looks at you with annoyance and mild confusion.

“Thanks for helping me with the decorating,” you half-whisper, a grin spreading across your face. “Who knew you had such good interior design taste?”

“Whatever,” Wanderer huffs and looks at the floor. “It’s just because I knew you would make a mess of it like you did in the Traveler’s teapot.”

“What? No I didn’t. My decorating was just fine!”

Wanderer rolls his eyes at you. “You have a room filled to the brim with random unrelated junk.”

“That’s my storage room,” you state matter-of-factly. “I needed to reach a certain level of adeptal energy to get the maximum currency reward.”

“You say that as if I know what you’re talking about.” Wanderer deadpans and crosses his arms. “It’s still just a room of junk to me.”

“Fine! I see how it is.” You throw your hands up in amused outrage and stomp out of the room. “I guess decorating is your problem from now on, since you’re so good at it or whatever.”

Wanderer nods with a satisfied smirk. “As it should be,” he says before pushing his door closed.

#genshin sagau #sagau #self aware genshin #genshin self aware au #genshin isekai #genshin scaramouche #sagau scaramouche #genshin wanderer #sagau wanderer #genshin kabukimono #sagau kabukimono #sagau x reader #scaramouche x reader #wanderer x reader #kabukimono x reader #seabird.txt #glitch in irminsul AU

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zepskies · 1 year

Text

Break Me Down - Part 4

Pairing: Soldier Boy/Ben x Female Reader

Summary: You’re a private investigator by trade, but now you happily sit at a desk — leading a surveillance team at Supe Affairs. After managing to end Homelander in New York, Soldier Boy escapes custody. You are recruited for the manhunt, joining Butcher’s team.

Truly, you joined the S.A. for the right reasons. But after you become his accidental hostage, Soldier Boy will break down every single one of them…

💚 Break Me Down Masterlist

Word Count: 3,100

Tags/Warnings: Ass-kicking and violence, some perilous situations…

Part 4: On the Inside Out

You were bored out of your mind.

After a few days of watching mindless TV, getting your meals dropped in by Frank, and generally no interaction from anyone else in the meantime, you were about to go fucking insane.

You reminded yourself not to antagonize your keepers. Being left alone was a blessing, really. There were certainly worse things that could be happening to you right now…

But you were also thinking of doing something crazy, like escaping.

You’d considered climbing up into the air vent (too small), and attempting to knock out Frank the next time he delivers your food (he was three times your size and you had nothing even approaching a weapon in here).

The only option you had left was jimmying the lock with your only hairpin. And you were feeling just reckless enough to attempt it.

You believed Frank was standing guard for most of the day, then switching for the night shift. You thought you could hear when Frank handed off his watch, and whoever it was, you didn’t think it was Tony. You hadn’t heard that fucker’s voice since the first day.

So whoever the second watch was, it was someone you hadn’t met yet. But sometimes there was a gap of silence between when you heard footsteps walk away from your door, and when footsteps approached again, making the light darken in the crack beneath your door.

You knew by the TV guide that it was about 2 p.m. So you dressed in a pair of jeans, a shirt, and some sneakers that were too small for your feet, but it was the best you had.

You braided your hair to keep it out of the way. And now that you were ready, you moved quietly to the door. You held your breath while standing there, listening.

Like clockwork, Frank’s booted steps walked away from your door, but there was no change-off. Maybe he was going on lunch break.

But this was your chance.

It took you quite a few minutes, but you managed to pick the lock on your door with the hairpin. You were slow to open the door though. It couldn’t be this easy…

And yet, no one was there.

You were cautious as you walked out, surveying the hall from left to right. It was empty.

You hurried down the hall, looking for both an exit and a weapon. You found a candleholder on the wall, and you pulled it off with only a little bit of struggle. It was pretty heavy for silver, but it would do as a makeshift weapon.

You turned a corner and found a fork in the path—a large hallway versus a narrower hallway.

What the hell? How big is this place?

You took a chance on the larger one.

But just your fucking luck, as you turned the corner, you ran right into Tony.

“What the fuck?” he uttered. Like he couldn’t believe his eyes. “How’d you get out of your room?”

“With a bit of class, jackass,” you snipped, and punched him across the face.

You didn’t wait for him to recover, and you proceeded to beat him with the silver candleholder—first in the face, then the stomach, and finally between his legs.

He bowled over with pained grunting. Payback was a fucking bitch, wasn’t it?

While he was nice and doubled over, you stomped on his broken foot, making him howl and well up with bonafide man tears. You saw them in his eyes. But you elbowed him in the throat to quiet him, and finally grabbed his face, bringing it down sharply into your knee.

Tony fell to the ground in a bloody, unconscious heap.

You couldn’t pause to catch your breath though. You booked it down the hall, down a flight of stairs, and towards the nearest exit you could find—a pair of French doors. For the first time in days, you got a glimpse of sunlight and the outside world.

But before you could reach the doors, you were yanked back by the arm into someone’s firm chest. You fought the hold, but it was ironclad.

When you realized who it was, you looked up in angry resignation.

It was Soldier Boy, of course. He was looking down at you, not sure if he should be stern or amused.

“What a naughty little girl,” he drawled. “Should’ve known you wouldn’t mind your fucking manners.”

Soldier Boy dragged you into what you assumed was the kitchen. He then plopped you down on a chair.

“Sit your ass down and don’t move,” he said sternly.

He seemed to like casual dress pants and buttoned-down shirts, now that he was “out of uniform,” so to speak. These were beige and dark green, respectively. The top buttons of his shirt were hastily done and his hair and beard were damp, which told you he was fresh from the shower.

Likely he’d been exerting himself. You didn’t want to imagine what he’d been doing beforehand.

“Or what?” you snapped. He chuckled.

“Bad girls get punished. Is that what you want, sweetheart?” he asked.

You read the threat in his eyes…so you relented, but your lips were still pursed.

“Can you at least stop calling me sweetheart?” you grit out. He frowned.

“Jesus, you’re a bitch,” he snarked. “What the fuck is wrong with women today? Can’t pay ‘em fucking compliments, got a mouth worse than a goddamn truck driver.”

“You realize what the hell’s coming out of your mouth, right?” you retorted. He raised a brow at you.

“Out of curiosity,” he said, “why’d you break Tony’s face? And his foot…and probably his ball sack.”

“He’s a dick, that’s why,” you shot back. “He shouldn’t be able to create more dicks.”

Soldier Boy actually cracked—with a suspect snort, which he tried to disguise as a clearing of his throat.

But you spied the curve of his lips as he turned from you to grab a couple of glasses. He poured you a whiskey. Unbidden, it reminded you of your shared drink at the club. Something you were sure he intended, by the smugness in his eyes.

You raised a brow, but you took the glass from him and downed it in one. You winced only a lot at the burn down your throat. You peered down at the glass.

“That’s expensive stuff.”

“Damn right. And you just downed it like a fucking college keg,” said Soldier Boy. He poured you another one though, and the two of you drank.

You never thought that you’d be drinking with him. He was both exactly what you expected, and yet nothing at all.

So far, for example, he hadn’t harmed you. At least not himself.

He hadn’t forced himself on you either. And from what Butcher had recounted, this man enjoyed his pleasure. The fact that he hadn’t touched you—in either way—had you both grateful and suspicious. But mostly suspicious.

“All right, get up,” he said suddenly.

That doubled your suspicion. “Why?”

“I’m gonna show you something.”

He pulled you up by your arm, and to your surprise, led you outside through the French doors.

The day was beautiful and bright. There was an enormous pool, and an expanse of a manicured green lawn. Around the corner from the pool, between the shade of large trees, you spied a garden with pretty yellow flowers.

“Whose place is this? The Legend’s?” you asked. Soldier Boy gave you a shrewd look.

“Good guess, but no,” he said. “This is my place. Bought it in ’73, before the tourists started clamoring in. This city’s just not the same. Bunch of overpriced clubs and hipster fucks.”

You were surprised he knew what hipster meant. He must’ve been doing some research of his own during the past few months.

“Easy access to drugs though,” you pointed out wryly. They were, more or less, in the heart of the cocaine capital of the world. Though whatever Soldier Boy wanted, you were sure he could get it as simply as ordering off the McDonalds dollar menu.

He smirked at that. And he led you further through the backyard, if you could call it that. It really was a virtual paradise back here, with acres of land surrounded by jungle trees and a mountain face.

There must’ve been a waterfall as well, because you could hear running water and mist rising from the east. He took you in that direction.

“But wait, we didn’t see any property in South America registered in your name,” you said. “And I was thorough. I combed through the CIA’s records, as well as Vought’s.”

“I wasn’t able to buy it back from Vought until recently. Can you believe those cocksuckers took possession of all my assets when I went under?” Soldier Boy said in irritation. “Fucking bastards. After everything I did for them, I had to buy back my own land.”

That made you pause. The CIA had put pressure on Vought to comply with their manhunt for Soldier Boy. They’d released records…but apparently Grace hadn’t been given everything.

You now knew that Vought had known Soldier Boy’s whereabouts, likely for months, if not since the beginning.

In fact, you wouldn’t be surprised if Vought had facilitated Soldier Boy’s escape. He was right about one thing: he had solved a major problem for Vought in killing Homelander.

Since then, the company had reverted back to Stan Edgar’s control. He was in the process of disbanding what remained of the Seven, along with dropping out of the superhero industry entirely. According to your connections still remaining at Vought (besides Yvette), the company had all but finished developing V24 for the military.

A fantastically fucking stupid idea.

“Ooh, your gears sure are turning, sweetheart,” Soldier Boy remarked. He was eyeing you with a knowing smirk. You looked up at him in annoyance.

“Where the hell are we going?”

He nodded ahead and showed you the boundary of his property—the edge of a damn cliff. It was a steep decline of rock all the way down to a ravine far, far below. It had to be hundreds of feet down.

You were scared to look down, and you had a feeling he could tell. His lips twitched, and he let go of your arm, encouraging you to take a good look.

“It goes like this pretty much all the way around,” he said. “You were probably out for most of it, but you got here on a helicopter. Then a car took you up the driveway into the property. Your friends aren’t gonna find you in a hurry. And that’s if they’re looking for you at all.”

You shot him a look at that. If they’re looking for me…

What an asshole. But you couldn’t deny, you’d had similar thoughts.

Hell, they probably thought you were dead already. Maybe Annie or Hughie would still be holding out for you. Though you very much doubted that they were actively looking for you, more than they were looking for Soldier Boy.

You felt the mist and a gust of wind sweeping up to kiss your face. Your stomach twisted at the height of the cliff, but you took a steadying breath. At the moment, you sort of missed his steel hand that had been wrapped around your arm.

“Okay. So what do you want?” You turned to him. “How do you think this is going to play out?”

Soldier Boy gazed down at you with wry amusement, and a hint of disbelief at your cheek.

“I think you better realize the kind of situation you’ve gotten yourself into, baby doll,” he replied, with an arching brow.

You crossed your arms and glared at him.

“I got myself into? Your attack dog kidnapped me, tried to kill me. On your orders,�� you snapped. “If you’re such a good Samaritan, why don’t you just let me go?”

Soldier Boy laughed in your face. Your eyes narrowed as your arms uncrossed, hands moving to your hips. The wind was starting to pick up now, hitting your back with a bit of unsettling force.

“Seriously. Put another greasy bag over my head and dump me in the middle of the goddamn rain forest with a cell phone. I’ll find my way home and never come after you again,” you said, with all the conviction you could muster.

But really, it wasn’t all a lie when you let a sliver of desperation through.

“At this point, all I want to do is go home,” you said. It was all but pleading.

Soldier Boy had crossed his arms while you were speaking. He’d listened, mostly amused, but he reacted to the vulnerable shift in your words, in your eyes.

Shaking his head, he reached for your arm. “Come on. Let’s go.”

You backed away from him on instinct, and his brows crunched in annoyance.

“I’m not gonna tell you again—” he said.

“Don’t touch me,” you said hotly, again dodging his hand reaching for you.

Until the back of your heel slid over a corner of slippery grass and stone. With a gasp, your knee buckled and your arms flailed as you lost your balance. You managed to catch the way Soldier Boy’s eyes widened, his hand going out to grab your wrist.

Another gust of wind and wet mist coursed between you as you reached out for his hand.

You felt the brush of his fingers as you fell.

Of course, you screamed horribly once you realized what was happening. Wind whipped at your body as the spot where you’d been standing (and Soldier Boy) grew smaller and smaller.

From his vantage point on the cliff, Soldier Boy sighed in annoyance.

He did jump in after you though.

He expertly dove, letting his heavier weight pull him down farther and faster than you. He tucked and rolled until his feet were below him, and he found purchase on a platform that you hadn’t seen from up above. And he caught you in his arms.

You panted for breath and couldn’t help but cling tightly to his neck. When you realized what just happened, you glared up at his smug face.

“What the fuck?!” you exclaimed, annoyed at your own breathlessness. Honestly though, you were surprised he’d saved you at all.

Soldier Boy just rolled his eyes and walked up the narrow path, which you had a feeling only he could safely navigate. Once, he’d had to jump quickly to avoid the rock crumbling beneath his feet.

Once he reached the top, you tried to disentangle yourself and struggled against him until your feet were on the ground. He wrapped an arm around your lower back and pulled you flush against him. Your hands were trapped against his chest, and once again, you glared at him.

“That was a dumbass fucking move you just pulled,” he remarked. “Next time you wanna take a swan dive, I won’t stop you.”

“Fine by me!” you sniped back. “Now let me go, damn it!”

You twisted in vain against his hold. But it seemed he’d had enough of you, because Soldier Boy grabbed your arms and shook you once—firm enough for you to shut up and listen.

“All right, enough goddamn it!” he shouted. “It’s in your best interest not to fucking test me.”

His voice was raw steel and grit, and maybe an edge of menace. His grip was bruising. You could almost feel your bones creaking, and you weren’t able to swallow a whimper of pain.

His grip eased then, though he didn’t release you.

Your breathing shallowed while staring into his eyes, and you knew he meant it. He could easily end this (and you) if you weren’t careful.

Protect yourself, you heard your sister’s voice in your mind. So you quieted and let him lead you back to the house.

He later pushed you back into your room. You tripped and hit the bed with no small amount of force.

You glared back at him…but then you realized something.

Soldier Boy was a man out of time. He’d spent forty years in captivity. That alone would be enough reason for some serious therapy and social deficits. He also clearly held ideals from the times he was raised in. A full century ago.

So maybe being a “difficult woman” wasn’t the way to handle this. Maybe…maybe you had to try and endear yourself to him. (Even though that thought created bile rising in your throat.)

Before he shut the door, you called out in a softer voice.

“Wait,” you implored.

He hesitated. You got your feet under you and approached more calmly.

“Just tell me one thing,” you said. “Why are you letting me live?”

Soldier Boy looked down on you, and his lips formed a grim, more amused smirk.

“You seem to think your friends are going to get the best of me,” he said. “I just wanted to give you a front row seat when I slaughter every last one of those goddamn morons.”

You pursed your lips. Perhaps he hadn’t touched you (yet), but there were very few redeeming qualities about this man. If I’d even call this piece of shit a man.

Still, you didn’t rise to his bait.

“Look, I’m clearly not a threat to you. I’ll stay out of your way,” you promised. “Just…let me stretch my legs once in a while. I’m going crazy in here.”

Soldier Boy took his time as he looked down at you, scrutinizing your face. You stood tall meeting his gaze, but you took pains to soften your eyes and look vulnerable. Defeated.

You were performing harder than you ever had before in your life…and after a moment, it actually paid off.

Unlike you, he took the bait. His hand rose to brush your chin with his thumb.

“All right. But if you give me more trouble than you’re worth…”

His fingers tightened along your jaw, and you held your breath. You didn’t have to fake your fear as you shook your head slightly. His lips quirked with a grin, and he dropped his hand.

“Fine,” Soldier Boy agreed. “You got yourself a hall pass.”

AN: Whew! 😮‍💨 She's in hot water now. Or is Soldier Boy? We'll just see, won't we. 🤔

Let me know what you thought of Part 4! It was certainly fun for me to write.

Next time, she starts to get to know Ben, the real man beneath the persona:

What the fuck is going on? You didn’t know what kind of sick shit he was into, but if he was hurting some poor girl for his own entertainment, you knew you couldn’t just walk away.

After one more second of hesitation, you gripped the door handle and shoved it open.

What you found seared your eyes.

Keep Reading: PART 5

Soldier Boy Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Series Tag List:

@deans-spinster-witch @this-is-me19 @waynes-multiverse @pallographsunspot @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @spalady26 @spnwoman @wirdbeimaufhebengebunden @syrma-sensei @muhahaha303 @123passwort @xoxovienna @magnificentnightmarehadi @lollag0w0 @globetrotter28 @nancymcl @ashbatz @yvonneeeee @fckinel @secretdreamlandmentality @kristophalis @wonderland2022 @waters-2567 @emily-winchester @shelh93 @sl33pylilbunny @spoonmynoodle @chernayawidow @buckybarnes-1917 @secretdreamlandmentality @asgardprincess97 @sometimes-i-sing @itsyellow @karnellius

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anystalker707 · 1 year

Text

Maybe unrequited feelings

Pairing: Vinsmoke Sanji x [gender neutral] Reader Words: ~ 2 800 Summary: The way he treated you made you wonder if he didn't like you, but it seems to be quite the opposite. Tags: Sanji is just a babygirl / Shy Sanji A/N: I'm still learning how to write for op

MASTERLIST

It felt off, really. Were you ugly or something? Maybe annoying. Or just not his type. It all always bugged you a little, an insistent thought in the back of your mind that always resurfaced whenever you saw Sanji with heart eyes pampering whoever he found attractive. Something shifted in your chest whenever you watched it happen, so it wasn’t much different now, watching him talk to whatever person that sat two tables away from you.

That was supposed to be a nice day, shaped for relaxing and clearing your minds on this new island. The crew had divided itself in two parts at some point, with Luffy, Franky, Usopp, Brook and Zoro wandering off at the moment they saw the local commerce, an activity you and the others weren’t really up to, given the intense heat. In the light of this, at the moment, you sat at a small table outside a little restaurant with Nami, Robin, Chopper, and, previously, Sanji. His drink sat unattended at the table; its cold temperature clashed with the hot weather and resulted in a puddle of condensation at the base of the fancy glass.

“You seem a little off, (y/n). Are you sure you are alright?” Chopper asked. His eyes barely made it over the table and his straw made a comically long turn to go above the glass then down to reach his lips.

Your eyes averted to Chopper, but you just pursed your lips in a little funny pout that made him chuckle, so you couldn’t help and smile a little. “I’m fine, Chopper, don’t worry! Just thinking a little, ‘s all!” Why would you talk about it, in the first place? You were sure Robin was tired of your venting.

Nami raised an eyebrow at you, however, crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned back against the chair. “Are you sure? I mean, I’ve been noticing something...” She trailed off, averting her eyes away in a badly played clueless manner; you looked at Robin out of instinct, and the chuckle she gave you in response had your cheeks warming up while you sat back on the chair, covering your face with your hands.

“Waaa, don’t leave me in the dark!” Chopper cried out, tugging at you and then at Nami. “What’s it? What’s it?” He almost walked over the table to do the same to Robin.

“Well, let’s say that Mx. (y/n) would enjoy a little more attention from our cook.” Robin smiled. You wondered how amusing the situation was for her. Even Nami herself seemed to have fun, giggling into her hand.

“Yeah, maybe...” You trailed off, letting your hands run through your hair, and decided to take a large sip of the drink to end it already and perhaps clean your mind a little.

“Eh?” Chopper looked at you for a long moment. “Then you can just—”

“(Y/n) has a crush on Sanji, Chopper!” The volume of Nami’s voice not only had your cheeks burning bright red, but also looking at Sanji to make sure he didn’t hear anything while Chopper made a scandal, as if he had heard the biggest gossip of his whole life—part of you hoped Sanji did catch on it and came over, even if it wouldn’t have the best outcome.

“B—But him, (y/n)?” Chopper’s jaw dropped. “H—He’s nice and all, but—”

“Look at the way you put it!” You clicked your tongue, shaking your head at Nami. “It’s not a crush... I’m just... interested. I would at least like to be friends with him, closer and all, but he just, um, treats me as if I were still new to the crew and all.” A sigh escaped your nose and your eyes drifted away from everyone else—you didn’t need their pitiful looks. What if it sounded a little too attention seeking? It wasn’t really your priority. Everything was fine as long as you and Sanji worked together just right during the fights and didn’t get in the way of each other’s objectives.

Nami hummed as she tilted her head. She didn’t remember Sanji ever directly asking you for your favorite dish so he could prepare it nor at least once urging to be paired up with you when you split up on any plan or adventure. “Now that you’ve mentioned it...” She raised her eyebrows and looked over at Sanji, scratching her chin. “Maybe there’s actually something up with this.”

“Would you like any of us to find out what is happening, (y/n)?” Robin asked you. “I suppose it could be of certain help since you want to be friends with him, at minimum.”

Worrying them wasn’t good—it made a weight set itself in the back of your mind—, but at the same time, something in your chest insisted that you accept it. Maybe there would be improvements you weren’t aware of at the moment. Silence your mind, even. That would be a great improvement, actually, not having you worry about something so constantly, as silly as it was.

“Well, I am not opposed to that,” you mumbled, absentmindedly playing with the straw inside the empty glass. “Just don’t tell him that I, um, am interested. I trust you.” Those words had Nami immediately grinning, rubbing her palms together; you glared at her along with Chopper, though he had more of curious eyes. “Correction, I trust Robin!”

You left after a quick exchange of words, once again telling how you trusted them and reminding them of your condition, this time deciding to go after Luffy and the others to find out what they were up to.

Walking with the others was fun. It was no surprise that Zoro was not with them, but you managed to find him after some point. At first, you were just making sure not to let him get lost, although you eventually got to a point in which you didn’t recognize your surroundings and didn’t see the others as well. As much as you insisted, Zoro just said you two would eventually find them again because you weren’t even lost. Technically you did find them, but it was just when the sun had already disappeared in the horizon, and dinner was already being served at Sunny.

“Hi!” You called as you took a seat next to Nami, happy to be at the ship again, and eyed her bowl with a hum of appreciation. “Sorry, we got lost!”

“We did not!” Zoro retorted; you chuckled with a roll of eyes, but wouldn’t argue, not this time.

“We—”

“Here, Mx. (y/n).” Sanji stood there bowing down, with a cloth over the arm he didn’t use to hand out the bowl with food that he had served for you. He was there, noticing you. Wow, you existed to Sanji as something aside from a fighting partner. “I hope you enjoy it.”

“Thank you.” Your voice was weaker than you’d like it to be. The bowl was warm, heating up your hands after a long day of holding glasses and cups of cold drinks, and the taste was better than ever. Nami’s eyes on you were difficult not to notice, however, you decided to ignore it for now, continuing to eat. What did they tell Sanji?

The empty dishes were set aside, being collected by Sanji and Chopper, while you talked with Nami and Robin, leaned against the railing while observing the waves crash against the side of Sunny. Once loud and crowded, now the island sat quiet since the people at the streets near the shore were in their homes already, plus that Zoro and Luffy already snored away wherever they were; the rest were probably off to their quarters or messing with anything else in the peace of the night.

Your talk with the girls had already faded away, leaving you busy with your thoughts instead, or at least until Nami spoke up again. “I’m going to be right back,” she said, leaving with no further explanation, disappearing inside the kitchen.

“Maybe I should go to sleep as well.” You yawned. Your muscles complained a bit with the way you rolled your shoulders in a futile attempt to get rid of the weight that clung to them. Lying down on your soft mattress would feel simply perfect after a long day like that.

Robin placed a hand over your forearm before you could move. “Can you just wait for Nami to return, with me?”

“Well, sure.” Just a little longer wouldn’t hurt. The thing is, it wasn’t just a little longer. You couldn’t keep your feet in the same place for long enough. You had spent the whole day walking around the city, so lying down wasn’t a bad idea at all. "Robin—"

"I think she is not coming back." Robin chuckled. "Come on." She nodded back to the kitchen—aw damn, she dragged you to the kitchen instead of the quarters' direction.

The kitchen was all quiet. Only Chopper was there, asleep in the corner, and the other two were nowhere to be seen. Robin moved to get a glass of water for herself and you did the same, hoping it would help you fight the tiredness a little. It did, thankfully, because Robin was taking you downstairs next. Why would she go to the bar, anyways?

Getting closer, you could hear Nami’s voice. She sounded stern. "...and you'll open that damn mouth of yours and speak, you hear me?" A hand rested on her hip while she held her index finger out at Sanji's face, looking like a mother scolding her kid, when you walked in.

"Yes, Nami-swam!" Sanji bit on his handkerchief that he held, sniffling and crying dramatically as he nodded frantically, with red cheeks. His wide eyes observed Nami proudly move back and cross her arms, with a smile lingering over her lips when she finally acknowledged your and Robin's presence. Oh. The idea of what could happen already had your cheeks heating up.

"We did have a talk earlier today, as you had asked, (y/n)." Nami’s humor took a turn again, turning light and sweet as it always was most of the time when it came to you.

A soft sigh escaped your nose; you nodded, not knowing where to look. Thankfully, it was happening, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea if it were over soon. You gulped, returning your attention to Nami in a silent request for her to continue. It was awkward, of course, because you were dragging Robin and Nami into a situation that wasn’t theirs, even if they were the ones to offer to help, in the first place. Sanji could be being bothered in unimaginable ways and then start hating you, you never knew.

“Well, I’m heading to bed. I don’t think it’s my business to interfere!” Nami said simply, waving a hand as she walked past you to leave the place, followed by Robin, who wished you a good night before she could leave.

A shiver ran down your spine and you felt reality finally crash over you at the moment their footsteps faded in the distance and Sanji sniffled again. You shook your head, scratching the back of your neck. “Um, look, I—”

“I’m so sorry, (y/n)-san!” Suddenly, he was on his knees right in front of you, frantically bowing. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t ever mean to make you feel this way! Truth is I actually like you a lot! I’m so sorry, (y/n)-san!” He cried out with that traditional drama of his that you’d always seen, but never directed towards you.

“You... like me?” You furrowed your eyebrows, confusion only growing when Sanji froze on his tracks and moved to sit back on his legs, with his hands clasped together over his chest.

“I—I, um, yes!” Sanji had his cheeks red; hell, that was something new since he wasn’t even drunk. How much did Nami scold him for him to be reduced to pieces like this? It was even funny. “I just don’t know what to... I felt like flirting with you all the same as the others wouldn’t work, it needed to be special, but I also didn’t know how else to approach you, I was just waiting for the right moment—” The whole blabbering had you questioning if he would die talking so much without taking a single breath, but then something clicked in your mind. Approaching you had to be...

“Special?” You questioned as you crouched down in front of him, and the new proximity had Sanji covering his face with his hands.

“Sorry for not being good enough and for my unrequited feelings! I never wanted to bother you, (y/n)-san!”

Unrequited feelings. You wanted to laugh, though you held it back because of the uncertainty regarding how he would react to it, so you instead just pressed your lips together into a smile as you looked at him. Sanji was about to bow again when you held onto his shoulder.

“I...” You sighed, gaze falling to the ground. “I wouldn’t call it unrequired.” An awkward chuckle escaped your lips, fading away into silence. Did you do something wrong? Aw, fuck. When you looked at Sanji again, his face burned bright red as blood flowed from his nose again. “Sanjiii!” You cried, shaking his shoulders to knock life back into him, and finally stopped when his hands wrapped around your wrists.

“You like me back, (y/n)-san?” And Sanji started blabbering again, this time soon falling silent with a soft cry muffled into the palms of his hands. Even though you couldn’t see his face, his ears were bright red. Who knew? Sanji actually liked you, and instead of being bold and flirty like he usually was with the people he was infatuated with, he got all shy instead.

Holding back another chuckle was impossible, letting your lips curl into a smirk as you poked his hand. “Ohh, so that’s why you get all shy around me? That’s why you avoid me? Because you don’t know what to do, afraid I won’t like you?” Whatever he said in response fell incoherent against his hands. “Hell, and me here thinking that you didn’t like me! Who knew I could’ve gotten the boy I wanted much earlier?” The words you chose had the exact effect you expected, flustering Sanji even more, though you didn’t imagine him to be quiet with it, whining about something you didn’t understand, once more. “Aw, Sanji!” Something in your chest shifted with the way he knelt there all small.

Sanji’s shoulders shrunk a little with the way you reached out to run your fingers through his hair, almost curling up into a ball right there when you pressed a kiss to his head.

“C’mon, can I see your face?” Your finger ran up and down the back of his hand, tracing a protruding vein before circling his knuckle. Gulping, Sanji shook his head. “Aw!” You pouted. “How am I supposed to kiss you, then? Not that I will be mad if you don’t want it to happen now, but it would be nice.”

His fingers twitched a little, and Sanji parted his fingers a little to look at you—you tilted your head with a smile in response. It was slow, but he did uncover his face, still never looking you in the eyes. Damn, and think that, among so many people, you were the one who could reduce him to such a state. His hands rested over his thighs, clenched into fists.

“There’s no need to be nervous,” you mumbled and cupped his cheek, leaning in. At first, it was only a brush of your nose against Sanji’s, experimentally—as light as the touch was, he still flinched and leaned back. Okay, maybe you were rushing... or not. He immediately leaned into your hand again, although closing his eyes.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“No, no, it’s fine.” You let your thumb run over his cheekbone. “I can just—” He shook his head again, so you interrupted yourself.

“Please...?” Sanji opened his eyes a little, letting his hand rest over yours.

Before you could start to overthink things, you just leaned in to finally press your lips to his. It was awkward at first, out of synchrony, slowly growing into something softer. His lips were a little cracked, letting you control the kiss then seeking yours when you threatened to pull away, so you deepened the kiss; he sighed softly. You only pulled away when the air wasn’t enough and let Sanji rest his head against your shoulder.

Only the sound of your breathing along with the water’s broke through the silence. A feeling tingled in your chest, making you feel nice all over; you couldn’t help but hug Sanji close, nuzzling his shoulder softly. A long sigh escaped your nose when you fell to reality again, noticing how your knees started to ache against the wooden floor.

“Hey, it’s late.” You patted his back. “How about we go to bed? Make sure to sleep well so we can enjoy the day tomorrow, okay?”

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

#one piece #sanji vinsmoke #sanji #x reader #x male reader #x female reader #gender neutral #fan fic #fan fiction #oneshot #imagine #monkey d luffy #roronoa zoro #tony tony chopper #sanji x reader

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soapyghost · 2 years

Text

EMBERS

Firefighter John Price x Fem! Reader

I constantly have Price brain rot so like have my horny thoughts. Hear me out- firefighter price. EH? EHHHH?? Ok fuck you im doing it :) Anyways- this is dedicated to my local fire department cuz they are FINE AF (i see yall at the grocery store how u doin)

So I’m planning on making this a series. A lil slow burn. Idk how many parts. Enjoy the ride. Lmk if you want to be put on the tag list.

Warnings: eventual smut!!! Fluff, fire, mentions of injuries, angst kinda? Use of Y/N. Let me know if I missed anything.

Tag list- @southernbluebellereader (thank you so much for letting me vent about this work ily)

Funny how the worst night of your life would lead you to the best night of your life. Waking up the the blaring sounds of an alarm, you roll over and blindly grab your phone. It couldn't be 7am already can it? You tap on the screen to reveal it's only 2:47am and that sound was not your alarm. It takes you a moment to realize the ear shattering sound is coming from the fire alarm in your kitchen.

Without thinking you fling yourself out of the embrace of the covers only to be met with thick, choking, black smoke. Sputtering you being to cough and eyes filling with tears as you drop to the ground. Crawling to the door on all fours you slowly make your way across the hard vinyl flooring. Again, you mindlessly grab the door handle only to immediately fall backwards onto your back at the searing pain now flowing through your hand. A scream escapes your mouth as you look down, and even in the dark of the room you can see the charred flesh of your hand.

This is it, you think, swallowing hard. This is how you go. Scared and alone in your shitty one bedroom apartment in the same shitty town you were born. They're going to find your body on the morning news, charred and nearly unrecognizable, wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt and panties. You let out a sob as the tears begin to fall from your eyes, mixing with the soot in the air. The burning only adds to your hysteria. Curling up into the fetal position and rocking back and forth you wait for your end.

Suddenly the door to your bedroom is smashed open, wood chips flying everywhere. You scream again and fling your eyes open. Before you stands a giant, a monster. You let out another scream and begin shuffling backwards to the corner of the room. The large creature begins moving towards you and scoops you up like you were nothing. You'd come to terms with dying and becoming a crisp but not dying to a shadow. Squirming you try to get out of the iron clad grasp holding you bridal style. "I got one, she's alive" a voice comes from the monster. Its not until you're out in the hallway that you finally notice, its not a creature, not a monster, but a man.

Piercing blue eyes look down at you from the inside of a yellow hood, crinkling into a small smile. "It's going to be ok, shhh" the thick British voice says, muffled by the gas mask protecting his face. Gulping and holding back tears, you simply nod before putting your face into his chest.

Cold air hits your thighs as you breach the exit of the apartment complex. A gasp escapes your throat and goosebumps immediately cover your body. A small chuckle escapes the figure holding you. He sets you down on the grass, far out of the reach of the fire engulfing your home. You open your eyes to look upon your savior as he kneels down to remove his mask. When he does, the world seems to move in slow motion like one of those stupid commercials.

He's simply breathtaking, from his perfect blue eyes to the well groomed beard that graces his face. "You alrigh' luv?" he asks, reaching out a gloved hand to your shoulder. His voice shakes you out of your daze, back to the harsh reality that you are half naked on the grass outside the crumbling building you used to live in.

It's such a simple question, but after everything you've just been through, it hits like a ton of bricks and tears begin to well up in your eyes again. "Thank you" you hiccup out between sobs, holding tightly onto the hand on your shoulder. He grabs you and brings you into a tight embrace. The world stops, there's no more yelling, no more burning buildings, no more sirens. Its just you and him.

"Cap? You good?" a voice breaks through your fantasy, and you whip your head around to see yet another beautiful man. This one sporting a mohawk and beautiful hazel eyes. "All good here Soap, go." your savior commands. "Soap?" you croak, a huff of a laugh escaping you. Looking back to the man holding you together, a soft smile crawls upon your lips. "Ha, yeah. Long story. You never answered me luv, you alright?" he asks, pulling away slightly to look you over, suddenly realizing just how exposed you were.

Immediately he takes off his jacket and lays it on you, offering you some small form of coverage. "'M alrigh" you respond, breathless. Truth be told, you were far from alright, but that was all you could muster. The man smiles at you and begins to get up, but before you can think you reach out and pull him back, "please... please don't leave" you whisper. His eyes widen ever so slightly, before he holds you back. "Alrigh' luv I won't leave you, cmon'" he smiles, scooping you back up and taking you to the back of the ambulance.

Setting you down in the back, he readjusts the jacket to cover your lower half before looking back up into your eyes, "Names John" he says. You look up into the eyes of the man who just saved your life, "John" you say, testing out the feeling of his name on your tongue. "That's it luv, don't wear it out now ya 'ear?" he murmurs into your ear before finally untangling himself from you. A small whine escapes your throat at the loss of contact, and a blush rises up your face as you realize that he definitely heard it. He chuckles, "alrigh' love, I need to go back to my team, will you let the paramedics check you out?" he asks, looking deep in your eyes. You swallow thickly and nod, "will you come back?" you whisper, your face growing redder by the second. "Of course, luv" he says before cupping your cheek and smiling. He drops his hand, offering you one last smile before saying, “take good care of her eh Gaz?”. He turns his back and jogs back to the firetruck.

The paramedic begins to check you out, tending to your hand. He’s also good looking; tall, muscular and sporting a baseball cap. You notice he also has a slight accent. As he grabs the gauze to wrap your hand he says, “so you didn’t pay attention in school huh?” The remark catches you off guard and you simply blink in confusion at the man, did he really just ask you that? “You shouldn’t grab metal in a fire” he chuckles, finishing your hand and giving you a pat on the shoulder.

“Guess not huh” you respond sheepishly. Not only were you almost burnt to a crisp but now you’re getting chastised for not remembering elementary school training. “Ah, we all forget things in the moment. You’ll be ight” he smiles, placing his med kit back in the ambulance. You look down at the jacket covering your bare legs, it reads in all caps “PRICE”. John Price.

Johns smiling face rounds the corner just as Gaz finishes cleaning up, “how she lookin’ kid?” he asks, looking at you. “Ah she’ll be ight cap” Gaz responds, taking the unspoken hint to slip away and leave you two alone. You absentmindedly flex your hand, the feeling of the gauze on your hand unfamiliar and coarse.

“You alright sweetheart?” John kneels to be closer to your height, his eyes looking deep into yours. “Much better now. I don’t think I’ll ever forget to not touch metal” you laugh weakly. His laugh surprises you, deep and rich. The wrinkles by his eyes deepen as he laughs.

Now that the immediate threat of dying was over, you began to notice just how attractive John was. His muscles rippling underneath the tight long sleeve made your head spin. Or maybe it was the smoke inhalation. You could make out the salt and pepper greys in his beard and hair. And to top it all off, his beautiful blue eyes. You could get lost in them, you were lost in them.

A hand waves itself infront of your face and snaps you back to reality. You’d been caught and you blushed feverishly. “Luv?” John asked, “I asked ya a question.” “Oh ah uh. Sorry. Adrenaline” you answer, eyes darting to the concrete below, trying desperately to hide your face. “I asked if you got somewhere to stay?” He questions again. “Oh. Uhm. Yeah I can get a hotel.” You say, not quite sure how you’ll afford it but you really don’t have any option. “Well then, we’ll take ya” John smiles, holding out his hand.

You grab his hand and move his jacket so it’s resting on your shoulders. He leads you back to the fire truck where the rest of his crew is waiting. “Cap?” A man in a balaclava asks. “Were just taking.. hmm didn’t catch your name luv” John looks over to you. “Oh it’s Y/N” you say, blushing once again. “Beautiful. We’re dropping Y/N off a hotel” John states, recieving nods from his crew.

The ride there is quiet, John driving, the smell of smoke suffocating the cab of the truck. All the men looked exhausted, the one they called soap dozing off. But the man in the balaclava never took his eyes off you, never waivered. You found him odd, his stare unsettling you a bit.

When you finally make it to a hotel Soap wakes and opens the door for you, where John is waiting to help you down. He leads you into the lobby and before you can speak he says “one room for the lady please” to the receptionist. The woman behind the desk smiles and says, “sure thing John” before sliding him a key.

“But wait- I need to pay!” You exclaim. John simply laughs and extends his hand out again to lead you to your room. “No need to worry luv, this is on me” he smiles. You could get lost forever in that smile, would do anything to get to see it. The walk to your room seeming all too short, he drops your hand to unlock the door and holds it open for you.

“Get some rest alright?” He says, looking down at you. All the adrenaline has evaporated from your body and all you can think about is how comfortable that bed looks. You look up to him and whisper, “thank you.” He smiles again, before gesturing you inside. “Sleep well, luv’” he murmurs before closing the door and leaving you in the darkness of the hotel room.

You don’t even remember crawling into bed or even falling asleep. When you wake, you’re comfortably in bed still in John Prices jacket.

#mw2 #modern warfare 2 #mw2 smut #mw2 x reader #captian price #captain john price #john price #captain price smut #captain price x reader #price x reader #mw2 price #price mw2 #slow burn

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scourgeofgotham · 1 year

Text

Canary and Jaybird

chapter three

Warnings: SMUT 18+

Graphic Sexual Content, Crying, Unresolved Trauma, Spitting, Degradation, Dom/Sub, Slapping, Praise! Kink, Begging, DD/LG, Breeding, Stockholm Syndrome, Reader has PTSD, Mentions of Rape

A/N: okay in AK when Jason reveals himself to Bruce, he's like “I'm hurt.” AHHHHH I'm drooling, I'm crying, I'm wet. his tone and how he talks makes me sopping wet.

It was Jason’s 16th birthday, 7 months since he was missing. It hurt her every day knowing that her Jaybird wasn't coming home. Why did he have to go after Joker alone? She was suited up as Batgirl standing on top of the Trigate bridge starting at the Asylum. This was the fifth time now.

She pondered, wondering if Jason could be locked up in Arkham. This was the night she decided to follow through and listen to her heart. She went around each wing silently, trying not to make noise. There was a wing being guarded by an Arkham officer, just as she was walking away she heard the doors open, walking out was the Joker.

Her heart started to ache, wanting her to go and check it out. There's probably nothing in there. It took her a solid 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get in there without alerting the officer. She found a vent in the very top and climbed up there and used her grapple hook to pull it off, once it was off she climbed down silently and dropped it on one of the exposed air vents. She climbed in and found an air vent opening. She looked around wondering what was in there and saw a figure tied to a chair. She surveillance the room to see if anyone else was in there and the only other person was Harley Quinn

Easy.

She dropped down behind Quinn trying to be quiet and crouched right behind her and knocked her out.

“It-It can't be you.” the voice called out.

It can't be.

She looked up at the body and saw a body wrapped in barbwire. She saw on the suit the Robin symbol. She stepped closer and saw her beloved. He was bruised, covered in blood with a horrendous ‘J’ on his cheek below his eye. “Jason.” she ran towards him wanting to kiss him. “Get. Away. From. Me.” Jason growled. “It's been months since I was captured and now you wanna rescue me?” he sounded so broken and afraid.

“Jay, I've been looking for you. I've been trying so hard to find you. Lemme get you out of here and I can help you.” she softly spoke. “Where is Bruce?” he hissed. “Does he even care?” She wanted to cry. “He's been looking too, I just thought maybe in Arkham and tonight I finally got past all the guards baby. Let me take you home.” She was the broken one, crying trying to stay calm. “I gotta get you out. The Joker is gonna come back soon and I gotta get you out.”

She tried to get the barbwire off of him but Harley started waking up, and she could hear the Joker coming back. “I'll be up in the air vent baby. I love you, I'm gonna get you out.” She kissed him, one last time. She got up to the air vent before the doors opened. The Joker walked up to Jason moving the barbwire off of him. “We’re gonna make a little video for Batman. Harley?” “I don't know what happened Mr. J! I was watching Birdbrain over there and I fell unconscious,” Harley confessed. “Do better Harley or I'm gonna replace you with Batsys pet.” The Joker hissed.

“Alright, Jason look into the camera for Daddy.”

“State your name.”

“My name is Jason Todd.”

“Who do you hate?”

“Batman”

“You know I never asked. What's the big secret? Who is the big bad bat?”

“His name. Tell me.”

“Of course sir, it's-”

She got a sign that he was still alive not too long ago. She saw millions of dollars being drained out of one of Bruce’s many bank accounts. One day after school she saw a Tenderheart bear, brand new with tags on it sitting on her bed. Alongside a copy of her favourite book Wuthering Heights. Inside a quote, “She burned too bright for this world.”

She immediately knew that only Jason would buy that for her.

“What do you say, Princess? You wanna thank Daddy for rescuing you from Bruce? So you can be Daddy’s little slave forever and never have to go outside again? I can bring you everything you want and need.”

Bruce?

“How do y-” “Jason was never good at keeping secrets princess.” he interrupted her. “Don’t stray away from what I asked. You wanna be Daddy’s Princess forever?”

She contemplated, knowing that Jason was probably killed. She saw him get shot and after, she still hoped he survived.

“What happened to Jason?” she asked, still wanting to know. “Okay, Nancy Drew, if you wanna ruin the moment, I'll tell you.” He spat. “Deathstroke killed him. There I said it. He's been dead for so long now that you need to stop hanging on and get over it.”

It felt like a knife was digging into her heart and twisting. “No...” her whole world shattered.

“I got a sign from him, He left me presents. I saw money being drained out of Bruce's accounts.” “Wrong. I got out every single piece of information from him before we tossed his body into the water. I got you your favourite book sweetheart. All of those love notes and flowers were from me. The money, however, Jason paid to not be killed. However, we got everything we wanted out of him.” He confessed. “Now, I've been waiting, and you don't have anyone to save you.” He hissed. He grabbed her face and let go grabbing her neck instead. “Be my rapeslut, there's nothing you can do to make me stop.” The distorted voice made it hard to hear how upset he was.

He's gone forever...

He positioned himself at her opening, “Daddy?” she said softly, causing him to stop and look at her. “Yes, Peanut?”

“Thank you for rescuing me, Daddy.” she sounded broken. “Can you kiss me?” she asked, putting her hands up to his helmet. “Let me blindfold you, Princess.” he got off of her finding something to blindfold her with. “Alright lift your head up.”

She lifted her head and saw he was wrapping a piece of cloth around her head. “Can you see me?” “No Daddy.” She lied she could see just a little bit but not clearly enough.

She heard the Knight push the button on his helmet and saw the shadow of it coming up. She giggled, “Please kiss me, Daddy.” “Of course Belle.” His voice, it was so smooth and silky. It sounded so raspy but sweet. She swear she heard his voice before. She felt his soft lips kiss hers, and she melted. She grabbed his head pulling him in by his helmet, and wouldn't him go, she kept kissing him. The two made out for what seemed like years. She was in heaven, his soft buttery lips against hers. She felt a tongue brush up against hers and moaned. She wanted him to never wear that stupid helmet around her again.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him in. “Daddy.” she moaned. She pulled away “Can I please take off your mask? I wanna grab your hair. I promise I'll be good.” she begged. “I promise Daddy.”

“You want it off? Beg,” he commanded. “Please Daddy, I won't ever try to escape again. There's nothing out there for me, I don't wanna think anymore. I don't want to have to fight criminals anymore, I wanna be all yours and have you take care of me. I'll let you breed me, I'll be yours. I wanna stand alongside you and sleep in the same bed as you, I love you, Daddy. I don't even know what you look like, but you know me. You know how I wanna be touched, you know what I want to hear. Please, Daddy.” she begged, tears collecting in the blindfold.

He took off his mask, pleased at what she confessed. He tossed it on the bed next to them. He started kissing her neck leaving hickies scattered across her skin. She moaned and ran her hands up his neck feeling that he took it off. She tugged on his hair lightly, making him bite her shoulder. When she felt his teeth sink in, she gasped “More.” He took this as an invitation and moved her on her stomach, taking turns in between biting her, kissing her, and giving her hickeys. “Such a good girl.” He mumbled.

He decided he couldn't wait any longer and put his throbbing tip in her tight hole. He started sinking in, splitting her puffy swollen lips open. “Fuck” He gasped. “Daddy, it hurts.” she mumbled, “You can’t fit,” she whispered. “I'm gonna fit sweetheart, I'm gonna split you in two.” He thrusted, making her gasp. “Told you,” he mumbled. He was so big, and she hasn't had sex in years. “Fuck” she moaned, he grabbed her by her hair and lifted her against his body, and slapped her across her face. His voice was so smooth and commanding, she was drunk on his voice.

He held her against him with his arm across her throat, his other hand toying with her throbbing clit. “Look so good Belle, stuffed full,” he mumbled. She was mewling with enjoyment, he was so big, so dominant. “Love you, Daddy” she coos, her voice all of a sudden high-pitched. Her right hand holding his arm, and her left is holding his hand that's making circles with her puffy and swollen clit. She kept getting more aroused and started leaking out of her stuffed cunt. “Princess, you're making a mess.” he teased. She started whining. “I love those little sounds of yours” he gasped. She started giggling, “Daddy, feel so good.” she took her right arm and placed it behind her trying to touch him, she leaned back into him. “Kiss?” she coos. “Course,” he mumbled. Leaning into her to give her a kiss. “Change?” she said softly. “Mhmmm?” he hummed. “Want you differently” she whispered.

He left her weeping abused cunt, taking his arm off her neck and moving his arm away from her swollen clit. He shoves her on the bed making her gasp. He flips her over and lifts her legs on his shoulders shoving his throbbing member into her abused cunt. He placed his hands on her legs holding her legs up, she had her hands on his legs.

She gasped. “Daddy” Whining loudly. He pulled out, then slammed himself back in, over and over. He leaned over to her face, “Open” he commanded. She opened up her mouth and he spat in it. “Swallow baby.” She did as she was told giving a toothy, fucked out smile.

He found her secret spot making her dig her fingers into him, making him grin. “Feel good? Right here?” he teased, pushing his head against the exact spot, making her whine and squirm. He kept doing it over and over again making her pull her hand off of his leg and shoving it in her mouth to bite on to hold back her moans. She started screaming from the pleasure, thank god the blindfold is on or he would see her eyes barely being able to keep open.

He pulled her hand out and slapped her again, “Lemme hear those moans” he spat. “Don’t you dare keep those from me” he growled. He took his hand and started rubbing her swollen clit. She bit her lip wanting to keep them in. She couldn't contain it anymore once she felt like she was nearing her second orgasm. “Daddy?” she asked.

“Mhmm?”

“Cum?” she couldn't think of full sentences anymore.

“Almost Princess,” he could feel himself getting close.

“Fucked out of your mind?” he teased.

“Mhmm, thank you.” she coos.

Almost at her limit, her eyes rolling around in her head, drool coming out of her mouth a little bit. Just barely letting go of the Knight’s legs. He is almost at his limit as well, panting and groaning from her tight walls spasming. “Cum together?” She mumbled.

“Yeah, Belle.”

A minute later he reached his climax, “Okay Princess you can cum.” He said letting her tip him over the edge. He filled her walls with his cum, making sure her cunt gets every drop. “Thank you.” she coos. He pulled out of her watching as some of their fluids pour out, taking his fingers and pushing their cum back in. “Filled you up,” he said. “Have baby soon?” she whined, still cockdrunk. He chuckled. “So fucked out.” He laughed, moving up to kiss his little girl once more before the helmet went back on.

“Love you, Daddy. Thank you for taking care of me.” her soft high pitched voice confessed.

“Love you too, Belle.”

She finally accepted her fate.

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #arkham knight #arkhamverse #batman arkham series #arkham knight x reader

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milkweedman · 1 year

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hello! i bought my first ever fleece today and i was wondering if you have any good resources on how to process it? its a jacobs sheep if that factors into anything :-)

Hey congrats on your first fleece ! I don't have a ton of resources to point you towards unfortunately--in terms of fleece prep I'm entirely self taught. The good news is its pretty intuitive and the hard part is mostly getting the tools and having the time to actually do it. I'm happy to walk you through my usual process, which hopefully should help :)

Step 1: assess your fleece. This is an important step. Try to lay out your fleece--some will be rolled neatly and some will be a jumble--and start looking at it. Does it need to be washed ? Even fleeces that are sold as already washed still need another round if they are greasy, brittle, or sticky to the touch, or have lots of dirt, dust, dung, etc. Check your fleece over and determine if it needs to be washed, and start skirting it if necessary; skirting is pulling out the grossest bits--anything covered in dung tags, shot through with vegetable matter, or otherwise way too messy to be processed as is. This can be cleaned later and with special attention to removing all the muck, if you want to.

Step 2: wash your fleece, if necessary. This is grabbed from my comprehensive guide to drop spindling, near the end:

"To wash a fleece, you need a dedicated wool pot (as in, don’t cook in it again), a bit of dish soap, and some time. Put the fleece in--don’t crowd it, just work in batches if your pot can’t easily fit all of the fleece--add cold water and a squirt of dish soap, and let it cook on the stove for about 45 minutes, without a lid. Don’t let it boil--ideally it should be steaming but not quite simmering. You can use a dedicated wool spoon/tongs to gently and infrequently stir the wool. The water should get pretty gross. After 45 minutes, start the tap running (you need to rinse the wool in very hot water--if you let temperature shock happen, it could felt), drain the water, and rinse the fleece. Then repeat--filling up the pot with hot water now--until the water stops looking dirty at the end of the 45 minute cooking time. Rinse it one more time, and then let your wool dry, ideally on a clothesline but over a vent/spread out flat on a towel is fine too.

Yes, it really is that easy. If you’re worried about felting or otherwise ruining the entire fleece, you can always start by washing just a handful, so that way if you ruin it there’s not much waste. But I’ve washed at least a couple dozen fleeces that exact way, and I’ve never ruined one."

Step 3: grading or equalizing. Once it's cleaned and dry, this is a good time to grade your fleece--that is, separate it into the really nice soft wool, the medium wool, the coarser wool, etc. Just work slowly and methodically, and keep an eye out particularly for differences in crimp in the fleece--your finest bits of wool will be much crimpier and typically have shorter locks, whereas your coarse wool will have less crimp than the rest, and is often longer than the rest of the fleece. But if in doubt, just trust your hands and grade by softness.

You may also wish to separate the different colors--Jacob in particular, being a piebald breed, should be sorted by color unless you want a fully random marled effected in your finished yarn. With Jacob I usually sort into black, white, and gray/mixed (for when the color changes mid-lock, or is already somewhat jumbled up), although the specific colors depend of course on your particular fleece.

If you'd rather process the entire fleece into a single batch of yarn, and don't want noticeable grades in your yarn, you will want to equalize your fleece--that is, separate any pieces that are already tearing and make sure the different grades are well distributed in your wool basket. If you plan to comb your wool you'll likely want to avoid doing anything that destroys any lock structure or makes the fleece particularly messy--combing is quickest and most effective if youve got clean locks to start with--but if processing using any other method, feel free to go crazy tearing your wool into handfuls. It's important to note that even if you skip this step, it's unlikely that you'll end up with super noticeable differences inbetween sections of yarn (though it depends on the fleece and how not-equalized it is). But this step doesn't take long and prevents any coarse areas in your finished piece. I would still recommend sorting by color even if you intend to equalize the grades of wool.

Step 3: picking your tools. So, fiber prep tools are expensive, and most people don't have all of them.

Back when I only had hand cards, everything was processed on hand cards. If it was particularly VM-y, I used the No Fleece Left Behind (NFLB) method to individually clean the locks before carding them into rolags. It wasnt ideal for every fleece, but it did work. So, always use what you have.

But here's the possible options (I may be missing a few really esoteric ones like bowing, sorry), and what they do:

~~~Hand Carding: This produces rolags--fluffy rolls of wool that are a woolen prep and will want to turn into a woolen yarn. Hand cards are very fast and versatile--they can handle any staple length under 5 or 6 inches (15 cm) but past that they don't work very well. They also don't usually remove much vm, grit, second cuts, nepps, noils, etc. So if your fleece is very gross, hand cards won't clean it very much, unless you do the NFLB method.

~~~Hand Combing: This can be done on actual hand combs or on palm combs (literally just a cheap plastic hair comb--I have made a tutorial for how to process fiber on a palm comb here). Hand combing is usually much slower than hand carding, which is important to take into account. It also produces a very different prep--hand combed top--which spins into a worsted yarn. It is much more effective at removing vm and whatever else--this is the only way I clean gross fleeces now. It also works particularly well with longer stapled fleeces, but can be used on a fleece of any staple length (just with diminishing returns the shorter it gets).

~~~Flick Carding: These are the cheapest standard fleece prep tool--just a handle with a small tined cloth at the end, for flicking open single locks (or small handfuls of locks). This is a pretty effective way to remove VM and open up the fleece, and results in combed locks. However, combed locks can be tricky to spin evenly--I certainly always process them further into rolags or top--but it's absolutely doable. The speed of flick carding depends heavily on the individual fleece; particularly the amount of VM/second cuts/other debris and the strength of the structure of the lock.

~~~Drum Carding: I'm not speaking from experience here--if anyone who processes fleece on a drum carder wants to chime in, please feel free--but from what I've read this is a very fast method for processing fleece. In most cases you will want to open up the locks a little, and perhaps align them. You'll then feed them through the carder (multiple times, resulting in a more even prep each time) until you have a uniform batt. From there you can pull it into roving or spin strips off the batt. One additional advantage to drum carding is that because it processes much more fleece per batch than any of the methods above, it will also equalize the grades of your fleece--that way, you will have fewer coarse spots.

~~~Willowing: This is a very old and low tech way to open up a fleece and remove VM. I just tried it for this ask, and can confirm that it's pretty good at both of those, and also at least mildly amusing, if not outright fun. (Here's a short video I made demonstrating it, if you want to see !) You lay down a sheet or towel and put your fleece on it. Most fleeces will probably benefit from you pulling it apart with your hands somewhat, and breaking it into small chunks before starting. Then, using one or two willow sticks (or other bendy sticks), hit the wool repeatedly and quickly. This will cause it to fly up in the air, so you need to gather it back up every minute or so. This results in a bundle of fibers that are open and much cleaner, but not at all organized--so not really spinnable. You could refine it by hand picking or layer it and load it onto a distaff. Your next step in processing will determine whether you get a more woolen or worsted yarn--but as it is without further processing, willowing lends itself to irregular woolen yarns. That said, it does also equalize the grades of your fleece, if by no other method than jumbling it all up.

~~~Hand Picking: The no tools approach. This is a pretty good written guide to hand picking. Just open the locks sideways, pick the VM out by hand or manipulate the lock so that it falls out. Make sure to disrupt and smooth out any lock structure for a neater result. This too benefits from an additional step of processing afterwards--even if it's still by hand. I prefer to pull the wool in between my hands until I have a fistful of wool all facing the same general direction, then pre-draft it into a sliver. The pre-drafting cuts down a lot on irregularities, since you encounter those before you start spinning.

Step 4: processing the fiber. As discussed above, there's lots of different methods to process a fleece, and if you have a choice between a few of them, it's good to consider the following two points: 1) how time consuming each method is 2) the preparation that each method results in and how this will work with your fleece. With Jacob fleeces in particular, pretty much any method will result in a usable and attractive yarn, but only a few of them will remove the second cuts that seem endemic to Jacob fleeces (combing and maybe hand picking, if you're attentive), so other methods will result in a lumpy--albeit charming, in my opinion--yarn. Of course you can also pull second cuts off as you see them come up in hand cards or whatever else--but you'll never see all of them, and it's very slow work.

Whatever your method, have fun with it ! If it feels like a slow slog, try breaking it up into shorter sessions (I typically only comb wool for an hour or two at most, and usually under an hour when carding), or doing it with friends. Fleece processing by hand is slow work, much slower than spinning, but also requires a lot less attention than spinning does, so if you can't spin while reading or watching a movie, you may still be able to process fleece.

One thing to keep in mind is that it's also very messy--depending on how much VM is in your fleece, you may want to do it outside to avoid having to clean up your area later. Usually a woven blanket that's smooth and easy to clean is good enough though--just drape it over your lap, and whenever it gets covered in VM, go shake it off outside or into the trash. I would not recommend preparing fleece on your bed or any furniture that's hard to clean. I speak from experience here.

I also highly recommend The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook (your library may have a copy--if not you can request that they buy one), it's a really good resource to have for anyone who works with fleeces. It has pictures of samples, info on many different breeds of sheep and other fiber animals, and tips on how to process or spin each breed. It's also just a great catalogue for finding what breeds I want to spin next.

Lastly, a few notes about what you can do with fleece that you can't do with already prepared wool.

From multicolored fleeces you can get different colors of yarn without needing to dye anything--great for colorwork, or adding details or edging. In this case it's important to sort your wool by color. Failure to sort a multicolored fleece by color can lead to yarns that all look pretty different from each other, and that don't work together particularly well.

You can also dye in the wool (e.g. dye as fleece) and get several different levels of saturation from one dyejob. This happens naturally without you needing to do anything--different parts of the fleece will accept dye in slightly different amounts, so you end up with a decent range of saturations. You can of course also dye one fleece many different colors with small batch dyeing, and mix them to expand your palette even further.

You can dip or kettle dye either the fleece or picked locks from the fleece, which leads to some great colors as well.

Hope this was helpful ! If you're trying out some new tools for the first time I'd recommend hitting up youtube for demonstrations, and remember that if one method doesn't work, just keep looking. Have fun with your Jacob fleece--they're a great starter breed but also just so fun because of the piebald aspect. One of my favorite breeds for sure.

#wool prep #fleece processing #tutorial #(kind of)#spinning #handspun yarn #long post

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king-starscreams-fics · 5 months

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My Stories

G1 Transformers:

It's a Fine Line A look at the relationship between Megatron and Starscream (if he was a youngling). Humorous and fluffy. Please check tags before reading. English, 1 chapter, complete. Resubmitted: 2024-07-14

Starscream Discovers the IDW Comics Starscream doesn't understand why he isn't treated better in the comics and decides to vent to Megatron. Please check tags before reading. English, 1 chapter, complete. Published: 2024-07-11

The Wind of Change Starscream is sick and just wants to be left alone. Megatron, as usual, has his own ideas. Talk of death but nobody dies. Please check tags before reading. English, multiple chapters, incomplete. Published: 2024-07-14

A Brave New Start Megatron is contemplating retirement as he is faced with his own mortality. Talk of death but nobody dies. Please check tags before reading. English, 37 chapters, complete, "lost" 2024-07-10

Life on the Moon The new Moonbase is habitable and many transformers are in the process of moving in, hoping to begin a new chapter in peacetime. Please check tags before reading. English, 21 chapters, complete, "lost" 2024-07-10

Brain Fog Megatron has taken to writing, which has acted as an escape from his situation while he recovers from illness and surgery. Enter a new, hidden menace: Brain Fog. Please check tags before reading. English, 1 chapter, complete. Published: 2024-07-12

Transformers IDW:

Rogue Filters Aboard the Lost Light, Ratchet has a lot on his mind when Rodimus Prime comes to him with an eerily familiar complaint.

Transformers: Earthspark:

Subterfuge GHOST send Megatron and Dot on their first solo mission. Both have their misgivings and concerns, particularly because this mission requires them to travel to Africa. Please check tags before reading. English, incomplete, "lost" 2024-07-10

Standing Up For Peace Megatron is tired of being perceived as a monster, so Optimus suggests that he finds a way to increase his image. Please check tags before reading. English, 7 chapters, complete. Published: 2024-07-15

Birthday Beatings? Robby's birthday brings a lot of surprises. Please check tags before reading. English, 5 chapters, complete, "lost" 2024-07-10

Distress Call On the night after Robby's birthday, Megatron intercepts a call meant for Optimus in the early hours. It is a sick and frightened Bumblebee. Please check tags before reading. English, incomplete, "lost" 2024-07-10

Dark Nights and Green Eyes Nightshade sees someone who they think might be Megatron on the Malto Family's property. Megatron, however, would never drop in uninvited and unannounced. Please check tags before reading. English, 1 chapter, complete, "lost" 2024-07-10

Aftermath The story of what happened to Megatron after he dealt with the intruder at the Malto Family's farm. Please check tags before reading. English, 1 chapter, complete, "lost" 2024-07-10

Wishful Thinking Megatron has only one thing on his mind. Perhaps talking to Dot might help. Please check tags before reading. English, 2 chapters, complete, "lost" 2024-07-10

Party Time After the defeat of Mandroid, the Malto Family decide to host a party and Wheeljack and a few Decepticons bring along Cybertronian drinks. It might not have been such a good idea. Teen and Up (drinking). Please check tags before reading. English, 1 chapter, complete. Published: 2024-07-13

December The Malto Family invite some of their Cybertronian friends to celebrate Christmas with them, sharing traditions, legends and history with them as they do so. Please check tags before reading. English, 25 chapters, complete, "lost" 2024-07-10

Behind Closed Doors Set in the new year, following the Christmas celebrations with the Maltos, when Optimus and Megatron move into their new home. Now that they are not guests under the Maltos' roof, the temptation to 'try things out' while they await the completion of the new space bridge is high. Optimus decides he doesn't want to wait. Please check tags before reading. E-rated. English, incomplete, "lost" 2024-07-10

A Cold Problem Bumblebee develops a taste for Earth food – ice cream in particular. It soon becomes something of a problem. Please check tags before reading. English, 1 chapter, complete. Published: 2024-07-12

Blue Birthday Bumblebee partakes in his first race since recovering from pneumonia – on his birthday. He has been planning and training for it under the watchful optic of Megatron and he was ready. Unfortunately, he has a cold. Please check tags before reading. English, 1 chapter, complete. Published: 2024-08-04

#transformers #transformers g1 #transformers earthspark #transformers: earthspark #tf earthspark #tf g1 #fanfiction #ao3 fanfic #my list

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violettduchess · 1 year

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Pssst, I'm dropping by to ask: when you can, could you do a kiss fic for the sweet, capricious cat Yves Kloss? 😽💖 Thank you ahead darling~

A/N: The final prince suitor to get a kiss fic! (There are still plenty of vamp guys to go)

If you want to see more of the Prince suitors, you can request them for my new series: Afterglow. Requests for this series are always open!

Yves x Reader

Word Count: 600

He slinks into your bedroom, quiet as a cat, afraid to wake you. You, however, have been up and waiting for him. When he notices that you are not sleeping, he launches into a story about cupcakes that would not rise, berries too soggy to decorate with, and chocolate from a country that is clearly not even fit to be used in batter let alone stand on its own as a treat. You watch him as he fumes, a rogue streak of white flour coloring his cheek, his blue eyes bright as he vents his frustration. He’s already undone his cravat and the first button of his shirt while pacing, still rattling off all the things that made his baking endeavors for tomorrow’s tea such a challenge.

God, you love him when he’s like this.

So caught up is he that he doesn’t notice the way you slide out of bed, fleet-footed, until you are suddenly, shockingly, right in front of him, filling his field of vision with your slow smile, your expression turned-on bright as a flame.

His irritated words trail off as you slide your hands over his shoulders, then inwards. You lean forward, placing a chaste kiss to his cheek, nimble fingers working until the next button of his shirt opens. Yves has gone still, a feline frozen as it assesses a situation it is unsure of. Are you….? Do you want……? You drag your lips down his cheek and stop at the corner of his delectable lips, another button popping open.

Oh…..oh you do…..

“Thank you,” you murmur, the words warm as they brush his skin with heated breath.

Another button opens.

The tea party he has worked so hard for is for you, a celebration of your anniversary at the palace, and he has thrown himself completely into making it absolutely perfect. Because it is for you and you deserve nothing less than perfection.

Another button opens and you can trail the tips of your fingernails over the sensitive skin of his exposed chest. “Thank you,” you repeat before finally kissing him.

He is frozen no longer, your kiss unlocking him as he wraps his arms around you and pulls you tightly against him even as he feels his cheeks grow warm. He tastes sweeter than any confection, his mouth opening at your will, responding immediately to the prodding of your tongue. Your fingers continue on their quest until his shirt is open and pushed off his shoulders, floating to the carpet like a sail in gentle winds. You plunder his mouth, greedy hands sliding over the soft, pale skin of his back. You want him exposed to you, open to your touch and your desire. He allows you to guide him, his bare back hitting the soft bed, his body pinned underneath yours. His cheeks are flushed and you pause for just a moment as the fires of want blaze around you to tenderly wipe the white streak of flour off of his pink cheek. Your expression is soft and in your bright gaze, he sees the love you have for him, all of him, regardless of his background, regardless of his thorny temperament. And he loves you back, with every fiber of his being.

His lips part and you lean down, your body pressing his into the bedding, your mouth accepting his invitation. Tonight you will indulge yourself in all that is Yves, from his sweet kisses to his delicious gasps of pleasure to the enticing feel of his skin against yours.

And you will enjoy every moment of it.

Tagging: @aquagirl1978 @alixennial @alexxavicry @queengiuliettafirstlady @rhodolitesrose @ikemen-writer @bellerose-arcana @thewitchofbooks @redheadkittys @dear-mrs-otome @firestar-otomeobsessed @curious-skybunny @kpop-and-otome @writingwhimsey @mxrmaid-poet @silver-dahlia @wendolrea @otomefoxystar @nightfoxqueen @myonlyjknight @queen-dahlia @aceuuuuu @scorchieart @bubblexly

#ikemen series #ikemen prince #ikepri #ikepri yves #yves kloss #kiss fic #ikemen fanfic #ikemen fanfiction #otome fanfic #violettwrites

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m34gs · 1 year

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Please tell me what sort of Saw trap each house warden in Twisted Wonderland would design if they were the mastermind in a Saw movie.

Hello friend! Well, this is a fun ask! I am actually very excited to get into this, ahahaha. You have no idea how eager I got when I read this ask. I literally went "AHA" and started grinning. I'm going to write each scenario out as if the Housewarden is a Jigsaw Apprentice, and I might even take it a little further and describe what kind of apprentice they would be.

I'm putting a cut, both for length and because these will get a bit graphic. Please see the tags for trigger/content warnings.

Riddle - Riddle is the Rule Boy, By the Book, Stick to the Pattern. The one who adamantly protests every time to the other Saw masterminds "It's not a trap, it's a TEST".

Because of this, Riddle's tests are not overly imaginative, but they get the job done. I think, due to the nature of his signature spell, Riddle would lean toward decapitation being the end result in his traps. It's easy, effective, and doesn't prolong suffering. I like to think he's not one to wish others to suffer. Indeed, if he was a Jigsaw Apprentice, he'd be the one to parrot John Kramer the most about learning to love and cherish the life you have and atoning for past mistakes.

The rules for Riddle's test would be simple. "Find the key to unlock your chains in a certain amount of time, or a saw will cut your head off". Of course, the tricky part is getting the key. No one escapes a Saw trap without some kind of mark, be it visible or invisible. The placement of the key I will leave up to the imagination, as it will have to be specific to the individual in the trap or it will mean nothing. (Keep in mind, canon placements have been: at the other end of the room needing a mad dash that puts co-victims in danger to get to it, in the stomach of a heavily sedated companion in the trap, surgically implanted inside the victim's own eye...etc.). If the victim survives, they are off the hook. Riddle wouldn't dare mess up that part of the game. If they die, he follows John's example and dutifully cuts a puzzle piece out of their flesh, the symbol of that person's "missing piece" that prevented them from winning the game(this is also how Jigsaw got his name).

Leona - Leona can do the job, he understands the assignment. He thinks John's a bit nuts, though. He's another one where there's not a whole lot of imagination involved; he designs the trap to get the job done, makes sure it meets the requirements (because he will not be given a bad grade on Jigsaw Traps, something apparently possible to achieve and normal to worry about?...), but it won't be overly complex, and he makes Ruggie and Jack do the muscle-work for him. Don't worry, he pays them well.

Leona's traps will probably involve some test of strength (keeping in mind the different physical capabilities of individuals, of course). I'm thinking something like a low tunnel filled with various-sized shards of broken glass the person has to crawl through to get to the exit, or climbing through a vent connected to an oven that is on max. heat to get out. Something like that, of course tweaked for the individual.

He makes Ruggie cut the puzzle piece. Ruggie doesn't mess around when it comes to his finances. He cuts every piece perfectly.

Azul - Let's be real, Azul doesn't mind suffering...as long as it's not his own. His traps are always complex, and he sees each new victim as a chance to one-up himself. And it's no problem getting his victims; Jade and Floyd help with that.

I think most of Azul's traps will involve the victim inflicting pain on themselves on purpose. Not just doing things that result in pain (such as crawl over glass) but actively cause themselves harm; probably ripping their own molars out or cutting off a limb, or something, and dropping it in a bin/chute to trigger the exit to open.

Jade and Floyd help with set-up...but Floyd is Not allowed to cut the puzzle pieces afterward. For obvious reasons.

Kalim - In order for Kalim to be an apprentice, he would need to have something awful and drastic happen to someone close to him that pushes him over the edge. When it comes to it, he sees the traps as a job, a duty. It's not something he enjoys and he always observes with a tired distaste but, because of whatever trauma pushed him into this life, he believes it's necessary.

He can't stand the sight of blood and brutality. Nor does he want to know they're dying a slow death. His victim is hooked up to a syringe pump, hands restrained, and they need to figure out the code to turn off the pump before time runs out (probably voice password or something; definitely based on important memories related to the reason they are in the trap, which is hinted at in the tape) or the syringe will rapidly infuse a lethal dose of potassium into their veins and they will go into cardiac arrest.

Jamil has to cut the puzzle piece because Kalim cannot stomach it.

Vil - Vil, like Kalim, needs to be of the mind that what he's doing is necessary, even if he doesn't like it. He has to believe that people need him to teach them in this way, or he won't be able to stomach it.

He also doesn't want a bloodbath; that's not his style. Vil would rather use poison. Poison for his victims, already injected/ingested, with an antidote they have to get...probably behind a locked door needing a combination password. But, in order to get the code, they will have to face what they've done and figure out what the code is, very similar to Kalim's style. However, unlike Kalim's, if the victim gives the wrong code the door will seal shut forever and the victim will be doomed. They need to get it right and they need to be certain.

Vil may request Rook's assistance with making sure people are brought in and the trap set up properly, but he cuts the puzzle piece himself. He believes it's his role, and he refuses to put that onto anyone else. It disgusts him, but he treats it like his cross to bear for the acts he is committing, because a part of him still feels uneasy about all of this and he hates looking at himself in the mirror some days.

Idia - Idia is so removed from the front lines of the traps, he's actually quite desensitized to the violence. He treats it a bit like his video games and he does try out a variety of different traps, each one extremely individualized. He's got all the info on his victims; every single trace of them online, their social security number, their bank statements, anything and everything that can be accessed via computer is his. He knows them inside and out. Every trap is an attempt to be more unique and "entertaining" than the last. It's questionable if he's even in it for the "righteousness" that John preaches, or if he got bored and decided this was an interesting way to pass the time.

All his traps are set up to run completely independently, and all are under video surveillance. I think Idia would get to the point that there's not enough moving parts for him if there's only one victim in the trap, so he starts doing bigger traps, with groups of people, where it's a challenge to try and predict how they all will react, how they would push each other's boundaries and if they would try to see the hints laid out for them or if they would misinterpret it (for anyone who's seen Jigsaw, think about the gun scene with the keys at the end. That kind of a hint. Idia would like to see who gets it). So, yeah, Idia probably builds a maze-trap with multiple little traps within it that the victims have to go through to get out.

While he hasn't yet created something that can cut the puzzle piece and deliver it to him, he has developed a little punch that he can bring to punch out the piece of the victim's flesh should they fail. It's the only time he's on-site after the trap has been set. (Ortho refused to do that part because the dead bodies made him sad.)

Malleus - Malleus believes he is helping people, and he's curious to see how far a person would go to save their own life. He thinks it's his job to bring out the worst and the best in the person in his trap to help them be better than they are now. He's not beyond pushing buttons and upping antes; he sees it as doing what he can to help someone value their life and overcome their own shortcomings.

A trap from Malleus is probably going to involve some form of self-mutilation, giving enough flesh or giving enough blood, but also some emotional pressure. He will bring their families into the traps; likely remotely so as not to harm the innocent, but to use as leverage to make someone push themselves more. He wants them to succeed. But he will not go easy on them. In order to succeed, they need to pull on their own inner strength.

He cuts the puzzle piece himself, but he's always sad when he has to. He feels less that the person has failed and more that he has failed to help them bring out their better self.

Thank you again for the ask, friend! I hope I answered to your satisfaction :D If you have any questions or comments to add, please let me know, I am always happy to expand on these kinds of things!

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