#Anyways I might end up skipping Impulse if I don’t get to him after work tmrw | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

justletmeplayminecraft · 3 years

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Moving Day

it's the day that comes at the end of every season. and yet, somehow, the hermits still get caught off guard by it.

featuring: hermit ensemble, slice of life fluff, imagine moving houses but like every year and a half, werewolf!ren, something!joe, artic fox!etho, he is vaguely developed, there's pretty much no plot, just fluff, an ode to the end of this season

"Zed, you're gonna be late!" Tango calls as he drops in through the ceiling. With a bang, a mop of blond hair pokes out of the central storage. Zed rubs his head, pulling himself up.

"You're the one who distracted me with the Create world!" He replies, hauling a bag up the ladder with him. Tango laughs, throwing it over his shoulder as Zed flops onto the stone ground.

"Sure I was, it's not like you brought it up." Zed huffs, rolling his eyes. He holds his hands up towards Tango, who laughs. "Oh, you want to go over my shoulder too?" He teases.

"You are insufferable," Zed mutters, pushing off the stone himself instead. The cold is starting to seep through his cardigan.

"Have you packed everything?" Tango asks. Zed holds his fingers up to count off.

"Yes, I've checked everything four times! Maybe five, actually. I don't think there's anything left." Zed looks back at the ladders, closing his fist. Tango examines the pile of bags, humming.

"So you're sure you don't want me or Impulse to check for you?" Zed's mouth opens.

"Actually, can you check anyway?" He asks, "You know, just in case!" Tango laughs, giving Zed's shoulder a bump.

"Of course we will. But let's move these before Xisuma forgets them." Zed nods, quick to grab some of the bags. He heaves them up, almost buried under them.

"Season eight here we come!"

"You two!" Doc calls, scooping up the white fox before he manages to rush past him. Ren very nearly runs straight into his legs. The wolf sits down, ears twitching as he stares at Etho. Etho sticks his tongue out, Doc struggling to keep a hold on the silky fur. "You two aren't helping, you know that?" Ren barks, tail wagging. "Yeah, yeah."

With a wiggle, Etho manages to slip out of Doc's arms. He jumps up, curling around his shoulders instead and getting comfortable. Doc sighs. He bats Etho's shawl out of his face, ignoring the amused chitter. Counting, he finds most of his bags already in his ender chest. Luckily, because the two animals playing around him are making it difficult. Unlike-

"Doc," Bdubs cries, "Have you seen my razor?" Bdubs doesn't even bother with the door. Doc looks down at him on the lawn.

"Have you checked your half?" He asks.

Bdubs throws a hand up, "Of course I've checked my half, but Keralis tried to drag me into packing all his junk so I had to make a speedy escape!" Doc chuckles, watching as Ren jumps down to nose at Bdubs' hand. "Oh, hello, Ren!" Bdubs jumps into baby-talk immediately, crouching down. "Fancy you being here!"

"Please, take him-" Doc waves, "-The two of them keep running through my feet." Bdubs strokes through the fluff of Ren's neck, glancing up and spotting Etho.

"Oh, Etho as well!" Bdubs waves. Etho yips in reply, ear twitching. Then Bdubs pauses, looking at Ren properly. "Ah-ha, Snips! Of course, right-" Bdubs jumps up, "Thanks guys, I'll see you at the town hall!" Doc looks at Ren as Bdubs runs off.

"You going with him?" He asks. Ren's tail wags, staring at Doc. He sighs. "Right, of course not." Doc picks Etho off his shoulder, dropping him on the floor to a surprised squeak. "If only there was a way to attach some bags to the two of you." Both animalmits freeze, sharing a look with each other. Doc can't help but feel satisfied as they scarper towards the nearest nether portal together. "Perfect." He can finish packing in peace.

"Do you think you've got everything?" Wels asks, perched on a chest. Beef hauls his bag out the door with a huff.

"Well, I've got you. That's half the challenge." He looks up in time to see Wels rolling his eyes, pushing his helmet up.

"I take it back, I'm not helping you anymore."

Beef laughs, clapping Wels' arm, "We've still got Three Fox Hole to look through, you're not going anywhere yet." Wels' lips twist into a pout, crossing his arms.

"You know, when I packed early, it wasn't with the intention of doing your packing for you," he replies. But, when Beef holds out a bag, he still takes it.

"And I appreciate it!" Beef grins at him. "Maybe I'll reward you with some of my finest wallpaper-"

"Oh, please no." Wels' eyes are wide, staring in mock horror. "I might never recover."

"Oh, blackmail works too, then." Beef stands, walking past him. Wels slips off the chest, frozen in place.

"Beef- Beef, are you joking?" Beef keeps walking. Wels runs after him. "Beef!"

"Thanks for heading out this far, man," xB says, smiling at Keralis. "I know you've got a big space to cover too."

"Ah, it's nice taking a break," Keralis replies, holding one of xB's bags in his arms. "And I know there's no way this would all fit in your ender chest, princess." xB chuckles, looking at the half-folded clothes, trinkets, and daily essentials all sorted into piles.

"Yeah-" he scrubs the back of his neck. "-I kinda forget I've got so much. Too used to my travel bag." Keralis bounces the one in his arms.

"Well, it's a good job you've got me!" He bumps into xB's side, barely knocking the other hermit off balance. "I can always lend you some extra bags if you need them."

"The luggage dimension is just going to be my stuff at this rate," xB jokes.

"Oh, you haven't seen how much I have yet." They both laugh, Keralis putting the bag down with the rest that have been packed. "Now, what are we doing next?" xB turns to observe his piles.

"I think that one," he decides. Keralis nods, skipping across.

"Then let's go, we don't want to be late!"

"Cub!" Scar's voice calls down the pyramid. "I cannot believe this." Cub turns to see Scar walking along the corridor, wings fluttering in annoyance behind him. "Xisuma says my crystals aren't essential items so I can't take them. That's so unfair." Cub laughs before he can stop himself, getting an affronted noise from Scar. "Cub! I come here, I confide in you-"

"Scar," Cub interrupts, squeezing Scar's arm. Vex magic sparks around them, electrifying the air. "You could make some once we're in the next world."

"It's not the same!" Scar protests. Cub leans closer.

"Or," he whispers, "We could sneak some across ourselves."

"Oh." Scar claps his hands together. "Now you're speaking my language."

"The language of crime?" Cub asks, calling one of his bags over to him. He catches it mid-air.

"The only language I know!"

"This is why you should've made a proper storage system!" Mumbo cries, as Grian pulls out the contents of another chest. "This could've been so much easier!"

"I didn't know it was this bad!" Grian replies, finally managing to find his towels buried in an unmarked chest. He throws them towards his 'to pack' pile, Mumbo jumping out of the way.

"Didn't you have weeks to prepare for this?" He asks, looking at the scattered items in dismay.

"I mean- I did host an entire world in-between," Grian reminds him. Mumbo hums in agreement, deciding to organise some of the piles before they end up vanishing into a pure mess. He looks for similarities amongst the items, beginning to sort them into manageable groups.

Mumbo's lucky he thought to get all his essentials together ahead of time. He gave his luggage to Xisumavoid to store, and he knows it's all taken care of. It didn't stop him from checking his base another ten times, but he's pretty sure he's got everything now. Pretty sure.

He's going to end up checking his base again later, isn't he?

"Grian?" Mumbo asks, pausing as he notices something. The rummaging through chests stops, with only a quiet thud & 'ow' before Grian is looking at him.

"Yeah?" He replies.

"Do you… actually have any bags?"

"Ahhhh," Grian's face turns a similar scarlet to his jumper. "You see, Mumbo, last season, I kinda… borrowed some."

"Borrowed, right." Mumbo sighs, running his fingers through his hair. "Were you ever going to buy your own?"

"Yes!" Grian replies, words fast. "I just. Never had time." Mumbo's had most of his bags since he joined, so he guesses he can't relate. Pretty much all the hermits gifted him one. Otherwise, he would've never remembered at that age, but that's its own problem. It's a good job he remembers the essentials even now.

"So, how do you intend on packing all this?"

Grian hums, "Do you think I could just shove it in there loose?"

"I'll go find some bags," Mumbo decides. And something to help his headache...

"How many cats do you think I could smuggle to the next server?" Cleo asks, holding up another of her kittens to Joe. Joe hums thoughtfully, bright green hair moving on its own accord.

"Well, I've certainly smuggled a few of my dogs inside myself." Cleo takes a deep breath, transferring her kitten to one hand so she can pinch her nose.

"Right, of course you have." She's long learnt to stop questioning how Joe works. She's a living zombie, he's Joe. At least it makes packing easier. "I think I might take some of them to my own world, this time," she muses. "Xisuma can do that, right?"

"I'm sure he can," Joe agrees. "If not, I will have a mass exodus of animals from the server." Cleo sighs, rolling her eyes. She sets the kitten down gently amongst the other cats.

"Right, are you actually going to help me carry my bags?"

"Of course! What kind of friend would I be if I didn't try to stop you losing an arm?"

"Ugh, don't remind me." She still can't believe that happened. First, her arm falling off, then nearly losing it amongst everybody's luggage? So embarrassing. She enters the main room of her base, where she's already got her bags set out. It's surprising how many skincare products you need when you're dead. Joe follows, looking around as if he doesn't know the place like the back of his hands. To be fair, Cleo would be surprised if anybody knew the back of Joe's hands.

"Right, I've shoved as much as I can in my ender chest. If you put what you can in yours, we can divide the remainder up," she lays out the action plan.

"Sounds perfect!" Joe picks up two bags. "Are you sure you don't just want me to transport them over?"

"Keep your true self off my stuff, Joe, you know what happened last time."

Joe sighs, "Fine, fine. We'll do this the human way."

"You'll do this the human way," she amends. "I'll do it the zombie way."

"Stress, it's only a spider," Iskall says, pointing his sword towards it. Said spider is standing triumphantly on top of her bags, red eyes glinting. Stress pokes around the doorway, brown hair falling across her face.

"Yeah, but it's a spider on me stuff!"

"You've fought worse than spiders!"

"Just get rid of it, Iskall!" He sighs. Readying himself for a fight, he crosses across the room, stamping his foot in front of the pile. The spider hisses, sharp fangs a warning. But when the creature jumps, Iskall's sword is there to meet it, throwing the spider to the ground where it disappears into twinkling orbs.

"Look, was that so hard?" Iskall asks, his hand on his hip as he looks back at her. Stress bounces in, grinning.

"It wasn't, was it? Guess I don't need to thank you, then!" Iskall rolls his eyes, slipping his sword back into his inventory.

"Like you don't need to thank me for helping carry your stuff?"

"Oh, I'll thank you for that." Iskall laughs, grabbing the strap of two bags and throwing them over his shoulder.

"How many trips do you think we'll need?" He asks, seeing her haul two up herself. Stress hums, observing the pile.

"Prob'ly only two or three. If we get started soon then we'll get done faster, too." Iskall can hear the teasing tone in her voice.

"Aren't you the one that was scared of a spider?"

"Don't know what you're talkin' about!" She calls, walking past him. Iskall shakes his head, smiling fondly before rushing after her.

"Hey TFC!" False calls, touching down at his base. She smiles at the sight of his usual suitcases, already neatly packed and organized. Everything's labelled in TFC's signature handwriting to boot. Far more planned out than her, she's gotta say. But that's a problem for the next world.

"False, what can I help you with?" TFC's smile is always nice to see. She flicks her elytra closed, waving.

"I came to ask you that, actually," she replies. "Wanted to know if you'd like help carrying things over. I did all my packing a few weeks back, so I'm kinda bored." And if she stays still for too long, X will probably try to rope her into admin duties. Sure, she knows the basics, but she doesn't want to be responsible for anybody's stuff going missing. Not her department.

"Well, I'm never going to turn down some extra hands," TFC replies. He walks over and pats the suitcases on the left. "These are all ready to go, I'm still finishing up with the others. Has Xisuma already started?"

"I think he was just finishing the pocket dimension, so you've still got a little while." The hermits always rush to be the first in, as if everybody's stuff won't fit. In False's opinion, being last is best. It's easier to get your things out when they're closer to the entrance.

"Good, good. Let him know I'm nearly finished, would you?"

False nods, saluting with one hand and picking up a suitcase with the other, "Will do!"

Hypno walks into Jevin's base to find him and Impulse slotting the last few items into boxes. He knows Jevin was mostly packed already, so it's nice Impulse has come to help out. But… Jevin might just be taking advantage of Impulse. Hypno won't think too much into it.

"X has finished setting up," he calls, not needing an introduction. Jevin twists to look at him, Impulse busy trying to fit a label on straight.

"So you're saying I'm late?" Jevin asks. Hypno chuckles, deciding to join them on the floor.

"You know what the rush is like to get stuff in. You'll be fine for a little while." Hypno shrugs, "After Wels, X'll probably be careful." Impulse nods, sitting back now the label of 'hoodies' is attached.

"I've already handed my stuff in," Impulse says, "I think False might have too? We both finished up pretty early."

"Yeah, there was a lot in the town hall ready to be moved." Hypno wonders if the hermits are getting more prepared for this. Somehow, he doubts it.

"So, you've come to help me carry these over?" Jevin asks, Hypno looks at the boxes, shrugging.

"With all three of us, it should only be two trips, right?" There are only five boxes, and two are pretty small anyway.

"That's the spirit!" Impulse calls, grinning. "Do you think you're all ready to go?"

"Yep, I think that's everything," Jevin decides. He pats a box, making more of a squelching sound. Hypno does his best not to laugh.

"Then let's get moving!"

Xisuma sighs as his visor adjusts to filter out the sunlight. Coding that in was a stroke of genius. It used to be such a nightmare to continuously adjust between the pocket dimension and hermitcraft. He looks at the stacked luggage to be moved, trying to figure out if there's more there than before. He swears there is. And they didn't even say hi when they dropped it off! Rude.

He jumps when something nudges the back of his knees, sending him stumbling forward. Turning, he finds Ren, his tail wagging proudly behind him.

"Oh! Hello there." He reaches down, giving Ren a scratch behind the ears. "Are you planning to change back before we move?" Ren barks in reply. "I'll pretend that's yes."

Turning, he sees a white tail flicking over blue diamonds. Of course, those two are together. Etho's curled up in the sun, black eyes watching the pair. One ear is stuck up, the other flopped lazily.

"You two aren't going to help me carry things in, are you?" X asks, sighing as he looks back at Ren.

"I think Ren forgot to leave a spare pair of clothes out, actually," Etho says, legs dangling off the throne. He's tugging his shawl over his nose now he's in human form. Or, as human as Etho gets. "And his outfit may have experienced some... unfortunate circumstances." Xisuma looks at Ren's sad eyes, shaking his head at the pair of them.

"And those didn't involve you in any way?" X asks Etho with what he thinks is an appropriate amount of suspicion in his voice. Etho holds his hands up, leaning back in a way that would have most people falling over.

"Are you accusing me, Xisuma?"

"I don't know, am I, Ren?" Ren gives a concise nod. Etho gasps, clutching over his heart.

"Betrayed by my own brethren!" Etho cries. Ren's tail is wagging, betraying his otherwise neutral expression.

"Come and help me carry things, you," X says, calling Etho over. "We'll be here for another month if you don't." Etho laughs, but jumps off the side of the throne, landing with barely a thud.

"What are we moving, bossman?" Etho asks. Xisuma surveys the piles.

"Mumbo's stuff next, I think," X decides, "He usually takes a while to unpack." Etho nods, following X's lead as they grab a bag and box respectively.

"So this is what you guys do at the end of the season?" Etho asks, Ren trotting along with them. Xisuma hums as he enters the pocket dimension, finding an open space at the back of the room.

"Yep, this is moving day," he explains. "I always try my best to make it easy for the hermits, but it doesn't often end up working." Etho chuckles, placing the bag on top of X's box.

"Seems like most people aren't done yet," Etho agrees.

"They'll get there," Xisuma replies. The hermits always do eventually.

They're just stepping out of the portal when a voice calls, "I'm not late am I?!" X scruffs Ren's neck, smiling at Zed, who's running over with far too many bags thrown over his back.

"Not at all, friend," he reassures him. Zed drops his bags, bent over and panting. Tango strolls up behind him far more leisurely.

"See, Zed, I said you wouldn't be!" Zed whips in his direction.

"Oh, you, mister 'oh Zed you're going to be late, we're all going to leave you behind', you-" Tango laughs, fluffing Zed's hair as he sets his bags down. They take the rest of his luggage out of the ender chest Xisuma left specifically for this purpose. Beef and Wels walk up together as they do, Xisuma waving to them.

"Beefers!" Etho says, grinning.

"Hey Etho, Tango, Zed, Xisuma." Beef pauses, "Oh, and a Ren!"

"Hey guys!" Wels simplifies, dropping his bags at the doors. "This should be everything from us."

"Perfect!" Xisuma nods, "You guys okay to help me carry things through?"

"Yeah, we can help out!" "That's cool with me."

Moving things goes a lot faster with five of them helping to carry things through. Xisuma just catches Impulse, Jevin and Hypno dropping one lot off, getting a frantic wave before the trio is rushing off again. The pocket dimension is quickly filling up with bags and boxes, the hermits a constant line as they drop in and out. Xisuma frequently checks, but it seems like the dimension is handling the pressure okay.

"Xisuma!" Joe calls, him and Cleo wandering up the town hall's stairs. By this point, Cub and Scar have joined them with TFC, False, Stress and Iskall all dropping things off too.

"Good to see you both," X greets, one of Wels' bags hugged in his arms. He turns away, before hesitating, something nagging the back of his mind. After a second of focus- "Joe, why do you have so many hitboxes inside you?"

"Ah, that's nothing you have to worry about, dear admin." Xisuma gives him a long look and decides this isn't a battle he's going to pick.

"As long as you're willing to help out," he says, instead. "We're only waiting for a few people. He takes a look at the gathered hermits. Cleo's now lying on the floor, Ren beside her. His tail is already wagging again. Cub is picking a box up, whilst Scar skips through the portal holding three bags with magic. Etho's chatting to Tango and Zed as they work.

"Of course! We'll be finished in no time." It's already taken most of the day, but X doesn't need to mention that. He sets his vision back to normal, does another check of the pocket dimension, and returns to carrying boxes.

The remaining hermits trickle in as the sun sets. Stress and Beef sort out dinner for everyone, Xisuma making sure the last of the luggage is safe.

"Wait!" A few heads turn at Grian's cry, heavy footsteps rushing up to town hall. "I- I've got my stuff." Xisuma blinks at the sight of the hermit carrying about four bags at once. One is bright pink.

"You're not too late," X reassures him. "You can just drop it in, there should be room." He's settled into a shaded corner, preparing for the process of safely moving over twenty players. And Joe. If he's being honest, the data is starting to give him a headache. But it'll be worth it once they're all in their new world. Their temporary 'in-between' world is already set up. Somewhere for them all to stay whilst he handles the switch over. Most of the hermits take the time to visit friends or do other projects during that, anyway.

"Thanks, X," Grian says, between gasps. He runs into the portal, X laughing softly to himself. Mumbo walks up a few minutes later, glancing at the group.

"Is Grian in there?" He asks. Before X can even reply, about four hermits are giving an affirmative. "Thanks, guys!" Mumbo heads in after, only two bags in tow. X watches, well-aware of the fondness in his chest. It's a good reminder of just what he does this for.

It's another hour until everything's ready. The sun is hanging over the horizon (Xisuma may have frozen the day cycle a while back.) X has watched warily as they've shared food, chatted, played games (including one very dramatic wink murder. He's not sure what happened in Grian's server, and he's not sure he wants to ask.) But now, they've all gathered around, watching as Xisuma enters the final commands.

"Okay, everybody here knows the drill. Stay with somebody else, I want to do a headcount on the other side, then you're all free to wander." He projects his voice, the hermits hushing to listen. "Is everybody ready?"

"Yeah!" "Born ready!" "We've been ready for hours!" "Is there food on the other side?"

X shakes his head. With a final press of the enter key, the portal opens in front of the diamond throne. There's a collective murmur of anticipation.

"Alright, you lot can head through. I'll join you in half an hour, max." He can't even make out words following that. TFC and False are first, walking through with a wave to the others. Stress and Iskall run after them. The rest of the hermits take their time. Some share hugs, some take a last look at the horizon. And Xisuma watches over it all, determined every single one of his hermits will make it safely through.

"X?" Impulse calls. He and Hypno are standing together. The town hall feels so much emptier now the hermits are gone. "You sure you'll be okay?"

"I'll be fine," Xisuma promises. "All standard procedure. I'll see you soon." They nod, sharing a last smile.

"Okay then. Stay safe, X."

"You two as well. Try and keep the others from misbehaving until I get there."

Hypno laughs, "No promises."

And like that, Xisuma's alone. He sighs, sinking back against the diamond throne. The sun casts golden beams over the land. This has been… a good season. They all are, but. Xisuma smiles as he sets the tick speed of the world to zero, freezing it in time. He thinks next season will be something special. It only takes fifteen minutes to finish his commands, the rest he needs to do on the other side.

"Goodbye, old friend." He pats the diamond throne. With a look over the eerily still shopping district, he sighs. It really is the hermits that fill a world with life, isn't it? "To more admin work," he murmurs, before laughing at himself.

"Shishwam?" Xisuma jumps, clutching his chestplate.

"Oh my goodness, you scared me." Keralis giggles. He's waiting in front of the portal, hands in his pockets. "I thought you went through."

"Well..." Keralis starts, "Somebody said we needed to go through the portal with someone else. And then I thought of a certain admin going through alone..." Xisuma laughs, shaking his head. He joins Keralis, swirling colours reflecting off his armour.

"Of course you did." He takes a deep breath. "Well, I'm ready to go." Keralis wraps his arm around Xisuma's shoulders, squeezing him tight.

"You've done a good job this season, Shishwammy. I hope you know that." Xisuma sneaks one last look out the doorway before they leave this world behind.

"Yeah." He smiles. "I think I do."

#hermitcraft #hermitcraft fic #my writing #catch me last minute changing the entire ending #but im easing myself back into writing #and what better than a homage to the changing of seasons?

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riverdale-retread · 2 years

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Riverdale S6B Ep. #110 (“Things that go bump in the night”)

I kind of want to believe that this is the show finding its footing after the pandemic. Because Ep. 109 was fanservice to the Bughead fandom that’s been deprived of tailored content for a long time (and Riverdale the Show owes Bughead fandom its longevity). This episode was Riverdale making playful use of all the bits they’ve been setting up and priming us for 14 episodes so far this season!

Oh, and if you’re a big fan of Fangs Fogarty we aren’t friends and you should skip this one.

Heather and Cheryl are catching up about work and life. Heather’s mother is dead, she’s a librarian. Cheryl’s amazing bosoms are fully out. I really admire Heather for being able to keep her pretty eyes only on Cheryl’s face. Either she’s an angelically good person or she is not a natural creature (I am undecided.) Both women confirm that they are currently unattached, and beam at each other about it. Just as Heather is about to catch the bus to Greendale (most public transportation to Riverdale is cut but there’s a MIDNIGHT bus between Greendale and Riverdale? Okay.) Cheryl comes up with a ploy to keep her close.

Cheryl wants to turn Thornhill into a library. “How kismet” is how Heather responds, and this is one of the rare instances when I very much envy Cheryl for her wealth (implied) (Did that all get fixed by the way? The insane building and reconstruction that Cheryl was doing. Or is that Vale Cheryl? I am so confused.)

At the diner, Tabitha delivers bad news to her two important men - Pop Tate and Jughead Jones. I cannot begin to tell you how pleased I am that Jughead gets to have this seat at this table. She was, however, unable to get the diner declared a historic landmark. Tabitha, looking just so pretty in her neat light violet sweater, says she has an idea about how she might save Pop’s anyway.

In the very moodily lit FBI office, Betty Cooper is unloading the discoveries about her childhood trauma to Agent Jillian Drake. She is especially galled by the fact that Alice helped Hal bury a body that “rotted under our family dining table.” The way Betty cracks a joke about this TERRIBLE thing that was happening in her life (her family can be summed up as “Apple pie served over an unmarked grave”) was so sad and dark. I was however distracted by just how much Agent Drake resembles Jughead Jones back in his Serpent days. Dark forelocks flopping over her forehead, sharp eyebrows cutting across pale skin, intense gaze, black leather jacket, a never-ending patience for listening to Betty Cooper talk about her parents, and an impulse to give her very sensible, correct advice in response to trauma-dumping. Even if she turns out to be TBK or whatever it is, I will forever have a soft spot for Agent Drake for being the first and only person to actually tell Betty to move out of Alice Cooper’s house asap. Finally! Finally!! Just like Jughead Jones back in the day, Betty’s revelations of the ugliness of her life makes Jillian Drake want to get closer to Betty, not further.

Betty goes straight to Archie to move in with him. He says yes, and then speaks of himself and that dog Bingo as “us” that would love to have her “for as long as you need.” So Frank definitely doesn’t live here anymore, and when they put the Andrews residence back together nobody created a nook or anything for Jughead Jones in the garage. I’m not bitter, I just want to know what’s going on. And where does Uncle Fucking Frank live, by the way?? Why don’t I know this?

The Gangbangers With Criminal Records, the Mickey and Minnie Mouse King and Queen of the Southside Serpents, the cursed FONI (Toni x Fangs) are getting a very unpleasant reality check from the social worker, who says that Toni being birth mother, college graduate (apparently she also found time to get a Master’s degree??), school counselor, whatever whatever, don’t really count for much in the face of Kevin’s onslaught. Fangs being a hands on dad (according to Toni) isn’t always going to look good to every judge, according to the social worker ally. The fact that we’ve hardly ever seen Fangs actually touch this baby (whereas Kevin did haul the rubber doll all over town when he had to keep the baby safe) undermines all of this. And I don’t know why they won’t talk about RACE as a potential issue - it’s THERE, but the show won’t directly address it.

Tabitha wants to disassemble the diner, keep the entire set of things in storage, then reassemble it in a safer location. Because the land that the diner is on has been claimed via eminent domain. Riverdale being a show about real estate above everything else still holds as a theory, I suppose. Is it because everyone who makes the show on the production side is middle aged? (Middle aged people will discuss real estate non-stop.) (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Archie is all in, not because he particularly cares about the diner, I don’t think (I mean it’s a place where he experienced his dad get shot so…) but because he despises Percival.

Meanwhile, Jughead has writer’s block yet again. It’s so bad that he’s actually run out of ways to procrastinate. I’m not sure how that’s possible in the age of the smartphone. Just in time, Veronica summons Jughead to the casino via text message.

The last time I can recall Veronica and Jughead interacting in any meaningful way was when she was trying to be a straight housewife for Archie (which neither of them wanted) only to be ditched for exciting all-male fire-quelling activities when she’d gone all out to make a dinner feast. Jughead and she had reached a tacit agreement that he needed to escape that situation with a loaded plate.

I am trying not to do this but I can’t help but compare:

Archie learns that Jughead can read minds and has no interest or use for this whatsoever because a mind is not something you can punch.

Betty learns that Jughead can read minds and goes, How perfect! I’m going to use you to solve my problem that only applies specifically to me and in way that makes you uncomfortable and uneasy that I do not express interest in.

Tabitha learns that Jughead can read minds and goes, If we’re going to be partners in life we need to have respect and boundaries and I must insist that you do not go digging around or dropping in on my thoughts uninvited.

Veronica learns that Jughead can read minds, and she says, Let’s monetize this to “our mutual benefit!” She wants to do a mentalist act to make some quick cash so she can be armed with liquidity to fight off Reggie’s attempt at a hostile takeover.

Jughead pushes back on Veronica’s 60-40 split to insist on 50-50 plus the whole consent and boundaries thing he learned from Tabitha (“We only read the minds of the willing.”)

Archie has assembled his crew (It’s a union job!) which includes Fangs but not Uncle Fucking Frank. The job seems very unusual to me - disassemble a business, with the assurance of reassembling it later.

Then we are treated to a very depressing scene. I mean, all the scenes of FONI are very very depressing. Is this Riverdale’s statement on (bisexuals) being straight? Being in a straight relationship basically triggers some sort of masculinity anxiety in Fangs. He has had no qualms being a freeloader and layabout and also is someone who did not pause for a single second before bringing an arsenal of ILLEGAL GUNS into a relatively small apartment with an infant, but now that he’s been told he will be judged using the mainstream standards of manhood, he is suddenly obsessed with ‘being a provider’ i.e. earning more money (than Toni?). Fangs used to be the calm boyfriend to Kevin, but he’s a shit life partner to Toni and every time FONI come on screen I want to black out from tedium. He is providing Toni with zero emotional support - he just burdens her further with HIS insecurities. It’s very telling to me that he managed to get home EXACTLY AFTER she did all of the labor of caring for and putting to bed the actual baby. Shut the fuck up both of you, about Fangs wanting to be a better father and ‘already being an amazing’ father. This is so awful - a woman trying to keep custody of her child by having to shore up a very shoddy man’s emotional instability on top of everything, essentially begging him to stay with praise. UGH. GO BACK TO CHERYL, ANTOINETTE TOPAZ.

Betty comes home to the cursed Cooper residence to find Polly’s cursed incest children being creepy with a cat that Alice gave them. The statement that Dagwood makes - “We’re going to have so much fun playing with his tail!” - is actually really great as an indicator of evil, because nobody should ever play with a cat’s tail, and giving an animal to kids without imparting this lesson on them is total fail! Dagwood glows red to Betty, so she confiscates Butterscotch the cat (and puts him in a shelter!??). Juniper says something equally creepy - “Bring him back soon so he can catch mice for us”- as Betty backs away.

Archie and his crew (we keep getting close ups of Fangs which made me uneasy) are disassembling Pop’s to very cheerful music, until the gumball machine drops forward and crashes into pieces for no reason.

Betty consults Agent Drake (who I see now has blue cat eyes like Jughead. Okayyy.) about the auras she can see. In a similar vein to Jughead continually being able to find books and answers to esoteric occult techniques related to mindreading, Drake is someone who knows a lot about the paranormal. From the time Polly’s children were babies in bassinets, Betty has been concerned about their being evil. I would hate to have an aunt like this, someone watching for signs of badness and evil in me at all times. This is how you create people who hate themselves. Betty’s nervous little laugh as she worries that Dagwood is “a killer in the making” weirdly made me want to take Dagwood away from her influence. Drake sensibly says that Betty should first get the kids tested for the telltale gene (before jumping to conclusions is left unsaid.).

Dr Curdle Jr is visibly creeped out by the two little tykes when Betty takes them to get the test.

At Thornhill, Heather is doing something with a bundle of sage to both set an intention and ‘cleanse’ the space in order to bring ‘innovation’ into the space. (Instagram is where I learned about sage, and recently Instagram has advised people to not use sage if they’re not Native American.) Heather is dressed like (what else) a sexy librarian while Cheryl is dressed like a sexy bride all in white with a really terrific bosom window (she is the opposite of subtle). Heather says she’s studied Wicca and name drops Hecate. So there’s more bonding, this time over their shared religion, between Heather and Cheryl.

At the cleared-out diner, Archie and his crew are taking a break when Percival enters with Uncle Fucking Frank. Frank offers higher wages, signing bonus and freedom from union dues to abandon the diner project and Andrews Construction. Percival rolls his eyes at the mention of Fred Andrews and for just this, he must die. Fangs is of course very interested in turning coat and joining Percival’s team. He isn’t even subtle about it - he just does it right then and there. Can he die too, please?

To cleanse us of this dankness we are next shown Veronica’s opening song for the mentalist act that she and Jughead have put together. Since the loss of Josie, and with Kevin shunted to the sidelines as whatever his role is currently supposed to be (incipient villain?), the bulk of the musical theater impulses of this show are currently being shouldered by Veronica Lodge and I’m kind of here for it, if for no other reason than her amazing taste in costumes. She’s wearing a top hat with long opera gloves and a sexy leotard and I love her.

She introduces Seer of the Southside, Forsythe the Fantastic .

THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER. Just. I love this. It’s so funny - Jughead takes on the “Southside” identity in full now, and for this? Furthermore, Forsythe is a name that he didn’t use in prep school (Bret continually called him Forsythe but he kept telling people to call him Jughead) but did use as his official author name, and now this! Who added the Fantastic? Veronica? Jughead? Together? I want the behind the scene montage of them deciding what sort of outfits to wear and how to title the thing and which aesthetic to present, commissioning the poster from a Veronica crony, getting the costumes tailored and picking them up together, because this whole show is so much fun! I am immensely cheered by this indication that Jughead Jones has developed a really healthy sense of humor about himself.

People love the show and Reggie is pissed.

The diner is fully reassembled the next day. Tabitha stomps off to confront Percival. I absolutely adore the fact that she isn’t afraid of him, not even a little bit. She commits a petty little act of destruction with the cutest little ‘oops’ after yelling at Percival. Unfortunately, Sam (whoever that is) gets electrocuted by the jukebox during the diner dismantling.

The MAOA gene was passed to Juniper but not to Dagwood, so then Drake and Betty put up an ‘aura’ murder board to try to figure out what Betty’s problem is.

Oh? OK. I am slow. This is a blatant thing that the show is doing, giving Drake basically all of Jughead’s physical traits plus slotting her into the role that Jughead used to play in Betty’s life: confidant, sounding board, assistant and guide. Betty is wearing a very strange orange and blue shaggy sweater. They come up with some theory about what her blindspot might be as it relates to the serial killer gene. In order to protect the twins from Percival, Betty decides to move them away from Alice.

Reggie decides to try to blackmail Veronica for a cut of the earnings she’s making with Forsythe the Fantastic. Veronica keeps calling Reggie stupid in the nastiest possible ways (“so unburdened by intelligence”) that is very reminiscent of how Jughead in S1 used to talk to Reggie (“Can you spell it?”). Given the merciless pwning that Riverdale the Show gave the immensely valid and valuable Jeronica fandom earlier in S6, I am very pleased at these crumbs.

Fangs, with his ill gotten gains, has bought a whole car without telling Toni anything about it, which means that the reason he gave for becoming a turncoat (“Toni and I are drowning in legal bills”) was a total lie. He’s also making a white bread and mayonnaise sandwich which I find unforgivable. I will also harp on the fact that fully 22 minutes into this episode where Toni has called him an “amazing father” he has yet to be shown touching the baby in any way whatsoever. Toni yells at him about how Percival is evil incarnate. Archie, bless him, apparently has taught Fangs about how not to get overwhelmed by Percival’s mind control, but you need either a spine or native intelligence to pull this off, so I am going to assume Fangs will fail.

Like all good tail-end Millennials with Instagram-influenced spirituality, Heather and Cheryl in the course of their date have progressed to candles, crystals and tarot cards. Queen of Wands is a ON THE NOSE choice for Cheryl obviously - very literal. Queen because she’s a girl, Wands are the fire suit, and in some meanings she’s meant to represent redhaired fair skinned women. Apparently, Cheryl isn’t all that into tarot, which means Heather packed a tarot card and a handful of tumbled magic rocks with her all the way to Thornhill. The next card is the Lovers (which doesn’t always mean literally lovers but ok) and then comes the Tower. I disagree with Heather about what the Tower card means, but then I like chaos and massive change and the toppling of established order and I guess a lot of people dislike drastic change. The Tower card apparently means Riverdale, to Cheryl.

Outside the hospital room where “Sam” is recuperating, Tabitha tells Archie it’s not possible that there was any sort of electrical problem with the jukebox.

Thanks to the Jeronica connection (oh I wish!) but more likely because he’s finally FINALLLLYYYYY found a friend who treats his current state as being ‘gifted,’ Jughead has found his writing mojo again. His comic seems to be about some woman named “Laura.” The legible panel reads: “Laura had graduated summa cum laude from Centerville University, but these days she was chairing the PTA…” (She has Betty’s haircut and general aspect, even in his chicken-scratch art.)

Veronica comes over to the Jabitha Residence to discuss Reggie blackmailing Veronica. Jughead says he’s ‘never’ liked Reggie from the start, to which Veronica answers, “I know.” Do we know? We do? I guess we do. I can’t off the top of my Riverdale saturated head remember any sort of heart to heart that Reggie and Jughead had. They had people in common, that’s all.

Veronica asks Jughead if he would be willing to mindwipe Reggie - “Not his entire mind, small though it may be.” This is an extremely Jughead Jones turn of phrase. The Jeronica crumbs keep coming! Jughead appears not particularly surprised that Veronica killed Hiram, only that she is telling him about it. He also didn’t go to Hiram’s funeral even for the sake of Veronica, if you recall. Veronica calmly says that she’s made her peace with it. Jughead offers to research to see if a ‘surgical ‘wipe is possible. Jughead has no judgment or editorializing to offer about Veronica’s patricide, which I find lovable.

Tabitha stops by the diner and she sees it all lit up and perfectly furbished again and operational! When she goes inside, the items are real but the people are gone. Ghosts! So she tells Archie that the diner is haunted. Since when it rains it pours, Archie tells her that he’s lost most of his crew to Percival.

Trying to fix things, Archie invites Uncle Fucking Frank to the White Wyrm. Product placement for the Chime card (whatever that is, I don’t know, I’m not in the US) is done in the same vein as having Veronica who can’t be poisoned thoughtfully eating those Smartfood popcorn - the Chime card is something you use to buy Uncle Fucking Frank a day drink in order to find out why he’s so in deep with Evil Incarnate. Is Chime card happy with this? Because I’m very amused.

Archie calls Uncle Fucking Frank straight up FRANK now and I love that. After all this time - all this time!! - absolutely despising Uncle Fucking Frank, I feel extremely validated by how shit he is being. He take the Sainted Fred Andrews’ name in vain, refusing to do something in ‘honor’ of him.

I don’t know how they obtained this but the Lesbian Bughead (Drake and Betty) have managed to get DNA test results for both Cheryl and the woman-killer orderly. They posit that Betty has a blindspot about the MAOA gene. With this bit of business out of the way, Drake wants to know how living with “The Boyfriend” is. She can’t even bear to say Archie’s name??

Tabitha goes to consult the local witch Cheryl (and Heather is there) about the ghosts. They spout a lot of stuff about why ghosts exist (unfinished business, fear of the afterlife etc) but what I’m obsessed with is the fact that Cheryl and Heather have the exact same level of pillowy lips. These three super pretty women join in invoking a magical spell in the diner. When ghosts manifest in Riverdale it gets very cold, and the lights flicker. Heather’s magic is in English and has to be in rhyme (compared to Nana Rose/ Percival’s Latin and Cheryl’s Greek).

One of the ghosts, an old school sassy waitress stereotype named Gilda Snide, does a short exposition dump that 1. the diner is the final battleground between Good and Evil, 2. the ghosts have to preserve the existence of the diner in order to complete their earthly mission of ‘bearing witness’ to the battle and 3. the diner cannot be allowed to be put into storage and must have a continual operational space. (The ghosts refuse to count the franchise that’s opened inside the Babylonium, I suppose? Or the show itself just forgot.)

We also get an explanation for why Percival wants a TRAIN station. The thing he wants to activate is the ‘ghost train’ which scares the ghosts. Heather explains that it’s “an engine that grants great power, dominion over the living and the dead.” Like Jesus? Oh! Like, the Antichrist? Or something? Mythology people help me out - is this - is this Hades?

The theology of the ghosts is very garbled. There have to be witnesses or else the battle between good and evil cannot take place (what sort of battle is this where the witnesses are primary?) which means the eldritch evil cannot be defeated (?). I’d never heard of the mothman before this show (because I don’t consume anything to do with horror) so, same vein, I had never heard of the eldritch evil either. According to TV Tropes this is: type of creature defined by its disregard for the natural laws of the universe as we understand them.

Uh OK then.

Cheryl as audience insert (or rather ME) goes “is it?” in response to Tabitha saying, in the most Jughead Jones jumping to an intuitive conclusion way, IT’S ALL STARTING TO MAKE SENSE. Anyway, they need to rebuild the diner as quickly as possible after moving it off of this location (and saving it from being destroyed outright).

Meanwhile, Alice comes bursting into the FBI walk-in-office to yell at Betty about the custody of the twins. Betty says she’s trying to end the cycle of being raised in a house of evil by the batshit Alice Cooper - and Alice understands immediately what the implications are (“Protect them from me??”), proceeding to truly flip out. Alice Cooper, who has been the major source of persecution and pain in Betty’s life, goes on an absolutely unhinged rant about how she sacrificed things for Betty, that Betty is insane (“conjure up these villains”) and evil (“maybe you’re the villain”). #Hal Cooper Was The Better Parent

Alice Cooper really is the posterchild for how very important abortion rights are. She should never have been made to carry Charles to term. She should’ve had her abortion. This also means she probably would never have had Polly or Betty and there’d be no show, but the way she flips out shows that for her, motherhood was nothing but a series of nightmare sacrifices. It’s that way if you have children when motherhood is a bad idea for you. She wishes on Betty barrenness (ooh echoes back to Rivervale) so that she can be spared having to know Alice’s pain. I think this is a powerful self reveal. Alice wishes she hadn’t had children. In a fit of anger, she says “so you don’t have to experience the things that you’ve made me endure” which is actually the opposite of what you should be saying, if you mean that as a curse. The common curse is actually, I hope you have a child exactly like you so you can suffer exactly like I did, isn’t it? During the course of this rant, in which she calls Betty “a bad person,” Alice glows very red.

In order to maintain the continuum (the booths, the counter and the jukebox are key), Tabitha asks Archie for permission to set up the diner in the El Royal. Archie agrees, smiling as he says he ain’t afraid of no ghosts. Uncle Fucking Frank who apparently was lurking in the doorway just like the other Percival Minion Alice Cooper, has apparently overheard the majority of this. He says that he’s seen the light, so with the help of St Fred, he wants to find his way back to the good side. Archie hugs Frank and I still hate Frank.

I can’t believe I’m just noticing this now but - Archie and Tabitha have a relationship

entirely separate from their connection to Jughead or Betty or Veronica. I’ve been lowykey worried about Tabitha being killed or written off in some way (because of leftover Sweet Pea trauma) but they wouldn’t dare do that now, would they? WOULD THEY?

Later, Barchie are having pillow talk, and they tell each other about their problematic family members. They’re so cute, sometimes. Betty having a nice boyfriend to cuddle up to after her rough day makes me happy.

Jughead Jones is just having a really good time developing his talents. I wish they did more with his HOH status but regardless, he’s very motivated by the thought of doing a precision hit type of brain damage to Reggie Mantle. In order to distract Reggie enough to leave his ‘subconscious’ unguarded, Jeronica (I’m just going to call them that here) give Reggie his cut of the pay in small bills, forcing him to count it.

They do that lovely artsy transition - Jughead in the real world concentrates and Forsythe the Fantastic finds himself in the target’s mindspace. Reggie’s mind has football paraphernalia, gambling items, a Mantle Motors sign, and a comic book box which Jughead didn’t even have to ask him to envision. Jughead finds the relevant memory and rips it out in a violent way. Veronica has handed Reggie the cut in a disorganized cluster of $10 and $50 bills (which I guess was supposed to prevent us the viewers from estimating what 20% of the mentalist act is = how much they made). When Veronica snatches back the money, Reggie cannot recall what he was blackmailing her for. This is very spooky.

The ghosts of the diner (which Tabitha can just casually see now, by the way) have emptied out the essential furniture in anticipation of the big move. These ghosts are superpowerful. Didn’t Patrick Swayze have a much harder time with this in Ghost?

Cheryl points out to Heather that what she did at the diner was necromancy. NECROMANCY! Heather says she was raised by the witches of a very powerful coven. She comes out as a witch to Cheryl. Then she gets Cheryl to admit that she herself is a witch. Cheryl demonstrates her pyrokinesis powers to Heather. Witches being a metaphor for lesbianism or equated with lesbianism is as old as at least Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Cheryl asks for formal lessons from the coven-trained Heather. She looks so vulnerable and perfect and beautiful, so of course Heather has to touch her and say yes.

Can we keep Heather? Please? Pretty please?

Meanwhile, Reggie is proving everyone wrong who called him a dullard or dumb (especially Jeronica) because he knows exactly who did something to damage his mind, and tells Percival about it. I do not like what the glint in Percival’s eye might mean for Jughead. Whenever Jughead Jones scores a point, he tends to lose a lot.

Betty shows up to help but she can see the red glow on Uncle Fucking Frank. Is she wearing Archie’s shirt? I feel like Archie was wearing the flannel she is wearing. Archie calls Frank ‘Uncle Frank’ when he tells that bastard that his evil intentions have been discovered. He was going to sabotage the continuum of Pop’s. Uncle Fucking Frank tries to sucker punch Archie with a fistful of palladium, but of course, Archie is invulnerable and ready to fight. Uncle Fucking Frank takes off.

The transition of the diner to the El Royal location was seamless enough to please the undead.

Speaking of death - Fangs comes home to Toni having prepared a dinner, dressed up, and she begins to APOLOGIZE to him about having been too independent. I WANT TO POKE MY EYES OUT. And then she says the most horrible thing: Maybe we should get married. When Fangs, who is pleased as punch to have her abase herself in this way (Please kill him. Can Baby Anthony kill him? Please?).

We are treated to a hideous flashback (everything FONI is so very cursed) where the social worker tells Toni that the way POC couple FONI can defeat white-gay Kevin is to present the most heteronormative front possible. Basically, pitting racism v. homophobia. Toni lies in her proposal to Fangs, but kind of like how Veronica couldn’t bear to say things that were not her heart in the break up with Reggie, she doesn’t say she loves Fangs or wants to make a life with him, and oh god this is so awful.

Lesbian Bughead are trying to figure out why Betty could see Alice’s aura. Drake really is just Jughead - she says everything about Betty stems from trauma and that Betty isn’t wrong (because Jughead also never liked to say Betty was wrong) but that this is potentially an expansion of her powers - she might be able to sense physical or emotional danger.

Betty then does what she used to do to Jughead all the time - tell a lie by omission. She saw an aura around herself, describes her worries about what this means, but won’t say it’s herself.

Shout out to the brilliant memes about how Betty staring appalled at her red glowing self in the mirror was the manifestation of her internalized homophobia - I see what you meant now!

#i am finally all caught up!#anti fangs fogarty #agent drake = girl jughead jones #riverdale episode 110 #riverdale season 6 #riverdale episode 6.15 #riverdale opinion #Riverdale s6 #riverdale recap #riverdale episode recap

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elliebell77 · 3 years

Text

This was a bad idea.

No, Tamaki decided. This was more than just a bad idea. This was catastrophic. Shitty. Terrible. Where was a badness scale when you needed one?

“W-We should just go back...” Tamaki stuttered out for the third time during this little trip.

Y/N just scoffed. “And miss getting $100? No way. You can go back if you want, but I’m gonna win this bet one way or another.”

L/N had always been like that. The impulsive risk taker of the group. Tamaki was pretty sure it was physically impossible for her to be afraid of anything.

They’d met in first grade, when L/N strutted right up to Tamaki on his first day and introduced herself and Mirio to him. She pretty much shoved her way into his life.

Not that Tamaki was complaining. Y/N constantly encouraged him, helping to bring out his slightly bolder side, while he in return helped her to be a bit less reckless. The relationship worked.

Still, it was like all of Amajiki’s effect on her evaporated the moment any kind of bet was involved. Case point: This bullshit.

“S-So what if it’s $100?!” His voice came out a little harsher than he meant it to be. “You can make $100 in a different, less dangerous way that doesn’t involve haunted buildings!”

Y/N smirked. “So you do think it’s haunted?”

Tamaki just groaned in frustration. He had half a mind to just pick the stubborn girl up and carry her back to her dorm himself. Though of course the mere though of carrying her or entering her dorm room made his face light on fire.

It wasn’t that he hasn’t done either of those things before. That wasn’t the issue. It was more that he’d started... noticing things, when she was around. How his heartrate sped up when she gave that cocky smirk, or how his stomach fluttered when she grabbed his arm to pull him along to do some stupid thing, how... happy he got just from her being nearby, or just listening to her voice.

Tamaki might have been socially awkward, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew what having a crush was like; he’d had several before. But this one was different. This was his best friend. His buddy. He couldn’t just hide from her until it went away, or even confide in her about it for obvious reasons. He tried to go to Mirio, but the blonde just said Amajiki should just tell her.

Y/N interrupted his thoughts. He noticed her staring and immediately flushed. Did he miss something? Was there a stain on his shirt?

“You okay Tama? You completely zone out there for a second.” His entire body was on fire now from pure embarrassment.

“U-Uh, yeah. Just a b-bit tired, I guess.” He muttered after a moment.

Y/N’s usual cocky gaze softened (heh). “Fine. We’ll skip the bet, for now. I wouldn’t be able to see the ghosts tonight anyway; it’s too dark.”

That was the part of Y/N L/N Tamaki loved the most. Those quiet moments when she let her guard down, allowed her cocky smirk to fall off, replaced by a genuine smile. The times when she was just... herself.

They always seemed to end rather quickly though. Y/N gave him a grin and grabbed his arm, tugging him along. “‘Mon! We don’t wanna be late to the next dare.”

#tamaki x reader #amajiki x reader #one shot #tamaki amakiji #tamaki amajiki x reader #amajiki tamaki

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shoichee · 4 years

Text

Rose-Tinted

Craving for angst with kise please!! Like both are afraid to act on their feelings which ends up hurting the both of them unconsciously. Idk, maybe kise is trying to “test” the girl, but went a bit too far i guess. Whatever floats your boat!! I just want angst but maybe hopefully still HEA in the end (or whichever your muse takes you) ;-; thank youu ❤️

Kise x Reader

Word Count: 6975

Note: oh my GOD, HELP THIS WAS 17 PAGES ON MY GOOGLE DOC I COULDNT STOP MYSELF………. angst, happy ending, fake dating!au, mean old kise ….. girl idk WHAT I WROTE I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT ????? reader POV first half and kise POV second half~

@knb-kreations

»»—————　☼　—————««

He holds you so gently, the touch so feather-light as he cradles your head and dips his own head in for a soft peck. The warmth of his lips makes you feel things you shouldn’t feel, things that you still chased for more in a never-ending cycle. You hold onto his hands thumbing your temples to try to anchor yourself further into the bliss, but it ends all too soon when he separates from you and gives you a radiant smile.

You were rudely pulled out of your rose-tinted trance when you heard gasps and chatter amongst the gawking students nearby, particularly Kise’s fans. He doesn’t pay any mind to their reactions and turns his friendly demeanor towards them.

“So you see everyone,” he cheerfully says. “I’m sorry I can’t accept any of your affections, as much as it flatters me so… after all, I have my dear (y/n)-cchi by my side!”

Groans and cries rung throughout the campus as most wail about missing out the opportunity to be Kise’s romantic partner, but before you can listen to their laments, Kise hurriedly tugs you away to the privacy of the back of a building nearby, away from prying eyes and ears. He drops your wrist just as fast and yawns with a stretch.

“What time should we meet up tomorrow?” he casually says, taking out his phone from his pocket.

“Huh?”

“Well, we can’t exactly sell our image of us being a couple unless we walk to and from school together consistently, right (y/n)?”

The rose-tinted lenses on your self-indulgent fantasy shatters to the ground instantly. You gulp, the swallowed spit hitting down to your stomach in heavy dread, where it was previously occupied by fluttering butterflies just moments prior.

This isn’t real.

“Ah… um,” you hesitated, thinking of a reasonable time, so you can wake up and get ready accordingly. “How about this time…”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” he replies, shutting off his phone before he walks a few steps away from you but then stopping. “Huh, uh… should I walk you home first? There might be some nosy people around, and we might as well get some practice in as an official couple.”

“W-Why don’t we start tomorrow morning instead?” you suggest. “A lot’s happened today, and well, I wanna have some time to myself.” Kise impassively stares at you for a couple of seconds before he forms a grin.

“Ah ha, well then, (y/n)-cchi,” he shouts jovially, making sure that his voice rang throughout the area for anyone nearby to hear. “I’ll be waiting for you tomorrow morning, my love!”

“Y-Yeah…” you mumbled, your hand held up in a half-hearted wave. “See you…”

With that parting, you turned to the opposite direction to exit through the side gates to get to your home. Your mind scrambles to recall the impulsive decisions you decided to take on a whim today. The grip on your bag tightens as you finally realized what sort of situation you got yourself into.

You like Kise, plain and simple. You’ve always gazed longingly at him whenever his presence entered within your line of vision. You couldn’t even fault his fans for being so whipped for the basketball player in the first place, not when you felt like you were more enthralled by him than anyone else. So what does a love-stricken fool like you do when the source of attraction directly asks you to partake in a “relationship?” You immediately accept his conditional proposal on auto-pilot before he barely finishes his sentence.

It felt so wrong, yet so right. How can you hate this arrangement when you enjoyed that first kiss you shared with Kise earlier? But how can you love this arrangement when you knew Kise only kissed you to drive everyone off? You stopped on the sidewalk and heaved a huge exhale, and you continued to walk again, the action not even remotely able to clear your head. Your mind continues to swirl and race.

You agreed to this. He even laid out his intentions very clearly to you, and he was more than ready to leave you alone if you didn’t consent to this. But stupid, desperate you did. You were ashamed to feel even a shred of flattery when he told you that you were the only one he can ask to drive off his fans in this only effective method: a relationship.

“Why me?” you said, looking up at his casual posture. “Don’t you have someone you like to ask to be in a relationship? I’m sure they’d be more than happy to accept you…”

“Well,” he mumbled. “I don’t really have someone in mind… you’re kinda the only one who doesn’t drool over me whenever I’m near, and I just ought to ask for your help.”

“W-Well,” you slightly stammered. “I’m okay with helping you, right, so…”

“This isn’t something to accept so readily, you know,” he said, raising a brow. “I know this is super sudden, and it wouldn’t be fair for me to force an answer out of you right at this moment. Besides, I don’t think there’s any incentive for you to be in this either? It’s okay if you don’t want to.”

“N-No!” you interrupted, but you coughed to regain your composure. “I mean, I do have something in this… maybe if I got with you, people would stop trying to harass and tease me if I had someone like you by my side.” That was a half-truth, but you knew there was no way you could reveal your crush to him… not when he believed you were “different” from the others. But can anyone blame you for sticking up for Kise when someone was talking about him like a piece of meat rather than a normal person? “Besides, for you to get to this point, things must’ve gotten too chaotic to simply tell them to stop, right?”

“Huh… is that so,” he said, stretching his neck, but you didn’t know whether or not he intentionally ignored your last question. “Well, if you’re fine with this, I’m letting you know now that we’ll be doing actual couple stuff, like…” He pauses for a second to gauge your reaction. “Hugging, hand-holding… probably kissing too…”

“Y-Yeah,” you nodded. “That’s fine with me! And we’ll have a code word in case either of us overstep our boundaries in any way… maybe…”

“Unagi,” he said.

“Huh? Why?”

“Because they’re the bane of evil…”

“It’s just a dish, but…” you laughed, giddy at how he already showed a different side to you apart from his cool persona. “Alright, let’s go with that.”

How long were you able to keep this up? You pat yourself on the cheeks to dismiss the rest of your fantasies. If you keep this up, Kise will soon notice how you actually were head-over-heels for him all this time, and surely you’ll lose any future chance with him. Besides, maybe you can use this unique arrangement to learn about Kise and his hobbies other than basketball. Yes, you tell yourself, jogging the rest of the way home. It won’t be so bad, after all.

———

Starting today, you’ll be officially dating Kise.

That’s how it is on paper, anyways.

How are you supposed to act while dating the Kise Ryōta? Equally cool and flamboyant? Athletically capable? Would you weird out Kise if you were the one initiating physical affection?

“(y/n)!”

You flinch, not expecting anyone to call for you so early in the morning, and your walking route to school was never shared with another student as far as you were concerned. After all, your path was a little more obscured and unorthodox compared to the majority of students traversing the main neighborhood paths.

“Sorry… did I scare you?” You stop and turn to the source of the voice, only to be surprised when you see Kise himself. “Why do you look so surprised? Didn’t we agree on the time to meet up and walk to school together?”

“Oh… yeah…” In the midst of your thoughts, it seems that you forgot the arrangements you made with him yesterday evening. “My bad?”

“Oh, come on,” he gives a mock-hurt face with a hand to his chest. “Am I that forgettable, (y/n)?”

“N-No!” you immediately deny. You knew it was more like the other way around, the way constant thoughts of Kise preoccupy in your head too much. How can you ever forget him when he constantly runs through your mind everyday for so long? Kise merely gives a good-natured sigh before he changes the subject.

“Kidding,” he says, holding out a hand to you. “Seriously though, get your act together. We gotta start acting the part if we want this to work.” You stare at his hand, hesitating for a split moment before you put your own hand on top. His large hand easily encompasses yours, and the warmth makes you widen your eyes. It… felt nice.

You were so entranced by your linked hands that you failed to notice how Kise was staring at your face with a sharp glint in his eyes, but when you look up back to his face, he easily morphs his expression into his signature grin. He swings your hands around like an excited kid and turns to walk ahead to tug you along.

“Alrighty!~ Let’s hurry together before I get chewed out by Kasamatsu-senpai!”

“Kise, have you ever considered that it’s not really your tardiness that gets the captain mad but more so about the way you seem to irritate him with the way you skip around?”

“(y/n),” he says with a pout, “you know you’re not being convincing when you use my last name to address me as your boyfriend.”

“R-Right,” you stammer, still not used to the entire situation. “Ah… wait. Don’t you uh… call people who are close to you with -cchi?”

“Huh…” he mumbles, looking up at the cloudy sky before looking ahead of the path. “Not necessarily people who are close, just people who I really admire. I guess I addressed you like that yesterday without really thinking.”

“U-Uh, right… sorry.” He stops walking with your hand still in tow, and you almost bumped into his back at his sudden movement. He turns to you with a quite serious look.

“Do you want me to call you that?”

It was a normal question, but for some reason it felt like the next sentence coming from your mouth would make a huge impact on the way the two of you would interact in the future. From the way Kise looks at you with such a scrutinizing gaze, it feels like a trick question, and you’re not sure how to answer it. Your mouth goes dry when you try to reply.

“I… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Kise’s eyes widen a fraction before he gives an unexpected chortle. “Pfft… how do you not know what you want to be addressed as?”

“Arrgh, oh shut it!” you frown, hitting his arm in a fluster before stalking off ahead. You remember that you were supposed to go to school together, and you begrudgingly stop and turn back to wait for him to catch up. “Ryōta, just call me whatever you want. You’re already calling me by my first name, so I doubt anyone would care if you added -cchi or not.” Still, your cheeks turn pink at the realization that Kise would be uttering your first name for the next couple… whenever this relationship will last.

“You… wait up!” Kise wheezes dramatically, despite the both of you knowing full well how easily he can catch up to your stride. “You really shouldn’t be treating your boyfriend like that! Especially on the first day!” Kise holds your hand again to lead you to the rest of the way to school.

All the while, you’ve been staring at his back, your heartstrings being tugged so mercilessly at the cacophony of emotions you were feeling the whole time. He felt so warm, so inviting, but the way he held your hands felt cold and transactional.

———

You’re not sure how to react whenever Kise introduced himself as your “boyfriend” to everyone or whenever nosy students inquired about your new “boyfriend.” All you could do was gulp and manage the most convincing act you could do within different contexts. Smile, laugh, get bashful, be modest in talking about how Kise managed to “like” you, pretend you know many embarrassing stories and sides to him that no one else did. Truthfully, you were just as in the dark as anybody else.

You think the only reason why everyone bought the couple-act was due to how enamored you were in talking about him. This was the only response you could be truthful about. At least you could use your huge crush to your advantage in portraying yourself as the “lovey-dovey” half of the couple. Yet it feels unbelievably wrong.

You knew you had to prepare yourself some preset answers for curious students, but you didn’t expect yourself to be participating in neverending “interviews” in these social settings. You thought this relationship would entail a closer access to Kise’s true self, but things suggest otherwise.

“Ryōta,” you say, peering up at his face as the both of you walk down the hallway to your designated spot for lunch together. Even as you two walk, he puts a reasonable distance between the two of you when there is no one in close proximity. Even when you two are together, he only grabs your hand when it’s socially convenient. Even when Kise approaches you to talk, you know it’s never anything beyond for the sake of acting. And you agreed to this entire thing.

“Hm?” He spares a glance to your figure before returning his gaze ahead.

“Uh, I brought extra food today,” you say, trying to use this situation to try to express your genuine feelings to him in small increments. “I brought an extra bento box too… in case, you don’t wanna actually share one…” He was about to reply before a pair of students turned around the corner to head towards your direction. Kise narrows his eyes at the unexpected turn of events, and immediately turns to you brightly.

“(y/n)! You really thought that I wouldn’t like the idea?” he pouts. “Of course I wanna share a bento with you! Silly…” He slightly bends to your level to place a chaste peck on your forehead.

“Ah…” you freeze at his soft touch, your legs stiff in place as you stop walking. Kise, in response, moves his lips to your ears, and you slightly shiver at the unexpected intimacy… it was the closest he’s gotten to you ever since that public stunt when he kissed you in front of everyone the other day.

“Hey, don’t just stand there… you can’t overreact like this over something couples do everyday.” You bit your lip in an attempt to stop your heart from sinking from disappointment, but in turning your face to him to spill an apology, your face ended up right in front of his. Your eyes widen but he only stares at you with such an intensity that makes you hold your breath in anticipation.

But he immediately draws away and stretches with a yawn. “Looks like those people left right after they thought they intruded on a private moment between us,” he says. “Sheesh, people really do the most to be so nosy nowadays.” You wonder how he can be so casual about this all. Perhaps it was a mistake to be here like this when you were so in love with him, overthinking every single thing he did.

Why didn’t he kiss you this time? Did he not find you the teensiest attractive enough to want to kiss you even without an audience nearby?

“Come on,” he mumbles, waving a hand through your face. “Quit making that face. I won’t be doing that to you without warning anytime soon. My bad, okay?” Kise sheepishly holds out a hand for a handshake to make peace, and you wordlessly take his hand. One day, you’ll stop being his special someone to savor his warmth…

No, you thought, you’re an idiot… he’s never considered you as someone special.

You debated in telling him that you were fine with him kissing you, but you hold your tongue, afraid that he’ll realize your true feelings about him. Besides, were you really okay with him kissing you when he didn’t reciprocate the same feelings?

“It… wasn’t like what you think,” you hesitate. “It just caught me off guard.”

“Well,” he laughs. “That’s a relief! By the way…” He stops to settle himself on the bench. “What’s exactly your lunch? Since you went through the effort to bring extras, I guess I’ll eat them.”

“I packed salmon from leftovers I had from home,” you reply, taking out your bento box and utensils. You decide to shake off your negative thoughts and shove them to the back of your mind. He makes a horrified face at the lunchbox. “Kise, what’s wrong?”

“Do you… happen to have anything else packed?”

“Rice?”

“Well,” he coughs. “I’m not a fan of dishes with boned fish.”

“Didn’t you say you hated unagi too?” Kise shyly averts his gaze before he reluctantly confirms it so. “They’re delicious though! Especially when they’re grilled!” At first, he refused to answer, but the more you tried to poke and prod (literally too, at his ribs), he finally gave in.

“Alright, alright! But I swear, you better not tell anyone!… I choked on a fish bone one time…”

“… And?”

“And yeah.”

“You choked on a bone once and you got scared out of eating fish—”

“Shhhh!” he hushes, emphasizing his hiss with a finger to his lips. At this very moment, you saw a glimpse into who Kise really is, and you can’t help but bust out a genuine, carefree laugh for the first time in front of him. In embarrassment, he bonks your head with his fist to get you to stop laughing, but it only makes you more conscious of how close he is to you.

But just as quickly and telepathically, Kise puts some distance between the two of you, sitting closer to the edge of the bench. He opts to hunch over casually and keenly watch you scarf down your meal in minutes without a care.

You wonder if you should feel guilty for enjoying this moment with Kise, even if he was only waiting with you out of obligation of being your “boyfriend,” but right now, you allowed yourself to indulge, letting your heart beat sporadically without guilt and fear for once. You continue to savor your lunch in silence, concentrating on munching around the fish bones, while Kise sat in contemplation all the while.

———

“You should come watch our practice game today, (y/n).”

“Eh?”

You tilt your head at him in confusion. It’s been two weeks since you started this arrangement with him, but nothing extraordinary or groundbreaking happened between the two of you, much to your despondency. But you knew, you shouldn’t be asking for too much when you already have the once-in-a-lifetime chance to be close to him like this.

“There’s going to be a lot of people coming,” he explains. “Even if it’s just a practice game… it’d be weird if you weren’t there, because, you know, we’re dating.”

“I don’t mind going,” you reply. “It sounds fun.”

“You know, you’ve been agreeing to everything I’ve been suggesting the entire time,” he mumbles to himself, but he zips his mouth shut when he sees you instinctively moving closer to try to catch what he said. “Uh, in any case… just stop by the gym whenever you can.”

So here you are a few hours later, being the first person to settle yourself on top of the 2nd floor of the gym. You rest your arms on the railway, fascinated by the Kaijō basketball team and their skills. As they warm up on the courts, it’s the first time you see Kise truly at ease and happy with the people he cares about, and your heart pangs in jealousy seeing his genuine smile. You were pulled out of your thoughts when you realized the gym became completely crowded, the constant chattering announcing huge crowds along the entrance and the lucky watchers at the 2nd floor with you.

You didn’t mind the onlookers when all you were focused on was Kise throughout the entire game with a smitten look, and you weren’t surprised when his team easily won against the other local school.

“That’s Kise isn’t it?” You were about to turn to leave the higher floor to wait outside the gym when you heard his name. You stop to eavesdrop on the conversation next to you.

“Yeah, I’ve been hearing about him way too much. Something about him dating now?”

“He’s dating (l/n) right now, which is super weird because they never even talked… and all of the sudden, they’re dating? I didn’t think of him to be into short-term flings.”

“You think he’s using (l/n) in some way? What an asshole.”

“Yikes. You’re probably not even that far off the bulls-eye. He’s a really heartless guy, from what I’ve heard.”

“Hey,” you interrupt, scaring the two girls out of their wits before they turn to you. “I don’t think you should talk about Kise like that when all you know of him is through speculation.”

“Ugh, here we go again with his fans…” one of them groans, rolling her eyes. “Look, I get it, he’s good-looking and all, but I don’t understand how you can defend him to death when he doesn’t even spare a glance at you… ah… shit, you’re (l/n)?” A flash of hurt was visible on your face for a split second before you frowned. Their words unintentionally hit the nail in the coffin.

“Whether I’m (l/n) or not doesn’t really matter,” you say angrily. “Gossiping about anyone like that isn’t something you should make a habit out of.”

“Jeez, let’s just leave,” the other girl whispers, dragging the first girl along.

You simply stand there watching them leave, but you can’t shake off what they said. They were right… how could you be so whipped for him when you know he’ll never see you the same way?

“Oy!”

Kise’s voice brings you back to your consciousness as he waves at you from the court. “You’ve been standing there for a while! Hurry up, or I’ll leave you behind, (y/n)-cchi!”

“Coming!” You race from the 2nd floor to the ground level to catch up to him, your heart pounding all the while. Did he… did he just…?

You shake your head before you reunite with him to walk home together. Stop it… don’t overthink it.

———

Kise waits at his usual spot to wait for you before walking to school together. It’s been three weeks since he’s approached you to “date.” He’s grown quite comfortable with this arrangement, being close to you and backing off when it’s convenient. After all, if you somehow showed a gruesome true self of yours, he’d be able to separate himself from you with no consequences… even if his heart would cry out not to.

“Ryōta!” There you are, running down the path towards him so cheerfully. Could you really be an awful person when you have such a pure smile like that?

“Ah, (y/n)-cchi,” he says. “We should hurry if we wanna be inside campus. It’s a little chilly today, so being indoors sounds really nice right now.” He peers over to your face to see your nose slightly red from the cold, and he huffs out a chuckle, noting the warm puff of air escaping from his own lips.

“I guess it’s a little cold today,” you say, looking up at Kise with a slight childish wonder. “Hey, that’s a pretty cool cloud that you puffed out.”

“You have some clouds around you too.” He gently smiles, and he notes that your eyes widen at the sight of him. “Wha? Is my face that horrific, (y/n)-cchi?” You avert your gaze as your cheeks grow just as red as your nose.

“Nah… i-it’s nothing…ah—” He holds your cheeks to turn your face back to him, and he draws near with a serious gaze, bumping his forehead against yours.

“You’re actually really cold…”

“Uh, um… I don’t think I’m c-cold anymore—” you stammer, your eyes darting to look everywhere but his face, and Kise’s eyes only scrutinize your behavior further.

“Hm, if you say so…” he mumbles. Your eyes flutter close at the anticipation, and he feels the pull towards your lips, closing his own lids shut…

Wait, what was he thinking? He snaps his lids open and slightly draws himself away to look at you, still vulnerable with your closed eyes. It’s only when he drops his hands from your cheeks and turns to walk ahead when you flutter your eyes open again. Don’t let your feelings for (y/n) blind you into figuring out who they really are.

“Come on,” Kise calls out to you. “We should get going… we don’t wanna be late.” Besides, what if there’s a possibility that you don’t really like him at all?

“Y-Yeah…”

The rest of the walk was in silence, with Kise slightly ahead of you. Perhaps if he turned around at least once to check on you, he would’ve seen the consequences of his actions.

You were silently crying the entire walk.

———

Nothing seems to change much for the entire month. The way the two of you dance and sway around each other, while never being too close, never being too affectionate, never being completely honest. In this shared rose-tinted world, the frail glass that holds these moments together threatens to break with every fickle interaction. Every shared kiss constitutes another small crack to the rose-tinted crystal.

And both of you are content with just the way things are.

Or that’s what you both mutter to yourselves like a mantra.

“Ryōta!” you call out to him. “Did you wait long?”

“Not really,” he says. “I just barely got out too… the teacher was really lenient on dismissal today, actually.” His heart swells at the sight of you as usual, but just as quickly, he’s always managed to quash his emotions in check.

For the first time, you initiate physical touch with him without hesitation, linking your hands with his and snuggling up to him. He flinches, not fast enough to process the sudden warmth of your body, and he immediately separates himself from you. Do you actually like him after all?… No, something is up, right?

“Ryōta…?” You flinch just as severely from the sudden reaction, and he turns to avoid looking at your face, knowing that his resolve would crumble right in front of you. He’s a coward, and he fucking knows it.

“S-Sorry, (y/n)-cchi! I don’t know what came over me like that, but you know you don’t have to force yourself to do things like that, right? There’s no one here, so let’s just walk home together like we always do, yeah?”

He turns to already walk ahead, too afraid of hearing your response and hoping you would follow and catch up to him… like you always do.

You simply stood there for a few moments, anguish clear as the sky above you as you keep telling yourself to manage your own expectations. Still, your voice croaks out quietly to respond to him, even if you knew he wasn’t going to hear it.

“… But I wanted to do these things with you, Ryōta.”

———

It’s been several days since that incident.

It was very awkward for the most part, the walks to and from school silent and suffocating. He’s not quite sure how to go about it while trying not to sound disingenuous about it. Nonetheless, even through his quiet apology, your face still lights up, and he’s confused about why you would ever be so forgiving of him.

Although today, lines have been crossed and this shared secretive world between the two of you have completely shattered to the point of no return.

It was quite a blur, an instinct that Kise has developed over the course of this relationship. Every time a group of students drew near, he was always ready to tug you close for a kiss until they left and carry on with their day. Today was usually no exception.

Another group of students was hanging around the corner, presumably spying on you two, and Kise did what he’s always done, grabbing your hand and embracing you for a kiss. Your eyes were blown open in surprise, but when you saw Kise’s eyes elsewhere, something finally snapped inside.

You push him away at his chest.

“U-Unagi… unagi…” Your voice trembles, and you use your arms to cover up the fresh tears. The code word sounds unbelievably stupid out of context, but at this moment, the word alone stabs Kise in his chest. “I-I… just stop… please.” Kise stares dumbly at you, processing the fact that you just used the agreed safe word against him.

“… (y/n)-cchi?” Kise asks with a confused smile. “You’ve never objected to kissing before… I’ve even told you what we’ll be doing if you agreed to this…?”

“How…” you choke on tears. “H-How can you kiss me like that while your eyes are on someone else…?”

“I don’t understand—”

“A-Am I that atrocious to kiss unless you stare at something else or there’s some convenience?”

“I don’t get it, (y/n)-cchi,” he frowns. “Did you expect more out of this or am I missing something?”

“There was no reason to kiss me like that,” you softly wail. “Everyone already knows we’re a thing for… o-over a month now. There’s no reason to kiss me around people anymore when they won’t suspect us anyways…”

“So you don’t want me to kiss you anymore?” Kise’s heart sinks in thinking about where this is going.

“No!—you don’t… you don’t fucking get it! I don’t get it—! Why are we doing this anymore—I just, I see no reason to continue this anymore… you already shooed off your fans, right? Why haven’t you ended this?!”

“(y/n)-cchi—I…” He reaches out for you, but you immediately recoil.

“No—please… no more, I can’t do this anymore!” you sniffle. “I can’t fucking do this… I’m done, I’m tired—please… just look for another person to take my place… I… I’m done—I can’t pretend with you anymore when I always expect more out of it like a love-stricken fool!”

“I…”

“Look—see,” you choke. “I’m just like everyone else who’s in love with you, I’m no different than everyone else R-Ryōta… so that’s why, I-I… can’t do this anymore!”

Kise stands there, staring at you running away from him. It was like everything had gone silent, save for the sound of his blood pounding in his ears.

“You think he’s using (l/n) in some way? What an asshole.”

“Yikes. You’re probably not even that far off the bulls-eye. He’s a really heartless guy, from what I’ve heard.”

He hated rumors, he really did… but for the first time, he feels like he deserves every word thrown at him around the hallways and classrooms. His memory flits to the time when he felt warm from seeing you standing up for him, even if he wasn’t bothered by them before. Now, the warmth is replaced by agonizing regret and guilt wracking through his entire body. His hands feel cold with you gone from his side.

What has he done?

———

He’s grown quiet for the next week.

It’s been a week since you ran from him, and it’s been a week since he last talked to you.

Even his teammates were concerned about his reserved behavior, but just as always, he’s managed to shoot them a convincing smile. Kasamatsu was more persistent about this but eventually dropped it seeing Kise’s refusal to talk about it.

That day when you pushed him away, he couldn’t sleep, his thoughts keeping him awake the entire night. He resolved himself to talk to you the next day… but he changed his mind the last minute… and then he told himself he’d do it the next day… and then he changed his mind again.

He tells himself that it’s because you rightfully hate him, with the way you’d surround yourself with other crowds and groups to prevent him from walking up to you when you were alone. He tells himself that it’s because both you and him needed space to cool off and go back to the way you two were. He refuses to tell himself that it’s because he’s an honest-to-god coward.

He misses you. He misses you damn badly. Why the fuck did he go through such lengths instead of confessing to you straight up? He tells himself that he was being cautious. He tells himself that he doesn’t want his heart to be broken again. He refuses to conclude that it’s because he’s a fucking coward.

“I don’t know what’s been on your mind, idiot,” Kasamatsu says. “But you better solve this yourself quickly if you’re not opening up to me about this. We can’t have your performance quality be dropping even in practice. Hurry up and fix this shit with (l/n)-san already.”

“H-How’d you know?!” Kise raises his head from his desk in astonishment.

“Tch, idiot,” he glowers, chopping Kise’s head with a swift hand. “It’s too obvious from the way you’re moping around… from the way you two stuck together all this time, who wouldn’t notice something happened from the way you’re at your desk watching (l/n)-san like that?”

“O-Ow…” Kise grumbles rubbing his head. Ironically, his captain’s hit cleared up his doubts and he took a deep breath before exhaling. “Got it, senpai.”

“You better.” Kasamatsu goes back to talking to his classmates during break, and even despite not knowing the truth of the relationship, he manages to give solid advice as usual.

Tomorrow. He’ll find you tomorrow.

———

He doesn’t know where else to find you alone other than the place he’s always waited for you before you two used to walk to school together. So he stands there, almost an hour earlier in case you had the idea to walk to school extremely early to avoid him at all costs.

He was right.

Here you are, shuffling your feet as you trudged yourself along the path and looking down at your feet. You even manage to walk past by him without noticing his presence.

Even if you’ve grown to hate him, he’s willed himself to come completely clean about his feelings to you for once. But a part of him is thinking to change his mind again and just let you slip away from his fingers. It’d spare the both of you the inevitable, right?

“R-Ryōta…?”

He was pulled from his thoughts, startled to see you staring at him from a short distance away. Apparently you did notice him after all.

“… (y/n)-cchi…” He swallows his words, knowing full well that his stupid words might blow this up for him again, his words responsible for all the rumors at school, his words responsible for hurting you and will hurt you again.

He wordlessly walks up to you and holds your cheek, and waits. He waits for you to push him away again. He waits for you to say the code word to let him know that you don’t want him near you again. The thought of you running away from him nearly brings him to tears, but he gulps his emotions down and stares at you calmly, with only his upturned brows hinting to his inner turmoil.

“Ryō—”

He swiftly brings his head down and kisses you. In feeling the warmth for the first time in a while, he greedily drinks from your lips, holding your temples more firmly as he searches for more, more, more.

You push him away.

Kise immediately lets go and stares at you like a lost child, unable to mask the devastation from the implications of your actions. But you’re still gripping his uniform tightly, almost as if you didn’t want to let go.

“W-Why…?” you croak, biting your lips to stop any tears from breaking through. “There’s no reason to kiss me. Don’t you know that we’re done? There’s no one to watch us here, no reason for you to walk me to school anymore. You know that, Ryōta. After all, we haven’t talked since a week ago, and you have the audacity to come here and kiss me like everything is okay—”

“… I want to kiss you, because there’s no one around, because there’s no other reason for me to.”

“Why…?” your voice softens to a whisper. “Don’t you hate anyone who likes you in that way? I… I already told you that I see you in that light, like many of your fans do. Don’t you hate me? Don’t you hate me for using this arrangement to get closer to you? Don’t you hate me for expecting something real out of this?”

“I already had an inkling of suspicion that you liked me, (y/n)-cchi,” Kise turns away to look at the bright morning sky. “I just didn’t know if I was wrong or not.”

“Then… why did you ask me to do this whole thing with you…?”

“Because I’m a coward,” he says, looking back to you. You were stunned into silence. For the first time, he finally admits what’s been weighing on his mind for weeks out loud, and his eyes, while drenched in shame, were full of resoluteness. “I liked you, but I was too afraid for the day when you ended up being not like the person I ended up liking. I liked you, but I was afraid of a real relationship that would tie me down. I liked you, but I was afraid of making huge decisions that involved another person into my life. I didn’t want to end the fake relationship because I was too fucking selfish… if I ended it, I’d lose the only connection I had with you… I’m sorry.”

Both of you went silent, bathed in the light of the rising sun. Kise drops to a squat to hide his face from you, and you knew he was trying to stop himself from tearing up. He knows how uncool he looks, but he had no right to cry when you were the one who got hurt the most.

“Ryōta, did you really find it difficult to kiss me…? Just… be honest.”

“Yes,” he looks up from his squat to stare at you with an intense look, even despite his puffy eyes. “Everytime I kissed you, I found it hard to control myself. I thought, what if you were using me to somehow get a kiss from me? or what if I couldn’t stop myself from kissing you and I ended up taking things too far? Looking anywhere but you at least stopped me from getting too invested…”

By now, both of you had turned completely red at his honesty, but he still found you frankly stunning even with your red, puffy eyes. “Look, (y/n)-cchi, don’t you hate me? I used you. The rumors are right—I’m a complete asshole. Just… I won’t blame you if you walk away right now.”

“You do know that I used this opportunity to get closer to you, right?… I wasn’t a saint about this either, so… I’m sorry too.” Both of you go silent again, and you slowly drop yourself to his level in a squat of your own in front of him.

“… C-Can we… can we start over?” you whisper, your warm breath tickling his chilled nose.

“(y/n)-cchi, I don’t think I’m capable of continuing this arrangement…”

“No,” you huff, before you tentatively press a chaste kiss to his lips. “I mean… can we… start over, but this time, as a real couple? I… want this relationship to be substantial. I really do like you, Ryōta.” You murmur against his lips with your hands on top of your knees, waiting for him to rebuke you away with an easygoing comment or a plastered smile.

But he doesn’t do any of that.

“I… guess we can try that,” Kise mumbles, gaze averted as his cheeks flame brighter than his nose and ears.

“Can you kiss me again?” you ask, your voice cracking at the end out of fear he’d turn down your request. Kise flicks his gaze back to you to see you equally red with a hesitant expression.

“Could you… close your eyes?” he asks with a frown.

“H-Huh?”

“Y-You don’t need to see me looking like a mess, I don’t look charming right now.”

“I… guess…” After a few moments of hesitation, you flutter your eyes shut, waiting apprehensively for his lips to descend onto yours again. Kise holds your cheeks and takes the time to admire your features for the first time, and his smile grows wider with every passing second.

‘R-Ryōta…?” Afraid of the fact that he actually may not like kissing you after all, you worriedly open your eyes, only to be greeted by the most brilliant smile from Kise, his figure illuminated by the sunshine hitting the back of his head at the perfect angle.

“(y/n)-cchi,” he teases with a small pout. “Didn’t I tell you to close your eyes?”

Who needs a rose-tinted lens when the sight before you is already so radiant to behold?

393 notes · View notes

i-stan-nct-and-satan · 4 years

Text

Not Broken (Jaehyun Mafia au pt 16)

Not Broken Masterlist

Jaehyun X Reader

Y/N is a burlesque dancer living in Seoul. Jaehyun is one of the most powerful mafia men in Seoul. How will Y/N survive when Jaehyun suspects that she is involved with a rival gang?

Reasons to read this story: Ten’s a cross-dressing madam so….. yeah read it ya freaks.

Trigger Warning: mentions of past abuse

Beep! Beep! Beep!

My head instinctively turned to stare at the alarm. I watched as it continued to beep. Usually, the harsh tones of the alarm were enough launch me out of bed. Every morning I somehow managed to reach the ungodly contraption to silence it before it even began to muster out its third beep.

Not today though.

I had been lying awake long before my alarm started to sing its first note. I had just been staring at the ceiling, anticipating the events that were to come. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get at least a bit of sleep. I probably managed to get in a few hours before waking up to see that the neon green numbers I had gotten used to seeing read, 2:46 a.m.

My mind was too anxious to fall back asleep, but my body was too stubborn to leave the comfort of the satin sheets which were messily draped over my body.

I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about what awaited me and I felt as though leaving my bed would be what put said events into motion. Thus, when my alarm began ringing, signaling to me that it was time to get up, instead of rushing to towards it, I merely stared at it. I continued staring until the digital clock changed from 4:00 to 4:01 and then to 4:02 and finally to 4:03 before I decided it would be best to put an end to the incessant beeping before it caused a disturbance to those who still might be sleeping.

I dragged my body towards the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. I looked dead, not like I cared. In a way, I felt as though I might actually be dead; that perhaps I died long ago and that every event since my death was the result of divine punishment. Punishment for what, I didn’t know.

I chuckled at the overly dramatic thought.

I splashed cold water onto my face in an attempt to return my rationalities, though it was no use. There was nothing rational about my situation, so how could I think rationally while in it?

I instinctively began brushing my hair, before stopping midway to curse myself. It was like I could see into the future. That narcissistic scumbag, Jaehyun, would interpret any step I took to freshen up as an attempt to impress him, something I definitely didn’t want him thinking.

When I trained with Jeno, it would take me roughly an hour to fully wake myself up, get dressed, and freshen up before heading down to the training room around 4:50. I could tell that today, I wouldn’t need as much time to ready myself.

I quickly tied my hair up in a ponytail, simply to keep it out of my face. When I opened my closet, Jaehyun’s words found themselves at the front of my mind.

“You should wear something blue. The color suits you.”

I scoffed to myself as I grabbed the first blue piece of clothing I saw and threw it to the side, missing the trashcan by more than a few feet. I instead picked out a yellow workout shirt and grabbed my regular leggings from the floor. I only had a few pair of leggings so I would often re-wear the same pair, not wanting to wash them after every use. I brought the leggings up to my nose and smelled the already worn-out fabric. They were definitely reaching the point where they needed a wash. I put them on anyway. A part of me hoped that the smell of old sweat would keep Jaehyun from making any advances, or at least turn him off from the thought.

It reminded me of how women would skip shaving their legs before a date to prevent themselves from going home with a guy, though in my case, it was like putting my legs on display to keep the guy from thinking I’d want to go home with her in the first place.

I looked at the clock.

4:34.

I definitely finished getting ready much earlier than usual, but I didn’t want to make any steps towards the door just yet. I even considered waiting until it was after 5:00 to leave my room, just to spite Jaehyun for telling me that being late wasn’t an option. This thought lost traction as soon as I remembered the things Jaehyun was capable of when even just the tiniest bit annoyed.

Better not to anger him.

<><><><><><>

“Right on time, babe,” Jaehyun welcomed me in the most unwelcoming way possible.

He was already on sitting on one of the weight machines. From the beads of sweat that dripped down his jaw on onto his white t-shirt, I could tell that he had already gotten in quite the workout. I wondered how long he had been there for.

I didn’t want to ignore him, but I didn’t want to exactly engage with him in conversation either, so I gave him my best “fuck you” smile and proceeded to set my water bottle down on the mat.

“What? No greeting? Not even any pleasantries?” Jaehyun asked as he stood up from the machine. He stared back at me using one of the gym’s towels to wipe his red tinted face.

I silently scoffed, smiling at his audacity.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Hello Jaehyun! How are you? Still holding women captive and forcing them to be your bride? Oh, you are? Well, isn’t that just swell?”

I expected Jaehyun to snap at me for such insolence, or to at least look a little upset, but he just smiled back at me and laughed.

“That’s funny,” He said wagging his finger at me.

“Just remember, who’s training you for the next hour.”

I froze, unconsciously biting my tongue. He was right. I shouldn’t push my luck too much. I had no idea why Jaehyun was in such a good mood this morning, but I knew it was in my best interest for it to stay that way. At least until after our little competition.

Like a beaten dog who’s finely entuned to their master’s change in mood, I noticed a sudden glint of disappointment in his eyes. I watched them trail over my body in search of something he just couldn’t find.

Once he noticed my noticing, he exhaled abruptly as if he were expelling his thoughts along with his breath.

“Let’s start by going over yesterday’s match.“

I stared at him silently, waiting for him to elaborate further.

Jaehyun looked away briefly, clearing his throat in order to break the silence.

“I am of course, referring to the tactic you used...”

I continued to stare at him not quite sure where he was going. He stared back, gauging my reactions.

“-or am I just assuming that your decision to storm me was a strategical one?”

“Does it matter? It didn’t work,” I responded.

Jaehyun relaxed a little.

“Ah. So, it was thought out.”

I silently sighed to myself, ready for him to explain why my strategy was flawed or how my impulsiveness is what led to my defeat. I already began piecing together my response. I’d probably ask him how else I was supposed to fight against someone much stronger than myself, or if there even was such a tactic. I could feel the words bubble in my throat waiting for the criticisms, he was about to list.

“You surprised me. That’s not something that happens very often. You should be proud.”

“Wait, what?” I blurted out, suddenly breaking my façade of nonchalance.

Jaehyun’s eyes widened a bit only for them to crinkle as he laughed.

“What? Were you expecting me to say something else?”

I reached my hand up to rub the back of my neck. Once Jaehyun understood that I wasn’t going to give any more of a reply, he flashed me a smile that seemed too genuine to have come from a man so... well, ingenuine.

“I’m being serious. I was really quite impressed. You were fighting against someone you had no chance of winning against, at least not with physical prowess, so you came up with a strategy and not just any strategy, a good one. You understood that I had certain expectations of you and you somehow managed to subvert those expectations in your favor. I had expected you to be hesitant in your actions and assumed that you would wait for me to make the first move. Yet, as soon as the whistle blew you came at me full force. I mean-” Jaehyun stopped abruptly to stare at me.

I was smiling.

I hadn’t meant to. I just wasn’t thinking about it. I mean, could you blame me? Maybe it was just my ego. What can I say? I’m the type of person who likes being praised. Sue me.

As soon as I realized why the sudden pause, I forced my face back into one of disinterest. I silently prayed that he would let it slide just this once.

He didn’t.

“Don’t get big-headed on me now. Just because a cat learns it has stripes, it doesn’t suddenly make it a tiger. You still have a long way to go before you’re ready to use your claws,” He said with a smirk.

I couldn’t tell who I was more embarrassed for; me, for having come across as a girl who just got called pretty by her crush, or him, for having used such a cheesy metaphor, one he was somehow proud of.

“Now let’s go over some technique. Yesterday, when you charged me, I used a simple maneuver to use your own force against you. Come over here, I’ll show you,” He explained, walking towards the center of the mat.

I hesitated but opted to follow suit as he had instructed. I stopped when I was roughly 4 feet in front of him.

He took a few steps closer, causing me to back away.

He paused.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to slam you down this time. I’m just going to show you what I did so that you can learn how to avoid it next time, or perhaps even do the same to me.”

I didn’t back away because I thought that he would slam me down on the mat. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. I just didn’t really feel comfortable with being handled by him, even if it was for instructional purposes.

He stood there, waiting for me to come closer. When I didn’t, he took another step towards me instead.

Again, I took a step back.

Jaehyun let out a sigh.

“How am I supposed to teach you if you won’t even let me touch you?” He asked, obviously annoyed.

“Can’t you just explain it to me verbally?”

“Of course, not. Even if I were to show you the move by doing it on someone else, that doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to recreate it when push comes to shove. Muscle memory is important. You should know that as a dancer.”

I quirked my head to the side.

“You can learn to dance from watching others dance.” I retorted.

Jaehyun stared at me as if he were a teacher waiting for a disruptive student to stop acting out.

I looked down at the floor.

“That may be true when preforming a solo act,” He began.

“But what about when you’re learning a choreography that includes more than one person?”

“Then we practice the choreo on our own. Even when we practice together, it’s not like we really need each other,” I asserted.

Jaehyun groaned.

“I’m talking about dances that directly rely on being in sync with the other person’s moves. Like this.”

Before I could dodge his advance, Jaehyun wrapped his arm around me, capturing my waist and pulling my body into his so that our chests were practically pressed together. I tried to wriggle my way out of his grip but before I could, he used his other hand to grab mine, tightly squeezing it as if warning me that he was not in the mood to play games.

“Can you waltz?” He asked.

“Never tried it.” I answered.

Without any other warning, Jaehyun began moving his feet dragging me along with him.

As he moved in precise uniform movements, I stumbled around awkwardly, somehow managing to step onto his feet with every other step. Instead of scolding me, Jaehyun continued to waltz, ignoring my steps as though I were merely a ragdoll he was throwing around as he danced to a song only he could hear.

“The Waltz is a uniform dance with very little room for variance. One could learn the steps and even master them on their own only to flounder around like a fish when matched with a partner.”

“Yeah, but you can’t exactly learn the steps from practice alone. You need some sort of instruction,” I complained.

Jaehyun’s steps came to a sudden halt. Instead of releasing me like I had expected him to, he let my body fall, catching it in what I recognized as a “dip.”

“I completely agree, so why don’t we do a little of both? I’ll lead.”

He released his grip on me and I fell flat onto the mat.

I sat up, seething with annoyance. Jaehyun stared at me, arms crossed and with a grin so wicked, it’d make the devil anxious, though I’d be surprised if a devil greater than Jaehyun truly existed.

<><><><><><>

Jaehyun showed me exactly how he managed to pin me down so fast. When I came running towards him, he applied a heavy pressure to the top of my chest, thus using my own force against me. He explained that by stalling my upper half, I actually did half of the work for him in knocking me down. Because I had charged so fast, my legs barely had any time to catch up as my upper half was held in place, so they continued to run, flipping me onto my back.

Once I understood where exactly I went wrong, Jaehyun spent the first half of our session showing me different ways to keep myself guarded against an attack so that I could, in his words, “not be used as a weapon against myself.” The second half of the session was spent showing me examples of ways I could use someone’s force against themselves as he did had done to me. This part was my favorite because Jaehyun let himself fall to the mat every time I followed his instruction in order to show me exactly how the move would work. Even though I knew he was letting me take him down for practice’s sake, I still enjoyed hearing the loud smack it made when his body came in contact with the mat.

When we finished, he tossed me my water bottle. I quickly down the remainder of its contents.

“Here, toss it back,” Jaehyun called out, his hand outstretched.

I did as he instructed.

He began walking away motioning for me to follow.

Once we made it to the water fountain, Jaehyun opened my bottle and filled it, tossing it back to me before taking his turn to drink directly from the fountain.

I stood there watching him, unsure of what else I could do.

Once he finished, he turned to me.

“How’s your rib feeling?”

“My rib?”

I looked down at my torso having remembered where Taeyong had touched it. The pain, which was sharp and sudden at the time, had now turned into a dull constant.

“It’s alright, I guess. Better at least.” I informed him.

Jaehyun looked at me, navigating whether or not I was lying.

“Good, that’s good. I was worried that after yesterday I might have made it worse.”

It was strange. I knew that he was the one who broke it in the first place, but that didn’t keep me from seeing his sincerity.

“I’ll try my best to avoid damaging it any further during our match. I’m sorry that’s all I can do for you given the circumstances of our bet.”

I knew that his statement was bullshit. I mean, he knew about my rib when he decided upon the terms of our bet. I knew that fighting him on the matter would be pointless though.

“Will it go back to the way it was before it was broken?” I asked.

Jaehyun seemed caught off guard by the sudden question.

He took a second to think.

“Are you trying to ask if it will heal properly, or if it’ll go back to the way it was before it was broken?”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” I asked.

Jaehyun gave me a look that seemed to question if I really didn’t know already.

I quirked my head to the side showing him that, no, I really didn’t know.

“When a bone breaks, it's because the bone’s developed a fracture.”

“Okay?” I scoffed, asking if he was really trying to explain what a broken bone was to me.

“Just, listen,” He continued.

“During the healing process, a callous of extra strong bone forms around the fracture, bonding it together again. This new extra strong bone is meant to protect the fracture as the bone heals but once the bone is fully healed, the area of the fracture is stronger than it was before the break ever occurred so-”

“So, bones heal stronger?” I interrupted.

Jaehyun smiled gently towards me and took a step closer.

“Y/N, I can’t tell you that your rib will go back to the way it was before, because that wouldn’t be the truth. What I can tell you though, is that maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”

Jaehyun reached a hand out towards me. Before I could think about it, I jerked away from his touch.

Jaehyun hesitated before reeling his hand back. He looked away from me for a second before returning his gaze to mine.

“We should probably start today’s match so that you have enough time to get ready.“

<><><><><><>

Just like the day before, Taeyong blew the whistle and shortly after, I was pinned to the ground. This time I didn’t charge at him, instead I chose to go on the defense. It didn’t take long for Jaehyun to make his move, pinning me instantly. Luckily for me, I didn’t suffer any pain, just frustration. It was like Jaehyun had just picked me up and set me down, easily managing to hold me there until Taeyong called the match.

I wasn’t surprised, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still disappointed. The Jaehyun’s newly discovered tenderness from before the match had disappeared, immediately replaced with his usual dirtbag self. Not more than a second after the match had ended, he instructed Taeyong to escort me back to my room to catch me up on today’s plans. Before he left the room, he turned back towards me as I just gotten back on my feet and said, “Don’t be late now, Honey.”

I scoffed at him. He laughed at my reaction which made me want to do a lot more than just scoff at him. I was caught off guard by his sudden usage of the pet name I had called him at dinner the night before. It became clear to me that that’s why he used it instead of opting for “Kitten,” like I had come to expect from him. When spoken by him, the word felt less like a term of endearment and more like a taunt, though a taunt was still better than a threat.

“At least he’s in a good mood,” I thought to myself.

Taeyong brought me back to my room, instructing me to shower and put on the dress he left for me on the bed. Once I did as I was asked, I opened the door to let Taeyong back in only to see that both Haechan and Jaemin had been waiting there with him.

“Jaemin? What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Wow, Y/n. You aren’t gonna ask why I’m here?” Haechan pouted over-dramatically.

“I already know why you’re here, Dongfuck. You don’t have a life and so you like to drop in on mine,” I quipped lightheartedly, suddenly realizing that I had to come up with a new nickname for Haechan now that I’d discovered that his name was, well... Haechan.

Fuck, what insult even rhymes with Haechan? Faketan? No that’s stupid and probably problematic. Besides, Haechan’s darker skin tone is literal perfection. Even I have to admit that.

I physically shook my head before going on.

“I’m asking why Jaemin’s here because he normally takes care of Jisung and Chenle around this time of day.”

I turned to Jaemin who simply laughed as Haechan stuck his tongue out at me.

“Wow, you really were close friends before this, weren’t you?” He commented.

“What do you mean were? Haechan demanded wrapping his arm around my shoulder.

“Y/n and I are still as close as a pair of conjoined twins.”

“Please, never use that metaphor ever again.” I sighed already exhausted from the encounter.

“Anyways, today you’re going to be officially meeting Chenle and Jisung as their soon to be sister-in law. Jaemin is here to make sure that it goes well,” Haechan explained, answering for Jaemin before the poor man even had the chance to open his mouth.

“Wait, what?”

Instead of explaining further, Haechan guided me towards the vanity, sitting me down in the chair, and immediately going to work on my hair.

Taeyong and Jaemin both sat on the bed and got to explaining the situation.

“So, as you already know, Jaehyun has two younger brothers, Chenle and Jisung. I believe that you’ve already met them before, but as a hostage, not as their sister-in-law.

My mind flashed back to meeting the two younger boys back when I still had horrible bruising all over my face. I recalled the image of a queasy Chenle, asking if his brother really was the one who did that to me.

“I can’t tell them the same story, I told Jessi. They already know that Jaehyun was the one who nearly beat me within an inch of my life!”

Taeyong and Jaemin looked at each other, obviously aware of something I was not. Haechan on the other hand, continued to act like a dumbass.

“Ooh! Already on a first name basis with the former lady of the house, are we? So, I take it you’ve successfully gained Jessi’s approval, not that I’m surprised. Personality wise, it’d easier to believe she was your mother than Jaehyun’s. I mean-”

“We’ve already taken that into consideration,” Taeyong began, cutting Haechan off right in the middle of his rant.

“Fine, I guess I’ll just leave since I’m just gonna be a nuisance,” Haechan pouted.

When no one acknowledged him, he scoffed in annoyance, but stayed quiet.

“You see, the boys actually know a lot more than just that,” He continued, glancing at a now sheepish Jaemin.

“The boys have a habit of eavesdropping and while they were supposed to be in my care... I accidentally fell asleep and they listened in on one of the group’s official meetings.” Jaemin admitted.

“At the time, you were still under suspicion for IU’s death.” Taeyong explained.

A look of horror took over my face, causing one to come over Taeyong as well.

“D-don’t worry! Everything has been cleared up. They know that you are not responsible for the death of their sister. They have also been informed that you are responsible for the death of Lucas. They know that you killed him on accident in an attempt to fight for your life, though out of respect for you I didn’t going to any other details of what you went through that night.” He said in an attempt to reassure me.

“Wait, but if they know the truth then what about-”

“Mrs. Ho? She is to remain in the dark about the true nature behind Jaehyun’s and your relationship. They understand the gravity of the situation and have been instructed to speak as little as possible about anything that might rouse suspicion. Jaehyun and I have also decided that it would be best to pretend as though you’ve become something of an older sister to the two of them, but that this is the first they are hearing about your engagement. That’s why Jaemin is here, to help you learn as much as you can about the boys to make this ruse as believable as possible.”

“What the fuck?” I exclaimed, dumbfounded as to how on earth Jaehyun and Taeyong could have decided that this was the best route to take. Having me pretend to know about and be extremely close to a pair of teenagers that I met once and talked with for all of like, what? Five minutes?

“I know it sounds daunting, but Chenle’s been feeling a bit under the weather lately and Mrs. Ho is aware of that, which gives us an out if anything goes wrong. We even have a signal in case Chenle should need to bring up his condition as an excuse to cut the meeting short.”

“Still though,” I hesitated, not fully convinced.

“Listen,” Jaemin interjected.

“You don’t have to act like a big happy family, giving them hugs and stuff. If anything, that would make Mrs. Ho really suspicious. Just act like how you would any other teenager. Act snarky, roast them, I don’t know. There are more ways to show closeness than acting like you're in a lifetime Christmas special. Besides, it makes sense for you to not know everything about them since Mrs. Ho still believes that you and Jaehyun met only a few months ago. We just have to get you knowledgeable enough for Mrs. Ho to-”

“Knock! Knock!” Someone called from outside the door.

“Why say ‘knock?’ Why not just do it if you’re gonna say what you’re doing?” Haechan groaned, almost unreasonably annoyed by the knock knock-er’s chipper demeanor.

Taeyong scowled at Haechan before walking toward the door.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“That should be Momo with the boys,” Jaemin answered.

“Wait, what? Why are they here? I’m not ready.”

“It’ll be fine. Think of this as a practice round. You’ll do great!” Jaemin gave me two thumbs up as Taeyong opened the door.

I definitely was not ready and by the looks of it, neither were they.

Momo and Taeyong stood by the door as Jaemin motioned for Jisung and Chenle to come over.

It hadn’t been more than a couple days since I had last seen the two of them yet I wouldn’t have recognized the yellow haired boy had I not been expecting to see him. While Jisung looked almost exactly the same as the day we met, Chenle looked as though he were the one who had been locked up in the estate’s basement, not me. The dark spots that lay wrapped below his eyes took up more space on the young boy’s face than the eyes themselves. The state of his cheeks made it obvious that what he lacked in sleep, he definitely wasn’t making up for in calories. The chubby cheeks I had remembered were long gone, now sunken in to the extent one might mistake the boy for a character in a Tim Burton movie. He looked less like a teenaged boy and more like an old man, hair loss and all.

To describe him as a bit under the weather as Taeyong had only moments prior would be like saying that Hitler was kind of a douche; not necessarily untrue, but definitely not the most accurate way of portraying the severity of things. Chenle looked sickly, though I couldn’t think of any sickness with symptoms so... apparent.

Neither him nor Jisung looked particularly excited to see me, which is of course understandable since to them, I’m practically that one distant relative who your parents made you hug as a kid despite your apparent discomfort. Though, while Jisung just looked awkward and unsure of where he should focus his eyes, Chenle looked at me as though I were the cause of his illness.

It looked as though simply being near me was physically painful for him. I kept his gaze, trying to uncover the cause of his extreme discomfort towards me. It was strange. There was no hatred in his eyes, something I should have been relieved by given that we were going to have to act all buddy-buddy with each other, but I couldn’t help but wonder why he was looking at me like a child who’s about to be told on to his parents.

“I thought we could start with you guys telling Y/n your interests. Does that sound good?” said Jaemin.

The two took turns telling me about which video games were their favorites and about what sports they played at school. It was awkward at first, especially since it felt like the first day of school and our teacher decided to make everyone takes turns introducing themselves and saying three things about themselves, something which teachers don’t understand is actually torture in its purest form.

Though I was lost as fuck when Jisung tried to explain this game called Amoungus to me, Jaemin interjected to ask the two of them what their favorite show was. That was when things started to look a bit brighter.

“Well, right now, me and Chenle are watching this show called HunterXHunter.”

“HunterXHunter?” I asked, suddenly more serious than was necessary.

“Uh, yeah. Have you heard of it?” Jisung asked, confused.

“Which one? The 1999 one or the 2011 one?”

Both of the two boys lit up a bit.

“Wait, there’s a 1999 version?” Chenle asked, this being the first time he spoke without being needing to be nudged first by his brother.

“Uh, yeah. And get this, it’s better. Don’t get me wrong, the newer one is great. I love the art style, but the 1999 verion includes more from the manga that the 2011 version completely leaves out.”

“You read manga?” Chenle asked, excitedly, and for a split second, he resembled the boy I met before, still strung out, but not as much so.

“No, I just read an article comparing the manga to the show- Of course I fucking read manga,” I replied, probably laying the sarcasm on a little too thick.

I paused as the two boys looked at each other and nodded.

“Do you like shoujo or shonen better?” Jisung asked, though it sounded more like a demand.

“I won’t lie, I like shoujo a lot. Don’t roast me though I like both. It depends on my mood. Sometimes I wanna read a high-stakes power fantasy battle palooza with fucking lasers, and other times, I just wanna read about a high-schooler asking out his crush.”

“I get that,” Jisung nodded.

“Yeah, that’s because you get all your dating advice from playing dating sims,” Chenle snorted.

Jisung glared at Chenle and raised his hand, but quickly lowered it as though reconsidering hitting him when the older is in such a weak state.

The four of us started laughing only to be interrupted by a concerned voice.

“Mrs. Ho, what are you doing here?” Taeyong stuttered.

Momo quickly bowed to her, prompting Jaemin to stand up and do the same.

“Is it strange for me to be walking around my own house?” Jessi asked eyeballing Taeyong.

“No, of course not ma’am. It’s just that I was expecting for us all to meet at the dining room table later today like what was planned.”

“I too thought that that was to be the case, but when I heard my son’s laughter from Y/n’s room, I figured I’d stop by.”

Jessi walked further into the room. Everyone did their best to hide any signs of the shock, nervousness, or stress they were feeling, though nobody did a good job.

I let out a soft laugh. To think that I was going to have to rely on them, they’re the ones who’ll be depending on me to make this go smoothly.

“Jessi! What’s up?”

Jessi wipes the back of her hand over her forehead as if wiping off an imaginary bead of sweat.

“Whew. Thank god. I thought you were gonna be all formal with me again just because there were others around.” She laughed, taking a seat on the vanity table

“You know, this might actually be better having a formal meeting anyway,” Jessi said, switching to Korean for the rest of the room’s inhabitants.

“Oh, uh... sure. Why not?” Taeyong replied.

Jessi stared at him silently, making Taeyong even more nervous.

“Well?” She asked.

Taeyong hesitated, unsure of what to do.

“Yes?”

“Go get him.”

“Pardon?”

“Jaehyun. Go get Jaehyun. He should be here for this shouldn’t he?”

“Ah. Yes. Of course. Right away.”

Taeyong gave me a look as if to ask if I’d be okay while he was away. I gave him a little nod and made a “shoo” motion in response.

Both him and Momo disappeared, her bowing once again before making her exit.

Luckily, the moments that were filled with Taeyong’s absence had been taken up by the exchange of simple pleasantries. I asked Jessi how she slept, she told me she slept well. She asked me the same, I replied the same. Then she turned to Jaemin to ask whether Chenle had taken his medicine yet, to which he responded with a simple, yes.

Taeyong returned as quickly as he came which was surprising given how Jaehyun must have been busy with other matters given the meeting’s spontaneity of the meeting.

He entered the room following Taeyong and stopping to rest his hands on my shoulders as he stood behind my sitting place. I had expected him to do something physical since his mother was here, so I was able to mentally prepare myself and refrain from flinching away from his touch.

The meeting was short, with Jaehyun announcing that he and I were getting married. Jisung and Chenle reacted with surprise and then faux excitement. I hadn’t needed to do much except for sit there, which was a relief. Jaemin and the kids were the first to leave, with Jaemin announcing that it was time for them to work on their homework. Taeyong escorted Jessi back to her room leaving Jaehyun and I to be the only ones left.

“Good job.” Jaehyun said, now having sat directly in front of me on the bed.

I nodded trying my best to hide my anxiety.

“Tomorrow I’ve arranged to have several dresses sent to the estate for you to try on. You may pick whichever one you like. My mother will be there to aid you.”

“Dresses?”

Jaehyun laughed at my reaction.

Jaehyun set his hands onto the bed and leaned back slightly.

“I do believe that it is tradition for the bride to wear a dress on her wedding day,” He mused.

“Oh.” I muttered.

Jaehyun stared back at me with a relaxed smile.

I took the time to get a good look at Jaehyun, something I hadn’t thought to do during the meeting. He wore a simple white button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his forearms. I remembered walking in to find him sitting on the weight machine only a few hours earlier. It made sense that he worked out given his build. Body types like that don’t just happen naturally. Even his hands were muscular.

I felt conflicted. If I had seen this man on the street a month ago, I probably wouldn’t hesitate to imagine those arms wrapped around me, or maybe even his hands digging into my hips, but after what I had experienced, all I could think about was the feeling of losing consciousness as their grip tightened around my throat.

I did my best to be subtle as I looked down at his thighs. I wasn’t surprised to see that the light grey slacks did little to hide that they, like his arms, were... large.

We sat in silence just staring at each other until Jaehyun stood up from the bed, now at least 3 heads taller than my sitting form.

He leaned forward resting his hands on the armrests of my chair. Trapping me.

I froze.

“It’ll probably take the entire afternoon to finish all the work I have left, so I likely won’t be joining you all for dinner.”

And with that, he left.

<><><><><>

Jaehyun was right. He wasn’t be able to attend dinner. I wasn’t surprised by his absence; It was everyone else’s absence I was surprised by. Not a single member of 127 nor Jaemin or Jeno attended dinner that night, leaving Jessi, Jisung, Chenle, and I to awkwardly sit around theorizing about what business they had that kept them away.

<><><><><>

Jaehyun could feel his blood boil as Taeyong and Jeno made him aware the sudden turn of events.

“And you’re sure the messenger was unaware of the message’s contents?” He asked the two men.

“We’re sure,” Taeyong answered.

“Since we don’t usually receive deliveries directly to the house without being made aware of them in advance, I took every precaution in questioning the man myself,” added Jeno.

“His story checked out. We quickly confirmed that he was a registered courier at a local delivery service within the district. I opened the letter in front of him and once I realized its contents, I demanded all information regarding the letter’s origin. After informing Taeyong, we sent over several men over to inspect their security footage, but it seems that the letter was actually delivered to them via a different delivery service. We have men over there as well checking their footage and all, but it seems as though they managed to send the letter through a system I’ve never seen before. The letter was put into several other envelopes, each one containing instructions and payment for the next delivery. Since each company only opened the outer envelope, we were unable to see any past instruction that may had been included before the letter reached each individual company.”

“How long will it take to trace the source of the letter?” Jaehyun inquired.

“We don’t know. It depends on how many companies they went through. We won’t be able to locate the original sender, especially if their trail is long gone by the time we reveal any trace of their identity. We might not even be able to discern how long the letter has been in transport for quite some time. Our best guess is that it’s only been in transport for 1 to 2 days.” Taeyong sighed, showing his frustration at the situation.

Jaehyun dragged his hands down his face, his good mood now a distant memory.

“Two days, huh?” He pondered, staring down at the piece of paper he held in his hands.

If you fail to hand Y/N over to us, then prepare for a red wedding.

“Call everyone up here, now.“

Jaehyun watched silently as his office began to slowly fill with the members of 127.

Taeyong and Jeno made sure to inform them all of the gravity of the meeting thus ensuring that none of the members were to speak until Jaehyun officially started the meeting.

“Where is he?” Jaehyun demanded.

Everyone began exchanging glances, not yet sure of who exactly it was that Jaehyun was referring to.

“We’re here,” Taeyong announced as both he and Winwin entered the room.

“And where exactly were you?” Jaehyun asked, making it obvious that his question was directed more at Winwin than the both of them.

“He was in the library, reading,” Taeyong answered for him.

“If he was that close, then why was he the last to be found?”

Winwin approached Jaehyun. He reached his hand into his pants pocket, retrieving a pair of earbuds before placing them on the oak desk.

“I had them in, so I couldn’t hear my name when it was being called,” Winwin smirked, staring straight into the eyes of the man sitting in front of him.

Jaehyun scowled.

“You know, Winwin. Ever since I relieved Johnny of his duty to keep an eye on you, I often spent my time wondering where you were and what you could be off doing.”

“Well, isn’t that sweet?” Winwin commented, his tone filled with mockery.

Instead of getting angry, Jaehyun smiled, catching everyone, including Winwin off guard.

“As it turns out, my musing was pointless,” Jaehyun explained, as he placed the letter on the desk, directly on top of Winwin’s earbuds.

Winwin read the letter without needing to touch it or lean closer to it.

He frowned but said nothing.

Jaehyun continued.

“I don’t have to ask myself where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing because I already know.”

Winwin already knew what was coming.

“You’ve been telling Wayv our secrets.”

The meeting went as one would expect. Jaehyun showed the letter to the remaining members, had Taeyong and Jeno go over what they had gone over earlier with him, and then Jaehyun posed the very important question, “How come only days after Johnny stopped watching over you, we receive a letter from Wayv confirming that they found out about the wedding?”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Yuta interjected.

Everyone looked up at him expectantly. Yuta froze, as though he came to Winwin’s defense without having even thought of what he was going to say.

Before Jaehyun could move on, Taeil began to speak.

“Wait, he’s right. Didn’t Taeyong and Jeno say that we have no way of knowing for sure how long the letter has been in transit? It’s possible that the letter has been in transit since before Johnny stopped keeping watch over Winwin.”

“Yeah,” Yuta exclaimed, having regained his momentum.

“And besides, wouldn’t Winwin have known that updating Wayv this soon after regaining his freedom would put him under suspicion?”

Jaehyun paused.

“Perhaps, but that doesn’t out rule the likelihood that Winwin’s loyalty is with Wayv. It’s highly probable that he prioritized his mission to leak information over his own safety.”

“No, that’s not necessarily true. If that were the case, then why would Wayv have sent such a message? If they knew that the wedding going to be announced in five days anyway, then why would they put Winwin under suspicion? Wouldn’t they want us to trust Winwin so he could leak information more easily?” Taeil pressed on.

Jaehyun, Taeil, and Yuta continued arguing with each other as Winwin and the others watched in silence.

“I’ve made my decision,” Jaehyun announced.

“Winwin will be removed from any NCT related activity until further notice and will be placed back under heavy watch.”

“Will I be the one to watch over him again?” Johnny asked.

“No,” Jaehyun answered.

“This time, Taeil will be the one to watch over Winwin.”

“But sir, I thought you said you didn’t want me to watch over him given our close relationship.”

“I am aware of that Taeil, but given how eager you are to prove Winwin’s innocence, perhaps that will motivate you in making sure that nothing gets past you. If Winwin were to fall under suspicion again, just know that you’ll be the one to we turn to in confirming his innocence. I also doubt that if Winwin were to display suspicious behavior that you would try to cover up for him.”

Jaehyun looked at Winwin.

“Today cameras will be set up in your room. You are not to leave your room without Taeil there to escort you. You will not be permitted to use any electronic devices without Taeil either. As for the rest of you,”

Jaehyun looked around the room.

“From this moment on, no one is permitted to speak to Winwin regarding anything NCT related.”

174 notes · View notes

theseerasures · 4 years

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For the meta thing, how about big sisters with absent mothers: Winter and Yang? Like, how they dealt with things differently and what a friendship between them would look like

anon i just want you to know that as soon as received this ask i barged into my girlfriend’s room to be like “is this you???” because this ask is so EXQUISITELY tailored to my personal interests that i was like “literally who else would cater to me like this” and it was not her, apparently!!! so thank you very much for this ask.

of course i have SO MANY thoughts about this topic that it took me a complete month to marshal them into something faintly coherent, if staggeringly long, so. i hope it’s worth the wait.

S(chnee)-side: how to lose brothers and alienate sisters

let’s start from some well-trodden ground: the season 5 character shorts, and their subsequent caricaturization via Chibi, which posit the Yang vs. Winter dichotomy as something like “Yang loves Ruby by diving into a monster’s mouth for her, and telling her she always has her back, and Winter does the same for Weiss by...siccing monsters on her, and telling her that she won’t always be around to save her from them.” much hay has already been made about the reasons why the two of them would act in the ways they did, so for the purposes of my own meta i’m going to skip over those, and concentrate on how content since season 5 has updated these conceptions.

and on Winter’s end of things, these conceptions have been updated by showing that she’s, uh.

...full of shit.

we’ve now had TWO instances of Winter going above and beyond to protect someone vulnerable. the first time was for Penny, with whom she has a sisterly bond, and the second time was for Ren, with whom she has...exchanged a few lines of dialogue. if she’s so ready and willing to hurl herself bodily into the path of an aggressor for someone who is basically a stranger, then why all the pageantry with Weiss about how she can’t (or won’t) save her? did she carve some kind of blood relative exemption into her saving people thing? does it only apply to people who wear a lot of green?¹

to properly address this question--and to bring in the Willow of it all--i think we should step back and ask: how does Winter actually feel about the Schnee name?

not Jacques’ name, mind. nor anything he did to besmirch it. Willow’s name, and Winter’s birthright.

because what has always been interesting to me is that while Weiss has talked about reclaiming or rehabilitating the Schnee name from their father’s meddling and still clearly wants to reconcile herself with it, even after being disinherited, Winter has only ever talked about distancing. it’s entirely possible that she had similar aspirations when she was around Weiss’ age and was just more thoroughly disabused of them, but my point stands: Winter shows a discomfort with the Schnee name overall in a way that Weiss has yet to. you don’t have to look any further than Winter’s combat style to see how this discomfort is telegraphed, as she barely uses any Dust, or Glyphs, and the one aspect of her Semblance that she does use and tout are Summons, which just so happens to be the part that emphasizes her own individual ability to conquer foes. something about the Schnee name feels irreconcilably tainted for Winter,² and while i’m sure a large part of it has to do with her father, who can make her explode into emotion confetti by just being in the same room as her for thirty seconds, a not-insignificant part can probably be chalked up to the fact that...

Willow Schnee was probably never all that good a mother.

granted: we’ve have exactly one scene (two if you count the 8.2 sneak peek) with her, so i’m fully ready to be called Boo Boo the Fool if we get a flashback and Willow was some kind of crusading super-mom prior to her descent into alcoholism, but. the idea that she hasn’t ALWAYS had to compromise herself and her children just to get by feels facile. this is not to victim blame, but to say that Willow is an imperfect person (in that she is. a person) placed into a horrific situation, which means that she could not always deal with the situation perfectly. it’s important to remember her agency--both before and after she became an alcoholic--but it’s just as important not to idealize it into something it’s not. Willow was by no means a co-abuser to her children, but she was probably always inconsistent, because living with your abuser for years on end does that to you. personally, i’ve always envisioned pre-alcoholism Willow as...well-meaning and much more perceptive and intelligent than people give her credit for, but beset with her own flaws that grew in proportion to her hurt and bitterness. she was capable of shielding her children from her husband’s worst excesses, and often did; but she was just as capable of retreating when she might have fought, of excusing Jacques’ actions to try to keep the peace, even of lashing out at those who shouldn’t have to handle her negative emotions.

her descent into alcoholism exacerbated these tendencies, but Willow has always been a complicated woman, and the idea that there was a prelapsarian time when Willow was an unmitigated good, before...idk, her Good battery ran out and she became Drunk Victim Non-Mom, is...well, it’s definitely something that a ten-year-old who had an ENORMOUSLY traumatic birthday would believe (and blame herself for), but Winter might disagree. i don’t think her view would be any more objective, if only because the day Winter Schnee has an un-myopic thought is the day i pass gracefully into the West, but her view is probably more complicated and less flattering, because Winter knew her mother more as a person, and that’s something we’re gonna talk about more with Yang and Ruby, later.

the point i want to make now, with Winter, is that her determined inconstancy, where she’ll readily jump into the jaws of a monster for her siblings in one breath and berate them and caution them against needing her in the next--that comes from her experience with Willow. the lesson she wants her siblings to learn is not just “the people who are supposed to love you are cruel, so get a helmet,” but “the people who are supposed to love you disappoint you, which is worse, so it’s better to not rely on them at all.”³ better for them to learn it from her than firsthand, but also--better for herself, because when she does disappoint them (and she did. she left.) at least she can take comfort in the fact that surely it doesn’t hurt as much; she warned them, after all.

in Winter’s mind, this kind of disappointment is an inevitability, so what’s paramount is to make sure that when it does happen her siblings are at least prepared for it. in the face of that the fact that she would actually risk life and limb to help them if they ever need it falls to the wayside; i don’t think it was a mindful decision that Winter consciously made--like, i don’t think she ever thought “i’m going to withhold the fact that i would die for them because that would contradict the whole social Darwinism thing i’m trying to drill into their heads,” because Winter’s just...not that kind of deliberate rational actor, in any arena. rather--and maybe even more damning--i think she just assumes that Weiss and Whitley already KNOW, that it’s a given for them the sacrifices she’d make for them in the same way it’s a given for her. but they don’t! because you have to say these things, and Winter has been force-feeding them the precise opposite.

ultimately all of these contradictory impulses stem from Winter’s deep-seated need for control--both of herself, and of the environments around her, and those in turn come from the fact that she was a) repeatedly wounded as a child and b) had to shoulder responsibilities far beyond her own ability as that same child, which...continues to this day. from this perspective, what matters is less keeping her siblings safe, and more her own ability to save them. she knows that’s imperfect, so she compensates by enforcing what worked for her onto them, and also by keeping them away from anything that could harm them, without their input. i never thought much of the contrast in environments for the character shorts--like of course Weiss would spar with Winter’s Summons at home like the untested shut-in she was--but what did take me aback was that in season 7, after Weiss has waltzed across an entire continent and been promoted to a full Huntress, Winter...still exclusively trains Weiss with her Summons up in Atlas, while Ruby and Yang are traipsing across Mantle killing ACTUAL Grimm. i have no doubt that this was for foreshadowing reasons, but still: it points to the fact that for all Winter loves Weiss and would fight giant monsters for her, there’s a part of her that...doesn’t trust Weiss, and wants to maintain control over her.⁴

this, i think, is part of the reason why Whitley treats her basically like an un-person: it’s not just that she left when he was too young and Jacques filled in all the gaps with lies and slander, it’s also that even when Winter was around the bigger age gap made it much easier for her to reconcile keeping him out of the loop, for his own good. she can’t ever be vulnerable around either of her siblings, but especially not Whitley, because he’s too young; he might let something slip when they’re around Jacques, and she shouldn’t be putting that kind of burden on him anyway. if he resents her when she’s just trying to protect him--except you said that you wouldn’t, Winter you absolute moron--then that’s his prerogative. it doesn’t change her own responsibilities. they can be miserable and Byronic in their own separate cubby holes and it’s fine.

(it’s not fine.)

R(ose)⁵-side: tonight, the role of Replacement Goldfish will be played by...everyone

let’s get one thing out of the way: Yang is a GOOD big sister, and some of the ways that she is good can be chalked up to the fact that she had a better home life, but only some. her character short ends with her promising Ruby that she’ll always have her back after spending the short proving it, and she has--until recently, and we’ll get to that--lived up to it. people get caught up on how much time Yang spends with Blake nowadays, but it’s important to remember that the entire impetus for Yang reuniting with anyone during the Mistral arc was about Ruby. so is the thing that separates a Yang from a Winter is that a Yang preaches what she practices, and isn’t firing a million zillion mixed signals at all times?

well--yeah, basically, but we’re gonna make a big thing out of it anyway.

what made Yang and Ruby different from the Schnees--even before the character shorts--was a sense of parity. in contrast to Winter insisting on maintaining a) the most unapproachable facade in the world, and b) a death-grip on every situation at all times, Yang was characterized from the outset as...chill (ironically). despite her Semblance being LITERALLY hotheadedness, Yang’s passionate energy never manifested in any real desire to take charge. the fact that she was fine (even happy!) with Ruby being bumped up to her year and then becoming leader speaks volumes to how much Yang trusts and respects Ruby’s judgement. rather than try to mask her flaws, she exudes this kind of...radiant fallibility and lets Ruby take care of her, or keep her in line. they complement each other: Yang takes care of more grounded concerns like individual fights and making friends, while Ruby--again, until recently--set more abstract goals and gave them moral direction.

a lot of this can be attributed to the smaller age gap, but i think it also comes from growing up as two motherless free-range children on an island--and the motherlessness is obviously a huge deal for both of them. when i started writing this i honestly thought i’d talk more about Raven, since she’s the mom who’s actually a character already, and her absence plays a huge role in how Yang deals with her abandonment issues in the present, but to be honest: the loss that cut the deepest for Ruby AND Yang is Summer, because Summer was actually around enough to be lost. despite the show frequently dividing custody of Team STRQ right down the middle between Ruby and Yang, where Ruby “gets” Summer and Qrow and Yang “gets” Tai and Raven, it’s the admixture of Rose and Branwen that makes the two of them who they are.⁶ Yang spent more time with Summer, but Ruby spends more time with Qrow, who is Yang’s blood uncle, so the dichotomy between nature and nurture is fascinatingly blurred.

i know this is an unpopular opinion, but i hope Summer really is dead, because the ways that her daughters interpellate their own identities from her absence drives so much of the story. that SUMMER was the first mother Yang lost--not Raven, because Yang didn’t even know about Raven until Summer died--is what shapes her relationship with Ruby, but also her relationship with Raven. what’s always simmering just below the surface of any Yang-Raven confrontation is that the person Yang actually wanted to find the whole time she was looking for Raven was Summer, because she wanted a mom, and a mom looked like Summer. Raven’s not stupid--it might be her one redeeming quality--so it’s likely that she’s always known and resented this. it’s not an accident that the moment Yang stopped looking for Raven for Raven and started looking for her for an easy conduit to her real family was the moment she actually found Raven.⁷ it was the first step to Yang outgrowing her old habits, of waiting for a mother to return--a classic “she needed a hero so that’s what she hurdy blah”

in a way that’s what she’s been doing this whole time. in contrast to Winter, who compensated for her mother’s flaws by ratifying them into universal law, Yang did the same by defying their supposed truth: people might leave her, but she won’t leave Ruby, and Ruby won’t leave her. it’s telling that whenever Yang leaves--even as a literal child--she always took Ruby with her, even if she planned on coming back. (it’s just as telling that when Winter left she didn’t.) she’ll always be there for Ruby, to give her the boost she needs to become the Summer they all want her to be, which means being a little of Summer herself--the part of Summer that baked cookies and slew monsters. and in return Ruby gave her...a sense of certainty, i think: that Ruby needs her and therefore won’t leave, but also that Ruby has the parts of Summer that Yang can’t muster herself--the grand heroic ideal, the moral certitude, etc.

...and now we’re finally gonna talk about the Schism, which i honestly think is the best thing that has happened to their relationship, development-wise. by the end of the Mistral arc Yang has arrived at a healthier perspective with respect to her relationships with everyone: now it’s not about indiscriminately giving herself away to people in the hopes that they might not leave her, but about choosing to give herself away to the people she loves and trusts. on one level this should not conflict with her relationship with Ruby at all, because Yang loves Ruby, but on another...the fact that Yang no longer feels obligated to perform unending support, to be the grounded complement, to fill in the parts of Summer that Ruby can’t--of COURSE that’s going to bring about conflict. because it turns out Yang never needed Ruby to give her direction or discipline. she’s now had time to think of the things she herself values, and those...don’t exactly match up with Ruby’s--or Summer’s.⁸ Yang, having known Summer as a mother, having been confronted repeatedly with the fallibility of mothers, is starting to outgrow Summer, and grow separately from Ruby.

but growing separately doesn’t have to mean growing apart, and i think Yang, at least, knows this. she clearly feels Some Kinda Way about their disagreement (and Blake’s implicit alignment with Ruby), but she’s also confident enough in her own beliefs by this point to commit to them. Yang’s taking charge instead of deferring to Ruby, and it turns out that...she’s actually not a bad leader herself, since she and Jaune have pretty much split a lot of those responsibilities. for her it’s not a question of losing faith or love in Ruby as a person, but about discovering what she herself fights for.

Ruby...sees it differently, because Ruby sees Summer differently. if Yang has always defined herself against Summer by deciding that she can NEVER fully be Summer, so she’ll make do with what she can, then Ruby’s always defined herself against Summer by marking Summer as the endpoint of her personal trajectory. what Ruby knows of Summer--that she was a person who enjoyed life and did not believe in original sin, that had a magical special destiny that was totally fine and awesome and didn’t drive her to her death, that she was a baker of cookies and slayer of monsters--is what Tai and Qrow--and Yang--told her about Summer, because Ruby was too young to remember the real Summer. so Summer for her is this abstract paragon to live up to, and no more. she can’t possibly exceed Summer, because the Summer Ruby knows encompasses literally all that is good.

when Yang tells Ruby “i’ve always got your back” in the short, a lot of it is about Yang, and the ways Yang needed to be there for other people so they’ll be there for her in return. but it’s also something Ruby really needed to hear, because Ruby needed the security and comfort of knowing that even if she screws up there are people around her who can help shoulder the burden. that security already took a serious hit after Yang lost her arm, but Ruby, kind and generous person that she is, was able to reconcile with that, because YANG HAD JUST LOST HER ARM. it would be ridiculous to expect Yang to have her back the way she used to, and besides--it was time she grew up, and growing up means becoming more like Summer, all of Summer, by herself.

and...she gets pretty far, is the thing, because Ruby IS a lot like Summer, and is incredible and amazing all by herself to boot, but the point is that no one should feel this much pressure to be All That Is Good, especially when you’re a teen. Ruby’s not ready to recognize that, partly because at this point so many people are looking to her for leadership, but also because being Summer’s heir is the only real link she has to her mom.⁹ so she hunkers down and does the best she can, in a situation that has far spiraled beyond anybody’s control...and then Yang tells her that it’s not working out, that this time it’s not that she can’t have Ruby’s back, but that she won’t. in Ruby’s mind, this could only mean one of two things: either Yang no longer believes what Ruby believes--what Summer believed, or...Yang no longer believes in Ruby, because she wasn’t good enough.

and well. it’s Ruby. it’s not hard to guess which reason she’s picking right now, especially since she pretty conspicuously refused to call the shots during the Amity heist.

but this is of course a false dichotomy. it’s not about which one of them is right, or even more right, and the show does a very good job with the framing to show that both of them have a point. similarly, what Ruby needs right now is neither confirmation that her long-held beliefs are objectively the best ones, nor that she is good enough to become Summer after all. no; what she needs instead is the knowledge that she’s allowed to fuck up, to deviate from what people have told her about Summer, to become what Summer never was. that’s something Yang can--and will--help her work out.

oh no this analogy is breaking apart: how they’d get along

...oi.

look, even beyond the fact that Winter doesn’t get along with ANYONE over much, i don’t think there’s any universe where she wouldn’t immediately rub Yang the wrong way. not only because Winter’d initially treat Ruby with the same cold tyranny that she (up until very recently) treats Weiss, but also because Yang’s partner is Blake, and--to say nothing of Atlas/Schnee-on-Faunus oppression--she was personally made collateral during the fallout with Blake’s abuser.¹⁰ i myself wouldn’t say that Winter abused Weiss, but to Yang’s protective and skewed view...

well, can you imagine Weiss trying to explain the way Winter ~~~trained her to the Bees? “oh, she sent a pack of Beowolves to hunt me! it was a meant-to-lose fight and when i started doing well she just moved the goalposts. one of her wolves almost ate me before i begged her to stop but it...probably...wouldn’t have...it was fine! my Aura didn’t dip THAT much. Winter’s the best!!” Yang’s hair would have been on fire after the first sentence, is all i’m saying. this coupled with the fact that Yang would very likely view Winter leaving Weiss and Whitley through the lens of Raven doing the same thing to her, and i think it would take a pretty long time for the two of them to see eye to eye on anything.

which is not to say that they have nowhere to go but antagonism, because at their cores Winter and Yang both have a) no hesitation whatsoever when it comes to protecting the people they care about and b) a tendency to define protection literally, often bodily. the difference is that Yang’s Semblance weaponizes these protective instincts for her, and she learned the limits of taking that too far. Winter...doesn’t, and hasn’t.¹¹ that COULD lead to some interesting conversations, but i don’t think Yang has quite the emotional clarity and generosity to reckon with that yet, and they’re not about to talk about it inside the Giant Whale.

a necessary part of Winter’s development is learning to respect the people around her instead of instantly categorizing them into boxes labeled “to fight” and “to protect and order around.” her friction with Yang could be an intriguing way to explore that; i have no doubt, for example, that Winter would have hurled herself between Elm and Yang just as readily as she had between Elm and Ren. similarly, i think if Winter ever were in the same room with both Raven and Yang she’d last about ten seconds before trying to rip Raven’s hair out with her teeth, because Raven is neglectful and casually demeaning in ways that are instantly recognizable to Winter (in the same way they were to Weiss).¹² the issue is that her doing any of these things for Yang--y’know, the same Yang who IMMEDIATELY gave Blake the cold shoulder when she tried to pull the whole “i’ll protect you” crap--is that she would only find it confusing and frustrating, and likely wouldn’t mince words expressing that.

Yang’s a big sister herself, and therefore knows all the big sister tricks, and Yang has a consistent pattern of not wanting to rely on other people, particularly people she sees as adults. so the best path toward a Winter and Yang friendship is probably not the head-on approach, but obliquely through someone else. that someone else can’t be Weiss, because Yang would be already hypervigilant about the way Winter treats Weiss--but it could be Ruby. even putting aside the fact that she is now one of the most important people in the world for BOTH her sisters, Ruby herself is very easy to love, and Winter loves very easily, despite herself. what they have in common--idealism and a martyr complex--would also engender some cool interactions, and Ruby would let Winter take care of her, if only to make Winter feel better.

i could see that being the impetus for Yang tentatively, grudgingly forming her own friendship with Winter, because there ARE things that Winter can give Yang, even if Yang can’t (or won’t) admit she wants them. it’s nice to try out being the kid sister, once in a while.

still, even if they get that far: i can’t imagine their relationship as anything friendlier than this.

¹ tbh neither would actually surprise me; what Winter does and doesn’t let herself do is only knowable to the Gods Who Have Forsaken This Land, and they’re certainly unknowable to Winter herself.

² maybe she knows that the whole “the Schnees were up-from-bootstraps-good-capitalists until that guy Jacques came along” thing is stupid!! i don’t care that he’s Santa Nicholas Schnee ain’t shit

³ this i think is why the current thing with Ironwood is such a bitter pill to swallow, because...she thought she’d been so careful. not in thinking that she’d chosen a man who couldn’t disappoint her, but in caring so deeply about him and investing so much of herself into him, despite the fact she’s only ever let herself call him “sir,” or “General.”

⁴ though i will say, to give Winter some credit: she actually accepts the fact that her sister is totally her own person now with a lot more aplomb than i’d expected, both in the “you stole an airship” scene and during all of Sparks. i wouldn’t be so generous as to read subtle treason into her disclosure of Ironwood’s Winter Maiden plans, but it does point to Winter’s desire for control being much more easily unlearned than that of her boss.

⁵ geddit? it’s a joke about handed-ness because now they both have the Hand Tremor

⁶ Tai is, as always and on purpose, the stabilizing agent. “appropriately underwhelming,” as Winter might put it, but absolutely essential.

⁷ of course then Raven had the gall to resent THAT too, because she’s the worst, and...see above, about Winter Schnee’s self-unknowing.

⁸ curiously, the values that Yang most espouses now--the importance of knowing what you’re getting into, protecting what is tangible, what is within your ability--are a) hard-won from years of taking care of Ruby and b) ones that she shares with Raven. the only difference is that Yang’s circle of protection extends far beyond Raven’s, which only includes herself.

⁹ weirdly enough the best person to talk to Ruby about this might be Raven, who has a very skewed perception of Summer herself (because Raven’s perception of EVERYONE is generally fucked up), but probably won’t hold back when talking about Summer’s flaws. Ruby won’t want to hear any of it, but i think she needs to.

¹⁰ i do think Blake and Winter would have some interesting conversations, if Blake ever...was generous enough to deal with *gestures at all of Winter.* it’s easier to compare Blake to Willow given the shared nature of their interpersonal abuse, but Winter on the other hand knows what it’s like to be hand-picked and groomed by a charismatic man with a singular vision who ended up wholly compromising that vision for the sake of their personal ego. that the White Fang are a good force perverted while the Atlesian Military is rotten to the core would...make the conversation more lively? it’s probably fine?

¹¹ “i’m Winter Schnee and i have maladaptive coping mechanisms that i am currently clinging to, as a maladaptive coping mechanism”

¹² though there...probably IS a world where Raven and Winter end up getting along after the initial skirmish, and it disturbs Yang and Qrow to no end

#Anonymous #yang xiao long #winter schnee #rwby #tl;dr they both play vanguard when they play mass effect #helen writes meta

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slasherhaven · 4 years

Note

Can I have some headcanons with Baby Firefly, Brahms, and Vincent stalking there future S/O. They think there pretty good at it gets to where they can get inside there house/ room/ etc. They sneak in and it’s very dark. All of a sudden there “victim” turns on a lamp and just says,” You’re late.” They talk for a bit and then S/O just hands them a key.

These got kinda long so they’re under the cut! 😂

Baby Firefly:

You probably catch Baby’s eye when you’re at a bar or even just a store of some sort. One look and she is hooked, gushing about the stranger she saw to Otis later that day.

Now, Baby is confident and outgoing so the reason she chose to stalk you rather than just approach you is probably just because she thought it would be more fun.

She knows it’s weird but she doesn’t care, plus it’s fun!

But she decides that she might as well use the opportunity to learn more about you.

Where do you live? Where do you work? Where do you shop? What do you usually get when you go shopping? What’s your favourite snack? How do you take your coffee? Normally she wouldn’t care all that much about those kinda things but if she’s going to follow you, she might as well learn everything she can. Her infatuation only growing.

Finally one day, when your home was empty, Baby got inside and started to look around.

She’d nose around, not caring all that much for your privacy.

Might steal something. Thinking that you’ll just think you misplaced it.

She’s tempted to leave something behind, like a clue, but decides against it. Not yet anyway!

She did break in once when you were home, sleeping in the bedroom. She let herself in, helping herself to some food and drink and just...sitting in another room of the house. Probably watching the television but quietly, still not wanting to alert you of her presence.

She thinks she is being sneaky but she can be impulsive and that was probably what gave her away in the first place.

Baby decided to go to your house after a long day, having dealt with some difficult victims. Of course they got them under control and were going to let them stew for a while but now she wanted to take a load off.

And what better way to do that then going over to your place, helping herself to a beer and oh! maybe you had some of that cake left!

She lets herself in through a window and heads for the kitchen. The house is silent and dark, you must be asleep by now.

As she steps into the living room, she jumps a little when the lamp turns on, revealing you sitting on the couch and looking at her without any surprise on your features.

“You’re late” you sighed, sounding almost disappointed.

Out of these three, Baby is the only one who doesn’t freeze up at all. She’s just interested the turn of events.

“I got caught up” she’d smile, confused but also excited by how casual you were being.

“Well...I hope you’re going to explain why you’ve been following me. Oh! And help yourself” you gestured towards the coffee table, making her notice the two slices of cakes and cans of beer sitting there.

She grins, practically skipping over, before taking a seat beside you and helping herself to the treats you had laid out for her.

The two of you would end up having a playful argument over “why didn’t you say something!” the two of you could have been drinking beer and eating cake together this whole time!

The two of you probably end up staying up all night talking.

But the time comes where Baby tells you that she has to get back home and check in with her family.

Before she leaves, you stop her and hold your palm out.

A huge smile spread out over her face when she sees the house key.

“So you don’t have to keep coming in through the window” you shrug.

Baby will snatch the key from your hand, planting a playful kiss on your cheek, before leaving you to finally get some sleep.

Oh, she’s not done with you yet!

You’re pretty sure Baby has just moved in with you from how often you find her in your home, acting like she lives there.

Brahms Heelshire:

Ever since you arrived at the house, Brahms had his eye on you. But that isn’t so surprising.

And of course, he has been watching you all day ever since. Following you around the house and watching you.

You had followed the rules perfectly, talking to the doll like it was a real child. Maybe you were just doing it to make yourself feel less alone but he liked it anyway. You’d smile and joke, hum to yourself, sometimes you’d talk to yourself when you were trying to remember something. Everything you did made Brahms like you even more.

While Vincent was more considerate and left you your privacy when it came to getting changed and showering, Brahms doesn’t mind so much.

He’s watching you all the time, even when you’re changing, having a shower or a bath. He’s definitely a bit of a voyeur.

But he doesn’t just sit back and watch either.

Some of your belongings are definitely going to go missing. At first you thought you were going crazy but it didn’t take you too long to put the pieces together.

You had felt a little uneasy with being alone in such a large house so you kept your bedroom door locked while you slept. It just made you feel safer with being on your own.

But that didn’t stop Brahms.

He wanted to get into your room, so he would.

He had his ways of getting into your bedroom even when the door was looked.

He usually stole your belongings when you were doing chores in another part of the house, giving him more time to rummage around.

But Brahms wanted to get closer to you and he could only do that when you were sleeping, unaware of him.

Yes, he liked to watch you sleep. And as time went by, he would get closer until he was standing right beside your bed, looking down at you.

He wanted more than anything to climb into the bed with you but he knew that would wake you up and it wasn’t time to reveal himself yet. So he restrained himself.

It was a normal night. You had gone to bed and Brahms had waited, giving you time to fall asleep. But he had gotten...distracted.

Brahms used one of his exits from the walls to get into your room. Making sure to stay quiet and watch his step since it was so dark.

He jumps before his whole body tenses when the bedside lamp turns on.

There you are, wide awake and looking directly at him.

“You’re late tonight” wait did you know that he was sneaking in here? Wait did you know know that he has been living in the walls?!

Whenever you were talking to the doll...did you know that you were actually talking to him?

“I’m not mad but I do want my things back, Brahms” he is stunned and unsure of what to say or do.

If he was going to get caught he thought you would be angry or scare but you weren’t.

He’s excited to be interacting with you properly at last but is also nervous to be stepping into uncharted territory.

He’s cautious...this could be a trick.

“You had me fooled for a little while, I won’t lie but...when my things started going missing, I kinda figured it out. I have a lot of questions but you don’t have to answer until you’re ready”

You’re sweet. So sweet and Brahms is already relaxing.

When you pat the space on the bed beside you, inviting him to sit, he cautiously walks over and takes a seat.

You just start talking and he starts to relax some more.

He’s still cautious of you, even though he certainly wants to be closer and make some real contact with you.

“It’s late and I need to wake up on time, right?...I can keep the door unlocked though, if that would be easier for you to get in” you offered, surprising him again.

You were welcoming him into your room? Smiling like you wanted it as well as allowing it.

Now that you have opened the door for Brahms to be around you, he is going to take full advantage of it.

Vincent Sinclair:

You had just been a lost soul that wandered into Ambrose (with Lester’s guidance) and met Bo. Of course his first intention had been to kill you and send you off to his twin but you had been friendly and open about your life, even if it seemed to upset you.

A little foolishly, you had confessed that you didn’t really have anywhere to go, that you were alone and had nobody waiting on you.

Still, Bo saw you as another victim and planned on treating you no differently.

But when you saw what they had been doing in the town, you had promised not to tell anyone. Swore to do anything if they just spared your life.

Bo wasn’t convinced but Lester had a softer heart, convincing him to at least discuss it with Vincent.

Bo thought that Vincent would be on his side but it turned out that Vincent had been watching you since you stepped foot in the town. And he was infatuated with you.

So Bo decided that he would let you stay but would be keeping a close eye on you. If you messed up or tried to run, his brothers wouldn’t be able to talk him out of killing you. When he told you this, you understood and promised you would behave.

He had to confess that keeping you around could be positive, you were a friendlier and more trusting face than Lester to lore people back to the town.

So that’s how you ended up staying in Ambrose, even getting your own room in the house.

But you had been staying in the town for a few weeks now, nearly a month, and you had only met two out of the three brothers.

You knew there was another, Vincent, Bo’s twin. Bo had mentioned him from time to time while Lester had told you stories from their childhood, the good and bad of it.

You had learnt that Vincent was the artist, the one who dealt with the wax.

Vincent had never approached you, never even made himself known to you, but he had been watching you.

He would watch you as you moved around the house, impressed by how unafraid you seemed these days, smiling to himself when you would hum to yourself while doing the chores that Bo had made your responsibility. He’d watch curiously as you admired his art, not even having a face to put to the craft.

He would follow you around the town, just wanting to know what you got up to. Wishing that he could approach you but something stopped him every time.

To put it simply, he was too shy. Too scared that you wouldn’t like him, that he would scare you or disgust you, that you wouldn’t return his feelings. So he admired from afar.

Eventually he had also started entering your room at the house.

Sometimes when you were out, just to get a feel for who you were. What you liked. What fragrance you used. He wanted to learn everything he could but he wouldn’t touch anything, he didn’t want you to know that he was there.

But sometimes he would do it when you were there as well, when you were sleeping. It soothed him when he couldn’t sleep and he would always leave before you woke up.

Vincent had been working late that night because he couldn’t settle, but he was tired. So he did what he would always do to soothe himself, he headed up to your room.

As usual, he let himself into the dark room, as silent as he could be.

He slowly closed the door behind him and turned back in the direction of your bed.

Vincent nearly jumps out of his skin when a lamp on the bed side table turns out. At first he thought that he woke you up and you were going to catch him...but that wasn’t quite the case.

You were sitting on the bed with your legs crossed, a curious expression on your face.

“You’re later than usual” your comment surprised him.

He wasn’t usually all that talkative anyway but right now he was definitely speechless.

“You’re Vincent, right?” you asked, already knowing the answer. “It’s nice to finally meet you” you were smiling at him now.

You had known he was watching you...you weren’t surprised that he was here right now...and you were smiling at him.

“Well come on, sit down. You have some explaining to do” you patted the space on the bed beside you. “Don’t worry, I’m not mad” you assured him, sensing his nervousness. So different to his twin brother...

If you could see his eyes properly, they would be wide.

Slowly Vincent took a seat on your bed, putting a fair amount of distance between you both. You weren’t mad at him?

It takes a while to break him out of his shell, a few more reassuring words to remind him that you aren’t mad.

But eventually the two of you get to talking, you carrying the conversation.

He’s still nervous and fiddling with his fingers.

Eventually you’re yawning and ready to get some sleep.

“I’m going to get some shut eye, you can stay if you want but I’ll see you tomorrow...at least I hope you’re not going to keep hiding from me after this” you smile kindly at him.

Vincent just nods but decides not to stay that night. He needs some time to process all of this and decide how he is going to act next. Maybe he didn’t need to keep hiding from you...and he was definitely going to visit you tomorrow night.

#vincent sinclair x reader #brahms heelsire x reader #baby firefly x reader #vincent sinclair #brahms heelshire #baby firefly #slashers x reader #Slashers #slasher #my writing

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apherod · 3 years

Text

Rubian Soulmate AU

I finally finished writing it ahhhh

I eventually decided that I was going for a sketch-style writing for this. Just short bits and pieces here and there, piecing together some scenes, but not fully fleshed out into a storyline (it coincides with the original story mostly anyway)

So here it is! Enjoy!

This is a Liam and Ruby Soulmate AU requested by an anon (possibly @thedarkestcrew?) ask, in which damage done to one half of the soulmate pair would translate to the other half.

Word count: 4400

===

Liam

“Where did all these bruises come from?”

I was driving through Highway 95 in Maryland when I noticed the bruises crowning my knuckles. They just…appeared, like petals floating to the surface of water. It is possible that I punched something—or someone—at some point in the last few days, or tripped and fell, and using…my fists to break the fall? But I don’t recall doing any of that.

Then again, my head hadn’t been the most reliable in these past few weeks, either.

They weren’t the first. A couple of weeks ago, I woke up with a cut on my upper arm, and the blood drenched half of my sleeve, but the sleeve wasn’t torn or cut, so it couldn’t have been me… Another one came a few days after that, when I was driving, and a sudden searing pain came to my wrist, like I was burnt by a frying pan, but that part of my skin wasn’t even touching anything. The list goes on.

I think I’m going insane.

Some people…some who are lucky enough to find their soulmates, found themselves with identical wounds on them, because when one half of that bond gets hurt, the other one suffers, too. Mom’s bruises never translated onto our birth dad. Maybe that was why he was so okay with hurting her. It wasn’t until she met Harry, did that magic—or curse—work on both of them.

But that’s exactly that—it only happens after you’ve met the person. If I’ve somehow met her, and didn’t know who she was, then I’ve really screwed up. Big time.

It couldn’t have been anyone in Caledonia, otherwise I would’ve known. No one from home, either. There weren’t even that many of us left. Could it be someone from East River? For some reason, I just couldn’t be sure… There’re this weird quality in my memory when I think of East River, glowing tinge surrounding everything, blurring details, and flaring up the edges, making it hard to see for too long.

Also, if I met her in East River, why isn’t she with me?

If she’s really out there, I felt sorry for all the pain I’ve caused her in the past few days. When I narrowly escaped that group of Skip Tracers, my arms were all cut up, real pretty. I can’t imagine the horror she must have felt when her arms just, out of nowhere, started spontaneously bleeding half of her blood out.

I really ought to take better care of myself, even if it’s just for her sake.

When I crossed the state boarder into Pennsylvania, I managed to find an old payphone, and left a voice mail for my brother to let him know where I am, and that I’m coming his way. I didn’t want to—asking for Cole’s help was one of the few things that I genuinely want to avoid—but I’m really desperate.

The truth is, just imagining him gloating about this—about me needing his help—was almost enough to make me turn around. Think about the last time I asked for his help… didn’t work out so well, did it? But whatever Cole has to offer, whatever nightmare I have to live through going back to the League, is better than being hauled back into the camp.

I don’t think they’d actually take me back into a camp, anyway.

When I got passed the wrong Wilmington, I briefly glimpsed the road sign that read US 13, and a voice suddenly rang in my head.

Turn off here. It urged.

The feeling was distinctly different from my reluctance to meet Cole—it was a drive, asking me to go somewhere, rather than run from somewhere.

Whatever it was, I can’t listen, no matter how hard I wanted to, no matter how it warmed my heart just thinking about that impulse, like it would lead me home, even though I had no idea how.

I got into the city of Philadelphia, and found my brother’s apartment soon enough. When I got into his building, a woman threw me a sideway glance that made my hair stood on their ends.

Please don’t recognize me, please don’t recognize me, please don’t recognize me… I muttered in my head while I pressed the buzzer. The door swung opened, and I was snatched inside by a forceful arm.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Cole snarled before I could even lay eyes on him properly. “Why didn’t you call me when you got here?”

He looked much better than me, that much was clear. Cole never had any wound that wasn’t his own, and from the looks of him, he hadn’t seen much action lately. His hair was clean-cut, brushed neatly away from his face. He was wearing a white shirt and dark blue jeans, with metal-frame glasses which were clearly without diopters to finish the look. In this getup, you’d expect him to be a graduate student in U Penn, not a high school dropout.

“I… I didn’t have any money to place a call.” I muttered, feeling my voice getting smaller. Gosh, I hated this. I hated that I felt like a child again. I took off my jacket, and hung it on the peg right next to his. They were two identical black leather jackets, which Mom bought us years ago—she got them a couple of sizes bigger than we were at the time, in anticipation that we would eventually grow into them. Cole did, whereas I felt like I still hadn’t.

Cole let out a long and harsh breath, and gave me a scan head to toe. “You’ve seen better days.” He commented eventually, a subtle amusement in his tone. “Even for you, this is a bit excessive…” He gingerly lifted my right wrist, and got a good look at my forearm, all cut up.

You don’t say. I wanted to retort, but didn’t. “What are you doing in Philly?” I asked as I retracted my hand.

Cole raised an eyebrow. “You really want to know?”

Maybe not. “I’d probably know eventually, wouldn’t I?” I said.

He scratched his chin, frowning. “You know what this means, right? You know where we’re going?”

“Look, if I could just find Mom and Harry…” I began, but he raised his hand and stopped me.

“No,” He snapped, “We don’t have that kind of time. My assignment here is done. I’m being extracted at midnight, which is in less than four hours, and if you think I’d let you out running into the wild and being hauled into a camp again, you’d have another thought coming.”

Choose me. I remembered the subtext of what Cole said that night when he left home, and now it was ringing in a different tone. Now I don’t have a choice.

“All right.” I sighed. “Whatever you say.”

He frowned deeper. But it took him a while to say something. “Look, I know the last time you came with me, it didn’t end so well, but things are turning around.” He said, palms down, pacifying. “I promise, just stick it out a few months.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

He bit his lip. “I just do. Trust me.” He said, then gave me a tight smile, “Tell you what, I’ll go get us something to eat, and you clearly need a shower.” He took off his glasses, grabbed the keys, then, as if remembered something, added with a grin, “Do not, drown in the bathtub.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I rolled my eyes.

Before he could open the door, though, I stopped him. “Cole,” I began, but didn’t really know how to finish.

“Yeah?” He prompted.

“Have we...” I caught myself just for a moment. What am I doing? “...have we ever been to Virginia Beach?”

Because that…memory? was so vivid, that I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there, calling me at every moment I so much as allowed my mind to idle for a second. But it also had that bright glare around it, like it didn’t really belong to me, like I was seeing it through a mirror, into a different dimension where we were all happier people.

Cole was there, looking exactly like how he was now, but Claire was also there, and that didn’t make any sense…

“No…?” Cole said, “We lived in Wilmington. We went to Wrightsville, remember?”

Of course I do, but… I shook my head. “It’s just… I kept seeing this…memory, that we were there, and Claire was there, too…”

Cole pressed his lips tight. I know mentioning Claire’s name would probably put him on edge, but it’s not like I have other people to talk about her with anyway. A part of me wanted to be a bit mean about it, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I didn’t have the strength.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said, voice rigid. “Just go take your shower. I’ll be back with the food.”

And he left, leaving me alone in his white and bare apartment.

I still couldn’t be sure that it was a good idea coming here. If I’m being honest with myself, it wasn’t even about my negative view on the League, or what it had turned my brother into, but that…I’m not sure how to be his brother anymore. I’m not even sure that he needs a brother.

Hell. Looking around this place, I got the feeling that a brother wasn’t the only thing he didn’t need. But then again, knowing how Cole kept his room, it was maybe a good thing that he had so few belongings here. This place…it didn’t even feel like someone actually live here; there were so few things breaking the white of the walls, it was almost glaring to my eyes.

I first went to check his bed, to see if he still has that weird habit—falling asleep with cigarettes still in his hand. His bedsheet looked clean enough; nothing charred. No ashtray, either. Maybe he quit.

Satisfied, I went to grab a t-shirt and a pair of pants from his closet, and dived into the pressurized water in his shower.

I can’t remember when was the last time I had running water. Probably…when I was in the League’s safe house? Gosh. My skin is so filthy, the water only started running clean after a good ten minutes of scrubbing, and I was scrubbing hard.

I was extra careful when I cleaned my arms, though. Not particularly because I was scared of pain, but more that I didn’t want to hurt this…person who might share this unfortunate connection with me, however low the chance might be. I didn’t want to make her suffer even more—somehow, I knew it was a her, for reasons I couldn’t quite put into words.

When I got out of the shower, I felt like my entire body had been turned inside out. My skin was glowing pink against the white tiling of Cole’s bathroom. He is an inch or two taller than me—which was sore to admit, but hey, I went through puberty in a lot worse condition than he did—so his pants hung a little too long around my ankles.

Then I finally got a good look at myself in the mirror. Damn, I looked awful. The dark shadows under my eyes were so purple, they looked almost black. Not to mention the countless scratches and bruises. There was a new one on my left cheek, just above the jawline. Whether it was mine or hers, I didn’t know.

Just as I threw the towel over my head, and started rubbing the water away from my hair, I heard it—siren. It began from a distance, a low wailing, but it was enough to set every hair on my back on its end. As I flew out of Cole’s shower, grabbed my jacket, and rushed to the window side, the siren got closer—and multiplied. The sound of them were like a harmony from hell.

Should I run? Should I stay?

I should run.

Even though they might not be coming for me, I knew better than to push my luck—it hadn’t really been on my side recently, and that woman who looked at me a second too long when I got in the building was probably proving me right. I threw the apartment door open, and on a second thought, ran for the roof instead of the ground floor.

I can reconvene with Cole later. I need to stay out of sight now. Cole’s a smart guy, he knows what to do in a situation like this.

It had started raining. I tripped on a mossy patch on the rooftop, and almost broke my jaw, but I stood up and kept running. I pushed myself over the ledge of the next building, and sprinted for the fire escape on the far end. The sound of the first bullet fired almost made me lose my bearing when I lowered myself onto the metal shaft.

They are on the other side. There were two fully populated buildings between me and those bullets, and they were firing at someone else—which means I’m not who they’re after. These are all good news.

Right?

Since when had I been that lucky after I turned twelve?

I pulled the hood of the jacket over my head, and dove into the shadow of the next alley. The gunfire had stopped, which meant that they probably got whoever they were after. I took the long way around the block, trying to get a hang of the situation, getting an idea of where I could find Cole without being spotted—

Oh, I found him alright.

Fuck. No. Fuck.

I only caught sight of him for a second before they slammed the back of that van shut, and in that brief second, he looked up, and he saw me.

No.

Christ. No. I… I got him caught. I did… I did this… Why didn’t I warn him? Why didn’t I go to him as soon as I heard the siren?

What have I done?

If you’re caught, you’re disavowed. I still remembered that phrase like it was etched into my skull. If anything encapsulates what I hate about the League the most, this is it. And now, Cole is going to be another casualty under that cold hard rule. The thought almost made my knees buckled, but instead of crashing down, I up and ran.

I ran. From this nightmare of my own making.

+++

Ruby

“Ruby!”

The scream came before the punch could land. I didn’t register what was happening in that first moment, not until the blood was dripping down my elbows, and staining the blue mats under us.

“Go to the infirmary!” Coach Johnson ordered, and I gladly obeyed. I could hear the whispering judgements forming even before I left the training room—what was that? What’s wrong with her? Where did those come from?

I knew exactly where they came from.

If Chubs was here, he’d likely yell at me for not getting these wounds taken care of immediately, but I simply…couldn’t. I ran for the shower stall, being careful not to stain the curtain, and turn on the tap.

With the water pouring out the showerhead, steaming up every bit of air around me, blurring my vision, I finally let the tears fall.

My arms didn’t hurt that much. At least, not as much as my heart. The bruises were bearable—who doesn’t get those occasionally living in the wild? I got one every other day even just from the training. But these cuts…he was in danger. Maybe he only got away with it within an inch of his life.

The only consolation I had was that I wasn’t mortally wounded, which meant he wasn’t, either. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t regret my decision of letting him go every second of every day.

If I did that to protect him, all these wounds and bruises only proved how wrong I was, how in vain my suffering had been.

“Ruby?” Cate’s voice.

I swallowed hard before answering. “Yes?”

“Are you all right?” She asked, standing outside of my stall.

“Yes.” I lied.

“Coach Johnson said you were hurt—” She didn’t buy it. “Look, if you don’t want to go to the infirmary, I can take a look—”

“I’m fine.” I cut her off. The timer on the tap beeped, warning me that the water would start running cold. My blood was dripping down from my fingers, dropping into the shallow water on the concrete floor like roses blooming in the snow.

“Ruby, I can see the blood.” Cate said dryly, then softer, coaxing. “Come out, please. Let me dress your wounds.”

Only if I could just close my eyes, and pretend for a second that the person who was waiting for me with antiseptic was Chubs, not Cate. If only I could pretend that these wounds were mine, not of the boy that I dreamt of every night for the past few months.

If only I could pretend that they were here with me, or that I wasn’t here at all.

I sighed, and brushed the curtain open. To Cate’s credit, she didn’t flinch at the sight of me. “Oh, Ruby…” She said with a tone like I was a stray cat ready to be put down. She reached out, and gingerly lifted my hand to get a better look at my arm.

“Press on it.” She handed me a towel, and sat down on the bench before patting the empty space beside her, motioning for me to join her.

I did as she said as she tore open a paper package. “This is going to hurt a little…” She gently dabbed the fabric square on my wounds, and I hissed out of reflex. I hated this. I hated showing her my weakness, and I guessed, in a weird way, she understood that. She didn’t comment on any of it, only continued to wrap my arms up in silence.

“There.” When she’s done, both of my forearms were wrapped entirely in gauzes.

“Th…thank you.” I managed to choke out.

She gave me a tender smile. “Don’t mention it.” She stood up, collecting the empty packages off the bench, and turned to leave.

Before she was out of the door, however, she turned around, and said, “You know, you get those wounds together, and you heal together, too.” She paused for a second, “You’re…not entirely helpless in this situation.”

Ten minutes after she left, I was still sitting on that bench, pondering her words. I didn’t even know what she said was true, but if it was, it meant that when I took care of myself, I took care of him, too. That, somehow, didn’t seem so bad.

I wondered how Cate knew that. She and Rob were clearly not soulmates, and I didn’t even know why she would want to date him, even without considering that fact. Rob—ruthless, arrogant, hateful—was everything opposite to what she seemed to hold dear.

But then again, she probably didn’t understand why someone would find their soulmate only to let them go on their own.

That day when I let Liam go, I made a decision that I would be whoever the League wants me to be, and make it so that they wouldn’t miss him. And for the longest time, I had kept to that promise. But not today, not now.

I just want to be myself again, even if it’s just for a moment.

So I brushed open the curtain to the stall, and allowed myself to be vulnerable again, for everyone and no one to see.

+++

His eyes traveled from my face to where the water had collected on my chest, and I raised my arms just that much higher.

His mouth half-opened for what I was sure to be a snide remark, but whatever it was never managed to pass his lips. His face froze, brows drew together, and he reached out. Before I could shift away—to where though, I had no idea; my back was already against the wall—he grabbed my wrist, and lifted my arm.

“It was you.” Cole said with a tone of half astonishment, half…anger?

“What was?” I raised an eyebrow at him, trying to hide how much I felt like a kid being caught red-handed, stealing candy bars.

He threw me a “really?” look. “Don’t insult my intelligence.” He snapped, “These are Liam’s, aren’t they?”

I almost asked “how do you know”, but that would confirm his suspicion. “What makes you say that?” I asked instead.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not playing games with you.” He huffed, “Soulmates should stick together. What were you thinking sending him out into the wild? Do you have any idea how dangerous he is to you? Or you to him? The poor bastard doesn’t even know you exist!”

“And as long as I stay in the League, that fact shall remain.” I said, more resolute and calmer than I thought possible.

He blew out a sigh of exasperation. “Look, I don’t care what kind of sainthood complex you have going on, I’m telling you—you are not doing either of you any favors, and if you think this is somehow a good idea, I beg you, think again, because you definitely look smarter than this.”

“What do you know?” I retorted, finally couldn’t keep the lid on my anger anymore. “Do you have any idea how much he hates it here? How hard he was trying to avoid this place before you drag him into this mess?”

Cole really laughed. “You think I don’t know?” He raised an eyebrow at me, and I met his glare head on. “I was the one that let him go when he got away that first time.” He tried to brush his hair back with his hand, but it gave out a weird flex before he could reach his head. “And I’ve seen enough soulmates pairs in my life to know that I never want one. Have you any idea what would happen to him if you were injured when he was on the run? Soulmates stick together so they don’t double their chances on dying, but I guess no one ever set your logic straight, did they?”

My head was so flushed with anger that I actually let him finished.

“Go find him.” Cole snapped. “And for Christ’s sake, stay together this time.”

+++

Liam

“I didn’t need freedom; I needed you!” I half-screamed, trying to get the frustration out past the chaos raging in my head. How could I—? How could she—? What the hell—?

On the receiving end of my scream, Ruby’s face was painted with grief, lined with tears that almost made my anger buckle. Almost.

“Did you just…not want to be with me anymore?” Facing her silence, my pain came out softer eventually. Please, just tell me, and I will leave you alone.

“No…” She choked out. “I… I was wrong.” She swallowed hard before continuing, and despite the anger still roaming my vein, I wanted to reach out and touch her. “We should…we should stay together. I knew I couldn’t bear to see you with the League, see them take away all the good in you that I love…”

“Is that how you think of me?” I snapped before I realized what I was doing, “That I am so weak that the League is bound to break me?”

“No!” She shook her head violently, “No, I don’t think you are weak… If anything, I think you are much stronger than me. But I was weak.” She finally looked back at me, her green eyes gleaming in the dim light of this dust-covered room. “I’m so sorry.”

Before I could react to what she said—I didn’t even know what I was going to say or do—the sound of a gunshot broke every single thought clean out of my head.

Ruby was running before I could do anything about it. She pushed the door of the shop open, and another shot blew open the window on the outside, shattering the glass all over the floor.

“Ruby!” I shouted as I dodged, crouching with my hands over my ears, but she was already up and running again, out of the door and behind the woman that was escaping the scene—with a gun in her hands.

“Ruby, stop!” I shouted again, got on my feet to catch her, but I never manage. I skidded on the broken glass, and fell, hands first, into the shards.

I heard her hiss. She stopped dead on her way, and whirled around to find me on the floor, holding my right hand on my laps, pressing it against the fabric of my jeans to try and stop the bleeding.

The blood was dripping down to her fingers. As she walked slowly towards me, the red, looking almost black, dropped on the dust-covered floor, leaving a spotting route, marking her path. When she knelt down beside me, finally close enough to touch me, I found that she was smiling. A totally mirthless, wry and painful smile.

“Give me your hand.” She said softly, almost like a whisper.

“You should treat yours first.” I said, trying to catch her hand, to see how much of a damage I’d done.

“We only need to treat one of us.” She let out a small breath, almost like something caught there. “We get them together, and we heal them together, too.”

That, somehow, broke through all the mess in my head and reached my mind. I let her take my arm, and carefully wrap her scarf on my hand, all the while her words played on repeat in my head.

We get them together, and we heal them together, too.

When she was done wrapping my hand up, the wounds on her hand stopped bleeding, too. I didn’t know why—I wasn’t even completely over that anger or frustration—but when she placed her hand in mine, a tender “there” escaping her lips, all I wanted to do was kiss her.

Instead, I gently enveloped my fingers around her hand. “There.” I said, pressing my good hand over hers.

And we stayed in that silent, that touch, just a little while longer.

+++

#tdm #the darkest minds #ruby daly #Liam Stewart #rubiam #soulmate AU #request #fanfic #writing #Cole Stewart #cate connor

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nalu4emily · 3 years

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The Unexpected Reward - Chapter 17

Summary: Natsu and Lucy go on a job together, but what they bring home is something neither anticipated. Forced to make a life changing decision, they have to adapt quickly, but that's never easy, especially given the circumstances. As they work together on their toughest adventure yet, they find themselves drawn to one another, in ways they never realised. Rated Mature.

"Hey, Flame head! Wait up!" Gray called over, catching the fire mage as he hurriedly made for the guild's exit. "Where're you going in such hurry?"

Turning to catch the ice mage walking straight for him, Natsu stopped to answer, "Home. I left Lucy and Haru asleep this morning, so I better get back to 'em."

"Oh... You've not been at the guild much lately, is everything cool with you?" The ice mage pushed further.

"Uh… Yeah! Been kinda busy and stuff, ya know." The slayer shrugged, not seeming too interested in divulging any further information.

"Well, are ya too busy to come on a mission? It's been some time since our last job together as a team." Gray asked, scratching the back of his head.

"It has been a while, now you mention it… I'd have to ask Lucy if she's feeling up to it yet, she's still not feeling too good… Anyway, catch ya later!" Natsu spoke cheerily and turned back towards the door, his hand reaching for the handle.

"Lucy's been sick for an awfully long time now, Natsu." He heard another voice say, halting him in his tracks, "Are you sure there's not something else going on?" Lisanna came up and elbowed him playfully in the arm.

"Hm?" He replied, retracting his arm back to his side.

"That's right! Lucy hasn't shown her face in months now. Has something happened? Are you guys having relationship issues?!" Levy gasped at the thought, her eyes wide with her mouth hung low.

"Relationship issues?" Natsu cocked his eyebrow in disdain; what kind of nonsense was that?

"I think you're getting a little carried away there, Shrimp. You've been reading too many books again." Gajeel teased, poking Levy's pouted cheek as he came up from behind. "And Lucy hasn't been gone that long… has she?"

"How suspicious… His beloved is sick and yet he's not with her!" Juvia murmured, appearing creepily behind Gray, making him shudder. "What is he hiding?"

"I'm not hiding anything! You guys are looking way too much into this." Natsu lied, but for good reason.

The truth was a little more complicated than that. With Lucy being so unwell, she'd not been able to leave the confines of their house, having suffered greatly in the first months of her pregnancy. It'd been hard for the both of them, but Natsu had promised to look after her—to not leave her side, and he'd kept to his word. Having skipped out on job after job, and taking longer and longer breaks between each visit to the guild, it was only natural for their friends to worry and speculate, but it did put him right in the firing line.

He was wasting time. He had to get back to his partner and son, it wasn't fair to keep them waiting. The guild would get their long awaited answers when Lucy returned, which with any luck, would be very soon.

"Can I go now? I got things to take care of." Natsu huffed, starting to get frustrated with their incessant intrusiveness.

Trying to slip out from under the guilds snooping nose, the fire mage was beginning to question whether that was even an option any more, not with the amount of people now crowding him, wanting in on the action. He just hoped the great Titania didn't decide to intervene, then he'd be doomed.

"What things would that be then, Natsu? You're not usually this secretive." Lisanna hinted again, even more curious than before. "I thought you said you had to go home?"

"Just leave the kid alone, he's got his reasons." Laxus shrugged nonchalantly, pretending not to be interested, when really he'd heard everything.

"Yes, listen to Laxus!" Freed jumped in, also creepily appearing out of no where, making the lightning mage quiver. "Natsu doesn't need you all pestering him!"

Said boy sighed, glad to have someone on side and took the opportunity to make his leave—But things were never going to be that easy. The slayer found himself almost smacking his head against the thick, wooden door frame, utterly exasperated, when yet another of his guild mates decided to pipe up and add their two pennies worth.

"Yes, you're right. However, doesn't he usually have the kid with him? Why not today? So many questions that have yet to be answered. It makes you wonder really…" Evergreen chortled to the dubious guild members, hiding her conniving smirk behind her fan.

This was getting out of hand! They were just going 'round and around in circles and at this rate he would never leave. Being backed into a corner, he had no idea what was really going on. His guild mates were chucking all sorts of nonsensical bullshit at him.

Who knew what they were accusing him of? Because he sure as hell didn't know, and was pretty convinced now that they didn't either.

"I've already said Haru's at home with Lucy… The only reason I'm here, is to check in with Mira to make sure everything's ready for his party later. You know, for his birthday today." He explained once again, sighing loudly and slumping forward in despair. "I wasn't gonna bring him in early and spoil the surprise, now was I?"

He wouldn't have bothered with any of it, if it hadn't been for the take over mage and her desire to throw some massive party for the little boy, such was the way of Fairy Tail. But this time, Natsu would've much preferred to celebrate at home where Lucy could be present to enjoy it, too. However, Mira had made her own plans, having suddenly sprung the idea upon the unknowing young man one day in passing, and had given him little choice in the matter—his ultimatum much scarier than Erza could ever be.

"We're well aware of the little one's birthday celebrations today, Natsu." Erza's stern voice echoed through the hall, startling everyone into silence and swiftly marched herself right up to the slayer's retreating body. His heart raced as his worst fear became reality and felt a wave of dread as she approached at speed, her hardened features coming in way too close for his comfort. "However, that doesn't mean I'm any less suspicious of you."

"But why?! There's nothing to be suspicious about, I swear!" Holding his hands up in submission, the fire mage was stunned into silence; his mouth dropping open in disbelief; why were they all so hell bent on this? What even was this? He'd told them what he could; what more did they want? "Lucy and Haru are at home where I left them… What else do you want me to tell you?"

"So secretive and elusive… like you have something to hide. Have you no shame?" Ignoring Natsu's plea, the armoured girl had already come to her own conclusions and summoned one of her treasured swords to point directly at the slayer, her icy glare not the only thing threatening to pierce through him, "Our Natsu would never act like this! He's impulsive and reckless and just downright stupid! What have you done with the real one?"

The fire mage would've taken offence, had the red head not so angrily directed her sharp sword at the bridge of his nose. Narrowing his eyes at the sharp metal so close to him, he gulped thickly, praying to whatever god there was, that today of all days, Lucy might just walk through those big doors, saving him from the hell that was Erza Scarlet.

He shook in his sandals, showered in sweat as the red heads sword tip made contact with his skin, pushing his head right up against the wall, "B-But I am the real Natsu…"

"Then prove it! Explain yourself, now!" She was taking no shit from her fiery companion, not after convincing herself that he was, indeed, an imposter.

Desperate not to be on the receiving end of Erza's wrath, Natsu opened his mouth to speak, but just as quickly shut it again when the old guild doors suddenly creaked open. The sound of an infants voice followed by bickering between two others could be heard filling the loud silence, abruptly halting the interrogation of the defeated fire breather.

"See, Happy! I told you he'd be in here!" The young woman pointed, her eyes landing right on the dragon boy she'd been arguing with flying cat about, only realising moments later the presence of Erza's sword and every eyeball in the building staring unashamedly at her, "Uh… Am I interrupting something?"

"Lucy... you're here..." Natsu croaked in relief, never more glad to see his beautiful girlfriend as he sank to the floor. His voice cracking from the genuine fear the older girl had provoked in him, her sword now fully removed from his face. "My sweet saviour…"

"Uh-oh! Is Natsu in trouble again?" Happy giggled, glancing over at his pink haired friend, taking pity on his horror-stricken features.

"Lucy… You're alive?" Erza stated more than asked, stomping over to the young blonde to inspect her further.

"U-Uh…" The girl in question looked down at herself, confirming that she was definitely alive before looking back up again, confusion etched into her expression. "D-Do you want me to answer that?"

"Maybe you should lay off her a little; I'm sure Lucy's had it rough enough." Gray proclaimed bravely, unable to make eye contact with the unsettled knight.

"Please don't scare her off, not when she's only just returned!" Levy all but pushed Erza out of the way and threw herself at the blonde, who was now trying to balance the new weight along with the baby and herself. "I'm so happy to see you! I've missed you, Lu!"

"I've missed you too, Levy, but I'm sure Natsu's kept you updated." Lucy reassured her, then looked up to all of her other friends, "Hasn't he?"

"Natsu told us you hadn't been feeling well, but that's a suspiciously long illness Lucy, one I hope has a good explanation for making us all worry so much." Erza explained, crossing her arms over her chest.

"That's one long tummy bug!" Mira giggled, walking over to the ever growing group to stand near Lucy. "Anyone would think that you were p-" She paused, eyes growing wide with realisation and darted them down to the stellar mages midriff, before promptly fainting on the spot.

"Huh? Mira! Would think, what?! What were you going to say?!" Lisanna yelled, desperately trying to wake her sister up.

"Oh! I get it!" Gray understood, thinking back to the weird conversation he'd had with Natsu in the park and how it all made perfect sense now. "It definitely explains that idiots weird behaviour." He reached out to pat Lucy on the shoulder affectionately and smiled at her, then turned to smirk at said fire mage still recoiling on the ground. "So that's the way you wanna play? Game on, Pyro!"

Turning his head, Natsu smirked back, accepting the silent challenge as he jumped back up to his feet, looking cocky as ever, "You know it, Frosty!"

"Wait, what does Gray know? Is he a part of it too?" Levy gasped, pointing her accusatory finger at the demon slayer.

"Hell no!" Natsu and Gray yelled out in defence, both offended and totally disgusted by the very thought.

"Then what? What is going on here?" Cana shouted from her bench, having heard everything. "Quit with the suspense and just be out with it already!"

"Juvia understands." Out of the shadows, said water mage appeared before her once 'love rival' and smiled happily at the girl she was about to congratulate, "Juvia is so very happy for you both!" She looked down to her own rounded tummy and placed a hand on it, a noticeable difference in size to Lucy's, "They will be the best of friends, Juvia is sure of it."

Lucy's smile reached the corners of her eyes, relieved the rain woman didn't see this as another rivalry, like their partners apparently did, "Thanks Juvia, I'm sure they will be, despite what their father's might think." They both giggled at the expense of the boys gormlessly standing there, along with the rest of the guild, who still had no idea.

"Hold up! So, what does that mean? You're having a baby too, Lucy?" Lisanna asked, cradling her sisters limp body.

The guild's eyes fell to Lucy, more specifically her stomach where if they looked closely, they would see a small, but noticeable bump stretching out her pink summer dress. She could see the expectant faces of her friends waiting for her to answer, and the warm presence of her beloved dragon slayer come to stand next to her, obviously noticing her hesitancy.

"Natsu, I think you should tell them, I know you're dying to." She murmured, her voice quiet but firm.

"Are ya sure, Luce?" He asked, assuming she'd want to do it after all this time, but seeing the certainty in her eyes and the bright smile lifting her cheeks, he took her hand and turned back to the crowd, not needing any more confirmation than that. He glanced at each person in turn, a sense of pride filling his chest as the words left his mouth, "Heck yeah, we are!"

The entire guild erupted in a chorus of whistles and loud cheers, shaking the very foundations of the building in their excitement for the couple, "Oh, wow! Thanks guys! You're too kind!" Lucy's smile shone brighter than it had done in ages, overwhelmed with glee that their guild mates were so pleased for them.

"They've all been worried about ya, Luce." Natsu whispered closely so only she could hear and leaned in to kiss her cheek, knowing just how much this all meant to her. He took the excitable little guy off her hands, giving her the freedom to catch up with everybody.

"I knew it! I knew there was something fishy about you two! But congratulations guys, that's great news!" Levy cheered, ready to get down to the nitty gritty of every dirty detail.

"You had us worried there, Lucy. For a while, I thought you were never coming back!" Lisanna shared, hugging the celestial mage tightly, probably a little too tight.

"Oh… I'm sorry to have made you all worry, but I'm feeling much better now." The blonde explained, a light tint of pink dusting her cheeks from all the attention she was getting.

She could see Natsu hadn't moved too far away from her and tilted her head to look at him. Chuckling to herself, she could hear Erza try to apologise to him, suggesting the boy punch her right in the face for making such a mistake, a suggestion that was right up his alley, if it weren't for Haru in his arms.

Catching his beautiful blonde staring at him through the corner of his eye, he turned in her direction and winked, grinning as he held the little boy up on his shoulders to walk back over to her, "You feeling alright, Luce?" He asked, worried she may have forced herself into attending the celebrations before she was ready.

She nodded shyly, a little taken aback by the overwhelming attention she was receiving. Feeling his hand once again take hold of hers, she stared up into his confident eyes, then up to the child having the time of his life on his fathers shoulders, "I'm okay, but today's about Haru, not me, and I wasn't gonna miss this for the world." She grinned up at the small boy and reached up to stroke his cheek affectionately, chuckling at his enormous smile.

"You're right! Come on, Lucy! I wanna show you what we've done!" Natsu all but dragged the poor girl outside, Haru and Happy in tow, to show her the sheer amount of effort that had gone in to making Haru's first birthday, special.

The entire guilds courtyard had been lit up like a Christmas tree, with nothing left untouched. Banners and bunting of every colour hung from every post, table and tree. Tables upon tables of delicious food had been laid out with the most gargantuan home made birthday cake (courtesy of Mira) proudly sat in the middle of it all. An enormous pile of gifts had also been laid out, all individually wrapped with little cards to say whom they were from and most importantly, the pool had been filled with all kinds of fun inflatables and toys for all the children to play with.

Lucy looked around in amazement. She couldn't believe they'd gone to so much effort just for a one year old, a child that would unfortunately never remember this, but it didn't matter, she and Natsu would for him. "This is incredible, Natsu! I can't believe you did all this without me!"

"Don't sound too surprised; I can help organise things when I want to. And it wasn't all me, Mira came up with the idea." He looked up to the child above him and chuckled, "You like it, Haru?" The child had no idea what was going on, with no concept of birthdays or parties, he simply cheered anyway, responding to his Daddy's infectious grin, "Good! Well then Luce, let's get this party started!"

With his grin turning evil, he squeezed her hand tight and dived head first into the pool, with no consideration for his, Lucy's or Haru's clothing. She yelped at the top of her voice, her only reply a cackle before being submerged under water, thus setting the mood for the rest of the day.

After a full afternoon of playing with the other children, eating lots of cake and other treats, and opening presents, Haru found himself in the pool once again, this time in more appropriate attire for the water. A pair of cute little lion themed trunks (gifted by Loke), and a cute turtle inflatable ring adorning his middle (a present from Lisanna), made it much easier for him to stay above the surface while enjoying a swim in the water.

Natsu, in his usual flamed swim shorts, also found himself in the pool, diving under and popping back up in random places to surprise the little boy. Haru loved a good game of peek-a-boo, the anticipation of where his Daddy was going to pop up next was just too exhilarating. He squealed and laughed every time he resurfaced, then his eyes would grow wide in anticipation when he dived back down again.

"Gotcha!" Natsu exclaimed, appearing behind the little guy and grabbing his sides. "Does Haru want a go?" He asked, lifting him out of the rubber ring and holding him above the surface with just his hands, letting the infant tread the water to keep himself up, "Look at you! You'll be swimming in no time!"

Lucy watched on from her sun lounger, not remotely amused that the slayer had got her cute dress soaked, or that she now had to lay in just her pastel blue bikini, feeling somewhat self conscious with everyone staring at her exposed belly. She laid comfortably basking in the hot sunlight kissing her skin, trying to catch some semblance of a tan, relaxing while she could. She felt happy, content even, thankful that her symptoms had calmed down just in time for Haru's big day.

It'd been a long time since she'd been able to do this without having to run to the bathroom. With no spell or potion being strong enough to truly rid her of the awful feeling, she'd become well acquainted with the toilet in their house, having spent most of her time with her nose down it. It'd been hard over the last few months adapting to her changing body, her wild mood swings and questionable cravings, but she also knew it would be worth it in the end and it was on days like this, with her friends and loved ones surrounding her that she sincerely felt it.

Smiling to herself, Lucy placed her hand on her small, protruding stomach, feeling the tiny flutterings of the little one moving around inside, "You're an active little one today." She giggled, looking to be talking to herself by onlookers, but she didn't mind. "Then again, you're active everyday."

"Juvia's baby is quite active too, but he's closer to his due date than yours and is much bigger." Juvia said, coming to sit on the next lounger. She cradled her own, much larger bump that'd been covered by a flowy, light green summer dress, finding her regular clothes to form fitting and hot to wear now. "It's quite the feeling when he does somersaults in Juvia's belly."

"He? You're having a boy?" Lucy asked, intrigued to learn more and catch up with her friend.

"Yes, Porlyusica told us the last time we visited. Juvia always imagined she'd have a little boy, maybe watching Haru has something to do with that." She gleamed, looking over to the small fella splashing about in the pool still, having the time of his life with his father.

"I'm so pleased for you! I bet Gray was thrilled!" The blonde exclaimed, knowing he would be.

"Of course! Gray was very pleased. In fact, he made us go out and buy all the boys clothes we could find in the market afterwards. Then he took Juvia home and made-"

"No, it's okay… I don't think I need to know any more!" Lucy felt her cheeks burn red at the very thought.

"Made Juvia dinner…" The water mage finished, furrowing her brows at Lucy's assumption.

"O-Oh… Oops! Sorry Juvia, I thought you were going to say that you guys-"

"Made love? I think those hormones are getting the better of you, Lucy." Cana appeared, wagging her imaginary tail at the slightest mention of sex. "They say you get more horny when you're pregnant. I bet you and Natsu are at it all of the time? Actually, I'm kinda surprised he's not over here right now, with you looking all juicy like that!"

"Cana!" Lucy spluttered, her cheeks burning even more furiously. "You can't say things like that in public!" She didn't want to discuss her sex life in front of others, even if what they were saying was true—when she wasn't heaving of course.

"She's right though, Lucy. Juvia hasn't been unable to keep her hands off of Gray." The blue haired girl reaffirmed, her eyes like love hearts as she thought of her beloved Gray. "And Gray hasn't been able to keep his hands off Juvia, either."

"Wow, looking kinda smug there… You were like that any way…" Cana murmured, shaking her head at the love struck girl.

Well, there went Lucy's relaxing in silence, now she could barely keep from her head exploding—Good ol' Cana! "I don't wanna hear any more!" The celestial mage reiterated, covering her ears for emphasis.

"Oh, come on, Lucy! You're pregnant! That didn't happen by accident! You and Natsu knew exactly what you were doing." Cana retorted, moving herself closer to the flustered girl, her boozy breath permeating the air.

"U-Uh… Well… No, actually. It was kind of an accident…" Lucy admitted, feeling a little awkward by saying that out loud, her friends surprised faces not helping matters, "But it was a good accident!"

"Huh… And here I was thinking you were the cautious type, Lucy… Not that it matters. It's good to let the mood just take ya." Cana grinned, her shock forgotten.

"Don't look so ashamed Lucy, you'll both have another sweet baby to call your own and that's a wonderful thing. I imagine Natsu was over the moon when you both found out." Mira beamed her usual motherly smile as she came to sit near them all, having wanted to get the details on Lucy's pregnancy since earlier, "If Juvia's is a boy, then I bet yours is going to be a girl, Lucy."

"You think so?" The blonde asked back, never having actually considered what the sex would be before, but the thought of having a little girl join the family sounded rather appealing, especially in a house dominated by boys.

"Yes, with Haru as well, we need a little girl to make it more even. And she's gonna have the cutest pink hair and big brown eyes, I can just see it now!" Mira was off in a little world of her own, thinking of blue haired baby boys and pink haired baby girls—she was incorrigible.

"Boy or girl, I just hope that after living in a house full of ravenous beasts, this little one might be more like me. Haru's just a dark haired Natsu, he even laughs like him." Lucy placed her hand where she could feel the little movements of her baby and chuckled down, "But who am I kidding? You've already got your father's energy, that's for sure."

"Hey! Don't say that like it's a bad thing, Luce!" Natsu overheard as he appeared out of no where. "There's nothing wrong with having a mini-me, ain't that right, kid?" He hi-fived the now dry child in his arms, having already dried himself using his magic. "Who cares what they are or who they look like? You'll be in there somewhere, Luce; you're their mother, after all."

"Yeah, you're right." She said, always fascinated by Natsu's simplistic, yet logical way of thinking.

"Any way, it's getting kinda late, I was gonna take Haru somewhere a bit more quiet," Natsu gestured to the current brawl taking place behind him.

"Leaving so soon?" Mira asked, standing to say goodbye to the grizzly birthday boy.

"Yeah, he's all pooped out from the busy day he's had and I think he's ready to go to sleep now. Thanks for organising it, Mira!" He said, before turning swiftly to Lucy, "You coming?"

The bikini clad girl jumped to her feet and stretched her arms up, feeling the tiredness begin to set in, completely unaware of her partners roaming gaze, "Yeah, sure... Just let me put my dress-"

"Lucy! Watch out!" She heard Natsu shout suddenly as she bent to grab the item of clothing.

Feeling herself being pushed back onto the sun lounger, she flailed and reached her arms out to catch herself. Darting her eyes up to see what was going on, she was met with the exposed back of the dragon slayer that had moved to shield her from something. Smoke clouded him and the infant; an unfamiliar heat emanated off of his body. The girl hadn't seen what'd happened, or what she'd been saved from, but if the harsh, heavy breathing of the man in front of her was anything to go by, it was a close call.

"Natsu…" She started, but stalled there after, unsure of what more to say to him.

"What the heck do you think you're doing, you old geezer! Do you have any idea what could've happened just then?!" Natsu bellowed, his voice teeming with rage as his eyes narrowed at the culprit. "You're lucky I was here to catch your stupid attack, or that would've gone straight for Lucy!"

The brawl had come to a complete stand still and Macao, the one that'd thrown a fire ball initially at Wakaba, had gone ghostly pale as the dragon slayer's piercing gaze stared him down. "Hey man, I'm sorry… I didn't even know she was there, it was an accident!" He held his hands up in submission, not wanting to enter into a fight with the maddened slayer, knowing that was one he'd never win. "We got a little carried away, that's all."

"Oh yeah? Maybe I should go all out and see how you like it? Try and dodge this one!" Natsu roared, sending a blazing ball of fury of his own hurtling through the air, aiming it right at Macao's cowering body. Turning hotfooted back to Lucy, the distant cries of the offender being struck by his magic was like music to his ears, his anger satiated.

"Are you hurt, Luce? Did anything hit you?" He did a full search of her body, checking for any kind of injury. His worried eyes eventually fell upon her exposed belly and instinctually brought his hand out to caress it softly, "Is the baby okay?"

Smiling up at him, she brought her own hand to rest on his cheek and pulled him closer, loving just how protective he could be, "Of course, our baby's fine. No need to worry." She guided his palm to where the little one was doing somersaults and allowed him to feel the light pads against his skin.

Unable to keep his infectious grin down for long, he pushed his mouth hastily against Lucy's in a kiss that turned heated all too quickly. Buzzing with adrenaline from the incident, Natsu moved his hand from her belly and tangled his fingers into her hair, holding her in place as he enjoyed the taste of her warm lips.

"That's it, fire breath, you took it too far this time!" He heard Gray shout from behind him, knocking him out of his 'Lucy' trance and pull away, glancing over his shoulder, "Look at what you've done to the pool, you dumbass!" The ice mage pointed to the steaming pit that was once the guilds pool, fuming at the state of it.

"Ha! Looks like you and Juvia are gonna have a fun time filling that back up!" Natsu guffawed, passing the fidgety Haru to Lucy.

"Screw you, Pinky! You're going down!" Gray threatened, launching himself at the fire wizard and starting yet another brawl.

Rolling her eyes, Lucy looked down at the sleepy boy rubbing his tired eyes, and decided to creep away from the fight that just seemed to be attracting more and more people, "Come on then, sweetheart. It looks like Daddy's got himself distracted again." She chuckled, disappearing back inside before anyone had noticed she was gone.

By the time the evening swept in, Lucy had found herself a quiet spot up on a small hill a little ways from the guild, overlooking the lake behind it. She sat cosily against one of the many old oak trees, with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and the baby laid across her chest, begrudgingly, but slowly falling asleep. She hummed her sweet lullaby to soothe her tuckered out child, hoping to coax him into closing his eyes.

It was moments like this that she cherished the most with Haru, just her and him with no one to interrupt. The atmosphere was peaceful and calm, exactly what she was looking for compared to the ruckus that was the guild's 'after' party that continued on down the street. She could even hear the rumble of their antics from where she sat, but luckily, it was pretty muffled, unable to spoil her quietude.

After weeks of staying at home, it sure made a pleasant change to be watching the sunset instead. She'd grown tired and achy after such a busy day, her feet were sore and her head had grown weary, but still she watched contented as the beautiful evening began to fade.

The young mother could finally hear the soft, even breaths of the slumbering child and gently placed him upon her bent up legs, covering him with her blanket to keep him from feeling the chill in the air. Staring at his little angelic features, she found it hard to fathom how drastically her life had changed compared to just twelve months before. She'd grown so much as a person and gained everything she'd ever wanted and more, making new memories along the way.

She and Natsu had unknowingly plunged themselves into a completely new world, taking on the responsibility of an abandoned child and calling him their own. Haru had opened their eyes to a life they never thought they'd get to experience, especially not with each other. The little boy had brought them together in a way that would forever bind them, creating the family unit they were today. It only seemed fitting to name this day as Haru's official birthday, for it was the day his life, and theirs, had begun anew.

Leaning her head back against the tree, becoming lost in her memories, her eyelids began to close, a wave of exhaustion rushing over her while sleep tempted her in. A rustle of a nearby bush was quick to quash that feeling though, as a startled Lucy snapped her eyes wide open and darted her head over to where the sound had come from.

"Oh, Natsu… It's just you…" She breathed, laying her bleary eyes onto that familiar toothy grin and untameable pink hair, a scaly, white scarf to match. "Tell me, what were you doing hiding in the bushes?"

"Looking for you." He said simply, walking out onto the hillside to join her, having deliberately left out the part that he'd been hiding there for much longer than he'd care to admit. In fact, one might say he'd been there the entire time, watching the beauty that was Lucy quietly sing their son to sleep and hadn't wanted to disturb her until she'd finished. "You left, so I had to come find ya."

"Oh, you didn't have to. I just wanted to settle Haru before he started getting grumpy. It's nice and quiet out here." Her voice sounded airy and light, her eyes half lidded and a little bloodshot. "You can go back and join the others if you want, I'm okay." She offered, but Natsu knew better than that, he always did.

"You don't have to pretend for me, Lucy. I can see how tired you are." He'd learnt pretty quickly in the past few months that pregnancy didn't just make her exceptionally sick, but that it had an array of different symptoms, some physical and others emotional, but all unpleasant and incredibly draining for her. "Why would I leave any way, you're all out here?"

"Happy's not."

"Yeah, and Happy's capable of looking after himself. He's too interested in Carla to notice we're even gone. You know what he's like." Natsu explained, scooting closer to Lucy to take the infant from her legs.

He set the baby down in his lap to keep him warm, the fluffy blanket tightly swaddling his body. The two mages cuddled up to one another, watching the twinkling stars come out to glimmer and shine down onto the glistening water in the distance.

"It's crazy to think it's been an entire year since we brought him home. Who knows where we'd be without him here?" Lucy reminisced, her gaze drifting from the moonlit lake, to the baby snoring peacefully without a single care in the world. "Or where his life might've gone, if we hadn't taken him in."

"We'd be what we always were," Natsu stated bluntly, tearing his own gaze away to look at the girl beside him, "Best friends, going on adventures and honestly, that's kinda the sad truth of it all. As for Haru…" He glanced down at his cuddled up son, smiling sadly as he remembered the first time he ever set eyes on the tiny, lifeless baby, that fateful day, "I made a promise to keep him safe; to make sure he lived… He was always going to come with me, there was never another choice. I just didn't know it then."

"And I'll be forever grateful that he did, because..." Lucy cleared her throat, feeling a little emotional at the thought, "Now, I have you and him! And nothing has ever made me happier! Choosing to adopt a child was the most daunting thing I've ever done, but it's proven to be the best decision I've ever made, one I'll always be thankful for." She gave her own toothy smile, a slight tint of pink dusting her cheeks as she poured her heart out to him.

Natsu felt his heart squeeze tight, her words reminiscent of his own feelings and quirked his lips up at her. Reaching his hand forward, he smoothed his fingers through her golden locks, before coming to rest it under her ear, guiding her to him, "Me too, Luce. Which is why…"

Lucy's breathing deepened the closer she got and felt his other hand come up to hold hers tenderly, paying no mind to him fiddling with her fingers, "Which is why, what? Is there something else?" She asked, cocking her head cutely as their breaths began to mingle. "Natsu?" Her eyes fluttered between his dark ones, waiting expectantly for him to finish.

"I… I wanna ask you something." He murmured just before claiming her mouth, connecting their lips in a kiss so sickly sweet, it made Lucy's belly fill with butterflies.

She could have melted into a puddle right then and there, the feel of his affections always had a way of making her turn to goo in his hands. Her spine shivered and the adrenaline buzzed through her system, not having the capacity to comprehend the words that'd been spoken, for her mind had been taken over by the feel of his hot mouth. Letting go of her hand, he snaked his fingers up to the other side of her neck and pulled her closer, craving those sweet cherry lips that he liked to nip at with his teeth.

Her fingers were now free to roam and touch as they pleased, tangling them up through his hair and tugging on the pink strands at the base of his neck. Desperate for breath, she pulled herself away and gazed into his half lidded eyes for mere seconds, before he impatiently delve down to ravish her neck. The sucking and biting just under her ear caused small gasps and whimpers to escape the increasingly aroused celestial mage, her eyes fogging with lust, until something bright caught her attention.

"What was that?" She asked panting, her voice raspy as she tried to catch sight of whatever it was again. It had flickered like a light, shined like a reflection and sparkled all at once, making her wonder if she'd really seen anything at all.

"What was what, Lucy?" He asked her, not meaning to sound quite so unsurprised, when usually he was the first to go looking for trouble.

"I thought I saw…" She didn't really know what she'd seen, her mind too muddled from the heated moment they were having; maybe it was just her eyes playing tricks? Or worse… someone was spying on them.

Natsu clasped at the hand she had buried in his hair and brought it into view, "Was it this, maybe?" He asked, drawing attention to one specific digit.

Feeling the contrast between his warm skin and the cold hardness of something else against her finger, Lucy peered down in curiosity, her breath stalling when her eyes laid upon the object of confusion. Gasping loudly, she clasped at her mouth, two enlarged chocolate orbs flickered between him and her hand in utter astonishment. Somehow, in the midst of their make out session, Natsu had managed to band the most simplistic, yet beautiful ring onto her finger, where it sat proudly and spoke of untold intentions.

"It's… I-It's beautiful! B-But how did you- When-" She stuttered, too lost in what this all might mean, searching deep within his dark eyes for the answers to her silent, but obvious questions.

"That's the right finger, isn't it?" He asked, looking uncharacteristically nervous, a small pink hue dabbing his cheeks. His heart was beating much quicker than he would've liked, hoping he hadn't screwed up already.

That was all she needed to hear to confirm her suspicions, her brown eyes wet with unshed tears, "N-Natsu, I… I don't know what to say-" She couldn't speak, this was too much and he'd not said anything yet.

"Lucy…" He spoke with every sincerity, taking the ringed hand and entwined their fingers. "I'm not so good with this stuff, but I know that getting married is important to you, which makes it important to me, too. I promised you forever and I guess you could say, this is me making good on that promise." He caressed her soft cheek with his thumb and smiled when he saw the glint in her eyes shine back at him. "So, what do you say? Prepared to commit yourself to this," he gestured to himself and winked playfully, "For the rest of your life?"

Finding herself unable to keep her emotions in check, the girl didn't answer, but instead, launched herself at him, giving him barely any time to move the slumbering child out of the way and brace for impact. Landing on top of the winded dragon slayer, she managed to catch herself with her hands and gleamed down at him, tears falling from her eyes and the smile on her face rivalling his. She leant down and connected their lips once again, taking the lead this time, unable to keep her happiness from pouring out.

To the side, still held in Natsu's opened out arm, was Haru, completely unaware of what was going down, his dreams taking him to far off places. His developing sibling in his Mommy's tummy, however, didn't seem quite so pleased, having been wedged between the two loved up adults as they made out under the sea of stars, had decided to take matters into their own hands. With one almighty kick, the kiss came to a quick halt when Lucy groaned and pulled back, grabbing hold of her bump to sooth the sore area.

"Jeez! Was that the baby kicking you? 'Cause even I felt that one!" Natsu looked surprised, amazed that their baby was so strong, at just five months, that he'd been able to feel the force of the kick against his own abdomen. "Is it still hurting, Luce? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, it just shocked me, that's all. They've never been quite that strong before." She chuckled, sitting herself up and straddling his hips as she looked down to her belly, gently caressing it with her thumb, "You were just trying to tell Mommy to move, weren't you?"

Balancing himself up onto his elbow, Natsu also placed his hand on top of Lucy's bump and smirked, "Or maybe, they were just tryin' to get their Mommy to say yes."

"Like you needed an answer!" Quirking her eyebrow up at his smirk, she shifted back a little as he sat himself up against the tree, laying Haru gently next to them while Lucy remained in place, "But you haven't actually asked me anything yet. Who knows what I could be agreeing to? This is you, after all."

The young man chuckled and grinned his thousand watt smile, knowing she'd catch him out eventually, "Alright, have it your way." The mischievous look on his face didn't disappear, even when he tried to take it seriously, "Will you marry me, Lucy?"

She returned his beaming smile with one of her own, glad to have heard it come from his mouth and nodded her head enthusiastically, "Of course, Natsu, the answer was always a yes."

"Good. Can I go back to kissing you now?" He asked, but didn't bother waiting for a reply and went to pull that enticing mouth back in for a third kiss, hoping this time there'd be no more interruptions in the forms of sparkling rings or unimpressed unborn babies.

But just as their lips were about to touch, Lucy paused ever so tantalisingly close to him and furrowed her brows, causing the boy to sigh impatiently, "What is it now?"

"Have you been holding on to that ring all day?" She enquired, only realising now that he must've got it from somewhere.

"Nah, not all day, just the party. I had to ask Happy to go and get it for me while you were distracted with Haru." Natsu explained, scratching the back of his head, "I was gonna do it myself, but stuff happened and then you suddenly showed up."

"Stuff… happened?" Now she was even more curious; what could've gone on in her absence?

"Yeah… them." He shivered still traumatised, pointing over to where Fairy Tail's guild hall stood, still alive and partying, and Lucy understood immediately just what he was referring to, giving her an insight into what she'd unsuspectingly walked in on earlier that day. "So, I had to change up my plans."

"Oh! Why didn't you just do it tomorrow instead? Rather than make it difficult for yourself." She asked, feeling a little smug when she saw the light go on in his brain.

She'd stumped him there. Always the brains of the operation, he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of that. He'd wanted to do it on a day that meant something to the both of them, but really, did it matter? The result would've been the same.

Noticing her cocky smirk and the playfulness in her eyes, he rose to the challenge, a fire in his belly, "Because, Miss Know-it-all, today was special, just like you said… And it wasn't difficult… I had it all under control…"

"Uh-huh…" She watched him become a little fidgety as if he weren't quite telling the truth and her smirk widened into a smug, toothy grin, "So you were just pretending to be scared when Erza was threatening you? I get it."

His eyes were sharp and intense, just like they were in battle, the one sided grin to boot as he bore into her playful expression, "Your playing with fire, Lucy…" His voice dangerous and brimming with cockiness.

"Then let it burn." She whispered close to his ear, barely able to get the words out before she found herself being forced onto her back, her hands held down above her head, with a fired up dragon slayer carefully leant over her form.

"You asked for it!" He growled, gulping down a large breath as he connected his mouth to the sensitive skin of her neck, torturing her senses with his loving but fierce embrace.

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amjustagirl · 4 years

Text

Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven.

Masterlist link here

AO3 link here

Summary:

Akaashi Keiji catches glimpses of another life in his dreams. He dreams of fields of endless gold, of constellation of stars that light up the night sky. He hears echoes of birdsong in her laughter, her songs to the gods in the wind.

Wordcount: 1.9k

Author’s note: This fic is a little different from my usual work, so I’m a little nervous about publishing it. If you do like it, would love if you leave a comment / reblog / anything!

Pro tip: Italics denote scenes in Akaashi’s dreams / past.

If you’d like to be included in the taglist, do drop me a msg/ask!

But then his dreams start to take a dark turn, though he doesn’t notice it at the start.

There is light dancing on the edge of his eyelids, and when he blinks he finds himself in a field of never-ending gold. ‘You’re obsessed with flowers ’ he teases her, leaning on his hands to allow the breeze to ruffle his hair and whisper long lost secrets in his ear.

‘But they’re so pretty. It’s like they were put on this earth by the gods to remind us that life can be beautiful, after all.’

‘Now who’s being poetic, hm?’

‘Don’t tease! I’ll give you a more prosaic reason then. I’ve loved flowers ever since I worked for a florist after mum died to earn a little money on the side and ended up falling in love with the look on people’s faces when they buy flowers for themselves and the people they love. ’

‘Why don’t I see you work at the florist shop then? ’ He frowns, thinking of the bustling, cosy little shop in the town square owned by Hana-chan’s mom.

‘It didn’t work out’, she says simply. ‘Well, never mind that. Just shush and bask in the sun, let the sky gods weave rainbows into your dreams’.

Her words linger in his mind, and he foolishly finds himself searching for rainbows in the sky the next day.

‘Listen to the sky, Keiji ’, she calls, her laughter like birdsong. ‘ Do you think the wind will answer our prayers today?’

‘You answer my question first ’, he grumbles. ‘Hana-chan cornered me at school to scream at me to mind my own business again. Does that have anything to do with the bruises I saw on your arm last week? What kind of trouble are you getting yourself into when I’m not around? ’

‘Nosy, nosy Keiji ’, she teases, and he knows she’s just deflecting his concerns again. ‘You’re just overthinking things again’.

‘Promise me you’ll be careful’, he pleads. ‘Promise me you’re not doing anything stupid‘.

‘Stop worrying, silly boy, I promise I’ll be fine’, she murmurs, her voice lost in the wind.

‘You need to tell me what’s going on, you can’t go on like this at this rate’ , he hears himself say, desperation laced in his words.

He looks down. There is a tapestry of mottled bruises and angry welts on her arms, paint strokes of yellow and blue and purple and red that is gut-wrenching in the violence it implies.

‘It’s not my secret to tell, Keiji’ , she says, unwavering.

He wakes up, the pit in his stomach slowly filling up with dread. His dreams are turning out to be less like a shojo manga, more like a thriller that he suspects will give its protagonist a terrible end.

'Have you been a good friend to Hana-chan these days? ’ the man asks, an unfriendly smile playing on his lips.

Akaashi (or rather, him in her – though she’s in here somewhere too so it’s a little confusing) frowns, but accepts the box of vegetables and eggs held out to him anyway. ‘I suppose’, he answers, the load heavy in his arms, and the man seems to accept his response, humming an offbeat tune.

‘Well, I hope you can keep a secret, sweet girl’ the man laughs, tossing his cigarette butt on the grass before walking away. Sparks smoulder in the dry grass, and Akaashi hurries to balance the box on his hip before stamping them out.

‘That’s Hana-chan’s father, Nakamura-san ’, she tells him, voice strained. ‘I need you to act normal around him, got that?’

‘Might need you to find me the definition for your normal’ he says drily. ‘That word’s lost its meaning to me these days ’.

He hears her chuckle, but she doesn’t sound amused.

Hana-chan corners him when he’s in her body and he’s stupid enough not to notice the fist that swings his way.

‘I told you, you little creep’, she snarls, her nails digging into his arms. ‘I told you to stay the fuck away from me, but did you listen? No! I saw you last night, creeping around my family’s house with that stupid phone of yours – did you really think I wouldn’t notice you? I’m warning you to stay away or I will fucking end you, got that? ’

And she spits in his face, and he’s still left trying to make sense of the sting of cold liquid on his cheek when burning hands shove down the stairs. Concrete and human flesh clashes, the victor already predetermined, his body wracked with pain as he lands heavily, face down on the floor.

‘Last warning to stay away, you creep’, she shrieks before turning on her heel. There are no other students in the deserted hallway – not that anyone would come to help, not from his experience.

‘Are you finally going to tell me what’s going on, or do I have to piece your secrets together myself?’ he demands, when he scrapes himself off the floor, body aching from bruises in full bloom.

He can hear her breathe a sigh. ‘It’s a long story’ , she finally says.

‘Right now, all I have is time’ he answers drily. ‘Try me ’.

So she tells him about taking a part time job with Hana’s mom, the town’s florist for some extra cash. She tells him about the noises she hears whenever Hana’s mom steps out of the store, faint echoes of whimpers and sobs and broken cries for help, and how she puts two and two together when she sees the bruises on her classmate’s arms and legs. Her voice shakes when she tells him what she saw when she stole upstairs towards Hana’s bedroom one cloudy afternoon, how Hana’s dad gets off on hurting his teenage daughter, how she tried to report what she saw - but who’d believe the words of a teenage girl over the town mayor .

‘And now he’s taking it out on Hana-chan, which is why she hates me but I’m not going to let him stop me’, she tells him stubbornly and he can hear his past self gulp.

‘Are you insane? You shouldn’t get yourself involved. Tell someone, anyone. If you continue like this, you’re going to get yourself killed at this rate’.

‘Stop being a worrywart, Keiji! ’ she laughs, but the sound is hollow. ‘I’ll be fine, I promise’.

She’s back at the forest shrine, holding her hands together in prayer. The mangled remains of dandelions lie beside her knees, decapitated flower maidens sacrificed for wishes that they both know won’t ever come true.

‘I told you no one will listen to me, Keiji’, she cries, her face buried in her hands. ‘They all think I’m a little child who’s making up stories for attention ’.

‘There’s nothing you can do unless you have a record of it. Just keep your head down, or he’ll come after you next. How many times have I told you not to set yourself on fire to keep others warm? ’

Her head shoots up, and a feral grin ignites like wildfire on her face. ‘That’s brilliant, Keiji! ’

‘Wait no - that wasn’t meant to encourage you – that was meant to be metaphorical!’

‘If it all works out, it’s because of you! ’ she runs off, throwing her head back as she laughs, challenging the wind to catch her if it dares, before disappearing further into the woods.

‘You have got to be kidding me ’ he groans, kicking off the blankets to stare at his or well, her legs in horror. Dried blood is still caked into the deepest scrapes on her legs, and he can feel the ache from the bruises deep in his bones. ‘What on earth did you do?’

‘I may or may not have slipped when I was scaling Hana’s drainpipe’ .

He can feel the vein in his temple start to throb. ‘You what?’ he bites out.

‘They didn’t see me, I swear!’

He groans in despair this time, dropping his head in his hands. What is he supposed to do with someone so ridiculously obstinate?

‘If anything happens – ‘ she begins to say but he cuts her off before she can complete her sentence.

‘You promised me you wouldn’t do anything remotely risky and I refuse to let you put yourself in danger again. ’

She sighs, and worry flickers like a flame in his heart.

‘Fine – just. If anything happens – ‘

‘Which it won’t, not on my watch’ , he tells her firmly.

The smell of smouldering ash hits his nostrils.

His eyes fly awake. He’s back in the old wooden house again, but he chases his curiosity to the front yard, where he finds the letterbox razed to the ground.

‘A warning to stay out of his business ’, he hears her say, her voice determined. ‘But I’m not going to be spooked just by that. ’

‘You promised to be careful’ he shouts, properly angry this time. ‘Look at what you’ve done! ’.

‘I refuse to be a bystander to his madness’, she screams back. ‘I'd be tarred by his sins if I choose to do nothing about them. ’

His shirt is soaked in cold sweat when he stumbles out of bed, slapping his palms against his face to reassure himself that he’s not back in the dreamscape.

‘It’s not real. It can’t be real’, he tells his reflection firmly, but his mirror self only stares back at him.

In the morning, he skips class to make a trip back home, intent on leaving the omamori where it belongs, back in his childhood bedroom, so he can look forward to adulthood without these ridiculous dreams clouding his way. He stops by the florist on the way, as is his usual practice these days.

‘Flowers for your mother?’ the florist asks, when she opens the shutters to greet him, her first customer of the day.

‘Yes’, he answers shortly, and on an impulse he adds (because he needs something to fill the newly empty space on his desk) - ‘and maybe a houseplant. Something that’s relatively easy to take care of would do the trick.’

She hums in thought, fingers busy tying ribbons in the bunch of yellow roses for his mother. He doesn’t need to ask to know that the baby’s breath she includes is on the house.

‘What about rosemary?’ she suggests.

‘For remembrance?’ he asks, wrinkling his nose at the reference to Hamlet. The sudden thought of poor, mad Ophelia, floating dead in a stream, water lilies in her hair hits a chord that’s a little too jarring. ‘Um. Maybe a cactus might be better instead.’

He wonders if he’s imagining things, but he catches a flash of disappointment on her face before she replies easily - ‘sure!’, bending down to pull out a grumpy looking bulb full of thorns. Then she waves him off, his purchases packed in a neat brown bag. ‘Please come again!’

The cactus replaces the omamori, sitting neatly on his desk. It refuses to die even when he forgets to water it for weeks at a time.

Taglist:

@bongofrito

@forgetou @animeflower26 @kageyamakock @underrated-fruit-tarts-official

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melon-wing · 4 years

Text

A Confession of Love 3/3

[Fanfiction Masterlist] It took Grian a few days and he felt emotionally drained each time he was done. He felt like he was pouring all of his feelings and emotions into this and maybe it wasn‘t really healthy. Mumbo and Iskall would probably frown at him if they knew how much sleep he missed over getting everything done. Impulse had dropped by a few times, cheering Grian on, making him believe that this might really work out.

To say Grian was nervous would be an understatement. He had the coordinates already typed into his communicator in a private chat with Ren, but he kept pulling his finger from the send button.

“Oh come on! Just do it! You really need to know! Or should I press it for you?“ Grian turned to look at Impulse, who was still with him, just in case he needed some mental support. And Grian was kind of glad he was here. Especially when he realised that while turning around to Impulse he had accidentally hit the send button. Well, that gave him one less thing to worry about…

Wait! Fuck! He had sent it and Ren was going to come over and that meant he‘d know, which meant Grian was maybe minutes or hours away from being gently let down. Oh god, he wasn‘t ready. He really wasn‘t ready. Impulse started laughing at Grian’s panicked face and when Grian glared at him that laugh made room for a fond smile. “It’ll be alright, Grian. And I’ll be here with you all the way, okay? No matter what happens tonight, you still got me, don't forget that. I might not be as cuddly as Ren, but Zed always tells me I give one hell of a hug."

Grian looked at Impulse and just like that his heart seemed to calm down at least a bit and he felt like he could actually do this. So what if Ren wasn't feeling the same way? What if Ren only liked him as a friend. He liked his friendship with Ren. Staying friends wouldn't be the end of the world and he'd be finally able to move on from those feelings that had been getting him down lately. He'd be able to go back to his comfortable single life that he had never wanted to leave anyways.

"Yeah I guess it's alright. I'm just... nervous. This isn't some romance novel. Stupid grand romantic gestures never work in real life." Grian laughed joylessly and pushed a few loose strands of hair out of his face. "But that's alright. And I won't be here forever anyways. The season is coming to an end soon, I can tell. I don't have much longer with you guys."

"You know you could ask Xisuma to-"

"I know. I could. I won't. I've got friends waiting for me to return. I can't just stay here. And if he's saying no there's no reason for me to stay here anyways. Not that I don't like all of you guys... But yeah. I think I'm not ready to fully commit yet. And moving on will definitely be easier once I'm off world."

Impulse looked at him sadly and Grian avoided his gaze. Mumbo and Iskall had already tried to convince him to stay as well. Heck, even Taurtis - who he was supposed to return to after Hermitcraft was done - kept urging him on to stay, to find happiness.

"Can we not talk about this while I'm freaking out about getting my heart broken?"

Impulse sighed once more and put an arm over Grian's shoulder, pulling him into a half hug. "I'm sure it’ll work out. Don't worry too much. It doesn't help anyways."

Grian nodded and, taking a deep breath stepped back once more. "So you saw what I did, right? You think he'll get it?"

Impulse laughed again, shaking his head. "Grian. He will know. Dude. You practically turned your Infinity room into a love confession."

Grian blushed a little as his mind went to the small room below his base, thousands of blocks away. It had taken him forever, but armed with some black dye and a brush he'd poured out his love over the walls. The room had been turned into a corridor, and with the help of a few armour stands (Cleo had luckily agreed to teach him a few things about creating them) it now told their story and the way Grian had fallen. Or well... He'd put it more in terms of Red Riding Hood falling for the Wolf. He would have felt weird putting his own face onto those armour stands and his own name into the story.

But he was sure Ren would get it. Hell, there were lines out of their private conversations written over the wall. He would get it... wouldn't he?

A loud beep rang from his communicator and Grian almost dropped it in a hurry to get it out.

<Ren> I'm there now! I'm very excited for the surprise!

"Oh... Oh fuck. I don't know if I'm ready for this", Grian mumbled and then kept walking in circles around the campfire, Impulse's eyes following him. He couldn't handle this. Minutes passed and every noise made him jump as he anticipated the communicator going off.

The longer it went on, the more nervous Grian got. After ten minutes he had taken off his flower crown and started fidgeting around with it, leaves and pallets dropping to the ground. His hands were shaking, he needed to keep them busy. Ren sure as hell must have finished by now, right? He couldn't still be in the room. Why was it taking so long? Maybe he wasn't getting the message after all? No, if that was the case he would have messaged Grian by now. That left only two options. Either Ren was still down there and looking at Grian's work or he knew exactly what it was about and didn't know how to let Grian down gently. The last option was way more likely.

Another ten minutes seemed to pass by agonizingly slow and Grian knew he was a nervous mess. He couldn't handle this pressure. He just couldn't.

Finally, his communicator beeped. A message. He just knew it was from Ren without even having to look at the display. A second ago he had thought he wanted nothing more than to see a message, now he was frozen, unable to even look at the tiny screen. His heart was racing, he was sweating and he had the urge to vomit.

It took him a minute or two to calm down enough, but his fingers were still shaking when he opened up the communicator and then Ren‘s message.

<Ren> Grian? You there?

Grian was pretty sure by now he was going to vomit. Why had he thought again this might be a good idea? It wasn‘t. It had never been. Ren surely had gotten the message going from just those two sentences. And now? Was he really ready for this?

He just knew what was coming. Ren would let him down, trying to be gentle, but still crushing his heart in the progress. It had always been like this. Sam, Taurtis, Mumbo… It had always been the same. He had fallen hard and thought he might have a chance only to be disappointed once more. Only for them to tell him that he was such a nice guy and a good friend, but really, there was nothing there. No feelings.

Despite that, Grian replied. He still had Impulse to cry to later. He needed to get this done - rip it off like a bandaid.

<Grian> Yeah.

<Ren> You know I‘m a coward sometimes and a bit dumb…

Grian had to giggle a bit at that though he felt like sobbing even more, his heart racing.

<Ren> But I was really wondering if this thing you made for me… Is it based on real life?

Grian‘s hands were shaking so much he could barely type a reply. He settled on something short instead of some long winded explanation.

<Grian> Yes. Sorry.

Grian put the communicator down again, closing his eyes, taking a few deep and shaking breaths. He wanted to turn back time. He didn‘t want to be in this situation he had put himself in. It was frightening. It was all too much. Why had he done this to himself? He wasn‘t brave enough to face the disappointment. He wasn‘t ready to have his heart broken once more and watch Ren be happy with someone else. He couldn‘t bear it. Not again. Especially not with Ren.

There was no reply. No beeping noise. Nothing.

Grian knew what that meant. After all, there was only one logical explanation. Ren didn‘t return his feelings. He had put Ren into a corner, pressured him to reply to his feelings and now Ren opted to not say anything at all. Minutes passed without anything at all happening.

Grian gave a sigh, feeling his heart rate return to normal, a cold feeling spreading in his chest as he typed the next message.

<Grian> I like you. A lot. More than a friend should. But if you don‘t, that is totally fine and I‘m totally chill with that. No worries, really. No pressure.

His communicator stayed silent again for a long time. Grian kept staring at it, tears forming in his eyes and then slowly dropping down onto his hands. This had been so stupid. He didn‘t deserve to be loved by someone as bright and amazing as Ren. Ren could have anyone on the server, so why should he even settle for Grian. It had been dumb to think all those love declarations meant something special. They never did. He had been delusional, blinded by his love.

The communicator beeped and knowing that it would be something to let him down gently, Grian steeled himself to read the message.

<Ren> Goibve mee a mimute. Flyng rn.

Grian looked at the jumbled message for a few times, blinking in confusion. Ren was… flying? What was that supposed to even mean?

And just when it slowly dawned on Grian what it meant, there was already the sound of exploding rockets fired in a far quicker succession than absolutely necessary drawing closer. Nobody would waste resources like that unless it was an absolute emergency.

Grian raised his head and the moment he did something or rather someone collided with him at such a high speed they both fell to the floor. Luckily enough, the landing was rather soft with the grass below them. Warm arms wrapped around Grian, his face buried in someone neck and just taking a short breath he felt a familiar scent filling him.

Still, Grian felt hesitant about returning the hug until Ren drew back a little, arms staying around Grian, but now able to look at him. And his eyes were shining brighter than Grian had ever seen them.

“Ren, what- Why did you come?”

“Of course I’d come.” Ren let out a laugh and the way it made his eyes just sparkle more made Grian’s heart skip a beat. “After what you did - what you said.”

“Does that mean-” Grian started, but broke off, his throat suddenly feeling tight, his heart only racing faster as all the hope he’d constantly pushed down rose up all at once, overwhelming him. This was it. This was the moment of truth and he was more hopeful than he‘d ever been before. Surely Ren wouldn‘t have come over if he wanted to let Grian down, right?

“I’m feeling the same way. I love you. I want to be with you.”

Grian couldn’t help it. All his emotions came out all at once and with a small giggle a tear slipped down his face as well. He was just too happy.

“I love you too, Ren. So very much. I’ve loved you for so long. I just… I didn’t think this would happen. I don’t even know where to go from here. Can I-” Grian stopped, licking his lips and looking up at Ren. “Can I kiss you?” And when their lips met Grian was glad he had stopped hiding how he truly felt, glad that he hadn’t kept on pretending until it was too late. This was perfect. This was what he had always dreamed off and he wanted this moment to go on forever.

#🍉 stories #hermitshipping #hermitship #gren #Happy 6 month anniversary to my love! <3

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thesnowinthemountains · 4 years

Text

Monsta X as the guy who flirts with you at work

(a/n: i wrote this impulsively after hearing that the guy i’ve been flirting with at work for over a year got himself a girlfriend :) so these are all based on real events, yes i did throw a whole dinner party for a boy, enjoy)

Shownu

You had purposely styled your hair that morning. You knew what time Shownu started work, you even planned to be in the break room when he did, so you could see him. When the door’s code pinged, you looked up just a second late, perfectly calculated. He stood in the doorway, staring at you, unmoving, before seeming to snap himself out of it. “Hi,” he looked down awkwardly. “Hi?” You laughed. “What’s up?” “Um,” he stood there for a few more seconds before switching into gear. “Right, um, no, nothing much, I just came from the store, I got lunch, did you- do you want- I have french fries.” He stammered. “I’m good for now, thank you,” you smiled up at him, tilting your head. He shook his head and looked away, finally, shaking his head. “You did something with your hair,” he said stoically. “Yeah, I did.” “It looks nice,” he said it casually, but he wouldn’t look at you anymore. “Thanks,” you smiled to yourself.

Wonho

It was your last day at what you had begun to consider hell on earth in the form of a department store job. Wonho wouldn’t leave your side, despite managers snapping at him to get to work, help customers, do anything pertaining to the job. He didn’t seem to care. “I just can’t believe you’re leaving.” He mumbled while you placed stock together for the last time. “I can’t keep working at a job that I hate. I can’t.” “I get it.” He paused. “I talked to the store manager. I told him I wanted a raise.” “What’d he say?” You focused on the shelves in front of you. “He, um… He was texting and he didn’t even look at me, he said ‘can’t do that, have a nice rest of your shift’ and tried to shoo me out of his office.” He frowned. “So what did you do?” You turned to him. He was staring at you. “I told him I would quit.” “Quit?” You squeaked. “Yeah. I don’t see the point of working here if you’re not working here. So, yeah.” You couldn’t help but laugh. “Hoseok, come on.” “I have another job and I hate it here when you’re not around.” He mumbled.

Minhyuk

In an effort to see him outside of work, you planned an extremely last-minute dinner party. So last minute, in fact, that you were shocked to have guests other than him. You couldn’t cook, so you’d had to beg your best friend to show up early and cook for everyone while you rushed to clean up. You were racing the clock though, you and all the guests (including your best friend, including Minhyuk, including others) worked together and finished at the same time, so you had sped home, changed and turned on the stove in the blink of an eye. As Minhyuk’s car pulled up, your best friend grabbed you by the shoulders and told you to calm the hell down, you were stressing her out. “Here,” she poured you a shot. “It’s not ideal, but this whole thing isn’t ideal. Now go open the door and pretend you’ve had this planned longer than four hours.” You raced to the door, swinging it open and Minhyuk was really only wearing jeans and a hoodie, nothing special, not to mention you had just seen him barely half an hour ago, but your heart skipped a beat anyway.

Kihyun

“Well, this sucks!” A customer shouted at your manager from the cash Kihyun stood at. “Can’t you do something if you’re the manager?” She persisted, and the older man standing besides Kihyun shouted back: “Well, I am the manager, and that’s company policy!” You had your own customers at your own cash, but you kept an ear open, knowing your manager was highly unprofessional and you’d had to step in more than a few times after he stormed off. You looked up from your screen to Kihyun who was already staring at you. You both smiled, holding back laughter as the argument persisted. “This sucks!” The customer shouted again, turning now to the lineup of people waiting to buy their things. “This store sucks, the policies suck! The management sucks!” She went off. “You suck!” Your manager yelled before storming off. You finished with your customers and hurried over to Kihyun’s cash, apologizing profusely to the customer and offering her exactly what she wanted. She sighed, relieved, and Kihyun smiled down at you, giggling quietly. “You could’ve handled this yourself,” you muttered, handing the customer her receipt. “What fun would that be?” He smirked.

Hyungwon

You’d worked together for years. He had started off as the quiet sales clerk who would kind of just show up, do his job, and leave. Over time, though, you had grown close enough that he’d pop up wherever you were working in the store. When you were eventually promoted and given office keys, the both of you would sneak in together, at first quite innocently to read customer complaints or make fun of the email exchanges between the store manager and district manager. Sometimes, you’d just sit and watch the camera feed from the front doors and judge people’s outfits, invent lives for them, or narrate what the cashier was doing. “We should probably go back out on the floor,” you murmured one night, knowing full well that he was sitting way closer to you than is appropriate in a work environment. “It’s Tuesday night, there’s no one here but you and me,” his eyes flicked up from his phone. You shrugged. He sighed and put his phone down. “You know my tiktok recommendations have been full of stuff from you lately? It used to be just whatever, but now I see stuff about bands and tv shows I know nothing about.” You hummed. “Speaking of, I started watching that show you told me to watch.” “Oh, did you?” “Yeah. It’s not bad. I feel like I get where your humour comes from now.” He grinned.

Jooheon

You both worked as floor employees of a big department store, both with a habit of meeting up in corners of the store to chat and flirt. It was after closing and when the lights clinked shut all over, Jooheon grabbed your hand. “Come on, let’s go find the stuff that glows in the dark.” He led you around from the kids’ crafts stuff, which included some brightly-coloured neon glue, to the little glow-in-the-dark stars that stick to ceilings, even some varieties of paints. “You think that one’s supposed to glow?” You asked him, pointing to an industrial-strength glue you had heard could melt and fuse plastic. He laughed and squeezed your hand. “I doubt it.”

Changkyun

You were expecting a promotion by the end of the year and Changkyun was almost more excited than you were. At any mention of you managing him, his face would light up. You didn’t ask why, you figured it was simply because of your friendship, but eventually, as he sat on the stairs in the warehouse, he gave you the sliest grin and leaned back. “So, when you get that promotion…” he started. “Yeah?” You answered distractedly, going through boxes trying to find something. “Will you be ordering me around?” “I mean I’ll be nice about it but yeah, I might. Why?” He paused long enough to get you to look up at him. He shrugged. “Just… I think I’d kind of like it if you order me around.” His smile widened. “Oh.” You didn’t know what to say to that and you felt yourself blushing, so you looked back at the box in front of you. “Alright, I’ll keep that in mind.”

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perlukafarinn · 4 years

Note

Destiel 6 + 43 :)

friends to lovers + old married couple (but “old married couple” in this case doesn’t mean literally)

They’re on their way to Sam’s apartment to pick him for dinner, Dean and Cas in the front seat, Charlie and her new girlfriend Gilda in the back. They’re already running a little late and Cas keeps trying to give Dean directions, as if he doesn’t know the way to Sam’s like the back of his hand.

“Not since construction started downtown,” Cas argues. “Most of 23rd street is closed, you would be better off taking a right by the University.”

Dean scoffs. “I know what I’m doing, Cas. You don’t even own a car!”

“No, but I took this route on my bike a couple of days ago.”

“Oh, well, since you biked-”

“Are they always like this?” Gilda asks from the back, quiet but not enough so that Dean can’t hear it.

Charlie laughs. “Not always but they bicker like an old married couple.”

Dean’s left eye twitches and he clams his mouth shut, cutting himself off mid-argument. Charlie has called them that before but not in a while and it didn’t used to sting like that. He’d rather not dwell on why.

He takes his normal route despite Cas’ protests and has to turn around halfway to Sam’s when they run into construction.

Cas, to his credit, doesn’t say ‘I told you so’.

Cas forgot his lunch at home. Normally, that wouldn’t be enough to worry Dean but he’s been really busy at work lately, working later and later hours, and Dean wouldn’t be surprised if he forgot to eat altogether.

Since he’s self-employed, Dean’s got no problem taking a long break today to swing by Cas’ office with his lunch. As a joke, mostly on himself, he stuffs it in a brown paper bag and scribbles Cas’ name on it along with a crudely-drawn heart.

Cas’ secretary, Alfie, gives Dean a smile when he approaches his desk holding up the bag. Dean considers just barging into Cas’ office (he’s done it enough times) but Alfie holds up his hand like he knows exactly what he’s thinking and picks up his phone.

“Mr. Novak?” he says brightly. “So sorry to interrupt, but your husband is here with your lunch.”

Dean’s eyes widen. He can feel the heat rising to his cheeks, especially when Alfie just nods at Cas’ response and waves Dean inside - Cas clearly didn’t bother correcting him.

Cas is shuffling through some papers when Dean enters his office, phone nestled in the crook of his neck, but he quickly hangs up and puts them aside with a grateful smile when he sees Dean.

“I knew I’d forgotten something,” he says, accepting the bag from Dean’s hand and snorting when he sees the inscription on it. “Thank you, dear.”

It’s so obviously meant to be a joke, one at Alfie’s expense for making such a silly assumption, and still Dean can’t keep his heart from skipping a beat.

He plasters on a fake smile. “Hey, what kinda husband would I be if I let you go hungry?”

“Are you stopping for lunch?” Cas asks.

Dean wasn’t planning on it but he nods anyway, pulling up a chair to sit at Cas’ desk.

Dean has almost put the whole lunch-office-husband thing out of his mind a week later, when Sam calls and tells him that his apartment building is being fumigated and he needs someplace to stay.

It’s a tight squeeze but of course Dean says to stay at his; Sam’s landlord is footing the bill for motel rooms but only the cheapest sort and they spent enough of their childhoods bouncing between those. Dean’s not gonna let Sam be homeless again, not even for a day.

The plan is for Sam and Dean to take turns sleeping on the pull out couch. Sam offers to take the first night and he’s still out cold when Dean gets up to make breakfast the next morning.

The coffee is ready and the bacon is sizzling on the pan by the time Cas gets out of his room. He tiptoes past Sam, still fast asleep on the couch, and sits down at the kitchen counter.

“Should we wake him for breakfast?” he asks quietly.

Dean shakes his head. “He should wake up soon anyway, I’ll reheat this if I have to.”

Cas nods. A couple minutes later everything is cooked and Dean sits down next to him with a plate for each. They eat in silence, Sam not even stirring, and Dean would be worried about the kid if he didn’t know from experience just what a heavy sleeper he can be.

His attention is snatched away from Sam when Cas reaches for his plate, snatching up one of his bacon slices. Dean grabs him by the wrist but Cas is undeterred, bending his head down to take a bite of his stolen bacon.

“Dude, get some of your own.”

“I had some,” Cas says, licking his lips and Dean is suddenly all too aware of how warm Cas’ wrist feels underneath his fingers. “I finished it and you gave yourself extra slices.”

“Did not,” Dean lies.

Then, impulsively, before Cas can take another bite, he ducks his head and snatches the rest of the bacon from his grip. His lips graze Cas’ skin as he does so and he hears Cas let out a strangled sound.

He straightens, flushing as he sees Cas staring at him with wide eyes.

Sam clears his throat.

“Sam!” Dean says, just a little too loud, dropping Cas’ hand like a hot potato. “You’re awake!”

Sam peers at him from the couch, and Dean’s not sure if he’s suspicious or just tired. His hair is flat on one side from resting on the pillow and sticking up on the other, and any other time Dean would be laughing or getting a camera.

“I’m going to go shower,” Cas says quietly, slipping from his seat before Dean can respond. Both Winchesters watch him leave, the room falling silent as he closes the bathroom door behind him.

Sam looks back at Dean. “Are you sure you’re not married?”

Dean flips him off.

Those fours years that Dean has on Sam must make a hell of a difference, because Dean cannot for the life of him understand how Sam could sleep on that torture device they call a couch.

The mattress is thin, way too soft, and lumpy in all the worst places. What’s worse is the noise it makes as Dean tosses around trying to fall asleep, the creaking springs waking him up every time he manages to drift off.

At some point in the night - Dean’s not sure when, though it’s well after midnight - Cas pokes his head out of his room.

“Dean?”

Dean licks his lips. “Yeah?”

“Get in here.”

Dean should protest, if only for the sake of his sanity. But it’s late and he’s exhausted and his back already aches from this hell-spawn of a mattress, so he gets up and follows Cas back into his room.

Cas doesn’t say another word, just crawls back in bed, leaving a decent bit of space beside him. Dean stands there staring for a moment, silently cursing whatever deity might be listening, then gets in after him.

He settles at the very edge of the mattress, leaving as much space between them as possible. His body is tense and sleep feels far off but he still closes his eyes, focusing on keeping his breaths even and not noticing the warmth radiating from Cas’ body.

Despite his anxiety, Dean must still manage to drift off at some point because he’s suddenly blinking his eyes open and it’s morning.

Cas is facing him now, lying just a couple of inches away, and not only are their legs tangled together underneath the comforter but Cas’ hand is resting on Dean’s waist.

Dean swallows, but before he can wonder how to de-tangle himself from Cas without waking him up, Cas draws in a sharp breath through his nose. Dean is unable to move as Cas opens his eyes, peering around in slight confusion before settling on Dean’s face.

And he smiles. Dean’s heart jumps at that smile, at the warmth of it, and he finds himself returning it despite himself. Why isn’t every morning like this?

“What are you thinking?” Cas asks, his voice a low rumble.

“That every morning should be like this,” Dean answers honestly.

He only realizes what he’s said when Cas’ eyes widen, all traces of sleep suddenly gone from them. Jesus Christ, what the hell was he thinking? There is no un-romantic way Cas could interpret that! He could have reached down and grabbed Cas’ dick and it would have been a less obvious come-on.

“I didn’t-” Dean stutters. “I meant-”

Cas gives him a pointed look, effectively silencing him. “I know what you meant.”

Then he’s leaning in, pausing just long enough for Dean to realize what’s going on before closing the distance between them, kissing Dean with such tenderness that it aches. Dean’s still barely with the program but he kisses Cas back, crowding in closer and cupping Cas’ cheek with his hand not caught in the scant space between them.

Cas pulls away and Dean’s not proud of the noise he makes then but he opens his eyes again and Cas is looking at him with such heat that it’s hard to care about anything else.

“How long, Dean?”

“Years,” Dean admits, and it’s just one embarrassing confession after another this morning isn’t it? “Fuck, years.”

“It’s been years for me too,” Cas says. “I can’t believe - all this time we could’ve-”

Dean places a finger against his lips, cutting him off. “Then lets not waste any more.”

Cas laughs, breathlessly agreeing, and Dean leans in to kiss him again, putting an end to their conversation for now.

They’ve got some catching up to do.

They’re married less than four months later.

At this point, it’s really nothing more than a formality.

#deancas #destiel #spn fanfic #perlukafarinn writes #friends to lovers #old married couple #but also #first time #au fic #prompt fill #tropes!#this took a while and might be kinda disjointed #but it's the first thing i've written in like a month so #inacatastrophicmind

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acnelli · 4 years

Text

The Speech

Hermione becomes the first female Minister Of Magic, so Ron has to hold a speech about it.

Just in case you’re wondering...I was never very interested in Pottermore or anything that got published after DH, so there might have been a female MoM before Hermione but I think this little detail is not important to enjoy the story ;-) I also don’t really see Hermione as a MoM. For me Hermione works at the Ministry, creating and pushing for laws to protect and improve the life of those oppressed and fighting for equality. But I liked the idea of a very nervous Ron talking about his wife in front of a huge crowd.

You can also find this story on FFN and AO3.

I'm so screwed.

This sentence was stuck like a mantra in his head ever since Kingsley talked him into this nonsense.

Who in his right mind would want him, Ron Weasley, to hold a speech? Sure, it was his wife that becomes the next Minister of Magic and she also will be the first female one. Which makes him the first husband to hold a speech about the new Minister.

But why couldn't they just skip this stupid tradition?

Not that he wasn't able to talk a lifetime about Hermione. But he sure wasn't ready to talk about her in front of half the Ministry, his entire family, a bunch of friends and not to forget these annoying press people.

Ron was fairly confident that he would say something stupid. He was Ron bloody Weasley after all and if anyone would describe him to a stranger this would be in his character description: Saying and doing stupid and/or inappropriate things.

Kingsley was about to end his speech and Ron knew that it will be mere seconds before he was called up to the stage.

Oh Godric, please don't make me embarrass myself in front of my children.

He thought back to this morning when his fifteen-year-old daughter made him a cup of tea to calm his nerves.

"Don't worry, Dad. You will do just fine. And please eat something." Hugo said, as he shoved a slice of toast at him. He picked his breakfast up and even took a bite, mainly to appease his son.

Hugo stared at him, determination and worry on his face. It never failed to amaze Ron, how much his son was like Hermione, both in looks and character.

Ron sighed and took another bite before shoving the plate away from him. "I' m sorry, buddy. Might eat this backwards if I'm having one more bite."

He sipped his sweet tea and wondered why the hell he was such a nervous wrack. It was the Quidditch games at Hogwarts all over again.

Ron thought he was over his insecurities, but old habits die hard, right? Looking at his two children made him feel a tiny bit lighter though. They both got his ginger hair and freckled skin with the tendency to get burned easily when out in the sun. Hugo got the warm brown eyes of his mother, Rose Ron's blue orbs. Rose sat beside Ron on the kitchen table, sipping her own tea. She was already in her dress for the ceremony, her long wild locks pinned up at the nape of her neck. She rarely touched her breakfast. Ron knew she was feeling the same anxiety he felt. Two years ago, during summer break, Hugo told Ron that Rose never eats breakfast before a Quidditch match and would sometimes spend the better part of these mornings in the bathroom. Rose was in many ways like him. She was funny, loved Quidditch, normally eats on behalf of a whole Quidditch team and had a temper similar to Ron's. Thank Godric, she got the brains of her mother.

None the less, she could easily comprehend what Ron was going through.

"And now, ladies and gentleman, please welcome Ronald Weasley.", Kingsley announced and stepped back for Ron.

He took a deep breath before he finally entered the stage and went to the podium. His family clapped excitedly in the front row, even cheering for him. He looked over to Hermione, who smiled and winked at him. Of course, the whole Weasley family joined the festivities today to celebrate with Hermione. They were all sitting in the second and third row along with his parents-in-law, who looked both proud and just the tiniest bit nervous.

For a short second he feared, that his impulsive decision from this morning. to ditch his sorry attempts of the prepared speech, was probably the worst decision of his life, but when the applause died down, he hadn't much time to panic over it. So, with a final deep breath and a look into Hermione's eyes, he started to speak.

“Th- thank you”, he said after the applause died down and tried not to flinch about the noticeable tremble in his voice.

“Well, as tradition demands, I'm expected to hold a speech about our new Minister of Magic. Speeches are not exactly my strong point and, in all honesty, I dreaded this moment ever since Kingsley asked me to hold it.” Ron threw a pointed look at the former Minister who just gave him an innocent smile.

Over the soft laughter of the audience, Ron heard a snort and quickly located the source. Harry was smirking at him and Ron supressed the urge to flip the tosser off. He hated The Daily Prophet with a passion, but for this headline he might forget about his principles for a day and actually buy this piece of garbage. Nevertheless, he decided against it, mostly because he didn’t fancy to be on the receiving end of some rather nasty hexes performed by his wife and mother.

“Some of you might be surprised to learn that I haven’t prepared this speech during todays breakfast, but for the better part of the last weeks evenings. Though certainly not perfect, I thought the outcome was quite passable. But last night I went over my words and realized that I would tell you things about Hermione Jean Granger-Weasley that all of you already know. Actually, you could have found the better part of my words on a chocolate frog card. Instead, I would rather tell you about the first day Hermione and I met.”

As Ron let his gaze wander over to his family, he saw a smiling but slightly puzzled Hermione looking at him. “The day I met Hermione was, of course, the very first day at Hogwarts. On the train ride I already met Harry Potter. You’ve probably heard about him at some point, saved the world or something like that. Anyway, in that train compartment Harry and I immediately became best friends and while we stuffed ourselves with a ton of sweets, a girl opened the door to our compartment, asking us about the lost toad of a fellow student. I was showing Harry some useless spell my dear brothers told me about, that of course, did not work. This girl though, performed an actual spell just perfect and informed us that she read every first years school book over the summer as preparation for our upcoming classes. Sure enough, she outshined everyone in every class and there wasn’t a teachers question she had no answer to. Back then and especially on that first day, I could never imagine to be friends with Hermione Granger. I thought that she’s a bossy know-it-all and on Halloween, two months after our first day at Hogwarts, she heard me calling her just that. As an eleven-year-old boy, it never seemed possible to me that Hermione could be sincerely hurt by my words. But of course, it upset her. Very much.

That being said, I’ll never regret these nasty words, because this Halloween night was the beginning of a life-long friendship between me, Hermione and Harry. If I hadn’t said that in front of her, she would have never locked herself up in the bathroom to cry and Harry and I would have never ran to this said bathroom, because a mountain troll was wandering the halls of Hogwarts and Hermione was the only one who hasn’t been warned about it. Ever since the three of us beat that troll, I could not imagine a good day without Hermione as a friend by my side. She still nagged us about doing our homework and scolding me for swearing too much and said things like ‘Ron, it’s Hermione, Harry and I’, but when I look back, the unhappiest times were when we didn’t speak to each other or when I wasn’t able to talk to her.”

He paused for a brief moment as surely the darkest time of his life came to mind, when he abandoned Harry and Hermione on the Horcrux hunt, his heart full of pure fear and hopelessness when he thought he would never see them again. Or the weeks of Hermione being petrified, as he could still see this young red headed boy talking to her in the hospital wing, desperately wanting her to tell him off for staying out after curfew.

“Hermione did and achieved a lot of great things in her life. Most of these things you might already know, like her helping to defeat Voldemort and his Death Eaters or her success in freeing the House Elves. Although these are amazing and exceptionally brilliant achievements, Hermione is so much more than the brightest witch of our age and a war heroine. Did you know that the beginnings of her efforts to free House Elves lay in our Hogwarts years? Back then, she started a campaign to free them and it didn’t stop her, that for a very long time, it had been a one-woman-movement. Her courage and ambition to help the defenceless and her undying sense of justice are exceptional and even more admirable, if you consider, that as a Muggleborn, Hermione had been in great danger herself, being the main target of Voldemort’s Death Eaters. Regardless what she went through herself, she never stopped to look out for others, especially her family and friends. And this is what she’ll continue to do as the leader of Wizarding Britain. Hermione will fight for a better life for everyone, for all of you and for those, whose suffering is still invisible to us.

I once read an article about Hermione inheriting the title of the brightest with of our age. It said, that she sure is intelligent, but mainly book smart. If you ask me, a person, who is simply book smart could never use the knowledge in real life, right? Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Hermione’s quick thinking and brilliance at everything she does, saved Harry’s and my life more times than I care to admit. Even in the most dangerous and horrible situations she was in, her highest priority had been to keep us safe.”

I was wrong. These were the darkest hours of my life., Ron thought and Hermione’s screams echoed through his mind.

“Hermione saved me in more than one way. She taught me self-worth and confidence, which, especially as a teenager, I hadn’t much of. She believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. She was there for me when I needed her the most. And the best thing of all: for some unbeknown reason, she loves me. And in the end, this makes me the luckiest bloke in the world.”

For the next words Ron looked only at Hermione, who gave up to hold back her tears for quite some time now. “Befriending you had been the best thing I had ever done. I heard a lot of people say that they married their best friend. Well, I certainly did. We went through so many adventures -good and bad- together and I`m happy to say, that the good ones outweigh the bad ones big time. I love you, Hermione and I`m ready for this next adventure to come our way.”

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