#Distributed Temperature Sensing | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

joelalorian · 3 months ago

Text

Under False Pretenses - Chapter Thirteen

Stepdad!Dave York x f!reader | wc: 7344 | masterlist

Summary: A challenging mission, whirlwind marriage, and an unexpected yet captivating stepdaughter push Dave York to the brink as secrets, feelings, and loyalties collide.

Warnings: Explicit, 18+ mdni. Stepdad trope. Unspecified age gap. Soft, sexy, and intense Dave. Nicknames and terms of endearment. Cursing. Secret spy shit is not so secret anymore. Angst. Being held captive. Violence. Murder. Vengeful Dave. Rescue. Desperation. Dry humping and coming in the pants.

Series Masterlist

The frantic search for you took a day and a half. In that time, Dave hadn’t slept. Had barely eaten. Time blurred into a feverish cycle of tracking leads, chasing cold trails, and battling the gnawing fear that he was already too late.

Mac had been so careful – almost too careful. Every trace of you vanished the second he stole you away from the safe house. They had nothing until that old, grainy gas station video of you was discovered. Dave’s tenacity paid off – he wasn’t going to give up until he found you.

During that day and a half, Dave had Resnik digging through every bit of footage from satellites to doorbell cameras, Kovac calling in every favor the group had left, and Ari – furiously sidelined but stable in a private hospital room – tracing Mac’s digital footprint for the past ten years. Sprinkled in there, Dave made frantic calls to the emergency vet to check on Ranger’s status. He needed that dog to be okay, just like he needed you to be.

Every dead end fueled Dave until his desperation to find you warred with the urge to rip the skin from Mac’s bones.

That grainy gas station footage changed everything. He knew McCall would slip up somewhere along the way. And involving your traitorous mother in his plans was a huge slip-up for McCall.

While you watched in horror as McCall snapped your mother’s neck, Dave and the boys raced to the docks to find you, Susan Plummer and her team of reinforcements not far behind. The weather turned fast as they neared your suspected location, the wind whipping, rain thundering down on the SUV’s windshield so hard the wipers could barely keep up.

“The temperature’s dropping, boss,” Kovac said, eyeing the readout on his military-grade watch. “We’re gonna need the GORE-TEX over our Kevlar.”

Dave slowed the vehicle to a crawl as they entered the empty dockyard, tires splashing through the building puddles. Killing the engine, the team moved fast to distribute their gear. The men looked like the lethal strike team they were – quiet, efficient, and deadly in their black gear.

Dave spoke before they turned to scour the dockyard, his voice barely louder than the driving rain but no less clear.

“This is not a negotiation. This is not just a rescue mission. This is war, one I intend to win. Are we clear on the mission objectives?” Dave’s expressionless face masked the turmoil within.

“Crystal.” Kovac and Resnik replied simultaneously. With a simple nod from Dave, the team moved like shadows, spreading out with weapons drawn, senses honed from years of training.

The nor’easter tore through the dockyard, turning the world into a violent blur of rain, wind, and crashing waves. The cold air smelled of sea salt and pungent metal as it whipped through rusted shipping containers and old boats, making them groan and creak like dying beasts. Puddles turned into small rivers, water rushing between cracked concrete slabs and through exposed soil beneath their boots as they moved, rifles raised, senses sharp.

Lightning flashed overhead, casting eerie shadows over the towering cargo stacks and boat masts.

“Clear,” Kovac’s voice crackled through the radio once he entered the lone building on the property, a dilapidated structure that once served as the dockyard office. Now, the roof had caved in with age, and nothing remained inside except one small room with a single chair and…

“Lisa’s dead,” Resnik added grimly, having followed close behind Kovac. “McCall took her out.”

“He’s not leaving any loose ends behind,” Kovac muttered as Dave stepped into the room beside him. He bent down to check for a pulse despite the obvious signs of lifelessness.

Dave barely registered the words. Lisa was already a ghost to him – collateral damage in a war she had no business starting. You were the priority, his only priority.

He assessed the rest of the room for clues, eyes settling on a pile of rope on the grimy floor. “There’s a rope over there. He must’ve had her tied to that chair.” Dave could picture you restrained, eyes wide with fear as tears rolled down the soft skin of your beautiful face.

What had Mac put you through?

Dave prayed you were in one piece when he found you. Part of him even hoped you gave his former commander hell.

“Come on, York. Let’s search the grounds. We’ll find her.” Resnik led the way out of the poor excuse for a building to search the abandoned cargo containers and boats scattered about the dockyard.

The men split up, Dave taking the northern approach. His eyes scanned every shadow, head on a swivel as he searched for any signs of you and Mac. The downpour made it impossible to track footprints in the quickly flooding ground, and the howling wind masked all sounds except for the occasional creaking of the aged containers.

But there was no hiding the dark blue sedan, visible from the corner of his eye as he stepped out between two empty cargo containers. Dave’s head snapped toward it, and his gut twisted. Parked haphazardly near the water’s edge, it rocked slightly from the wind.

Dave knew. He just knew.

He sprinted toward it, barely feeling the icy rain slicing against his face. Strong fingers curled around the trunk handle, yanking it open as he heard the faint, rhythmic thump coming from inside.

You.

A sight for sore eyes, as they say. Bound, gagged. Cold. Shaking.

But most importantly, alive.

Your wrists were bound with zip ties, delicate skin chafed and bloody from struggling against the restraints. Your lips trembled from the chill with nothing more than your lounging clothes and a ratty blanket covering you. Dave lost his breath as you stared up at him, eyes wide and glassy in the dim glow of the trunk light.

Rain had seeped into the trunk, leaving your clothes and the blanket damp, your body curled tight as if you were trying to disappear into yourself. He had to get you out of there.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dave breathed, reaching for you with shaking hands. “I got you, baby. I got you.”

His gloved hand brushed a lock of damp hair from your face. You were exhausted, shivering from the cold, and crying as he pulled the knife from his ankle to cut the zip ties. You whimpered as he undid the bindings, and he eyed the raw wounds on your wrists. With slow, gentle movements, Dave placed careful kisses on the torn skin before ripping the gag from your mouth.

“Dave,” you croaked, throat too dry to do much more. Your hands, stiff from the cold and lack of proper circulation, clutched his jacket as if making sure he was really there and not just a figment of your imagination.

He pulled you from the trunk, wrapping his arms tight around you and wishing he had the time to warm your body with his and tend to your wounds. Before your feet even touched the ground, a shot rang out, the crack echoing across the abandoned dockyard.

The bullet whizzed past his head, slamming into the metal of the open trunk with a deafening echo. It missed him by an inch.

Fuck!

He whipped around, shielding you instinctively as another shot hit the pavement just inches from his foot.

“Sniper!” Kovac’s voice roared over the radio.

Dave swore under his breath, his mind flipping into tactical mode. The storm made it nearly impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. McCall could be anywhere – hidden on what little remained of the rooftop, perched inside a container or in a tree, waiting for the next clean shot. It’s what Dave would have done in his shoes.

Mac wasn’t hiding, wasn’t running.

The asshole was hunting.

And this? This was his kill box.

Double fuck!

Dave kept a soft grip on your arm, careful not to be too rough after everything you’d been through, pulling you further down behind the car as another bullet ricocheted off the trunk. He knew McCall’s playbook. Knew exactly how he liked to set his traps.

Unfortunately, this time, Dave was the one inside it.

He yanked off his coat, wrapping it around your shaking frame. He tugged the hood over your head, tightening the strings and adjusting so you could see. Once you wormed your arms into the oversized sleeves and were all zipped up, he gripped your arm tightly, forcing you to focus on him.

“Stay down, kitten. Please,” he ordered, his brow pinched. Pulling the pistol from the holster, he held it up toward you. “Do you know how to use one of these?”

“C-conceptually,” you stuttered, teeth chattering from the frigid air.

Dave nodded. “I’ll give you the basics.”

He provided a few instructions on where the safety was and how to hold the weapon. “Just point and shoot. Got it?”

You nodded, feeling the weight of the pistol in your hand as he passed it over. You demonstrated the movements once, and Dave’s lips curved into an almost smile.

“Remember: stay low. Stay out of sight. Only use it if you need to.” Dave leaned down and kissed you. The kiss was tender yet overwhelming, saying everything that neither of you could say out loud, given that you were being hunted and there just wasn’t time for loving proclamations. “I promise this will be over soon.”

Your fingers curled around the weapon as you nodded, but your expression was pure fear. “Dave—”

“Do not move until I come back for you.” His tone left no room for argument though your lips parted as if to try. Rainwater clung to your lashes as you nodded.

Then, he moved. Darting behind cargo crates, Dave used the storm as cover as he began his own hunt. His breath was steady, his hands were calm.

McCall was good. But Dave York?

Dave York was better.

Nothing tested your mental fitness like being bound and gagged in a dark trunk during a nor’easter. It was an entirely humbling experience.

The first thing you noticed was the cold. Not just from the frigid winter air seeping through the gaps in the metal but also from the way it had settled into your bones. Your adrenaline and fear had spiked and settled a dozen times already, leaving your exhausted body more susceptible to the cold.

You had been here too fucking long. Hope was almost starting to dwindle now that the storm was in full swing.

Your wrists burned from the zip ties cutting into your skin, fingers tingling from hours of restricted circulation and movement, half numb from how tightly they were bound. Your ankles the same, though at least they were free now. Fat lot of good that did you – it’s not like you could break out and run away. You already tried everything you could think of - kicking out the taillights, kicking at the backseat, feeling around for an emergency pull tab. Needless to say, you failed. It was impossible to see anything in the dark.

Every breath felt shallow, muffled against the fabric of the gag knotted at the back of your head. The edges of the material were damp from the tears you couldn’t stop shedding.

The trunk was too small, the barely covered metal pressing in on you from every angle. Your knees were curled to your chest, your body forced into an awkward, suffocating position in the limited space. Your limbs – scratch that, your whole body – ached, the stiffness turning into something so sharp and relentless that it became a part of you, something you barely felt anymore as all you knew now was discomfort. And fear.

That was all you could feel.

It ebbed and flowed, swelling and cresting like the storm-churned waves crashing over the sea wall outside.

This fear didn’t just sit in your chest or take up space in your mind. No, it wrapped itself around your throat, coiled in your stomach like a sickness that refused to leave. It stole the breath from your already depleted lungs and frayed your already frazzled nerves. Every moment, it threatened to shatter the lingering hope in your heart that Dave was coming.

He promised he would always come back for you.

Blinking hard against the very idea that Dave would not fight to find you and keep you safe, you tried to focus on the here and now. What good would that do, though?

You had no idea how long you’d been in here, been gone from the safe house.

Hours? Days?

A fucking lifetime?

You had no way of knowing – you never wore a watch and had been stripped of your phone even before you were dragged from the place you were told would be safe.

The place where you watched a madman stab your sweet dog as he tried to protect you. God, you hoped Ranger was still alive, and Ari too. That they got help in time, you couldn’t bear the thought of the alternative…

No.

You couldn’t let your mind go there.

Time blurred together when you were left alone with nothing but the sound of your own heartbeat thudding too fast in your ears. It echoed in your head like the drumbeat of a marching band.

And even worse than that?

The waiting.

It was a lesson in futility, waiting for time to pass.

You waited hours for the SUV to stop when McCall first took you.

At some point, you must have passed out from the adrenaline crash, as you woke up in the trunk of a car instead of the SUV an unknown amount of time later.

Then you waited for the car to stop.

The interminable time spent waiting for the trunk to open.

Waiting to find out if that was it – if McCall had finally decided you were no longer worth the effort of keeping alive.

At first, you screamed. You fought, hard, thrashing against your restraints until your wrists ached, your muffled cries swallowed by the sound of the engine, the wind, the gag, the sheer indifference of the world around you.

McCall had been silent all that time. He hadn’t said a word until he had you tied to that rusted chair in the broken-down building. Only he and a God you no longer believed in knew where you were then. You thought for sure that was it, the end.

But no, McCall had a plan. His silence had been intentional. His goal to spook you, to keep you on edge.

It worked.

You were shaken to the core when your mother revealed herself, and her role in this horror film come to life. Shaken further still when he ended her life right before your eyes.

McCall never hit you or hurt you – the current cuts at your wrists were your own fault from struggling to free yourself.

You finally understood why - why he physically hurt the others instead of you.

Because your torture was psychological.

He let the cold do the work. The exhaustion. The fear.

Sure, he taunted you in that building, tried to make you doubt Dave’s intentions. But he knew, just as you now did, that the real damage was being done here, in this trunk.

Hours in the trunk turned into a prison sentence inside your own head.

You thought of the girls. Alice’s laughter. Molly’s tiny arms wrapping around you before bed.

They already lost their mom. And yours was a piss poor substitute during the brief time she was pretend married to their father. You were the closest thing they had to a mom again.

Would they think you left them? That you abandoned them –

No.

No, you couldn’t think like that.

Your thoughts shifted to Dave.

His handsome, clean-shaven face and neatly styled hair. You wondered what he’d look like with a little scruff along his jaw and upper lip. How he’d look if he let his hair grow a little – would it curl at the ends?

You loved him just as he was, every bit of him, but wondering about things like that kept your mind occupied, distracting you from the horrifying reality. You longed to run your hands through his hair. To kiss his mouth, neck, down every inch of his strong chest. You ached to just see him again.

What would he find first, you wondered?

Your body?

Or just the empty shell of you, hollowed out by whatever else McCall had planned.

What if Dave wasn’t even looking for you?

Your mind was doing it again. McCall tried planting that seed back in that room long before he threw you in here. It didn’t work then. It wouldn’t work now.

Dave was coming.

You hoped.

Hoping was fucking exhausting though.

Nuzzling further into the ratty blanket to shield against the unending cold, you fought another rising wave of panic. You needed to get out of this trunk, away from this terrifying man, and back to Dave and the life you yearned for, now that you knew you could have it for real.

You tried again, in vain, to find an emergency cord or something to free you from the trunk. You feebly kicked at the taillights again to no avail. Crying out in frustration, you beat at the metal trunk just for something to do.

Suddenly, it was light. Blindingly so. After so long in the dark, you flinched, curling away from it and whoever was standing above you.

Then…

Warm hands. Strong arms. A familiar voice.

You cracked your eyes open, half afraid you were hallucinating. There he was.

Dave.

The storm raged around the dockyard, rain hammering against the rusted metal of the cargo containers, the wind howling like a living thing. Lightning cracked across the sky, momentarily illuminating the abandoned dockyard.

Dave moved silently, a ghost slipping between shadows, using the rain and wind to mask his approach.

Mac was perched somewhere high – Dave knew it. The vantage point, the angles. This was a sniper’s playground. And Mac had the advantage.

Except he didn’t.

Dave had years of insight into how the man’s tactical mind worked. He knew how McCall planned his kills, his missions. And right now?

Right now, he knew McCall was waiting for him to make the wrong move. To step out from cover. To make a run for it.

Dave knew all this, so he gave Mac nothing. No sound. No silhouette against the lightning. No desperate charge into the line of fire. Instead, he did what Mac wouldn’t expect.

Dave waited. Listened.

And like clockwork, there was a shift in the wind. A faint movement. The slightest creak of metal above the wind.

There.

Dave swung his rifle up, aiming toward the source of the sound – an abandoned crane platform above the dockyard.

Dave fired first. The shot shattered the rusted guardrail where McCall had been. There was a blur of movement, and McCall rolled just in time, avoiding the impact before retaliating with a shot of his own.

The bullet whizzed past Dave’s head.

The shot was rushed and sloppy. Dave grinned despite the situation. Mac was rattled.

McCall moved, abandoning the sniper’s perch, realizing too late that Dave had already predicted his next play. He needed to reposition. Unfortunately, that allowed Dave to move as well.

Dave’s forward pressure kept him on the defensive, herding him down from his high ground. Cutting off his exits.

This was not good.

His plan was unraveling before his eyes, leaving McCall spiraling. He had always been an apex predator, a master tactician with meticulous planning skills. But Dave York had been trained to kill apex predators, that training reinforced by Mac during the years under his command.

The roles had reversed. The student became the teacher.

For the first time – McCall was the prey, and he didn’t like that one damned bit.

You watched from behind the sedan, your breathing uneven, pulse pounding in your ears. Your hands were still shaky from the adrenaline and cold. But you weren’t scared anymore, not with Dave and the guys here.

No. Now, you were fucking pissed. A complete 180 from how you felt while trapped in the trunk of that damned car. Your mind rehashed the events of the past couple days with a new perspective.

Your mother had been complicit in all this. She set you up. She betrayed Dave.

You knew she could be a royal bitch, had experienced her wrath first-hand your whole life, but this was next level. She handed you over to a madman, getting rid of you so she could have Dave, even after he told her he was not the least bit interested in her.

McCall used you as a pawn in this charade. He tried to break you in his efforts to get to Dave. He killed your mother right in front of you like she was just another sacrificial piece on his chessboard. And, yeah, that was fucking traumatizing, but it pissed you off even more.

Because what was the point of all this?

It seemed like revenge or something, but you didn’t quite understand. You didn’t have the full picture. You didn’t need it, though. All you needed to know was that Dave came for you. He was out there fighting for you, trying to take out the man who kidnapped you.

The man who underestimated you.

Peeking over the hood of the sedan, your eyes searched the grounds. Through the haze of rain, wind, and gunpowder, you saw him.

Dave’s movements, flanked by the guys, forced McCall into a position where the man’s back was exposed to you.

Functioning on pure instinct and rage, you moved. Ignoring the searing ache in your limbs from being tied up and tossed around, shoved in a trunk for hours. Your fingers curled around the pistol grip, the metal ice cold but solid in your hand. Recalling the limited instructions provided by Dave, you held the weapon with both hands, thumb flicking off the safety as you stepped silently, stealthily through the puddles.

A flicker of movement to the left caught your eye – Resnik was moving forward in time with you. A glance to the right showed Kovac doing the same. The men were some distance away, but you all had the same target in your sights.

Suddenly, you spotted Dave step out in front of McCall, his dark, angry eyes locking with yours over the older man’s shoulder for a short beat before focusing on the man at the center of it all.

Dave had moved through the storm like a predator, rifle raised, every muscle coiled. McCall was leading him somewhere. Dave knew it, and still, he followed.

Lightning split the sky, illuminating the dockyard for a fraction of a second. It was just enough to see where the man was heading. McCall shifted, backing down an old, half-rotten dock, waves crashing against the beams with such force that the entire structure groaned under the pressure.

Dave didn’t hesitate.

Neither did you or the guys.

Dave stepped onto the dock, the wooden planks slick beneath his boots, the storm wrapping around the two men like a cage.

You and the others stayed along the seawall, close enough to hear their shouts above the wind.

“It doesn’t have to end this way, Mac,” Dave called, voice carrying in the wind as it blew towards the shore.

McCall let out a breath, almost amused. “You really believe that?” His posture was relaxed – too relaxed – weapon hanging loosely in his grip. “I’m already dead, York. I died years ago in that bombing. The difference this time – I get to take you out with me.”

Dave shook his head. That would not be happening. “You have another choice. Walk away.”

McCall’s lips curled at the edges, dark eyes squinting against the driving rain. “Like you did?”

The words hit harder than Dave expected, and he thought of you, standing back on the seawall. He didn’t have to think too hard about what was coming – McCall was going to air all of Dave’s dirty laundry for you to hear. What would you think of Dave after that?

McCall let out a breath, shifting his stance. “You and I, we’re the same.”

“No, Mac,” Dave refuted, shaking his head. “We’re not.”

McCall studied him for a long moment before glancing past him back to the shore. Dave knew Mac was staring right at you, and he couldn’t help but turn his head to look at you over his shoulder. He needed to see your face when the truth about his past deeds was revealed.

“Tell me, York,” McCall shouted. “Does she know? About all those contracts you took. Murder for hire to the highest bidder. Does she know she’s in love with a contract killer?”

Despite being barely visible through the wind-driven rain, Dave saw your mouth drop open in surprise, your eyes shooting to meet his in question. He stared back at your stricken gaze, imploring you to reserve judgment for now, and mouthed, “I’m sorry. I’ll explain later.” He hoped you understood.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Good luck explaining all that now.” The older man laughed when Dave turned to face him once again, studying him with an assessing gaze. Satisfied with whatever he saw play across Dave’s face, McCall spat his parting shot. “Like I said, you and me, we’re the same. And if you pull that trigger, York, you prove me right.”

A beat of silence, then two. At the third beat, both men raised their weapons, and the world exploded in gunfire, even though only two shots were fired.

The first shot hit McCall in the upper left chest.

The second hit Dave’s left bicep, pain flaring hot and sharp as the bullet sliced through the protective layers into his flesh.

McCall staggered backward a step, his lips parted and body swaying. His dark gaze met Dave’s with something that might have been resignation. Rifle still in hand, he reached up as if to fire another round in Dave’s direction but…

The deteriorated wooden planks beneath his feet snapped, and McCall fell with a frustrated shout. The stormy sea swallowed him whole, a flash of red blooming in the waves before being swept away by the raging tide.

Dave stood there stunned, chest heaving, blood dripping from the bullet wound in his left arm.

The wind howled. The waves crashed. Robert McCall was gone. Dave collapsed on the wooden planks as the storm surge washed over the dock.

No one moved until your scream pierced the air. Then, it was chaos.

You were barely aware of the gun being removed from your clenched grip, the hands grasping your arms gently, the huge, warm body guiding you away from the scene toward an awaiting SUV. The storm had worsened during the showdown, and the gunfire had long since faded, yet your ears still rang.

You felt outside of yourself, like a ghost watching over the scene. Nothing seemed real.

Strangers in tactical gear moved around you, calling out orders and questions. The arms supporting you helped you into the backseat, heat on full blast, and a rugged face with a thick, grizzly beard hovered in front of your line of sight.

Kovac.

An older woman appeared beside him, badge on her hip and phone to her ear. “Target is down, confirmed. What about the asset?”

Her eyes met yours, her face a mask. Your heart stopped.

“No,” you whispered, stomach lurching. It looked like a wound to the arm from where you’d been standing. Surely, he didn’t… he wasn’t… Your vision began to blur at the thought of losing Dave after all of this.

The woman turned away, dropping the phone to her side with a grim smile. Confused, you followed her gaze, and you saw him.

Racing toward you through the storm, blood spreading through the field bandage hastily wrapped around his wound. His face was pinched with pain, but he was alive. His eyes met yours, and you cracked.

“Dave.”

He caught you in one arm as you fell out of the truck, his name a sharp cry, clutching him to you like a lifeline. Wet hair matted to his head, blood-soaked and exhausted from days of stress, and still, he never looked more beautiful to your eyes.

“I’m here,” he rasped, voice rough. “I got you. We’re safe now.”

Tears blurred your vision, but you didn’t care. Dave was alive. He saved you. The nightmare was over.

“Susan,” Dave rumbled a few minutes later as you fretted over his wound. “Thanks for the backup.”

The older woman nodded. “Good to see you alive, York. We’ll debrief after you get that checked out,” she replied, gesturing towards the gunshot wound. “But we got the others in custody and recovered the intelligence data. Mission’s over.”

Dave merely nodded. You stared up at him as Susan walked away after gently patting his right shoulder, searching his face for a reaction to the news. He stared back at you with warmth in his eyes, his forehead falling forward against yours. “It’s over.”

The storm waned then, the downpour slowing to a drizzle over the dockyard. The wind still howled, but its fury had died along with the villain. You weren’t thinking about any of it, though.

All you could see was Dave. Your Dave.

His handsome face was pale, arm slick with blood still oozing from the wound, his movements slower than usual as he let Resnik step closer to wrap a new bandage around his arm. The sight of it made your stomach twist, panic clawing its way up your throat despite the relief of having him alive.

You stripped off the soaked jacket and gently tugged Dave with you as you slid into the backseat of the SUV once again. “Dave.”

His tired eyes flickered to you once you were both settled. You reached for him, hands trembling as you embraced his right side, your fingers pressing into the solid warmth of his skin where his layers had been torn away, as if anchoring yourself to reality. “You’re bleeding,” you whispered, the breathy tone rough with emotion.

Dave exhaled, something between a chuckle and a sigh. “Yeah, kitten. I noticed.”

Your eyes burned with a mix of relief and frustration as you gaped at him. “This isn’t time for jokes, baby. You need stitches. A hospital.”

He shook his head. “I’ll live.”

“That’s not the point!” Your voice broke, and suddenly you weren’t just worried over him. You were frantic, the emotional toll of the past few days finally coming to a head. “You keep getting hurt, and one day you may not—"

Your throat closed up, the words refusing to come out. Dave saw it. He felt it. Without hesitation, he cupped your face in his good hand, his thumb brushing away the tears trailing down your cheek. “I’m here,” he murmured, his voice quieter now as Kovac and Resnik climbed into their seats. “I’m right here.”

You let out a shaky breath, laying your head on his shoulder. “You scared the shit out of me. This entire thing scared the shit outta me,” you admitted. “I’m gonna need counseling after this.”

Dave’s lips quirked at the edges. “You and me both, Firecracker.”

A broken laugh slipped from your lips before you could stop it. Then, just as quickly, the panic slammed back into your chest.

“Ranger!” you choked out, pulling back suddenly. “Where—is he okay?”

Resnik turned in his seat to look back at the two of you as Kovac drove toward the nearest hospital, his expression uncharacteristically soothing. “He’s back at the house with Ari. They’re both milking their injuries for all they’re worth, getting all the treats they deserve.

Your stomach clenched, the relief almost knocking you flat. Dave’s fingers curled around yours, grounding you. “He’s tough,” he said softly. “Just like you. He’ll make a full recovery and be back to being your shadow in no time.”

You swallowed thickly, nodding, but part of you still wouldn’t breathe properly until you saw Ranger and Ari with your own eyes. And then, as if your heart wasn’t stretched thin enough, another thought slammed into you with full force.

“The girls. Are they okay?”

Dave’s hand squeezed yours. “They’re safe,” he reassured you. “Enjoying their time with their grandparents in the Poconos. They don’t know anything.”

Your chest ached. You needed to see them. To hug them. You weren’t alone in that.

Dave’s gaze softened, something unreadable flickering in his dark eyes as he watched you. He needed them too, just as much if not more.

Hours later, after a visit to the emergency room and a debrief with his DIA team, you and Dave were finally home. The house was eerily quiet without the girls. Ranger laid on his bed near the fireplace, midsection wrapped in a large bandage and a cone of shame around his neck, tongue lolling out of his mouth, a little out of it from the vet's medication.

The storm had passed, the mission was over, and you were freshly showered, layered in warm sweats, and relieved to be home. And yet – the air wasn’t entirely clear.

You stood near the fireplace, arms crossed tightly over your chest to both keep warm and protect yourself. Your mind was a mess of emotions you weren’t sure how to untangle, yet you ached for him, to be with him. You and Dave needed to have one more important conversation before things could finally settle.

Dave sat on the couch, his injured arm resting in a sling, the bandages still fresh from having the bullet removed. He watched you, waiting, his face unreadable, except for the tension in his jaw, the slight crease between his brows.

He knew what was coming. He knew you heard every word McCall said out there on that dock, through the roar of the wind and crashing waves.

“Tell me, York! Does she know? About all those contracts you took. Murder for hire to the highest bidder. Does she know she’s in love with a contract killer?”

He knew the words had stuck. Burrowed under your skin like a splinter you couldn’t pull free. He only hoped that you’d let him explain, try to understand. He couldn’t lose you after all you’d just gone through, not over something like this.

You took a slow breath, the question burning on your tongue as you slid next to him on the couch. “What did he mean? About murder for hire? And please, don’t lie to me. I deserve the truth, now more than ever.”

His eyes softened, his brows pulled in and up, making him look like a sad puppy, yet his body still carried the weight of a heavy burden that had been buried for too long. He leaned forward, resting his right elbow on his knee as he faced you.

“I won’t lie to you ever again,” he started. With a visible gulp, Dave continued. “It’s true, what Mac said. It’s not something I’m proud of by any means, but it is the truth.”

You stayed quiet, listening with an open heart and an equally open mind as he explained how he’d been injured in the explosion they all thought killed McCall, how their team had been dismantled, leaving money tight and options limited. He went to work for the agency, but the pay just didn’t cut it. There had been secret contracts for off-book operations. People with names and targets and high price tags attached.

He looked at you with such guilt in his raw, unfiltered gaze. “So, I took the jobs.”

Your pulse thrummed in your ears as you tried to make sense of it all. “You—”

“Did things,” he finished for you in a flat voice. “Killed people who needed killing. Some were threats to national security. Some weren’t.”

Your chest tightened, your heart aching for this dichotomous man sitting before you. “Murder for hire,” you murmured, McCall’s words echoing in your mind.

Dave’s jaw ticked as he looked down at his hands, almost expecting to see the blood of others still staining them. “I told myself it was just work. Just another mission. A way to make money to support my family. That it wasn’t personal.” He swallowed. “Until it was.”

Your brows furrowed at that. “What do you mean?”

His hand curled into a loose fist against his knee, and you reached over, prying it open to tangle your fingers with his. Dave’s eyes met yours again, the burnt umber filled with such remorse your heart hurt.

“The last job I ever took – it wasn’t for the agency. It was private.” His throat worked as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple visibly bobbing beneath the smooth skin. “A man approached me and the boys with an offer we couldn’t refuse. The money was just too good to turn away. I had just found out about Carol’s cancer, and my cut would have been enough to pay for her treatment in full and still have plenty left over.”

You could barely breathe as you waited for him to continue.

“We found out too late that it was blood money and came at a cost I wasn’t willing to pay.”

“What happened?” you questioned, squeezing his hand gently, urging him to continue.

A long silence stretched between you. The only sound was the faint creak of the house settling, the crackle of the fire in the hearth.

“The target turned out to be a DIA asset. We didn’t find out until after we did the deed. That woman at the dockyard? Susan Plummer. She’s a fellow agent and was assigned to investigate the hit. It made the news. She called me in to assist. It was a fucking mess. The client demanded that we eliminate her, but I just…”

You’d never seen Dave like this – physically injured and so emotionally broken – it tore at your heart. “You don’t have to continue, Dave. I understand. I mean it.”

He shook his head adamantly, avoiding your gaze as he rasped out a sharp, “No. I need to tell you this.” Dave took a few breaths before carrying on. “You need to know everything before you decide whether or not you still want to be with me.”

“I couldn’t do it. She was a colleague, a friend, who did nothing wrong. She didn’t deserve to die for doing her job, trying to uncover the truth,” he explained. “The guys supported me in that decision, and we went after the client instead. Eliminated him and any evidence of a connection back to us. Somehow, Mac found out what we did.”

Everything began to come together in your head – why Dave wanted out of the DIA, how he was connected to McCall, why they were at odds, what the man was getting at on that dock.

“I’d already decided to give up the extracurricular work before he showed up at my door like a dead man walking. I thought that’d be the end of it. I was wrong.”

Your arms tightened around him as Dave shook his head, his voice low, regretful. “I’m sorry about all of it. I never wanted that part of my life to touch you or the girls. I thought I could just leave it behind. I’m sorry about your mom, too. She didn’t deserve to go out like that.”

He sighed, leaning back against the couch, tilting his head against the cushion to avoid meeting your gaze. “You must think I’m a monster.”

Your breath hitched. “I don’t think you’re a monster.”

Dave’s head snapped up at that, dark eyes studying you carefully. “Then what do you think?”

You swallowed, searching for the right words.

“I think…” You hesitated and started over. “I think you’re a complicated, many-layered man who did what you had to do to support your family. I think you hated it, hated having to do it, but you were good at it and got the job done. You provided the means for a beautiful life for your family. The girls want for nothing because of what you sacrificed. I think you are a great father and an amazing partner. I hope to someday discover how great a husband you are, too.”

His throat worked as his eyes darted back and forth between yours, searching for any hint of falsehood in your words. He came up empty, and those dark orbs began to water.

“I love you,” he whispered, unbelieving that you could be so understanding, supportive of a man who used to kill for money.

Nodding, you sank back into his side, cuddling against his warmth to reaffirm your love for him. “I see you,” you whispered against the salty skin of his neck. “The whole you. Not just the parts you let me see. And I’m still here. I’ll always be right here.”

Dave exhaled sharply, his grip on you tightening, his shoulders sagging in relief.

“And for what it’s worth, my mom totally got what she deserved. She fucked around and she found out. Part of me is sad because she was my mom, but she was never a good person. And she would have let that man kill me if given the chance.”

A low, dark chuckle sounded in your ear. Perhaps there was a dark part hidden inside you that matched Dave’s inner darkness. Perhaps you were both complicated, flawed people who happened to be perfect matches for each other. You really liked the thought of that.

Sitting up, you gazed at Dave, taking in his strong features. The jut of his brow, the cut of his nose, those perfect cupid’s bow lips. The patchy scruff along his jaw from a few days without shaving. The sparkle in his eyes as he watched you catalogue him. The urge to kiss him, be with him became too much, and you slowly, carefully eased your body into his lap, straddling his slim hips.

You were too exhausted to really do anything sexual, but the desire, the heat, the need was too great to do nothing about it. After such traumatizing events, you needed to feel normal again. Feel wanted. Feel fucking alive.

Eyes wide open and watching each other’s every move, you leant forward and kissed Dave. It started soft and slow before quickly morphing into a frenzy of lips and tongues, teething clashing and nipping. Your fingers weaved through his hair, nails gliding along his scalp as your hips pressed down. Dave’s cock stirred, hardening quickly under the weight of you against him.

Hindered by the injured arm, Dave steadied you with his right hand as it grasped desperately at your tit, thick fingers pinching the nipple in time with the roll of your hips. You moved against each other, fully clothed, mouths feasting on one another, and gazes never wavering.

The tension built quickly – too quickly – after days of separation and stress, and you came in Dave’s lap, the friction of grinding against him hitting your clit most divinely. He swallowed your mewls, pulling you closer to him as his hips jerked upwards once, twice, thrice, and Dave came in his pants with a guttural growl. You could feel his cock pulsing beneath the layers of clothing separating you and you sunk against him in exhaustion.

The moment reminded you of that first time on the couch in your basement suite, when you dry humped until you both made a mess of yourselves. Back then, the moment was rushed, hidden away in a secret relationship. Now, you were on the couch in the sitting room, relationship no longer a secret, no further lies to keep hidden.

“Let’s get you to bed, my little Firecracker,” Dave murmured as he peppered tender kisses along your neck and face. “I’m sure we could both sleep for the next day or two.”

For posterity, you both slept in your basement bedroom.

tbc

Chapter Fourteen

tag list: @imdrinkingpedro @lillaydee @ppascalrain @yorksgirl @missladym1981 @baronessvonglitter @slimybeth69 @mellymbee @untamedheart81 @inept-the-magnificent @wannab-urs @thundermartini @peelieblue @harriedandharassed @mysterious-moonstruck-musings @sunnytuliptime @vie-is-punk @lovely-vamp-princess

#stepdad!dave york x f!reader #dave york equalizer 2 #soft yet intense dave #dave york fluff #dave york angst #pedrostories #stepdad!dave #vengeful Dave #murder daddy dave york #dave york smut

55 notes · View notes

adaginy · 1 year ago

Text

The Big Guide to Humans: Skin

First: Yes, it is true that humans have whole-body stripes that not all species can see. Yes, it is also true that they themselves cannot usually see them. They are an artifact of pre-natal development and are present from birth. They usually have no significance, though some skin abnormalities may follow their usually-invisible path (or may make them visible).

See body art for questions about deliberate skin markings.

--- Human skin is a soft yet durable covering made of stretchy proteins. It provides protection from water loss, pathogens and UV radiation, insulates their body against external temperatures, synthesizes a chemical they use to make their skeleton, and is home to humans' abilities to feel touch and to cool themselves.

The skin is made up of layers, further divided into more layers, and the different functions are distributed within them. The details of these layers are not necessary to know for working alongside humans; suffice it to say that the topmost layer may noticeably flake off in very dry environs and this is mostly harmless but irritating to the human, oozing a clear but yellow-tinted liquid (see immune system) represents a minor but disproportionately painful injury of having scraped off the uppermost layers, and bleeding (oozing or gushing a red opaque liquid, see circulatory system) means the injury is deeper still.

Skin that has been damaged can usually repair itself over time, although it may take assistance (externally binding the wound shut, for example). Deeper wounds are likely to scar, that is, to be repaired with a tougher skin of different appearance. This is not the same thing as a callus, seen on the base of human feet and sometimes on the fingers, in which the skin grows thicker and tougher to resist pressure injuries.

It is normal for tiny hairs to be present in the skin over most of the human's body, regardless of sex or gender. Both sexes may have prominent hair on their faces or torso after puberty (see lifespan and development), but it is much more common with men.

If the human is warm (likely if ambient temperature is above melting point of gallium) or has been exerting themselves, they may "sweat." Salt water will leak in small amounts from all over their skin, concentrated on the forehead/under their hair, in the soft socket under where their arms meet the body, and around the external genitalia, to make use of evaporative cooling. They may begin to smell strongly; they usually find this smell unpleasant. If the human is cold, or in some scary situations, the tiny hairs may stand up instead of laying flat. This is an evolutionary artifact from ancestors with thicker fur and no longer helps to keep them warm or frightens predators.

Humans' sense of touch is very sensitive, especially on their hands, but outside of their hands it is sometimes not precise. You could lay one of their hairs on a surface and ask them to find it by feel, and they would be able to do so with their hands even if the surface was not smooth. If you dropped a single hair on the bare arm of a human, they would feel it, but they would not be able to pinpoint its exact location without seeing it.

!! Due to tiny dangerous creatures on their home planet, humans will usually immediately attempt to remove the source of an unexpected small light touch, often by swiping at it with a hand or by jerking their body. If you are fragile or tiny, and this would damage or dislodge you, get their attention before physical contact. !!

While humans can only see a narrow portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, they can sense somewhat beyond that band with their skin. Infrared can be sensed as heat, especially at short distances. Ultraviolet can be sensed over time, as specialized molecules in the skin cause cells to sacrifice themselves to prevent it from penetrating farther into the skin. However, by the time the human has noticed the feeling of this cell-sacrifice, the skin is likely to be damaged enough that it will darken and/or become red and sensitive soon (within the timespan of a human sleep cycle). Humans with naturally darker skin can generally withstand ultraviolet radiation for longer periods of time before becoming damaged. When the darkening or reddening has passed, small brown marks called "freckles" will often remain, usually for the rest of the human's life. If the skin has reached the red stage, as the color returns to normal the damaged skin may come off in thin sheets as though the human is molting. Do not offer assistance with removal unless they ask.

Human skin is covered in bacteria, viruses, and fungi that are mostly harmless to them. This is covered in more detail under microbiome with some pertinent points under mating.

#addie writes #humans are space orcs #big guide to humans #the stripes are called Blaschko's lines

400 notes · View notes

industrialist-of-zaun · 8 months ago

Note

(Regarding the Thematic Headcannons Post)

For Silco or Sevika!

Hc + 💉 regarding any medical conditions he / she may have other than his corrupted eye / her arm?

..or 👎 regarding shimmer / the state of Zaun which it is leaving behind.

(There is no need to answer either of these ideas!)

💉Medical Conditions

Due to the river toxins, he has extensive nerve damage on the left side of his face, which spans the length of his scarring and goes even deeper. Because of this, Silco has lost his sense of smell & taste due to the damage to his sinuses. His meals need to be carefully monitored with temperature (he uses his hand to gauge hotness) as not to burn his mouth and damage it further. He seeks texture instead of flavor because of this, and he saves the more flavorful dishes he can cook for Jinx (since she's still able to enjoy it).

He likes heavily spiced foods and anything that has heat or capsaicin in it; those foods tend to stimulate what little feeling he has left in his mouth in a pleasant way.

His medicinal shimmer buys him some time, but it only slows the spread of the toxins; it cannot cure them. Years of using shimmer have taken their toll on his body, resulting in poor blood circulation (causing ever-chilled fingers & feet) and plaguing him with mild seizures. These seizures are hidden from the public, but over time they will only worsen until they kill him.

👎Shimmer & the state of Zaun's destitute

Silco is aware of the effects Shimmer has on his people, but he views it as a necessary evil. The benefits outnumber the detriments; it brings in necessary resources to support the cause, as well as stimulates business within and outside of Zaun’s boarders. The medicinal benefits alone are incredible, the recreational usage of it keeps people placated. You are less likely to face insurrection if your populace is too high and distracted to scheme.

As for the state it’s leaving Zaun in, he isn’t the proudest of it, but there isn’t another way to secure their freedom with certainty. Nobody else sees their march to sovereignty the same way Silco does, or with the same passion. It _must_ be him that frees his people, or it may not be anyone at all- not in their lifetimes, of their children’s lifetimes.

When they achieve freedom, he has plans to produce detox kits for Shimmer, and ease his people of their addiction to it. Recreational shimmer will be discontinued, and instead his factories will move to producing the medicinal variant of the serum.

He does not need to be liked, and he does not expect his people to adore him for his actions; he will be the monster his people need, to achieve their freedom. His happiness, love and legacy are willingly forfeited; none of those things matter, in the pursuit of abolishing their oppression.

They’ve suffered enough, haven’t they?

💉Medical Conditions

Sevika has widespread, lasting damage from the explosion in the cannery. Losing her arm was a process, from amputation, getting fitted for a prosthetic, and physical therapy. The arcane-blue scars along her face aren’t the only scars it left her with. Streaking across her left side from the shoulder socket, they spiderweb across her ribs, side & back. On certain days, they prickle like electricity or a twinged nerve, on others they radiate pain like white fire from her skin to deep into her muscles.

The prosthetic of her arm links into her collarbone & shoulder blade, to keep it secured in place and to help distribute the pull of the mechanisms as she works. She is in chronic pain due to this, and her right side has bulked up slightly more than her left to account for the extra weight. Sevika never has the most pleasant expression on her face, but it isn’t because she’s mean, it’s because she’s tired and in pain. Also, to add insult to injury, due to the years of inhaling the noxious gasses of the fissures & smoking like a factory, she has the beginnings of either Sump or Smoker’s lung.

👎Shimmer & the state of Zaun's destitute

Sevika loathes shimmer; anybody who knows her can tell you that. She only uses it for her arm and for necessary boosts in battle, otherwise she avoids the shit like the plague. She’s too busy to dwell on it, though Sevika knows that it has many actual, legitimate uses.

Silco has assured her that the recreational strain will be phased out once Zaun it free and on her feet, and this is what has to happen... for now.

But walking through the Sumps, walking through the End, seeing the squalor and the destitute addicted to the highs Shimmer can bring, it boils her blood. She hates what it's done to her people, her city, her Lanes, and one day, she hopes to scrub the undercity of it.

For now? She has a job to do.

#rp blog #ask blog #ask #sevika headcanon #silco headcanon #silco arcane #silco #sevika #sevika arcane #arcane rp blog #arcane headcanons #@zaunite-leo

86 notes · View notes

jungkoode · 5 months ago

Text

THE 25TH HOUR | O1

“𝟎𝟏:𝟓𝟗 𝐀𝐌”

"Time doesn't just stop at 1:59 AM. It fractures, it bleeds, and it brings a stranger who feels achingly familiar. And maybe the biggest mystery isn't the frozen city—it's why he looks at you like he's already lost you a thousand times."

next | index

— chapter details

word count: 2,4k

content: waking up in the 25th hour for the first time, time stopping, meeting the enigmatic min yoongi, and the creeping suspicion that this has all happened before

— author’s note

Well. Welcome to the Yoongi fanfic that will absolutely boggle your brain. Or at least, it’s boggling mine, but maybe that’s because I, unlike 25H!Y/N, am not built for analytical thought. Like, this girl is out here calculating temporal density shifts while I’m struggling to calculate how much sleep I need to survive (spoiler: more than I’m getting).

Honestly, this? I really said fuck the Matrix, let’s make it worse. You think you know where this is going? You don’t. You’re not ready, I promise you that much. This is angsty. Heavily. And not in the Fuck Me Up way, no—there’s no knife to the gut here. This is the slow, creeping existential dread of realizing time is a lie and also, you might be in love with someone who’s doomed. Or, worse, someone who’s doomed you. :) fun!

There’s a star-crossed lovers tag for a reason, okay??? But I’m also a horny hoe, so you will get smut. And not just smut. SMUT. The kind that makes you need to take a walk and question your life choices. I can’t say more or I’ll spoil it, so someone please sew my mouth shut before I start screaming about what’s coming. But just. Trust me. It’s worth it.

I know this might be a lot at first—temporal mechanics, erased timelines, ominous government agencies, Yoongi in a black turtleneck (the most dangerous thing of all)—but I promise it’ll make sense eventually. If not, I’ll make docs and diagrams for you like the absolute nerd that I am. Literally bombard my inbox with questions, I’m ready.

This is my love letter to The Matrix, The Umbrella Academy, and specifically Five Hargreeves (no, I don’t acknowledge Season 4, it doesn’t exist, don’t talk to me). And, of course, it’s also a love letter to Yoongi as the time-traveling, exhausted, morally gray bastard of your dreams.

So, yeah. Strap in. It’s gonna be one hell of a ride.

— read on

AO3

WATTPAD

Your Chrono-Sync Watch reads 01:59:00 AM when time stops.

The initial indicator isn't the digital display—it's the complete absence of the watch's usual microscopic vibrations against your wrist. Standard-issue Chrono-Sync Watches pulse at precisely 60 beats per minute, synchronized with the Master Clock. You've worn one since receiving your Temporal Monitoring certification three months ago. The constant rhythm becomes white noise, unnoticeable until it stops.

Now, at 01:59:00 AM, there is no pulse.

Temperature reading: 22°C. Three degrees below normal.

Your first thought is device malfunction. Protocol dictates immediate reporting of any Chrono-Sync irregularities. You reach for your phone to log the incident, but your hand freezes mid-motion.

The numbers on your digital clock aren't changing.

01:59:00 AM stays fixed, each pixel unnaturally sharp in the darkness of your bedroom. The air feels wrong—charged, like the moment before lightning strikes. The usual ambient sounds of your apartment building have ceased: no hum of electricity, no distant footsteps, no whisper of the heating system.

That's when you notice him.

He stands at the foot of your bed, a figure cut from darker shadows. Male, approximately 175cm, black clothing, pale skin. His posture suggests military training—weight evenly distributed, hands relaxed at his sides but ready to move. He's watching you with an expression you can't quite process: recognition layered with something that looks disturbingly like resignation.

Your body's reaction makes no logical sense.

Instead of fear or shock, you feel an inexplicable pull of familiarity. Your muscles relax rather than tense. Your right hand twitches, as if reaching for something—or someone—it expects to find.

"You weren't supposed to wake up." His voice carries no surprise, only weary confirmation. The words resonate at a frequency that makes your temples throb.

You know this voice.

You've never heard it before.

"Temporal anomaly detected at 01:59:00 AM," you find yourself saying, the words automatic yet foreign on your tongue. "Subject appears to be—"

"Agent Min Yoongi, Temporal Investigations." He cuts you off, his tone clipped. Professional. Wrong. "And you're about to have a very long hour, Monitor A-735."

The employee ID strikes something in your mind—a discordant note in an otherwise perfect sequence. You've never told him your designation. You haven't even started your new position at the Monitoring Center yet; orientation begins tomorrow.

"That's impossible," you say, falling back on data analysis. "The Chrono-Sync Network ensures perfect temporal alignment across all sectors. Temporal stasis of this magnitude would require—"

"Energy equivalent to powering the entire Eastern Seaboard for a year?" His lips twist into something that's not quite a smile. "The calculations are in your desk drawer. Third one down, behind the spare calibration tools you haven't bought yet."

You don't own a desk. You don't own calibration tools.

You know exactly which drawer he means.

The air crackles with increased static charge. Your skin prickles with electricity, and colors seem to sharpen beyond normal parameters. The taste of ozone grows stronger, mixing with something metallic—like memory, if memory had a flavor.

"What is this?" You check your watch again: 01:59:00 AM. No change. "How are you—"

"Get dressed," he interrupts, turning his back to you with practiced efficiency. "You have questions. I have approximately 58 minutes to answer some of them before they notice you're awake."

"They?"

"The Erasure Bureau." He says it like he's reading from a script he's memorized too many times. "They'll be here soon. Standard response for newly awakened Outliers in your sector."

Your hands are already moving to your dresser, selecting clothes with mechanical precision. The motion feels rehearsed, like muscle memory you shouldn't have. "I don't—"

"You're right-handed but you'll reach for the left drawer first," he says, still facing away. "You'll pick the black shirt because it's practical for temporal work. You'll grab the jacket even though it's warm because the temperature drops three degrees during the 25th hour. You'll put your hair up because you hate how it staticizes when time stops."

You freeze, left hand extended toward the drawer he indicated, right hand already moving to gather your hair.

"How do you—"

"We have 56 minutes left." His voice catches on the number. "And you'll need at least 10 of those to process the existence of the 25th hour without trying to rationalize it as a quantum irregularity or temporal feedback loop."

You're already forming hypotheses about quantum irregularities and temporal feedback loops.

"Stop thinking like an analyst," he says, and for a moment, his professional tone cracks. "Just... get dressed, Noma."

The nickname hits you like temporal whiplash. Your heart stutters, a arrhythmia that has nothing to do with the stopped time.

"What did you call me?"

"54 minutes." He checks a watch he isn't wearing. "And they're already tracking the temporal disturbance. We need to move."

You get dressed because it's logical, because it's protocol, because your body seems to know what to do even if your mind is still calculating impossibilities. The fabric raises static electricity when you pull it on, tiny sparks in the frozen air.

"Where are we going?" You check your watch again: 01:59:00 AM. The endless minute stretches out before you, an hour that shouldn't exist.

"To show you what happens when you wake up in the 25th hour." He finally turns back, and something flickers in his eyes—a flash of gold in the frozen time.

The word 'again' echoes in your mind like feedback from a temporal loop. You follow him because it's illogical, because it breaks protocol, because your body seems to remember steps it's never taken.

You have 53 minutes until time resumes.

You don’t have many more until the Erasure Bureau arrives.

You have no idea how many times you've done this before.

The frozen streets of Boston stretch out before you like a temporal photograph.

Your analytical mind automatically begins cataloging the anomalies: a taxi suspended mid-turn, its wheels hovering millimeters above the asphalt. Steam from a manhole caught in crystalline suspension. A woman frozen mid-stride, her scarf defying gravity in an arc that shouldn't maintain its shape.

"47 minutes," Agent Min announces without checking any visible timepiece. The hair hair on your arms rise despite the winter cold. His movements are too precise as he leads you through the frozen city—steps calculated, like he's walked this exact path countless times before.

You follow, mentally mapping your route. Third Street. Left on Harrison. Your usual path to—

"The coffee shop?" You stop at the familiar storefront. The neon sign flickers oddly in the frozen time, casting strange shadows that shouldn't exist when time isn't moving. "Why are we—"

"Look inside." His voice is carefully neutral, but there's something beneath it. Something like resignation. "Tell me what you see."

The window should be dark at 1:59 AM. Instead, warm light spills onto the frozen street. Through the glass, you can see the interior exactly as it always is during business hours—except completely still, caught between moments.

Except...

"That's my laptop." The words come out wrong, too quiet. "But I didn't—I was at home when time stopped. I haven't been here since—"

You press closer to the window. The laptop sits open at your usual table, surrounded by papers covered in equations you don't remember writing. A half-finished iced americano sits beside it, condensation frozen mid-drip.

"You ordered that drink six hours ago," Agent Min says. "In a timeline that no longer exists."

Your nose starts bleeding.

He hands you a black handkerchief before you even register the metallic taste. The fabric is worn soft, like it's been used for this exact purpose many times before. Your fingers fold it automatically into a familiar shape you shouldn't know.

"Look at the napkin under your coffee," he continues, his voice steady despite the way his hands clench at his sides. Like he's stopping himself from reaching toward you. "Read what you wrote."

You squint through the window.

There, in your handwriting:

1:59 am — Temporal overlap detected in sector 7

Time displacement: 3.7 seconds

Cause: unknown

Note to self: Ask Min about the golden traces

"I didn't write that," you say, even as your head pounds with the ghost of a memory. "I've never even been here at night. The shop closes at—"

"Ten PM. Except during the 25th hour." Agent Min's reflection in the window looks tired. Ancient. "You've written that same note seventeen times. In seventeen different timelines."

The static in the air intensifies. Your Chrono-Sync Watch remains frozen at 01:59:00, but you swear you can feel time trying to move around you, like waves breaking against a stone.

"What golden traces?" Your voice sounds distant to your own ears.

Instead of answering, Agent Min reaches toward the window. Where his fingers touch the glass, faint golden lines appear—like time itself is bending around his touch.

"44 minutes," he says softly. "That's how long we have before time resumes and they come looking for you. Again."

"Who?"

"I told you." He pulls his hand back, but the golden traces linger. "They detected your temporal signature the moment you woke up. The Erasure Bureau will be at your apartment by 2:03 AM."

You should argue. Should point out that temporal signatures are theoretical, that the Erasure Bureau is just an urban legend whispered about in the break room.

Instead, you find yourself asking:

"How many times have they found me?"

His not-quite-smile holds centuries of grief.

“Too many to count. But this time—" He stops himself, jaw clenching. "This time we're going to do things differently."

"Different how?"

He checks the time you can't see. "41 minutes. Long enough to show you how to hide from them, if you're willing to trust me."

You look back at the window—at the evidence of a life you don't remember living, at equations that make your head spin with almost-recognition. At the golden traces slowly fading from the glass.

"Do I have a choice?"

"You always have a choice." He sounds like he's quoting someone. Maybe you. "That's why they keep trying to erase you."

Through the window, you can see other details now. A jacket you lost months ago hanging on your chair. A phone charging that you could swear is in your pocket. A notebook open to a page where you've written a single sentence over and over:

Don't trust CHRONOS. Trust Min. He remembers.

He remembers.

Your head pounds at the words. Your watch stays frozen. And somehow, you know with absolute certainty that you've lived this moment before.

"40 minutes," Agent Min says quietly. "What's it going to be?"

You nod, the motion sending another drop of blood onto the handkerchief. The equation written there blurs—or maybe that's just your vision swimming.

Agent Min exhales sharply, the sound carrying years of frustration. His hand rakes through his hair—a gesture that seems both foreign and achingly familiar.

“Always with the—" He cuts himself off, jaw tightening. "39 minutes. We're behind schedule. Again."

His fingers wrap around your wrist with almost clinical precision, careful to grip over your sleeve rather than skin. The minimal contact sends a jolt through your system—not just static electricity, but something deeper.

Your pulse jumps 7 beats per minute. His skin runs exactly 2.3 degrees warmer than human standard.

"Agent Min, the physical contact protocol clearly states—"

"Your temporal signature is spiking," he interrupts, voice a tad strained, already pulling you away from the coffee shop window. "The contact stabilizes the frequency. Unless you want them detecting you from three sectors away?"

You want to argue, to cite regulation 47.3 about unauthorized temporal stabilization.

Instead, you find yourself analyzing the precise way his fingers align with your radius and ulna—perfect placement for optimal temporal resonance.

Like he's done this exact thing countless times before.

"38 minutes," he says, pace increasing. "Your cognitive processing is about to spike. Try not to fight it this time."

"This ti—" The word fragments as another wave of vertigo hits. The frozen street blurs, overlapping with other versions of itself. You see phantom footprints in the snow that hasn't fallen yet, traces of paths you haven't walked.

Your analytical mind tries to catalogue the impossibilities:

Temperature dropping 3.1 degrees.

Static charge increasing exponentially.

Colors shifting 0.7 nanometers toward ultraviolet.

Agent Min's grip adjusting exactly 0.4 seconds before you stumble.

"The temporal density is—" You start, clinging to mathematics as reality fractures around you.

"—increasing exponentially with proximity to the source," he finishes, that not-quite-smile returning. "You always say that. Right before you—"

Your knees buckle. His free hand is already there, still avoiding skin contact but steadying you nevertheless. The contact doubles the intensity of the memory bleed:

«A different night. The same grip on your wrist. Numbers burning behind your eyes as you realize what CHRONOS really is. His voice, urgent: "A-735, we need to move. They're coming.»

"Stop fighting the cognitive loop," Agent Min says, his current voice overlapping with the echo. "Your temporal resistance is too high. It's going to—"

Your nose starts bleeding again. Figures.

He mutters something that sounds like "stubborn" in a tone that carries too much history. His thumb shifts against your wrist over the fabric, pressing into a point that makes the vertigo recede slightly.

"36 minutes," he says, voice clipped. "We need to get you underground before the next memory hits. Your calculations were right, by the way."

"What calculations?"

"The ones you're about to remember." He changes direction, leading you down a narrow alley you've never seen before. Yet your feet know exactly where to step. "The ones that got you erased last time."

The static in the air thickens. Your Chrono-Sync Watch remains frozen at 01:59:00, but you swear you can feel time trying to writhe around you, like a living thing in pain.

"Agent Min," you say, focusing on protocol to keep your mind from fracturing further. "Where exactly are we—"

"Noma, please."

The words slip out, too soft, too familiar.

Imperceptibly, he stiffens.

Then he corrects himself. "A-735. We're going to the one place CHRONOS can't monitor properly. Try not to pass out this time."

This time. Always this time.

Your head pounds with equations you haven't written yet, theories you haven't proven, memories you can't possibly have.

The only constant is his grip on your wrist, warm and certain, like an anchor in a temporal storm.

35 minutes left.

The numbers feel like a countdown.

You're not sure to what.

taglist: @cannotalwaysbenight @livingformintyoongi @itstoastsworld @somehowukook

no reposts, translations, or adaptations

48 notes · View notes

t1red-twilight · 11 months ago

Text

southern belle

summary: yeehaw, yippee cay yay, howdy.

content/warnings: gn!reader, andrew!peter, cowboy!peter, fluff, slightly suggestive, inaccurate/romanticized farm life (i don’t live on a farm lol), a curse word(?), petnames galore

notes: this idea came to me in a dream and i wrote it in a haze

word count: 1.3k

masterlist p. parker masterlist

the sun beat down on the farm. even when inside the barn, the heat wafted through the wood roof and walls. the surrounding animals seemed to be in some sort of agreeable mood, as they too skulked around slowly.

the linen shirt you were wearing provided a sense of relief, as the material didn’t hold in too much heat close to your skin. as you wiped the sweat from your forehead, you stood to look out the open barn door to look and see if you could see peter out by the sheep.

both you and peter worked on this farm; the owners set up an agreement that in exchange for farm work, food, board, and a small wage would be provided. on top of this deal, the farm wasn’t too far from a small city where markets and things of the sort were held.

when you couldn’t see him, you turned back to your task at hand, distributing food the animals housed inside the barn. walking to the back of the barn to grab more seed while stepping over various rocks and other things that you didn’t want crushed into your boots, you heard a faint calling of your name.

you turned and squinted out the barn door into the sunlight. peter was lightly jogging toward you, a boyish grin spread across his face. he too had a sheen of sweat spread across his forehead. (you figured that you didn’t look as good as he did in the sweltering heat.)

you sped forward to meet him halfway. looking up into his eyes and returning his giddy expression, warmth filled your face. a couple of months in, peter and you had gotten together. it was a well known fact that the two of you were fond of each other and frequently snuck off together.

your dominant hand reached up to brush a piece of his soft brown hair out of his eyes. he gently grasped your hand and held it to his face. his other hand wiped the sweat off of his forehead, and oddly enough this motion incited an even more flustered response throughout you.

“hi, peter,” you just about whispered out at him.

“hi, my little southern belle.” his doe eyes almost twinkled. he removed his hat from atop his head and placed in on top of yours, gliding his fingers across the edge.

stepping closer to him you almost melted, and not just from the incredibly high temperature. “how are the sheep doing? diane running off again?” your thumb grazed his cheek rhythmically.

“you know she is, darlin’,” he followed and stepped closer to you.

a soft silence followed only filled with the surrounding animals making noises. it almost seemed like they were cooing at the both of you. peter reached upward and proceeded to wipe the sweat from your cheek.

“you want to do something later?” he shyly looked downward (briefly) before looking up at your eyes again.

the nervous expression was not lost to you. your hand moved lower to his jawline; you tilted your head and cocked an eyebrow. “you know i do, pete,” copying his wording from earlier.

your lips quirked upward and you inches closer to him. one of his hands lowered to your waist and the other continued to hold your hand to his face. you both felt and saw his head tilt to the right, and you emulated him.

time seemed to slow as your lips swept across his. he pulled away fleetingly, and leaned in again. his lips caressed yours at first before he pushed further inward.

you tilted your head again to slot his lips against yours ever so slightly. his hand occupying your waist untucked your shirt and slid up your shirt. his body heat didn’t bother you in the slightest. if any of the other farm hands were to see you, you’d both likely be lost for words and dart in the opposite direction. luckily enough, no one was to be found.

peter’s tongue gingerly stroked your upper lip. you parted your lips slightly, just to feel him tenderly enter your mouth. you sighed at this gesture. you began to repeat his actions once again before he pulled apart, a string of saliva connecting your mouths.

your torso was widely tugged closer to his. you tilted your head to push closer to him; he huffed into your mouth in response to this. peter’s hand located on your jaw moved backwards toward your hairline. his fingers tightened slightly and pulled your hair as you continued to kiss him fervently and lick into his mouth.

he left some open mouth kisses along your throat and jaw. your head tipped backward and your leg wrapped around his calf. his hand moved up your back.

he pulled apart again, this time in an effort to gaze into your eyes. seeing as your head was still tilted back, he moved your face back down and stroked you upper cheekbone to urge your eyes open. his upper hand moved to pet your hair down in an effort to tame it.

a voice called fro out in the field. “petey boy! we have to get back to work. you can’t spent all afternoon swooning over your ‘doll,’ you know.” ugh, it was the owner. unfortunately, he was right. even though he was easy going, you both had to keep your jobs. peter removed his hand from the flesh of your waist and tried to smooth the fabric of your shirt.

“alright, honey bunches,” he murmured. “we have to get back to work, so it seems.” a pout shone across his face. you covered your mouth as you laughed softly.

your hands altered position and stroked his shoulders in (somewhat false) pity for you two. “so it seems, my love.”

although you acted like this separation was permanent, it was only for the rest of the work day. when the heat dimmed and the sun set, you would both reunite as if you hadn’t seen each other in decades. some might call it a honeymoon phase, but you prayed it would last forever.

leaning into him and closing your eyes in a dramatic manner for what seemed like an eternity, you finally replied once more. “okay love bug. we should really get back to work again.” a pause filled the sauce between you. “i’ll see you later, yeah? got any ideas?”

the hot air appeared to resume despite the fact that it had never ceased to begin with.

“i think some of the other farmhands are lighting a bonfire tonight? that somethin’ you’d be interested in joining me for?”

you looked down at your boots in false thought. “well, i guess i have nothing going on later,” you teased. the look on his face temporarily showed worry at this response. “just kidding. i’d go anywhere if i know you’d be there, honey.”

his sigh of relief was audible and his form relaxed instantaneously. “okay, perfect. i’ll pick you up from your room around 8-ish? that sound good?”

peter was just about it off by the familiar going at him again: “pete! i mean it! the sheep need to be sheared later today.” you covered your mouth to hide your laugh this time.

you retorted, “i won’t hold you captive anymore, honey,” and pushed him playfully in the direction of the open barn door.

he held up his hands in defeat. “i’m goin’, i’m goin. see you at 8, sugar?”

“promise. see you then.” you smiled so hard you were sure you looked clownish. you were sure you were bright red as you removed his hat and held in front of yourself as some sort of offering. he took it graciously and returned it to sit on his brown tufts of hair. you wiggled your fingers in a wave motion.

he walked backwards out of the barn, an you gazed at him lovingly. sure enough, if anyone saw you you’d have hearts instead of your eyes.

you turned back to walk towards the seed for the chickens (or whatever was you were doing) and remembered something.

peter had untucked your shirt, in a coy act. that cheeky bastard. quickly, you tucked the back of your shirt in.

oh, how you couldn’t wait to see him later.

#oh to have a southern gentleman #there are NO pics of mr garf in a cowboy hat #smh my head #lee’s writing <3 #peter parker x reader #peter parker fluff #andrew garfield!peter x reader #andrew garfield!peter #tasm!peter x reader #tasm!peter parker #x reader #fluff

101 notes · View notes

cricky-butspicy · 17 days ago

Note

How would Atlas and Soleil handle a reader that is a bit of a scatterbrain? (Potentially? ADHD?) On a "I misplaced something because I accidentally put it on the wrong side of the table than I wanted to, and if I can't see my things in the open they stop existing to me" kind of level.

ADHD havers unite, I struggle so bad with the "out of sight out of mind" or as I like to call it, "out of sight lost forever."

I will warn you that Soleil tries to help, but his help isn't the most helpful sometimes. He tries. But Atlas does some good! Some!

Soleil tries to help with sticky notes and logical solutions. He has a specific coasters for your drinks and says "Always put your drinks here! Then you won't lose them!" And that only helps if you remember to put your drinks on the coasters (he has like 8 of them out for you so you have 8 places to check. If they aren't there, your drink has been distributed to the void. Sorry, no helping there.) He'll get frustrated if you don't use his systems because he created them just for you! But either you or Atlas can help him on that with either saying "Not all systems work for everyone," or the softer, "It was a good system, it just didn't work this time."

Soleil also keeps tabs on your things and writes down lots of notes and reminders for you in hopes that they catch your attention and help you stay on track and remember them! He'll even go to your apartment and do the same thing. He has a whiteboard on the front of your fridge to remind you what to eat first, when things expire, and what you need more of. We just hope that you don't experience sensory adaption or habituation where things constantly there just fade into the background eventually and just become one with the fridge and no longer catch your attention. He tries so hard to come up with a system for you that makes sense and works, but it's hard and he has to change some things up a lot while keeping others constant. He tries to keep mental lists as well to remind you or help you, too, but the man has a lot to think about and remember. It's not promised he'll remember the lettuce in your fridge going bad on Friday.

You are overworking his brain on this, because being all over the place with your brain can be hard to keep track of and help, especially if you don't have a diagnoses that can be given and maybe a prescription that can help your brain function more on track. Sometimes it's just how people's brains are, and its how it will work. You'll all get used to it together.

Atlas does probably the smartest thing for you. He keeps track of your shit for you. Truly the easiest solution for him. Instead of searching the ends of their apartment for your things, he just remembers where you put it for later on. Your cup? You set it over on the island about 20 minutes ago. Your drink is probably room temperature now. That assignment from your shared class? It's due tomorrow. You should probably work on it. It might take you a minute. Your phone that you just had? Check under you. You were messing with it and sat next to it and it probably moved when you dipped into the couch. Your things are now his things to keep track of, too. And though there are a lot more things to keep track of now, it's easier than you panicking or getting upset that you lost something and can't find it.

He also takes notes on where you often put things in your own apartment so if you call him telling him you lost something, he can mentally think of where it could have been put. You lost your drink? Is it in the fridge? Did you forget it in the microwave? On the floor next to the edge of your couch. What about that weird shelf on your side table next to your couch? Did you take it to your room? He's pulling it all out until you find it. It might be annoying, but at least you find your things. And he's never upset about it thankfully, he just thinks really hard on if he were you, where would he put this thing? And then he has to take a step back and just think about places in your apartment because being you is a big step and you could place that thing in space in you tried and then forget about it a few minutes late after getting distracted by another task.

Neither blame you; sometimes you just can't keep things straight. It probably frustrates you to no end. They have no place being frustrated about it with you. All they can do is try to help. Though Atlas probably has to tell Soleil to give you a break a few times when he gets a little irritated with you not following his listed instructions.

(Truly, if Soleil didn't have his systems, he'd be all over the place constantly misplacing things and forgetting where they are. It's why he's so organized. He has no choice but to be to save his peace.)

#fnaf sun #fnaf moon #killing you with kisses while they get the knife #slasher au #human au #soleil #human sundrop #atlas #human moondrop #human sun and moon #slasher au reader #slasher x reader #cricky answers

12 notes · View notes

hello-there-cyarika · 2 years ago

Text

Hive Troopers!

But what if the Kaminoans crossed Jango's DNA with some sort of Nabooian or Alderaanian honey bee? It probably helps them communicate on the battlefield, and obviously they get the benefits of not needing a jetpack! I've got a lot of thoughts about these boys, but I'll just give some of the basics for now:

The troopers can use communicate sort of like a hive mind! It's not as sophisticated as using communicators, but they can convey feelings and vague ideas

Their antennae are very sensitive! They can be used to sense touch, smell, taste, some vibrations, temperature, and more! I think that ARFs like Waxer and Boil would probably learn to use them with a lot more skill through their training, in the same way they'd learn to use more complex or advanced HUD modes.

I think that troopers' stingers would be closer to the stingers that wasps have: retractable, and doesn't cause them to die after one sting by getting ripped off.

Troopers' wings are also probably way more durable, I can't imagine the Kaminoans sending them into battle with anything fragile like that, so they probably modified the DNA. I think the wings are pretty flexible instead of being breakable.

I'll go into this more another time, if anyone is interested, but I think that the distribution of internal organs would be significantly different with the addition of the secondary abdomen.

The boys are FLUFFY!!!

I think that the fluff would be kinda waterproof (I mean,,,, they grew up on Kamino and all) but on the other hand I think it'd make fire waaaay more dangerous. I think that blaster bolts could also cause the fluff to catch fire....

Can they make honey? yeah dude they're beeeeeees

They probably made space-mead out of it lmao

I have a lot of feelings about the way cadets are grown in little tubes land sleep in tubes on the walls like bees use honeycomb for their larvae and its all in large curved structures and how the whole thing seems just a touch like a hive......

They can DEFINITELY dance maps like bees can!!!! The ARCs and ARFs are the best at it.

They don't have compound eyes, but they do have hexagonal pupils!

I'm gonna doodle more of this whenever I have time, so let me know if you want to see anything specific, or have any fun ideas from this? I'd love to talk about them!!! <3

I also want to say that I have been VERY heavily inspired by @mothask! Please go have a look at their amazing fluffy moth boys!

@yukipri's winged au is also a huge inspiration for this! Y'all have GOT to go check out "Take Flight, Brothers All" on ao3 it's SO GOOD!!

And finally, a lot of the ideas I've developed about the bees' ARF training have come from the Reconstruction Corps AU (specifically Open Skies), created by the amazing @cacodaemonia!! I've got a lot of plans for Wax and Bo as ARF bees that I'm so excited to get started on!

So much love and appreciation to all of my inspirations!!!!! <333333

I have no idea if anyone's made anything like this before lol, but if anyone has I'd love to know!!

<3 I do not give my consent or my permission for my art to be re-posted or reuploaded on this or any other website <3

208 notes · View notes

majorasnightmare · 5 months ago

Text

throws my out of date psych college courses into the ring

so!! as a fun fact, humans actually only have two instincts! instinct here referring to unconscious automatic behaviors that dont need to be taught. in humans thats fight or flight, and suckling in infants!

dirge, as the Dark Urge, has Genuine Actual Instincts, an experience literally no one else in or out of the party has! even druids like halsin only have conditional instincts based on their wildshape, and can break out of them

so in addition to the default humanoid package dirge has, he also has kill instincts, instinctively knowing how to kill other humanoids and when to pounce. this is bhaal's "holy promise of murder" and even without the influence of the Urges, dirge retains the instinct still. a letter from sarevok in the epilogue indicates that the dark urge is also saddled with an instinctive need to sire progeny that also will manifest depressive symptoms if left unsatisfied, but also that this particular instinct can take years, if not decades to actually pop up, which makes sense as breeding instincts in other mammals are usually on a hormone based timer.

its somewhat common knowledge that humans have more than five senses (proprioception, the sense of how our bodies are oriented in 3d space and used for movement and acrobatics, and a sense of temperature), but in addition to those dirge, as a bhaalspawn, also can sense the presence of death and life dying around him, typically a pleasant sensation. as specifically a godspawn made from bhaal's flesh, dirge also possesses the capability to physically sense faith and sacredness, though he hasnt honed it since his lobotomy and thus is very vague and faint. (his eldest paladin siblings, however, have trained and honed that sense extensively)

under the hood, dirge has a denser-than-average olfactory bulb, owing to his sharper sense of smell, and his eyes have a mutated color cone allowing him to perceive a greater variety of red with finer nuance in shades and saturations. the corpus collosum was damaged by orins attack, but has since recovered somewhat around the scar tissue, and the reward and pleasure center in his brain is unusually dense, with specific neural structures dedicated to allowing that part of his brain to be activated externally, owing to a lifetime in the cult of bhaal having the ecstasy of murder triggered repeatedly. the amygdala and brainstem areas are also denser than average, due to dirge having more instinctive behaviors than a normal tiefling, and a lifetime of near death fear activation. those areas also have to account for dirge having unique muscle groupings that behave unlike other muscle sections in his body, and thus necessitate their own instructions (dirges jaw muscles having variable tensile strength for inhuman bite force, dirges leg and hip muscles able to rotate for an on all fours stance)

theres also the changes he made to his own brain, inviting caiphon into his mind and training psionics for years, and then utilizing the astral tadpole to further develop them. psionics for SURE causes changes in brain structure but i dont know if itd be localized to the frontal lobe or distributed throughout the entire brain, but i know that for how heavily dirge uses em, his brain is DEFINITELY showin signs

dirge is this odd chimeric mix of aberrant and divine, beastial and civilized, and i think it rly shows in how his brain just. does NOT look normal, even before he got holes punched in it

#dirgeposting #like he isnt fucking around he legit has uncontrollable animal instincts yall GOTTA listen to him when he brings this up #he is running a different os than yall!!! he is slash srs!!!

15 notes · View notes

putschki1969 · 9 months ago

Text

2024/09/27 Wakanaとみんなで行って来た！屋形船でまんぷくに！！〜一日目の巻〜

❗This is Fan Club EXCLUSIVE content❗ ❗PERSONAL USE ONLY❗ ❗Do NOT SHARE on other sites❗ ❗Join her FAN CLUB! Check out my detailed TUTORIAL ❗

Let's All Go Together! On A Houseboat Full-Course Tour!! 〜Day 1〜

The other day, my “Join Wakana! Houseboat Full-Course Tour” ended successfully after two eventful days ＼(^o^)／I had so much fun that time went by in a flash…just like a live show😂

I'd like to look back on these two fun days and share a lot of photos with you! First, I'd like to talk about the Day 1 event which took place in the evening😊Here's the meal I've been looking forward to for a long time! Huge tempura!! 🍤🍤🍤 So crispy!! A variety of amazing dishes!! 😭✨Take a look at this big ~Menu~. I'm so happy that we were able to do justice to the tour name by having so many different courses😊

I am saying my greetings to all participants of Day 1✨Cheers!! ♪(^^)o∀∀o(^^*)♪ Everyone seemed to enjoy their meal which made me very happy♪ We were all divided into groups at each table. Since there were a lot of solo attendees, I wondered what it would be like for them~?😳 Even though, some of them were meeting each other for the first time, everyone seemed to enjoy pouring drinks for each other and chatting. I was relieved to see you getting along with each other😊As expected, all my Botanical companions are full of kindness!! ＼(^o^)／Thank you!! ＼(^o^)／💕

We all got to enjoy the night view of Odaiba while feeling the night breeze on the boat♡ On that day, it was pretty windy and rainy in the morning so I was quite worried about our little boat trip…😱 I couldn't help but feel anxious💦 But just in time for the boarding, we were able to see the most beautiful sunset once the sky had cleared up a bit. The temperature was just right with a nice breeze. I think everyone enjoyed watching the sunset while waiting for the boat…😊(I was secretly watching everyone on board from afar and waving at you.) Anyway, I'm glad it was sunny😊💕

Here's a picure of Rainbow Bridge as seen from the houseboat🌉 And he Fuji TV building was shining brilliantly📺 There were many houseboats all around us ♪

We did a Q&A corner! It was fun😂But of course, the best thing about this houseboat was karaoke!! After boarding, we distributed a song list to everyone, and each table got to choose one song they wanted to hear. They all wrote their request on a little board we provided🌟(Here's one of the request boards. A fan drew this cute picture!) Here I am during the karaoke session🎤The song choices were well-balanced and varied, which was fun. Unfortunately, we all struggled a lot with the karaoke machine on Day 1🤣 I didn't know that I had to "select the original key," so I was confused when I kept getting a key that was too low for my voice. As for the microphone, I wanted to sing close to the speaker, but there was always feedback…It was difficult to find a goof position that didn't cause any trouble💦After a lot of trial and error, I ended up singing with my back facing the audience😂😂 Sorry to everyone behind me…😭😭Actually, the mystery was solved the following day. It seems that the houseboat karaoke machine is designed for people to sit while singing. Makes sense if you think about it. But at that time I wasn't able to figure it out at all🤣 That's why every time I stood up to sing, I got this horrible feedback *sobs*. But eventually, I found a good position that worked for me so I didn't leave that spot for the remainder of the karaoke session🎤At the end of Day 1, I found a wonderful message by a fan…😭✨A rabbit and sharks🦈🦈Thank you for the message😊

I chose this yukata for Day 1 because the yellow flowers were cute🌼I used a gyoza ornament for the obidome🥟This is actually a gyoza magnet that I received from a fan. I had it attached to my obidome🥟My manager actually helped me put on the yukata‼ ️＼＼\٩( 'ω' )و //／／Some of the participants came to the event in kimonos and yukatas, it's amazing that you can put them on by yourself…😳 I'm jealous😳

All right, that was Day 1 of my “Join Wakana! Houseboat Full-Course Tour” ･:*+.(( °ω° ))/.:+ Next time I'll write about the event on Day 2 which took place during the daytime.

~To be continued~

Last but not least! Today, the key visual for "Wakana Classics 2024", was released, so I thought I'd talk a little bit about it here ♡ Sorry for the sudden departure from my houseboat stories😂For the photo shoot, I got to wear a beautiful dress again✨ It was raining really hard that day but thanks to my photographer who always brings the sun with him, it ended up being sunny! 😍 I'm glad we were able to take many pictures outdoors surrounded with greenery🌿 Actually, the composition of this key visual is pretty much the same as the one for my May live. I'm even looking in the same direction😊 This year, I was able to safely celebrate my 5th Anniversary as a solo artist. I'm looking towards the future, at all the things that I believe await me beyond today, "sono saki e". Believing that there is an even bigger world waiting for us "beyond," gives me the courage to continue to forge ahead with all of you. Please continue following me‼️＼＼\٩( 'ω' )و //／／

Well, that's all for today! Until next time~☆( '▽')/

＊＊＊Wakana＊＊＊

2024/09/28 Wakanaとみんなで行って来た！屋形船でまんぷくに！！〜二日目の巻〜

❗This is Fan Club EXCLUSIVE content❗ ❗PERSONAL USE ONLY❗ ❗Do NOT SHARE on other sites❗ ❗Join her FAN CLUB! Check out my detailed TUTORIAL ❗

Let's All Go Together! On A Houseboat Full-Course Tour!! 〜Day 2

Well, today I'd like to talk about Day 2 of “Join Wakana! Houseboat Full-Course Tour”! This time, the event took place around noon‼︎＼＼\٩( 'ω' )و //／／It rained from the morning on this day as well (why!😂) and I wondered what would happen but thankfully…the sun came out just in time！！！！＼(^o^)／The view from the houseboat was the same Odaiba area, but during the day, it was completely different from the previous night's view. Such a refreshing blue sky! The Rainbow Bridge♪ And Fuji TV📺Look at those beautiful clouds…😍The sun was bright, but there was a lovely breeze, very pleasant〜😊

On the second day, I wore a grape🍇 patterned yukata🤗 Here I am filming something for my FC video section! 🎥 (please be patient and wait a little while longer)

My Botanical companions of Day 2 were watching over me with smiles on their faces😂Thank you everyone〜😆Here's a photo of everyone on the boat on Day📸Cheers‼️♪(^^)o∀∀o(^^*)♪ Everyone was just as energetic as during Day 1‼︎😊I'm actually jealous that you were all drinking alcohol in the daytime😍 (I just had oolong tea!) Once again I was looking forward to the freshly fried tempura!! 🍤💕I was so happy to see them bringing out all the delicious fried food…😭✨

It goes without saying that we were able to enjoy the view outside better than at night. I was also surprised at how fast we were going😳 I had a blast eating amazing food and looking at the gorgeous view 😊(Here's a lovely photo taken by my manager📸 Kind of looks like Spirited Away)

On Day 2, I finally learned how to use the karoake machine properly so I sang while sitting in the request karaoke corner😂I tried a few different sitting positions *laughs* Look at my half-sitting posture🤣🤣So innovative! I got to sing in a great place again😁🎶I wonder if it's okay to have karaoke sessions like this more often? Where I can just casually do whatever I want🎤*laughs* Sorry to everyone who only got to look at my back😂 I got another cute picture drawn on one of Day 2's request boards😊Amagi-Goe by Sayuri Ishikawa! It was fun to sing enka in front of everyone for the first time🎤

At the end of both days, there was a big raffle corner in which I gave away parts of my precious Pothos to two people each day! It's growing fast so I have to cut it regularly. It was the perfect timing to cut off a few parts for you😊 I actually bought my Pothos baby at "Shibuya Engei". My trip was featured in Botanical Tsushin Vol.12! Page 17!! (Look how tiny it was!😳By the way, the pot in the photo has since been repurposed for another baby of mine, a plant called Agave Titanota🌱) If you put a cut part of my Pothos into water, this is what will happen…! ＼＼\٩( 'ω' )و //／／Once the roots have grown, you can just change the water about once a month (it's okay if you forget to do it occasionally) By the way, I did an experiment to see if roots would grow from just the leaves, and they did! ＼＼\٩( 'ω' )و //／／That's amazing 😳To the four people who won parts of my Pothos, please take care of them and let them grow 😊💕And please don't worry, it's okay if they die! Plants are sensitive to their environment, so they die all the time! But once they find a place they like, they'll grow really big! I hope you have fun growing plants‼ ︎😍Everyone else, if you're interested, please also try growing a Pothos🌿

Finally, here are some of my stuffed animals. I had them on display all over the boat! So cute~🤤💕🐙🦈I put a lot of them around the karaoke machine too🦈In fact, I also placed a Kaito Kid plushie all the way in the back (￣▽￣) Thank you everyone for the fun time over the course of those two days‼ ︎‼ ︎‼ ︎･゜ﾟ･:.｡..｡.:･'(ﾟ▽ﾟ)'･:.｡. .｡.:･゜ﾟ･

It was my first time planning an event like this but we all had fun eating, talking about all sorts of things, taking pictures, singing songs… It was great😂I also got a lot of presents from you…😭✨My Botanical companions are always so kind and warm, you make my heart feel at ease😊Thank you so much!!! I'll keep thinking of more fun fan club activities for you! ! ! ＼＼\٩( 'ω' )و //／／Hopefully we can get back together soon!!

〜The end〜

Today, the advanced ticket lotteries on various ticket platforms for "Wakana Classics 2024" have started! 🎻🎹🎶Let's spend time together surrounded by music at Wakana Classics at the end of yet another year ('▽')

[Date] December 18th; Open at 17:45 / Start 18:30 [Venue] Hamarikyu Asahi Hall (Music Hall) [Performers] Vocals: Wakana Music Director/Piano: Sin (Hashimoto Shin) Violin: Yanagihara Yuya Cello: Nishikata Masateru

And since this concert marks the end of my 5th year as a solo artist, I decided to create a special music box to commemorate the anniversary‼ ︎･:*+.(( °ω° ))/.:+ The song is "Sono Saki e"😊 I told the team I'd like to have a design inspired by stained glass. They really did a great job with the pattern on the top and the illustration in the box😭✨I hope you will enjoy this commemoration of my 5th Anniversary. Matching the title of the song "Sono Saki e"🌟, I'd like to convey all my thoughts for the future with this.

[Pre-order] Wakana 5th Anniversary "Sono Saki e" music box

And finally! I'd like to remind you of the submission deadline for this month's podcast talk theme!! ＼＼\٩( 'ω' )و //／／This time the main topic is "Everyone's Rules of Healthy Living"! Do you take a walk every day? Or do you drink anything special?! Maybe you always try to remember to smile? Things like that...Please let me know what you all do to stay healthy😉

▼Next talk topic -Everyone's Rules of Healthy Living -Any Questions for Wakana https://wakana-fc.jp/answers/botanical_oshaberi_14/new

So, that's it for today!! Until next time~☆( '▽')/

＊＊＊Wakana＊＊＊

#kalafina #wakana #wakana blog #botanical land #fan club exclusive content #these are long overdue #so sorry #finally working through my backlog #LOVE all those pictures #wish I had been there

21 notes · View notes