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lemontwst · 4 years

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Nessun Dorma | 01 - f!ver.

he says i am sorry i am not an easy person to want i look at him surprised who said i wanted easy i don’t crave easy i crave goddamn difficult

❥ 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔: harem x f!reader. | male version here.

❥ 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑟𝑒: cyoa + smut.

⟶ index | prologue.

You can’t say no to him.

You don't think you'd ever be able to deny Mira anything, really. Not when he looks at you like a kicked puppy… a tall, imposing kicked puppy with weird horns on his head who could probably cremate you alive without breaking a sweat.

"Of course I would stay with you! Do you even have to ask?" You reach out to touch his face. His skin always feels so cold under your fingers, but the fire in his eyes burns brighter than ever, as if the intensity of his flames depends solely on the intensity of your affection for him.

"I love you, Mira."

Your heart flutters at your own words and for a second you don't even know if you mean that as a friend or as a lover. But, well, you're only sixteen years old. You have a lifetime to figure it out.

You think Mira stops breathing, but it's hard to tell because the rise and fall of his chest is usually pretty much imperceptible anyway.

“I… I love you too.”

He sounds like he’s about to cry. One of his hands rests against your chest. It’s an innocent touch. He’s just feeling your heartbeat under his palm, tiny and steady like that of a little bird, “I will always, always love you. Even if one day you grow to hate me. Even if you forget about me. Even should you fall in love with somebody else…”

You suddenly feel very tired.

His gentle voice is like a lullaby in this field of roses. His words leave you dazed, like he’s casting a spell on you.

“I love you, (y/n).”

The last thing you hear is Mira wishing you a happy birthday before you fall into a warm, comfortable sleep without dreams.

___

A sharp pain in your chest jerks you awake.

It fucking hurts, like your heart is being pierced by a shard of glass. Like the fissures of your very existence are being pulled apart at the seams.

You clutch the spot above your heart, almost elbowing Epel in the face with all your trashing, trying to catch your breath.

"(y/n)! What the hell...?" Your friend rolls away from you, finally letting go of the octopus hold he had on you all night. He's all disheveled as he gives you a weak glare, falling back into the makeshift bed you two share with a groan.

It's not even a bed, really. Just a pile of cotton blankets messily thrown under the skylight of an unused barn. This is your little hiding place, and despite you two having perfectly comfortable beds in the main house with Grandma and Grandpa, you prefer to spend your summer nights sleeping in this very loft, where it's cool and open and comfortable.

"Sorry! I… had a nightmare… I think.”

Your friend is used to it by now, “Do you remember what it was about?”

"No… not really."

"Nothing at all?

"No, just…"

"Green eyes." Epel finishes the sentence for you. You've been having the same nightmare for a while, and your friend knows all about it, considering he sleeps right next to you most of the time.

Green eyes. Burning emerald. It's all you remember, alongside a gut wrenching, heart shattering feeling of longing that stays with you long after you've woken up.

"... Hey, you okay?" You must have looked as miserable as you feel, because Epel leans closer to you, peering into your face with worry in his eyes.

"Yeah… it's just a stupid dream." You shrug, leaning your head against his shoulder, "But you know what would make me feel better?"

Epel shrugs, but the way his brow crinkles tells you he's already prepared himself for whatever dumb thing you're about to say.

He knows you too well.

"I'd feel sooo much better if I had an additional piece of toast for breakfast today…" you sigh dreamily and Epel sighs.

"Fine." He shrugs you off and stands up. When he stretches, a peek of white skin flashes under his light blue shirt.

"What, really?" Your eyebrows shoot up. It's not usually this easy to get him to hand over his morning toast.

"Yeah," Epel walks the length of the loft and starts going down the ladder to the ground level of the barn. Before his head completely disappears under the edge of the loft, he throws you an arrogant smirk, "I wouldn't want the deafenin' roars of your stomach wakin’ up every wolf 'n boar in the area."

You're rushing after him immediately.

He can’t claim the bread if he’s dead.

___

You live a simple, happy life here in the Village of Harvest.

Your journey might not have had the best start—your parents left you on a doorstep in a basket when you were a small baby, but Epel's grandparents took you in and cared for you like you were theirs, and you grew up surrounded by love in a small farming community.

Sure, your days might not be terribly exciting. You don't have things like a mall, or a cinema or… anything built after the seventeenth century, really, but you have Epel and your grandparents and that's enough.

Oh, and you have Beau.

The little lamb trots towards you as soon as you're out of the house, your belly full with toast and Grandma's delicious apple jam, and starts nibbling at your socks immediately.

Beau is minuscule. The tiniest lamb you've ever seen, always struggling to follow behind you on unsteady legs like you're his mother. Epel says it's because he feels a kinship with a fellow pipsqueak. You're always quick to point out that Epel is not that much taller than you anyway.

"Good morning, sweetie." You pick up Beau in a swift movement and hold him to your chest with one arm, carrying a wicker basket in the other, "Ready to pick some apples?"

Beau starts nibbling on your hair in response. This little guy… he's always munching.

"Just make sure he doesn't actually eat the apples." Epel starts walking in front of you, throwing Beau an unimpressed look.

You can't be sure but you feel like Beau is glaring back at him.

Sigh. Children.

___

You're always dead tired when you finally reach your bed. Farm life is fun and rewarding, but it’s also incredibly exhausting. That coupled with the fact that you haven’t been getting much sleep lately means that you’re out like a light as soon as your head hits the pillow, barely having the strength to say goodnight to Epel before you’re spiraling into a deep sleep.

…

You know you should be surprised to see him, but you never are. You can always feel him creeping around the outer edges of your dreamscape, but it doesn’t bother you. You invite him in every time, even if you forget all about it when you wake up, almost like you know instinctively that he won’t hurt you. Almost like you know him.

The man in your dreams is gorgeous, the kind of beauty that makes you want to learn sculpting so you can attempt to immortalize it. His skin is paler than marble, free of scars or blemishes. His ebony hair looks silky, a stream of ink that frames his handsome face and falls past his shoulders. He is tall, the tallest person you’ve ever seen, and the evil-looking horns on his head make him look ever more imposing.

But what you find most striking about him are his eyes. Emerald gems with flames inside them. It’s the only detail of his that you remember when you wake up, the rest of him a cloud of black smoke when you attempt to picture him outside of your dreams.

“Good evening, Deerlet.” His voice has the texture of silk and when he speaks, it feels like the ground shakes beneath your feet. “Did you miss me as much as I missed you, I wonder?” He closes in on you with slow, purposeful steps, elegant as a cat even as he leans forward slightly, like he wants to keep you in place by towering over you. His expression is curious and serene. You have a feeling he always looks at you like this.

“Why are you here?” You take a few steps back, not because you’re scared of him, but because you're scared of how badly you suddenly want to reach out and touch him. Your bare feet step on something soft, like flowers, and suddenly the dull landscape around you shifts into a view that feels strangely familiar to you. An open meadow and a purple sky above you. An endless sea of black roses around you.

“Your eighteenth birthday is tomorrow.” He closes the distance again, as attracted to you as you are to him. You’re like two ends of a magnet, when one pulls back the other follows. “I really felt quite distressed at not receiving an invitation.” The small, arrogant smile on his face sends a flurry of tingles down your spine.

“In any case, I won’t be able to celebrate with you tomorrow.”

You feel like you already know where this is going.

“So I’ve brought you your gift today,” He reaches out to touch your elbows, languidly pulling you closer to him in a half-embrace that makes your heart skip a beat. There’s too much empty space between the two of you. His fingers linger over your skin, barely touching you.

“Do you want to know what it is?” He whispers against your ear. One of his hands gently cradles your face. His lips brush against your temple and you shiver, completely paralyzed on the spot, “It’s my love, of course.”

Not granting you the chance to run away, the man picks you up like you weigh nothing, then gently lowers you over the roses.

"I don't… I don't even know you." You meekly push at his chest, turning your head away. It's like trying to move a mountain, and the hardness under your hands makes you blush something fierce.

He chuckles above you, but he's not amused. It's a pained, bitter sound, like you just reached inside his ribcage and crushed his heart in your hand. His ebony hair tickles your skin when he leans down to press kisses against your jaw, "Oh, you do know me, beloved. You are the other end of my soul, as I am yours."

His adoring voice, barely a whisper against your skin, leaves you dazed and gasping for air. Your legs open almost instinctively for him, your thighs wet with excitement. A clawed hand makes his way from your shoulder to your side, slowing down when it passes over your breast as if he's indulging in the forbidden fruit. His fingers reach your inner thigh and he runs a slow circle against the wet, trembling flesh, eager to soak in your juices.

You watch with half-lidded eyes as he brings his hand to his mouth. A forked tongue peaks between his lips, slowly running over one of his lucid fingers. It brings back a memory of that time you dropped jam on your forearm, and that same forked tongue cheekily swept it away. The vision is so clear it leaves the hint of a name in your dry mouth.

"Mi… ra?"

His eyes dart to yours and you think they're actually burning. Emerald flickers to life. His snake pupils shrink. He makes a show of slowly running his thumb down his tongue, leaving a trail of milky fluid behind. Your stomach clenches with need, your entire body lighting up like he just poured gasoline on you and burned it with a match.

"Is… is that your name?" You manage to gasp the words out, suppressing a shiver when he hums low in his throat. Every nerve in your body is screaming at you to just give in already. To stop asking questions and wrap your arms around him instead, letting him use your body until he's satisfied. The urge to make him happy is almost primal in you, cauterizing your synapses. The need for him almost tears you apart.

"It's what you call me." It's a habit of his to sound both sad and adoring, you realize. You open your mouth to scold him for being so cryptic, but snap it shut when his hands rest on your chest. He palms the soft flesh gently, a small smirk on his arrogant face, "My precious Deerlet. Always so insatiably curious."

His thumbs slowly circle your hard nipples. Little jolts of electricity run down your spine, your chest growing sensitive under his ministrations. It's agonizingly slow. The sweet way he rubs you through the cloth of your dress makes you quiver with need, your voice coming out in short little gasps that make his eyes darken to a dangerous jade.

You lay your hand on top of his. You can feel his hard veins move under your palm as he gropes you, and the sensation sends another wave of slick down your thighs. Shaking like a frightened animal, you slowly move his hand to the side and slide it under your dress. A gasp leaves you when his fingers touch your bare skin. Mira exhales a long, pained sigh through his nose, then allows his digits to explore the expanse of your flesh. His fingertips tingle and his muscles tighten almost violently as the impulse to fuck you threatens to overtake him.

"Patience, daelin." He teases you, his deep voice a heated, playful murmur. Your pussy clenches in response. A small, frustrated whine leaves your lips.

"I'm going to savor every moment of this." He takes his hand away and your heart almost breaks, but the pain is soon replaced by scalding embarrassment when he rips the front of your dress apart, easily, like it's tissue paper.

Nothing could have prepared you for the thunder that rattles the landscape of your psyche when his forked tongue makes contact with your perky nipple. Your hands find his broad shoulders and you hang on for dear life as he licks, nibbles and sucks like you’re the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted. His mouth is devastatingly gentle and you weakly beg for more. Mira smirks and ignores you, dragging out his tender torture for as long as he can, even as you desperately grind your drenched core against him.

"Mira!" You're sobbing at this point. Your body is on fire and your core hurts from clenching without something to hold your walls apart, "Please—" He moves to your other nipple and you arch for him, making a pretty line with your back. Mira takes this chance to slip a hand under you, keeping your chest raised to his mouth so that your head falls back, away from the dangerous tips of his horns. But he still doesn't touch you where you want him.

Suddenly, another memory comes to mind, as if summoned by your sexual frustration. You remember something that makes him shiver without fail, and suddenly you feel like you've regained some sort of power over this arrogant man. You bring a hand to his horn and tug and the loud, startled moan that leaves him is enough to satisfy the hunger in your stomach, slick pooling under you like dew against the roses.

"... You little brat." Mira pulls away, struggling to catch his breath. His eyes are full of mischief as he looks down at you, the smirk ever present on his handsome face, "Is this how you treat your King?"

You try not to look too offended that he stopped touching you, giving him a defiant look that makes his smirk grow wider, "It is when the King is mean to his Queen."

His expression falls and he suddenly looks flustered. It seems like he enjoys hearing that you belong to him quite a bit. Mira quickly composes himself, the fire in his eyes now dim and subtle like a dangerous warning.

You yelp when he grabs the back of your knees and pushes your legs against your body in a quick, rough movement, leaving you spread open and helpless under his watchful gaze.

"This is far from me being mean." He growls at you, allowing his instincts to take over for just a second, "So I advise you don't do that again." The stern look on his face makes his presence feel even more oppressing than usual.

It's like he's speaking the words directly into your ears. His voice bounces off the walls in your head, heated and demanding as a spark of his magic runs over your sensitive skin. It's a tingly feeling that makes your heart stutter, more intimate than anything you've ever felt. He shares just a fraction of his arousal with you through the link between your touching powers and suddenly you're crying and convulsing on top of the flowers, the heat between your legs akin to flowing magma.

The world around you loses focus. There's no more questions, no more doubts, you don't need to know anything about him, you just want him to touch you while you moan and gasp and whimper his name. It feels like you're on the verge of shattering and when Mira caresses you with his magic one more time, your stomach squeezes and releases, the dam in your abdomen breaks and blinding white flashes in front of your vision. You're left boneless and dazed and shivering, the shock from climaxing so hard and so abruptly leaving you speechless as you gasp and try to catch your breath.

...Holy shit. You catch his eyes and notice the subtle way he’s panting, sweat coating his forehead as he stares at every twitch of your body with intense rapture. Mira looks almost famished, desperation written all over his face. He looks like he’s in pain.

"I'm trying to be gentle, daelin." He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to keep the pieces of his disintegrating self-control together. Your scent is everywhere. The light spice in the air threatens to render Malleus insane and he has to momentarily block you out to keep himself from turning into his half-draconic form.

No no no, he can't do that to you. Not now. Not during your first time. He wants to cherish and protect you. He won't let his feral instincts get in the way of this precious moment…

"...I know."

Malleus opens his eyes. A small, tired smile greets him. Your face is sweaty and flushed, like that one time he took you deep into the woods.

"I trust you, Mira."

Love washes over him like high tide across a deserted shore, filling every crack on his eroded heart, replacing the pitch-black ink that constantly threatens to swallow him.

You trust him. Of course you do. You love him. You are his and he is yours. Forever, like you promised him.

"... I'll make you feel good." He sounds oddly resolute as he looks at you, his pupils large on a background of gentle flames. He kind of looks like a happy cat and you can't help but giggle. He's still as awkwardly sweet as the scrawny boy in your memories.

"You already did."

He snorts, "I'll make you feel better."

You let out a surprised gasp when he lowers his face right between your legs. You hear him take a deep breath and then he's exhaling right against your wet pussy. Your legs tremble in response and Mira chuckles. You don't need to look at him to know he's smiling that closed-eye smile you like so much.

Your excitement flares back to life as his tongue traces the line of your entrance. The split in his tongue feels… weird, but it's also strangely erotic, and you can't help but moan shamelessly as he teases your slit. Then he runs his tongue up until it finds your clit and suddenly you can't bear to look at him anymore. Your eyes squeeze shut as little earthquakes shake you from head to toe, your hips going numb as he draws slow semi-circles around the sensitive nub.

"Which one feels better?" He has the nerve to ask you even as you convulse under him.

"The tip…" his tongue flicks your clitoris and your head falls back, slick dripping out of you like a fucking river and coating his face in a lucid sheen of arousal, "Or the base?" He drags his tongue under the hard nub and slooowly licks up and you nearly lose your mind, your hands tangling in his raven hair and gripping his horns for comfort. Mira gasps loudly against you, claws digging into your legs from the shock of the sudden stimulation, but you don't even notice it, lost as you are on the edge of your release.

Your core pulses desperately with the need to cum all over Mira's face. Everything feels wet and hot and stars, his tongue is lapping up everything you have to give him. It's like he's desperate not to let even a single drop go to waste…

"Mira!" You cry out in a broken voice, trying to grind your core against his eager mouth, "Mira—I'm going to—"

He suddenly lets go of one of your legs. The boneless limb falls over his shoulder, your soft thigh caressing the side of his soaked face. He doesn't grace you with a warning before one of his fingers plunges into you, finally granting your clenching walls some sort of relief.

Your moans increase in volume. You trash under him as if you want to get away. This is almost too much. It's scary. He adds another finger in and rubs that sensitive bundle of nerves inside you and suddenly the bliss is debilitating. Your back arches as another orgasm crashes over you, scalding hot and earth-shattering and too fucking vivid for this to be just a dream.

You completely miss the dazed expression on Mira's face, the dark jade of his eyes fading into a glassy mint.

You're so out of it as you slump back against the roses that you almost don't hear him when he speaks again.

"This scent is—addicting—" his chest heaves and he looks almost intoxicated, "I feel like I'm getting drunk on you..." his cheeks and chin are all shiny and sticky but he clearly doesn't mind. Not when he starts wiping the cum off with a hand before bringing it to his mouth, swallowing as much of it as he can. It's strange how he looks like an animal and a prince at the same time. An otherworldly creature of indescribable beauty, even as he eagerly eats your essence off his face.

“(y/n), I can’t take it anymore…” He breathes frantically, finally allowing himself some sort of relief as he takes his erection out of his pants. His dick is so hard it fucking hurts. He really wanted to take things slow for your sake, but he only ended up edging himself to the point of almost going into a rut.

He lets his hot member fall against your stomach. He’s fucking huge, you stare with wide eyes at the point where his length ends across your abdomen.

"It… it won't fit…" You mumble, even as your pussy clenches with traitorous want.

"Not this time, probably not." Mira cradles your little body in his arms, "I'd have to train you for it to fit. Stretch you out until your insides have my imprint." He runs a hand down his face in a quick, agitated movement. Every single cell in his body is fighting against the urge to ravish you. His muscles hurt from tightening so violently and Malleus has to force himself to count to ten to keep from showing his cock inside you at once.

“It’s… fine. I won’t hurt you.” He promises, searching your face for your approval as he lines himself against your entrance. He’s been alive for centuries and yet his heart has never beaten so fast. His hawk-like eyes are focused on you and you alone, burning the image of you laying helpless under him inside his corneas.

Then you nod up at him, looking so cute as you try to put on a brave face that Malleus almost cums right then and there. The head of his dick slowly pushes inside you. Your head lulls back and Mira's hands shake violently.

It's so big. Your vision goes out of focus as your hole clenches around him greedily. Stars, it's stretching you so well. You're soaking wet and yet he still has to push to enter you because you're so fucking tight. Your legs shake uncontrollably, the feeling of being filled completely wiping out every thought in your head.

He finally touches the deepest place inside you, his large cock still not completely inside, and you both go completely still. The only sounds that break the humid silence are your loud gasps and his feeble ones, mixing together in a cacophony of absolute amazement as you two take in the surreal feeling of finally being connected.

Mira is inside you. You completely forget that this is a dream, that sentence repeating inside your head over and over again.

"...Small." He mutters. You look at him and your heart almost collapses at the tender expression on his face. You think his pupils might have turned into little hearts, rouge dusting his pale cheeks as sweat drips off his hair and chin.

"So small." He makes a show of hovering over you completely and suddenly the sky disappears. There's only him. Above you and around you and inside you. You're face to face with his chest, and as you lean your head back, trying to catch his eyes, you see that he has to tuck his chin against his neck to look back at you.

…

...

Fuck. Your heart lodges in your throat and your hole clenches around him, coaxing a surprised moan from both your lips.

"(y/n)..." your name sounds heavenly when he says it like that. On a quiet, vulnerable gasp.

"I… I'm going to start moving now, okay?"

You can't speak, so you give him another frantic nod, squeezing your eyes shut. You're not prepared for how good it feels when he pulls back. His veins scrape against you, the stretching becomes almost unbearable and you're left moaning long and loud in a way that makes Malleus sweat. If you could see him now, you'd notice he looks almost shy, like the first time you kissed his cheek.

He's almost out of you when he decides to thrust back in, scattering stars across your stomach with a single, gentle motion. Every nerve ending tingles with pleasure. Sweet nonsense falls from your lips and Malleus has to grit his teeth and dig his clawed fingers into the ground in order to cling to the last remains of his thinning patience. His fangs hurt with the primal urge to mark you.

"My (y/n)—" He eases into a steady rhythm, pushing what he can of his shaft inside you. Sweat pours down his face, his hair sticks to his chin and his tongue swipes the salt off his lips, "My sweet girl—my cute little Deerlet—" His hips snap back against your smaller ones in short strokes, his movements growing more and more frenzied as tight, magma hot pleasure builds inside him. The obscene sounds that fill the air turn him on so much he's now full-blown moaning. His beautiful voice calls your name shamelessly, desperately, like you could disappear from under him at any given moment.

"I love you—you're mine—" He growls placing a large hand under your ass as he pounds into you, keeping your hips locked to his, “Say that you’re mine."

The order resonates inside your head. You're not even offended that he's using his magic to intimidate you. You can barely cling to your consciousness at this point.

"I am—I'm—yours, Mira!" You don't even know which way is up anymore, but you know that what you're saying is true. You belong to him. Your best friend. The love of your life.

"Malleus." He corrects you through gritted teeth, then he stops moving entirely, ignoring your disappointed cries as he desperately tries to resist the pull your body has on him, "Say I'm yours, Malleus."

"I'm yours, Malleus." His real name becomes a moan in your mouth and Malleus finally snaps. There's no more gentle, just a carnal urgency and a need that has waited centuries to be satisfied. He pulls his hips back and then slams into you and fuck, you should be screaming by now but you can't, there's not enough air as you bounce over the flowers and sob, clinging to him like he's your lifeline.

The loud "Fuck!" that leaves his mouth pushes you over the edge, the word so unexpected but so fucking sexy coming from his graceful mouth. You clench down around him, delirious as stars explode behind your vision, and drag him right over the edge with you.

Malleus holds you so close to him you feel like you might melt into each other as he releases pulse after shuddering pulse of his essence into you.

He cums so much. You can feel his hot semen fill you up and then spill out like it's a waterfall. He's not letting go of you, his face hidden in your hair as he recovers from the star-shattering pleasure of finally, finally being one with you.

"I love you." He mutters, voice breaking.

...

He's crying. That lone thought destroys something inside you and you start feverishly kissing his jaw, his cheek, his neck, anything you can reach as you try to soothe him.

Don't cry don't cry don't cry—

You feel him starting to fade in your arms. You can feel yourself starting to fade.

Nonononono— Maker, please—

He pulls away from you and you finally see his face.

He looks lost. His dark lashes are wet with tears, his mouth is curved in a confused frown and that's when you realize that he loves you so much, but he doesn't know how to process the feeling. He's like a panicked child and you are fading. And he’s always going to remember this moment, but you won’t.

You scream out his name, his real name.

…

And then you wake up, sobbing all over yourself, unable to remember.

Epel tries his best to comfort you, but you don't stop crying for a long time.

___

Life goes on.

You have a part-time job at a beach bar, on the coastline that extends about 60 miles away from the village.

Epel hates that you have to travel so far when you could just help him out at the farm like you usually do, but you’ll be attending NRC coming September, and you want to save some pocket money for you and Epel to spend on all the cool city stuff you can’t find in your hole of a town.

Beau likes to walk you to the bus stop. Epel would too, but you won’t let him waste his time on you when he has his own work to take care of. Your lamb companion stops following you when the dirt road opens to the fields, getting distracted by the dandelions sprinkled at the edges of the village.

"See you later, Beau." You chuckle, knowing he will go back to the farm as soon as he gets bored. Beau ignores you and munches away.

The bus stop isn't far, a lone plastic port on a background of sunflowers. As per usual you're the only one here, but the occasional horse and buggy passes by, and the farmers who live in the nearby granges all greet you with cheerful smiles on their faces. They all know where you're headed and wish you a good day at work. You really can't keep anything to yourself in such a small community.

The commute to the beach takes almost an hour. The road zig-zags and then straightens towards the coastline. You're almost tempted to doze off, but finding your way to the beach if you miss your stop is going to be a pain in the ass, so you force yourself to stay awake, keeping your eyes on the picturesque horizon and daydreaming about your mysterious man with the emerald eyes.

You always think about him when you’re riding this bus.

…

You should probably stop being so obsessed with him.

___

The sun is almost in the middle of the sky when you get to the beach bar, and as per usual, it's a crowded mess. This is the infernal hour, and not only because it's hot as sin.

There's people everywhere, craving drinks and food before they go lay down on their beach towels for the rest of the day, their flip-flops leaving sand in every corner of the bar that you'll be sweeping for an eternity. Screaming children run this and that way like they're high on vitamin gummies. Their melting popsicles leave a sticky trail on the ground. They step on it and spread liquid sugar everywhere.

…

Why do you work here again?

…

Because the pay is good, and your coworker is cute.

Said coworker perks up when he sees you. His ears give an excited wiggle (Maker, he's adorable) and he shoots you a smirk that shows his little fangs, "Ah, kitten! Always a sight for sore eyes." He hisses a 'kishishishi' that you've learned to recognize as his laughter, his closed eyes looking like little half-moons.

"Now move your bum and go change. I need my sla—coworker to serve some tables outside.”

Figures. His lazy ass hates leaving the coolness of the bar to handle the customers sitting outside.

“Is that how you ask for favors, Ruggie?~" You tease him as you step behind the counter and head for the changing rooms in the back.

"I'd smooch ya as a treat but snoggin's not allowed in front of the children." He gives you a cheeky smile. One of the moms around the bar throws him a glare, but he shamelessly ignores it.

You shake your head and grin to yourself. At least you have him around to make this job a little more bearable.

___

“I am dying.” You groan and rest your head on the counter, the coolness of the wood soothing your flushed face, “Why did I take this job anyway? I don't need the money! I can just live off the land with my lamb companion and eat apple jam for the rest of my days."

Ruggie snorts next to you. He finishes cleaning a beer glass and places it back on the decorative shelf behind you, “Says the one who only works half a shift.”

You turn your head to look at him, cheek smushed against the counter. Rush hour is finally over, but god, you're in pieces. Waiting tables is not as easy as it sounds, and dealing with entitled moms on vacation is a torture worse than stepping on two Legos at the same time.

The sun is starting to set. The blue sky fades into a gentle orange above the deep indigo of the calm sea. Your shift is almost over, but Ruggie will have to stay here for a while longer.

"I'm not a masochist like you." Your eyes follow him as he wipes, cleans, moves, washes and dries plates and glasses at half the speed it takes you to do it. He's like a super cleaning pro.

"Ye gotta work if you want ta eat." He pops open a can of peach tea, then pours it in a glass filled with ice.

"It's not masochism, it's the law of the Savannah." He places the glass right in front of your face. You lift your head off the counter and wrap your hands around the cold beverage as he shoots you a mischievous look. He waits for you to take a sip before adding: "But it's nice ta know you're so interested in my sexual preferences."

You choke.

He laughs that kishishishi sound.

As you wipe your mouth with your wrist and send him a half-assed glare, a familiar sparkle sizzles the air between you.

You bask in the sudden heat for a second, watching as Ruggie's blue-gray eyes trace a slow path down your body.

This kind of flirting is… not uncommon between the two of you, but it never really leads to anything, if only because you're both stuck manning the bar and you can't really leave the place unattended.

But something you can't help but wonder… would he act on it if you two were alone and away from trying eyes? Would you act on it? Ruggie is very cute… and witty and funny and reliable...

Regardless of your feelings on the matter, his casual teasing makes you feel like the hottest person on this beach, so you don't discourage it. You take another sip of tea, sighing through your nose at how pleasant the cold beverage feels when it runs down your throat.

...

"Uh…" Ruggie suddenly looks away, his cheek tinged the lightest shade of pink, "You may uh… want to take that shirt off, kitten."

...

What?

You look at him like he's grown another head.

"Excuse me?" You must have sounded more outraged than you feel, because your voice sends Ruggie into an embarrassed panic.

"N-not like that! It's just…! You've been sweating a lot and your shirt's gone transparent! I can see everythin' from here— I mean, what if a perverted old man walks in and sees you like that?"

You look down at your white shirt. It wasn't visible while you were wearing your green apron, but you can indeed see the outline of your swimsuit peek out from under the wet fabric, and you figure your wet back looks the same. Oops.

"Ah shit, sorry I didn't notice." You stand up and Ruggie turns his head away at the speed of light.

"No no… s'fine I have— a jacket you can wear while you walk home if ya need it."

Your lips quirk in a grateful smile as you head for the changing room, "Thank you! You're the best, Ruggie!"

"Yeah, yeah…" he breathes, quietly rubbing his temples as soon as you're out of the room.

___

Left alone in an empty beach bar, Ruggie barely resists the urge to slam his head against the counter. His shoulders are burning like he's been marked like cattle, and all he wants to do is to walk into the ocean until the waves swallow him completely. Maybe the abhorrent heat that singes his skin would fucking disappear then. And if not, at least the cold water would kill his boner.

This happens every fucking time. Every fucking time. He should be smarter than this, and yet he always falls for the same tricks, and the worst part is that he's tricking himself. Ruggie knows that flirting with you is akin to showing burning coals in his abdomen. He gets so fucking excited his entire body starts tingling with electricity, which is not the ideal state to be when you're at work.

And yet he still does it anyway.

Maybe he really is a masochist.

And maybe he should actually bend you over this counter and finally get rid of the frustration that's been building up inside him for the past two months.

And oh God, you're going to the same school as him in September. You're going to be prancing around in your little uniform, calling him 'senpai' and shit and he's going to have to go through his heat while being tortured like that.

Ruggie pours himself a glass of ice-cold water and downs it in one gulp.

Yeah, he's fucked.

___

"Epel! Carry me!~" You cling to your friend, Grandma and Grandpa chuckling at your antics from the sofa and the armchair respectively.

Having finished washing the dishes, Epel wipes his hands on a dishcloth and pushes you away with his elbow, "No thanks. I'm tired too ya know."

This is not the first time you've done this song and dance. With how little you've been sleeping lately, you're always looking for excuses to be carried around by Epel. Your legs feel like jello, you are not walking all the way to the barn tonight. Just changing into your pajamas has been hard enough.

"Yeah, but you slept like a rock all night!" You hug him from behind and rest your lips against his shoulder, giving him an unimpressed look from over his shoulder, "I woke up to you drooling all over my shirt multiple times."

Epel flushes the color of the fruit he's named after and mumbles something unintelligible. He waves goodnight to his grandparents and so do you, then he struggles towards the front door, pretty much having to drag you across the hallway.

"If you're this tired then why don't ya just quit the beach job already?"

The two of you step outside, greeted by the loud crying of the cicadas. There's not a cloud above you, the stars clearly visible in the inky blue of the night.

"I can't do that. Ruggie needs me."

Epel scoffs. It's the exact same sound he made when he saw you come home wearing your coworker's jacket.

"Why don't ya go ask yer darlin' Ruggie to carry ya then?" His accent gets more jumbled as his irritation grows. Still, for all his fussing, Epel bends down and waits for you to climb on his shoulders.

You do so happily, nuzzling into him like a spoiled cat.

A pair of emerald eyes flashes behind your eyelids, but you shrug it off.

"Sorry but I'm too drunk to go back to the beach to ask him."

"Only you can get drunk after two glasses of apple cider." Epel smirks, ignoring you when you hit his arm and start whining again.

You lay down onto Epel's checkered blanket like a starfish.

"Where am I supposed ta sleep? On the ground?" Epel turns the lantern off, then lights the incense to keep away mosquitoes and other bugs and places it on the windowsill.

He turns towards you with his hands on his hips, watching as you lay in your shared nest without a care in the world, and sighs. So spoiled.

"You can sleep on top of me, I don't care."

Epel almost chokes on his saliva.

You laugh at his flustered face. It almost looks like he's angry, eyes wide and an outraged blush on his cheeks.

You open your arms for him, "Come on! It's not like we won't end up in this position in the morning anyway."

It’s true. Epel often rolls on top of you in his sleep, and nothing you do ever seems to shake him off or wake him up. You figure you can just get right to it, since he apparently loves resting his head on your chest while he snores.

Your friend closes the distance between you with three hesitant steps. "... You're such a moron, seriously." He mumbles, kneeling between your legs and then draping himself over you, careful not to crush you with his weight. He smells like apples, as always. His cotton pajamas and his fluffy hair make him the perfect cuddle buddy. You sigh contently into his hair and wrap your arms tighter around his back.

It’s quiet for a bit. Epel’s weight is strangely comforting over you. The sound of his steady breaths is a familiar lullaby, and you quickly find yourself floating in that comfy, tingly space between sleep and wake.

…

“Do you do this with Ruggie too?”

Epel mutters so quietly you almost don’t hear him. He doesn’t say it accusingly just… like he’s sulking.

“... What?” Any semblance of sleep disappears from your mind as you catch his dejected tone of voice, “You mean like hugging?— Of course not.” You bring a hand to his hair and start scratching his skull like you know he likes it, and you feel him relax in your arms.

…

“Have you ever kissed him?”

Okay, now you’re definitely wide awake.

You look down at him, trying to catch his expression, “Epel, what are you talking about?”

He raises his head and pins you down with a demanding, silvery gaze. You sigh and lay your head back down, closing your eyes as you think of the best way to answer him.

“I haven’t kissed him.” You open your eyes and catch Epel’s expression shift just a little. He tries to keep an impassive front, but you can tell he’s relieved, “But I haven’t kissed you either.” You could maybe understand the cuddle comparison, since Epel is your designated snuggle friend, but who you kiss or don’t kiss shouldn’t matter to him.

Right?

“... Do you want to?”

Your breath catches in your throat. Everything seems to still around you. Your heartbeat speeds up as you look into Epel's eyes. You know he's pretty manly despite his soft features, but he's never been so… forward before. You two have always been like siblings, so you really didn't think Epel felt that way about you. Maybe he's just joking?

… He's not. His eyes dart to your lips and darken, like there's a thunderstorm inside his gaze. Soft blue turns to rainy gray.

Do you want to?

…

"Yes." You think Epel stops breathing, but you don't have time to think about it because he's suddenly leaning towards you, stopping only when his lips are a few centimetres away from yours.

His labored breaths fan your lips and send a flurry of tingles down your abdomen…

___

❥ How do you handle this situation with Epel?

⟶ Lay back and let Epel take the lead. You deserve this after being teased in your dreams by your mystery man and teased in real life by your hyena coworker. Besides, you kind of want to see what your stubborn Epel is capable of in bed... (sub!deerlet content)

⟶ Touch him, claim him, make him beg for the next kiss. With the way he’s always clinging to you, you suspect this is what Epel has always wanted anyway. (dom!deerlet content)

vote here | what is this?

❥ taglist: @mirrorsandpacts @stormweaver13 @bobaryn @justsomepersons @mokkeguts @maiieus @trashmomarcya @dat-bi-bitch @lem-thebeast @mythrule @hfhgjgji @zzz-sleeplessy-soft-xxx @anicious @kae-draws-sometimes @cogitover @sammy6667 @shrimp-heads @twistedmintcandy @gyghii @akelois @maknae-lenna @chiefcashgianthero @carasketch @mayorkoopbob @linseyz @gardenondreams @andromeda-gay @equus-meretrix @the-king-of-blue @spacebabesupernova @kagicannotsee @doraconia @hello-starlight @yandere-romanticaa @skyboo @uwu-dreams @kay8675 @meltyans @drawbud @msyaoigodkanna @roseinbloom02 @hoodiedevil @ikemenisruiningme @miiluka @hello-selene94 @moondustinhislungs @nosochek-3o @epher-posts @monoshii-wasu @rosavine @bitch-let-me-die @raychel @pumpkiethepie @hypmicluvbot @theallpowerfulrosami @mmquinno @mayunnaise21 @ruvelise

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland headcanons #twisted wonderland scenarios #twst #nessun dorma

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boys-from-santacarla · 3 years

Note

If you’re still doing the matchups do you mind? -May Taurus born on Beltane

-Witchy af and I love to collect flowers and dead things

-I dress pretty grungy with ripped jeans, crop tops, and plaid shirts. Sometimes with converse, sometimes combat boots. I have a few punk jackets I’m putting together and my next one will be vampire themed.

-I’m a professional body piercer so I’ve got a decent amount of tattoos that I’m collecting all the time and some pretty obvious facial piercings. My ears are asymmetrical and I always have studs in 2/3 of my lobes and a dangly earring (coyote tooth today) in the last one.

-I never ever shut up. I even talk in my sleep, but temper wise I’m fairly chill until pushed too far. My ADHD makes a lot of things seem iMpOrTaNt so I’m kind of a spazz. Definitely more of a mom friend though and always watching out for my friends. Not big on drinking and I don’t smoke but I love hanging with my friends when I can. I’m also a very big on reading…I may or may not be encroaching on 500 books in my way-too-small-for-this-shit apartment.

-In terms of size/body type I’m plus size but I’m working on being ok with my body image.

-Music ranges from classical to heavy metal to swing music so I don’t have a set taste but I have a huge vinyl collection and a deep passion for 80’s music and late 70’s surprisingly (definitely a huge fan of Blue Öyster Cult, The Doors, Pink Floyd, etc).

SORRY THIS IS SO LONG F*CK MY BAD

Notes: It wasn't that long, don't worry, dude. Well, thank you so much for the request! I really hope this is ok. Give feedback to it if you want :)

Maybe not what one would expect, but I can see you going out with...

Michael

This is why

If you had met him before Santa Carla, he might have made fun of you for your "mumbo-jumbo crap", but his skepticism disappeared after meeting the boys, and grandpa has taught him and Sam about nature and a few old rituals from the place, so now he's more open-minded. He is not really what you would call a Wiccan expert, but he will share with you his interest in these things. Oh, and will definitely give you one or two stuffed animals or just weird paraphernalia from his grandpa, just for the love of being annoying.

He will give you some of his shirts if you happen to like them, too. He likes your style because it is similar to his' but better. See, this man just puts on whatever happens to be clean or at least decent to go out with. But he's still trying to look more punk and you are the perfect educator for this, so he will ask you to help him with that and with the leather jackets thing because he only has the one he used to impress the boys with.

After his first piercing, and after seeing you look all badass and cool with yours, he is desperate to get new ones. Will be around you almost begging to have you do his new piercings. If you oblige, you're gonna deal with a beaming, loving Michael for a whole week. He will like them so much he's gonna talk and brag about them with everyone, even random strangers because he can't stop the excitement. If he comes across some awesome rings or jewelry in general, he will buy a pair for you two to match together.

I'm not gonna lie, he never really felt attracted to plus-size women, but there is something about you that makes him look at you in awe.

At first, he was only attracted to your personality, but the more you two spent time together the more he wanted to be 24/7 talking and joking with you. Then, your tough-looking style contrasting your personality is practically what did it for him.

Let me just tell you that when he decided to flirt with you, you had to hear some awfully heinous pick-up lines.

If you are working on changing your appearance, he is going to be there for you to give you sweet words and motivation. He decided a long ago it didn't matter how you looked; you were perfect for him, but he is supportive.

There's no day he won't tell you your tattoos make you look hot.

Honestly enjoys passing his time with you. The incessant babbling keeping his brain working and all the shared laughs are special for him.

Michael does some weird shit from time to time, and is a total disaster for decision-making and taking care of himself, so you will have a boyfriend to cuddle with, and a 5-year-old boy to look after.

Gurl, you are going to be besties with Sam. Damn, you two can have such a fun time just messing around and irritating Mike. It is really fun when you three go out to play at the boardwalk or just stay at home playing monopoly or whatever you feel like doing.

He will be like Michael with the piercings thing because he wants to look as awesome as you and all the other cool weirdos in Santa Carla. He is even accepting to trade some of his best comic books for an ear-piercing.

Also, Lucy is going to be extremely loving and supportive of you guys. Oh my god, I can't imagine this and not smile. Mrs. Emerson is the best mother-in-law you are gonna have. Chitchatting with you about everything, helping if you and Mike fight (not crossing any lines of course), giving you girly advice, and just basically caring for you like family.

As for the music, the long conversations about those legendary riffs and bands, and the extrasensorial experiences listening to those 40-hour-long Pink Floyd solos are gonna be extremely entertaining and enjoyable with the Emersons. And I'm saying it in plural because you can discuss and lay back to listen to "Secret Treaties" either with Sam, or Michael, or both at the same time.

#match-ups #ilikechocolatemilkh #my writings #michael the lost boys #the lost boys

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jslittlebirdie · 3 years

Text

Weedkiller

Ledger!Joker Headcanons

Pairing: Ledger!Joker x Reader

Word Count: 923

Warnings: none

Summary: You live in a small house with a garden. You don't feel like weeding at all, so J decides to take care of it himself.

Notes: A random idea that came to my mind while walking through my grandpa's garden. This is my first attempt to write a headcanon, so this is probably pretty shitty. Also, English is not my native language, so there will probably be some mistakes. I hope it is still enjoyable 😅

You live in a small house far outside the city. There are hardly any neighbors. Everybody takes care of his own business and doesn't ask questions. Actually, the perfect place for the Clown Prince of Crime to go into hiding for a while.

Were it not for the damn garden behind your house.

You love your garden! You have so much fun planting all these different flowers and you think your own fresh fruits and vegetables are much healthier and better-tasting. Not that J would be particularly interested. He hates eating vegetables. If he had his way, he would probably only eat fast food and sweets.

But there is this one thing you hate about your garden: weeding.

Today is one of those days again. Even if you haven't said it out loud, J knows exactly what you're up to today. He can tell it by the clothes you're wearing, the rubber boots on your feet, the old and too wide pants and the thick sweater. And he can tell it by your heavy sighs and the way you read the newspaper, although you usually loathe those gossip magazines.

Normally, he wouldn't have cared if you were doing gardening today -- at least he would've been sure that you were safe at home. But not today. Not if he has to lay low and stay at your home. If he can't go out spreading chaos, he at least wants to do his second favorite thing, spending time with you and, of course, annoying you.

That's when he gets an incredibly brilliant idea. At least that's what he thinks.

You're so busy distracting yourself by reading a particularly boring newspaper article that you don't notice the shifty smile on his face as the gears in his brain start turning. Nor how he secretly sneaks out of your kitchen.

It suddenly becomes quiet around you and you somehow enjoy it. But ... Wait a minute! Quiet?! You come back to reality in an instant. Your gaze falls on the chair opposite you, where J had been sitting until recently, but which is now empty. You immediately know that he's up to something.

You call for him, but it's already too late. The next thing you hear is a loud bang followed by manic laughter. You drop the newspaper and leap from your seat to run outside.

Once you reach the garden, you stop abruptly. Your eyes widen in disbelief. "J, what the hell?!"

You stare at the big crater that used to be a flower bed. A thick black cloud of smoke rises from the hole.

A little away from it stands J. He is shaking with laughter. His face is smeared with mud and his hair and suit are full of earth lumps, chopped up weeds and flowers.

When he notices your presence, he turns to you. His chocolate brown eyes sparkle with excitement and joy. And if you ever thought his grin couldn't get any wider. Well, you were sorely mistaken.

"I ah took care of the weeds and... tried a new composition of explosives. Probably a bi-t too much ammonium nitrate."

"You did what?!" you yell at him, as you look at the chaos he has caused. "You just blew up the weeds?!"

He couldn't stand it any longer. Your shocked and somewhat irritated expression is just too amusing. He bursts into that crazy laughter you love so much.

"Sure." He shrugs his shoulders. "You are always ah complaining about not wanting to weed, so I thought I'd do ya a little favor."

He's watching you closely, every move you make, no matter how small. He knows you're angry. But that doesn't stop him from doing what he's doing. "You don't like it, doll?" His laughter stops. His expression changes from pure euphoria to feigned disappointment. He knows exactly that you're taking the bait, and he loves to play with your little emotions.

"J... I... um..." you stutter. You want to be angry with him! He just ruined your beloved garden! But when you see those brown eyes and the way he pushes his lower lip forward...

You sigh and roll your eyes. Actually, you don't want to give him the satisfaction. But you just can't stay angry with him for long. You can no longer suppress your giggles and smiles. You slowly walk towards him until you stop right in front of him. You raise your hand to remove some dirt from his hair and then stroke his smudged cheek.

"So does that mean you aren't angry with me, little birdie?" he asks hypocritically and tilts his head like a puppy trying to assert its innocence. "You have to look at it positive-ly, doll. At least ya don't have to weed ah any time soon."

His comment makes you laugh again. You hate to admit it, but he's right. The garden can wait. There's nothing you'd rather do today than spend some time with your J.

You give him a quick kiss on the lips and giggle. "Let's go back inside. I think someone really needs a bath." You hear him growl as you reach for his hand to pull him to the door. So you add with a wink, "I think I got a little dirty too. So maybe I'll have to join you..."

#headcanons #ledger!joker headcanons #ledger!joker x reader #ledger!joker imagine #tdk #the dark knight #ledger!joker #ledger joker #batman #j #my fanfic #my writing

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nctsiren · 3 years

Note

Thank you for turning on anon uwu for the ask game thingy can I ask these for all of the girls? daydreams, caress, ivory, golden, freckles, twilight, poppy, clouds, roses, lollipop, dimples, whisper, pencil, honey, velvet, strawberry, kiss, shampoo, lace, sapphos?

hewwo anon!!! thank u for requesting!! i’m sorry it’s late :(( hope you enjoy, nonetheless!! i enjoyed writing it 🥺

daydream-

hyeyoung: “i think i’ll say joan jett or debbie harry!! i admire them a lot, i love their music, and i think it’d be fun to be a rock singer.”

mila: “i think it’d be nice to be beetle. i’ve always wondered how his mind works. being a dog seems cool”

evie was answered in my other post!!

jimin: “seulgi unnie!! i’ve always wondered what it would feel like to be perfect ;)”

caress-

hyeyoung: “i love to snuggle... i like when johnny lays between my legs with his head on my chest. it makes me so happy.”

mila: “yes... but i play hard to get with some of the wayv members. i feel at ease cuddling with ten.”

evie was answered in my other post!!

jimin: “there are hundreds of youtube comps of me being snuggly and affectionate .. i just love my members”

ivory-

hyeyoung: “i wear matching sets. like the pants and the button up shirt? or the silk/satin shorts and matching tank tops. i love cute pajamas, i always have.”

mila: “i usually wear a sports bra and boxers or shorts.”

evie: “big shirt and my underwear.”

jimin: “usually a big hoodie and shorts!”

golden-

hyeyoung: “i cannot choose!! i own lots of stationary, and i scrapbook, as well.”

mila: “i’m not really a stationary person. just gimme some lined paper and i am all good.”

evie: “i love a good pen.”

jimin: “AHH i’m a sucker for the cute stationary cards. i like writing letters and notes”

freckles-

hyeyoung: “honestly, i have a pair of black cigarette pants that i love to pieces. i wear them often- they just go with everything and are so comfortable!”

mila: “i... honestly probably this hoodie i stole from lucas. it’s super big and comfy. if i don’t wear it at certain times i feel like something bad will happen ://“

evie: “i have this big, chunky grandpa sweater that’s striped and i wear it to the point where it might start falling apart.”

jimin: “it’s not really a clothing item, but i’ve worn the lily necklace chenle gave me every day since i got it. and my necklace that’s just my name, jimin, in cursive.”

twilight (this is their best friend outside of the other girls)-

hyeyoung: “i know it’s cheesy, but johnny, for obvious reasons... i’m also quite close to irene unnie, as well as jaehyun and taeyong. it’s hard for me to pick.”

mila: “ten.”

evie: “i legitimately cannot pick outside of the girls... maybe lucas... or yuta... or doyo... i don’t fucking know.”

jimin: “chenle- i’m stuck with him.”

poppy-

hyeyoung: “pink. i’m not even much of a pink girl, but pastel pink is lovely.”

mila: “is... pastel orange a thing? i see it in my mind, but i don’t know if anyone else can.”

evie: “green. green is my favorite color in general, all shades.”

jimin: “lavender and periwinkle are my favorite colors outside of grey and white.”

clouds-

hyeyoung: “it was me alone in a practice room, but the room had large windows in it and it was so light. i was dancing- there was no music playling, but i still was. i felt so happy, and i stopped after twirling because johnny had arrived and he just smiled at me with so much love in his eyes.”

mila: “i honestly don’t remember my dreams, but i remember how i felt during them?”

evie was answered in my other post!!

jimin: “all of my dreams are weird and i don’t have a favorite because they’re too bizarre to enjoy.”

roses-

hyeyoung: “red roses... my late grandma, who was the person i loved most in the world, loved red roses.”

mila: “i think... tulips.”

evie was answered in my other post!!

jimin: “lilies, but not because of my name. my loved ones give them to me because of my name, but i love them because i receive them from my loved ones LMAO”

lollipop-

hyeyoung: “lipstick is my favorite. nice reds and pinks. i never go dark with lipstick- only dark eye makeup.”

mila: “i love ALL makeup”

evie: “i kind of hate wearing makeup, but i guess i’d pick eyebrow stuff.”

jimin: “mascara and blush! i like the heavy blush look.”

dimples-

hyeyoung: “my favorite thing is when i see people’s eyes crinkle when they smile. smiles and lips- oh, lips- are so beautiful.”

mila: “i love the variety of expressions that people can show even in a matter of seconds. i love seeing the range of emotions and thoughts on people’s faces.”

evie: “i love noses. all noses. also, i think facial structures are so lovely and unique. everyone is different.”

jimin: “smiles and eyes. i think eyes are so, so beautiful. i’ve never met anyone with eyes that aren’t beautiful. and smiles are heavenly because seeing a person’s joy written on their face is priceless.”

whisper-

hyeyoung: “i usually get the amount you’re supposed to get. i tend to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. my alarm is santeria by sublime, like johnny’s...”

mila: “i have horrible, horrible insomnia and only get a very little amount.”

evie was answered on my other post!! ++ she also will sleep through ANYTHING even her alarms

jimin: “i either get too much or too little.”

pencil-

hyeyoung: “i bullet journal to plan, and i also write down the things that make me anxious during the day so that i can reflect and see what i could do next time to sooth myself more”

mila: “lined notebooks full of songs that i keep in a specific drawer. if i need to get out anything, it escapes my mind in a song”

evie: “my journals are 10% words, 90% drawings.”

jimin: “i have my song journals, but then i have my jimin journals which hold every intimate thought or emotion i have ever felt.”

honey-

hyeyoung: “baby or love. those are what johnny most commonly calls me. he likes to call me angel, too, and that really gets me :) .. we also call each other chipmunk.”

mila: “i used to hate being called lala, but now i love it. it’s also cute when evie calls me baozi, because i call her shumai. i also like bun.”

evie’s is answered on my other post!!

jimin: “uhh... baby, minmin (thanks, jisung), i like when people call me flower too 🥺”

velvet-

hyeyoung: “my first crush? i saw kurt cobain when i was little and thought he was the most handsome man i’d ever seen- i listened to a lot of nirvana growing up. a lot of people don’t expect me to like things like grunge or rock, but it’s very much my style!! im just shy and don’t dress to reflect it.”

mila: “i watched hercules when i was really little and became obsessed with meg. yup. it was the classic ‘i just thought i wanted to be her!’ but nope. gay.”

evie: “i don’t remember?! i think it was when i was in secondary school, because i didn’t like anyone for a while. just this classmate... and i was a cringe little fuck.”

jimin: “the first notable one i remember was when i was in second grade... i was reading twilight and fell in love with edward. yes, i was reading twilight in second grade, yes when i got to breaking dawn my mom didn’t let me read part of the honeymoon. i also had a crush on bella, and to this day, i would be in a throuple with robert pattinson and kristen stewart.”

strawberry-

hyeyoung: “cherries and strawberries, because they taste best covered in chocolate.”

mila: “mangos are so fucking good.”

evie: “grapes are arguably the best fruit and gumdrop grapes are arguably the best kind.”

jimin: “watermelon, bitchesssss”

kiss-

hyeyoung: “i mean, my first kiss was with a boy i was friends with when i was in america. we had both smoked a cigarette before it (i just wanted to try it) so it tasted bad. the other guys i kissed i weren’t proper friends with, and then johnny.”

mila: “um, ive kissed evie, like, when we were dating. i havent kissed many people to be honest...”

evie: “i kissed mila, i’ve kissed lily (a friendly peck), i’ve ALMOST kissed hyeyoung, i’ve kissed some of my guy friends and girl friends predebut- so, yes, i have kissed friends. and people who aren’t friends. i just like to kiss.”

jimin: “... sigh. renjun, chenle, evie, The Ex We Don’t Talk About, yeri (friendly, like with evie), and probably a few other friends in a non-romantic way? i dunno”

shampoo-

hyeyoung: “my favorite scent is johnny’s versace cologne, his shampoo, and his skin. definitely roses. i also love my perfume smell, clean linen, and i love the smell of champagne.”

mila: “i like the smell of cigarettes... YES i know it’s bad, but it calms me down. i’d also pick the smell of rain, or beetle, because he always smells good.”

evie: “the smell of paint and pencils is so comforting. i also like nature smells. when the air smells cold, it’s so nice. and the OCEAN.”

jimin: “home-y smells? laundry, and warm smells... lavender and florals, my perfume, and the smell of summer nights and bonfires. also any of my members.”

lace-

hyeyoung: definitely a dress person, is definitely in love with the classiness and sleeves of that first one, and is definitely happy about how sexy she looks in that second one.

mila: is NOT a dress person and prefers dresses that she can go braless with and are comfortable

evie: this is just Evie and we all know it

jimin: the first one is cute on it’s own AND with a big sweater/sweatshirt over it, and the second one make her feel like she on a european holiday

sapphos-

hyeyoung: “jiminnie :) she writes such beautiful poetry- i’m very thankful that she chose to share some with me!”

mila: “i don’t think i have a favorite poet, to be honest... i like kate bush, though, and i know she’s a singer, but she’s truly a poet.”

evie: “michael faudet. he wrote a series of poetry books, his first is called ‘dirty pretty things’ and it’s really 18+ but i thought it was gorgeous. i have all of his books.”

jimin: “asking me to pick a favorite poet is like asking me to pick a favorite member- can’t do it.”

#nct siren #nct siren;; q&a #nct siren;; misc #just siren things #hyeyoung shon #mila zhou #evie wu #lily na

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cherryafton · 3 years

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Ask 3-29

I’m sorry for taking my time to answer, I want to give a full thing so it’s taking time to elaborate everything, anyway, here it is!

I’m sorry if it’s a long post, the answers are under the cut :(

3. Orientation and relationship status (single, taken (by who?), crush (on who?)

She’s bisexual but she never came out to her parents bc she feared what her family would say or do. :(

I still don’t know what am I gonna do with her in this relationship status thing, I don’t have any ideas, rn

She used to have a crush on Park but she shoved it away in fear she didn’t return her feelings and then she developed this huge crush towards Adler, he made her feel things she hasn’t felt a long time ago, she felt this connection she hasn’t had in years and well, she fell deeply in love with this man.

4. Race and Ethnicity

She’s Caucasian and she’s Russian.

5. Height and body type

Her height is 5’6’’ (167.5)

I did a little research on the different body types and I think hers is Endomorph with a pear body shape.

6. Headcanon VA

I have no idea what the hell VA stands for so I’ll just share a headcanon of her:

When she’s nervous, she starts “fidgeting” with her finger or anything that she has in her hands.

19. Hobbies

18. Have any special keepsakes?

He has the collar of her deceased dog Cain as a bracelet to give her strength and motivation.

Also, she has a gold chain with an “M” as a lucky charm or so she thinks, the previous owner was very special to Vika.

Singing, dancing (she’s not that good tbh), reading comics, watching movies, listening music, photography, poker, songwriting, playing the guitar, flower picking, journaling (just writing down her thoughts or feelings, idk if it counts as journaling, correct me if I’m wrong pls), collecting stickers and stargazing.

20. Clothing/Aesthetic

If it’s a night out or something casual, she wears a black denim jacket, a white shirt, denim jeans and a pair of combat boots.

If it’s in one of those umm “heavy duty” missions she just wears a plain black turtleneck with cargo pants and her trustworthy boots.

If it’s in one of those missions where she doesn’t have to do much (like in Brick in the wall mission) she would DEFINETLY wear this (actually, she wore this on the mission mentioned above)(i want to draw her in this outfit SO BAD pls send motivation) :

While she is on the safehouse she wears something simple, some cargo pants, a cropped tank top, her boots and if she’s cold, she wears a hoodie or anything that keeps her warm.

Her aesthetic is hard to explain, it’s kind of a combination between bruises, smoking, guns, this “mind control” things and stuff.

Here’s a Pinterest board with her aesthetic if you’re interested:

https://pin.it/3Yh2H5N

25. City or country?

She loves the bustling crowded, exciting, fast-paced city but she feels more at home in the country, it reminds her a lot of her life before all this mess.

26. Guilty pleasure

She will never NEVER admit it but she loves watching romantic cheesy movies and daydreaming about it all day, thinking that she’ll have something like that.

27. What’s their family like? Who’s in it? What’s their relationship with them?

Her parents (Aleksandr and Galina) divorced when she was 4 years old, 5 months later her dad met Nina and two years later they married and moved into Nina’s house, where Vika met her grandfather Perseus and got along pretty well with him instantly. Viktoria’s relationship with her stepmother Nina is better than her relationship with her biological mother Galina. Apart from the whole divorce thing, she has a normal family like any other.

28. Are they literate? Did they go to school? How long? What level?

Nah, she would read a book or two but only if it’s about a subject that interests her or catches her attention enough to read the whole thing, she’d rather read comics. She was homeschooled by her father Aleksandr but he only taught her the essentials as well as English in fear of the aftermath of WW2.

29. What was childhood like?

As mentioned above, her parents got divorced but she still had a happy childhood. One of the happiest moments in her childhood was when she turned 10, her parents gifted her a borzoi dog named Cain, he kept her good company.

When she met Perseus, they both had a special connection, of course, Viktoria was a child and at her age, she wouldn’t understand things as war and violence but she was very interested in her gramps stories either way. They always spent time together, she enjoyed it when they went flower picking or walked Cain, it was a nice feeling, she never lacked anything, she had a happy life with caring parents, a spoiling and cool grandpa, a loyal adorable dog and last but not least a warm and welcoming home.

When her gramps was gone for his missions, Vika spent her time with some kids she met in her neighborhood named Nikolay and Anna, they walked Cain and played catch with him, also they tried to train him but they failed multiple times, it was fun and after trying a lot, they made it. They were really good friends.

#it's fun answering this asks!#oc: viktoria norin bell #don't let this flop #pls

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sctanic · 4 years

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『 dove cameron. twenty-one. cis woman. she/her. 』 oh heavens, is that THEODORA ‘THEO’ KENNEDY from SYCAMORE WAY i see roaming around mapleview? minnie may’s always calling them -BEWILDERING & -EXTEMPORANEOUS. i happen to think they’re not that bad! they’re a pretty cool PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR and every time i’ve seen them, they’ve always been +BEWITCHING & +UNBIASED. i hope i see them around again!

hi everyone! i’m nico and i am so happy to be here. it’s been so long since i’ve played theo and i’ve been searching for a place she’d fit in for ages. i apologize for the length of my intro and fully do not expect anyone to actually read the entire thing but if you do and you like what you read, don’t hesitate to give it a like or send me a message to plot!

trigger warnings; parental death, murder, sexual assault, abuse, alcohol, drugs

S T A T I S T I C S

full name : theodora jane kennedy nickname: theo, t.j, teddy to a select few date of birth : september 1, 1999 age : twenty-one height : 5′1″ sexuality : pansexual relationship status : taken by sonny deluca children : river and regan deluca, twins, nearly two years old. occupation : paranormal investigator for ghost adventures aesthetic : dried blood, cigarette smoke, spilled red wine, ripped jeans over fishnets, abandoned houses, late night walks through cemeteries, combat boots, smudged mascara, bruised skin, leather jackets, old film cameras, black lipstick, nightmares, dried out flowers.

P E R S O N A L I T Y

positive traits : bewitching, unbiased, passionate negative traits : bewildering, extemoraneous, impulsive likes : the occult, rebellion, horror movies, the smell of fall, cinnamon dislikes : pizza, romcoms, gender norms, willy wonka, early mornings myer-briggs : ISFP enneagram : type 8

B I O G R A P H Y

╰ ‘ theodora kennedy was born on september 1, 1999 in a small town on long island, new york to a young couple. daniel and christina kennedy already had a six year old son when they welcomed their daughter into the world and although she had not been planned, they were happy to have her. for the first five years of her life, theo had everything, but that all changed on christmas eve of 2004.

╰ ‘ what they thought was an attempted robbery gone wrong left the kennedy family broken. as theo and her older brother hid in the closet and watched from the crack between the door and the frame, christina was shot 4 times repeatedly and left dead. — it would take one whole year for authorities to find out that her own husband was responsible for it.

╰ ‘ no, daniel kennedy didn’t pull the trigger. and no, he didn’t break into his own house but his past life of crime brought upon the tragedy. before meeting and setting down with christina, daniel had been involved in a sketchy lifestyle — drugs, alcohol, parties and crime. he bought, he dealt, he stole and he owed a lot of money. when he didn’t meet his deadline he was warned what would happen, and they had been true to their word. if he couldn’t offer them the money they would take something else, something money couldn’t buy. his wife, and the mother to his two children.

╰ ‘ that christmas was a dark one. there were no celebrations and the kids didn’t open their presents. the new year just brought dread and slowly the kennedy’s began to spiral. daniel began to fall back into his olf lifestyle of partying and crime as a coping mechanism. he became involved with the wrong people once more, people he called ‘old friends’ and more times than not his son jack, who was only eleven at the time, was left to care for his sister, theo.

╰ ‘ the death of a mother would be hard for anyone, but witnessing it had really ruined theodora. she stopped socializing, stopped speaking. her father still swears that she didn’t speak a single word for 3 years, and that may have been true. night terrors and flash backs took over her once pleasant dreams.

╰ ‘ after falling back into his prior way of life, mr. kennedy found himself unemployed. it was really no surprise, he would miss shifts at the auto body shop and when he did show up he was under the influence of something and incapable of doing much of anything and with no steady income, they lost their house. however, with every storm comes a rainbow and although they lost nearly everything they did get to move in with daniel’s parents, theo’s grandparents who she absolutely adored.

╰ ‘ grandma and grandpa kennedy weren’t your everyday grandparents. they didn’t knit blankets and play bingo, no, they owned the town funeral home, situated on a graveyard and lived atop of it. grandpa was a funeral director and grandma a mortician. while daniel had grown up in the funeral home, he wasn’t much phased and his new habits left him home rarely. jack hated it. he avoided the parlor at all costs and refused to tell his friends where it was he was living but theo had never felt more comfortable, surrounded by death.

╰ ‘ at only six, she began tagging along with her grandparents while they worked. she learned how to embalm bodies and prepare them for their final rest. of course her interest in the dead and the fact that she lived in a funeral home was a subject of ridicule in school. even in kindergarten she was picked on for it. she instantaneously became the ‘weird girl’. as she got older the bullying got worse, but it made her tough. she didn’t need friends, she had her interests to keep her busy and she liked to believe the dead were her friends. she’d often spend time in the morgue or out in the cemetery, making up lives in her head for the deceased and searching for answers.

╰ ‘ her interest in the occult began very early. she loved anything mysterious and dark. her first report in elementary school was on ed and lorraine warren, her biggest inspirations even back then and ever since she has longed to be the next lorraine. her intuition to the dead is strong and her sensitivity is high. she was told early on by a psychic friend of her grandparents that she had a gift and although they told her that she would one day be able to use it to help the living, she knew right away she wanted to use it to help the dead — the souls not at rest.

╰ ‘ by sixteen theo’s relationship with her father was nonexistent. he was absent most of her life, in and out of jail and always under the influence of drugs. and when he was around, he was abusive. she spent her whole life fearing him and while her brother jack strived to be everything their father was not, to make him proud, theo found herself slowly becoming everything her father was. she was skipping school to smoke in the cemetery and drinking alcohol from her fathers stash alone in her room. she tried to drown out her demons by self medicating. she found herself at house parties and in strangers beds regularly. she was her own worst nightmare. she was becoming the person her peers had made her out to be, a monster. she was mean and bitter and mad at the world, and so very young.

╰ ‘ at seventeen her world turned upside down one more time. a small town murder made the news and left the locals panicked. was there a serial killer on the loose? were they in danger? would the killer ever get caught? a witness met with the police and a sketch was made of the suspect and shared with the world via the local news — and theo knew instantly who it was. she had spent the last week hearing about the brutal murder of a young seventeen year old girl. she had been drugged, sexually assaulted and eventually choked to death. it was ugly and it was inhuman — and it was her father. she was sure of it. with shaky hands and the approval of her grandparents, she called the police and reported her father. after 3 months and a very long trial, he was sentenced to life in prison and for the first time in years, she could finally breathe.

╰ ‘ at eighteen, theodora applied for an internship with the ghost adventures team in vegas and by some miracle she was accepted. it only took six months for them to welcome her to the team full time, making her the youngest member of the crew. she found a family in her ghost adventures crew, looking up to zak bagans like the father figure she never had. her new job and new found family really helped pull her away from the dark path she was going down.

╰ ‘ she soon after moved to vegas, the glitz and glam and partying was dangerous and tempting but her work crew did their best to steer her in the right direction, it was there — in vegas that theo met sonny deluca.

╰ ‘ sonny showed up at theo’s door one morning with his mission partner, asking to talk to her about the book of mormon. one day later he showed back up alone. four days later he was leaving his mission and moving in. it happened quick and they fell fast. theo didn’t think she was capable of loving anyone, especially not in the way that she loves sonny. it only took four days for him to knock down her walls and expose her soft interior.

╰ ‘ it did not take very long into their relationship to learn that they were expecting, not just one baby but twins. both scared and excited, they decided to keep the babies and make the impulsive decision to move. mapleview was their destination, the perfect place to raise a family. they got a house and prepared for the birth of their children.

╰ ‘ still together, sonny and theo now have a set of twins, almost two year old son, river and daughter regan. they are the light of theo’s life and everyday she strives to be better for their sake. without her family, she would be in a very bad place. she’s positive of it.

#mapleviewintro #tw: death #tw: murder #tw: alchohol mention #tw: abuse

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syms-things-5 · 4 years

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Clear The Area - Chapter Eight

Previous Chapter Here

Warning: Language. NSFW. Unprotected sex (be careful guys)

Notes: Apologies this is a little (a lot) longer than planned, but hope you enjoy it!

CHAPTER EIGHT

Chris knew this would more than likely be the last time he would see his friends for a while. The reshoots loomed ever closer, the knot in his stomach was getting tighter, and he was growing more and more unnerved at the prospect of what was lying ahead of him. He was determined to make the most of this night as much as he physically could.

He showered and made himself vaguely presentable, ignoring the navy Chanel sweater and trousers that had arrived earlier that morning and opting instead for a plain white tee and jeans. His favourite red belt made a special appearance. He began regretting his decision to allow his management team to redecorate his pad in order to make it “friendlier on the eye” as soon as he took stock of his open lounge. They’d shifted some of the furniture around, added some fresh flowers and balloons here and there, and taken down the photograph of a family trip to Disney that used to be hanging in the entrance hallway. There was also a distinctly sweet and fragrant smell of freesias wafting through the air. It smelled like Springtime and positivity. He hated it.

Just a few “unfiltered” photographs, they said. Nothing too intrusive of stressful. Now, however, they were looking to cover up the potential fall-out from his fling with Jenny after she’d helpfully announced the day before that she was starting divorce proceedings. Matt had taken to messaging him at half-hour intervals to remind him his house needed to be bustling with as many people as possible even if he didn’t know them all personally. He needed to look carefree, he was instructed, and unbothered by whatever may be going on in somebody else’s private life because it had nothing to do with him, right? Maybe flirt a little bit. Bring out the “big guns” and the Boston “bro” personality his fans loved to see. For God’s sake, just try to look as single as possible.

People weren’t due to start arriving until 7 but it didn’t stop Chris from drinking almost as soon as he had woken up, calling on Scott and a couple of his oldest pals to come and join him for some pre-party beers.

“Woah.” said Gary, walking in closely behind Scott, carrying a crate of Budweiser. He rook one exaggerated sniff of the perfumed air surrounding him. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say we’d come to the wrong place!”

“Are we allowed to touch anything?” joked Scott, mocking him by tip-toeing in past the guys.

“Don’t ask. Just do whatever you like, please. I need it to at least feel like it’s still my home.” Chris scratched his head in disbelief. It looked more like something featured on the ‘gram of a would-be influencer than the home of a 30-something bachelor who had no time for soft furnishings and Feng Shui.

“Bro, it’s your birthday! You could at least look happy about it.”

Chris wasn’t drunk enough to muster much more than a half-smile at his brother at that point but figured a few more beers might encourage him to lighten up. He must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. He was about to follow the lads into his kitchen when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. If it was Matt bugging him one more time, he swore he’d throw the phone out of the window.

Unknown 1.09pm

Happy birthday sweetie. Can’t wait to see you again x

“Who’s that?” said Scott as he emerged from the kitchen, beer in hand.

Chris just shook his head. “I have absolutely no idea.”

Gradually as the hours passed by, a steady stream of people started making their presence known. Most parties Chris threw rarely went off as originally organised but he didn’t much care. It was always implied that his downtown apartment had an open-door policy when it came to friends and family turning up unannounced. Hell, many would stay for days at a time and he wouldn’t care. If he was holding a party or a game night, people could just show up whenever they felt like it even if Chris himself wasn’t awake or ready to greet them in person.

The vibe soon started picking up and the music was louder now. Scott had made various playlists and was doing the duty of hosting people better than Chris, who had been glued to his phone on and off for most of the afternoon. More and more of his friends arrived with their partners and Chris would give them a bro-shake but pretty much leave them to it. It was...odd. He wasn’t sure what was going on but he was growing concerned that his brother wasn’t much enjoying his birthday celebrations. The table in the hallway was rife with gifts and cards, and the beer and alcohol levels were not in danger of diminishing any time soon. Chris had gone overboard on catered food but he himself had yet to touch anything. That was a danger sign, Scott thought. Last thing he needed was a drunk and melancholy actor on his hands this earlier in the evening. Thankfully, Chris perked up as soon as he saw his mom and Shanna arrive, and Scott breathed a sigh of relief.

“Hello darling. Happy birthday!” Lisa called out to him and embraced him in a typical motherly hug, all stretched arms and smiles, running her hand under his chin as he pulled away. “How is everything?”

“Yeh, all good. Thanks mom. You look great!” Chris moved in to kiss her on the cheek again before pulling back to allow Scott his turn. “Wow, Shan, I really didn’t think you could make that shade of yellow look even more grotesque but you did it!”

When she was sure Lisa couldn’t see her, Shanna flipped him the bird. Chris feigned offense before wrapping his arm tightly around her shoulders and walking her towards the lounge. “Baby sis, you can’t be mean to me on my birthday.”

“Ugh...I really can’t handle you when I don’t have a drink in my hand.”

“Then let’s fix that!”

Chris shifted past a few friends, all greeting him and patting him on the back as he and his sister moved by. Several faces he didn’t recognise so Matt would be proud of him, he thought. “So, is Sarah travelling separate to you guys?” Chris asked, finally taking one of the wrapped boxed out of his mom’s hands.

“I think so. Do you want these in the fridge or in the pantry for later?” Lisa asked indicating the cupcakes she’d been asked to pick up on the way over.

“Um, just leave them there for now, it’s fine.”

Before he got a chance to speak to his mother again, it was too late. He watched as she was grabbed by Josh and his new girlfriend and started to make her way around her son’s oldest friends, greeting them all as though she hadn’t seen them in years. Shanna reappeared next to him, rifling through the bottles of vodka until she landed on her favourite.

“Is Sarah not coming then?” Chris asked, more concerned this time than no one seemed to know exactly where she was.

“Not if you’re going to continue being a dick to her, she’s not.” Shanna turned around to Chris’s fridge and began perusing the selection of mixers. “Where’s the cranberry juice?”

“It’s inside the door.” He responded. Shanna couldn’t see for looking but finally located the carton of juice and poured a fraction of what she needed into the glass before topping it up with a very generous amount of vodka. “I was kind hoping to apologise to her in person actually. Is she still really upset? She hasn’t answered my texts.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Well, you were out of like, Chris. But yes, she’ll be here, I’m sure. I think she just had something to do first.”

Chris knew Shanna was hiding something from him. She was a terrible liar.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He grabbed the glass from her hands. “I am not looking after you tonight.”

“Don’t worry, Grandpa. I’ll make sure she gets home safe.” Scott reappeared alongside them, merrier than before and holding a small plate of food for Chris. “Why don’t you ‘mingle’ mingle? Your audience awaits, kind Sir.”

Just as Chris was about to protest, his phone vibrated again in his pocket.

Unknown 9.22pm

I hope you’re having a great time tonight. The party looks amazing! Can’t wait to catch up with you properly x

At some point around 10pm, Chris escaped. He retreated to his little hideout behind a tree that gave him a clear view of his property without the pressure of being spotted by anyone inside. His phone had buzzed a couple more times and he was now sure if was Jenny reaching out to him. She’d been leaving little heart emojis on some photographs that had already appeared online. He felt a little sick and just needed to get away from the crowds, now tipsier than he was, annoyingly. He took the cigarette he’d bunged from a friend and lit it, savouring the feeling. In that moment was possibly the calmest he’d felt all day.

“Who are you hiding from, birthday boy?” Chris knew it would be Scott who would find him eventually.

Chris shrugged. “No one. Just needed the air.”

“Yeh right. Mom knows you smoke by the way. No point hiding it now.” Scott took the cigarette and took a slow drag before handing it back to him. “Zach hates me smoking inside.”

“Is that why you started running?” Chris smirked.

“Running’s healthy. It’s all about balance.” Scott observed his brother for a moment. “What’s going on? You’ve been quiet all day. You’ve only had, what, three beers? That’s not like you.”

Chris shrugged unconvincingly, avoiding eye contact before his phone buzzed again. He quickly dove into his pocket to grab it but shifted uncomfortably when he saw who it was.

“Somebody’s keen.” Scott didn’t need to ask to know who it was. He could read his brother like a book. “Can’t believe she hasn’t got the message by now.” Scott continued to eye him, unsure of what was going through his head. “That’s not what’s got you down, is it? There’s nothing going on, is there?”

Chris glanced at his brother and shook his head. He knew he’d been caught out and at this point he was too tired to deny it. “I still haven’t heard from Sarah. I’ve tried apologising and it’s like she’s just ghosting me or something.”

“Stop being melodramatic. She lives with your sister. She’s not “ghosting” you, you dick.” His attempt to lighten the mood between them fell flat and he realised humour was going to be wasted on Chris this evening. “She’s got a lot on her plate right now, what with Charlotte and work and everything. Just give her a break, OK? It’s a tricky think she’s trying to navigate here.”

“I don’t know about that.” He shook his head slowly, crushing the cigarette under his shoe. “I said she was being ungrateful.”

Scott sighed. “Well, that’ll explain it. Hey, remember when Shan was a teenager and she got all those letters out of the blue?” Chris nodded at the distant memory. “I think the one thing we need to keep in mind here, with Sarah, is that she chose to reach back. She’s doing things her way and no one is forcing her. That’s gotta be a positive, right?”

Sarah felt like an idiot. She had no one to blame but herself. She couldn’t even lean on Shanna for support right now and she didn’t want to disturb Audrey at this hour if she was mid-celebration with Michael. She threw her coat on the stand and stood in the hallway of her apartment, bag swinging low. She kicked off her shoes and took off her tights to feel the coolness of the floor on the soles of her feet. It was a small comfort. The text message was still showing on her phone that was grasped in her hand as if she hadn’t been staring at it for the past three hours.

Charlotte 7.52pm

I’m so sorry. I thought I could do this. Please forgive me.

Sarah had decided to arrive at the venue a little earlier than they’d agreed to meet. She didn’t know what she was planning on doing by deciding that but she just knew she couldn’t sit around the flat any longer, her stomach was tied in knots. She hadn’t eaten much of anything that day but claimed she was saving herself for the extensive catering Chris would no doubt have laid on now that his guest list had multiplied.

She had spent some time getting ready with Shanna and Lisa but left her hair and make-up quite simple figuring she could add to it on the way to the party later on. She didn’t want to make an unfair first impression on Charlotte. She knew she didn’t want to look like she was a party girl but equally so, she didn’t want to appear to have given too much thought to what she was wearing to meet her in the first place. She wanted to remain as casual as possible which was some kind of weird irony given what was taking place.

She managed to make a relatively quiet exit as Lisa was helping zip up the back of Shanna’s jumpsuit telling them she’d be there as soon as she could. They didn’t ask her any questions. She just left and got into the cab that was waiting for her around the corner. A little under fifteen minutes later, she was outside the bar, trying to regulate her breathing. Maybe Charlotte was already inside? Maybe she had had the exact same thought and was having one for courage before they met? That thought made her laugh a little. She opened the door and gave her name to the rep who proceeded to show her to a nice booth in the far corner. Charlotte hadn’t arrived after all but Sarah had a clear eye on the door, as much good as it did her.

She poured herself another glass and wiped at the tears in her eyes. She couldn’t believe she had been reduced to crying over someone she had never met. She couldn’t believe she had allowed herself to assume everything would work out despite evidence to the contrary.

Everyone was right. She was a fool.

She heard the door go but couldn’t face seeing Shanna. She swiped at her face as much as she could, trying to remove any and all hints of her crying. Shanna told her once she was jealous of how she could cry without her skin getting all red and blotchy.

She clocked the time and realised it was perhaps a little too early for her to be coming home unless Scott had shoved her into a taxi, which wouldn’t have surprised her. Loud music and a free bar were Shan’s undoing. She composed herself and waiting for Shanna to appear in the doorway, worse for wear, but everything had gone silent. Sarah got up and walked out of the kitchen, not sure what to expect but certainly not expecting to find Chris stood with his back against the foot, keys dangling between his fingers. He seemed smaller somehow.

His expression briefly turned towards guilt when he noticed she had been crying. He made a move towards her before ultimately deciding against it, preferring to remain still in her hallway. He looked awkward which was a feat in itself for someone who always seemed so...cool, she thought. It didn’t last long, though, a steeliness soon returning to his eyes.

“Hey,” said Sarah diffusing the silence. She suddenly became hyper-aware she was in the Chanel dress he’d given her to wear for his birthday party, the party she should have been at hours ago but instead chose to blow off carelessly in favour of meeting somebody who really shouldn’t have mattered. Shit, she thought. She was a terrible friend. “I’m so sorry, Chris. I really don’t know wh-”

“-You know, I could have done with seeing you there, Sarah. It’s been a fucking terrible day, I’ve had my team hounding me over this Jenny bullshit and having my friends around me would have made all the difference.”

“I just,” she wasn’t sure where to go from here. He’d become so cold in the last few moments. She wasn’t really expecting it but knew she’d pushed her luck a little too much this evening. “I had something I needed to do first, and-”

“I don’t ask for much from my family but the one thing I do expect is that they turn up when they say they’re gonna turn up. You understand me? It’s my fuckin’ birthday after all and you couldn’t even manage that.” He moved past her, ignoring the tears now burning at the corners of her eyes.

“Alright Chris, you’ve made your point.” she whispered. The room felt too small and Chris looked like he’d grown a foot out of pure frustration. She just wanted to go to bed and forget this day ever happened or at least get Chris to leave so she could feel pathetic in peace.

She could detect a faint small of tobacco coming from his breath now he was standing closer to her. “What was so important that you couldn’t make it? Must have been amazing to blow us off like that and please don’t tell me it was Greg. I didn’t think you of all people would sack family off for some fuck you’re ambivalent about at best.”

She felt like a scolded child. Actually, no, it felt worse than that. It felt like he was picking at her, trying to get some kind of reaction out of her but what that reaction was, she didn’t know. She took a breath and calmed herself. Her hands were shaking. She was pretty sure he noticed now.

“It wasn’t like that,” she said, as calmly as possible. “I’ve said I’m sorry, Chris. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, OK? Your family and friends were there and I was planning on dropping by.” She pleaded, her tone striving to be a little more even. She figured if she tried reasoning with him instead of pushing back it might allow them both to get out of this unscathed but he just scoffed.

“Dropping by? Well, gee, thank you for making me an afterthought, Sarah. I really appreciate that.”

“It’s not just you that’s had a crap night, OK?” She shouted before reigning herself in. She really didn’t want to fall out with him on top of everything else. “We all have shit to deal with. At least people turned up to see you. They care about you. They didn’t just leave you hanging around, wondering what you’d done wrong.”

Chris looked confused. He signed and placed his hands on his hips, unsure of what his next move would be. “What’s going on?”

She could feel herself tearing up again, her face getting hotter by the second. She hated crying in front of people and it invariably gave her a headache, one she’d most likely fail to overcome before bedtime. “I arranged to meet her this evening. I didn’t want to say anything to anyone until I’d seen her at least once but, um, she didn’t show.”

For once, Chris didn’t have any answers. If he had been thoughtful instead of the selfish asshole he recognised himself to be, he would have known to have shut his goddamn mouth. “Fuck, Sarah. I...I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.” He took another step closer to her but she made no effort to react towards him. “You don’t deserve this.”

Sarah audibly scoffed. “Well, that’s a maybe. But hey, look, happy birthday! Looks like you were right all along! I’ll make sure to wrap it next time.”

“If I’d have known what you’ve been through today, I would have shut my mouth. You’re one of my best friends and I was just thinking of myself, like always.” He leaned against the doorframe and Sarah recognised how pathetic they both looked in that second.

“What kind of person do you have to be to reject someone twice?” Sarah whispered to herself more than anything. She gently banged her head against the doorframe in thought. She wasn’t looking for a response.

Silence passed between them for what felt like hours. They were good at being quiet around each other, neither feeling the need to dispel energy and not caring what the other was doing but this didn’t feel like those times before. She glanced across the doorway at him but didn’t recognise what was looking back at her so intently. He looked like he’d been suspended in motion and if it wasn’t for her tapping her foot on the wall behind her, she would have thought she had, too. Everything just seemed a little fuzzy now and there was a headache threatening her from behind her eyes.

Before she could move again, Chris had crossed what little space there was between them and went for her, his hands grabbing her face and pulling her into him. It was messy at first, their lips slightly out of line with each other and she couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe. He’d taken the breath straight from her, it felt like. The only thing she could do in that moment was to grab back at his hands that were holding her face but she didn’t feel like pulling them away. Not just yet. For the first time, she had some power over what was happening to her. She was tired of being a good person, being vulnerable for others to use whenever they felt like.

She felt his lips slowly move across hers, calmer now, while she stayed almost still in his grasp. She felt one hand leave her face and reappear on her lower back and he pulled her in to bring her closer. They must have occupied less than a square foot of space stood like this. Everything was silent apart from what Sarah assumed was her heart beating or perhaps that was his? She couldn’t separate them at this point, a perfect fit soon only disturbed by the shrill buzz from someone’s phone in their nearby vicinity.

“Fuck!” Chris whisper-shouted pulling away from her, biting his bottom lip. Sarah scrabbled around to find her bag in the hallway before signing when she saw who it was. She took a breath so as not to give the game away.

“Shan? No, it’s fine, honestly.” Chris could only hear one side of the conversation as she spoke on the phone but could instantly tell from Sarah’s inability to get a sentence out that Shanna was drunk and giving her the third degree. He wanted to grab the phone and smash it against the wall. “No, it’s no problem. Don’t worry, OK? Yes. Yes, I’ll see you in a bit. Alright. Bye, lovely.”

Sarah had turned away from Chris at this point and looked down at the phone in front of her. She pursed her lips, embarrassed that she could still feel him on her. She thought she might have been imagining things but that was definitely his hand gently touching her on her hip where he’d held her just moments ago. She turned around to face him but one look into his blue eyes and she felt like she was going to collapse on the floor. She was pretty sure he could feel her shaking but he kept his grip on her, trying to work out what she was thinking. She just shook her head slowly and in confusion at what transpired and walked out of the kitchen, down the hall to the bathroom hoping to get some privacy and some cold water on her face.

She didn’t get very far. Chris followed her and grabbed her wrist, swinging her back towards him until she crashed against him again, unsteady on her feet. There was no time to think before his lips were on hers again, harder than they were before. He had his arms around her waist and started walking her backwards towards...something, she couldn’t register what.

She briefly resisted his movements but after a few steps or so he made do with the wall next to her bedroom doorway. He pressed her hards against it, his hands now back cupping her face. She could feel how hard he had become with the way he pushed his crotch into her in an attempt to keep her still against him. She knew she didn’t want to break away again, she was tired of fighting and was ready to let it just wash over her. She grabbed at his sweater with both fists and moaned into his kiss.

She shoved him until he felt his back meet the opposite wall. The groan that left him was nothing short of filthy and something inside her snapped when she felt his hands fist in her hair while the other slipped down to grip her ass. She felt him pull up the hem of her dress, his fingers gently skimming the back of her thighs. He grabbed at her just underneath her ass and pulled her against him harder than before until they lost their balance and she ended up on top of him as he slid down the wall and hit the hard wood floor beneath them. They’d have bruises tomorrow but they didn’t care.

He desperately grabbed at the hem of her dress again, this time to feel her soft skin between her thighs. Her skin was so smooth and not to the touch, he couldn’t bear it. She felt like she was on fire. He managed to pull her panties to one side but she felt them rip as she furiously gripped at the belt on his trousers. He worked out pretty quickly what she was trying to do and took over for them both to release himself as quickly as possible. In one move he placed her where he wanted her. He heard her sharp intake of breath and looked up just in time to see the look of pleasure on her face as he entered her, perhaps harder than he had intended to but she didn’t seem to mind.

Her eyes closed. He could see the blush covering her skin and her neck and he reached out to pull her face back to him as he motioned for her to move on top of him. He filled her, thrusting into her as much as he could from this angle and briefly regretted not keeping them up against the wall. He knew it would be over in a matter of seconds at this rate. They were both struggling to feel something. Make something of this godawful day.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the way she was moving. He felt her wavering slightly as he quickly approached his own release, her eyes open now and looking down at him. Their staggered breaths were the only sound filling the space. He was so close and he knew she would be too but he couldn’t ignore the look of fear growing apparent on her face. The glazed look in his eyes felt like electricity coursing through her veins. She didn’t know it could feel as exciting as it did to be encouraged along by him like this, his hands firm on her hips, gliding her up and down, keeping him firmly inside her. She had to look away and she began to move faster, slightly out of rhythm now, scraping her knees against the floor on either side of him, pain that only served to heighten the pleasure.

She could feel him throbbing inside her as his legs began to shake and his breathing quickened. The sound of them both hitting the floor over and over again only served to push her on even more against her better judgement. It was too late to stop now. They would just have to deal with the consequences another time.

He tried to hold off from his own orgasm for as long as possible. He wanted more than anything to see her hit her peak as he held her hips tighter and moved her so she could take him harder. One of her hands pushed back against the wall behind him in order to find purchase and it was this move that ultimately caused them both to hit the point of no return.

He didn’t know who came first but it didn’t matter. After a few moments, their breathing started to even out, their skin showing that unmistakable sheen of sweat that only sex could give. Without thinking, he wrapped one arm around her waist and stroked the strands of hair out of her face. He wanted her to look at him as she continued to get her breathing under control but her eyes were too tightly shut. He look scuffed up from their actions and his pupils were blown wide open. She couldn’t even imagine the state she was in. If he could have found a little strength to speak in that moment, he would have told her she was more beautiful than he’d ever seen her look before. Perhaps wisely, he decided to save that for another time.

Oh fuck.

Sarah’s brain went into overdrive as she gradually came back to reality. Chris was trying to figure out what was going through her mind as he felt her slip off him and shuffle herself to the side, pulling the hem of her dress down in a rather redundant effort to protect her modesty. Her underwear was left wrapped around one ankle as she tried to move onto her knees to stand up. She wiped at her mouth with the side of her hand and in that moment, he thought she might start crying again.

“Fuck.” She rubbed her face with her hands. He didn’t think she meant for him to hear that. It was the last thing he thought he would hear her say. He made a grab for her hand but she avoided his grasp as she stood and, on shaky legs, walked back into the kitchen leaving him ruined on the floor against the wall, shaken in more ways than one.

She couldn’t register her surrounding. She felt like she was about to throw up. How could this have happened? How could she be so stupid?

She held herself as she contemplated all the things she would need to say to him to try and make this better. No words made sense in her mind and those that did, she could barely string together to form coherent sentences. She heard Chris enter the room behind her but he stopped just inside of the doorway seemingly as unable to speak as much as she was. This was bad, she thought. So fucking bad. She felt embarrassed when she eventually clocked his messed-up hair. He looked dazed by the whole thing. No doubt his back would be bearing the brunt of their heavy mistake.

she finally reached his eyes and was met with a shy smile and a look she didn’t quite recognise. Was it pity? Concern? Regret? All of the above most probably, she couldn’t quite tell.

“Sarah,” he whispered, swallowing. “I’m....” He took a couple of steps forwards, holding his hand out to reach her, offering what he thought would be some kind of solace.

“I think you need to get back to your party,” She said calmly, deflecting the situation, tears forming in her eyes.

“Sarah, please, I don’t want...”

“People are going to be wondered where you are, Chris. You should go.”

Chris tried to focus on her face in an attempt to find something there other than the shame she was failing to hide. He wished he could get to her but the space she was putting between them felt wider than the kitchen they were stuck in. Resigned, he bowed his head slowly and turned to leave half expecting, or possibly wanting, her to stop him.

#chris evans #chris fic #evans fic #sarah bernette #clear the area #chris evans x original female character

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aliceslantern · 4 years

Text

Heartlines, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 21--Radiant Garden

Twelve years ago, Xemnas betrayed the royal court of Radiant Garden to his father, Xehanort. Prince Ienzo flees to another city and begins university in the aftermath, hoping the anonymity will protect him from eager eyes with ill intent. The darkness spilling across the country, as well as an individual from his past, cut short Ienzo's new beginning and bring new conflicts to light. Strained between the desires of his magic and his heart, Ienzo's choice will change him forever.

Modern Fantasy AU, Soulmates, Zemyx. Updates Fridays until it's done.

Chapter summary: Demyx, Aeleus, and Ansem arrive in Radiant Garden.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

Demyx expected Radiant Garden to be… nicer.

Then again, it apparently once was, if anything Ansem was saying was true. The whole city kind of stunk , a smell that made Amalia cry. Demyx knew by then it was darkness.

The three of them didn’t talk much on the ferry ride over, as though saying too much might give them away. But the workers just ushered them on boredly and treated them as normal passengers, not that there were many this early morning.

“So where are we going?” Demyx asked.

“Not to worry, I’ve got it all straightened out,” Ansem said.

So bizarre still, to think that the king was his father-in-law. He kept looking at Amalia, as though she might disappear. Demyx noticed for the millionth time just how much she looked like Ienzo--the shape of her eyebrows and eyes, her pale skin, her hair. Sometimes he thought she smelled like him.

Ienzo was alive.

Along the waves and waves of longing for him was something bitter and sharp. How could you have left me? Have left us? Demyx tried to squelch those thoughts down--it wasn’t as though Ienzo wanted this to happen--but it was tough doing.

They disembarked from the ferry and walked through the streets. They were eerily empty--the few people they did see narrowed their eyes and walked too quickly. Ansem sighed heavily. “This was once such a beautiful place.”

Demyx could see that too. The flower gardens were everywhere, but a lot of the flowers were limp, brown, dying. The few vibrant flowers they saw turned out to be plastic as they approached. Amalia lay against his chest limply, as though exhausted. While they saw old signs for streetcars, Demyx didn’t see any on the streets.

So they walked. Amalia only weighed a little over seven kilos, but even with the sling Demyx found himself getting achy. After a while, Ansem offered to take the baby from him. “It’s the darkness, making you weak,” the king said out of the corners of his mouth.

Many of the houses were boarded up and shuttered, and in some places there was evidence of destruction--soot from fires, broken glass, rubble. What seemed like hours later, they arrived at an apartment building at the farthest edge of the city. Demyx’s feet were positively screaming. Ansem handed the baby back and took a small skeleton key from his pocket. “This used to be the resistance’s headquarters,” he said, equally as quietly. “Some years ago they got smoked out.”

“How is it safe, then?” Demyx asked.

“Because Xehanort thinks we’re not stupid enough to return to the places we’ve left.”

They walked up to the fourth floor landing. The building was abandoned; Demyx could feel it. It was old, dusty. Amalia sneezed. At least the power still seemed to be on, flickering unsteadily in bare bulbs. They reached a door at the end of the hall and Ansem unlocked that, too.

This must’ve once been a nice apartment, but dust and water damage bloated the silk wallpaper, and dirt permeated every crevice. Demyx could see spots where the resistance must have… resisted the “smoking out”; gouges in floors, cracks in the wall, a chair with one of its legs broken. Most of the furniture left was covered in sheets. Aeleus tried to open one of the windows, but it was stuck and didn’t get more than a few inches. He sighed. “I don’t suppose you know any wind magic,” he said to Demyx.

He shook his head. “Water, mostly. Sorry.”

Aeleus thought. “Actually, that might just work.”

Demyx handed Aeleus the baby. It still felt weird, to use his own power after so long, but he was surprised at how easily it came. He felt like he was doing something wrong, sweeping water off of the floors, the surfaces he could see; the grime was coming up more easily than he thought. He guided the water across the furniture, too, washing it clean, then drying everything back out and dumping the waste out the window. “Would’ve made apartment life in college a lot easier,” he muttered. The place was a different color.

“Can you ward?” Ansem asked.

Demyx felt his face heat. “...No.”

He passed the baby back to him. “No matter.” He started casting the then-familiar barriers at the door.

“I didn’t think you were a magic user.”

“My power is considerably less than Ienzo’s--much like your daughter got his, my sister got our father’s.”

“...Magic is so weird,” Demyx said.

He laughed. “Indeed it is, my dear boy.”

“I’m going to see if I can find some food,” Aeleus said. “Don’t go anywhere if you can avoid it.”

Demyx and Ansem continued to get the apartment ready for living. Demyx missed with a sudden ache his old apartment with Riku, the basement in the townhouse. Reliable clean hot showers. Restaurants, bars. Clubs. Friends.

Ansem rested a hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“I… know I should be glad we’re together, and alive. But…”

“You miss your old life. Of course you do.” He smiled kindly. “I think we all do every now and again.”

“Especially you--I mean, you must’ve had it pretty freaking sweet.”

“Things are just things,” Ansem said wistfully. “I miss mostly… my family.”

“Ienzo,” Demyx said, feeling the now-familiar accompanying stab of pain.

“My son… Even, that dear man… my apprentices. And those members of staff who became family, too.”

Demyx considered the way Ansem said Even’s name. “Do you… love him?”

Ansem looked confused. “My son? Of course.”

“No, Even.”

Ansem looked out the window.

“You don’t have to tell me. It’s okay.”

After a moment Ansem said, “We never… said as such. I’d hoped… things would evolve eventually, and then…”

“...Shit hit the fan.” Amalia cooed as though in response. “Right.”

“...I’m hoping that somehow all this nonsense will be behind us soon. That your daughter can grow up knowing Xehanort as only part of history.”

She made small smacking sounds. Very deliberately, she smiled. “She likes you,” Demyx said. “Well. She likes mostly everyone, but…”

Ansem chuckled. He leaned forward to take Amalia’s tiny fist into his hand. “You’re a seeker, right?”

“...Yeah.”

“From where?”

“Destiny Islands.”

“So you’re--”

“...Yeah.” He swallowed. “She’s got the, uh, scales. You’ll probably see them if you ever change her.”

Ansem sat on one of the covered chairs. “You’ll have to forgive me,” he said in a low voice, knotting his hands.

Demyx knew how he would answer, but he said, “for what?”

“For choosing this life for you. I assure you I did not know your people intended a living person to be behind Ienzo’s protection. I was… woefully ignorant of the cultural implications.”

Demyx considered this. “My parents sold me so they could stay together,” he said instead. “What would the alternative have been? I’d have still always been seeking Ienzo, whether or not I knew it. And I’d never have found him if I stayed where I was.”

“Is that what you sought? A partner, a family?”

“Must be,” he murmured. “I… I don’t know. I feel divorced in a lot of ways from my past self. I didn’t even remember a lot of it until recently. Swiss cheese memory.”

“Darkness can cause amnesia that only time and coincidence can heal.”

“Apparently.”

There was a gentle knock at the door; they all tensed, even Amalia, and Demyx’s heart broke a little more ( she shouldn’t feel afraid like this ). Ansem drew a dagger from his boot and approached it slowly. Then he looked through the peephole and sighed heavily, and Demyx knew that kind of sigh. Longing.

Even was sopping wet as he came through the door. “Don’t ask,” he said, before he caught sight of Ansem. “Oh--”

“Hello, Even,” he said.

Even’s face had gone oddly blank. “Hello... I…” A faint flush spread through his face, and he turned instead to Demyx. “How’s the baby?”

“She’s fine. Want me to dry you out?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Demyx did so. “Nice day for a swim, huh?”

“Boy, I said don’t ask. ” He took off the unflattering parka he wore. He seemed to struggle to gather himself. Then, to Ansem, “I thought we’d agreed to keep you out of this.”

Demyx wondered if now might be the right moment to try and get the baby down for a nap. He stood carefully and eased his way towards one of the bedrooms. “The time for cowardice is over, I think. Lest Ienzo be in more trouble than he’s already let on. At some point my safety becomes complicity. Don’t you agree?”

Demyx eased the door shut. They continued this discussion in low voices. Amalia squalled a little, reaching towards Even. “I know, Li-li. You missed him. But he has to talk to grandpa Ansem.” He washed out the blanket on the bed quickly and tucked it into a larger drawer of the dresser. Before all this, he’d thought the babies-in-a-drawer thing was only pop culture. They used to have a pack-and-play she’d used as a bed, but they’d had to abandon it one night. That was before Isa taught him about pocket dimensions. Either way, she didn’t seem to mind, and he sang her a lullaby until she fell asleep.

He must’ve slept too, draped in the musty armchair; he was only woken by the gentle tapping of nails on the wooden floors. Demyx jerked awake, reaching automatically for the baby, before he saw it was just Isa; moonlight bled into the room. “Your time of the month already, huh?” he asked.

Isa just glared at him with the wolf’s eyes and trotted over to the baby, sniffing her once; she cooed.

“Must’ve been easier to swim this way though, I bet.”

He just bobbed his head once.

“Everyone else still out there?”

Another nod.

“Keep an eye on her for me? I bet she’s starving.”

On shaky legs, Demyx walked back over to the door, which Isa had left open. Ansem, Aeleus, and Even were gathered at the small round kitchen table in the dark, their eyes on Even’s phone, something like horror in their expressions.

He didn’t like the sinking feeling he got. For the first time in a while his own magic pinged unpleasantly. “What?” Demyx asked.

“Oh, Demyx. Let me get you some coffee,” Ansem said. He crossed back over to the pot. “I’m afraid there’s only milk--”

“What. Happened.”

Even just sighed, and it was a sigh of someone about to have a hard conversation. “Why don’t you sit down?” He took off his glasses, but this only made him look more exhausted.

Another unpleasant ping. “Ienzo,” he said, with something like desperation.

“...is still alive. Physically, anyway.” Even guided Demyx over to a chair and pressed the coffee into his hand. He touched his shoulder, once; Even only initiated physical contact if something bad happened. “Take a breath. It may not be as it seems.”

Aeleus just shook his head.

But Demyx had always been smarter, or maybe more intuitive, than the once-scientist thought. “He’s been brainwashed.”

“The picture I have is not completely clear--” He began, then took a moment to compose himself. “The city news has been unreliable, as it’s now owned by the state.”

“Let the other shoe drop before you give the boy a heart attack,” Ansem said. He was still facing the counter.

Even’s lips pursed even more. Without ceremony, he presented Demyx the phone, which was open to a news article.

Missing princess actually prince, voices support for new regime.

He thought he might faint. “Oh, shit .”

#heartlines #demyx #ienzo #zemyx #ansem the wise #even (kingdom hearts)#aeleus #child oc - amalia

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multi--dimensional · 4 years

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Happy Candlenights, Sirs!

I’ve never posted a fic here, so my apologies if the formatting is weird.

This is my half of @thecandlenightszone exchange, and my partner is @Kentuckyfriedbooks! I know I’m a little late, and I’ve already asked them for forgiveness.

Critical information: In order to make this idea work with what I know about the show (AKA nothing past The Eleventh Hour), I had to mess with the timeline a little bit and take advantage of the weird passage of time. Essentially, I’m moving the pre-Crystal Kingdom Candlenights party to a different point in time and adding another Candlenights between it and the chaos that happened after Crystal Kingdom. Hopefully that makes sense.

With that, here’s the story! I’m gonna go read mine. :)

Temperatures were dropping, precipitation was getting more and more frozen, and the skies were getting dark sooner at the same time thousands of lights lit up the night in every town. The halls of the Moon Base were decked, and a particular small room had a little shrub proudly displayed on its only table. Another Candlenights season was kicking up, and Angus was ready for it. He’d saved up from missions, made several trips to the Fantasy Costco, and he had hopefully gotten everyone something they would enjoy more than the books he’d handed out last year.

He’d managed to find a proper strop for Magnus, enchanted to protect the blades that it sharpened so that they’d dull slower and be less likely to break. There was a solid bronze handle attached to it that made wrapping it far harder than it should’ve, and in the end he gave up on neatness and twisted a hunk of paper around it like the end of a hard candy wrapper.

Merle’s was more difficult, but he ultimately decided on a pot full of purple starbuds. During the day, the blooms were wound into a tight, dark purple cone, but come night, they’d unfurl into a star-shaped flower with a twisted center, and clusters of white speckles on the petals would be visible. Its broad leaves were also a great downer when dried correctly; Angus’ grandfather used to smoke them occasionally, and it surprised him that he’d been allowed to buy them at all. He wasn’t certain, but thought Merle would appreciate that feature. He’d only wrapped the pot, not trusting himself or Merle to not kill the plants if he put them in a box.

Their presents were sitting in a corner, waiting to be handed out, and he was currently trying to wrap Taako’s. He’d been at an utter loss for his present. He wanted to get him something he’d really like, but realized with surprise that he didn’t know what that might be. Magnus was an open book and loved to talk about woodworking, and Merle was a Panite, so a woodworking tool and a plant seemed like obvious choices. Taako, though not exactly quiet, didn’t actually talk about himself that much. Angus knew he loved to cook, but he also knew that cooking was a sore spot for him, so an enchanted utensil may not be a good idea. He liked magic, but already had a powerful magic focus. After perusing the shelves of Fantasy Costco for a few hours (across the course of a few days, as Garfield’s staring quickly unnerved him), he decided to get him an Alchemist’s Ring. He was pretty sure Taako liked jewelry, and if he, Merle, or Magnus ever needed to resort to a health potion on the field, this would make it stronger. It even seemed to fit with his style, which was very lucky. At the last second, he grabbed a basic acrylics set and a mug that said “World’s Best Wizard.” He proceeded to paint some pink flowers around the text and wedge the word “Flip” before “Wizard”. (Taako had reluctantly given a demonstration of his acrobatic skills when Angus had asked why his friends occasionally called him that, and he was still amazed.) Now, Angus was definitely a better detective than an artist, but after a few restarts and a lot of touch ups, he was very proud of his handiwork. It was just too bad he couldn’t give the flowers a scent. Maybe he’d try a prestidigitation on it when he gave it to Taako.

He carefully dropped the ring box into the mug, set it into a box, tucked his spare towel around it, and wrapped it the best he could. Mission accomplished. Giddy, he placed the gifts under the shrub and turned on the mostly-working fairy lights. He knew the boys held their own traditions around the same time, almost two weeks away, so he’d keep them there until then. He turned to the handful of mismatched candles on his dresser, closed his eyes, and attempted to cast prestidigitation. They flickered to life on his second try, and he let out a whoop.

It really felt like Candlenights in his little room. All he needed was a macaron; it had only been one year, but he already viewed them as a Candlenights tradition he wanted to continue.

He knew cooking was a testy subject for Taako, but couldn’t help but hope that he’d get another one for Candlenights this year.

...

Wednesday morning dawned bright and clear— literally dawned. The sun was barely over the horizon and Angus McDonald, Boy Detective and notorious Early Bird, was already up and at ‘em, hanging out in a corner he’d claimed in a lounge dome near his dorm. It was magic day once again. Six months of weekly magic lessons had only grown his enthusiasm, and he was pouring over the pages that he’d dedicated to magic notes in the back of his beat up little notebook.

He looked up at the quiet whoosh of the door opening, and the thumping of snow-laden boots on the entry rug.

“Hello, Madam Director!” He chirped.

The Director jumped, gaze quickly swinging around the small room and landing on Angus. She relaxed and exhaled an embarrassed sound somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle.

Angus’ eyes had widened to the size of saucers. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, Madam! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

“It’s alright, Angus,” she started, regaining her composure and gliding to his little corner. “I wasn’t paying attention, I suppose.” She started removing her gloves and took a seat on the couch across from him and smiled gently. “What are you doing up this early?”

“Oh, I’m always up this early! Early bird gets the worm, my grandpa always said! Which was strange, since he sometimes got annoyed at how early I was up. What about you, Madam?”

“I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I took a walk.” As she put her gloves in her shoulder bag, her hand nudged something and she peeled up. “You know what, Angus? I know it’s still a little early in the season, but I’ve got something for you.”

The Director pulled something out of her bag, and Agus breathed a quiet “Whoa.”

It was a small parcel, wrapped in shiny, blue paper, scattered with delicate silver stars and elaborately tied with a sleek, grey bow. It was completely free of wrinkles, almost seamless, and he couldn’t tell what was holding it all together. If he didn’t know better, he’d even say it glowed just the tiniest bit. Angus had to wonder if there was a spell for gift wrapping, or if the Director had just been hiding insane proficiencies in paper folding and knot tying. He was reluctant to even touch the gleaming paper, especially since he was pretty sure he knew what it was.

The package was the size and shape of a book, and it was well known among the base that Caleb Cleveland: Kid Cop was his favorite series. What was less well known was that he already owned all the books. A copy or two would be an easy gift for him if someone wasn’t sure what else to get him. He had half a mind to thank the Director, bring the present back to his dorm, and display it as it was.

She had the slightest of self-satisfied smirks when he looked back up. She pushed it towards him. “Go on, open it.” She must’ve seen his hesitation, because she chuckled. “Don’t worry about the paper, I can wrap it back up afterwards if you’d like.”

He nodded and took the gift. It felt heavier than he expected it to be, more sturdy than his usual paperbacks. Maybe an exclusive cover? He worked off the bow and removed the paper, still careful to keep it from tearing.

Inside was a box, which he also opened and slid the contents into his free hand. It was a book, as he expected, but it wasn’t Kid Cop. It was a journal. The cover was made of beautifully tanned leather, with a pen holster on the spine and a cover flap that was fastened closed with a large, walnut wood button. There was an engraved jellyfish on the right side, dyed purple, blue, and green. He ran his fingers over the engraving, and the jellyfish seemed to float under his touch. Soft, tiny lights in its umbrella blinked once, twice, and went dark again.

The Director reached in front of him and pointed at the button. In silent awe, he unfastened it and pulled open the flap. On the inside, hand-engraved, were the words “Detective’s Notes.”

“I noticed your old one was getting a bit ratty,” she said. “The button is charmed. It stores two spells. If you tap it two times, it’ll cast ‘reduce’ on the notebook so you can put it in your pocket. Tapping three times will cast ‘enlarge,’ and it’ll return to normal.”

“I-- Thank you, Madam Director!” Angus’ eyes were starting to well up, but he grinned ear-to-ear. “I love it! I haven’t gotten a new notebook in... I think 2 years? Maybe? This is fantastic, I actually have clean pages! I won’t need to keep scribbling in margins, and putting Fischer on the cover, did you do that yourself? Thank you so much, it’s so cool! What spell was that? Oh, that pen holster is gonna be so great--”

The Director smiled softly as he rambled on, but as she watched, her face changed. She slid off the couch and knelt down to Angus’ height. Her smile had disappeared, the corners of her mouth turned down in concern as she looked him in the eye. “Angus, I’m going to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me.”

Startled by the sudden change in mood, he settled down and nodded.

“You are happy here, right?”

“Of course, Madam Director!” She didn’t look convinced, so he continued, “I’ve got my own room, I live on an awesome floating base, and I’m able to use my detective skills to help people. Almost everyone here is super nice, and I’m getting to learn magic!”

The smile returned, and tension drained from her shoulders that Angus hadn’t fully realized was there. She reached out and ruffled his curls. “Good, I’m really happy to hear that. I just want you to know that no one’s forcing you to stay here. You’re extraordinarily bright, Angus, but I fear that I may have dragged you into a situation you don’t want to be in. We all love your company, and you’re a great help, truly. But if you ever want to leave, just say the word. Or even if you want to stay on the base, but keep out of missions. Just. Let me know if you’re unhappy.”

This was clearly something that had been weighing on her for a while. Angus nodded solemnly. “I will, Madam Director. I promise.”

“Thank you.” She tentatively opened her arms, and Angus stepped forward and hugged her, notebook still clutched in one hand.

“Happy Candlenights.”

Her eyes crinkled into a true smile. “Happy Candlenights, Angus.”

When the hug ended, the Director looked at him with a hint of slyness in her gaze.

“You said ‘almost everyone.’ I feel like you might be referring to Taako, Magnus, and Merle. Just a little secret, Angus: Taako’s teasing isn’t meant to be hurtful. He considers it friendly ribbing of an equal. You mean quite a lot to him. Merle and Magnus, too.”

Angus beamed. “That’s what I thought! At least, I was pretty sure, but it’s...”

“Hard to tell with those boys, yeah.”

They both smiled.

“Oh, hey! Can you-” Angus moved to grab the box, planning on asking the Director to rewrap it, but when he turned around, it was already done. He looked back at the Director, who was clearly trying not to grin.

“Can you please teach me that?”

“You know what, Angus? Talk to me next Candlenights, and I’ll give you some tips.”

...

Magic lessons went by far quicker than Angus liked, as per always, but they went well. Taako commended him on his Mage Hand, the basics of which he nailed a while ago, but the aesthetic? Not so much. He had finally gotten a fully-formed, not nightmarish hand today. They had started working on the different facets of prestidigitation too, which was coming along nicely.

Now they were walking across the main campus of the base. Angus wasn’t quite sure where, but he hadn’t been shooed off yet, so he stuck around. He’d noticed that Taako was more bundled up than he normally liked, with a shorter hat, and that he’d stopped to pull Angus’ beanie over his ears and make sure he had gloves on before they went outside. While it did make him grin, he didn’t think about it much. They were thousands of feet in the air in the middle of winter. It was cold out.

What he hadn’t quite yet discounted was the way Taako kept looking around once they stepped outside of the mess hall. He couldn’t tell if he was nervous or expectant, but he was... something, and it was putting him on edge. Taako only said that “Everything’s good, Ango D’jango” when he asked if something was wrong, so he was trying to put it out of his mind.

To help ignore how distracted Taako was acting, Angus started rambling about any and everything, from the lesson to how pretty the campus looked covered in snow, and that was when a snowball landed two feet in front of him. He heard the vinyl squeak of winter material as Taako quickly hopped to the right, and a quiet thump as a second snowball hit his arm in spite of his best efforts.

Behind a mound of snow not twenty feet away came a voice. “Merle, you have the worst aim.”

And from a tree ten feet to their right came: “Hey, sorry we aren’t all gifted with decent athletics!”

A red pom-pommed hat atop a familiar bearded face popped up from the mound, and Magnus grinned as he threw another snowball. Angus was bracing for impact when he was swept off the ground; Taako had picked him up and tucked him under his arm as he ran for shelter. Dodging hits all the way, he crouched behind a half wall that normally framed a seating area and set Angus down next to him. He was smirking, and a competitive gleam lit up his eyes.

“Start making snowballs,” he ordered, already starting on his own pile. Angus started to do so, but after spending fifteen seconds on one, Taako interrupted. “Don’t go for shape, just get it packed. Have you never made a snowball before?”

Angus shook his head. “Not in the middle of a fight!”

“...Oh. Well, here, just— grab a double handful of snow, and—“ he quickly packed it into a lopsided ball, and Angus mimicked him. “Yes, perfect! Keep doing that!”

In no time, they had a pile of ammo the height of Angus sitting criss-cross. The battlefield was quiet. After a few moments, footsteps crunched across the snow towards them, and Angus knew why they hadn’t returned fire: Taako was luring them closer.

Indeed, Taako was peering through a crack in the wall, grinning an evil grin. Angus found another hole, and sure enough, Magnus was out in the open halfway between their wall and his mount, trying to be sneaky.

“Hey, bubula,” Taako whispered, “Wanna see a trick?”

Angus nodded vigorously.

“Alright, cast Mage Hand, but keep it low.” After a second, two Mage Hands appeared near the snow. Taako put a snowball in each, and his Mage Hand wrapped around it. Ango had his do the same. “Load it up, wind back,” the Hands drew back, and Taako peeked his head just barely above the wall. Angus followed.

Magnus made eye contact with them and froze, then paled when Taako yelled, “And fUCKING CHUCK IT!”

His Mage Hand launched the snowball directly into Magnus’ chest, and he stumbled back. Angus’ came damn close. From then on, it was all-out war. Magnus and Merle were worthy opponents, but Taako and Angus fiercely defended their base, their Mage Hands giving them twice the throwing capacity. Angus even got a few hits in, and Taako yelled encouragement each time.

The battle ended an hour later, when Merle used Shield of Faith on Magnus, allowing him to barrel through the onslaught and dump a Heroic Memories Shieldful of snow on both of them. Angus was laughing too hard to continue at that point, and while he didn’t want to head inside, he had to admit to himself that he was getting cold. Taako seemed to agree and started complaining about how elves aren’t meant for this weather, he was going to catch his death out here, etc. etc. Magnus and Merle gave each other a knowing look at that, though Angus wasn’t sure why.

Davenport had a platter of hot chocolate ready for them when they came in, serving it with his usual cheerful “Davenport!” Angus grabbed a mug and thanked him profusely, clinking mugs with Taako.

Time to cross “snowball fight” off his bucket list.

...

Another week and a half passed relatively quietly. There were no missions, no big disasters (unless an exploding snow duck counted-- so he didn’t have the cleaning part of prestidigitation down yet). Just the usual, wonderful mess of mashed together traditions that came with the season.

Angus had spent most of the day in the library, and bolted back to his dorm when he noticed the sun going down. It always got frigid on the base when it was dark, and he wasn’t prepared for the cold because hadn’t planned to stay so long. He’d just gotten sucked into an older Caleb Cleveland book that he’d read probably a hundred times now. Those older books were pure gold. It was just a shame that Grant Andrews had died. His son had tried to take over, but he just didn’t have the same style.

Not to mention aging Caleb up to a teen was probably the worst decision ever.

Angus made it back minutes after sunset, and was still stomping his feet to get some feeling back to them when he opened his door. His alarm bells immediately went off. Something felt different. He scanned the room from the doorway, investigating each corner, but nothing looked like it had been moved. Nothing was missing. He took a tentative step inside and shivered. It wasn’t as cold as it was outside, but it was definitely a few degrees cooler than the hall. As small a room as it was, it was normally warmer than the hall.

Wait.

He glanced at his Candlenights shrub. The fairy lights were off. He could’ve sworn he left them on; he almost never turned them off during the holidays. Still glancing around, he crept towards the shrub and flicked them on.

There was a fourth gift under the shrub. He’d missed it in the gloom, and it was no wonder why: in contrast to the rest, this one was covered with black fabric, and a sleek black feather was tucked into a fold at the top. It was half off of the table, like whoever put it there was in a rush or afraid of being caught.

Someone had been in his room. He had no clue what might be under those wrappings. He should go get someone. Taako, or the Director, or one of the guards.

But no one but the Bureau members could even get to the Moon Base. None of them would try to hurt him... Right?

Despite his better judgement, Angus found his hand drifting towards it. He tugged part of the fabric away to reveal a cover with a very familiar design, but an unfamiliar title. The top was bordered with golden yellow roses whose petals seemed to be made of gemstones. Below them was a large police badge, with a wooden wand crossed behind it. Inside the badge was written:

Caleb Cleveland and the Secret of the Amber Rose

That was strange. Angus didn’t know of a Caleb Cleveland book with that title, and even stranger was that the badge and wand was the cover style used for the older books. They didn’t use that style anymore. His first thought was that a new book had somehow come out without him knowing, and they’d reverted back to the old covers. Maybe they’d even gone back to the old format, with Kid Cop! He started to pull away the rest of the rest of the fabric, and his eyes drifted to the bottom of the cover.

By Grant Andrews

That... couldn’t be right. Grant Andrews died years ago. It was far too official looking to be an old draft; people had already unearthed some of Andrew’s drafts, and he didn’t bind them. Was it a forgery? Did someone try to publish something in his name? Could it be a super obscure early series book?

Okay... when was this published?

He flipped to the copyright page and skimmed. It was published... This year?

Alright... It had to be a forgery, right? A fanwork? If it was an official fanwork, it’d be published by Blueglades. He kept scanning, and... nope, definitely not. Silver Sea Publishing. He’d never heard of that company.

Angus’ eyes kept drifting to the summary in the jacket. It looked... really good. Really true to the series. He glanced at the copyright page, then back to the jacket. As much as he wanted to solve the mystery of where this book came from, the mystery printed on its pages called to him more. He climbed into bed, lit the bedside candles with prestidigitation and a quick, proud smile, opened the book, and dug in.

...

As dedicated a reader as Angus was, he was still, almost invariably, the “early to bed, early to rise” type. He woke up just before dawn the next morning, the Secret of the Amber Rose fallen half-open on the bed in front of him. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, stopping dead when he realized his glasses weren’t on his face. He looked around and found them on his bedside table. Oddly, the candles were out-- not burned down, just out. Eyebrows furrowed, he reached for his glasses, put them on, and scanned the room for the second time in twelve hours.

Once again, he found his shrub tampered with. The three presents he had placed underneath were gone, replaced with three different ones. Further investigation proved them to be from Taako, Merle, and Magnus. He laughed; they must’ve broken in to leave their presents, and couldn’t resist when they saw some with their names. Very on-brand. He grabbed the presents, sat down in front of the shrub table, and set to opening them.

He tore open Magnus’ first, and immediately wondered if he and the Director had worked together. It was a wooden pen, and looked to be made of the same walnut wood as the button on his notebook. There was a built-in grip near the nib, and a small carving of a wizard’s hat at the end, which had the word “Ango” delicately carved around the brim. It was beautiful, and he put it right into the pen holder so he wouldn’t lose it.

Next, he grabbed Merle’s. It was a Trick Tract, and he almost sighed and put it aside, but decided to skim through it. A few pages in, he started to actually read it. Merle had put some thought into this one; it was about a boy detective investigating a supernatural occurrence on All Hallow’s Eve. In place of the normal message at the end was a short, handwritten message that simply said, “Happy Candlenights, Fancy Lad.” It was no masterpiece, but it was... good. Angus reread the final page a few times, grinning, before he finally closed the tract.

Last but not least, Taako’s. Something shifted around in the box as he lifted it, so he slowed his movements and put it down gently. He peeled back the wrapping and found a note on top of the box, written with a flourish that made it almost illegible, “IOU, magical difficulties. Happy Candlenights, Mr. Wizard.”

Well, that was cryptic, but he continued on and opened the box. His face lit up enough to power the Base.

It was a box of assorted macarons. It looked like Taako felt the same as him about making them a tradition.

As the sun rose and cast shifting hues of light through his small window, Angus gathered his presents and moved them onto his bedside table. He cuddled back into his blankets, picking up his book and choosing a cookie to nibble on.

He couldn’t have asked for a better Candlenights.

-------

-A strop is a piece of leather, usually nailed to a piece of wood, used to sharpen straight blades.

-I basically blended night sky petunias and the first and middle stages of moonflowers to get purple starbuds. They’re both really pretty, and I got the side effects simply from someone describing the scent of moonflowers as “intoxicating.”

-I pulled the Caleb Cleveland reference full circle, lol. The idea that the series went downhill ‘cause the original author died is my personal headcanon, but I love it, especially because it means I got to do this. Krav is definitely bending rules here, but he did it for his bf and his boy. Don’t tell the Raven Queen.

Happy Candlenights, everyone! @Kentuckyfriedbooks, I hope you enjoyed!

#theadventurezone #taz #taz balance #candlenights #candlenights exchange #angus mcdonald #candlenights 2019

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remys-writing-corner-blog · 4 years

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“Are you aware all the flowers are, you know, dead?” I gestured to the vases of dried, shriveled foliage dotting the house. “Why, yes. Everything in here is dead.” I rolled my eyes a little, for a haunted house attraction it really wasn’t very scary, it made my wonder why my friends panicked so much when I decided to come here. I started to walk towards the basement stairs but the shriveled corpse of another man blocked my way. “Stop..” He croaked out dryly. I busted out laughing. “Guys really? This is the worst haunted house ever, no spooky basement tour?” Both the man who had greeted me at the door and the one in the corpse costume gave me a weird, almost pitying look. “Haunted.. house?” The doorman asked me. “Well yeah, that’s what this is isn’t it?” I started to feel a little uncomfortable, after all, these guys were acting like I was crazy. “Oh no..” The corpse-costume guy turned to the doorman urgently. “Dan we need to get her out of here, and fast.” The doorman, I guess his name was Dan, nodded. “I know Finn. You’ll have to help me though.” I was confused and uneasy, was this all a part of the haunted house? I couldn’t tell anymore, I felt my anxiety going up and tried to take deep breaths, I closed my eyes and after a few moments I felt calmer, that was until I opened my eyes and looked down. “MY HANDS! MY F*CKING HANDS!” I started screaming in horror. All the skin on my hands from the wrist down had rotted away, leaving only gross clumps of skin over shriveled muscle and dry bone. “Yeah, that’s how I reacted too.” Finn chuckled softly, a small smile creeped onto his face revealing that the inside of his mouth was also rotted.. that’s when I decided that it was real. “As long as you get out by sunrise, and don’t go in the basement, you’ll return to normal.” He continued. Then Dan spoke up from behind me “Yes, Yes, as the tale goes ‘All those who enter here, by these rules must abide, leave the basement stones unturned, soon ye shall find, your body leaves, your soul remains and if the sun rises while you stay inside this house, you shall never leave, and time will pass, you will die inside this house, your residence forevermore, you will never ever make it out, because there is no door.’” “And how will I make it out if there’s no door?!” My eyes started watering at the thought of never seeing my friends again. “And what the hell kind of place is this?!” “It’s the Ellis Residence.” I glanced at Finn again, this time less in shock and more in confusion. “The Ellis Residence? As in the home of the founder of our town, Baron Ellis?” Finn nodded. “But Baron Ellis was my great-grandfather...” Both Finn and Dan looked shocked. “My name is Quinn Ellis. I’m the heir to this place!” I said more to myself than to them. “That’s right my darling! And Great-Grampy is just so glad you came to visit him!” I knew that warm booming voice that was coming from the stairs, I had heard it a thousand times in my younger years. I turned around and there he was, my Great-Grandpa and he didn’t even look dead! “Grampy?” I felt tears rushing to my eyes as he came down the stairs. I couldn’t help myself anymore, I ran to him like a little kid, reaching out my arms to hug him. He smiled down at me, his arms wrapped around me, calming me. “Ah it’s been so long my dear child.” I grinned, tears starting to fall from my eyes. “Now now, none of that.” He wiped away the tears on my face with his thumb, and with one final smile, gently kissed me on the forehead. “Thank you for setting me free my dear. I love you.” He began to disappear, melting away into a cloud of smoke, as he faded he grabbed my hands and whispered to me urgently. “It’s almost sunrise Dan and Finn will show you the door, but hurry, I don’t want this curse to be passed onto you like it was to me. Go!” And then he was gone. All that was left of him was a small silver pocketwatch, the pocketwatch he had always carried with him when he visited me. It had my name inscribed on it and I couldn’t leave it behind, I picked it up before turning to Dan and Finn.

“He said to get me out of here. Will you help me?” “Yes.” Finn gently took me by the arm and began leading me, we went back in the direction of the front door, the walk seemed to be much longer than it was before. Dan and Finn escorted me one on each side of me, by the time we reached the door I could just barely see the first ray of morning light. The sun was almost risen. Dan opened the door and I took one last look at him and Finn. “Can’t you come with me? You don’t deserve to be stuck here... After all, according to Grampy I did break the curse.” Dan smiled apogetically. “I’m afraid to say that I don’t really want to leave, I’m quite happy here.” I rolled my eyes. He was spouting bullshit. “But your trapped inside a corpse body!” Dan and Finn chuckled. “Well I guess we don’t have anything left to lose.” Dan grinned, grabbing my hand, I reached over to Finn, grabbing his hand and together we walked out the door, just as the sun rose overhead. And suddenly, they were human again, and so was I, my hands weren’t rotten anymore and neither were Dan’s or Finn’s bodies.“Dan we’re normal again!” Their eyes lit up as they looked at themselves. “Congrats guys! Now let’s all go back into town and head home, this place gives me the creeps!” We all burst into giggle fits, it was stupid but we were just so relieved that we were free. I didn’t realize until a little while later that Dan and Finn were the missing kids from town. They had gone missing about three years ago after being dared to spend a night in the old haunted house up on the hill, AKA my Great-Grandfather’s mansion. Nobody linked their reappearance to me, how could they? They just assumed that I bumped into them on my way back to town after getting lost and that the boys had simply gotten lost as well while they were up there and that all of us found our way back by pure luck. It’s a pretty stupid story but I guess some people would say what really happened was even stupider. I say whatever. After all, not only did I almost die, I got two hot boyfriends out of it! So if you’re ever lonely do what I did! “NO! NOBODY DO THAT!” “DAN I’M TRYING TO EPILOGUE!” “YOU’RE GIVING HORRIBLE ADVICE THOUGH!” Ugh.. “SHUT UP YOU TWO!” Anyways, fine, don’t do what I did, just ask someone out. Anyways that’s all for now, this is Quinn Ellis, and I’ll see you in the next Episode of “Quinn’s Paranomal Adventures!” The end.

#my writing #writing #writing inspiration #funny pics #comedy #weird stuff #horror #creepy #spooky #short story #story time

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anistarrose · 4 years

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To See The Unseen - Ch. 4 (Gravity Falls)

Summary: The kids embark on a quest to take back the mirror, and Stan embarks on a quest to find his brother. Neither goes quite according to plan.

Warnings: canon-typical violence

AO3: archiveofourown.org/works/20884673/chapters/50514815

Remember when I said last chapter had changed the most from the outline? This chapter has it beat by a pretty large margin, but I’m so glad it changed because I feel like it really went from good to great.

***

Come on, Ford, where are you…

Moving scenes flickered by Stan, like a projector wheel was whirring and spinning inside his head. Gilled alien children, playing in an underwater kelp forest. A group of humanoid beings celebrating as a sleek rocket ship lifted off in front of them.

A city burning. A smaller town rebuilding. A man offering a few scraps of food to a stray dog. Two chimeras with bat wings and scorpion stingers, chasing each other across a starlit desert sky.

Yet for all their diversity, none of the scenes showed anyone resembling Ford.

He’s got to be out here somewhere. I would feel it if anything happened to him, I’m sure I would —

A long-abandoned space station colliding with a comet. A small family carrying potted flowers up a massive, barren mountain. A world teeming with insects and arachnids, associating into families and societies and nations. A perfectly clear ocean, eerily empty for miles in every direction.

There are too many places he could be, Stan realized. I need to see more.

I need to see everything.

The images blurred together as Stan’s head spun faster and faster, but the universe resisted becoming known, writhing and shrinking away from him.

I NEED TO SEE EVERYTHING. I NEED TO SEE MY BROTHER.

The projector whirring intensified to a dull roar, as Stanley Pines grabbed existence by the throat and stared at it dead in its eyes.

***

“Shoulda figured the gate would be closed,” Wendy grumbled as they approached Northwest Mansion.

“Well, time to make Stan proud, then.” Dipper pulled a small crossbow out of his backpack, and fired off a few shots. The first bolt sailed harmlessly over the fence, but the second flew true and impaled itself in the security camera, spinning it around so that it pointed away from his party. “You want to lead the way, Mabel?”

“Sure do!” Mabel expertly scaled the gate with her grappling hook, then tossed it through a gap in the bars for Dipper to follow with. “If Pacifica asks, we’ll just tell her that we got lost in tunnels that mole people dug under the fence.”

Wendy shook her head. “First grappling hooks in the gift shop, and now crossbows in the closet? We need to get Stan back just so I can yell at him about leaving weapons where you kids can find them.”

“Hey, you carry an axe everywhere!” Dipper shot back as he landed on the other side of the wall, passing the grappling hook through the gate one last time. “And you’ve got to admit, these weapons come in handy all the time.”

Wendy shrugged. “Yeah, but I’m not a kid. I’m a responsible teenager.”

“That’s an oxymoron and we all know it,” Dipper told her as they set off towards the mansion.

“Less of an oxymoron than ‘responsible twelve-year old’ would be.”

“Shh, guys!” Mabel motioned towards a guard rounding the corner, and the three of them ducked into the bushes. Once he’d passed them by, they sprinted towards the front door, only to stand there awkwardly for a moment, unsure of how to proceed.

“Do we… just ring the doorbell?” Wendy asked. “It feels kinda anticlimactic after doing all this cool heist stuff.”

“Is it unlocked?” Dipper gave the door an experimental push, and sure enough, it slid open, revealing a grand ballroom lit by dozens of crystal chandeliers. “I guess we should just head in.”

“Aww, lots of cute animals!” Mabel exclaimed, rushing over to the nearest taxidermied squirrel. “And they must’ve been even more adorable when you were alive — weren’t you, Mister Fluffytail?”

“Why is there so much gravel on the floor?” Wendy muttered, kicking around a few of the jagged chunks of rock that were scattered across the carpet. “I woulda thought the Northwests would take better care of their stuff…” Her eyes followed the trail of gravel and dust across the ballroom, and up the stairs —

And to the balcony from which two Northwests glared down at them, one of looking far more ghostly and petrified than the other.

“Oh,” Dipper whispered. “So that’s what happened to that statue.”

“Dipper? Mabel?” Pacifica gasped. “What are you doing here?”

“Don’t worry, we had a really good reason for breaking and entering, I promise!” Mabel spoke up. “See, our grunkle spoke to me in my dreams and said that in order to lift his curse —”

Dipper and Mabel Pines? Nathaniel Northwest asked as his statue form began to rise up off the ground and out past the balcony. Oh, how convenient!

“Uh, excuse me?” Dipper asked. “I’ve never met you before, dude —”

The statue plummeted to the ground, smashing through the floorboards and coming just inches away from crushing Dipper as he jumped to the side.

You don’t even claim to know the very man whose legacy you fouled? I’ve met a lot of petty children in my day, but you put all of them to shame!

“Grandpa, what are you doing?!” Pacifica shrieked, covering her mouth with her hands. “Are you trying to kill him?!”

Nathaniel turned back towards her. Why wouldn’t I try to kill the meddling kids? Is mercilessly eradicating our enemies not the Northwest family modus operandi any longer? I didn’t think times had changed that much!

“No! It’s not! Even my parents or grandparents would never…” Pacifica’s voice trailed off, like she couldn’t help but doubt her own argument.

Oh, dear naïve granddaughter. Nathaniel shook his stone head. I can’t fault you for not knowing all your family’s history yet, but as much as I disagreed with my children, I simply can’t imagine them abandoning such a simple tenet. Nor can I imagine your parents, or your grandparents, or any of your ancestors, for that matter! How do you think we amassed the family fortune in the first place? Because it sure wasn’t by being kind, or charitable, or —

He staggered backwards as Mabel’s grappling hook caught him directly in the chest, and cracks began to spiderweb across his beard.

“That’s what you get for attacking my brother! You dumb old capitalist!”

I am not DUMB! Nathaniel roared. The world tried to suppress my genius!

His beard began to crumble even more, but a whirlwind of black smoke caught the rocky shards and hurled them through the air. Wendy knocked Mabel out of the way with a rolling tackle, then sprung to her feet and raised her axe just in time to deflect Nathaniel’s stone flagpole in place as he swung it at her.

“Pacifica?” Mabel pleaded. “A little help here?!”

“I —” Pacifica took a few hesitant steps down the stairs, and then froze. “I don’t know what to do!”

As Wendy and Nathaniel continued to spar, remaining at more or less a stalemate, Dipper frantically flipped through Journal 3.

“Come on, come on, I know there’s a whole section about ghosts in here somewhere —”

Nathaniel blew a plume of dust in Wendy’s face, but didn’t strike at her even as she began to cough. Instead, he turned to Dipper, and pointed a chipped stone finger towards the ceiling.

Searching for my weakness? Now now, we can’t have that!

Tendrils of smoke wound around the lamps and chandeliers, and their lights faded. Faint sunbeams from an overcast sky still poured into the mansion through the windows, but as the living combatants’ eyes adjusted, they saw Nathaniel’s statue form collapse to the ground, no longer possessed. His smoke-black, ghostly form was nowhere to be seen.

“Gah, it’s too dark!” Wendy cried, wiping dust away from her face. “I can’t see where he went!”

Mabel poked the lightbulb on her sweater. “Don’t worry guys, I got this!”

But nothing happened, even as she kept poking it more and more frantically. “Oh no! I must’ve ran out the batteries while we were in the bunker!”

“Look out!” Dipper shouted, and Mabel narrowly dodged a chair flung at her from behind. She whirled around and fired her grappling hook in the direction it had been thrown from, but it just harmlessly bounced off the edge of a table.

Nathaniel’s voice boomed from all around them. A lot harder to hide when you can’t see who’s attacking you, isn’t it?

Wendy picked up the same chair that Nathaniel had thrown, diving in front of Dipper and using it to shield them from a volley of broken lamps and shattered glass. “I don’t know, we still seem to be doing pretty well for ourselves!”

Nathaniel laughed. And I can’t wait to see how long you’re able to keep that up! It’s a good think I don’t grow tired like you mortals!

As Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy stood back to back to fend off a barrage of inanimate objects, Pacifica slid down the stairway banister and made a dash for the closest mounted animal — a ten-point buck, hanging on the wall just low enough for her to reach.

“What are you doing?” Dipper yelled as he noticed her pulling out her tweezers. “This is no time for —”

“You can thank me later!” Pacifica shouted back as she plucked a few hairs from the deer’s coat and tossed them into the lantern, then pulled a lighter from her pocket and set the oil ablaze. “Abracadabra!”

The resulting light didn’t quite illuminate the whole ballroom, but still cast a surprisingly far-reaching glow. It turned everything it touched grayscale, except the kids and Wendy, who still looked as brightly colored as ever, and Nathaniel himself — who no longer looked like an amorphous cloud of darkness, but rather an elderly bearded man, floating in the air and glowing a bright, impossible-to-miss shade of blue.

For a few seconds, he just stared at the transparent hands of his true form, until finally his eyes landed on Pacifica, bearing the lantern he himself had created over a century ago.

Young lady, he finally spluttered, what do you think you’re doing?!

Pacifica stared him down.

“I thought you were a kindred spirit,” she began softly. “I thought you were different from all the other Northwests… like me. But you’re really exactly the same as the rest of them after all, and…”

BLASPHEMY!

“And that’s not something I want to have in common with you!”

You want to betray your own ancestor? You want to be disowned?!

Pacifica flinched, her grip on the lantern tightening.

“You go, girl!” Mabel spoke up. “Tell him who’s boss!”

Pacifica whirled around, mouth hanging agape. “You really mean that?”

To her surprise, Dipper cheered her on too. “You heard Mabel! Give him a piece of your mind!”

“You’re not so bad after all, rich girl!” Wendy swung her axe through the air. “Don’t worry, we’ll back you up!”

Pacifica took a deep breath.

You can’t be serious! Nathaniel shouted. My granddaughter would never throw her lot in with you commoners —

“Thanks for letting me know how your lantern worked, Grandpa,” Pacifica interrupted with a smile. “I’m going to help to help these nerds exorcise you now.”

***

A fine mist of subatomic particles condensed on Stan’s glasses, then pooled into iridescent newborn dimensions. They dripped off the glass one by one, and fell into the spiral of foam rotating beneath him, ready to embark on eons-long journeys of existence.

For a fraction of a second, Stan considered looking away, but the thought escaped nearly as quickly as it had occurred to him — after all, he knew in the back of his mind that he wouldn’t be able to tear his eyes away even if he wanted to.

There was such diversity in the structure of the worlds, from the liquid droplets to the solid ice crystals to the bubbles of negative space in the foam. It was so much to take in, so much that you’d think it would destroy the mind of someone like Stan — but if anything, it was a comfort to behold, a reassurance to see how tiny and insignificant every tiny sliver of existence was on its own despite how massive and all-encompassing and significant they all became together.

Do not forget, an echoing voice sung in his ear, that you are also significant all on your own — perhaps not to the grand scheme of existence itself, but certainly to many of the people you share this existence with.

Stan rubbed his head. “Wait, what?”

This place encapsulates everywhere and nowhere, for now and forever. Anyone who can make their way out here, to this place no mortals are meant to see, can surely make a difference in the little droplet of reality they reside in.

“Um… thanks? I guess?”

Stan couldn’t see the entity smile, but he sensed it nonetheless.

You have done something extraordinary, Stan. But do not let that distract you from what you came here for.

“What I came here for? I… shit, I was looking for Ford! How — how long have I been here? How much time have I wasted when I could’ve been trying to find him?!”

Worry not. Your bond with your twin is strong, and that bond will guide you to him as long as you put your faith in it.

Stan nodded slowly, and closed his eyes.

“Ford never gives up,” he reminded himself out loud, “which means he’s still out there, still fighting and surviving. He’s my brother, and I will find him, because I don’t give up either.”

He let a wave of sensations and emotions from a trillion different worlds wash over him, but it didn’t carry him off his feet this time, and he wasn’t overwhelmed and hypnotized by it.

Follow whatever feels most familiar, the voice told him. And above all else, trust yourself.

There were too many familiar sensations from the multiverse to count — too many advanced math problems and leather-bound journals and trench coats and broken glasses. And others still, things that were so tragically Ford that they ached — broken inventions and angry parting words and loaded crossbows and bloodshot eyes…

But nothing struck Stan harder than the bittersweet nostalgia.

It was distant and fleeting, like someone’s not-quite-lucid dream as they began to toss and turn and awaken; it was warm like a beach on a summer day while stinging like a splinter from a recently sanded wooden plank, and it resonated. It wasn’t a feeling Stan had ever expected to come from Ford, of all people — but it was so familiar, like a dream that could’ve sprung from his very own head.

“That’s it,” he whispered, and a light pink tail materialized beneath his feet, guiding him forward as he dove towards the droplet of reality that held his brother.

Thank you, whoever you are, he thought to the entity, and even though he hadn’t spoken out loud, something told him the message had been received.

He held his nonexistent breath as images materialized around him — a damp cave, an extinguished campfire, a black sleeping bag…

And sure enough, there was Ford, sitting upright and rubbing his eyes like he’d just woken up. There was Ford, alive.

“You’re okay!” Stan whispered, not even caring that Ford being awake meant he wouldn’t be able to communicate. “Oh my god. I mean, I knew you would be, but — holy shit, Ford. I really will be able to bring you home, won’t I?”

Ford rolled up his sleeping bag and stuffed it into a larger bag of supplies, which he slung over his back alongside a giant, rectangular case that presumably housed some kind of weapon. He marched towards the mouth of the cave, through which rays of morning light were beginning to peek, but then paused for a moment, and rifled through the inside pocket of his coat to procure something.

Stan floated closer to get a better look, only to freeze in place as he recognized the item — a photograph of two boys standing on a boat, with proud smiles on their faces despite the broken hull and tattered sails.

“You kept that picture?” he whispered.

Ford sighed and tucked the photograph back in his pocket, then looked up to stare suspiciously at the exact spot where Stan floated — and for just a moment Stan would’ve sworn that Ford could see him.

But then Ford shook his head and stepped past Stan, out of the cave and into the morning sun. As he adjusted the strap holding his weapon, he muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “it won’t be long.”

“You can count on that, Sixer. It won’t be long at all.”

As Ford set off, Stan closed his eyes and concentrated on the familiar elements of the multiverse once again.

“Man, this took a lot longer than I expected, didn’t it?” he whispered. “I hope those kids haven’t broken into any mansions without me.”

***

“Pacifica, above you!” Dipper shouted, just in time for Pacifica to dodge a massive chandelier that came crashing to the ground. Nathaniel dove back into the statue, possessing it once again as he took a swing at Pacifica with a crumbling arm, and Pacifica lost her grip on the lantern as she ducked, sending it clattering across the hardwood floor as the light flickered and began to fade.

“Oh no you don’t!” Mabel jumped onto Nathaniel’s back from behind him, covering his eyes as Dipper snatched the lantern up off the ground and held it upright as the flame roared back to life. Pacifica pulled out a nail file and threw it with uncanny precision, knocking one of Nathaniel’s already crumbling fingers clear off of his flag-bearing hand.

Oh no YOU don’t! Nathaniel roared back as his other hand detached from his body, plucking Mabel off his back by the scruff of her sweater and hurling her towards the mounted head of a massive elk. She narrowly avoided being impaled on most of its antlers, but one single point pierced through her sweater just above her shoulder and ensnared her in place.

“Hang tight, Mabel!” Wendy shouted, taking a swing at the animal’s neck, but she failed to notice the detached stone fist swing around once again — first clocking her in the shoulder and making her drop her axe, and then grabbing Dipper by the throat and pinning him to the ground.

“Shit!” Wendy gasped. “Let him go, you bastard!”

Nathaniel advanced towards the lantern, blasting Pacifica backwards with a cloud of smoke and dust from his stump hand while raising his flagpole over his head in preparation to strike Dipper.

Give me the lantern, Pines, he growled. Or —

“How about I give you an ass-kicking instead?!” Stan’s ghost rose up from within the floor like a blazing blue lightning bolt, and in the same fluid motion, he delivered an uppercut to Nathaniel’s chin that knocked his spectral form clear out of the statue and twenty feet straight into the air.

“You want a fucking ghost fight?! ‘Cause I’ll give you a ghost fight!” Stan crowed, flexing incorporeal arms. “I got my ghost brass knuckles right here!”

“Grunkle Stan?!” Mabel gasped. “How did you do that?”

Stan whirled around to face her. “Wait, you can see me? Fuck, I really shouldn’t be swearing then, should I?”

Dipper got to his feet, the stone hand having relaxed its grip around his throat. “It’s the magic lantern, I think. It reveals all the ghosts in range of its light.”

“And it used to be Grandpa Granite’s own magic lantern at that,” Pacifica scoffed. “Talk about irony!”

“Ha, Grandpa Granite!” Stan laughed. “That’s pretty good!”

Nathaniel slunk out of the lantern’s range, where he transformed back into a ghost made of smoke and ashes, but his eyes were glowing such a firey orange that everyone could still make out where he was.

“Quick, kids!” Stan commanded. “Get behind me!”

Mabel tugged at her sweater, still caught on the elk’s antlers. “I can’t! I’m stuck!”

An orange smile flickered on Nathaniel’s face, and he leapt back into the light towards Mabel.

“Don’t you dare!” Stan shouted, diving forward at superhuman speed to meet him, knocking him off balance with a left hook before jabbing a knee into his groin. Nathaniel howled and aimed a blow at Stan’s head, but Stan jumped out of the way with ease, then kicked Nathaniel’s legs out from underneath him and sent him tumbling to the floor.

“I’m guessing you didn’t take boxing lessons as a kid, did you?” Stan asked smugly. “I never thought I’d tell this to a ghost that doesn’t weigh anything, but somehow, you’re putting too much of your weight into your punches.”

So this is how you want to fight? Nathaniel hissed. Too bad my quarrel isn’t with you.

His hand swept up a pile of jagged porcelain shards, and with a blast of ghostly smoke, fired them in a volley towards Mabel. Stan dove in the way to intercept, but they passed straight through him, and Mabel barely extricated herself from the antlers in time to dodge.

I can beat him to a pulp, but I can’t affect the physical world enough keep my kids safe from him while I do. They’re the ones he wants revenge on. Stan realized. I’ve got to make myself his main target, somehow. Or…

An idea occurred to him that was so dumb he couldn’t help but grin, and Nathaniel glared at him.

What’s so funny? Are you excited to watch your family die?

Stan ignored him, struggling to stifle a laugh. It was a horrible, risky, completely harebrained idea, and it was exactly what he needed.

“HEY, BILL CIPHER!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!”

The room fell dead silent as the tapestry behind Stan lit up with a flash of golden light. It depicted a gray, one-eyed triangle looming over two pleading silhouettes surrounded by red and orange flames — but as a cold wind blew through the ballroom, the figures began to write in agony as the flames lit up blue.

Bill cackled as he opened his eye and casually stepped out of the tapestry like it was something he did every day. “Well, well, well! We meet again, Stanley! Finally ready to make a deal?”

“Oh, hell no!” Stan replied, pulling his 8-ball cane out of thin air to make an overdramatic gesture in Nathaniel Northwest’s direction. “I just thought there was someone here who you might like to reunite with. For old times’ sake, you know?”

YOU! Nathaniel howled. YOU DOUBLE-CROSSED ME AND LEFT ME TO ROT!

The cockiness deflated out of Bill’s pose as his eye went wide. “Hey now, let’s not jump to conclusions here! Give me a chance to tell my side of the story —”

Nathaniel lunged forward and grabbed ahold of Bill, seething with such an overwhelming rage that his whole body lit up firey and orange. YOU ARE NO MUSE! GO TO HELL, YOU TREACHEROUS AFFRONT AGAINST INSPIRATION!

Bill fired back with a blast of blue fire, but he looked shaken. “Alright, FINE! My side of the story is that I DESPISE you and every single atom that’s ever passed through your BODY!”

“Fight, fight, FIGHT!” Stan chanted. “Kids, get the camera!”

“FUCK YOU!” Bill shouted at Stan, only for Nathaniel to seize the opening and punch him directly in the eye. They continued to tussle, tumbling out of range of the lantern’s light, and Stan flew after them, disappearing from the kids’ view.

“I am so confused right now,” Dipper muttered.

“Stan knows what he’s doing,” Mabel assured him. “Probably.”

DIE, FOUL BEAST! Nathaniel roared, but Bill caught his fist in midair, and Nathaniel screamed as bolts of blue electricity surged up his arm.

Stan seized the opportunity, floating up behind Nathaniel and tapping his wrist, where a silver watch resembling the portal appeared. The clock’s hands whirled around the inner circle unnaturally fast, and Stan put on his cockiest grin as he raised his wrist for Bill to see.

“Remember, only nine more hours until we BOTH lose everything!”

The lightning bolts sparking from Bill’s hands shorted out.

“Speak for yourself!” he shouted, voice jumping up to an even higher pitch than usual. “I DON’T need —”

Nathaniel slammed his head into Bill, knocking him backwards and through the staircase.

“But of course you can keep wasting your time letting Cowboy Casper here beat you to a pulp,” Stan jeered. “I don’t mind waiting!”

Bill flew back out of the stairway, his whole body crackling with electricity as he summoned a vortex of fire around Nathaniel, trapping him in place — but Bill’s eye stayed fixed on Stan, even as Nathaniel thrashed and howled and cursed.

“If you want the portal on so badly, then just shake my hand, you idiot!” Bill shrieked. “I really don’t know how to make this any simpler for you!”

“If you really hate Old Man Northwest so much, then you should just trap him in the mirror and let me go for no price — because that handshake? That deal? That’s never happening, Cipher,” Stan shot back. “Go ahead, call my bluff! Wait out the last nine hours, and watch thirty years of biding your time go to waste! I’m sure you know exactly what a petty, stubborn asshole my brother can be, so let me give you one last warning before you make a choice you regret — I’m just as petty and stubborn as he is!”

Bill’s whole body lit up red as he slowly pointed one index finger at Stan, and fired another blast of blue flames —

And Stan sat up in his hospital bed with Bill floating over him, looking angrier than it ever should’ve been possible for any two-dimensional object to look.

“This isn’t over, Fez!” he hissed. “I’ll still get exactly what I need from you sooner or later, one way or another!”

“So you finally admit that I’m useful to you, too!” Stan gloated. His voice was hoarse, but he didn’t care. “I figured you’d come around soon enough!”

“You have NO IDEA how lucky you are that I need you alive! I would let you rot in that mirror FOREVER if I could!”

Stan stretched his arms, giving each of his biceps a celebratory kiss. “Ahh, I missed these bad boys! How’s it feel not to have a body, Bill? If only you hadn’t made it so goddamn obvious that you still needed me, I might’ve even given in and agreed to let you borrow mine!”

Bill vanished without any fanfare or even one final threat, leaving Stan alone in the hospital room with a recently-awoken and extremely confused Soos.

“Mr. Pines?” he gasped. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, more or less,” Stan assured him, places a hand on Soos’s shoulder as Soos rushed to his side. “Plan A didn’t go so great, but Plan B worked like a charm.”

“I’m so glad you’re back,” Soos cried, wrapping Stan in an uncomfortably tight hug. “But who were you just talking to? I didn’t see anyone else in the room…”

“Don’t worry about it, kid,” Stan told him. “Right now, I need you to call Wendy and the kids for me, ‘cause I vanished before their eyes just a couple minutes ago and they’re probably worried out of their minds.”

“Shh, not yet.” Soos wiped his eyes. “Just give me ten more seconds of hugging you and sobbing first.”

Stan sighed. “Alright, I suppose.”

***

(End notes:

Poor Bill, wasting such a dramatic entrance on a scene where he got completely and utterly dunked on. And there we have it, the conclusion of the main story! There’s still an epilogue coming to tie up the wide variety of loose ends I’ve created here, so keep an eye out for that sometime in November, if all goes according to plan!)

#gravity falls #stanley pines #bill cipher #stanford pines #pacifica northwest #dipper pines #mabel pines #wendy corduroy #soos ramirez #fic: to see the unseen #rosalia writes fic

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lemontwst · 4 years

Text

Nessun Dorma | 01 - m!ver.

he says i am sorry i am not an easy person to want i look at him surprised who said i wanted easy i don’t crave easy i crave goddamn difficult

❥ 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔: harem x m!reader. | female version here.

❥ 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑟𝑒: cyoa + smut.

⟶ index | prologue.

You can’t say no to him.

"I love you, Mira."

Your heart flutters at your own words and for a second you don't even know if you mean that as a friend or as a lover. But, well, you're only sixteen years old. You have a lifetime to figure it out.

You think Mira stops breathing, but it's hard to tell because the rise and fall of his chest is usually pretty much imperceptible anyway.

“I… I love you too.”

You suddenly feel very tired.

His gentle voice is like a lullaby in this field of roses. His words leave you dazed, like he’s casting a spell on you.

“I love you, (y/n).”

The last thing you hear is Mira wishing you a happy birthday before you fall into a warm, comfortable sleep without dreams.

___

A sharp pain in your chest jerks you awake.

It fucking hurts, like your heart is being pierced by a shard of glass. Like the fissures of your very existence are being pulled apart at the seams.

You clutch the spot above your heart, almost elbowing Epel in the face with all your trashing, trying to catch your breath.

"Sorry! I… had a nightmare… I think.”

Your friend is used to it by now, “Do you remember what it was about?”

"No… not really."

"Nothing at all?

"No, just…"

"Green eyes." Epel finishes the sentence for you. You've been having the same nightmare for a while, and your friend knows all about it, considering he sleeps right next to you most of the time.

Green eyes. Burning emerald. It's all you remember, alongside a gut wrenching, heart shattering feeling of longing that stays with you long after you've woken up.

"... Hey, you okay?" You must have looked as miserable as you feel, because Epel leans closer to you, peering into your face with worry in his eyes.

"Yeah… it's just a stupid dream." You shrug, leaning your head against his shoulder, "But you know what would make me feel better?"

Epel shrugs, but the way his brow crinkles tells you he's already prepared himself for whatever dumb thing you're about to say.

He knows you too well.

"I'd feel sooo much better if I had an additional piece of toast for breakfast today…" you sigh dreamily and Epel sighs.

"Fine." He shrugs you off and stands up. When he stretches, a peek of white skin flashes under his light blue shirt.

"What, really?" Your eyebrows shoot up. It's not usually this easy to get him to hand over his morning toast.

You're rushing after him immediately.

He can’t claim the bread if he’s dead.

___

You live a simple, happy life here in the Village of Harvest.

Sure, your days might not be terribly exciting. You don't have things like a mall, or a cinema or… anything invented after the seventeenth century, really, but you have Epel and your grandparents and that's enough.

Oh, and you have Beau.

The little lamb trots towards you as soon as you're out of the house, your belly full with toast and Grandma's delicious apple jam, and starts nibbling at your socks immediately.

"Good morning, sweetie." You pick up Beau in a swift movement and hold him to your chest with one arm, carrying a wicker basket in the other, "Ready to pick some apples?"

Beau starts nibbling on your hair in response. This little guy… he's always munching.

"Just make sure he doesn't actually eat the apples." Epel starts walking in front of you, throwing Beau an unimpressed look.

You can't be sure but you feel like Beau is glaring back at him.

Sigh. Children.

___

…

“In any case, I won’t be able to celebrate with you tomorrow.”

You feel like you already know where this is going.

Not granting you the chance to run away, the man picks you up like you weigh nothing and gently lowers you over the roses.

"I don't… I don't even know you." You meekly push at his chest, turning your head away. It's like trying to move a mountain, and the hardness under your hands makes you blush something fierce.

His adoring voice, barely a whisper against your skin, leaves you dazed and gasping for air. Your legs open almost instinctively for him, your dick wet with excitement. A clawed hand makes his way from your shoulder to your side, slowing down when it passes over your chest breast as if he's indulging in the forbidden fruit. His fingers glide inside your shorts and he runs a slow circle against the humid head of your member, eager to soak in your juices.

"Mi… ra?"

His eyes dart to yours and you think they're actually burning. Emerald flickers to life. His snake pupils shrink. He makes a show of slowly running his thumb down his tongue, leaving a trail of precum behind. Your stomach clenches with need, your entire body lighting up like he just poured gasoline on you and burned it with a match.

"It's what you call me." It's a habit of his to sound both sad and adoring, you realize. You open your mouth to scold him for being so cryptic, but snap it shut when his hands rest on your chest. He palms the taut flesh gently, a small smirk on his arrogant face, "My precious Deerlet. Always so insatiably curious."

His thumbs slowly circle your hard nipples. Little jolts of electricity run down your spine, your chest growing sensitive under his ministrations. It's agonizingly slow. The sweet way he rubs you through the fabric of your shirt makes you quiver with need, your voice coming out in short little gasps that make his eyes darken to a dangerous jade.

You lay your hand on top of his. You can feel his hard veins move under your palm as he gropes you, and the sensation sends another wave of arousal down your crotch. Shaking like a frightened animal, you slowly move his hand to the side and slide it under your tank top. A gasp leaves you when his fingers touch your bare skin. Mira exhales a long, pained sigh through his nose, then allows his digits to explore the expanse of your flesh. His fingertips tingle and his muscles tighten almost violently as the impulse to fuck you threatens to overtake him.

"Patience, daelin." He teases you, his deep voice a heated, playful murmur. Your dick throbs in response. A small, frustrated whine leaves your lips.

"I'm going to savor every moment of this." He takes his hand away and your heart almost breaks, but the pain is soon replaced by scalding embarrassment when he rips the front of your shirt apart, easily, like it's tissue paper.

"Mira!" You're sobbing at this point. Your body is on fire and your dick hurts from the lack of attention, "Please—" He moves to your other nipple and you arch for him, making a pretty line with your back. Mira takes this chance to slip a hand under you, keeping your chest raised to his mouth so that your head falls back, away from the dangerous tips of his horns. But he still doesn't touch you where you want him.

Suddenly, another memory comes to mind, as if summoned by your sexual frustration. You remember something that makes him shiver without fail, and suddenly you feel like you've regained some sort of power over this arrogant man. You bring a hand to his horn and tug and the loud, startled moan that leaves him is enough to satisfy the hunger in your stomach, precum leaking in your shorts like dew against the fabric.

You try not to look too offended that he stopped touching you, giving him a defiant look that makes his smirk grow wider, "It is when the King is mean to his Queen."

You yelp when he grabs the back of your knees and pushes your legs against your body in a quick, rough movement, leaving you spread open and helpless under his watchful gaze.

It's like he's speaking the words directly into your ears. His voice bounces off the walls in your head, heated and demanding as a spark of his magic runs over your sensitive skin. It's a tingly feeling that makes your heart stutter, more intimate than anything you've ever felt. He shares just a fraction of his arousal with you through the link between your magic and his and suddenly you're crying and convulsing on top of the flowers, the heat between your legs akin to flowing magma.

No no no, he can't do that to you. Not now. Not during your first time. He wants to cherish and protect you. He won't let his feral instincts get in the way of this precious moment…

"...I know."

Malleus opens his eyes. A small, tired smile greets him. Your face is sweaty and flushed, like that one time he took you deep into the woods.

"I trust you, Mira."

Love washes over him like high tide across a deserted shore, filling every crack on his eroded heart, replacing the pitch-black ink that constantly threatens to swallow him.

You trust him. Of course you do. You love him. You are his and he is yours. Forever, like you promised him.

"You already did."

He snorts, "I'll make you feel better."

You let out a surprised gasp when he slips your shorts off of you and lowers his face right between your legs. You hear him take a deep breath and then he's exhaling right against your engorged dick. Your legs tremble in response and Mira chuckles. You don't need to look at him to know he's smiling that closed-eye smile you like so much.

Your excitement flares back to life as his tongue traces a slow line from the base to the head. The split in his tongue feels… weird, but it's also strangely erotic, and you can't help but moan shamelessly as he teases your urethra. Then he runs his tongue flat over your glans and suddenly you can't bear to look at him anymore. Your eyes squeeze shut as little earthquakes shake you from head to toe, your hips going numb as he draws slow circles around the sensitive head.

"Which one feels better?" He has the nerve to ask you even as you convulse under him.

"The tip…" he greedily sucks on your glans and your head falls back, precum dripping out of you like a fucking river and coating his face in a lucid sheen of arousal, "Or the base?" He drags his tongue down the shaft and gently sucks on your ballsack and you nearly lose your mind, your hands tangling in his raven hair and gripping his horns for comfort. Mira gasps loudly against you, claws digging into your legs from the shock of the sudden stimulation, but you don't even notice it, lost as you are on the edge of your release. He brings a hand to your shaft and starts pumping, coating his fingers in precum and saliva as he continues to suck on your glans hungrily.

Your dick throbs desperately with the need to shoot your semen all over Mira's face. Everything feels wet and hot and stars, his tongue is lapping up everything you have to give him. It's like he's desperate not to let even a single drop go to waste…

"Mira!" You cry out in a broken voice, trying to grind your dick up into his eager mouth, "Mira—I'm going to—"

He suddenly lets go of one of your legs. The boneless limb falls over his shoulder, your soft thigh caressing the side of his soaked face. He doesn't grace you with a warning before one of his wet fingers plunges into your asshole, the tight passage clenching in shock at the sudden intrusion.

Your moans increase in volume. You trash under him as if you want to get away. This is almost too much. It's scary. He pumps his index finger in and out of you, smearing saliva all over your walls, then he presses that sensitive button inside you and suddenly the bliss is debilitating. He carefully stretches your cute little hole until he can push another finger in. Your back arches as another orgasm crashes over you, scalding hot and earth-shattering and too fucking vivid for this to be just a dream.

You completely miss the dazed expression on Mira's face when your cum fills his mouth, the dark jade of his eyes fading into a glassy mint.

You're so out of it as you slump back against the roses that you almost don't hear him when he speaks again.

"This scent is—addicting—" his chest heaves and he looks almost intoxicated, "I feel like I'm getting drunk on you..." semen drips off his chin but he clearly doesn't mind. Not when he starts wiping the thick liquid off with a hand before bringing it to his mouth, swallowing as much of it as he can. It's strange how he looks like an animal and a prince at the same time. An otherworldly creature of indescribable beauty, even as he eagerly eats your essence off his face.

He lets his hot member fall against your stomach. He’s fucking huge, you stare with wide eyes at the point where his length ends across your abdomen.

"It… it won't fit…" You mumble, even as your inexperienced asshole clenches with traitorous want.

It's so big. Your vision goes out of focus as your hole clenches around him greedily despite the pain. Stars, it's stretching you so well. He tried to prepare you for this and yet he still has to push to enter you because you're so fucking tight. Your legs shake uncontrollably, the feeling of being so thoroughly filled wiping out every thought in your head.

Mira is inside you. You completely forget that this is a dream, that sentence repeating inside your head over and over again.

"...Small." He mutters. You look at him and your heart almost collapses at the tender expression on his face. You think his pupils might have turned into little hearts, a light blush dusting his pale cheeks as sweat drips off his hair and chin.

…

...

Fuck. Your heart lodges in your throat and your hole clenches around him, coaxing a surprised moan from both your lips.

"(y/n)..." your name sounds heavenly when he says it like that. On a quiet, vulnerable gasp.

"I… I'm going to start moving now, okay?"

"My (y/n)—" He eases into a steady rhythm, pushing what he can of his shaft inside you and rubbing your abused prostate with every thrust of his powerful hips. Sweat pours down his face, his hair sticks to his chin and his tongue swipes the salt off his lips, "My sweet boy—my cute little Deerlet—" His waist snaps back into your smaller one in short strokes, his movements growing more and more frenzied as tight, magma hot pleasure builds inside him. The obscene sounds that fill the air turn him on so much he's now full-blown moaning. His beautiful voice calls your name shamelessly, desperately, like you could disappear from under him at any given moment.

"I love you—you're mine—" He growls placing a large hand under your ass as he pounds into you, keeping your hips locked to his, loving the way your dick bounces against his stomach, “Say that you’re mine."

The order resonates inside your head. You're not even offended that he's using his magic to intimidate you. You can barely cling to your consciousness at this point.

"I am—I'm—yours, Mira!" You don't even know which way is up anymore, but you know that what you're saying is true. You belong to him. Your best friend. The love of your life.

The loud "Fuck!" that leaves his mouth pushes you over the edge, the word unexpected but so fucking sexy coming from his graceful mouth. You clench down around him, delirious as stars explode behind your vision, and drag him right over the edge with you.

Malleus holds you so close to him you feel like you might melt into each other as he releases pulse after shuddering pulse of his essence into you.

"I love you." He mutters, voice breaking.

...

He's crying. That lone thought destroys something inside you and you start feverishly kissing his jaw, his cheek, his neck, anything you can reach as you try to soothe him.

Don't cry don't cry don't cry—

You feel him starting to fade in your arms. You can feel yourself starting to fade.

Nonononono— Maker, please—

He pulls away from you and you finally see his face.

You scream out his name, his real name.

…

And then you wake up, sobbing all over yourself, unable to remember.

Epel tries his best to comfort you, but you don't stop crying for a long time.

___

Life goes on.

You have a part-time job at a beach bar, on the coastline that extends about 60 miles away from the village.

"See you later, Beau." You chuckle, knowing he will go back to the farm as soon as he gets bored. Beau ignores you and munches away.

You always think about him when you’re riding this bus.

…

You should probably stop being so obsessed with him.

___

The sun is almost in the middle of the sky when you get to the beach bar, and as per usual, it's a crowded mess. This is the infernal hour, and not only because it's hot as sin.

…

Why do you work here again?

…

Because the pay is good, and your coworker is cute.

"Now move your bum and go change. I need my sla—coworker to serve some tables outside.”

Figures. His lazy ass hates leaving the coolness of the bar to handle the customers sitting outside.

“Is that how you ask for favors, Ruggie?~" You tease him as you step behind the counter and head for the changing rooms in the back.

"I'd smooch ya as a treat but snoggin's not allowed in front of the children." He gives you a cheeky smile. One of the moms around the bar throws him a glare, but he shamelessly ignores it.

You shake your head and grin to yourself. At least you have him around to make this job a little more bearable.

___

Ruggie snorts next to you. He finishes cleaning a beer glass and places it back on the decorative shelf behind you, “Says the one who only works half a shift.”

The sun is starting to set. The blue sky fades into a gentle orange above the deep indigo of the calm sea. Your shift is almost over, but Ruggie will have to stay here for a while longer.

"I'm not a masochist like you." Your eyes follow him as he wipes, cleans, moves, washes and dries plates and glasses at half the speed it takes you to do it. He's like a super cleaning pro.

"Ye gotta work if you want ta eat." He pops open a can of peach tea, then pours it in a glass filled with ice.

You choke.

He laughs that kishishishi sound.

As you wipe your mouth with your wrist and send him a half-assed glare, a familiar sparkle sizzles the air between you.

You bask in the sudden heat for a second, watching as Ruggie's blue-gray eyes trace a slow path down your body.

But something you can't help but wonder… would he act on it if you two were alone and away from trying eyes? Would you act on it? Ruggie is very cute… and witty and funny and reliable...

...

"Uh…" Ruggie suddenly looks away, his cheek tinged the lightest shade of pink, "You may uh… want to take that shirt off, kitten."

...

What?

You look at him like he's grown another head.

"Excuse me?" You must have sounded more outraged than you feel, because your voice sends Ruggie into an embarrassed panic.

"N-not like that! It's just…! You've been sweating a lot and your shirt's gone transparent! I can see everythin' from here— I mean, what if a perverted old man walks in and sees you like that?"

You look down at your white shirt. It wasn't visible while you were wearing your green apron, but you can indeed see the outline of your nipples peek out from under the wet fabric, and you figure your wet back looks the same. Oops.

"Ah shit, sorry I didn't notice." You stand up and Ruggie turns his head away at the speed of light.

"No no… s'fine I have— a jacket you can wear while you walk home if ya need it."

Your lips quirk in a grateful smile as you head for the changing room, "Thank you! You're the best, Ruggie!"

"Yeah, yeah…" he breathes, quietly rubbing his temples as soon as you're out of the room.

___

And yet he still does it anyway.

Maybe he really is a masochist.

And maybe he should actually bend you over this counter and finally get rid of the frustration that's been building up inside him for the past two months.

Ruggie pours himself a glass of ice-cold water and downs it in one gulp.

Yeah, he's fucked.

___

"Epel! Carry me!~" You cling to your friend, Grandma and Grandpa chuckling at your antics from the sofa and the armchair respectively.

Having finished washing the dishes, Epel wipes his hands on a dishcloth and pushes you away with his elbow, "No thanks. I'm tired too ya know."

"If you're this tired then why don't ya just quit the beach job already?"

The two of you step outside, greeted by the loud crying of the cicadas. There's not a cloud above you, the stars clearly visible in the inky blue of the night.

"I can't do that. Ruggie needs me."

Epel scoffs. It's the exact same sound he made when he saw you come home wearing your coworker's jacket.

You do so happily, nuzzling into him like a spoiled cat.

A pair of emerald eyes flashes behind your eyelids, but you shrug it off.

"Sorry but I'm too drunk to go back to the beach to ask him."

"Only you can get drunk after two glasses of apple cider." Epel smirks, ignoring you when you hit his arm and start whining again.

You lay down onto Epel's checkered blanket like a starfish.

"Where am I supposed ta sleep? On the ground?" Epel turns the lantern off, then lights the incense to keep away mosquitoes and other bugs and places it on the windowsill.

He turns towards you with his hands on his hips, watching as you lay in your shared nest without a care in the world, and sighs. So spoiled.

"You can sleep on top of me, I don't care."

Epel almost chokes on his saliva.

You laugh at his flustered face. It almost looks like he's angry, eyes wide and an outraged blush on his cheeks.

You open your arms for him, "Come on! It's not like we won't end up in this position in the morning anyway."

…

“Do you do this with Ruggie too?”

Epel mutters so quietly you almost don’t hear him. He doesn’t say it accusingly just… like he’s sulking.

“... What?” Any semblance of sleep disappears from your mind as you catch his dejected tone of voice, “You mean like hugging?— Of course not.” You bring a hand to his hair and scratch his skull like you know he likes it, and you feel him relax in your arms.

…

“Have you ever kissed him?”

Okay, now you’re definitely wide awake.

You look down at him, trying to catch his expression, “Epel, what are you talking about?”

He raises his head and pins you down with a demanding, silvery gaze. You sigh and lay your head back down, closing your eyes as you think of the best way to answer him.

“I haven’t kissed him.” You open your eyes and catch Epel’s expression shift just a little. He tries to keep an impassive front, but you can tell he’s relieved, “But I’ve never kissed you either.” You could maybe understand the cuddle comparison, since Epel is your designated snuggle friend, but who you kiss or don’t kiss shouldn’t matter to him.

Right?

“... Do you want to?”

… He's not. His eyes dart to your lips and darken, like there's a thunderstorm inside his gaze. Soft blue turns to rainy gray.

Do you want to?

…

"Yes." You think Epel stops breathing, but you don't have time to think about it because he's suddenly leaning towards you, stopping only when his lips are a few centimetres away from yours.

His labored breaths fan your lips and send a flurry of tingles down your abdomen…

___

❥ How do you handle this situation with Epel?

⟶ Touch him, claim him, make him beg for the next kiss. With the way he’s always clinging to you, you suspect this is what Epel has always wanted anyway. (dom!deerlet content)

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#twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland headcanons #twisted wonderland scenarios #nessun dorma #m!reader

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waywardfacegarden · 5 years

Text

serendipity

hey so i came back at writing :) and it’s not the naruto fandom but uhh i figured i’d posted this here too :D first time writing for this fandom and it was hard af, but i hope you like it!! c:

Summary:

The first time is an accident.

The other ones not so much.

Posted on Ao3 like a month ago or so.

Featuring kissing, slow burn, boys being dumb and bakusquad :)

The first time it happens, it’s an accident.

It’s on the first days after the sports festival, and he’s still angry for that half-ass fight Todoroki gave him.

So yeah, Bakugou is arguing with Todoroki, leaning over his seat, when stupid Kaminari hits him from behind.

He slides forward, and, frankly, he had no idea how deep he was inside Todoroki’s personal space until he’s invading all of it. He staggers forward, Todoroki’s eyes open a fraction and, although he stretches out his hand to steady Bakugou’s arm, it’s already too late.

Bakugou crashes all the way down and stamps his lips against Todoroki’s in a, purely and honestly, awkward kiss.

It’s not even a kiss. Is just mouth in mouth, awkwardly pressed together, and it maybe lasts a bit more than it should, but give him a break, he was utterly surprised, okay?

Bakugou pushes himself away, trying not to think about how Todoroki’s lips felt chapped against his, and about the way Todoroki is looking up at him. Bakugou can’t put his nail on it, but he looks… confused, maybe?

“Aaahh, sorry, dude. Did I hit you?”

Bakugou turns around with a murderous aura emanating out of him, like waves.

Kaminari is very dumb most of the time, but it only takes him a second, looking at Todoroki and then at Bakugou, to put the pieces together. He smiles at him, then, but he looks scared.

He bursts out a nervous laugh. “Ah… hah— I— waaaah! Wait! It was an accident! An accident! Kirishima, help me!!!”

Kirishima tries to help, but he can’t stop laughing, and Bakugou only ends up getting more angry. He smacks them both in the head, glaring all the day at everything and everyone.

Stupid Kaminari.

Stupid Half-and-Half.

They don’t talk about it later, though. It’s not like they should, anyways. What are they supposed to say? It wasn’t even a decent kiss and it’s not like there were feelings involved.

So time passes, the months pass, and the memory of what happened has blurred so much that Bakugou almost seems to have forgotten it.

It’s not like he’s thinking about it, either. Not with everything that has happened.

The summer passes, Bakugou is kidnapped, the dorms arrive, the Provisional License exam happens, he and Todoroki fail it, he gets into a fight, the classes come back, and now they have extra classes.

It’s not like Todoroki and he had become friends in all that time, but now they have to spend too much time together because of those classes, and well, Bakugou supposes that the idiot is better than that girl (even if she does good illusions of Todoroki, hah, that was definitely hilarious) and baldy.

So yeah. He’s stuck with him.

It could be worse, he guesses.

They’re now babysitting brats again, and there’s these two little girls that made Todoroki and Bakugou a flower crown. Todoroki smiles awkwardly (but gentle and polite) at them, and lets one of the girls to put the crown on his head.

Bakugou, on the other hand, is definitely not using that, thank you very much.

That’s, obviously, until Todoroki just decides to put it in his head anyways.

Bakugou turns to look at him, irritated. "Hey, asshole!“

Todoroki, on the other hand, looks pretty amused for someone that is almost always wearing that boring expression on his face. He is now smirking at him (just a little bit, but still), and he has the audacity to accommodate the crown on Bakugou’s head and adjust his hair with his fingers.

“What? I think you look pretty nice.” The asshole is obviously trying not to laugh his ass off, and is pissing Bakugou off.

“You think you’re funny, bastard?”

“I don’t think so, I am.”

Bakugou huffs at him. "Oh, yeah, my bad, I forgot how hilarious you are.“ He exclaims, sarcasm spilling from every word.

Todoroki seems as impassive as ever, though. "Is fine, I accept your humble apology.”

Bakugou wants to punch his face. “Excuse me? I didn’t even—”

“Now you have to kiss!”

The childish yell from one of the girls has them both stopping their bickering and looking down at her.

“Huh?” Todoroki says, conveying Bakugou’s feelings in a laconic but efficient way.

“Yes!” The other girl says. “For the wedding!”

“Wedding?” Todoroki looks like a lost puppy, tilting his head to one side in tremendous confusion. Bakugou doesn’t blame him, though. He is just as lost.

“Uh-huh!” One of them says, excited, as she bounces on her heels, and then points to Todoroki. "You’re the husband and”, then, she points out at Bakugou, “you’re the wife! And you have to kiss each other! Like at weddings!”

Well, you can’t beat that logic, huh. (Sarcasm.)

No way. What the fuck. "HAH?“ Bakugou exclaims, “why am I the wife? No, forget that, why are we a wedding, what the—?”

Bakugou can’t finish his long complaining, though.

Todoroki leans in and —it’s barely a quick peck, but— there’s definitely a pair of lips on his that weren’t there before. They’re there and they’re gone as fast as they came in the first place, but they were there.

“Waah—” Bakugou steps back on his feet, blinks as he feels heat swirling around the tips of his ears. He frowns at Todoroki, who looks at him with the same bored expression as always, imperturbable. “You— asshole, what the fuck? Don’t kiss people out of nowhere!”

Todoroki barely bats an eyelid in his direction before turning to the little girls in front of him, who are jumping out of joy with bright, big eyes.

“Was that okay?” He asks, boring tone, boring face, as if he hadn’t just kissed Bakugou, holy—

“Hey! Don’t ignore me!”

“Yes!” The little girls squeal out in unison; they beam.

“Good, then.” Todoroki gives a little, firm nod, as if he was a soldier who just completed a mission and the captain gave him permission to withdraw after a report. Then, he turns around to look at Bakugou, who blinks in return, “We have to help Inasa and Camie over there.” He says, and starts walking.

Bakugou blinks in his place. One, two, three times. Four.

“Haaah?” He tramples behind him. “Don’t walk in front of me, asshole! And what was that about?!”

Todoroki just slides on the ground next to him. He barely raises a single eyebrow, just a little. "Mm?“

Bakugou stomps harder. "You just kissed me there—”

Todoroki raises his eyebrow more, an expression of confusion all over his face, like he doesn’t understand what the problem is. "They asked for it.“ He says, like is something obvious and he doesn’t understand why Bakugou is even mentioning the subject.

Bakugou raises both eyebrows and waves his arms, while Todoroki continues to look at him with the same expression. "Yeah, no shit.” Bakugou fake baffles, rolling his eyes. “That doesn’t mean you have to do it, dumbass!” He remarks, scowling at him.

Todoroki frowns. “But they could have cried if we didn’t do it, or—”

“We could have faked it, or, I don’t know, some shit!”

Todoroki’s frown deepens. "Oh.“

Always so eloquent. “Yeah, bastard, oh.”

Bakugou crosses his arms and stomps, watching Todoroki look like he just had an epiphany. He looks at the ground, purses his lips in a thin line, and when he looks at Bakugou, he has the decency to look at himself as awkward as Bakugou feels. “Sorry, I didn’t know it would bother you so much.”

Hah?

Todoroki turns on his feet and goes where wind-guy and illusion-girl are standing.

Haaah?

The third time it happens, it’s technically Kaminari’s fault too, like the first time. His and the entire Idiot Brigade’s.

"Pleeeeeeease.”

“Fuck off, Kirishima.”

“Oh, come on, dude, just one! It will be fun!”

“Fuck off, Pikachu.”

Bakugou turns the page without even looking over the cover of the book he’s reading while the irritating idiots keep making noise from his place on the floor. He scowls a little. Somehow, the Idiot Brigade managed to convince him to come down from his room to the lobby to enjoy the “wonderful and really fun” (quoting Shitty Hair) (vaguely improvised and messy, if you ask Bakugou) “pre-Christmas” party after the return to UA. With the new bedrooms, his dumbass class seemed to think it was an awesome idea to “share and hang out”, and even Glasses agreed with it as long as there was no alcohol or “too much noise that could disturb the tranquility of his fellow companions ”.

Whatever. It was stupid beyond limits, and Bakugou doesn’t even know why he’s there in the first place. It’s past nine o’clock, it’s dark outside, and he wants to go to bed now. And no, he’s not a grandpa, but he is bored, the music is loud (Glasses, what the fuck are you doing? Didn’t you want “silence” and “quiet”?) and he wants his eight hours of sleep to pay attention in class properly so he can beat everyone up and be the number one hero, thank you very much.

But now Kirishima and Kaminari are bothering him with some stupid, stupid game, playing “dares” like fucking dumb middle schoolers, and nope, there’s no way in hell he—

“Meh, leave him alone, guys.” Finally, a voice of reason in all this mess, thank— “he’s obviously scared one of the dares will be too much for him.”

“Hah?” Bakugou snaps, whipping the book against his lap and looking up at Sero’s dirty smile just mere meters from him.

“Oooohh.” Shitty Hair and Piss Hair have the audacity to sing-song like idiots in chorus.

“I see. Sorry man.” Kirishima says, but the way he’s grinning at him makes Bakugou think that he is enjoying all of this very, very much.

“Yeah, dude, all cool. Don’t worry about it.” Kaminari adds, grinning all wide.

Bakugou grunts as he feels how the vein on his forehead is going to burst out. He clenches his hands into fists, swings his legs off the couch and stomps on the floor, smoking.

“Who are you calling scared, assholes?” Bakugou stomps hard to where Kaminari holds a stupid bowl with papers inside. He takes it, mumbling curses under his breath about how stupid the game is, how stupid the party is and how stupid they all are, and pulls out a piece of paper (along with many others that overflow from the edge, spill and fall to the floor thanks to the strength with which he puts and removes the hand from the container).

He unfolds the paper so strongly; it is surprising it doesn’t break.

Kirishima, Kaminari and Sero continue to smile like the idiots they are.

On the paper, there’s only one word, scrawled messily in what he supposes should be the center of the white square.

Kiss.

Huh? Bakugou flips the paper over, picks it up and sees it against the lights. He scowls at it.

“What is this supposed to mean? Kiss? Kiss what?”

“Kiss who, you moron.” Raccoon Eyes says in her typical squeaky voice, smiling as wide as all the other idiots are. Ah. Why is Bakugou surrounded by so many idiots, and, most importantly, how and why does Bakugou even hears them. She giggles in an annoying way and then smirks at him. "We’re supposed to tell you who you’re going to kiss and you have to do it.“

Bakugou doesn’t like the malicious gleam that sets in her eyes a moment later.

"That’s fucking stupid.” Bakugou says, but there’s something that pulls in his stomach and threatens to tip his dinner out. He doesn’t want to kiss anyone, no, and this is all ridiculous anyways, because—

Mina shrugs. "You can always reject it if it’s too much for you, but you’ll have to take a punishment later.“

"But you know, Mina, kissing someone must be easy-peasy for him anyways, don’t you think?” Sero drawls, with a sardonic voice.

Bakugou is gonna kill him. Bakugou is gonna kill them all. Bakugou is going to tell them to go fuck themselves, that they can put their stupid paper and their stupid game in their asses, and that he is going to go to sleep now and he will not take any stupid punishment because the game is incredibly stupid anyways.

Of course, the lack of his usual hours of rest should be affecting his brain already, because what comes out of his mouth, bellowing, instead, is:

“Fuck you, Pinky. And fuck you too, Soy face. Fuck you all. I’m going to kiss whoever you want and is going to be the best fucking kiss they’re ever going to get because I'm that good in everything and I’m not a goddamn coward, you hear me?”

Of course, Sero and Mina don’t back down at all, like they were waiting for that kind of reaction.

Some of his classmates turn to look at him in the middle of his outburst, peeking over from their seats. Most of them have made at least one challenge from the bowl already, so they were paying attention anyways before the screaming. There is a myriad of different reactions. Most of them only look with curiosity. There is a slight anguish expression written over the frog girl’s face, tapping her fingers again and again on her lips; same as Uraraka, who sways on her feet standing next to her. Glasses seems extremely concerned that Bakugou is going to explode the living room at any time and Ponytail fidgets in her place, right next to where Jirou is smirking at all them, seeming amused. She has even lower the volume of the music.

“Um, guys, maybe—” Ponytail begins to say, her voice soft and elegant and polite as always, looking through her long lashes with a slight frown over the pink haired girl.

Ashido doesn’t beat an eyelash at all, though. Her smirk widens, and she crosses her arms over her chest, beaming. "Good, then.“

Bakugou growls at her.

Whatever. She just needs to say the name fucking now, so he can—

"I dare you to kiss—” by the way her eyes are shining, Bakugou almost wants to recoil. He swears to God, if she says Mineta or some shit, he’s going to— “Todoroki.”

…

… huh?

“HAH?”

There’s silence after he explodes, and then Kaminari snorts and Kirishima starts to chuckle besides him.

“You heard me, boy.” Mina smiles, all fake innocence and real devilish. “Go and give Todoroki the best kiss he’s ever gonna get.”

Bakugou growls at the clear mockery of his previous words, and there is something that slips slowly and dangerously inside him.

They want him to snog Todoroki in the couch right in front of everyone? Fine. He’s not a coward, he’s not backing off some stupid ass-challenge like that.

He turns around, and looks at where Todoroki is sitting, right next to where Bakugou was reading a moment ago on the couch, watching the entire conversation in silence. He blinks, and seems genuinely surprised when Bakugou walks resolutely towards him, as if he didn’t expect Bakugou to comply with what was said.

Well, no. It’s not like he wants to kiss Todoroki, he’s just not a coward.

Bakugou stops just in front of him and Todoroki looks up at him, seeming completely lost at what’s going on.

It seems like he is about to say something then, but Bakugou leans over, stretches his arm, takes him from the neck of his shirt and pulls him up. Whatever he was going to say dies on his lips when Bakugou crashes against him. He does a quiet, little, surprised sound at the back of his throat, and Bakugou leans in, swallows it in his own mouth.

If he’s honest, Bakugou has never kissed anyone before that’s not this idiot, and the previous times they weren’t even decent kisses, so he cannot say he has experience. Frankly, he has no idea what he’s doing, but he supposes it can’t be that complicated. Bakugou is naturally good at everything he does, so he just has to try something.

Todoroki’s lips are soft, actually, and from that distance, he can perfectly smell the shampoo of his hair. The fabric of his sweater wrinkles between his fingers when he tilts his head in another better angle, his knee resting at the side of Todoroki’s leg on the couch, his other hand sliding to Todoroki’s wrist. It is thin, and Bakugou’s fingers slide down his sleeve, his nails carefully scraping and scratching at the skin; honestly, he has no idea what he’s doing, but Todoroki makes a little sound that seems content and pleased once he does it, so he supposes that it’s okay. With his fingers there, he can feel Todoroki’s heartbeat rumble against his body, trying to get out.

It doesn’t feel that bad.

Trying to remember something he has seen in some shitty rom-com movie with the old hag time ago, or with Shitty Hair and Pinky, Bakugou pushes his tongue on the edge of Todoroki’s mouth, gently licks his bottom lip, sucks that very lip between his own, and Todoroki opens his mouth, pulls air, makes that surprise sound again. Bakugou takes the opportunity to introduce his tongue into his mouth, and then everything becomes a little fuzzy.

He vaguely notices the way Todoroki’s body relaxes (unravels, melts) at the same time that a song he doesn’t know explodes in the speakers behind him, all whispers muffled in the back of his head.

Frankly, the idea of sticking his tongue in someone’s mouth, or of someone sticking their tongue in his, seemed totally unpleasant to him and nothing like to put on his list of things he wanted or wished to do. But when he leans in a little, Todoroki tilting his head closer to him, closing his eyes, his eyelashes tickling Bakugou’s cheeks— when Todoroki’s fingers move against the nape of his neck, get into his hair, pull Bakugou towards him, like he’s asking, pleading for more— when Todoroki breathes against him, making a soft, humming sound each time Bakugou moves his tongue in a certain way, his pulse rippling, going rampage against Bakugou’s fingers— when Todoroki’s tongue tentatively touches his, slowly, deliberately, as if he was afraid of doing it…

Well, Bakugou supposes it could be worse.

Then, Bakugou releases his sweater and pushes his hand gently against the top of Todoroki’s chest, breaking out to take air, to breath. Todoroki doesn’t open his eyes yet, his long lashes trembling against his cheeks. Their lips make a shameful, embarrassing, obscenely wet sound when they break apart, and Bakugou tries not to think about whose the thread of saliva hanging from his lips the moment he moves apart a little is.

Todoroki opens his eyes then, so slow, slow, slow, and looks at him. He looks at Bakugou like is the first time he had seen him, through the curtain of his eyelashes with stormy eyes full of emotions and glazed, and there is something in Bakugou’s stomach that pulls at him hard, like he’s going to vomit, but he doesn’t feel nauseated or disgusted. At all.

Todoroki blinks, and is at that moment when he realizes three things: one, he is still terribly close to him; two, he hasn’t moved his hands; and three, there is a sepulchral silence behind him except for the music.

Bakugou moves.

And then someone behind him starts to laugh. He assumes is Pikachu.

“Wow, dude, you went all out there—”

Mina starts laughing too.

There’s a light pink dust covering Todoroki’s cheeks, and he’s still gasping for air. Bakugou’s not going to lie, it’s almost—

“There. I’m going to bed now.” Bakugou says then. He turns around, just to find people with wide eyes, people blushing, and the idiots cackling or shit-eat grinning. "I hope you all die, assholes, so you can’t bother me anymore.“

"We love you too!” Raccoon Eyes says, grinning like a moron.

“Yeah, yeah. Night. Assholes. ”

Then he walks and disappears down the hall, his book forgotten on the couch. Once he reaches the elevator, he thinks he can still hear laughter and murmurs behind him.

“Wow, I think he broke Todoroki!”

“Yeah, are you okay, dude?”

Fucking morons.

“Haaaah?” Bakugou exclaims, perplexed. “It’s fucking what now?”

“Enchanted!" Kaminari quips up, like he’s dead serious, but grinning like a goofball. "It’s a quirk from a girl from Class B.”

Enchant mistletoes? What kind of quirk so useless is that? It’s fucking bullshit and he’s not going to buy that shit. Nope.

He’s not kissing Todoroki again. No.

Because, yeah, he apparently has to kiss that bastard again.

He can’t even calmly fight with him in the hall now because of these dumb morons.

“Hah, yeah, really funny, Pikachu. I’m going to believe that some girl has a quirk that enchants mistletoes. ”

“It’s not that, actually," Ponytail says, kindly, peeking over at the boy's side; and before Bakugou can sneer at the blonde, she adds, "her quirk is enchanting objects to bind them to people. If you don’t use the object for its "function”, you can’t detach from the object by far more than two meters. Kaminari thought it was a good idea to make a joke like this,“ she explains, and side-eyes him, mildly frowning in disapproval.

Kaminari smiles, "Sorry,” he says, like he’s not. "But is funny, Momo!“

Iida comes out from behind him like a fleeing robot, waving his arms like crazy. "It is not! Kaminari, that’s some serious behavior and—!”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Bakugou says, “so, what? You’re telling me I have to kiss Half-and-half again because that’s what mistletoes are for and if I don’t, then I can’t move from here?”

Momo looks anxious to respond, seeming afraid that Bakugou would explode Todoroki after she answers. "Basically,“ she responds, anyway.

"WH—”

Bakugou can’t finish, however, because Todoroki takes him by the nape of his neck and kisses him. Hard.

Bakugou supposes it is a bit to take revenge of him for that crazy kiss in the party, because he doesn’t think is so necessary for the kiss to be so open (somehow, he can’t manage to think of another way to describe it), but there he is, Todoroki, kissing him like his life depends on it, digging his nails into Bakugou’s neck, burying his teeth in Bakugou’s lower lip, dragging his tongue a little later and— wow, okay.

Okay.

Bakugou did not just make that sound, holy shit. He just didn’t.

He supposes that he actually did it, because Todoroki breaks up the kiss, lips bruised like at the last kiss they had, and fucking smirks at him. Smirks.

Then, he just turns around and walks down the hall.

“Bastard, what the fuck!”

Todoroki doesn’t even stop.

“ASSHOLE!”

He hates how he can feel Todoroki’s teeth on his lips all day.

He kisses Todoroki again.

He kisses Todoroki again, even if he was supposedly never kissing him again. He kisses him at Todoroki’s birthday party, after someone (he can’t remember, probably Racoon Eyes or Jirou) jokes about Bakugou kissing Todoroki as his birthday gift, given those “wild” kisses before, as she likes to describe them. This one is different, though. Is barely a peck, (and, obviously, a joke) (not like the others ones were for real, per se, but) but Bakugou feels like Todoroki leans a bit more and follows him (maybe not, it was such a subtle movement that Bakugou probably imagined it) after Bakugou breaks the kiss.

Is not a bad kiss. It’s not even a kiss if they count the others they have given each other already, and it’s just a joke so it’s fine.

Yeah.

He kisses him again, though. Six months later.

However, it’s Todoroki’s fault this time.

Some time after that third kiss on the party, or maybe after Todoroki’s birthday party, or just… along the way, Todoroki and Bakugou seemed to… get along, for lack of better, more appropriate words. Their relationship was somewhat complicated, he supposed, or maybe it wasn’t that hard to understand at all, but at some moment, at some point, Todoroki and he began to spend more time together. Just casual, while Bakugou was reading a book, or studying, or helping Todoroki with something school-related, about the classes they had, because holy Hell, Todoroki’s notes were a fucking mess and all over the place and how the HELL are you the fifth in class… who takes notes like this, Icyhot? Is this what you call notes? What the fuck? Really, what the fuck?

Or simply hanging out with the Idiot Brigade in one of their rooms or in the living room. Sometimes (weird times, scattered times) they would be alone in his or Todoroki’s room, quietly resting most of the time, each one with his homework, Bakugou scrolling through his phone while Todoroki binge reads some new manga he just bought.

Like that time, in summer, on a Saturday, when Todoroki knocked on his door at 11am (early, because Todoroki is a damn brick that can be asleep until 2pm, what the fuck?), and peeked through his doorframe, entering as if he were in his own room, sitting on his bed, a manga with the title Erased on the cover hanging from his right hand.

“What do you want, idiot?”

Todoroki had opened his manga on a bookmark and had laid down on the bed, starting to read. "Hmm. Dress up, Kaminari and Mina want to go to the mall, and Kirishima sent me to look up for you.“

Bakugou didn’t know when Todoroki had become so attached to the Idiot Brigade and started to spend more with them as a group, but it had only happened.

"Huh. So now you’re the official dog that comes looking for me?" Bakugou had snickered, and Todoroki had shrugged, still focused on his reading, without even sparing a glance at him.

"More like the one who has to drag you because nobody from the Bakusquad stands you in the mornings to do it.” He had answered.

Bakugou had kicked him before diving into his closet and then starting to dress up.

“I told you not to call it that, it’s stupid.” And it was. The name of his “group of friends” (more like, bunch of annoying idiots that stick to him) with which Kaminari had stupidly decided to baptize them and with which the Brigade of Idiots (plus Todoroki) had decided to come along was totally ridiculous. Idiot Brigade was so much better.

The Idiot Brigade didn’t think so, though.

“Hm. If you think about it, they called it like that because they care about you.”

“More like they're a bunch of morons that like to mess with me and make me angry all the fucking time.”

Todoroki hummed while turning on the page. "I think it’s their own way of telling you you are very important to them, even if you think is annoying. Because, for them, you are a very important part of their group, so—”

“Yeah, yeah, cut the sappy shit already; I’m ready.”

“I’m just saying— oh, wow.”

Bakugou looked up from where he was tying his converse and stood up, expecting to see Todoroki absorbed in a page of his manga (the only times he made some surprise sound or some noise loud enough to be heard), only to find him looking directly at him. Or more like, at his legs.

“What?”

Todoroki had blinked, looked at his face, and then back at his legs, seemingly unable to look away.

“You’re wearing jeans.” He had stated, simply, as if that was enough to explain everything and nothing at all.

Bakugou had looked at his jeans (ripped jeans) and then at Todoroki.

“Yeah” He had said, “is hot as hell and these are fresh enough”, he had frowned, confused, “what about it?”

Todoroki had blinked, suddenly emerging out from his stupor. And then he had looked away, suddenly interested in the one and only All Might’s figure sitting on the small table next to Bakugou’s bed. "Nothing.“

Bakugou had frowned, but he had easily brushed it off. To this day, he can’t quite understand why the Idiot Brigade was shit-eating grinning so much that day.

And looking back, he doesn’t really know why he is remembering that at this specific moment. Maybe because he has the same jeans on.

It’s Deku’s birthday and they’re in a noisy karaoke, and if Bakugou is honest with himself, he really wants to go to the dorms now. Not because Deku is annoying, because he is and he keeps thanking Bakugou so much for his gift (“It’s amazing, Kacchan! Thank you!”), but in fact they have already fixed (at least, somewhat, partially, mostly) that old hostility between them that, Bakugou will not admit it out loud, but it was largely his fault, or because Ashido’s squeaky voice screaming along with Uraraka’s at some girly song is giving him a headache, or because Kaminari keeps cracking bad jokes every fucking time he opens his mouth, but because it’s loud and the food is not even that good and he does not like parties. Maybe he is a grandpa, after all. Not that he’s going to admit that out loud.

Todoroki gets up from his seat and sways a little, because, oh yeah, he forgot to mention it, the fucking dumbass is drunk as hell because he's that much of a moron and he ordered a drink with alcohol without even knowing. The big idiot. After about three glasses, he must be a little drunk, if the way his eyes shine a strange glow when he looks at Bakugou is some indication.

He seems a bit off, too.

He supposes it’s part of the problem, aside from Todoroki being a complete idiot, and it is probably the reason why he ends up kissing him two minutes after the asshole gets up from his seat.

He looks at him through his eyelashes, with glazed, mesmerizing eyes. He says his name, barely audible with the shrill sound of the music, and then he lets himself fall on his lap, straddling his hips, descending to his level with a terribly slow movement that makes Bakugou feel dizzy (God, he seriously needs to get out of there, all the noise is affecting him. But at the same time, with Todoroki in his lap, he suddenly doesn’t want to get out and, shit, the sound it’s definitely affecting him), and Todoroki is saying something, something that Bakugou can’t listen, and then he leans in and down and he’s suddenly kissing him. Hard.

Todoroki is making out with him, in a messy, messy way, and is wet, and is hot, and Bakugou has his hands on Todoroki’s hips, and Todoroki has his hands on Bakugou’s hair, and it’s all really, really messy.

Bakugou doesn’t even know what he’s doing anymore.

Of course, the next day, when Todoroki is complaining about the fatal headache he has. laying down on his back on the couch, sinking his hands in his face when he remembers how he attacked (for lack of, uh, a better word) Bakugou the day before, apologizing to a thousand miles per hour, Iida scolding him about “inappropriate and indecent behavior in a public space”, and Bakugou is trying hard not to laugh out loud, he actually feels it was worth it.

They don’t kiss after that, though. In like, half a year or so.

Bakugou doesn’t know how he feels about that.

“Do you like Todoroki-kun, Kacchan?”

Bakugou almost chokes on air. He turns around mid-step on his moves to find Deku standing next to him in the gym. There are not people close enough around (nobody wanting to be a victim of the debris flying out because of Bakugou’s new movements) (which, by the way, does not happen that often, dammit) to listen, but Bakugou moves uncomfortably anyways. An anguish feeling starts crawling inside him. If someone hears— not like it was true, but still—

“What the fuck, nerd? What are you saying?”

“Hmm, well, I was just wondering, because the other day you—”

“No, I don’t like that bastard and I don’t know where did you get that stupid idea from.”

Deku tilts his head and. And he just stares at him. He scans his face like he’s looking for something, and it makes Bakugou feel idly hyper-aware of himself so suddenly.

“Whatever, shitty nerd, aren’t you supposed to be training? You’re not going to keep up with me if you keep doing that stupid thing with your feet every time you do your new move.”

He blinks and looks at his feet, and then at Bakugou again. "Oh. My feet. Right. Thanks, Kacchan.“

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, just shut up already and go away.”

Bakugou does his best to keep a face and tone boring or irritated, but the stupid nerd must see through it as if he were an open book, if the way he smiles at Bakugou is some indication. It’s obvious he’s avoiding the subject he just mentioned on purpose.

“Sure, Kacchan. See you, then.”

Stupid, stupid Deku. Stupid nerd and his stupid, ridiculous ideas. He doesn’t like Todoroki. He definitely doesn’t like Todoroki.

Sure, they get along better after all the extra training together, and sure, Bakugou doesn’t want to punch his face all the time like before, and yeah, maybe they’re somewhat like friends now, but he doesn’t, does not like him.

No.

So what if they spend even more time together? It’s not like he doesn’t spend time with those idiots either. So what if Bakugou is helping him with some classes sometimes after school? Bakugou tutors Kirishima, Kaminari and Mina too. Maybe he’s less patient with them, but that’s because they’re fucking idiots. So what if they watch a movie from time to time in the living room? They’re never rom-com shits or something, and they usually do it with other people around. So it’s. Not weird. Not weird at all.

And Bakugou doesn’t like him. Nope.

(They haven’t even kissed in all this time!)

Not weird. Definitely not weird. Definitely not weird that Bakugou knows Todoroki’s favorite food now (is cold soba, what the ever living fuck?) —he even told Baldy that time too— and the way his face softens when he’s eating it. It’s totally, definitely not weird Bakugou knows Todoroki’s favorite manga, or favorite color. Not weird how Bakugou has noticed the way Todoroki frowns when he’s deep thinking, how he hits his pencil against his notebook when he’s trying to solve a particularly complicated algebraic problem, how his eyes look a different shade in the sunlight, how the center of his head mixes both colors of his hair when he just had a nap on the floor of Bakugou’s room (which is, definitively, totally and completely not endearing, no); how awfully terrible he is at cooking and at washing, too (seriously, how the hell can you live alone here, Icyhot?), how his face looks after receiving a message from Endeavor (the way it wrinkles and crumples, and there’s an ugly line on his forehead, between his eyebrows, and Bakugou’s hands itch to drag his fingers and make it go away—), how he has his small and rare smiles, which are soft and barely noticeable; how—

No.

Definitely. Not. Weird.

So what if Bakugou is noticing all these things? Bakugou is very observant, and he pays close attention to everyone even if he doesn’t want to. He knows Kirishima’s favorite food too, and he knows how awful Kaminari’s hair looks after gross sleeping and babbling in the couch when they’re supposed to be studying math with Shitty hair and Raccoon eyes. He knows about that irritating habit Ashido has of biting her nails when she’s nervous before a test, and about Sero’s weird taste in mangas too.

So it’s not weird, right? Right. It’s not weird.

He’s just noticing because Todoroki is spending a lot of time with him lately, so it’s just logic. It makes sense. Yeah.

Not weird.

It doesn’t stop him to think about it all day, though. And by the time he’s looking at the cold sky night, dressed in a simple jacket, baggy pants and a scarf, he doesn’t notice Todoroki looking at him until he says his name.

“Bakugou?”

Bakugou blinks. Todoroki is wearing a simple black turtleneck, a brown, long coat and black boots. There are some strands of hair falling on his forehead and Bakugou tries not to think about the fact that he wants to move them with his own hand, and neither about the fact that Todoroki looks like a fucking magazine cover model with just casual jeans (damn it, jeans? It was snowing just a few minutes ago, holy hell, what’s wrong with him? If he gets sick Bakugou is not making him soup again, definitely not) and a coat.

“Hm?” Bakugou makes a sound with his throat, because from Todoroki’s look, he assumes he is waiting for an answer. "What, Icyhot?“

Todoroki grimaces at the nickname, but says nothing. "I asked you if you wanted some,” he says, instead, and picks up the skewer he holds in his hand.

It must be from a nearby local. Their whole class is messily scattered around. Somehow (being really insistent and annoying, if you ask him) they convinced Aizawa-sensei to let them go out to see the fireworks for New Year. At this moment he must be regretting saying yes, though, as he bends over himself and apologizes for Mineta’s behavior with a young lady just a few meters from where Bakugou and Todoroki are.

Iida also seems about to have an attack, (Deku standing behind him trying to calm him down), relentlessly scolding Kaminari while he hangs like a goofball from the edge of the hill they are, Momo trying to calm him down and help, Jirou laughing like crazy at her side because of the poor dead state the blond boy is in after using all his electricity to fry whatever he has in his hand, Mina, Sero and Uraraka joining her in chorus while they bend over themselves and cackle, and Kirishima scratching his neck awkwardly, smiling apologetic at Iida, stumbling with embarrassed apologies.

It sure it’s a view. And if Bakugou was not having a damn crisis, it would have been… cozy, to use a word. Which, certainly, is disconcerting. When did he start to feel so comfortable with these idiots? (He knows it, but the number is alarmingly much earlier than it should be to mention it).

He turns to Todoroki, who has moved to look at Bakugou’s line of sight. He has a soft expression on his face. His lips barely curling up in a little, little smile, his eyes warm.

Bakugou doesn’t really know how much time he stands there looking at him, but suddenly, Todoroki is looking at him with the corner of his eye and raising an eyebrow, as if to say “is something wrong? why are you staring?”

“Uh.” Bakugou says, like a moron. "What is that thing?“ He asks then, pointing to Todoroki’s hand, and trying not to say anything stupider.

Todoroki looks at his hand and raises the skewer again. "Yakitori.” He says, and then he tips the food in Bakugou’s direction. "But is spicy, so I thought you would want some.“

Bakugou narrows his eyes. "You can’t stand spicy food.”

Todoroki shrugs. And then he presses his lips a bit in a way that makes it look like he’s pouting. "I can stand spicy food.“

Bakugou smirks before he can think better. "Yeah, sure.”

Todoroki frowns. "I can.“

Bakugou’s smirk widens. "Uh-huh.”

Todoroki just pushes the skewer into Bakugou’s mouth, quite-not-but-almost pouting all the way, and Bakugou chuckles. He bites before he even realizes the way it looks, because, even if he was a bit aggressive, Todoroki is feeding him.

“Just shut up.” Todoroki mutters under his breath, and Bakugou smirks after chewing.

“It’s really good.” He says.

Todoroki looks at him and is about to say something when Kaminari whistles.

“Indirect kiss!” He shouts at them, Mina and Sero cackling.

Bakugou stomps where they are and takes Kaminari by the neck with one hand, the other making a threatening spectacle with small explosions. Aizawa is hitting the back of his neck with a book just a second later.

Todoroki just looks from behind, cheeks a bit warm.

They’re standing in the middle of the crowd, waiting for the fireworks to start. Bakugou is leaning against a railing, the Idiot Brigade in front of him excessively talking and laughing at something, Todoroki at his side, looking at the sky in silence.

It has started to freeze more as the night goes on, and Bakugou has always been a little easy-to-get-cold, which is terrible considering winter in Japan.

It’s probably the twentieth time he rubs his hands together, trying, uselessly, to give them a little heat with friction, and he’s about to take his gloves out of his jacket’s pocket when Todoroki moves to his side among the people, makes himself space, press against his other side, his back against the railing now, and takes his right hand between his left.

Bakugou freezes.

“W—”

Then Todoroki begins to produce heat. From his hand.

Huh.

“Is it better?” He asks, looking at him through his long eyelashes. "You seemed like you were freezing.“

"Uh.” Bakugou says, like a moron. Through the crowd, he can see Kirishima and Kaminari smiling broadly at him behind Todoroki, and even Deku is giving him a kind of look that is getting on his nerves. Why are they suddenly looking at them? What’s going on? "Yeah, it’s good.“ What. What the fuck. Did he just—

Todoroki shrugs and continues with the same flat, blank expression without letting go of his hand. "Okay”. He says, simply.

God, he’s Fucked. Like, Fucked with Capital F.

He likes holding Todoroki’s hand. What the fuck. What the fuck, fuck, fuck.

Are his cheeks warming up? It seems like that. Shit, please no. What the fuck is going on anymore, his own body is betraying him.

Then, Todoroki squeezes his hand, and Bakugou looks at him only to look at the sky afterwards, to where Todoroki is looking.

A second later, the fireworks explode in the sky, coloring the black mantle with thousands of colored lights. It’s a magnificent sight, actually.

Beside him, Todoroki makes a noise, low in the back of his throat and his breathing catches softly. Bakugou looks down and looks at him, and it’s like he was suddenly looking at the world from another angle.

Todoroki has his head thrown back, his hair falling gracefully and moving with the bit of wind; his fingers are warm against Bakugou’s hand, his lips are partially open, surprised, in awe, and his eyes. The colored lights are reflected on there, and they are shining, shining, shining, and the expression on Todoroki’s face is so open, so impressed, and Bakugou remembers that Todoroki didn’t have this kind of things when he was a child, he didn’t have this as he grew up, and he realizes that is probably the first time he’s seeing something like this.

There is something that pulls inside of him. In his stomach, in his throat. His ears buzz a little, and there is a sticky, soft warmth that slides all inside of him.

Bakugou has never considered himself an inveterate romantic or something along that, but there is something, something, something there, inside him, that moves and pulls and destabilizes him. Something agitated and chaotic that is making noise, so much noise, and so loud, like the waves crashing on the sea’s coast in the middle of a storm.

Fuck. He likes Todoroki, doesn’t he?

Fuck.

Is this how it feels? To have… feelings for someone? So indescribably warm, and soft, and messy and…

Todoroki looks at him, and his eyes open a fraction when he realizes that Bakugou is watching him back. Shit, Bakugou’s heart is going to come out of his chest. But Todoroki says nothing, just looks at him, squeezes his hand. His lips begin to curve a little, in that soft, private smile that is so him, and, somehow, it seems strangely intimate.

He looks at the sky again, then, pressing his side just a little at his, probably very aware at Bakugou’s open staring and— oh yeah. He’s fucked.

He’s royally fucked now.

“You’re acting weird lately.”

“I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are.”

Bakugou doesn’t look up from the work on his desk. “I’m not.”

Todoroki sighs. “But you are.” He insists. “You’ve been… Hm. More quiet, I guess?”

Bakugou turns around in his seat to look at him, frowning, an annoyed scowl on his face. “Hah? What does that even mean, asshole?”

Todoroki looks him straight in the eyes and Bakugou feels that ugly tug on his stomach that hasn’t stopped bothering him lately every time Todoroki is around him.

They are alone in his room before dinner time on a Monday, Bakugou finishing Midnight’s homework due to Wednesday and Todoroki playing dumb by lazily reading Shingeki no Kyojin last volume on the floor instead of working on it too. He doesn’t shut up about it lately, always arguing with Sero about Eren and Levi and some Armin too. Eldians this, eldians that. It’s kind of endearing, actually, even if Bakugou does not understand half of what he’s talking about most of the time.

“There’s something bothering you?” Todoroki asks, then, still looking at his eyes. “I mean, I know you don’t like talking about those things, but if you—”

Bakugou gets up from his seat to sit in front of him on the floor. “I’m fine, you moron.” He is not, though. Not with Todoroki so fucking close and so fucking pretty and so fucking nice.

Todoroki doesn’t look convinced at all. He leans forward just a bit, frown framing his face, opening slightly his lips, “But—”

Bakugou taps his forehead with the palm of his hand. Todoroki stops leaning and rubs at the place that’s been hit. He almost pouts. And is fucking endearing, holy shit.

“I’m fine. Stop worrying.”

Todoroki frowns. “Okay, but if you need to talk, I—”

“I know, asshole.” Bakugou says, and it doesn’t sound soft, but it feels soft. In his tongue. In the air. “I know.”

Todoroki looks at him for ten long, eternal seconds with something in his eyes before just sighing through his teeth and coming back to his manga. “I still think you’re acting weird, though.”

Bakugou raises a single eyebrow at that. “Do you want me to scream to make you feel better?”

Todoroki’s lips quirk up a little. “That would be nice, thank you.”

This goddamn moron. Why does Bakugou likes him so much?

“Well then”, he says, and sucks a bunch of air before screaming, “DIE! Die, die, die, die!”

He keeps going until Todoroki is laughing, actually laughing, and Bakugou thinks: ah. For that. He likes that moron for that.

They’re both eating in the dining room at the dorms, and Bakugou is, again, thinking about how Todoroki’s hair sticks in his forehead. It looks so soft. His hands itch.

This time, however, Bakugou does lean in and touches it. He fucking brushes the hair away from his forehead. Out of the blue. Fucking, stupid, goddamn idiot—

Todoroki looks up at him from his food, eyes mildly wide, surprised (looking a little like someone just hit him with a ball, or like a deer in the headlights, or like Bakugou just grow a second head in front of him).

“Uh.” Bakugou says. Like an idiot. He recoils awkwardly. Todoroki stares at him. “You need to cut your hair. Is long.” Goddammit, he’s so fucking embarrassing. Please, God, take him now.

Todoroki blinks at him. He touches his forehead, absently but hyper-aware of himself all of a sudden. “Oh. Okay.”

“Yeah.” He answers, croaks out. God, he is going to die. That’s the way he’s going to go, there in the middle of a half-dirty, half-clean dining room, in front of the prettiest guy in the world, after touching his hair.

Pathetic.

He looks away.

Todoroki looks away too. For someone looking from the outside, he looked a bit dazed, a bit surprised, and definitely whipped with his hand still on his forehead and a soft blush on his ears and his cheeks.

Bakugou swears he hears someone face-palm themselves.

“You are both so dense it’s not even funny anymore, Bakugou!” Mina whines in his bed. “You obviously like each other and you’ve already kissed, so why not telling each other already?” She cries, like in agony. “I don’t understand! Is making me go crazy!”

“Yeah, dude, I swear I could cut your sexual tension with a knife. Is wild.” Kaminari says.

“Well, you actually wouldn’t because is really thick.” Kirishima points out.

“Right. I guess I just can see it then? Like, is painfully obvious.”

“I agree.” Sero pops out from behind his manga to say.

Bakugou scowls at them. “You are all idiots, he obviously doesn’t like me.”

There’s a pause. Then they all groan like they are going to die.

“Denser than a brick!”

“How can someone so smart be so stupid?”

“I don’t know dude, I think he’s doing it on purpose.”

“Well, I hope! If he’s not, he’s going to make me insane!”

“Right?”

“Yeah!”

“Like, remember that time when Todoroki was blatantly staring at Bakubro’s ass? Damn.”

“Oh, yeah. And that time Bakugou was obviously going to take his hand?”

“That would have been cute if I wasn’t so fed up of that shit already.”

“Mood.”

“OH! And the time they blushed like mad because Bakugou touched his forehead? We were right there!”

“They’re both morons.”

“God, yes, they’re so stupid.”

“Oh and that time when—”

Bakugou rolls his eyes. They aren’t like that at all. At. All. Piss Hair and the others were just all idiots and they liked to be dramatic as hell all the goddamn time.

“oH and WHEN—”

Gaaaaahhhh. Bakugou lets himself drop and lay down on the floor and facepalms himself.

He needs other friends.

Stupid assholes.

“I like you.”

It’s middle of February around 7pm and they’re standing outside the dorms. The weather is chilly and a bit cold, the sky already making itself dark, purple-ish and pink-ish and gold-ish above their heads. Soft white clouds.

Todoroki just stands there, looking so goddamm thunderstruck and so fucking stunning is making Bakugou go insane equally.

“I like you.” Bakugou says again, and his voice is not tremulous at all, but it is low, lower than the first time he said it, and his hands tremble a little when he moves his fingers to fidget with the scarf around his neck.

Todoroki blushes instantly, seemingly out his stupor, and he looks so fucking pretty. Bakugou doesn’t even feel embarrassed thinking it. He looks so goddamn pretty with his long eyelashes and pretty eyes and pretty face and— Bakugou has to restrain himself not to jump over and kiss the life out him.

“What?” Todoroki finally stumbles with, voice faltering and low.

Bakugou plays with the sleeve of his sweater and looks at the ground, to one side, to Todoroki and then to his own hand. “You heard me; don’t make me say it again.”

There is silence as Bakugou pulls the cloth between his fingers, his breathing in small wisps of white air.

He can hear Todoroki moving awkwardly in front of him. “No”, he says, eventually. “I mean. Yes. I heard you the first time— and the second, I just,” he pauses. Bakugou can see the movement of his foot against the snow. “Are you— you’re—” he keeps stumbling around his own words, and Bakugou looks up at him only to find him looking away, the pretty light blush washing over his cheeks. “You’re not messing with me, right?” he says, finally, voice soft.

Bakugou blinks. Of all the things he expected to hear, the things he thought he would hear—

He walks forward, towards him, and Todoroki turns his head, looks at him and steps back, one step, two steps, and Bakugou continues until he stops right in front of him. He reaches out and takes his arm, not strongly, but firm. Of course, Todoroki could get out of his grip at any moment if he wanted to and flee from there.

But he doesn’t.

Bakugou looks into his eyes.

“Why would I?” Why would I mess with you with something like that?

Todoroki looks at him. He gulps. Bakugou’s eyes snap and follow the movement Todoroki’s Adam apple do before looking at his face again three seconds later.

Todoroki looks at his side. “Well, because I…” he trails off.

Bakugou waits.

And waits.

And then, he squeezes Todoroki’s arm. “You?”

Todoroki looks at him, and he looks so lost. So very lost. Bakugou sighs.

“Look. Is fine. You don’t have to like me back, or some stupid bullshit that’s making you think like crazy. I just like you and I’m tired and if I didn’t say it now, then I’ll probably blurt it out later, because you’re always with me all the fucking time, and I’m not complaining but you have absolutely no fucking idea of how hard it is to not say it right—”

Todoroki blurts out, out of the blue, stopping Bakugou mid-sentence. “Can I kiss you?”

Bakugou almost chokes. “Huh?” He croaks.

“I— I know.” Todoroki says, looking at him intently. “I know how hard it is. I like you too. I know how it is. And I think about kissing you like, maybe all the time, so can I—”

“You like me?” Bakugou breaths out. “You like me back?”

Todoroki looks at him, seeming confused as to why Bakugou looks so surprised. “Yes. I thought it was pretty obvious and for a moment I thought you knew, so when you—”

“No, I didn’t! I didn’t know!”

“Oh.”

“I thought I was the obvious one.”

Todoroki blinks. “No. You. I mean. No.” He shakes his head. “At least I didn’t notice.”

“Huh.”

There’s a long pause until Todoroki looks at him in the eyes again. “Can I— I mean—”

Bakugou can’t help it, he snorts, knowing what Todoroki was going to say.

He steps forwards, leaning in Todoroki’s personal space. And he’s not going to lie, look at Todoroki’s trapped but ever so longing expression is a delight.

“Yes, you moron.” He says, and then leans in more. He can feel Todoroki’s breath against his face. He can see his eyes, close, close, close, and the long, long lashes. He’s so close that he can feel the soft hair tickling his own forehead. God, he’s so gorgeous. How can someone be so fucking pretty. “Kiss me.”

Bakugou has never (a little bit of a lie there, Todoroki really seemed to want to kiss Bakugou at that time in the karaoke) seen Todoroki so eager. He closes the distance between them, craving, and kisses him.

And, God, Bakugou kisses him back.

Bakugou kisses Todoroki as he should be kissed. He savors it, he enjoys it. He digs his fingers in his soft hair, slides them into the pulse of his neck, of his wrist, and Todoroki clings to him like a thirsty man in the middle of a desert, grasping at him desesperately as if he was a single lifeline in the middle of the whole, vast ocean. He leans against him; unravels and melts and tears apart over and over again. He sucks, bites, licks at Bakugou’s lips, and keeps doing sounds Bakugou so long yearned to hear.

God, this is so good.

And they keep kissing, and kissing, and kissing until they feel like freezing, and until Kaminari wolf-whistles while running at them from the door, and Mina cries, throwing her arms in the air and shouting the loudest “FINALLY!” Bakugou has ever heard, Kirishima happily smiling at them with Sero trailing behind.

“We were not spying on you!” Kaminari immediately rushes to say, which means they definitely were. Bakugou finds himself unable to care.

“About time.” Sero scoffs, but he looks genuinely happy.

“I told you!” Mina keeps crying. “I told you! You’re both so stubborn, you were going to make me go old with all the stress!”

Todoroki smiles lightly at her. Bakugou has never seen him so calm before. In a good way. “Mina, that can’t—”

“Well, you both were going to! I’m telling you, you were going to kill me!”

“Seems like we’re smarter than you at this, huh?” Kaminari grins at him. Bakugou just pushes his face with the palm of his hand. Hard.

“Ouch! You meanie! Even after Todoroki warmed you up with a make out session!”

Todoroki seems like he’s going to caught up on fire from embarrassing. Bakugou almost smiles.

“But you are both so cute! So cute! I’m so happy you finally worked it out! I’m gonna cry! I’m gonna cry for real!” Mina actually cries, hugging both of them.

Bakugou rolls his eyes and pats her on the back. “You are all so dramatic, you know? Bunch of goddamn morons.”

“Well, you’re our king after all.” Kaminari says, like is the funniest and most brilliant thing he has ever say.

Bakugou scowls at him. “Hah? What does that even mean, you asshole? I’m not dramatic!”

“You are, though.” Todoroki points out, and when Bakugou looks at him, Todoroki stares right back, deadpan.

Bakugou grunts. “If you weren’t so pretty, I would have punched your face right now.”

Instead of blushing, Todoroki smirks at him. He fucking. Smirks. “Oh, so you think I’m pretty?”

Bakugou scowls. “Don’t be so full of yourself, you know that already.” He has to know. Someone that pretty has to know they are pretty. “Asshole.”

Todoroki’s smirk softens into a real smile. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Huh. That sounded so much fonder than he expected it to.

“AH, they’re so cute! GUYS, THEY’RE SO CUTE! They’re going to kill me!”

“They are, but we better get inside because I’m freezing here already.”

“Yes, yes.”

When they’re heading inside, Todoroki grabs his hand like the cheesy dumbass he is, and Bakugou doesn’t even complain. He leans in Bakugou’s personal space, and whispers into his ear. “I think you’re really pretty too.”

Bakugou pushes his face away with the palm of his hand. “Ugh, you’re so embarrassing.”

Todoroki looks all through him and his snarky comeback, though, and he soft-smiles at him. Bakugou’s ears are getting really warm suddenly.

And when Todoroki leans in again and gives him a peck on the lips, Bakugou feels like dying, but in a good way.

Hey, hey, so. That’s it. I hope you all like it! :D Comments are very appreciated! Let me know what you think! c:

#todobaku #bakutodo #my writing #fanfiction #bnha #bakusquad #todoroki shouto #bakugou katsuki #canon verse #uuuuuuh i forgot how to tag lmao #did i use the sasunaru accidental kiss at first? yeah i did #todoroki reading manga and bakugou wearng jeans are my favorite thing in the world #wearing*#i wrote this in one sitting #i wrote this instead of sleeping #i forgot i had this on my drafts to post it here too

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