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#I swear I’ll be back with more comics soon lol
jolybossuetrsblog · 1 year
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Im absolutely obsessing over the versions of drink with me where everyone is;
“Here’s to theeem and here’s to youuu- Oh ahah omg capital R is about to sing with us, have a bott-”
“holy fucking shit we’re about to die ENJ YOURE ABOUT TO DIE AND WE DONT EVEN KNOW IF OUR DEATH WILL MEAN ANYTHING what the fuck how did we all agree to this our life is a fucking lie”
AND EVERYONE JUST SHUTS UP FOR A SEC.
THEN IMMEDIATELY THE CHORUS GOES “….drink with me-“
and Marius goes back being the depressed in love idiot we love.
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desperatecheesecubes · 6 months
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March Wrap Up Part 4 (I may need to find a better system)
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Superman (1987) 662, 668
Dates Read: 27 March
Review: 3 stars
Thoughts: Reading all of Chris’s comics is an interesting experience, boys timeline makes no sense. Hard to say my thoughts on either of these issues on their own merits-they’re both clearly one issue in an arc. I’ll probably go back and read the rest of the arc for issue 662 because it was an interesting start-i actually have to forecast siroccos so that was kinda a fun name for a hero for me lol. The third Kryptonian arc I’ll try and finish this month lol.
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The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Dates Read: 25 March- 29 March
Review: 2 stars
Thoughts: Hey have you ever written a good story and then decided to fucking ruin it completely with an epilogue? Well so did this author! Why why why why did this book go from being a historical drama to a fucking sci-fi in the epilogue. Explain it to me. Really truly. Because it was some of the stupidest shit I’ve ever read. God it made me mad. I’m making all my book people read it. I need to know what their authentic reactions are to that fucking acid trip of an epilogue. OTHER THAN THAT I liked this. The author didn’t Go There enough for my personal preference but that’s not the story he was setting out to write I suppose. A sapphic story of an enslaved woman becoming a spy and thwarting the man who enslaves her? Absolutely a story I’m down for. Unfortunately the pacing was very bad. In summation-I did not like this and I’m mad as hell about it.
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Superboy the Boy of Steel by Geoff Johns
Dates Read: 31 March
Review: 3 stars
Thoughts: I loved the art of this so much. The first two pages technically being a Blackest Night tie in and the rest of the collected not addressing the event at all was absolutely hilarious to me. This was a fun story, it felt like the set up it was and it’s pacing worked well for what it had. I’ll get to Smallville Attacks soon I swear. It’s sitting next to me while I type this.
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Superboy (1994) 5
Dates Read: 31 March
Review: 3 stars
Thoughts: this was another reread. Not too much to say about it other than how intense my dislike is for Tana-I am simply unable to look past her age Jesus Christ. Kon being absolutely determined to be a hero always breaks my heart a little.
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Superman Man of Steel 35
Dates Read: 31 March
Review: 3 stars
Thoughts: Thjs was really interesting to me because in the most recent collected release of Kon’s 94 superboy run they do not include this issue or any of the rest of this arc so Kon just gets magically cured off page with no explanation there.
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Superman (1987) 90
Dates Read: 31 March
Review: 3 stars
Thoughts: Jesus fucking Christ Luthor is crazy.
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Adventures of Superman 513
Dates Read: 31 March
Review: 3 stars
Thoughts: My biggest take away from this issue was Kon believing he’d failed to evacuate the mountain and hating himself over it. Because I love Kon more than I love Clark lol.
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Steel 5
Dates Read: 31 March
Review: 3 stars
Thoughts: This is listed as a battle for metropolis tie in issue but there’s only a few panels that do that and the character who’s having the tie in is completely foreign to me. A story about kids doing drugs on the streets isn’t really my cup of tea but it was fine.
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Action Comics 700
Dates Read: 31 March
Review: 3 stars
Thoughts: damn they fucking destroyed metropolis in this one. The amount of times they blow up the globe from the daily planet to symbol tremendous loss in Superman’s life is kind of ridiculous at this point. I liked seeing the superfam all working together in this!
IN SUMMATION!
I read 7 novels, one novella, one poetry collection, one ‘collection of essays’, 4 graphic novels, two comic collecteds, 10 volumes of manga and 33 single issue comics. According to Goodreads I’m now ahead of my goal! According to StoryGraph (the one where I’m not counting comics, collecteds, or manga) I remain behind. A tragedy.
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tinyyoungblood · 3 years
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hi!! adore your work love. could you maybe do smth where stark!reader has to get her wisdom teeth out but HATES the dentist so she brings her boyf peter and her dad w her?? and then when they get home the avengers are all waiting with like comical amounts of flowers and stuffed animals and then reader says some funny shiii and thor thinks she’s like dying lol. idk if that made sense but i’m getting my wisdom teeth out soon and i’m scared😭 thank u so so much love u babe
pairing: peter parker x stark!reader
a/n: tysm lovely :,) i rushed through this like my life depended on it, but i hope i’m not too late. either way, i hope you’re okay! it’s frightening but those bad boys gotta go because we don’t need that kind of energy in our lives. enjoy x
─── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ───
wisdom teeth? more like wisdoom
y/n has to get her wisdom teeth removed and it’s the singular most dreadful thing she’s ever had to do, which says a lot because her dad is tony richling stark
doing dreadful things she doesn’t want to do but still somehow end up doing just because she can is a personality trait at this point
no one really makes a big deal out of it since ~death~ is part of their job description, but y/n is terrified
and when a stark is terrified the only thing that will keep them one step from insanity is researching the hell out of it
that information will be info dumped into every conversation for the next few weeks leading up to the appointment
“y/n you need anything from the store?” "no thanks, did you know the side effects of getting your wisdom teeth out include ✨sudden death or blood clots✨ tho” “……..i have a coupon?”
the day of the appointment, peter comes along and literally doesn’t let go of y/n’s hand. he keeps touching her to let her know that he’s there and it’s so. adorable
he would rest his hand on her knee, gently stroke her back while holding her, or just play with her hair
happy drops them off and he’s too Cool™ for emotions but he knows y/n’s a wreck, so he just fist bumps her with a single nod and she almost breaks down bc it’s really affectionate
y/n is sitting in the dentist chair and genuinely nothing is happening yet, but she’s squeezing peter’s hand like it’s a sponge
peter might have a high pain tolerance but he’s in pain pain and he prays that his hand won’t just explode on him
the dentist notices how peter tries to keep it together and chuckles
“you okay there, son?” “yea it’s fine, had a better time when a building fell on me tho haha” “pardon?” “oh i mean i didn’t have a good time, i just had a better time”
because y/n is running Anxious Town™, the dentist gives her a sedative to help her relax 
plus, an injection of local anaesthetic to numb the tooth and surrounding area
she doesn’t feel anything and it’s GREAT
the procedure is quicker than expected and now the real fun begins
she tries to walk but she falls down so peter scoops her up bridal style and happy stays glued at her side
y/n doesn’t mind although she literally doesn’t recognise them and they’re practically strangers to her
but girly sees an opportunity and tries to flirt with peter bc why wouldn’t she
“you’re pretty” *blushes* “why thanks” “you should let your girlfriend know” “i should let her know i’m pretty?” “so you do have a gf? :(” “yea it’s you” “:)”
they stop for gas and peter goes in to get some water for y/n, and in her infinite wisdom, she decides it’s burger time
her mouth is completely numb and she’s practically leaving a trail of drool behind her, but she’d kill for a burger right now
so she wobbles around aimlessly for an hour on some random parking lot as if the ground might just magically open up like a rabbit hole and lead her to five guys
she’s going places. not back to the car. definitely not five guys. they’re closed. but places
peter finally finds her and he’s drenched from head to toe in sweat. he doEsn’T wAnt tO tALk abOut iT tho so she lets him take her to subway instead
normally, she would know that peter’s usual subway order is bread-lettuce-jalapeño
but in her drugged-up state, it had simply slipped her mind so now she’s staring at him like he’d just murdered someone right in front of her
“that- that’s your order?? no meat or anything just bread, lettuce, and a little spice?”
meanwhile at the compound, sam and steve are ordering everyone around bc they want to decorate this place before y/n gets home to surprise her
they take it very seriously too. they’ve watched like one HGTV show and said it’s our time
they finally get home and tony gives y/n a big hug, asking her what took so long
happy tells him that she was keen on getting burgers bc apparently someone has taught her that stressful times call for ~cheeseburgers~
he proceeds to look at tony with a pointed look
tony just shrugs and goes “she was a problem child. we don’t mention her dark past”
she’s swaying on the spot and keeps grinning like a fool and thor just stares at her weirdly before elbowing bruce and whispering loudly,
“what’s wrong with her? is she dying? should i start collecting leaves, i know this remedy—"
no one can tell if y/n is just happy to see the newly decorated home or if she’s just delighted to see everyone but then she goes around hugging the entire team
she doesn’t even acknowledge the sky-high pile of teddy bears and flowers everywhere bc she’s just squeezing everybody
y/n is so high, she just starts to spill all of her feelings about everyone and they’re already so overwhelmed by the hug chain they can’t take this too
“wanda i just want you to know that you’re like my big sister and you’re always taking care of me and i know you and vision are just going to make such good parents one day”
“bucky you absolute PRICK, you FIEND, you’re the best chess player ever and that’ll never change and i wouldn’t be good without you, i hate to say it but you deserve happiness even after you made me lose five times in a row yesterday”
“dad, you’re so strong and smart, even though we’re like never on the same page, you’re always along for the ride, i want to be like you when i grow up, i swear i’m gonna try to be as good to the avengers as you were to us” “aww- wait makes you think i'll be the first to die“
“nat you’re such a bitch about your protein shakes but you’re my best friend and i wouldn’t have it any other way, you can try out as many make up looks on me as you want”
“bruce, brucey, i would live with you in your lab for the rest of my days if i had to, whenever you ask me to hand you stuff i feel useful and important”
“laura’s way out of your league clint i have no idea how the fuck you got her but don’t lose her and i want to be your next child’s godmother”
“steve…we’re your family now. we’re always gonna be your family now. okay?”
“loki you’re not fooling anyone with your attitude, we all know you’re part of the family, you were just misunderstood and messed up bc of your dad–FUCK him by the way–but i realised everyone deserves as many chances as they need because of you”
“sam i would genuinely kill anyone who wronged you, even if they cut you in line at the grocery store, i would knife them no hesitation”
“thor, you poor golden retriever have been through so much, on my way here i made a wish on an eyelash for you bc you deserve better, your postcards always make my day, love you”
she mumbles something to peter that no one else can hear but he blushes and chokes back a sob
y/n orders hot soup and bucky brings it to her but before he even has time to react peter drops everything and ZOOMS across the room in .3 seconds
he barrels into bucky so hard they both go flying, but peter just smoothly rolls out of it and onto his feet like some kind of super ninja
“DUDE WHAT THE HELL” “😠 y/n is not supposed to drink hot liquids 😠”
all of this happens in mere seconds but sam has filmed it all and now slow mo clips go viral online of some mysterious kid knocking over the winter soldier
y/n’s a little in and out after that, but when she fully regains consciousness, she’s on a pile of blankets, surrounded by the team on the floor <3
* * *
let me know if this is actually comforting lmao stay hydrated pals
hc masterlist
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takamishinko · 3 years
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hey its me again, feel free to do other requests if you have them but id like to ask if could you do a nsfw part 2 to denkis “your scars are beautiful”. or really just a denki x m reader nsfw scenario/smutshot (?) thing if you dont feel like continuing it, thank you in advance :D
first time writing smut ahaha this was fun to write
charging...
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pronouns: he/him
warnings: nsfw, swallowing, no protection
a/n: we could've finished this wqy earlier but we can't take anything seriously and fucked around for like a good hour laughing our asses off lol
e/n (editors note): wap wap wap wap wap 😹
_____
you and denki just finished having dinner at a restaurant with the rest of the bakusquad. it was a pretty nice hangout thing you guys did often. every friday you guys would go to a specific place mina introduced to everyone and you all ended up loving the place. they had food that catered to everyone's taste, even bakugou’s hard to satisfy palette. 
you and the squad headed back to the dorms together, it was no secret that you and denki shared the same room since you two were dating so everyone else went back to their own rooms while you and denki headed back together. denki flopped onto the bed you both shared the second he opened the door, not before taking off his shoes of course.
denki sighed with content, "ahhh~ that place is good as always, it never fails to disappoint me with the burgers, i could eat them all day i swear!" he exclaimed happily. you chuckled at his cute antics.
"oh! we also don't have school tomorrow, woohoo!" denki finished as he stretched his arms out.
you weren't really bothered by denki's rambles since you knew he was the talkative type and tended to go on rambles a lot. but this time wasn't like the usual… it was almost like he was trying to hint to you something. 
you knew exactly what denki was up to. telling you the room was kind of hot, unbuttoning his shirt just enough so that you can see his pecs. while denki's body wasn't as buff as shoji’s or bakugou’s but it was still pretty well built even being on the lean side. you would also be a big ass liar if you said you weren't turned on by his actions. of course your boyfriend teasing you would turn you on.
though you knew what he was trying to do you kept up your clueless act because it was fun for you to tease him back a little. you were having your amusement playing innocent in front of him until the blonde male suddenly grabbed you by the shoulders and pushed you down onto the bed. 
“heh, playing innocent on me huh? c’mon baby~ i know you want all this.” he said as he unbuttoned his shirt completely and took it off. his abs and pecs were irresistible and the proof was the hard on you had in your pants, you knew it well and so did denki. 
“i have no idea what you’re talking about babe~” you teased back, a playful grin forming at the corner of your lips. 
“fine! i guess i’ll have to show you with actions then.” 
your boyfriend’s lips pressed onto yours without any hesitation, his tongue immediately slipping into your mouth, who were you to resist him? the kiss he gave was sloppy but you didn’t mind it a single bit, it was actually quite arousing to you and you enjoyed it. of course you couldn’t let your boyfriend have all the fun so you put a little force into the kiss too instead of just letting his tongue swirl around in your mouth. the kiss between you broke after a minute or so, both of your faces red. you looked down and saw a bulge in denki’s sweatpants.
you licked your lips, “c’mon, take them off big guy~ you’re suffering in those.” you giggled with a licentious look gracing your features.
“with pleasure baby.” denki replied, nothing but pure lust dripping from each word.
you already seen denki’s cock before but something about the outline of it on his comical lightning patterned boxers turned you on to the max. without second thoughts you started to lick your boyfriend’s cock through his boxers, teasing him while you’re at it.
“why don’t you play with what’s under it instead?” he groaned out at the sight of you. god you turned him on so much.
you didn’t reply and pulled down his yellow boxers instead. his cock sprung out with excitement. denki was probably not the biggest, but it was definitely above average and enough to satisfy every last one of your needs. you wrapped your lips around his cock and started going further down inch by inch, using your tongue to lap at it as well. denki’s face contorted into pleasure. wanton moans inevitably escaped his mouth and they were like music to your ears. this egged you on and you hollowed out your cheeks as he fucked your mouth.
“oh fuck! y/n i’m getting close, ah- cumming!” he whined loudly.
without leaving his dick you swallowed every last drop of cum from you received from him. you opened your mouth and stuck your tongue out to show him you enjoyed it, as if you were telling him “thank you for the meal.”
“that felt so fucking good baby… i want more, can i put it in?” he asked, feeling a bit impatient.
“you’re insatiable,” you chucked out, he rolled his eyes in response “but of course you can~” 
as soon as denki heard your answer he practically jumped on you to pull down your pants and your boxers together leaving your ass and cock exposed to him. you flushed at his rushed movements.
 “denki-”
he cut you off, “you’re so fucking hot baby, i wanna fuck you so bad.” denki spoke with desire while looking at your lower half.
your boyfriend couldn’t wait any longer so he grabbed the lube that was sitting in his nightstand and spread some on his finger
“just relax alright?” he murmured as he spread a generous amount of lube onto his fingers and started to loosen you up. he started with one and eventually added two more fingers. you jolted a little as your entrance was explored but once denki had hit a certain spot your eyes rolled back of your head, your back arched and you let out a whine.
“o-oh fuck! denki!” you gasped out, your hips jerking upwards as he continued to abuse your prostate. tears formed at your eyes, you felt like you were melting, his fingers felt so good. 
your mewls shot straight down to his cock, “feels good huh?” he leaned down, whispering into your ear before nipping on it. you couldn’t respond to his sultry tone, you were so out of it. god you needed more.
"denki just put it in already..! i can't help it anymore. i need your cock." you mewled weakly, your voice hoarse. 
"alright~ don't blame me if i go a lil' too hard on ya now." denki grinned as he shoved his dick straight into your hole, hitting your prostate immediately. you let out a loud moan as he immediately thrusts at a fast pace.
you gasped and whimpered out, “a-ah! denki! slow down a little… too fast.” you couldn’t keep up with his pace. 
“can’t handle it babe? i’ll slow down for you then.” denki replies with a smirk. he didn’t want to hurt you.
denki then continued to make slow yet deep thrusts into your ass. they didn’t hurt like the first time you guys did but rather euphoric. his cock was hitting a spot that your fingers or toys could’ve never reached, a whole new level of pleasure. even though this wasn’t your first time it felt so good having your boyfriend inside you again, he never fails to disappoint you in the bedroom. 
“nggh, your ass feels so fucking good. you take my cock so well baby boy.” denki moaned. 
“y-your cock feels so good denki..!” you replied, a trail drool indecently leaving your mouth, mixing on the sheets with the salty tears that fell from your eyes.
he then again pressed his lips onto yours and invaded your mouth with his tongue. it almost felt like heaven, making out with your boyfriends passionately while his big cock hit your prostate over and over again. the pleasure made you lose yourself and you didn’t even notice that you were getting close, and with denki picking up the rhythm of his thrusts, you could tell he was close too. 
“d-denki! i’m gonna cum-“ you moan out loudly in a high pitched tone.
denki groans at the feeling of your walls tightening around his dick. “me too baby- let’s come together..!” 
and just before he could finish his sentence both of you reached your climax and both of you moaned out in shameless pleasure. the two of you stared at each other and tried to regulate your breaths.
“you felt amazing baby...” denki spoke with affection while holding your cheek with his right hand. 
“you felt really good too denki...” you reply as you did the same with your left hand.
the two of you shared a quick kiss before giggling. the two of you were fatigued after your activities, both of you quickly took a shower together and got into bed. both of you fell asleep while cuddling each other on the bed.
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sixeyesgojo · 3 years
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The dead reader made me sad how about something a bit funny but dark based of a comic Tapas called Undying Happiness (it’s been dubbed on YouTube too if you wants to go see it) where the main character falls in love with a guy who’s family has the ability to be able to regenerates wounds even from a skeleton. So do you think we can the cast react to a basically immortal reader?
I like this idea! I also checked out the source material and man, that was SOOO FUNNY lmaoo
Thanks for sending this ask, anon! I think my readers deserve some calm before the storm that’s about to come lol
Summary: undead!reader messing with Team Gojo because why not ;)
Characters: Team Gojo + Sukuna x undead!Reader
Content warning: major injuries (loss of limbs?), mentions of blood
A/N: This is the post anon is talking about: leaving them behind hc
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Gojo Satoru
After a while, he will start making jokes about it. You’re not exactly amused at this fool joking around while you’re bleeding out. Gojo is still a little worried (it’s a secret, don’t tell anybody) because he’s firmly convinced that this technique has to have some kind of drawback but it does not. Or at least there hasn’t been any ever since you discovered this ability.
The first time, he would be slightly taken aback but not entirely surprised. You just lost an entire arm; blasted away until only your bones remained but you didn’t even flinch? How in the world?
Truth to be told, you were already kind of used to this. Having to deal with this frequently (including all the “Aren’t you more of a curse?” questions), you already half expected something of the sort of him as well.
However, after processing what just happened, he’ll just shrug. This man has seen more in his life than any other Jujutsu sorcerer ever could, starting from as early as his baby days, thanks to the six eyes. Nothing bothers him all too much.
He’ll just treat it as if you are using Reversed Cursed Technique, just like Shoko.
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“Babe, what are you doing? Losing an arm again? Oh my god, that is sooo 2017. Come up with something new to shock me with!” he snickers. “Satoru, I swear you are doing this on purpose,” you got mad while holding the space your arm once held. The bloody substance dripping right through your fingers as the lost limb slowly regenerated. 
“It’s really no wonder people constantly ask me why I haven’t exorcised the curse who is sticking to me!” he laughs. You pout, “Rude! I’m not a curse.”
Itadori Yuji
The first time, he is absolutely freaked out. He tries to frantically stop the bleeding in the most clumsy way ever; hands shaking so much it would have the opposite effect. You? You’re calm and you try to calm him down by saying “it’s just an arm” and he goes “JUST AN ARM? THAT’S A LIMB THOUGH???” even more frantically. He already has a few screws loose up there and he knows it but hearing you say that so casually makes him rethink all his decisions in life. It takes him several minutes to calm down. Even though he is a sorcerer now and has seen his fair share of shit happening, including the sopping hole in his chest when Sukuna ripped out his heart, this tops all of it.
After a while, he will be more at ease but still very very worried about you. He doesn’t like seeing you get hurt, even if it’s just a small scratch. Yuji is very relieved when he sees the flesh and skin building back, may even be a little bit fascinated but also grossed out. He will definitely ask you lots of different stuff about it.
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“Does it hurt when it does that?” he looks at your regrowing limb. “What do you mean, Yuji?” you give him a quizzical look. He points at your limb, “That. Does that hurt?”
“Well, of course losing a limb hurts but I have had this ability for the longest time, so I got used to feeling the pain. If you mean regrowing this, then no. It tickles a little, I guess?”
The look on his face was priceless.
Fushiguro Megumi
After a while, he will still be frantic at first but then it finally clicks. His head goes “oh, right.” and he calms down, the tension visibly leaves his body, because by now, he knows it’s not that big of an issue anymore. That does not mean he ceased to help you take care of it though - and he does a great job at it.
The first time, he thinks you’ll die on him. The boy is so frantic, his mind goes blank. His chest will break out of his ribcage soon, he feels, but then he sees your calm face. Utter confusion descends down on him; what the hell was happening? Why weren’t you screaming in pain? Why was your facial expression so calm? Maybe it was a shock?
But no, you were calm all over and simply said, “Whoops?”
Consider him confused for his entire life now. He doesn’t understand what’s happening at all and his mind is set on helping you nevertheless.
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"Ugh, I’m bleeding all over your uniform. I’m so sorry, ‘Gumi,” you mumble as he patches up what he can. “That’s fine, I can just wash it later,” he bluntly states, his eyes hyperfocused on your wound.
“I’ll wash it for you! I owe you that, it’s the least I can do,” you offer. “Just hold still for now, so I can contain the bleeding - don’t want you to bleed out on me. It’d be a hassle.”
“Hehe, sorry,” you say sheepishly.
Kugisaki Nobara
After a while, she will simply proceed to beat the shit out of whoever did this to you first. She will beat them into a pulp and then exorcise them (in case it was a curse). It’s a little comedic for you to see her get worked up over this after seeing it so many times but at the same time, it melts your heart a little.
The first time, the girl rushes to your aid immediately, telling Fushiguro to handle this curse. “Are you okay?” she asks you and her voice is trembling audibly. It was a stupid question to ask, she thinks. But she doesn’t expect to see you stupidly grin back at her, “Yeah, I’m totally fine, don’t worry about me. This will take some time to grow back but it will.”
Grow back? What? She’s confused. Are you pulling a prank on her? It has to be a prank, right?
“No, this isn’t a prank, I’m serious here,” you laughed.
"You really think you can hurt them without facing repercussions, huh? You are so dumb; I almost feel sorry for how stupid you are, thinking that, when I am right here. Now let’s get ready for a game because I can and absolutely will drag this out; learn your lesson!” Nobara yells at the curse and you only chuckle.
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Ryomen Sukuna
The first time, he just clicks his tongue in annoyance, looking at whatever hurt you with fiercely glowing eyes. There would be hell to pay for them. He is annoyed at whatever hurt you but he knows he can fix you easily with his Reversed Cursed Technique. This was so inconvenient, not fun. Quickly, he eliminates the source of your pain and turns to you. He had expected you to have passed out. However, once he sees the wound slowly closing up, a strange grin forms on his face and he starts hollering loudly, “What the heck is that, pet? That’s amusing.”
After a while, he will just sit back and watch as you handle it yourself: free entertainment for his bored soul. He may or may not be generous enough to speed up your recovery with his own Reversed Cursed Technique but I’d rather not count on it because it depends on how he is feeling after you finished the battle.
“Oh? You seem to regenerate a little faster now, even without my help. You take more and more after me, did spending all that time with me turn you into a curse now?” the King of Curses sneers loudly. “Heeey, I’m not a curse! But I would feel better if you helped me out with it instead of sneering at me,” you pouted. For a moment, he seemed to think, “No. It’s amusing.”
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vampiredecay · 3 years
Text
I Can Hear Your Heart Beat (Part 1)
A/N: heyo! this is the first part of a two parter, in celebration of hitting a little over 50 followers! this was a prompt/suggestion from @n3on-lights , thank you again so much!! originally this was going to be one part, but i realized i was at 3k words and only half way done with the story, lol. so part two will be out soon! in the mean time, hope you enjoy this first half!
rating: teen
wordcount: 3,139
warnings/notes: swearing, descriptions of being in pain, half vamp!michael, human!lost boys, the boys turn back to human, implied minor character death, goodbye max, poly!lost boys, lost boys x michael
summary: after convincing sam that he wasn't going to kill him, michael raced to the hotel to seek answers about what he was becoming. little does he know, sam has his own plans up his sleeve, leaving the boys human for the first time in years, and michael still stuck as half vampire.
--
“Sammy, please!” Michael cried out, hanging onto the phone cord for dear life, hoping to whatever god out there was merciful enough to put some sense into his little brother's head. Sam just stared, debating if he should really let his brother in or not. He was floating outside his bedroom window like a freak, and he tried to eat him! But when Sam looked at him, at his older brother, he could see that he looked terrified. He's hardly ever seen Michael genuinely afraid, and he looks so human, despite the obvious circumstances. So, Sam takes a deep breath and walks over to the window, unlocking it and opening it for Michael to crawl through.
Michael counts his blessings as he drops onto the floor, takes in huge amounts of air that he doesn't really need. Sam sinks down to the floor next to him, and Michael grabs hold of him, wrapping his arms around him like he'll start flying away again. Sam tries not to squirm too much.
"What's goin on, Mike?" Sam whispers, his voice refusing to go any higher. Michael is shaking slightly, breathing heavily, so Sam tries again, "What did those bikers do to you?"
That gets a reaction out of him, a low growling sound from deep in his throat. Michael can hear Sam's heartbeat quicken and he has to swallow thickly. "I don't know, Sam. But I'll sort it out, okay?"
"But what about mom-" Sam tries, but Michael cuts him off, frantic, "Just- just don't tell her anything, okay? You gotta trust me, Sammy."
Sam wants to argue, this was way bigger than getting a bad grade on a test, or getting into a fight in school. His gut reaction was to tell his mom, because he knew she would try and make it okay again. But he also trusted his brother. Plus, he had more experience with these guys, so Sam nodded, deciding Michael had it covered. “Okay. I trust you.”
Michael let out a sigh of relief, but it was short lived once they heard their moms car screeching to a halt outside of the house. The boys frantically got up, looking at each other with wide eyes. “I gotta go, Sam. Distract mom for me, yeah?” There wasn’t any time to debate, so Sam just nodded and sprinted down the stairs. He didn't know how Michael was going to sneak out, but at this rate, he didn’t want to know.
When he got down stairs, the blond teen could hear his mom calling his name, and when the front door opened, he could see his mom looking worried like crazy. “Oh, Sam!” she said once she saw him, she sounded exhausted. “You scared me half to death!”
Sam felt guilt start to stir in his chest, he didn’t mean to make his mom worry so much. And the fact that he had to lie now didn’t help matters at all. “I’m okay, mom. I was reading a horror comic and I thought I saw someone outside my window- but I just got carried away, that's all.”
Lucy stared at her son, trying to understand the excuse he was feeding her. She squinted her eyes at him. “You got carried away by a comic book?”
Sam tried not to flinch, he knew it sounded like bullshit, but it was the best he could come up with on the fly. “It was a scary comic mom. I’m sorry.”
The look on his mom's face made it clear she was frustrated. She couldn’t believe how her boys were acting, like she didn’t raise them better. “You know, I’ve just about had it with the both of you, you know that?” Sam nodded his head and looked down at his feet, and she almost forgave him then. But then her eyes landed on the kitchen, and her frustration flared up all over again. “What is this mess?”
Sam looked over to where his mom was talking about, and saw the spilt milk and open fridge door. God damnit, Mike. He tried telling her that it wasn’t his fault, but she wasn’t listening, not that he could blame her at this point. When he was done cleaning up the floor, Sam raced up to his room, pausing to see that Michael had long gone. Wasting no more time, he launched himself on his bed and called the Frog brothers again.
It took a few rings, but eventually, Edgar had answered the call. “What?” he asked, short and coarse. Sam rushed to answer, “Guys, it's me again.”
Edgar sighed from over the phone, “What, Sam? We told you to stake your brother, what more do you want?”
“Look guys, Michael and I talked, he’s going to try and talk to the vamps that got him, but there has to be something more that we can do!”
There was some vague conversation that Sam couldn’t hear, then Alan was speaking, “Do you know if he made his first kill? Can he still walk in sunlight?”
“No, he hasn’t killed anyone, and yes, he can still walk in sunlight.” Sam said, “That means he’s only half shit sucker, right?”
Alan grumbled into the phone, like he didn’t want to be entertaining this idea at all. “Yes, so technically, if you kill the head vampire, all half vampires would return to being human.” Sam was ready to celebrate, he was about to say something like “hell yeah!”, but then Alan asked something that made him cut the celebration short. “Does your brother know who the head vampire is?”
“Uh,” Sam mumbled, "No, I don't think so."
"We can't screw around anymore, Sam." Edgar said, taking the phone back. "Kill your brother, or we'll be forced to do it for you "
"Wait, no!" Sam shouted, desperate to think of something that would help. "We just gotta find the head vampire, right? We-" as he was talking, Sam suddenly thought of something. "Actually, I might know who the head vampire is."
"What?" Edgar asked, voice high and tight. "Well, this all started when my mom started working at Max's video store."
He could hear both the Frogs groaning. "Wait guys, hear me out! He doesn't come in till after dark, he has a dog that's always growling at people, and I read that vampires have hell hounds as companions!"
"Well duh, but-" Edgar started, but Sam cut him off. "If my mom is dating the head vampire, you guys can nail him and save Santa Carla!"
The Frogs were silent for a few seconds, so Sam tacked on "Truth, justice, and the American way triumphs, thanks to you two."
That seemed to convince them, because after a few more seconds, Edgar said "Alright, we'll check Max out. Tonight. Get ready, we'll come get you in ten minutes."
Sam froze, mouth open wide against the phone. "Tonight? Can't we wait until tomorrow?"
"This was your idea, Sam." Alan said, more rustling could be heard from the background. "If Max is clean, we're coming for your brother and his friends tomorrow. Be ready." Before Sam could say anything more, they hung up the phone.
--
When Michael got to the hotel, it was dark and quiet. There weren't as many candles lit, making shadows dance and flicker against the walls, and the only sounds Michael could hear were drops of water bouncing around the cave.
"David?" Michael called out, walking further into the hotel. The place was eerie now, without the boys there, dancing and laughing and joking around. "David? Anyone here?"
Where the hell were they? Michael was getting agitated, a hot irritation settling under his skin as he looked around the cave. If they weren't even here, he didn't know what he was going to do. Michael needed answers, he needed to know what the hell was happening to him.
"I'm not fucking around." The brunette said to the air. "I want answers, and I want them now!"
Silence. Michael snarled at nothing and turned around to stomp towards the exit, but then he heard an all too familiar voice echoing out the cave.
"I'm right here, Michael."
David was standing at the entrance, Dwayne, Paul and Marko lurking behind him. The platinum blond gave a wide smirk as he walked down into the cave, eyeing the angry halfling. “What’s going on?”
“What the hell did you do to me?” Michael demanded, walking right up to David and getting into his face. David cocked an eyebrow as the rest of the boys surrounded him, whispering and laughing. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Cut the bullshit! I’m hungry, I’m in pain, I was floating on the goddamn ceiling-”
“Woah,” Paul interrupted, sounding amazed, “You got there already? It took me a while-” Marko kicked Paul’s leg before he could continue, making the blond rocker yelp loudly. David cleared his throat and suddenly looked deadly serious. “You drank from the bottle, Michael. You’re one of us now.”
“But what the hell does that mean?” Michael was starting to feel drained, he was so tired of going around in circles, and it feels like he hasn’t gotten proper sleep in weeks. “What the fuck was in that bottle that makes me float off the ground and makes me want to eat my brother?”
The boys all looked at each other like they were having a silent conversation.
“Take it easy, man.” Dwayne said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. He was smiling like nothing was off or weird about this situation at all. “You’ll get the hang of it. Just go with the flow.”
Michael was about to ask what he’d “get the hang of”, but Marko spoke before he could. “It’s getting late, you should probably go home.” The way he spoke and the look he gave had an air of finality, like fighting would get him nowhere. This had been a huge waste of time.
“Fine.” Michael spit, shoving past David roughly as he walked towards the entrance. He would have to find answers some other way. As much as he hated it, he might have to resort to Sam’s weird friends. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but they seemed to be the only other ones who knew anything about-
“Wait!” Paul called out, making Michael stop in his tracks. He turned around and looked at Paul, who had a weird look on his face. His eyebrows were scrunched down and he held a hand to his middle. “Do you guys feel that?”
The others looked confused, but soon their faces contorted into concern and agitation. Marko’s hand shot to Paul's arm, gripping like his life depended on it, while Dwayne and David held onto each other, as if keeping each other from falling. Marko was panting, “What the fu-”
Suddenly, Markos words were cut off by a loud screeching sound. Michael nearly jumped out of his skin as the boys started shouting and screaming, falling to the ground hard. The halfling stared at them in shock.
“What happened?! What's wrong?!” Michael asked frantically, panicked, running back over and crouching over the pile of writhing bodies. No one could answer, the only sounds coming from them were grunts and whimpers of pain. Michael could only stand and watch, horrified that he had no idea what was going on.
After what felt like an eternity, the screaming stopped. The boys stopped convulsing on the ground, completely still and silent, like they passed out. The silence was deafening now. Michael slowly walked over to David, breathing heavily, anxious out of his mind. He placed a gentle hand to his cheek, finding him surprisingly warm. He checked his pulse, then, and found a shallow, but steady heart beat. Michael then checked the other boys and found the same warmth and beat. The teen sighed in relief, they were all alive, at least. They seemed to be out cold, though, and Michael knew that he needed to move them from the cold hard ground.
One by one, he moved each of the boys to a chair or couch, trying to make them as comfortable as possible. Michael looked around, but didn’t find any stashed food or water, so he decided to hurry out and get them something to eat when they woke up. He didn’t know if they would be hungry or not, but it would be worth the try.
Michael sped on his bike to the nearest convenience store and grabbed a basket, stuffing it with random chips and snacks. He also grabbed a few bottles of water and threw it in the basket. When he went up to the counter to pay, the cashier gave him an odd look, but he just smiled awkwardly. The total almost drained his wallet, which hurt, but there were more important things to worry about right now.
The trip back to the hotel was a bit of a pain in the ass, but he managed to get there in one piece. He parked his bike and hauled the food and water down into the cave, and when he was in the main lobby, he was startled to see that the boys were awake. They were all huddled around each other, holding and touching in whatever way they could. All of them wore similar shocked, concerned and disturbed expressions on their faces. It almost felt wrong to intrude on them, but he accidentally made a noise and alerted the boys to his presence.
“Michael?” David called out, but his voice was smaller, less sure. Michael immediately walked over to them, setting the bag down as he squatted next to the couch they were all piled in.
“Hey, are you guys okay? What the hell happened?” As he talked, Michael pulled out bottles of water and handed them out to each of the boys. They snatched the bottles out of his hands and opened them like they haven’t drank water in years, guzzling down the liquid and getting it all over themselves in the process.
“Woah, guys, slow down-” But they didn’t listen, not even if they started choking and coughing. When the waters were drained, Paul crawled over everyone to grab the bag full of snacks and dig through it.
“Michael.” David said, looking intensely at his face, studying every inch he could look at. He grabbed at Michaels arm and pulled him closer. “Do you feel any different? Did you change back?”
The brunette stared at him, bewildered. “Change? No, I feel the same as before.”
David's eyes widened, and Paul stopped tearing into a bag of potato chips, mouth gaping. “Wait, he’s still half? How’s that possible?”
Marko and Dwayne gave each other a disbelieving look, and Michael scrunched up his face in confusion. “Half what? What are you guys talking about?”
No one said anything for a long moment. David sighed and ran his hands through his spiked hair. “I guess we have no choice but to tell you.”
Michael watched as David sat up straighter, a pained look on his face, like his whole body ached. He looked uncomfortable as he said, “We were vampires, Michael. And you’re one, too. Half, anyway. You still haven’t made your first kill.”
So many thoughts and questions flooded Michaels mind at that moment. His first reaction was to call David crazy, but he remembered what it felt like to fly out his bedroom window, how painfully hungry he was and how loud he could hear Sam's heartbeat, even from the bathroom. His reflection in the mirror was fading and weak. Michael couldn’t fuckin believe this.
Michael stood up so fast he felt lightheaded. “So- you’re telling me,” He started, pacing in front of the couch. The rest of the boys were no longer paying attention, too busy devouring the snacks from the bag, but David was watching him walk back and forth. “That I’m a half vampire. An actual, honest to god vampire. That’s just fuckin great!” Michael shouted, and David winced at the sound.
“Wait.” The halfling stopped pacing and turned back to the platinum blond. “What do you mean you were a vampire?”
David blew air through his nose like an angry bull. He shifted around in his seat before answering, “We have a master. Or, I guess we did. If the vampire that turned you dies, you turn back into a human.”
“Which must be why Michael hasn’t turned back.” Dwayne chimed in suddenly, still chewing loudly on chips. Michael was lost at this point, which must have been clear on his face, cause Marko pitched in with, “You drank David’s blood from the bottle, not Max’s. David didn’t die, just turned back into a human. So, therefore, you can’t go back to being human.”
Michael didn’t know which fact he hated more, that his mom's dorky (now ex, he supposed) boyfriend was a head vampire, or that he drank actual blood. A lot of it, if he remembered properly. He groaned loudly and sank to the floor, head in his hands. “So you’re saying I'm stuck like this?”
“Well…” Paul started, but didn’t get to finish. David interrupted, irritation clear in his voice. “We don’t know. We don’t know jack shit.”
The tension was thick in the air. Michael had no idea what they were going to do now. Living in a sunken hotel may have been okay when they were vampires, but it’s not gonna fly being human. He knew he couldn’t just leave them here. Michael sighed and stood back up, walking over to the entrance. It was still dark out, but he figured it was going to be morning soon. He walked back down and stood in front of the boys.
“Look, we’ll figure out how to change me back,” David huffed at that, looking less than amused. Michael rolled his eyes. “But until then, you guys are basically homeless. Why don’t you come stay with me for a few days?”
The boys froze. They looked at each other, and they looked at Michael, wondering if this was some kind of joke. They had lived in that cave so long it felt like forever, they couldn’t imagine leaving what they considered their home.
“What about your mom? And your brother?” David asked, knowing that it couldn’t be that easy, right? Surely Michaels family would bitch about them being there. But Michael didn’t look bothered. “Sam can be an ass, but he’ll deal. And my mom wouldn’t kick you guys out.”
David was still hesitant. He still didn’t want to believe he was human again, after all these years. It hurts to even think about it. He felt a nudge against his shoulder, and when he looked over, he saw Marko, shrugging his shoulders.
“What do we have left to lose?”
56 notes · View notes
oreomonsterhunter · 4 years
Text
Sick Day
Pairing: Jackson x reader
Word count: 2270
Warnings: none
Synopsis: Jackson stays home sick (and not very willingly lol)
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[ 6:00 am ]
Soft gray light seeps around the curtains as you ease into wakefulness.  You stretch your arms over your head, finally registering the chime of your alarm.  But when you roll over to turn it off, you stop, a mere inch between your nose and Jackson’s back.
You frown at him, not that he can tell, since he’s not supposed to be there.  He should be at the gym, or practice, or wherever the hell he needs to be after his ungodly alarm goes off every morning.  Baffled, you poke his shoulder.  “Jackson?”  He groans, and your frown deepens.  You sit up, leaning over him, “Are you alright?  Is your schedule cancelled?”  You squeeze his arm gently to elicit a response.
Jackson cracks his eyes open to look at you, blinking rapidly.  Then suddenly his eyes are comically wide and he’s not sliding but falling out of bed and stumbling to the bathroom.  “Shit, I’m late,” he says hoarsely.
You sit there, still a bit shocked and not a little groggy, and try to make sense of things.  Then you get your act together and go to turn on the coffee machine.  When you pop your head in the bathroom, you find Jackson squinting at his phone, toothbrush hanging out the side of his mouth.  You hip-check him out of the way as you grab your own brush.  “Stop getting distracted if you’re running late,” you mumble around a mouthful of toothpaste.
Jackson starts to respond automatically, and you choke on a laugh as toothpaste dribbles down his chin.  This, of all things, seems to cause a Jackson malfunction.  He stops there, blinking at his minty goatee in the mirror.  With a sigh, you spit and go to help him, taking the toothbrush away before he drops it.  You cup his cheek while you wipe off the mess with a damp washcloth, but then you frown, placing the back of your hand on his forehead.  “Holy—Jackson, you’re burning up,” you exclaim.  You take his face between your hands and stare him down.  “Talk to me.  What’s going on, how do you feel?”
He just blinks for a moment, before shaking his head.  “I just had a headache is all.  Snoozed the alarm.  I’m totally fine, I just need to get to the studio for practice.”
“Jackson, how do you feel?” you repeat, holding him still.  You sneak a glance at his phone, still unlocked to show you his recent search for natural headache remedies.
He looks sheepish now, “Well, my head hurts.”
You raise one eyebrow at him.  “You don’t say.  What else?”
He groans, dropping his face in his hands.  “I’m fine, I promise.  Just a headache.”
“If that’s all it is, take some pain meds and get out,” you challenge him, folding your arms in what you hope is an intimidating stance.  You know bullshit when you hear it.
Somehow the pose works.  That, or Jackson vividly remembers how you chewed him out for lying and threatened to roast him alive if he ever tried it again.  “My throat hurts a bit, and I’m definitely a bit congested.  All I need is some tea and a mask and I’ll be fine,” he starts, but stops just as quickly when your glare intensifies.
You rummage around in the closet and find a thermometer, which confirms your suspicions: a fever.  “Back in bed after you finish brushing, or I’m withholding any and all sexy activities for a month,” you threaten him into compliance.  And you would absolutely uphold that threat, because you know Jackson.  He’s always hounding you to stay healthy, but is a definite member of the “do as I say, not as I do” camp of idiots.  If you don’t lay down the law now, he’ll continue working himself to death, and then he’ll really be in trouble.  Plus he’ll end up getting the other boys sick, and Jackson is enough of a handful on his own without six other boys moaning and groaning.
In the kitchen, you gulp coffee while boiling some water for tea.  Your fingers fly, tapping out a message to Jaebeom, knowing he’ll pass along the message.
Jackson’s an idiot and he’s sick, if anyone asks him to come to practice I’ll end them.
Then to Jinyoung:
Can you check on Jackson this afternoon?  I have to go to work, but would love it if you could make sure he’s still breathing (and hasn’t tried to leave the apartment).  I made kimchi jjigae last night, so there’s leftovers if you want some ❤️
Your phone pings with two positive responses right away, and you nod to yourself.  Then you pour a good spoonful of honey in the mug, grab cold medicine, and bring both to Jackson.  “Drink this, take this, and go to sleep,” you say, shoving the mug in his hands.  “There’s clementines on the counter, plus leftover soup in the fridge.  Call me if you need me, especially if you start to feel any worse.  Jinyoung will stop by around lunch, and I’ll be back from work in time for dinner.  Text me your dumb loopy fever thoughts, okay?”  You finally take a breath after spouting off instructions.  You’re worried, but now you’re running late.  And if he takes a turn for the worse, you can call out of work for the rest of the day.
Jackson just smiles up at you, and you roll your eyes.  You can’t help but smile at your precious idiot—he’s already fever loopy.  “I love you,” he says.
“I love you more.”  You press your lips to the top of his head, then dash to the closet to change into your work clothes.
Even though it’s possibly the fastest strip show in history, Jackson wolf whistles between sips of tea.  You chuckle, jiggling yourself into a pair of pants, and he grins shamelessly.
“Ok, I’m off,” you mutter, collecting various odds and ends and cursing to yourself because you’ve definitely forgotten something.
Jackson calls your name as you start to close the bedroom door, and you turn back.  His smile softens, and you swear there are hearts in his eyes.  “I love you most.”
This time, you really do laugh, and you blow him a kiss goodbye.  He’s an idiot, but he’s your idiot.
[ 11:39 am ]
You knew he was going to text you incessantly throughout the day, despite any good intentions, if only because Jackson was not well equipped to be stuck inside an empty apartment all day.  Especially when he wasn’t feeling well.  At least the texts waited until around ten, when you assume he woke up again.  You’d kept an eye out for any bad updates, but hadn’t seen anything to worry you.
After back-to-back meetings, you finally sign off and take a minute to scroll through the memes, YouTube videos, and more.  Fortunately, your phone was on silent, because he’d sent you half the internet.  The spam tells you he feels okay, all things considered.
I miss you already.  I’ve gone through all of your Spotify playlists and now I’m bored
I would spam you with bad jokes, but those don’t work over text
Why don’t we have a dog?  Can you bring me a dog on your way home from work?
Why won’t the guys text me back...did you THREATEN THEM? BABEEEEE
Babe
BABE
BABY COME BACK
YOU CAN BLAME IT ALL ON MEEEEE
...princess please answer me I’m dying and I have no one
You can’t stop the smile, knowing he’s doing his best to keep you from worrying, but also that he’s probably stir crazy.  You quickly tap out a response:
I’m glad you’re feeling better, or at least pretending.  Tell me if you feel worse.  Are you drinking water?
He sends you a selfie of him guzzling the glass you left for him.  And finally stops texting, which makes you chuckle.  A glance at the clock tells you a special visitor should be arriving soon, so you turn back to your computer to get some more work done.
Within fifteen minutes, your phone buzzes again.  Jinyoung’s update is quick and to the point: a photo of an exhausted Jackson nearly falling asleep in his soup.  That’s enough to send you over the edge, and you laugh out loud, regardless of the thin office walls.
[ 5:49 pm ]
You lock the door behind and toe off your shoes, then pad into the kitchen.  You’d stopped by the store on your way home, picking up cold medication and a few ingredients for dinner.  Jackson gives you the scare of your life, when you round the corner and find him slumped over the counter.
“Jackson!” you gasp, nearly dropping the shopping bags.
He mumbles incoherently, lifting his head and blinking blearily at you.  “Hi princess,” he says with a weak smile.
Now you do drop the bags and round the counter to reach him.  You press the back of your hand to his forehead.  “Still burning up,” you mutter.  “Jackson, why didn’t you call me?  And Jinyoung didn’t say you were this miserable.”
He shakes his head at you, hair falling limp over his forehead.  “I’m just tired.  Apparently I took a nap after he left,” he says sheepishly.  Your frown deepens.  “It’s just a cold,” he tries to reassure you.
Rolling your eyes at him, you go back to the grocery bags and retrieve the cold medication.  “I’ll make dinner and you can go right back to bed, okay?  Drink some more water.”
Jackson obeys your gruff instructions, sitting and sipping water while you throw ingredients together for a quick stew.  He tries to offer to do the dishes, but you shoo him off for a hot shower.  But he doesn’t reach your limit of irritating until he tries to convince you to sleep in the bed while he takes the couch.
“Should I move out?  That’s the only way I can be sure I won’t get sick,” you tell him, hands on your hips as you stare him down.  Jackson reluctantly puts his pillow back on the bed, prompting you to grab your own, “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Now Jackson is the one rolling his eyes.  You huff out a laugh and watch his lips twitch, trying to hold back his smile.  “I just worry about you,” he says softly.
You can’t stay mad at that face.  Dropping the pillow, you sit on the edge of the bed, patting the space beside you.  When Jackson plops down, you bump your shoulder into his.  “I wish you would worry about yourself more.”
He knows what you’re getting at.  This isn’t the first time you’ve had this conversation—in the beginning, they were pretty fierce arguments.  The two of you are both stubborn, leading to stalemates more often than not.  Convincing Jackson to put his health before his work was one of those standoffs.
Jackson doesn’t say anything, but he bumps your shoulder back, so you know the message was received.  You smile at him, then poke his side playfully.  “I already told Jaebeom you’d be taking tomorrow off.”
He groans, falling back on the bed and throwing an arm across his face.  “I can’t afford to miss practice.  Comeback is only a few weeks away and—”
“And nothing.  You stay home until the fever is gone for twenty-four hours.  Or I’m taking you to the doctor, and they’ll tell you worse.”
He simply groans like the drama king he is, and you laugh while you take a blanket and pillow to the couch.
[ 7:24 am ]
You’re dragged into wakefulness by a crick in your neck, a sore throat, and a stuffy nose.  You groan, dragging one hand down your face in defeat.  Jackson wasn’t going to let this one go...you were in for an earful.  Rolling off the couch, you sniffle your way through your morning routine.  By the time you’ve called out of work, taken some cold medication, and sat down with your coffee, Jackson is also awake.
He does a double-take when he sees you, “Wait, shouldn’t you be at work by now?”
You grumble, sure he’s figured it out but wants to drive the point home.  “I’m sick.”
“I guess you should’ve moved out then,” he jokes, but his expression has never been more serious.  It feels like deja-vu, only Jackson is the one checking your temperature and muttering about tea.
“It’s fine, I’ve self medicated like a grown-up,” you say with a smile, but it probably looks more like a grimace.  “And I have coffee, go get yourself some tea.”
Ten minutes later, you’re staring down at a horrible green concoction.  “Jackson, I’m sorry, but what fresh hell is this?”
“Fruit, vegetables, and whatever else I could find in the fridge.  I didn’t put chicken in there, don’t worry.  I know how you feel about my shakes.”
You eye him up and down.  He doesn’t look much better than yesterday.  “You drink it.  You need to get your strength back for practice.”  Jackson pouts at you, and that’s when you figure it out.  “It’s not your fault I’m sick,” you tell him.
He scoffs, “Yes it is.”
You resist the urge to throw something at him.  Lovingly, of course.  “We’ll just have to agree to disagree then.”
“Fine.  But you’re drinking this,” he fires back.
You wince, peering into the cup again.  You’re not sure you can trust his ingredient list.  “Split it?” you ask, wearing your most angelic smile.
Jackson squirms away from you in fake disgust, “I can’t, there’s cooties!”  Then he ducks to avoid the pillow you hurl at him.
* * * * *
Masterlist
365 notes · View notes
musicallisto · 4 years
Text
Ψ — 𝐜𝐨́𝐦𝐨 𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐚 𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫; (leo valdez x reader)
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@fives-cup-of-coffee​ requested: Hi can I please get Leo Valdez (Hoo) + number 142? Tysm,bb ! Love your blog💗💗 song: morat - cómo te atreves | 𝄞
summary: In which Leo Valdez was having a good day. That is, of course, until you showed up.
word count: 1.9k author notes: at first I wanted to make it light-hearted & comical as the song would suggest and then it progressively got more serious and angstier and then I just have no idea where it went lol I hate it here. I hope you like this! + stan Morat they’re amazing warnings: there’s like one bad word in Spanish and I hope it’s not too Spaniard bc I looked everywhere for a Mexican equivalent of “cagüendios” asdjdj Mexicans please correct me
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𝐋𝐄𝐎 𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐙 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 have had the boldness of saying he was having a good day. No bloodthirsty monster nor megalomaniac Titan had decided to take over the world or rip him to pieces; he hadn’t had to dodge a meteor or plunge into the heart of a volcano; and to top it all off, he had not heard Percy sing once.
No, really, despite the cold, biting wind that froze the February morning, Leo Valdez was having a good day.
That is, of course, until you showed up.
Maybe it was his wind-swept curls blocking his eyes, maybe it was the whirring of Festus’ mechanical breathing under his fingertips, maybe it was the total peace of mind that inhabited him as he whistled to himself, but he had been impervious to his surroundings, surrendered to the memory of his aerial stroll with Calypso earlier in the morning, completely devoted to patching the dragon’s attrition up, so much so that he hadn’t heard you approaching at all. In his defense, he wasn’t expecting your visit after this many years, especially not on a cold morning in the woods of Long Island.
“Leo?”
“Woah, buddy, your clicks are starting to sound more and more like a real human voice. I might have to celebrate your first word soon.”
“Leo Valdez, behind you.”
He whirled around, and stupidly enough, the first thought that went through his mind was disappointment—so Festus wasn’t learning human communication after all, despite his best efforts. But when Leo pushed the hair out of his face and devised for the first time in four years your slightly embarrassed figure, hands buried in your pockets and abashed smile on your face, he couldn’t stop his jaw and heart from dropping.
So the suspect, gravelly grunt he had heard just before was not Festus protesting—duly noted. It was you, impatiently—and rather awkwardly—scratching your throat to catch his attention... You! After four years!
“Y/N?” he called out, and the way your name rolled off his tongue, with incredulity yet ease, was enough to remind you of how familiar his voice had once been.
“In the flesh. Ta-da,” you tentatively exclaimed, unsure about whether you should step toward him.
Leo seemed just as lost and confused as you were, eyeing you without truly processing it. No one, nothing had ever prepared him to face the return of someone he’d loved so dearly after losing them for so long. No prophecy had foretold any of this, no mischievous god had ever sent a cryptic message in a dream or smoke patterns. One day he had more or less started to accept the unshakeable hole you had dug in his heart when you left, and that he had tried to fill up as well as he could with new memories and songs and adventures — and the next you were waltzing back into his life as though he hadn’t spent the better part of four years struggling to forget you?
He took a small step forward without realizing it, but his body language read all but cordiality. A bubble of irritation started to form in the pit of his stomach and throat; he had started to fidget with his adjustable spanner.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
Behind him, Festus grated, a low and rumbling sound like still water stirring upon the approach of a storm. Leo swore he heard his heartbeats echoed in the loyal beast’s enormous ribcage.
“What do you want from me, Y/N? Haven’t you done enough?”
Oh, you had done more than enough. When you were friends and he had first fallen for you — you had mended his broken heart, stayed by his side as everyone went on to celebrate life and renewal and he was stuck in the downpour that Calypso’s first departure had wreaked. That was more than enough. When you were just a little more than friends and he had started to learn anew, step by step, what it meant to love, and first and foremost let himself be loved — you had been patient and kind, you had walked hand in hand with him on the road to healing, never pushing him to go further than he could. That was more than enough. When you were definitely more than friends, and he had found himself falling deeper in love with you with each passing day — you had loved him all the same, or so you promised, and made his every day an adventure and a safe embrace like no other. That was more than he ever deserved.
When you had left without warning for some foreign place on the other side of the world, leaving him only a note and a handful of colored glass shards, never to give a sign of life in four years...
That was more than enough.
You had dared to take one step forward, palms outstretched as if you were calming a wild animal. A frenzy of conflicting flames bubbled in Leo’s stomach — you were a stranger now to him, and he was once again happy with Calypso. Then why did he get the overwhelming urge to jump into your arms and rediscover the sweetness of your embrace?
“I’m so sorry, Leo, I never wanted to leave, I truly didn’t, but you have to understand —”
“Understand what? That whatever business you had to attend to was more important than me? That I meant so little to you that you just left me a post-it note with a sad smiley face on it and never came back? You didn’t send a word in four years! I bet you didn’t even think about me on February 29th!”
“Actually I left in April, but —”
“Can you imagine how hard it was for me to get over you? To forget you? No, scratch that—I haven’t forgotten you, no matter how hard I try to convince myself. But I was doing just fine, and you have a whole lotta nerve coming back now that I’m finally happy without you! ¡Pues huevos! ¡Al carajo todo esto!”
And he went on and on in a string of all the curses he’d remembered from when his mother argued on the phone, his cheeks reddening progressively, his breath faltering.
You stayed immobile, just an arms’ length apart from him until he had spewed out everything he’d carried for years. His chest trembled, shuddering at all the dust and waste it had swept under the rug, now displayed in full light before him; and you ached for him, underneath your cool composure, you truly did, just as you had ached yourself when you had left. How could you not? Leo had been light and warmth and fire and a comforting smell of smoke and gasoline and coffee-stained fingertips on your cheek and your neck... and most of all, the heart you would least have wanted to break.
“Leo...”
You murmured his name a few more times, until he looked up at you. Oh, that face, red and weepy and distorted by rage and overwhelm! How you hated it in those moments, like a cheap mask over a Roman statue!
“Leo, I’m so sorry. I know it doesn’t excuse anything, but trust me, I would never have done that if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”
“What was, Y/N? What was more important than me?”
“I... I can’t tell you, Leo. I would if I could, but — “
“Of course! Even after four years, you’re still so full of secrets!”
“Jupiter told me not to say anything. To anyone.”
Leo’s parted lips, already fuming with more witty remarks, closed shut, and his chocolate eyes widened. The god of gods’ name was always enough to temper even the most boisterous of heroes’ fumes of anger, but not Leo’s erratic heart.
“Jupiter?”
“I got a mission from the gods. That’s why I left. To Rome. But they made me swear I didn’t say anything... not even an excuse.”
Leo swallowed, with difficulty, as if the information was a toxic flame permeating his throat. Before he could even register it, you continued, breathing deeply to steady your breathing:
“I owe you more than an apology... an explanation, at least. If you want to hear it... meet me in the woods at the gate of Camp Half-Blood at sundown. I’d understand if you didn’t come, but... just know that I’ll be waiting for you.”
For a split second, you were traversed by the thought, almost automatic, of leaning over to kiss Leo’s cheek, just like you had done it thousands of times to wish him goodbye; but you cut your impulses fast enough, only staring at his eyes for a few long minutes of dumbfounded silence before you turned on your heels and left.
In a single blink, the wind had caught your silhouette and carried it into the shadows of the trees.
And Leo stood there, colder than he would have admitted, motionless and partly oblivious to Festus’ impatient whirring over his shoulder. His chest rose and fell rapidly, quicker than the leaves rustling in the breeze; it had dried in his eyes too much for any tears to well up, despite the painful pang spreading in his chest. Had it not been for the weight in his ribcage, he could’ve believed you were but a ghost in the forest...
When you had left him without a word nor even a glimpse of a smile, Jason had admonished him to be brave and stronger than whatever misery you had inflicted; to not let any of your little games gnaw at his head and drive him wild. It was how Jason had always dealt with heartbreak and hardship because he was built of cold marble and electric stone; but despite Leo’s best efforts to follow his advice, he was Hephaestus’s son. Neither of them was exactly known for their fine handling of matters of the heart...
He had believed his inalterable strength would come back to him with Calypso. It was an endless ebb and flow between the two of you, each consoling him after the other left and tore a little piece of his heart. She had promised she’d be better — better than you, or than herself the first time around, he didn’t know, but he had believed her all the same.
But maybe what Leo had mistakenly taken for strength when he laughed himself to death with Calypso and captured her entirely with his lips, might have been solely absence. He had always had a knack for following in your steps... just like you had slipped from his embrace without a word, he had disappeared from himself imperceptibly.
Maybe he loved Calypso, truly and sincerely... but not in the way that allowed him to find himself.
Well, to hell with courage, with Jason’s heroic virtue and rectitude. Leo was realizing just then that the reason he clung so desperately to your memory was that he wasn’t ready to let it go just yet, and if it made him a coward, he accepted the fate with open arms.
“Come on, buddy,” Leo exhaled, a little shaky still. “Let’s get you patched up before sundown.”
Maybe it was a good day after all.
Or just a less-than-awful one at the very least.
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tagging; @fives-cup-of-coffee​​ @softeninglooks​​ (all my writing) / @lxncelot​​ (Riordanverse)
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nighttimepixels · 3 years
Note
TALK TO US ABOUT MASS EFFECT I HAVE BEEN AN INSANE MASS EFFECT/SHAKARIAN TRASH PERSON SINCE 20-FUCKING-11 AND LEMME TELL YOU THOSE FEELINGS HAVENOT TARNISHED A SINGLE FRACTION IN THOSE TEN YEARS OH MY GOOOOOOODDDSSSS!!!!!!!
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I DEMAND A PLAY-BY-PLAY UP TO THE MINUTE OF YOUR REACTIONS TO EVERYTHING!!!!
you are so valid and I totally see why everyone I've ever mentioned it to loves the hell out of it
aksdjlsdfj I meannnn if you want to hear my rambling about it then hell yeah
Okay, gonna put this below the cut to save everyone else XD also- since I'm not leaving this Mass Effect obsession anytime soon, if you're not interested in seeing occasional posts about it, please feel free to block the tag "night plays ME"~
(mild spoilers ahead??)
((also for real I mean it when I say this is rambling as hell lol, apologies and no stress if absolute no one reads all this))
OKAY SO Mass Effect 1-
Stars help me, I was honestly hooked right from the start?? Like even in Legendary Edition (the combined trilogy just re-released in one "can play it on one system + minor improvements", for anyone who doesn't know) where it's smoothed out, of course it's obvious that ME1 is a decade old... but the foundation for these relationships are all there and gods I love them already.
Like - Kaiden right off the top is a delightful good fightin lad, what the hell. I've heard that he's viewed as 'bland' by a good portion of the fan community but I dunno, he's a delight and even more complex by the time 2 rolls around and you encounter him on Horizon, it was honestly Ashley I was way more meh about - mostly because before you can learn about her family history/etc, she comes off as hella xenophobic and I was immediately offended for my growing space family that she didn't like/trust all the aliens around, pfff.
(she gets redeemed a bit through further actions/evolving thoughts, but I thought in retrospect it was a bummer that they didn't flip the order there, give her a chance to be liked before the complicating factor of being so rude about aliens >:c that then she could grow from... ah well. Apparently she has a good arc but uh, let's just say I chose Kaiden at the "key junction" in the latter part of the game so I won't be seeing anymore of Ashley uh... anytime soon, haha.)
Garrus??? Is??????? The ABSOLUTE best???????????
I liked him from the start, I'm always a bit of a sucker for a rogue-detective "the system won't bring this bastard to justice, so I've got to" type and all their moral shadiness XD But he just gets better, honestly, and where I'm at in ME2 (right before the Reaper IFF mission, as of typing this, with everyone's loyalty!) I am only digging myself deeper into this hole-
-*wheezing* okay anyways -
Wrex is AMAZING I love fightin' middle-aged krogan bastard, gods. Liara is great too, I'm a sucker for a wlw relationship (playing fem!Shepard, so) - buuuut I'll admit she's a bit more one-note in ME1. Last week while I was still on ME1 I remember hearing (while trying to dodge spoilers) that her arc is really good, though. I think they leaned a little hard on the 'innocent but sexy' sterteotype on her (so despite the yikes aspect of a few of the things I've learned in ME2, lol, I actually really like the complexity that's been added to her character.)
Saved Liara first, so by the time I got to Noveria and had the standoff with Benezia there was the chance to have emotions over Liara having to face her TwT and of course, I made the questionable but quality decision to free Queen Rachni heheh. no ragrets
More than a blow-by-blow of my choices though I totally wanna take the chance to say that even in the mild jankiness of ME1 (goddammit, the Mako.... please..... please just go up this impossible cliff I just want to resource hunt-) the way that the lore, both obvious/key to main plot and the lesser/filler/background/world-building kinds... I just love it. It incorporates it well, you can go ham in the codex learning more, or just dive into the basics - it's clearly a complex galaxy (and they do an even better job in 2 of fleshing it out further), and it never really felt overwhelming. It was pretty natural figuring it all out-!
Plus the interesting implications of resource hunting amongst the sapient races, and the little side missions you better bet I did every one of- there's so much rich depth in the story if you do 'em!! (And that lead with that Keeper side mission...? Looking back, damn, clever foreshadowing-!!!)
And oh my gods, Ilios??? hell yeah. I loved that mission so much, especially having Garrus & Kaiden with me when talking to the hologram/computer, and more than anything, that last sprint in the Mako trying to get to the jump before it closed-???
yeet the boi-
Also mannn I love a good setpiece, and having to go up the side of the elevator, space-side?? such a cool setup!!
Plus it felt good having been Paragon enough (as simple as the good v bad vibe system is, I don't hate it, lol) to avoid one of the Saren fights, ngl. And the er, "second fight" with Sovereign-Saren.... hell yeah
... I'll admit I had to double check my choice re whether to save the Council. I did in the end, but I swear, sometimes the way they phrase things I'm like ".... okay but Garrus is right, defeating Sovereign is more important than these few leaders??????" woops. Listen, priorities, is all I'm saying..... ( ̄ヮ ̄|||)ゞ
'Course later they emphasize (in ME2) that there were 10,000 people on that same ship and I was like well I wouldn't have second guessed if I'd known that, I mean c'mon-
Also I did indeed romance Liara in this one, so I got that scene ;Dc But,,,, I also knew by the end that I was totally gonna romance Garrus in 2 since he's an option then finally,,,,, lemme tell you the guilt as I waffled over whether to romance Liara bc of it. hahaha.
Aaaaand Mass Effect 2-
So I'm only up to right before the Reaper IFF Mission, so I don't know the ending, etc etc lol. That said, I've just finished every side mission I've found with the exception of the Shadowbroker Quest and the Arrival Quest (I've heard the latter basically leads into ME3, and the former is best either right before the Omega 4 jump or in postgame).
So from the start - fuck yeah fuck yeah what a high adrenaline start Shepard noooooo but also yes save Joker aH-
The motion comic too hot damn nice job
I loved this setup, seriously - especially forcing Shep into this situation, having to work with/for Cerberus, and the compelling reasoning given behind "why" they do what they do (I especially found it a good point that the Salarians have the Task Force, the Asaris the Commandos, the Turians the- etc... like, true, when you put it like that, having a similar group advancing human interests/solving human interstellar problems is pretty reasonable...). That said, I love too that it really isn't shied away from how Cerberus is nonetheless fucked up - or its at least done fucked up stuff.
Listen, I still think some messed up stuff is gonna be revealed in 2's endgame......... after that Horizon mission and the Collector's ship???? TIM I SEE YOU YOU SHADY MF-
aaanyways lol...
I'm so so glad on a gameplay level they nixed the Mako style exploration. A few Hammerhead missions are fine and a lot more focused than the slippery ass navigation in that glorified ATV, pfff. The probes are a neat way of getting after similar resources - and more importantly, having good levels and some good hubs (the Zakera Wards, Omega, Ilium, etc) is way way more fun than having a more 'sprawling' space that is.... a lot of empty nonsense, lol.
Then there's the fact that we get Joker right off the bat and you can interact with him so much - and him and EDI??? Get out gods I love them. Kasumi is so right when she says they sound like a bickering old married couple lol. I have a terrible feeling that some shit is gonna happen with EDI..... but I don't think she's evil as-is, at least.
Side-eying the hell out of those "access forbidden" parts of her that she doesn't even know.... and the fact that her AI core has a locked door access................... something's gonna happen gdi LEAVE OUR ADOPTED AI ALONE.
(Also Joker pls stop fracturing your thumb on the mute button)
Also please save me there are so many hot aliens in this game,,,,, the xeno/monsterfuckers really comin' through strong in the sequels............... doin' the lord's work........................................
In general, I love how many levels ME stepped up in two with complexity and interwoven narratives!! Like, to the point it'd be almost a drag to replay ME1, even though it was fun going through it (if occasionally a bit tedious with the cookie cutter rando planet science/mine facilities, lol). Like, just from how fun and interesting ME2 is, mostly! more of all the pre-introduced races, plus new ones, plus more filling in of intragalactic politics, and more interesting implications of all these space-faring races mixing....
Also gods WREX and his planet holy shit,,,,, fuckin' hell yeah my man get their shit together and also adopt Grunt yes good-
And Mordin??? My singing semi-evil scientist best friend forced to confront his choices more than he thought he ever would have???? With some of the best ongoing general report chatter of all the companions??
(when I tell you I choked on my coffee when I talked to him after confirming romance choice w/ Garrus and that 'pamphlet' and 'anaphalactic shot if ingesting-' kajsldkfjsldfjk)
Like, fuck, the fact that they actually dive into the mixed morality and horrors of the genophage, and you can confront Mordin on it, for good reason, yet he still stands his ground, until finally some bits of his loyalty mission seem to... affect him, and I'm guessing might set up things for 3 with him? Unsure, but either way, damn, the fact that they start to dig into it...
And Taliiiii my beloved forbidden alien wife TwT her loyalty mission was SO GOOD. I love how varied they all are?? Getting to defend her and discover what she'd unwittingly been a part of-!!
Zaeed is a bastard but tbh I love that he is and that he's unapologetic in him - and Kasumi omg, best thief. A heist?? Gods, yes- I love our couch lounge chats XD
Samara is..... illegally.......... she's an illegally powerful and beautiful and eloquent MILF...........................
(.... listen I'm sapphic as hell and I'm kicking my own ass for picking her up last aksjdlfksjdfl - but her loyalty mission, damn. And seeing how there's this interesting cultural subset, and the struggle with the Asari in that they unquestioningly accept/respect justicars, but also know that the impact outside their culture is a diplomacy nightmare waiting to happen-)
,.,,,,,T,,, Thane,,,,,
I am weak for morally implicated murder dads okay?? And that voice??? His mannerisms?????? How you first see him, and that prayer after assassinating her...???????? And his history/his people's history with the hanar, gods I love how messy it is, it feels so much more real!
Also Jack is a mess and I love her (and want to get her some therapy, omg), and her and Miranda nearly duking it out after you've done both their loyalty missions??? so good and makes a lot of sense-! Honestly I would love more interactions between teammates on the ship, but there's already so much the devs had to balance I can't blame 'em for minimizing, heh. But suffice to say I also love Miranda and Jacob, even if I'm softest for my alien crew XD Hell yeah Jacob, we'll get loud and spill drinks on the citadel indeed TwT
.... I could write a whole essay on how much I love Garrus oTL Perhaps because he and Tali are the throughlines from 1 on your 2 crew, I have some of the strongest feelings about them... but genuinely, he was one of my favorite companions in the first game, and how you find him as Archangel in two? Getting to help him fight his way out after he's gone nearly 48 hours straight fighting off three gangs alone, jfc. His vengeance quest and what can happen there.... That line? fuck me, that line -
It's so much easier to see the world in black and white. Grey? I don't know what to do with gray...
How DARE you come for my heart like this, devs holy shit
(also, some other choice faves so far from the series from him include We can disobey suicidal orders?? and This wasn't in my training manual... [in 1, if you have him with you @ th Thorian fight] and his whole.... pop the heat sink - in his romance ;Dc)
asdasdfksadjfkl like I said I can write an essay on him PFFF suffice to say I'm very looking forward to his romance scene and where things go in 3
But yeah gods I'm just gonna keep rambling if I'm not careful lol. Gods I don't even know what to talk about it's all so good and while I can understand people roasting the obviousness of Paragon V Renegade (v neutral) choices/alignments, I think they do a pretty damn good job in 2 of pushing it further - to the point that there were some times that I accidentally got renegade points and I wasn't that mad, haha. There's so much fun in the interactions that I just have a good time anyways~
I have so many thoughts about TIM (The Illusive Man) and Cerberus.... theories evolving galore............... and like, what the hell!! Omega 4 going to the center of the galaxy is such a cool twist, goddamn - though my heart still breaks at losing Kaiden (his line if you haven't romanced him?? about feeling like he lost a limb when he lost you??? holy shit.... but I also can't blame him for not trusting Cerberus to the point of it affecting his ability to trust Shepard... like fuck Shep go after himmmm) I'm really excited to see where that goes since he comes back in 3, and what the fuck happens with Cerberus bc while I love the fact that obviously there are a lot of people in it for the right reasons, doing good work, there are those that are doing the opposite, and I have a very bad feeling about where TIM will end up landing....
All that said though I need to do the Reaper IFF mission (where I'm lightly spoiled as to getting That Boy, but not how/what happens to make it so - just that it's apparently wise to have all your side missions done before getting him...) and the actual Omega 4 jump. So we'll see what happens and what I think about it from there heheh!
.... major kudos and genuine props if you made it here to the end, I am so sorry for not editing on condensing all this, and appreciate you so much ;w;
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the-silentium · 4 years
Text
Masterlist
Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Reader
Words: 2770 words
Warnings: Swearing.
Requested by: @justalittleb1tcrazy​ & Anon
Hi! I love your work, and I have an idea/request if it’s not too much to ask :) i’ve been thinking about a continuation of the 11 Five fic (because I adored it) where the Hargreeves go back to 2019 like s2 and the reader is a part of Sparrow Academy and she’s slightly more edgy personality wise, or something like that lol
Hi! Just finished reading 11 and I sobbed so hard ngl,, would it be alright to ask for a part two?? Maybe it could be about how five goes on after wards, honestly I just need closure :(( it was so good,,,
A/N: Here’s 11 Part 2! Hope you guys like it! @justalittleb1tcrazy​, I already had the part 2 planned in my head, but you weren’t wrong with the Sparrow Academy! (almost) Also, the Sparrow Academy is totally OC, I didn’t go with the comics.
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The days following your death were the most exhausting days Five ever lived. Between running around to gather his siblings and trying desperately to find a way back to 2019, losing precious time to sleep wasn’t even an option. He was running on the last bits of adrenaline his body could give him, the determination to find you back in 2019 and apologize profusely while holding onto you for dear life was enough to keep his body functioning for so long. 
When Klaus broke the circle to go fetch the cowboy hat, Five genuinely wondered if the homicidal rage was finally getting to him because the thought of murdering his brother with his bare hands seemed pretty enjoyable at the moment. His patience was running thinner by the seconds and the lack of caffeine in his bloodstream was doing nothing to appease his pulsion. 
As soon as the circle was complete again, the time-traveler visualised the right equations in his mind, warmth radiated through his hands and soon he jumped to the old mansion along with his siblings. 
For a second, Five let himself live the joy of the moment. He finally did it. His dream for the past 45 years was now fulfilled, by his actions the people he loved the most could live in a world where the apocalypse never occurred and will never happen, where they had a real future and where he could live the life he wanted back when he was just a kid in the skin of his now-adult body. 
He dodged Klaus’ open arms and closed his fists to jump to his bedroom, where he knew you were waiting for him to come back from the Icarus Theatre, but the familiar laugh bouncing around in the living room stopped his movement. His heart fluttered in his chest, his desire finally so near. He didn’t lose a second and jumped to the living room, his eyes searching for you excitedly. 
You were seated on the second floor, your legs between the railings slowly swang in the air, your eyes fixated on a book opened in your hands, its words bringing a beautiful smile to your lips. 
He didn’t recon jumping behind you, but next thing he knew, your back was facing him and you perked up at the soft old floor’s whine. 
“Five, you’re back!” The joy in your voice got him to his knees, the relief of finally being able to hold you alive and well in his arms was too much for him to handle. 
On an impulse, Five’s hands reached for your cheeks as you were turning your head to welcome him home, his desperation of the last couple of days showing through the not so delicate kiss he pressed on your lips. 
Stars flashed behind his closed eyelids, not because of the power of the moment like he expected but because of the powerful right hook you managed to land on his temple. Five fell on his ass, stunned, hurt and utterly confused. 
He opened his eyes to see you hurriedly get up from your spot and back away from him. He almost didn’t register the fear in your eyes before you tripped on a nearby bench and fell over. Always quick, Five jumped to your side and caught you before you touched the hard floor. 
“What’s wrong? It’s me, Five!” He asked, his voice laced with worry while his eyes searched your face for any clue of why you attacked him after clearly being happy that he was back. 
“You’re not Five.” You spat with anger. “Let go of me, asshole!” You jiggled in his grip, successfully freeing yourself without much of a fight, your words paralyzing him. It couldn’t be. 
His sibling’s footsteps along with their worried voices echoed around Five but none of their words reached him, his thoughts were way too loud for any sound to break through his mind. 
The answer was obvious. His siblings always managed to fuck up his plans, creating the biggest catastrophes everywhere they went and destroyed everything they touched. They had fucked with the timeline. They had fucked his dream. They had fucked his future. 
Just as Five thought he couldn’t be angrier, a new bunch of people joined your side, one particular brown-haired man wrapping you in his arms from behind and holding you tightly to his chest. The sight of another man holding you made his blood boil in his vein, the feeling reminded him of the deadly phase seven; homicidal rage. If you hadn’t gripped tightly the man’s forearm, Five would have definitely jumped into a fight he was sure to lose but needed beyond reason. 
“Who the hell are these guys?” Klaus’ voice broke the heavy silence of the room. 
The biggest one of the new group turned his head toward his brother and Five already knew what he was going to say. 
“We are the Sparrow Academy. I am Number One.“ 
Five’s eyes were still locked with yours, wishing for this nightmare to end or for you to break out of your act and confess that this was a very elaborate prank like you used to pull on him in your younger years. His salvation never came. 
"Shit.”
Five was surprised his family caught up with the events instead of being clueless as usual. 
Turns out their dad was disappointed enough of them during their meeting in the 60s that he adopted a completely different set of children instead. Five was sure that it wouldn’t hurt that much, knowing his dad replaced him, but it did hurt. A lot. After all he did to save the world, he was replaced like an insignificant object. Oh and to top it all? You fell in love with the current Number Five who can manipulate time as he willed. Out of spite, Five decided to call him Square from now on. 
The lack of sleep mixed with his jealousy was making him very snappy and on edge. When he was trying to stop the apocalypse the first time, you were the only one able to calm him down from his cumulated frustration and anger. You’d take his hand, lay your head on his shoulder and talk to him about anything and everything. 
Maybe it was delusional of him to think that even in another timeline you would remember him if he shared enough time with you. He couldn’t stop thinking that he was the original, the very first Number Five and that you belonged with him and not a pale copy, so he jumped to the kitchen where he knew you were making yourself a drink.
“Hot chocolate.” The sweet scent reached his nostrils and the memory of you showing him how to make it just like you liked played in his mind, stretching his lips into a fond smile. “You never changed.”
“I don’t like what’s bitter.” You shot him a wary look, clearly remembering that he jumped on you earlier. “I thought my Five made it clear, you altered the timeline. Even if another me was with you, I am not yours.” You mixed the hot water with the cocoa mix and turned to get what else you needed to make it perfect. 
You stopped in your tracks when Five showed you the vanilla essence and chocolate chips in his hands.
“Thank you.” You whispered as you took the items from his hands. 
“Happy to know some things never change.” Five stated, following you near the mugs. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw you shoot him a glance when he reached on the shelves for a cup. 
“Do you remember your past and future lives yet?” He questioned as he prepared himself a pot of strong black coffee. 
“H-how do you know?” He was proud that finally your attention was completely on him. “My Five doesn’t even know.” Five tried to ignore the pinch of his heart when you stated that he wasn’t yours. 
“I know a lot about you.” He watched the black liquid fall from the coffee maker into the pot, hoping it would work faster. “Do you remember the 60s?" 
"I remember the French Renaissance, the US colonization and a bunch of other lives but no, I never lived in the 60s.” You frowned, your eyes moving away, surely trying to remember if you really lived in that period. 
“You did, you simply don’t remember it yet. If my theory is right, you won’t remember the 2019 life we had because everything changed in the 60s and erased it. This means that you’ll most likely remember the 60s some time soon and only then you’ll remember our 2019 because it happened back then.” His heartbeat accelerated at the perspective that you’d remember your affection for him and everything would go back to normal. Almost. 
“So you think because I’ll remember my past life I’ll leave my Five for you?” You scoffed. “You’re so frickin’ arrogant.” You grabbed your cup and turned around, preparing yourself to walk away from him. 
“I’m not arrogant!” His frustration exploded. 
“Oh yes you are!" 
"I’m scared!” His voice broke, but he didn’t care. Your furrowed brows relaxed and the insults on your tongue died along with your anger. 
“Why?" 
"I’m scared that I’ve lost forever the person who’s the most important to me. I survived 45 years in the apocalypse for you. I stopped an apocalypse for you. And you don’t even remember me.” At some point tears fell from his eyes, splashing into the cup tightly encased in his hands. “I’m scared I’ll never get to tell you that I love you.” His voice was merely a harsh whisper but you heard it nonetheless. He knew. 
Your footsteps walking away made him close his eyes in agony. Just like the day he found your tortured body lying in a pool of your blood. 
“Stop being an asswad.” You muttered before leaving the room. Five’s cup exploded between his hands, causing shards to cut into his flesh and blood to pool onto the counter. A small smile adorned his lips, a new flame of hope burning into his heart. 
You avoided him like the plague for the next following days, exiting every room he entered and eating outside the manor whenever you could. He found it quite irritating but he knew you needed the time to think. You were starting to remember, he was sure of it by the small glances he received from you everytime you fled to another room. 
He finally got some sleep, his dreams full of the comforting warmth of your arms, sweet words were whispered in his ears while one of your hands lightly combed his hair with your fingers. He desperately wanted to stay asleep, to never leave you again, but life was cruel and he always woke up, the reality hitting him like a brick. You would avoid him, again. He would die inside, again. 
After changing into his newly bought day clothes, Five jumped into the kitchen, his too great need of coffee controlling his actions. He found you seated on the counter next to the freshly brewed coffee pot, a book in hand, a hot chocolate cup in the other. 
“Good morning asswad.” You said without lifting your gaze from your line. 
Five noticed your grip tighten around your book as he made his way toward you. He stopped centimeters away from your knees, his gaze transfixed onto your evading eyes. He patiently waited for you to meet his gaze before bidding you good morning. 
Your breath caught in your throat when he leaned forward, his arm outstretched to grab a cup on the shelve behind you. Maybe today wouldn’t be as bad as the others. 
He poured himself a cup full to the brim and carefully took a first gulp of his liquid addiction. He sighed at the taste, strong and bitter, just as he liked. 
“So I do remember it right.” You closed your book and put it at your side on the counter. Your eyes lifted to meet his, causing Five to almost drop his cup at your tired expression. “What am I supposed to do now?” You sighed and rubbed your face with your free hand. 
Five’s stress level skyrocketed. He knew what you were referring to. You were torn apart between living your present or allowing your past feelings to guide who you are now. He had wished the choice would have been obvious, that you would choose him without an ounce of doubt, but you were struggling. 
“My feelings for you were so strong that I feel them now a-and they confuse me so much. I never felt that for-” You stopped yourself but Five knew what you meant. You never loved Square that hard and he was glad. “But what we had was in the past and what I have with him is real.” Tears gattered in your eyes just as panic flowed through Five’s mind. 
“What we had was real! It’s still real now! You feel it and I sure as hell still feel it!” He put down his cup and softly placed his hands on your knees, desperation to prove his point showing in his eyes. 
“I’m just being overwhelmed by my past.” You shook your head as tears fell down your cheeks. 
“No you’re not. You’re panicking because you remembered me and fell in love with me through your memories. I’m the same man and you are the same woman and you know it!" 
A sob passed your lips and Five reached for your waist to pull you into a comforting hug. Before his fingers even touched your form, you disappeared. Stunned, he turned around to find you into Square’s arms, his angry eyes shooting daggers at Five. 
"Stay away from her.” He growled before disappearing with you. 
Five kicked the nearest chair, pissed off by the time manipulator. He could not fight with someone capable of slowing, quickening or even stopping time. He had to put his last hope in you.
Square stayed at your sides for the next two days. Five saw how his constant presence was getting on your nerves, you needed time alone and he was denying you that out of jealousy. 
Five was scribbling into his notebook when you walked up to him, definitely pissed off. Your hands were closed into tight fists and you huffed as you let yourself fall onto the couch next to him. You lifted your feet onto the cushion and hugged your knees. 
He wanted to reach out for you so much, although it was clear that you needed your space. He waited for you to start the conversation, apprehension eating at him. 
“They say ‘You can’t just give up on someone because the situation is not ideal. Great relationships aren’t great because they have no problems. They’re great because both people care enough about the other person to find a way to make it work.’” You took a deep breath before turning your head to meet his eyes. “I want to make us work. Like we always did." 
Five’s heart stopped. Not in agony this time, but in relief. Happiness overwhelmed his senses and quickly, he reached for you to pull you against his chest and keep you close while tears fell from his eyes as the stress lifted from his shoulder. Your arms snaked their way around his waist and for a moment, he let himself melt under your touch that he needed for so long now. 
"I love you.” He whispered the words he so desperately wanted to tell you in the 60s. 
“I love you too.” You snuggled deeper into his neck, your hot breath on his skin giving him goosebumps. “Thank you." 
"For what?” He frowned, genuinely wondering why you were thanking him. 
“You stopped the apocalypse, Five. You gave so much to save the world.” You pulled away, smiling at him brightly. “Thank you." 
Five realised that he was never thanked before for anything he had done for anyone. His composure melted and more tears ran down his face, the very first acknowledgement of his actions and sacrifices hitting him right in the feels. 
"I’d do it all again for you.” He replied with a broken voice, his throat constricted and tears drowning him. 
You pulled him into your chest after letting your feet fall on the floor, where he cried out of relief that you were still with him and out of exhaustion of everything he went through so that he could ensure that you and his family were safe.
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Text
Becoming A Stark? (1) Peter Parker X Stark! Fem Reader
A/N: This will eventually be a Peter Parker X Stark! femReader. However, there was backstory needed so Peter won’t be introduced until Chapter Six. This takes place after Iron Man 3 but before AOU. However time is wishy washy and will pass in weird ways so lol opps. Let me know if you want to be tagged.
Word Count: 3073
Warnings: Swearing
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You feel it in your soul that you will hate Tony Stark for the rest of your life. It doesn’t matter that you’re related to him. It doesn’t matter that you’re his daughter. He ripped you from everything you’ve ever known. You were happy living with your grandparents. Sure they were getting up there in age, but you were happy. You had a life, you had friends, hell you had been working on moving forward with your crush and were hoping to have a date to homecoming this year. But all of that was ruined the day that Tony Stark waltzed through your front door. You can’t help but think back to that interaction. 
“Nana, who’s this?”
“Tony Stark. Genius, billionaire, philanthropist, Iron Man, to name a few things. I’d offer a hand but that’s not something I normally do. I guess, maybe I should due to the circumstances but…” It’s not the first time you’ve seen his face. The Avengers have saved New York a few times, but it is the first time you’ve seen him up close. The dark haired stranger trails off and you’re put off by his attitude alone. Why was someone this stuck up standing in your living room? So instead of saying anything, you turn your head back to your book. Tony decides to take a seat at the opposite end of the couch and tries again. “What are you reading?” 
Instead of answering, you just hold up the book and let him read the cover. Once and Future, spelled out on the spine of the book that you had removed the book jacket from while you read. “Y/N, maybe put the book down for a few minutes. I think Mr. Stark-”
“Tony is fine.”
“I think Tony and you need to discuss something.” You hesitantly pick up the receipt you had been using as a bookmark and slide it into the book, not wanting to leave Ari Helix behind, but you wouldn’t be rude to your Nana on a good day. On a day that you had trudged through the snow in your converse, maybe, but not on purpose.
“I don’t know him. I don’t think we have anything to discuss.”
“You’re right, we don’t know each other yet, but I’m hoping that will change with everything that’s going to happen.”
“What’s going to happen?” You can feel your eyebrows fall towards your eyes as you feel as though something is about to change without your permission.
“Well Y/N, I’m… I’m your dad.”
“Bullshit.” You say quickly. “Tony Stark doesn’t have kids. And if he did, there would have been a fucking gossip blog screaming about it already.”
“Well you definitely have my mouth if nothing else.” Tony adds with a chuckle. 
“I don’t have anything of yours, because you’re not my dad. I never want to see you again. Get the fuck out.” You push off the couch and turn to run off to your room.
“See that’s going to be a little tough seeing as you're supposed to come live with me.”
“What the fuck did you just say?” You turn on your heels, the anger building quickly. You’ve always been a bit of a hot head, but in this moment you don’t even try to control your temper. “I have a home, thank you very kindly. I don’t fucking know you. And I’m not looking to find a dad anytime soon.” The words spit out of you before you can stop any of them. 
“See the thing is, you’re fourteen and I’m your dad. Custodially, you’re supposed to live with me.”
“See the thing is,” you mock before continuing, “You didn’t care for fourteen years, so I don’t give a shit what you think you’re supposed to be doing custodially.” You can’t help but add air quotes around the word custodially. It burns as it leaves your lips. He hasn’t cared about you for fourteen years, why start now? 
“That’s because I didn’t know you existed Y/N. I found out about you twenty four hours ago and I’m stepping up now.” The words leave his mouth in an exasperated tone, but he doesn’t raise his voice.
“How?”
“How what?”
“How did you find out about me?” 
“Your high school.”
“What?”
“When you registered for school they had your birth certificate. They needed more information. Since it listed me as your father, they reached out to Nat- to my assistant. It was quite the shock to me that my child’s school was reaching out to me, since I didn’t know I had a child but the timing adds up and looking at you, it makes a lot of sense.”
“You were listed on my birth certificate?” This question was aimed at your grandparents more than at Tony-your father.
“We didn’t know if it was true or not. Your mom was in a bad place when she had you Y/N. So we had to take everything she said with a grain of salt. Was she beautiful and loving and did she love you? Yes completely. But did a lot of what she said during that time make sense? No, not at all.” Your nana says as she sits down on the couch, rubbing her knee. It’s probably another bad day. If you leave, who will make sure Nana and Pops are ok?
“I can’t go with you.” You cross your arms as you speak to Ton-your father.
“Why not?” His eyebrow raises over his square glasses.
“‘Cuz someone has to help Nana and Pops around the house.”
“I’ll make sure there’s a nurse helping them. Or better we can move them into a nursing facility where they don’t have to go up and down a bunch of flights of steps all the time.”
“Why would you do that.” The question came out as a demand, especially since you don’t want to believe this man that’s taking you away from the only family you’ve ever known would do something… nice.
“Because they’re your family. I’m not heartless. Well I guess that depends on what your belief on science is and arc reactors are, but technically I do still have a heart underneath all of this.” He points to where you know there would be metal and lights under his suit. “But for right now, we need to focus on getting you to the tower.”
“What tower?”
“Avenger’s tower? It’s closer than Malibu? And in less shambles.”
“So you’re moving me from the home that I know and love, but you don’t even live where you’re moving me?”
“I live there a lot of the time. And the Avengers are there most of the time which means you’ll be very safe. But I do have to travel for business.”
“Then I’ll stay where I am thanks.” Tony goes to speak when Wallace goes off. The beeping is only jarring for him since you and your Nana are used to it going off at random times.
“What the hell is that?”
“That is Wallace.” You say, not clearing up anything. Hmmm, your Dexcom says you’re 205 and rising? You could have sworn you had insulin on board. So you unclip the pump from your side and tap the screen to enter your blood sugar. No correction needed. 
“You good babydoll?” Your nana asks from across the living room.
“I’m good. I have insulin on board.”
“You’re diabetic?” Tony asks, putting two and two together.
“Yup. Have been since I was four.”
“And Wallace?” He asks hesitantly.
“Do you honestly care?” You say before rolling your eyes and walking towards the kitchen. Mentally, you slap yourself. You should have grabbed your book. Now you’ll either have to start a new one or wait until your father, you roll your eyes at even saying it, leaves so you can continue your space adventure. Walking down the hallway you enter your room and close the door behind you. All you want to do is shut out the bombshell that was dropped on you and not deal with it. But for some reason you get the feeling that Tony Stark, freaking Iron Man, isn’t one to just let things go. 
Giving up on the idea of starting another book, you open your computer and click your Spotify to start playing the playlist you had paused this morning when you had left to run errands with Pops. You only have two weeks of summer left, so you had spent time getting school supplies and groceries before returning to the apartment. While Hitchin’ A Ride by Green Day starts playing, you open Twitter, hoping for anything to distract yourself. But somehow you find yourself on Tony Stark’s Twitter. It was less narcissistic that you imagined for him. Some retweets about Stark Industries, a few comical tweets about wanting a cheeseburger, and then a tweet from twenty four hours that just said HOLY SHIT in all caps and nothing else. Could that be about you? Closing out Twitter, you find yourself opening up your Tumblr to scroll as Lithium by Nirvana played. Or well you tried to scroll, but a knock on your door interrupts you. 
“Can I come in?” Tony’s head peaks in.
“If I say no will you go?” You say without looking up.
“Probably not. The people in my inner circle say I’m fairly stubborn.”
“Hmm.” Is the only reply you give him. To be fair, a lot of your friends would say you’re stubborn too so it’s not that surprising that your father is too. 
“I know you don’t like it kiddo-”
“Don’t call me kiddo.
“-but we do need to head to the Tower soon. Happy’s been parked downstairs for about as long as he’s allowed to be there.” Tony continues as if you hadn’t said anything. “So how about you pack up stuff you’ll need for the next few days and then I can send Happy and some other people to come get the rest later on?”
“You’re going to send people to pack up my stuff? You know how invasive that is?” 
“Ok, I’ll send you over with them, you can pack it up and they’ll move it to the tower, it’s your choice. Or to Malibu if you’d rather. Well that is once the rebuild is done. Long story. But if you stay at the tower, you won’t have to change schools.”
“Yippee. Everyone at school will get to find out that Tony Stark is my father. How much fun will that be.” Your voice is dripping with sarcasm. “I definitely wanted to be ostracized my first year at high school. Thanks for making it even better than I could ever imagine high school being.”
“Look I know this isn’t a win/win scenario, but we can keep your name out of the press until your eighteen if you want. You’re a minor-”
“Yeah, but when the paparazzi see me coming out of the tower, that won’t tip them off.”
“I’ll have Happy drive you. There’s a garage entrance. No one will see you coming or leaving.”
“Great so I just have to give up my freedom. That’s even better than I imagined.”
“Y/N, I know this isn’t what you wanted, or even what you want, but I think we can come up with something that works in the long run. Plus I’m having Pepper, you’ll meet her later, take over SI so I won’t have to do as much. I can try to stay in New York as much as possible. Because no matter what happens, you’re my daughter and I want to know you.” You don’t say anything in response. “I hope one day, you feel similarly.” He says softly.
“I doubt it.” You say honestly. 
“Well even if that’s the case, right now we do need to pack up some stuff to take to the tower for now. Want me to hel-” He starts to pick up a sweatshirt from the end of your bed and you snatch it from his hand as you reply.
“I’ve got it.”
“Y/N, we’re here.” Your father’s voice pulls you from your thoughts and you look at the non descript parking garage that is under what you assume is the tower. The man you’ve figured out is Happy, though he’s the exact opposite of Happy, opens your door and you climb out, knowing that Tony will be behind you. Happy goes to grab your bags from the trunk, but you stop him. 
“I’ve got it.”
“It’s part of my job.”
“I don’t have an issue carrying my own stuff like some people.” From the trunk you lift out your purple backpack, the black rolling suitcase, and the canvas bag that’s filled with all your pump supplies, sensors, and insulin. You follow Tony and Happy towards an elevator. 
“JARVIS take us to the main floors.”
“Certainly sir.” You look up expecting to see a face or something but there’s no one there.
“JARVIS is the AI that runs the whole tower. If you need anything JARVIS is the one to ask. If there’s specific food you want or if you need stuff for school or, well, anything really, just ask JARVIS. I’ll get you added to the levels of clearance that allow you to order anything that you want.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Part of you living with me is that I’m going to provide for you. JARVIS is part of providing for you. I’m not the best at remembering to like grocery shop or send the laundry out so JARVIS helps with that.”
“Send the laundry out? Do you not have a washer and dryer in this whole place?” You cock an eyebrow at how spoiled he sounds.
“We do, but there are other things that take time away from me.” You add continue to do my own laundry to the mental list of things that will make you different from your father. Tony notices the disapproval marked in his daughter’s face and hopes that maybe meeting the Avengers will make up for the disappointment he’s been to her so far. The doors open and in the living room Natasha and Clint are sitting watching a movie while Steve sits in a chair reading a book. “Where’s Code Green?”
“In the lab,” Steve comments, not looking up from the page he’s on.
“That’s Capsicle. Legolas is sitting next to Nat. Big Green is down in the lab and Point Break is currently back at home but you’ll meet him eventually, though hopefully not his brother.” At the sound of being introduced the three in the living room look up and see the girl standing next to Tony in surprise.
“Uh, Tony, are we taking pint size Avengers now?” Clint asks.
“I might be small, but I can kick your knees out just as easily.” You pull on the strap of your backpack, not really wanting to be in this room much longer. 
“Ok, before you kick anyone’s knees out. This is not an Avenger recruit. This is Y/N Stark, my daughter.” Ok taking on his last name was something you were going to have to talk to him about because you were perfectly happy being Y/N Y/L/N, not this Y/N Stark bullshit.
“You have a kid?” Steve asks, genuine confusion spread across his face. 
“I do. I didn’t know until yesterday, but I’m doing the right thing.” You can’t stop the snort that escapes you. Tony looks over at you.
“Sorry,” You say although you don’t mean it. “Can I es- go to my room?”
“‘Yes, you can escape to your room. I’ll show you where it is.” 
“I got it boss. I think you have some people that need answers.” Happy offers. You’re silently relieved that Happy offered to show you. If you had to spend another minute with your dad, you might lose your mind. Happy walks you into the kitchen and opens the fridge as you go past it. You look at him, trying to figure out why he’s opening it. “Tony told me you’re diabetic. You have insulin that needs refrigeration right?”
“Oh, yeah I just didn’t know he told you.”
“Head of security. There’s not much he doesn’t tell me.” Happy turns them towards a staircase leading away from where all the Avengers are. “But you know if you need someone to talk to, or grab a cheeseburger with, there’s things he doesn’t have to know about.”
“I don’t eat meat, but I appreciate it, Happy.”
“He’s going to say you’re not his kid if you don’t eat cheeseburgers.” And for the first time since all of this started, you actually let out a laugh.
Tony’s head turns towards the sound of the laugh. It’s unfamiliar, but he wants to hear more of it. He’s missed fourteen years of your life, but he wants to make things better, he does. He’s just not sure how.
“So you found out you have a kid?” Steve asks, his book forgotten now.
“Yeah, yesterday I found out I had a fourteen year old and then it’s been a whole process of finding out that since she’s mine I have custody technically.”
“So you took her away from all she knows?” Natasha's voice comes softly from the couch. 
“I guess you could say that.”
“Did you give her a choice?” Natasha asks, harsher this time. In her eyes anyone could see the remainders of another girl that was taken from all she ever knew and replaced with a hard boiled assassin.
“In the eyes of the state she doesn’t really have a choice.”
“So you didn’t give her a choice.”
“She’s got a medical condition that was costing her family thousands a month on top of her grandparents’ conditions. I’m helping!” Tony’s voice raises for the first time this afternoon since he tried to stay calm around his kid.
“You think you’re helping, but you’re taking her from the only life she’s ever known and I’m betting you gave her no choice in this. All you might get out of this is four years with her and then she disappears from your life.” Clint says softly, not trying to upset Tony, but also hearing the points that Natasha was bringing up. 
“You’re going to have to work hard to make this worth it to Y/N, Tony.” Steve says before picking up his book.
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dt-canim · 3 years
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Oh boy, this is gonna be a long one haha. This is a bit of an unusual post, but Tumblr, I need some assistance.
Ok so I've always have known about autism and stuff like it but it wasn't until about a year ago that I started looking into neurodivergency more. If you're wondering, it was brought about by my favorite Ducktales episode (season 3 episode 6: Astro Boyd) airing for the first time and I saw people talking about its autistic/neurodivergent themes.
Since then, I’ve been picking up some of my tendencies and it got me wondering. I never remember getting tested for this stuff so this is just based on my experiences and research. So for educational purposes, I'm gonna put some of the traits I do and see if any neurodivergent ppl relate lol
The first thing I want to touch upon is something plenty of us are probably familiar with: stimming. My experiences include;
Excitedly hitting a book I'm reading because of a cool call back, a really funny joke, or simply something badass happening (this just happened to me other day lol)
Flailing my arms and/or legs when something similar (to the point above) happens in a movie or tv show I enjoy
“Vibing” with my best friend includes: waving my arms and head around, bobbing up and down like I am an idle video game character, and/or just generally moving in place for a solid minute or two
The next thing I will mention: Hyperfixations
If you have seen my Tumblr, profile, or simply paid attention to the beginning of this post, you may not be surprised that I hyperfixate with my favorite show, possibly ever, Ducktales. I got emotional last year when I heard it was ending and legitimately cried at the end of the last episode. I mean watching those final credits still makes my heart hurt. (And I know I'm terrible at posting but I will never truly leave the Dt fandom)
Sometimes it happens rather quickly. For instance, I went to the mall with my friend last Saturday and impulsively bought a book called The Extraordinaries. I finished it in 3 days and I swear if I don't go back to that Barnes & Noble and get my hands on the sequel soon I will do crimes.
When I find things to hyperfixate about it is all I want to talk about with people for a while. But then I feel bad when they don't share my interests because I don't just want people to listen to me babble my head off all the time about stuff they don't care about.
Something I found out recently, losing track of time apparently can be a neurodivergent trait.
So yeah I've done this a lot. Overall, I just have terrible time management skills. I'm not great at putting things down on a timeline and it makes me anxious when I do so.
Also, since going into homeschooling about 5 years ago, I constantly lose track of time. Most of the time, I only know what day and time it is because I have a calendar next to my bed and a phone around me at all times. (off-topic but it annoys me that I used the word time so often here)
Prioritizing tasks, knowing how to start things, and just overall getting shiz done..???
I have. So many. Sketches I want to finish. But I keep going to a new one cause woop I just got a new idea must do it now right?! (Seriously though, I'm sorry that I haven't been posting much art lately)
I have a comic I want to start developing but I have no idea how on earth I should do that. And sometimes things seem obvious, like get the outlines for your story, get main plot points down, PUT YOUR DAM IDEAS YOU HAVE IN YOUR HEAD DOWN SOMEWHERE ANYWHERE. But nooo I'll just sit here and keep starting new sketches of my main characters. That'll get you a product you'll be happy with.
Sometimes I will just sit there thinking ok I'm sitting here but I have work I need to get done and I am running out of time to do it and it is stressing me out right now but I can't move I can't do it but I need to because it needs to get done and I am running out of time but it is stressful. Rinse and repeat for at least a half-hour, maybe take a nap lol.
This point is the fact that even though I never got tested I know I have maladaptive daydreaming which has a link to Adhd and neurodivergency in general.
For those who don't know what that is, I will try to explain. Yes, it is daydreaming but it's more than that. (you know what? I'm just gonna put the traits I found off of a site and add my feelings toward it lol)
extremely vivid daydreams with their own characters, settings, plots, and other detailed, story-like features
daydreams triggered by real-life events (mostly media I consume in my case)
difficulty completing everyday tasks (kinda like the stress-sitting I mentioned earlier just with daydreaming mixed in)
difficulty sleeping at night (at the time of making this point is it currently 3 am, though I am aware I'm up rn because of this post, it is usually because of the daydreaming)
an overwhelming desire to continue daydreaming (ok that's just...accurate)
performing repetitive movements while daydreaming (typically I walk around my house like a ping pong ball)
making facial expressions while daydreaming (idk I usually mouth what my character are saying or replicate the face their making)
whispering and talking while daydreaming (^^)
daydreaming for lengthy periods
The last thing I will mention for now is my family cause many sources say that this stuff is commonly genetic soooooooo
My mother has been diagnosed with dyslexia since she was a kid.
We've suspected that my brother has Adhd. To put it in perspective I will paraphrase something that his 2nd-grade teacher once said. “He moves around so much I want to just strap him to a chair sometimes but I am afraid to do it cause I think he'll explode”
I have more I could potentially talk about but I don't want to make this too long. I just want to know if anyone relates to this. So here take this mess of me hahahaaaaaaaa
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drprettyboyspence · 4 years
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You’re a Hero, Spencer Reid
Dr. Spencer Reid/reader 
Summary: Late one night Spencer comes home from an especially difficult case. His girlfriend Y/n persuades him to talk about it. Inspired by the JJ/Will episode “Sick Day” (Season 12 Episode 2) This takes place during Season 15. 
words: 4.9k
warnings: mentions of violence, mental illness (basically the amount of violence in a regular cm episode), angst, very very light swearing,  nothing else to my knowledge! 
a/n: I honestly love that JJ and Will scene so I decided to right one about Spencer. This made up case took we way too long to come up with and honestly I know way too much about lobotomies now lol, but I hope you enjoy!! :) 
It’s 12:30 am, Spencer Reid trudges up the stairs to his second floor apartment which he shares with his girlfriend of 5 years, Y/n Y/l/n. His body on the verge of collapsing but his mind hyped up on adrenaline, Spencer pulls his key out of his pocket before unlocking the door, excited to finally be home after an energy-draining case. He knows he should sleep, the team very rarely gets much sleep during a case and the last one had been short but intense, so it’s been about 48 hours since Spencer has slept if he’s being truly honest. Spencer feels as if he’s in a trance, he’s exhausted but he just knows he won’t be able to sleep if he tries. His exhaustion leads him to crash into a chair near the table, causing it to scrape against the floor loudly. Damn it Spencer thinks, hoping he didn’t wake up his girlfriend but knowing he probably isn’t that lucky. 
“Baby, you’re finally home! I missed you so much!” Y/n says, appearing out of the shadowy hallway, obviously having just woken up. She gives Spencer a hug and notices the way he holds on to her extra tightly, like he does when he’s feeling stressed or overwhelmed. 
“I missed you too Y/n, so much.” Spencer whispers, still enveloping her in a tight hug. The last case had been harder on him than he’s willing to admit, but holding Y/n close to him makes him feel safe, he can’t lose her if he just never lets go, right? 
“Are you okay Spence?” Y/n asks after Spencer finally lets her go. She knows the tells, she may not be an FBI profiler but she can tell when Spencer isn’t okay, and right now is unfortunately one of those times. She can see the way he holds her just the smallest bit too tight, she can see his eyes, droopy from exhaustion but darting around the room at the same time, still hyped up on the adrenaline from the case, and the eye circles that have become a signature look for her boyfriend are even darker than usual, showing he’s been without sleep for likely more than a day. 
“I’m fine Y/n, really, you know how the job is, it's never easy.” Spencer replies, in a manner that shows Y/n he wants to talk about it, but he doesn’t know how to ask and doesn’t want to be a bother. 
“Are you sure Spence? We can talk about it if you want to-“
“I said I’m fine Y/n! Please drop it!” Spencer snaps back at Y/n, regret immediately flushing over his face. He doesn’t yell at her often, and they hardly ever fight, he says he’s seen too many couples separated by tragedy to waste time on silly arguments and quarrels. “I’m sorry sweetheart, I didn’t mean to snap at you, I think I’m just high-strung and exhausted.” 
“You can’t keep it in Spencer, it will all build up inside and stay with you, you know that. We need to talk about it if it's weighing down on you this heavily, I’ll put the coffee on, it looks like we won’t be sleeping for a while.” Y/n says warmly, walking across the kitchen to switch on the coffee machine. “Okay Spence, start at the beginning…” 
40 hours earlier 
“All I’m saying JJ is that you aren’t even giving science-fiction a chance, its not all-”
“Spence I honestly don’t care, I refused to go to comic-con with you back in the day and I still refuse now, but you can take the boys, they’d love to go.” JJ and Spencer abruptly finish their conversation as they walk into the round table room and see the rest of the team staring back at them with solemn looks on their faces. 
“Let’s get started please.” Emily says promptly as JJ and Spencer take their respective seats at the table, everyone focusing their attention on Garcia.  
“Alright my crime-solving friends today’s devilishness comes to us from the one, the only, sin city itself, Las Vegas, Nevada.” Long-time members of the team glance sympathetically at Reid, knowing how difficult it can be for him to go home, especially now that his mother has been moved closer to Virginia. “Those pictures on your tablet now, they are of Dolores Smith, the fifth victim in a series of what appears to be lobotomies gone wrong.” The team winces, remembering the last time lobotomies had come up in a BAU case. 
“The fifth victim? Why weren’t we called in earlier, lobotomies aren’t exactly a common occurrence, even in Las Vegas.” Rossi asks. 
“This unsub has been driving his victims out into the desert, even crossing state lines, victim number two, Susan Atkins, she was found in Utah, almost 400 miles away. They simply didn’t put it together until the last two victims were found in Las Vegas.”
“Garcia, anything connecting the victims, they seem to be of different sexes and ages.” JJ asks. 
“Yes, this is where it gets tricky, all five victims were schizophrenic patients at Bennington Sanitarium.” It was like a chill went through the room.
“So they were all patients at a mental hospital?” Luke says, clearly confused about the strange energy currently in the room. 
“Tell them Spence” Emily urges. 
“Bennington Sanitarium isn’t just any mental hospital, it's the mental hospital my mom was in.” 
The coffee machine beeps, interrupting Spencer’s telling of the story, he moves to pour the cups. Y/n places her hand on his knee before he can move out of the chair.
“Sweetheart, let me do it, you just sit here and try to relax, you’ve been through enough, the least I can do is a pour a damn cup of coffee for you.” Y/n picks out Spencer’s favorite mug, a Doctor Who one she had bought him for the first Christmas they spent together. They both inhale deeply over the cups of steaming liquid, as good as gold on a late night like this, the 1:20 am flashing over the stove only showing as a reminder that this night won’t be ending any time soon. “Alright, continue.” 
36 hours earlier
“So here’s what we know. All five victims had recently been released from Bennington Sanitarium, they were schizophrenic, having been residents of the hospital for ten to twelve years.” Luke starts the discussion as the jet begins its descent into Las Vegas. 
“Why were they released?” Spencer responds. 
“Garcia, any information you can give us?” Tara asks the computer screen where Garcia’s face pops up. 
“My friends, unluckily because of the discreet nature of mental health records, the mistress of all things technological is having a little bit of trouble narrowing in on the information you search for, but from what I can see, all five victims were taken out of the hospital after responding well to medication, I haven’t gotten to those records yet but I will hit you back as soon as I hear anything, peace out.” 
“You okay Reid?” Emily asks Spencer as quietly as she can, knowing that this case is surely striking a nerve with him, all these victims sharing a very big part of their life with his mother, she probably knew some of them personally. 
“I just have a bad feeling about this, and I tend to listen to those feelings very carefully. Let’s finish this one quick and get back to Quantico.”
“You heard the kid, let’s make quick work of this case and put this bastard away before he can even think about taking another victim.” Rossi states, earning nods from the rest of the time. 
“I hate to burst your bubbles my friends, but a sixth victim has just been found in Las Vegas once again, 63 year old Barbara Sullivan.” Garcia popped in. 
“Alright change of plans everyone, Matt go to the 5th dump site, Tara and JJ, you girls will go to the most recent dump site, Luke and Rossi will go the morgue, try to get any information you can about the lobotomies, Reid and I, we’ll go to Bennington and get insight into why each of these victims were released and what medicines they were on at the time. 
“Sorry to interrupt, but why was Garcia having such a hard time finding the medical records, isn’t that type of thing usually a breeze for her?”  Y/n asks. She’d become quite close to Garcia in the years she and Spencer had been together and there was nothing that girl couldn’t do. 
“We were having trouble with that too to be honest, mental health records are usually rather secretive, but nothing a hacker like Garcia wouldn’t be able to crack in an instant. Can I have another cup of coffee baby?” 
“Of course Spence, anything you need.” Y/n say before filling up another coffee, glad he’s finally relaxed enough to talk freely about whatever happened on this case that was so clearly affecting him. 
34 hours earlier 
“Dr. Reid, good to see you again, I wish we didn’t have to meet under these circumstances though.” The main doctor at Bennington says, having known Spencer over the years Diana had spent at the hospital. 
“Dr., hello. This is BAU Unit Chief Emily Prentiss, we want to ask you some questions about the victims if that would be possible. I know it’s-”
“Excuse me Dr.! Oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt! Wait, are you Dr. Spencer Reid of the Behavioral Analysis Unit? I’m a huge fan of your work. Work, oh god you must be here about the recent murders, tragic aren’t they?” A rather hyper man interrupts Spencer. Spencer awkwardly and reluctantly shakes the hand of the stranger, both him and Emily puzzled about this strange interruption. 
“Mr. Robbins, if you would, please leave us alone as the federal agents and I have some important details to discuss. Actually, you may go home for the day, your services are no longer needed, see you tomorrow.” The high-strung man nods eagerly before waving once more and leaving. “I’m so sorry about that Dr. Reid, that would be the new data collector and organizer, Mr. Robbins, a bit hyper for my taste, but that man is a wizard with anything technological.” Just as Emily is about to resume questions about the victims, Garcia calls. 
“What’s up Garcia? Anything you can tell us?” 
“Emily, my sweet, sadly I come once again bearing bad news. A woman has just been reported missing, 54 year old Dana Reeley, schizophrenic, reported missing by her son 20 minutes ago, says he left the house for no longer than 20 minutes, came back to an empty house no signs of struggle.” 
“Is it possible his mother is confused, left the house on her own?” Spencer asks, remembering times his mother had been so confused that she went off on her own. 
“Definitely not, the doors had protective covers, the mother couldn’t get out by herself, it had happened before. By the way, I’m still having an extreme amount of trouble trying to figure out why the victims were taken out of the hospital.” 
“Oh I can help you with that, each of the victims were taken out of this establishment due to the opinions of each of their respective children that they would be better taken care of under their own roofs.” 
“Well, uh- thank you unknown male voice that I’m assuming is the Dr. running Bennington Sanitarium, that’s helpful information.” 
“Dr. thank you for your time, but it seems we should we getting to the police station.” Emily says, realizing that this probably isn’t a good place for Spencer to be, and seeing his face becoming increasingly distressed due to the implications of the information the Dr. had just given them, if they’re going to need him to use his brain to solve this case they need to get out of here. 
“Woah wait one second Spencer, all of the victims were patients at the same hospital that your mom spent years at, they were all schizophrenic, and they were all taken out of the hospital by their children shortly before their murder, that’s a-“
“Hell of a coincidence, I know, and you know me, there’s no such thing as coincidences. This was weird though, like a very small chance that this could be about me, but it was seeming more and more like I was to be more involved with this case than I had thought.” 
24 hours earlier
The rest of the team had gone to bed hours ago, but Spencer is still awake, lying in the hotel bed staring at the ceiling. He debates calling Y/n, he tries not to bring his work home, he tries his hardest to keep the purest thing in his life away from the horrors and despair he sees everyday. He doesn’t want to put two and two together on this case, he doesn’t want to believe that this could all be because of him, all these victims, their lives ended early, simply because he decided to join the FBI those many years ago. It had happened before, Professor Rothschild back in 2009 and he doesn’t like to think about it, but Maeve was in the center of a case inspired by him as well. Spencer knows he’s overreacting, he knows he can’t blame himself, he didn’t kill those victims, and he didn’t force the hand of the unsubs, all he can do now is get some sleep so he can use his IQ of 187 to stop this son of a bitch, stop him from killing anyone else, ever. 
The sound of a stomach rumbling interrupts Spencer this time. 
“Spencer, when was the last time you ate? God knows how long its been since you slept and its probably been even longer since you ate. Tell me how long Spence, please.” Spencer looks down guiltily, knowing that Y/n is going to be mad when he utters his next words. 
“I don’t know um I’m having trouble remembering-“ Y/n’s face tells it all, the man with the eidetic memory can’t remember when the last time he ate was. “It was yesterday afternoon, there were bagels at the Las Vegas police station, terrible ones but I ate one of those, figured I shouldn’t be drinking five cups of coffee a day on an empty stomach.” 
“Yesterday afternoon? Spencer it’s 2:30 am!” 
“Okay so the day before yesterday afternoon I guess, sue me Y/n!” 
“Spencer Reid I know you aren’t trying to tell me you haven’t eaten in over 36 hours! You wouldn’t do that to me right? Sweetheart, you need food! What would you like?” Y/n notices that it’s strange, right now in this moment Spencer looks like a small child, shy and embarrassed. 
“Um, could you…make pancakes?” Spencer quietly asks. Y/n could laugh, Dr. Spencer Reid, renowned FBI agent who will walk into an interrogation room no problem, is scared to ask his significant other to make pancakes. 
“Pancakes is it? Sure thing sweetheart I’ll make pancakes.” 
“With chocolate chips?” Spencer adds.
“Now you’re pushing it.” Y/n retorts back with a giggle, beginning to make the batter, if Spencer hasn’t eaten in 36 hours he deserves better than some nasty boxed pancakes, that’s for sure. “So what happened next Spence?” 
17 hours earlier 
“Good morning Garcia, any information for us?” Luke asks in the morning. 
“Oh newbie how I wish it was a good morning, another victim has been taken, 43 year old Richard Saxons, his daughter reported him missing when she woke up to an empty house, hasn’t seen him since last night.” The team looks at each other with confused glances. 
“Another victim? But he hasn’t dumped the last victim yet, this is a major change in M.O., do we think the last victim is still alive, we need to rethink this.” Emily explains. 
“Okay why a lobotomy? That can’t be the easiest way of killing the victims.” Matt asks.  
“Here’s the thing, this unsub isn’t necessarily meaning to kill the victims. Lobotomies began in the 1880s when Swiss physician Gottlieb Burkhardt removed parts of the cortex of the brains of patients with auditory hallucinations and other symptoms of schizophrenia. Later in 1935 Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz is credited with inventing the lobotomy. There are numerous negative effects and since the procedure literally involves drilling into the brain to slice up pieces of the frontal lobes, if it isn’t performed by a doctor there’s a very high mortality rate.” Spencer of course rattles off. 
“That makes sense with what the medical examiner told us, the lobotomies were crudely done but there was no reason to believe the unsub is a sadist, no signs of torture, the bodies were often dumped with what could be taken as remorse.” Rossi adds. 
“Okay so we’re looking at an unsub who’s trying to cure these victims of their schizophrenia.” Tara states. 
“We need to deliver the profile.” 
“We believe our unsub is a white male of medium build, we believe this because all victims have been caucasian and although there have been cases of serial killers crossing racial lines, overwhelming statistics show he’s most likely white.” Luke begins, 
“He has come into contact with all eight victims including the two currently missing, he knew all of them suffered from schizophrenia and were recently released, he waited until they were no longer patients at the hospital , meaning he most likely has a close connection to Bennington Sanitarium and could be tied back to the crimes, if he works at the hospital it puts him between the ages of 25 and 50, he could be the janitor, a cook, any job like that.” 
“We don’t believe he has official medical training because the manner by which the lobotomies were performed lacks the professionalism a doctor could use, but he also demonstrates knowledge of schizophrenia and lobotomies in general, which shows he isn’t dumb, most likely can hold down a job.” 
“Important as well, we don’t believe this unsub necessarily means to kill the victims, he is attempting to help cure these victims of their schizophrenic symptoms, he may have experienced a loss caused by mental health issues or believes the treatment each of the victims received was inadequate.” Tara finishes the profile, all of the team stepping back into the other room. 
“Hey Garcia you’re on speaker with the whole team here” Rossi answers his phone, 
“Hey guys, this is just getting more and more strange, I finally got into the hospital records, it really seemed as though someone was hacking me from the inside, but I finally got in and here’s the kicker, all of the records of the victims have been deleted, who would even have access for that.” Garcia says. 
“Okay we’ll looks into that Garcia, can you start looking at anyone who fits our profile, has access to the records at Bennington, and has purchased items needed to perform an at-home lobotomy in bulk over the last few months, if the missing woman has somehow survived, this unsub needs at least elementary medical equipment in order to keep her alive, hopefully we’ll see it in his credit history.” Spencer instructs to Garcia before Rossi hangs up the phone. 
“You know who might have some knowledge about all of this, that guy from the hospital, I know the Dr. osaid he’s only worked there a few months but maybe he’s seen something, or maybe he’s noticed someone snooping around the online files, we need to go back to the hospital, Spence lets go.” Emily says. 
“So Dr., you’re saying Mr. Robbins hasn’t been to work since you sent him home when we were here last? That’s odd. What did you say his name was again?” 
“Anthony Robbins, like I said before, he’s an odd guy but does good work, no one around here knows him that well though.” Spencer and Emily nod their heads to each other before Emily calls Garcia, 
“Garcia I need a background check on an Anthony Robbins, stat, and send Rossi and Luke to his house, we need to talk to this guy fast, he knows something.” 
“Agents, are you thinking he could have anything to do with this? I can’t imagine Mr. Robbins doing any harm to any one, especially not the patients at this hospital, he is always the kindest to them, the schizophrenia patients in particular.” Another call from Garcia interrupts Emily and Spencer before they can answer. 
“Things are starting to look a little weird, Anthony Robbins, 37 years old, native of Las Vegas, was born to Linda and Christian Robbins, he had a happy childhood, no signs of trauma or abuse that I can see. He doesn’t have a record, juvie or adult, but his life did change when he was 10.” 
“What happened then Garcia.” 
“Reid stop interrupting me, you know how I like to tell my dramatic story. When Robbins was 10 his 7 year old brother Charlie was diagnosed with schizophrenia, when he was 18 he was put into care at a mental hospital, not Bennington but a close by hospital.” 
“Any interest in alternative schizophrenia treatments?” 
“As a matter of fact my dear genius yes, Robbins has been publishing articles for years, and I’m looking at his recent purchases right now, Robbins has been purchasing health care equipment as well as tools needed for an at-home lobotomy, Anthony Robbins is your unsub.”
“Hey Rossi, change of plans, the guy’s our unsub. You sure? Alright you guys stay there in case he comes back, the guy must have a secondary location.” Emily says before hanging up her phone. “Alright Reid that was Rossi and Luke, Robbins isn’t at home and it looks like he left in a hurry, there’s gotta be somewhere else he’s working, Rossi also said he wouldn’t be able to hold anybody in that tiny apartment, there’s no room and neighbors would hear.” 
“Okay let’s think, we profiled he may have suffered some sort of loss. Garcia do you see any type of loss in this guy’s recent history.” 
“Charlie Robbins, his schizophrenic brother, died two months ago.” 
“That’s right before the murders started, that’s gotta be the stressor.” 
“Garcia what hospital was the brother treated at?” 
“Uh, it looks like a place called Smith Sanitarium, he was there was there for almost 20 years.” 
“Smith! I know where that is, it’s scheduled for demolition actually, closed down about a month ago and has been abandoned since, it’s only about a 15 minute drive.” 
“That’s the secondary location, let’s go Reid.” Emily says, the two agents rushing out of the room. 
“Spence, the pancakes are ready.” Y/n says, pouring syrup over the stack, just the way Spencer always likes them. 
“Thank you so much Y/n, I don’t deserve you. I know talking about the case is supposed to make me feel better but I just feel like an idiot. I mean, he was right there the first day we were at the hospital, it was so obvious, why didn’t I see it?” 
“Spencer stop that right now, you can’t blame yourself for any of it, you met that man for less than a minute when your mind was focused on researching the victims, there was nothing about him that should have screamed 'mad scientist performing lobotomies to mourn the loss of his recently deceased schizophrenic brother’, you can’t blame yourself.” Y/n reassures her boyfriend while reaching up to rub his shoulder. He begins eating the pancakes in front of him, groaning slightly at the taste of food after going so long without eating. 
“I love you Y/n, not just because you’re amazing at making pancakes, seriously these are so good, but because you somehow always know how to make me feel better.” 
“That’s my job babe, personal pancake chef and make-Spencer-Reid-feel-better specialist, now tell me what happened next, it seems like you’re almost at the end.” 
10 hours earlier 
“Alright Reid, the rest of the team and Las Vegas police are on their way and will meet us as soon as they can, but you and I are going to be on the scene first, they’re significantly further away than we are, we’ll have to wait for them of course, this man may not be meaning to kill his victims, but he’s killed at least 6 people nevertheless.” Emily says, driving as fast as she can through Las Vegas towards the abandoned mental hospital, Reid quietly looking out the window. Emily is strapping her vest on when she sees Reid walking towards the hospital alone. 
“Reid, no! I told you, we need to wait for backup, it’s too dangerous!” 
“Emily you know how much I respect you, but there’s two victims in there and if they’re on the brink of death, an extra 10 minutes is not something we have, I’m going in.” 
“Damnit Reid” Emily whispers before running after him.
“Anthony Robbins, FBI put your hands up”, Reid loudly speaks as he walks into the hospital with his gun in the air, immediately seeing two victims in chains. 
“Dr. Reid, I’m so happy you’re here! Let’s put the gun down so I can show you the medical masterpiece I have accomplished.” Mr. Robbins says while holding what looks like a grenade in his hand. 
“Mr. Robbins I know you think you’re doing what’s right, but this isn’t what your brother would have wanted, these people did not ask for this, they were doing well with the medication, now I need you to put down the grenade and let these people go.” Sirens can be heard from outside and Emily appears behind Reid as well, noticing the grenade in the unsub’s hand, but Reid’s eyes are completely focused on the female victim, a woman with extreme similarity to his own mother. 
“It’s such a shame Dr. Reid, I thought you of all people would understand, seeing as you went to Mexico to research alternative medication for your own schizophrenic mother.” 
“That was different Mr. Robbins, I was attempting to research homeopathic remedies for dementia, not performing life-threatening surgeries on mentally ill adults.” Emily can tell that Spencer is getting angry, this case being too close to his personal life, they should be stroking this guy’s ego, not angering him. 
“Mr. Robbins, Emily Prentiss here, I think what you have done is magnificent! I actually want you to come with us, the rest of the world needs to see this!” 
“No, too late, Dr. Reid doesn’t appreciate my genius, so no one will be allowed to. Sorry, agents.” The man says before dropping the grenade. Emily grabs Reid, pulling him out of the hospital while he’s screaming, still not taking his eyes off the female victim. They make it out of the hospital just as it explodes, Reid staring back into the burning building in disbelief while Emily looks at the rest of the team, shaking her head. 
At this point in the story Spencer’s voice cracks, tears start welling in his eyes. “I should’ve saved them, it was completely my fault. He was a classic unsub with a god complex and I did exactly what they teach you NOT to do. I let my emotions get in the way and three people died because of it.” Spencer gets out before he starts crying completely. Y/n enveloping him in a hug and allowing him to cry into her shoulder. 
“Oh Spence, shh, it’s okay, that was not your fault. That man was holding a grenade, did you force his hand? Tell him to kill those victims, no.” 
“But we should’ve been able to save them, we profiled him exactly right, and I ruined it all by raising my voice at him, plus I didn’t wait for the backup we needed, I was too focused on saving a woman who reminded me of my mom.” 
“Spencer Reid, I need you to listen to me right now, look at me, okay, you can do that right? Look at me sweetheart.” Spencer lifts his head to look at Y/n, his teary eyes matching her sympathetic ones filled with love. “You, Spencer Reid, are a hero. You’re my hero, you’re a hero for your team, and you’re the hero of all the people you save every single day. Today was not a good day, but how many victims would that man have killed if your team hadn’t intervened. Today you didn’t save everyone, but if you stop now, you’ll never save anyone ever again.” Spencer and Y/n sit at the table holding hands in silence for longer than either of them care to count, before Y/n hears soft snores, realizing Spencer has fallen asleep in her arms, exhausted from the past days and the emotional release of reliving it all in their kitchen. “Come on Spence, let’s go to bed” Y/n gently shakes him awake and helps him to their bed, knowing that what Spencer needs is a good night’s sleep and a lot of love, which she is more than happy to give him, for the rest of her life even. 
245 notes · View notes
redhoodssweetheart · 4 years
Text
Clumsy
Genre: Fluff
Relationship: Older!Damian Wayne x Gender Neutral!Reader
Requested: Yes (REQUESTS ARE OPEN UNTIL JUNE 14TH 11:59 PM EST)
Word Count: 1K
Warnings: Fluff, like one swear word
Description:  Damian teases you for being clumsy.
A/N:  There’s a part at the end that I would love to actually seeing as a comic but I can’t draw worth a damn lol.  
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There was a crashing sound followed by a string of swears.  Damian leaned forward in his seat and peered around the corner of a bookshelf and saw you bent over picking the books you had dropped.  You were mumbling to yourself as you did so and Damian slowly rose from his seat to come join you.
“Y/N, why on earth were you trying to carry so many books at once?”  He hadn’t even known you were in the library.
You sighed and situated the books back in your arms with Damian helping carry some of them.  “Tim asked me to retrieve these for him.  He’s doing some type of research for school and handed me the list.”
Damian arched an eyebrow, “You do know that you don’t have to do this for him, correct?”
“I know, but I wanted to help him,” you explained.  “He’s always so busy and he was focused on what he was working on so I thought I’d get these for him.”
The two of you walked down the stairs toward the kitchen where Tim had papers and books spread out all before him.  He looked up when he heard footsteps approaching, “Ah Y/N, thank you for getting these for me.”  He motioned for where you could sit them down at and then went right back to working.
You chuckled and turned to walk away once your task was complete.  Damian followed along beside you and watched as you made your way down the halls of Wayne Manor.  At one point you went to trip, but he caught you by the elbow.  He had seen you trip several times in the past couple of days, not to mention knocking over your glass the night before.  Or there was the time when you walked into a door.  “Are you always this clumsy?”  
You chuckled and rubbed the back of your neck, “Yeah, I used to say that I could trip over a flat surface.  I don’t know why I’m like this, but you grow used to it after a while.”  You thought back to all the times you had accidentally spilt something or tripped over surfaces.  “I think my clumsiness is the one reason why Bruce won’t let me go out into the field.  I don’t blame him.  Could you picture my clumsy ass as a vigilante,” you began to laugh and Damian cracked a smile.  “I’d also make the worst villain ever.”
“I’m not going to lie if you were a villain your clumsiness would make our job a lot easier,” he teased.  An image starting to take shape in his mind of you becoming a supervillain and fighting him, but being unable to best him because of your clumsiness.
You elbowed him, “Thanks for the confidence in my villainy skills.”  Though you knew he was right, you would definitely make their job easier if you were the supervillain they had to face off against.
He chuckled at the mock outrage on your face, “Danger prone Y/N, tripping their way into a jail cell one crime at a time.”
You made a noise of indignation, “Damian Wayne!”  There was a large part of you that wanted to laugh along with him, but you also didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that you were finding this amusing as well. 
Damian was full blown laughing now imagining you in your supervillain getup and tripping into a jail cell.  Dick and Jason were passing the two of you in the hall glanced at one another before staring at Damian who wasn’t paying a bit of attention to them.  He still couldn’t get the thought of all your blunders that would inevitably lead to your capture and your arrest.
“No, no this is great,” he said between peels of laughter, tears trailing down his cheeks.  “I needed this laugh.”
You rolled your eyes and snorted, “Yeah I can see that, demon spawn.”
Damian straightened and wiped the tears from his eyes and face, looking at you with a rare, wide smile.  “I still can’t get the image of you tripping into a trap designed to catch you,” he told you.  “I know exactly how I’d do it too.”
“You know something, Damian.  You’re mean,” and you began stomping away.  It would have been perfect if your foot hadn’t caught on the rug and tripped you.
Damian rushed to your side in an instant, “Are you all right?”
He was hovering above you, his hand outstretched to help you up.  Slowly, you reached up and took his hand, but instead of getting up you tugged him down so that he landed beside you on the floor.  The look on his face as you did so was priceless and you began to laugh, getting him back for laughing at you.
Damian narrowed his eyes at you, “All right, all right lesson learned.  I won’t laugh at you for being clumsy again.”
You grinned at him, “Some slight teasing every once in a while is fine, but there will be retaliation, Wayne.”
He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, “Come on, I’ll carry you to make sure we make it to our destination without injury.”
The two of you stood up and dusted your clothes off, “I can make it back to the library, Damian.  Contrary to popular belief and despite the little accident back there I’m not unusually clumsy.  Just more so than most.”
“Uh-huh,” he said in a way that made you think he didn’t believe you.  Then he moved so that you could climb in his back and give you a piggyback ride to the library.
Later that night as Damian was sitting in bed with his iPad, he started a comic sketch of you and he fighting as a supervillain and vigilante.  It was just a funny little comic, nothing meant to be harmful or mean spirited, he just couldn’t get the idea out of his head.  When he was done with the first panel he thought that maybe he would post this somewhere anonymously and see what the fans of the BatFam thought of it.
Or maybe you would kill him if he did so.  Either way, he didn’t see himself stopping anytime soon.
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oikawa-tuwu · 4 years
Text
🍬 Halloween Candy 🍬
Pairing: Gn!Reader x Tendou Satori
Rating: T
Synopsis: Tendou watches you make Halloween candy and thinks about love and the joys Halloween. Post-time skip, established relationship. (1.8k words)
Warnings: One swear, mentions of past bullying, dealing with insecurity things
(A/N: lol remember when I said I was going on hiatus?? Yeah so I was making hard candy last night and was literally slaughtered in the middle of boiling the sugar when I remembered that Tendou is a chocolatier so my lonely, Halloween-loving, and candy making self wrote this self indulgent thing. Enjoy, but its kind of a mess D: )
-
Tendou Satori’s favorite holiday is, without a doubt, Halloween.
There’s nothing quite like the buzz in the air of a brisk October 31st, children in costumes, ready to consume ungodly amounts of sugar, teenagers giggling as they leave a haunted house, only to turn right around with more cash in hand. Even adults get into the festivities, using the holiday as an excuse to drink copious amount of booze.
Its indulgent and its creepy and Tendou loves it with all of his heart.
In the past, if someone were to ask him why he liked Halloween so much, he'd just laugh and say he had a sweet tooth, because really, he didn't know how to articulate the joy that he gets from costumes. He could remember, as a kid, gleefully skipping down the aisles of a shop, flipping through the mass produced costumes on the rack until he found the perfect one.
The ones that came with masks were always a plus, too.
He supposes, looking back on it, Halloween was his favorite holiday because it was the one day where being “creepy” benefited him. It was on-brand, in-season, like the pecan pies that sit neglected in the summer months before being sold out by mid-November. And even if his hair or his gaze or his height was still terrifying, it was easier to hide behind a Batman mask. Perhaps it wasn’t a healthy way of coping, but somewhere along the way, he’d learned. He’d grown, and shifted, and costumes weren’t his favorite part of Halloween anymore.
No. This is his favorite part of Halloween. The build up to the day in question, preparing for the hordes of children coming to his apartment door, and you, standing in his kitchen, holding a candy thermometer.
It had been your idea at first, to make the candy at home and give it to the trick or treaters, rather than just handing out store bought. Of course, getting homemade candy from a stranger is usually a red-flag for parents, but not if said stranger is a somewhat C-list celebrity chocolatier, as you so kindly put it.
And it was true. There was some hesitation at first, but after a moment of putting together his face, the name on his apartment door, and the clearly professional design on the bags, parents were much more willing to accept the treats. Now, it’s a tradition of the apartment complex, and last year, he ran out of candy by 7 PM.
“You need to make more next year,” you had said, with a sort of confident finality that made him laugh. “Don’t you feel bad for the kids who got there just a little late?”
Did he feel bad?
Now that was an interesting question.
The thing was, he had been that kid. He’d gotten the short straw in life and it had been up to him to make something of it, even when others decided to cut the straw even shorter just for fun.
With an amused glint in his eye, he watches as you lean down, narrowing your eyes to read the fine print of instructions on your phone.
The kitchen is a mess, there’s no way around it, and although he’s deemed you proficient enough to be trusted with his equipment based on your past attempts at culinary efforts, he can tell you feel out of your league as you stir the molten sugar. Your cheeks are flushed from the heat and he’s certain there’s a few more hairs sticking out of place than there were ten minutes ago. Still, you square your shoulders and crack your knuckles as you read the temperatures, one oven mitt armored hand bracing the handle of the pot, and he idly thinks that the apron is officially his favorite piece of clothing on you.
Apparently, you didn't hear the door open and close, because your eyes are still trained on the soon-to-be caramel, and you let out a frustrated, "Why won't this sugar caramelize already?"
"It's stubborn like that."
He always expects you to jump at his voice. Somehow, you never do. Instead, your eyes flick up to him where he hovers in the entry-way, the barest of a smile gracing your lips.
"Welcome home," you say, pulling your eyes away from him to peek at the candy thermometer's temperature. "I feel like this sugar has been at 240° for way too long, is that normal?"
Tendou clicks his tongue, daring to venture further into the candy coated mess. "You have to be patient."
"Funny, coming from you," you smirk, but he notices the way the tension in your shoulders relax, and deep down, he knows he doesn't have the fight to even try to feel offended.
Still, he scoffs and leans against the counter next to you and puts the effort into looking offended, one hand fingering through the petals of the dying roses in a vase. "I'll have you know, I'm a very patient person."
You just give him a look. That look, specifically, with the skeptical eyebrow and wry tilt in the corner of your mouth. The look that always managed to see right through him, reaching in and sorting through each and every memory and quirk and thought and yet still managed to say I love you at the end of the night with a genuine smile.
Tendou knows you. He knows you, understands you, memorized the posture of your sleep deprivation, the quick bite of your words when you wait too long to eat dinner, the strange laugh that, to be honest, sounds more like a car backfiring, when a joke catches you particularly off your guard.
But also, on a much deeper level, he didn't understand you at all.
Why had you chosen him? Was it for the same reason you brought those half-dead roses home, saying, with a self-conscious flush, that they looked sad, dying all alone in the shop.
Was he those flowers? Bruised and beat-up and something to take pity on?
"You're too quiet," you muse, and Tendou realizes that he had been too quiet for much too long, the only sounds coming from the boiling sugar and the soft music playing over a speaker in the corner. "What's wrong?"
He doesn't know how to phrase his insecurities out loud like that, doesn't know if he even should, so instead, he asks, "Am I the roses?"
For a moment, you're silent, and he can see the way you're processing his words, toying with them until you figure out whatever metaphor or inside joke he's referencing. "I would say you're more of a lily guy, if that's what you're asking."
His next question is more blunt. "Why do you like me?"
This one surprises you. He can tell from the way you blink, just once, but also the slight curvature of your eyebrows. He wonders how long it's been since this expression was used in reaction to him.
"I don't understand," you say, finally. "Love and attraction are virtually indescribable emotions that poets and writers spend their lives trying to capture. I don't know why, exactly, but I do know that I enjoy being around you. You make me laugh, and my heart feels happy when I see you walk through that door. Isn't that enough?"
It should be, but Tendou has bad impulse control, and he can't stop the next words from falling out.
"But I'm weird."
The word weird sounds trivial. Weird is the word that girls who dye their hair and listen to indie music and post cryptic pictures on Instagram call themselves, not him. Maybe freak would have been a better word.
"And I don't like the sound of my laugh. We've all got insecurities, things that the rest of the world doesn't like about us so they force us to not like it about us. I know my voice is fine and there's nothing particularly ugly or abnormal about it when I giggle, but I can't help from hating it."
"I like your laugh," he says, and by speaking it aloud, he knows it's true, like whispering a spell that only makes him fall more in love.
"Exactly. And I like you. Weird bits and all. Keeps things interesting."
And just like that, it's gone. It shouldn't be this easy, to dismiss his fears like that, just a few confident words and a smile and suddenly years of his childhood and upbringing are null in comparison to you.
The sugar boils.
As he watches, you leave the almost-caramel on the stove to search for the pan to put it in to cool, already greased and ready for the molten sugar. It's a significantly bigger pan than last year.
When you notice his gaze, you say, "I wasn't joking about making more this year."
Tendou grins.
In high school, Ushijima briefly had a girlfriend. A cheerleader, if Tendou was remembering correctly. He wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't, he didn't pay much attention to her. But, one day, he walked past the gym and found the two of them. Ushijima was teaching her how to serve. Now, Tendou knew Ushijima was a strange person. The only thing he cared about was volleyball and his comically stoic, social ineptitude is what bonded them in the first place, but still, Tendou remembered thinking that bringing your date on your day off to play volleyball was really weird.
But, he supposed, now he understood, as one of your hands reached over to clasp his, the other, still stirring the sugar. He understood before that want, no, the need to share a passion with the one you love.
He squeezes your hand. Absent-mindedly, you squeeze back. And then he squeezes back and you squeeze back and back and forth and back and forth, until you realize the temperature hit the blessed 340° and now you're swearing like it's a prayer, oven mitt hand clasping the pot handle and pouring and hoping it didn't actually burn and-
-
The candies last until 8 PM this year.
He watches you hand the last one over to a kid dressed like some vaguely tropey children's superhero, watches that soft smile slowly warning whatever chill leeches in from the open door.
A wave and a nod to the child's mother later, you slowly shut the door, grin lingering still moments later. You turn to him, that determined gleam in your eye, and say, "We're making more next year."
Tendou laughs. "Fuck no."
But then you smile again, and he knows he can't say no, and, internally, he's already working on a timeline to get all the candy ready by the 31st.
And for some reason, the only thing he can think of is the we in your statement, and it cuts right into his heart faster than a knife as you pull him close and the words just seem to slip out faster than a well-greased cake pan.
-
"I love you."
-
"I love you too."
-
(A/N: Happy Halloween, nerds. Nowwww back to hiatus)
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angelaiswriting · 4 years
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The Assistant (15 of ?) | Vladimir Ranskahov x fem!reader
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[original picture found on: pinterest]
✏️ Pairings:
(almost official) Vladimir Ranskahov x fem!reader
Anatoly Ranskahov x OC (Paulina) mentioned
✏️ Requested by @kellydixon01 : Y/N–hacker, big mouth, even bigger attitude–is the new addition to Fisk’s team. Sent to help the Ranskahovs, she immediately gets on Vladimir’s nerves. But as time passes, they start to take a liking to each other, even if none of them is willing to admit their feelings. Yet.
✏️ Previously on The Assistant (aka I’m shit at updating): Y/N has moved in with Vladimir and the two have found themselves growing closer. There’s only one problem: Vlad’s old friend Ulyana thinks the two are a couple and has invited them over for dinner to celebrate.
✏️ A/N: y’all. Y’ALL. First off, I just want to apologize, it’s been forever and a month since I updated this; I’m not even sure there are still people reading/that remember this story apart from Alice lol. It took us me 144 pages !!! but it’s finally happening. Enjoy! I literally cried when I wrote the end of this chapter because it was about fucking time!
✏️ Warnings: fluff; and tears, but those were mine as I wrote this lol; Sergei has a doggie!; a smidge of swearing.
✏️ Word-count: 6,060
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN: MATCHMAKER
Sitting on the closed toilet seat with the pipe wrench still in his hands, Vladimir could hear Y/N and Ulyana laugh in the living room. He couldn’t make out their words, for their voices were quiet despite their hilarity, and the left-ajar door of the bathroom didn’t help him any.
The most surreal situation I’ve ever experienced, that’s how Y/N had labeled it less than an hour ago, before he helped Lina bring in the tray with the cups of tea. And the more he mulled things over, the more he found himself agreeing. The most surreal situation I’ve ever experienced – and he had lived through plenty of what could be considered ‘weird shit’. Ulyana in general had been a whole exception in his book. Ulyana, with her afternoons spent playing bingo at the daily center for the elderly with all her old-lady friends; Ulyana, with her borscht and her endless words of encouragement and comfort when both he and Tolya had needed them the most.
But also Ulyana, so dead-set on the idea that he was too stiff and needed a gentle touch in his life that she just… mistook Y/N for his woman. As if he needed someone! But it was still a good thing in a way, though, he reasoned as he stood up and moved to stand in front of the sink to stare at his reflection. And probably his brother was right about the fact that he had to open up to her, tell her what he felt – and what he was scared of. And just… try, for once. Make an effort to take his private life into his own hands instead of just wasting it away on cigarettes and underground fights.
As he stood there, hands gripping the sink, wrench abandoned on the counter, he tried to focus on what existed beyond that scar on the right side of his face and all it meant. By now he was convinced that she didn’t see it – not because she didn’t want to, but because she was able to see right through it. She knew about his past, and not just about Utkin, but also about some of the stupid things he had done in his short-lived youth – he had told her about that over vodka, a bit more rarely over coffee. And while he had always had problems with that, he found himself having fewer and fewer now.
Yeah, maybe it wasn’t that bad to pretend he had someone that cared about him, and while that equaled lying to Lina, maybe it was for the greater good?
It came off as a question even in his own mind, but it was one he found himself being willing to put in the time and effort to find an answer to. It was almost stupid, to think that feelings seemed to terrify him to the bone, while he could take a gun pointed at his head any day without batting an eyelash. Because that’s what he did, that’s what the target on his back felt like.
Maybe all he needed was to grow a pair, listen to what Ulyana had always told him, and walk out there a somewhat taken man.
And not taken to the demons in his head, but to someone – a friend, maybe? – that he had learned to respect. In a way, that is; that road still seemed a long one, after all.
When he joined the two women again some twenty minutes or so later, after he had fixed the kitchen cabinet Lina had been too shy to ask him to repair, he found them leafing through an old photo album. Belka – Ulyana’s old, white cat – was snoozing in Y/N’s lap, the tip of her fluffy tail moving up and down every once in a while as she purred at her new friend.
It was a weirdly cozy view, one that seemed to put all the thoughts that were still swarming his mind at ease. He leaned against the frame of the door, arms crossed in front of his chest, and he just stared for a while, half-present in the moment and half-lost in his own mind. He didn’t miss the moment her head lifted up an inch and her eyes met his, though, and before he could realize anything, he found himself smirking back.
“Ulya is showing me the photographs of her wedding day,” she said when he moved away from the door and really entered the room. Her fingers absentmindedly scratched the cat behind one ear as she maintained eye contact until he sat down at the round table in front of the window to her left.
“Those are a must-see when you step foot into her house.” His was a playful huff as he lit himself a cigarette. They had all gone back to Russian, which meant that Ulyana had gotten to know Y/N faster than he had. “Next thing you know, you’re walking down Soviet memory lane.” And then, when his eyes met Lina’s: “You know I’m joking. Tolya and I have always loved your stories.”
The woman shook her head, but there was a smile on her face that somehow warmed his heart. It meant that it was all back to normal now; that, in her heart, she had forgiven him for disappearing for so long and never, not once, calling to check in on her. “This girl’s bewitched you,” she chuckled, patting Y/N’s knee with her free hand. “I don’t remember when the last time he wasn’t serious was, anymore,” she explained as she leaned back against the couch, giving her guest’s unasked question an answer.
Vladimir scoffed and when his phone beeped on the table with a text from Sergei a moment later, he stood up. “We gotta go now. Work’s calling.”
Ulyana had a look on her face that seemed to complain On a Saturday? but she knew he was a busy man with a demanding job, and so she dropped it. “You’re both invited over tomorrow,” she said instead. “I’ll prepare a nice dinner to celebrate together.” She closed the album of photographs and put it down on the coffee table by the side of the couch.
When she stood up, Belka seemed to catch the hint: she woke up, let out a huffy meow, and jumped down from Y/N’s lap to rub herself against one of Vlad’s legs.
“There’s nothing to celebrate, Lina,” Vladimir was saying as he let the old woman fix the collar of his shirt before engulfing him in a hug.
The way her eyebrows rose when she turned to look at Y/N was almost comical on that round face of hers. “He’s still as stubborn as always, isn’t he?” she whispered in her ear when she hugged her goodbye. When she turned back towards Vladimir, she had her hands on her hips and a firm look in her eyes that he knew he couldn’t escape. “You two will come over for dinner tomorrow night if it kills you! It’s so good to see you finally happy, my boy, and not just alone as always. And if that’s not enough, I haven’t seen you in months! Is this how you treat your old Lina?”
*
“I can’t believe she managed to convince you.”
He was driving to Sergei’s place when Y/N spoke again. They hadn’t exchanged a word after leaving Ulyana’s apartment and truth be told, he was almost afraid to hear her speak again.
“I can’t believe it either,” he groaned, one hand gripping the steering wheel tightly while his left arm just hung out the rolled-down window.
There were heavy clouds behind the buildings in front of them and it looked like it would start pouring soon. But the slightly chilly air was a blessing after that day’s stuffy heat, so he was ready to face the early-summer bad weather when it would come.
After that exchange, the silence went back to being almost embarrassed. She was looking at him from the corner of her eye – he hadn’t missed it, he was good at noticing things about people, even though probably not as good as he thought he was when it came to her. Whether she was trying to come up with something to say or not, though, he did not know.
His own thoughts were all over the place as well.
He had a little less than one day to come up with an excuse to ring Ulyana up with just so that he could avoid that dinner date she had organized. In his heart he knew she was doing this for him: she and Aleksandr had never had children, and that’s exactly how she had always seen him and his brother ever since they had first rented that apartment on her same floor. We’re all Russians, we have to stick up for each other, she had said once, one of the first times she had insisted they’d come over for dinner. She had taken care of them; and it was remarkable, the way they had let her into their lives, one kind act at a time, in a time when the Siberian wound was still tender and they didn’t know who to trust in this new, foreign land.
Then, a little more than a year and a half ago, when Anatoly had introduced Paulina to her, it had become just Vladimir and Ulyana most of the time. Tolya was busier now – he didn’t only have his job, but there was a woman now and he did things with her, took her places, came up with things just to surprise her for the sake of it… It had been a shock at first because that was someone more similar to the old Anatoly Ranskahov, the one who had lived in Moscow and had danced around a different woman every night – with the only difference that he was now a faithful lover.
“Are you upset?” Her voice tore him out of his mind once again and he turned towards her with a questioning hmm? that prompted her to clarify. “About her thinking that we’re together.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t think I am, nyet,” he confessed eventually.
She was staring ahead, not looking at him, but a smile still blossomed on her face at his words. “If I don’t tell you now, I know I’ll never have the guts to.”
But Vladimir was already slowing down to park the car and when Y/N turned her head to see what he was staring at with such a confused expression on his face, the faint smirk on his lips already fading away completely, she knew she wouldn’t be opening her heart any time soon in that car.
“What the fuck?” was what Vlad mumbled as he hastily turned off the engine, pulled on the handbrake, and threw his door open. “What is this?”
Sergei was standing there, a black and brown rottweiler laying at his feet, panting with its tongue almost touching the asphalt in the somewhat stuffy evening air.
“This,” his friend said, slowly, shoving the handle of the leash in the other’s hand before Vlad could come back to himself, “is Sharik. I need you to look after him while I’m gone.”
Vladimir stared down at the dog, and the dog sat up against Seriozha’s legs so that he could stare back at him better. He was a big piece of meat, and he could already picture him drooling all over the couch he had back at home. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” frowned Sergei, dropping the black gym bag from his shoulder to Vlad’s feet. “I told you yesterday, before you and Y/N left the garage. If I need to go out of town for business, I won’t be able to bring him with me. You agreed to look after him for me.”
While his owner spoke, Sharik sniffed at Vladimir’s shin with curiosity, and after a long moment of scrutiny, he lazily wagged his tail in approval.
“You need to take him out in the morning and at night, he loves walks in the park.”
“What?” He wasn’t sure the type of ‘take the dog out’ he was thinking of was the one Sergei had in mind.
“Don’t feed him weird shit. His dry food is in the bag. Don’t give him more than what I wrote down – he loves to beg. And make him play before bed, or he’ll keep you up all night.”
“What?”
“Your apartment complex also has a pool and he enjoys chilling in the water, so if–”
“I won’t be looking after your dog. What?”
Before either of them could speak, Y/N’s What’s going on here? made them turn in her direction. She had gotten out of the car, and while she was still holding onto the door with one hand, Vlad knew she’d soon come forward.
“Solnyshko, hi!”
Vladimir knew he was fucked when Sergei greeted her and hugged her back when she walked up to them. He’d manage to convince her and while she was just a guest in his house, Vlad knew he’d be the one bending his will.
Sharik gave her the same treatment he had reserved for him just moments before, but he sped it up this time, and the wagging in his tail wasn’t as lazy as it had been with him – it was a hard slapping back and forth against his leg that gave him just a slight taste of the dog’s strength.
“Who’s this good boy?” she cooed as the dog sniffed the palm of her hand before giving it a lick and allowing her to pet his head.
In no time, and before he had the chance to register what was going on, Y/N had gone back to the car and, appalled, he had to watch her lead the dog onto the back seats.
As if he had read his mind, Sergei reassured him: “Don’t worry, he doesn’t shed. But you still need to keep him brushed, it relaxes him.”
He stared at the car, kept an eye on Y/N as she put Sergei’s gym bag in the trunk, and then walked back around the car to sit on the passenger seat. She was still caressing the dog, her back turned towards the two men, when Vladimir spoke.
“You know I don’t deal with animals.”
Sergei scoffed. “We deal with much worse. Now, don’t be a brat, I didn’t have to listen to the two of you singing like shit last night just to then not be able to get payback.”
“We didn’t–”
“It’s all cool, Volodya.” Serzh patted his shoulder and grinned at him before turning back to stare at the car his dog had got into. “She’s nice, I don’t mind. It was about time you found someone that would headbutt you every time you headbutted them.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about, brother. Sharik is a good matchmaker, who else do you think got Tolik and Paulina together?” he grinned. “But if he is missing even so much as a hair when I come back, we’ll have a problem.”
He scoffed. “A threat? Over a dog?”
“He’s not just some dog, Volodya. He’s my boy.” He stared him down for a moment before turning around. He had already started to walk back towards the building he lived in, when he said one last I’ll call you when Aslan and I have left the state before Vlad turned his back on him.
*
Just as he had expected, Sharik launched himself onto the couch the second Y/N opened the door of his apartment. The only thing Vladimir could do was watch him run across the entrance corridor, fly mid-air, and then fall heavily onto the clean cushions of his couch half a second later. And to be such a big and heavy dog, he was fast.
“I’m going to kill Sergei,” he muttered but before he could take another step forward, Y/N stopped him with a hand on his forearm.
“C’mon, he’s just a dog, Vlad. Don’t be mean. I’ll get him down,” she chuckled and toed her shoes off before walking up to Sharik.
Sometime later, after that dog had finally stopped whining and complaining that he wanted to get on the couch despite said couch’s owner didn’t want to, there was silence again. 
The next-door neighbor had knocked on the door not long after they had got home: he had heard the noises, and had felt the need to complain about that sudden surprise, and to poke his nose into business he knew nothing about – There’s a pet fee you’re supposed to pay if you want to keep an animal in here. And then, when Sharik had walked up to the door and nosed his way to stand between Y/N’s legs – Vlad has seen it in the mirror hanging on the wall right at the other end of the room – that very neighbor had found something else to complain about. Its size exceeds the limits allowed in this complex, or some shit like that. He hadn’t heard what she had told the dude; all he knew was that less than five minutes after he had shown up at the door, he had left with his tail between his legs, and so Vlad had managed to go back to staring at the screen of his laptop.
He wasn’t doing anything, really. For once, he didn’t feel like burying his head into his work – everything needed for Aslan and Sergei’s trip to Florida had already been organized, and the last touches for the upcoming shipment could wait until Monday. It was very un-Vladimir-like, to take a whole weekend off, but for once, he wouldn’t complain.
What he ended up thinking about – or, rather, whom –, however, was Ulyana. He had been praying for an excuse to cancel that dinner date for the next day, but he hadn’t expected to be actually presented with one. And although he still had the intention to ring her up and apologize, he still had to pick up the phone. He couldn’t possibly leave Sergei’s dog home alone, now, could he? Or did he want to come back to a destroyed house? 
“Shari’s napping.” When he looked up, not even taken by surprise by her sudden appearance in the doorframe of the kitchen, he found her standing there, leaning a shoulder against the wood and staring at him. “What are you up to?”
“Work,” was his quick reply. “Checking that everything is in order and… stuff.”
“‘And stuff’?” She didn’t seem convinced, and she stared at him for a long minute, before dismissing it and sitting opposite him at the small kitchen table. “Anyway, why didn’t you tell me about this favor you had to do for Sergei?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I didn’t know I had to look after stupid dog.” And then, when she raised an eyebrow: “A very smart, but spoiled dog. Better?”
“He’s not spoiled. Serzh just really loves him a lot,” she pouted. And when he glared at her, she continued: “This doesn’t matter, though. You have to find a solution for tomorrow night. Call Sergei and ask him how Sharik deals with cats, and then call Ulyana and ask her how Belka deals with dogs. Or something.”
“Why me?”
“Because I asked nicely? Because you got us into this?”
As it turned out a couple of calls later, Sharik was very gentle, almost submissive with cats and animals in general – despite his size, despite his face, and his breed, and the size of his paws big enough to be as big as at least three cat legs put together. And Ulyana had no problem having a dog over either – she had looked after a neighbor’s dog more times than she could count, and Belka was used to napping in her bedroom when another animal was over.
So, not a problem – as Lina had said. Just come over and bring the dog, I’ll have something ready for him too.
His plan to avoid that dinner date had miserably failed, although there was something inside him at the thought of showing up at Lina’s and pretending like he and Y/N were a thing of some sort that just… pulled at some strings he didn’t even know he had inside. And as he watched Y/N fill Sharik’s bowl just as they got ready to eat dinner, he found himself being almost happy that those strings were being pulled, for once in his life.
“So we just take him over to her place?” she asked him when she sat down, a steaming plate with rice and veggies right in front of her.
His diet had taken a turn for the better ever since she had moved in with him – he still had more vodka than was healthy to have hiding pretty much in almost all the cabinets in his apartment, but at least his fridge was full of food his body could actually digest this time.
“That’s what she said,” he grumbled.
They ate in silence after that, and only when he had done the dishes, did she speak again.
“Do you wanna settle for a story?” She was sitting next to him on the couch, with Sharik’s heavy head resting on a knee. The dog was staring at her with adoring eyes as she gently scratched behind his ears.
“A story?”
“Yeah, about how we met. How we ended up together. Ulyana asked a couple vague-ish questions this afternoon, so I think she’ll ask more tomorrow. No?” She glanced at him when he didn’t reply. “Unless you wanna tell her the truth.”
“I don’t know what I want,” he eventually confessed. “I don’t want to lie to her, but if I hear her ask me about ‘my woman’ another time, I’m going to burst.”
He didn’t expect to chuckle with her, but he did. And when they grew silent again, and she went back to staring at the TV screen after a quick Let me think of something, then, he laid his head back against the seatback of the couch, head turned in her direction, and studied the profile of her face. The way the corner of her mouth rose up into a smirk before she giggled at Sharik’s sniffing nose against her bare shin. The way her chest rose and fell with every breath she took, slow and regular and almost gentle. And before he knew it, his eyes had dropped closed and he had fallen asleep.
When he woke up sometime later – the clock on his phone signaled just a few minutes after half past eleven –, Y/N and Sharik had already left the room, and he was uncomfortably half sitting, half lying on the couch covered by a pile blanket. The TV was off, and not a sound came from inside the apartment – nor from outside in the corridor.
He briefly wondered whether Y/N had managed to come up with a story in case Ulyana would ask questions, but he barely had the time to walk into his room and sit on his bed, that his ears picked up some snoring.
There, bundled up under his blankets, was sleeping Sharik, who had somehow managed to make himself at home. He even had the audacity of staring at him with an accusatory look in his eyes, the fleabag, when Vladimir turned on the lamp on his bedside table to get a closer look.
“Get off,” he groggily ordered, yanking the covers back with a quick movement of his arm. “Get off my bed, dog.”
But for all he tried, the dog wouldn’t budge. And even when Vladimir picked him up and put him back down onto the living room floor, he barely had the time to close the door of his bedroom – something he hadn’t done since before Utkin – that Sharik was already pushing against it with his nose to slip into the room.
“You are stubborn beast, aren’t you?”
Taking him back to the living room by force didn’t help at all, for the dog wouldn’t stop bugging him. He had managed to lower the door handle twice in the half-hour Vladimir spent trying to get rid of him without… yeah, without actually getting rid of the fucking four-legged light of Sergei’s life.
When it became apparent that he wouldn’t have a good night’s sleep in his goddamn bed that night, was when Sharik almost tripped him over from behind just to then launch himself onto his bed much like he had done that evening with the couch – and the at least other ten times Vlad had tried to kick him out of the room. He laid there, on his bed, curled up like a too-big cat, staring at him with eyebrows that wouldn’t stop going up and down until he huffed out a complaint and went back to sleep.
“I’ll kill you, Sergei,” he groaned, rubbing his face with both hands to try and shoo the annoyance away.
He stood in the hallway for a while, then, eyeing the couch from the other side of the living room while mentally cursing himself. Before fixing the spare room, which he had turned into Y/N’s bedroom as the weeks had gone by, he had had to take care of his brother and by giving him his bed, he had had to get the couch. It was too small for him, and uncomfortable – and the thought that she, too, had had to sleep there for endless days before he got his shit together still stung, in a way. And since it looked like he wouldn’t be able to get Sharik out of his bedroom – nor out of his bed, for that matter –, he was left with only two options to pick from: either the couch or…
He knocked on her door before he had the time to talk himself out of it.
“Is something wrong?” She was scrolling through her phone when she told him to come in. The lamps on both nightstands were on, and it looked like she was still far from falling asleep.
“Dog’s in my bed,” he said, staring at her from across the room. “Couch is…”
“I know,” she chuckled. “Still not the worst couch I’ve slept on, though, don’t worry,” she continued when he made a weird face. “Stay in your half of the bed, and you can sleep here if you want.”
He didn’t sleep that night, however. He laid on his right side, staring at the wall, and she laid on her left, staring at the opposite wall. She had wished him good night at some point, when she had put her phone away and had turned the lights off, and he had answered with a hum. But then, he had just laid there all night, listening in on her soft breathing – and then her soft snoring – and he remained motionless. When he did fall asleep, sometime in the early morning, just before the first light of day peaked in through the curtains, his last thought was that maybe, this wasn’t that bad.
*
“Through mutual friends, if so one could say,” Y/N replied over celebratory vodka. Ulyana had kept her best questions for the end of the dinner and Vladimir had almost deluded himself into thinking the old woman would never ask. They had come up with a story to tell just in case, but silence would have been better. “I apparently showed up at the garage at the least opportune time.”
“Oh! So was it love at first sight?” Lina was pouring them all a second shot with one hand as the other one rested on Sharik’s head.
Vlad laughed – what an absurd concept, he found himself musing. Love at first sight? With someone as careful as him? And although Y/N kicked his foot under the table to try and silence him, he couldn’t fully erase the smirk from his face. “Nyet,” he chuckled eventually as he wiped away a tear with a knuckle.
“Hell no! He was very rude and stubborn at the beginning,” confessed Y/N, and Vlad was barely able to scoff at her that Lina had turned in his direction with a gaze of steel.
“Very rude?” she inquired, eyes squinting as she frowned. “With this lovely lady?”
“Don’t gang up on me, she was very stubborn too!” he complained. “Still is.”
“One ought to be stubborn if one has to put up with you, my dear Volodya.” Ulyana patted his hand on the table. “Doesn’t give you the right to be rude. I didn’t raise you like that.”
He had been on the verge of pointing out that he had, in fact, been raised by his own mother and not by her, but he didn’t deem it appropriate tonight – nor necessary. Lina didn’t mean any harm, and he knew what she was trying to imply.
“It’s alright, Ulya, he has learned how to tone it down now.” The smile on Y/N’s face seemed sincere, and at that moment, he wouldn’t be able to tell what she was thinking about. “Ever since we moved in together, he’s learned how to behave himself. Most of the time, at least.”
It was Ulyana’s turn to playfully slap Vlad’s forearm and he found it almost weird, to find himself with his back to the wall in front of those two. And not even in a bad way, with all of them drinking vodka together and celebrating a romantic relationship that simply wasn’t there.
What had he become? Lying like that to an old, dear friend… Without thinking twice; without remorse. He sat there in her living room, eating her food, drinking her alcohol, and he kept on adding lies to the fire without being able to stop.
“Hey, she’s not a saint, either! Tell her.”
Y/N laughed, and it somehow took him by surprise, it knocked the wind out of him. He fully turned his head to stare at her, and it almost felt like seeing her for the first time and for the millionth time at the same time. The way she tilted her head back as she laughed; the way her earrings and piercings caught the light of the lighting fixture; even the way her fingers brushed against his, and the way he ended up holding her hand in his. Warm and soft, the skin so smooth that he almost pulled away.
He watched her talk, recount the story of how they met – or a watered-down version of it, with anything too compromising being filtered out. And as she conversed with Ulya, her fingers played with his and his gaze kept on dropping down on his hand, never missing a movement. She had somehow ended up tracing the three-bar cross between his thumb and forefinger – without looking at it, almost as though she had done just that so many times that she had ended up memorizing its placement, its lines. And as she went on talking, her fingers brushed across the Xs on his knuckles, and he had to fight that sudden impulse that pushed him to pull his hand away.
A couple of hours later, when they had finally bid Ulyana goodnight and thanked her for the pleasant dinner she had offered them, he found himself walking his best man’s dog in the park just across the street from her old friend’s apartment building. He watched Sharik sniff here and there, and for a moment he found himself wondering if that was what a normal life felt like – walking the dog at almost eleven in the night, with plastic bags in a pocket in case the dog pooped, arm in arm with a woman.
“You’re quiet,” she said at one point, when they stopped under a tree while Sharik sniffed just a few meters in front of them. “Is everything alright?”
It took him a while to answer. And it wasn’t because he hadn’t heard her, but because he was afraid of somehow saying the wrong thing as was custom with him. “Da,” he sighed eventually, “just thinking.” He shrugged, but he didn’t make a move to pull away when her hand trailed down his arm and her fingers entwined with his.
“I had a good time tonight. I hope you did too, and that I didn’t push myself too far with that story about… you know, us.”
“It was fine, she bought it.”
“Doesn’t make me feel less bad, though.”
He turned his head to look at her, and for a moment, the thought of how it would be like to do this every night with her crossed his mind. “Eh, I know.” It was quiet for a while after that, but when Sharik steered off the path, he found himself cursing out in Russian. “Come here, you stubborn dog!”
“Don’t be mean, Vlad! He’s just a dog.” She ran after Sharik then, and he watched her take him back by the collar as he fished a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his pants. He had just lit himself one when she took it from his fingers and put it out against the sole of her high-heeled shoe as she kept her balance with a hand firmly wrapped around his forearm.
“Why did you do that?” It was almost a gasp, half-surprised and half-pissed at a cigarette waisted in such a way.
“I had something to tell you yesterday, in the car.”
“You could’ve done that over shared cigarette!”
“I don’t want to taste cigarettes when I kiss someone, though.”
He almost opened his mouth to retort when her words registered in his brain, and all he could do was stare down into her eyes, not a sound leaving his lips.
“Like that night after the bar, just without drinks. I wanna do this sober.” She had taken a step forward, and they were now standing toe-to-toe. He could almost feel her, even with that short distance separating them – like when she had turned around and had ended up pressing her forehead against his back the night before, with the only difference that they were both awake now. “I want to kiss you again so badly it’s driving me nuts.”
That gasp didn’t leave his lips just because he managed to abruptly inhale quickly at the last second, but her words did make his heart beat faster somehow.
“I kept on telling myself that you’d do it, but you haven’t so far, and I can’t understand if that’s because you still dislike me or –”
He cut her off before she could continue. Her cheeks were burning when he cradled her face between his hands, and her lips were soft against his. Her hands came up to wrap around his wrists. When he pulled her closer, she let him; and when she deepened the kiss, when her tongue brushed against his teeth, he let her.
It was like one of those cliché moments, although it lasted for a couple of seconds at most: his breathing stopped, and the world seemed to stop with it as he kissed her. And then, when everything picked up again – his breathing, his heart, Hell’s Kitchen late-night traffic, Sharik’s tail snapping like a whip against his leg as he stood there – he found himself not wanting to pull away.
She did, though, and she looked up at him out of breath, his hands still cupping her cheeks and her hands still holding on to his wrists. “You’re so stubborn, I swear,” she chuckled. “But if you don’t kiss me again, I’ll go back to being stubborn, too.”
He cackled, and when Sharik pushed against his thigh with his nose, he looked down at him and shook his head. “Maybe Sergei was right, after all,” he mumbled before turning his attention back to Y/N and kissing her again, silencing her question before she had the time to voice it.
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This is Sharik :) (pics found on Pinterest eons ago, I don’t remember the links, credits to the owner(s)!)
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Comments and inbox are always open for feedback :) pls if you have any ideas you’d like to see in this story, feel free to hit me up, they’d for sure help me out lol since I’m slow AF :’)
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