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levi-supreme · 2 years

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Professor Ackerman (Part 1/?)

Characters: Statistics Professor!Levi x University student fem!reader

Genre: Modern!au

Warnings: SFW with suggestive content. Power imbalance/power play (Levi is reader's professor, student/teacher dynamics). Reader insert (y/n). Rough making out. Age gap (Levi in his forties, reader in her late twenties). Reader is a part-time uni student and is working full-time. Reader also likes roses. Mutual attraction and lingering feelings. Professor Ackerman has a kink for thighs. Some name-calling and praise.

Word count: 2.5k

A/N: I blame @hashaneeee for this thirst. This was supposed to be a short drabble for my Thirsty Thursday: A 100 Different Kisses, but guess who can't control herself and decided to make it a full-blown thirst instead? Also, happy belated birthday to you, my thirst supplier <3 and yes, this isn't the end of my Professor Ackerman brainrot, so you'll definitely be seeing more of him <3

70: An accidental kiss that confuses you both, but only a moment pass before you crash your lips back against each other's // 99: Hungry kisses and ripped apart clothes

Professor Ackerman master list | Part Two

"Professor Ackerman's a very busy man," was all you heard from your classmates, and this made you extra puzzled because he agreed to your request of needing extra tutorial sessions to pull up your abysmal statistics grades. What made things weirder was how Professor Ackerman told you to come over to his place on Saturday afternoon, instead of staying back in school after your classes. Perhaps he knew you weren't free on weekdays since you had to work. But... how would he know?

Standing nervously outside his front door, you adjusted your clothes and tried to flatten your hair. You wanted to look your best for him after all, wanted to thank him for putting aside his precious time to give you extra lessons. Applying some rose lip balm and eating a breath mint, you knocked on the wooden door thrice.

Seconds later, the door opened and you saw your professor in clothes outside of his usual suit and tie for the first time. He was wearing a simple fitting black t-shirt and grey sweatpants, his fringe fell flat and briefly covered his eyes instead of his usual back comb. His brows were furrowed and even though his tired eyes were hidden behind his black-framed spectacles, they couldn't hide how mesmerising the grey of his eyes were. There was a slight stubble growing and you had to will yourself to not reach out your hand and do something stupid. When you thought your professor looked sexy as hell in a suit and tie, he looked equally yummy in casual clothing too.

"P-professor Ackerman," you stuttered, staring at his chest. Yes Professor Ackerman was extremely handsome. Even though he was in his forties and has a few specks of greying hair, you couldn't deny that he was attractive. Drop dead out-of-this-world attractive.

Everyone in university had the hots for Professor Ackerman, old and young alike. You were one of the many who harboured a burning crush on your very handsome statistics professor, and like many others, you often wondered if he was a good kisser, or if he was seeing anyone, or how good he was in bed. You often found yourself daydreaming about Professor Ackerman, fantasising about his body, and even thinking of him when your nights get a little lonely, crying out whimpers of 'Professor Ackerman!' while you were tossing around in your sheets.

"Come in." He simply said, voice bringing you back to reality. You acknowledged and nodded, touching your cheeks to make sure you weren't being too obvious. He reminded you to remove your shoes and put on a pair of house slippers, signalling to a pair placed by the floor mat. It fit you perfectly. Did Professor Ackerman live with another woman? Stepping into his flat, you took a good look at his living area before walking into his study.

Professor Ackerman's house was minimalistic and clean, free from clutter and decorations. The scent of eucalyptus lingered in the air coupled with a faint hint of tea. There were a couple of succulents along with a few photo frames. You could recognise a man with a mop of blonde hair and a pair of bright blue eyes, as well as a tall man with blonde hair and a moustache from the photos; it was the Dean of the university, Erwin Smith, and Associate Professor Mike Zacharias from the Business and Accountancy faculty. It was well-known that the three of them had been friends since a long time ago. Strange, you thought to yourself. Nothing suggests that a woman lives here. You wondered if anyone else ever came to Professor Ackerman's house like you did.

Professor Ackerman's study was simple. He had an L-shaped desk with his laptop placed at the other edge, a roller chair, and shelves filled with books of all sorts. There was also a coffee table with a small vase of flowers. A teapot sat on the left corner of his desk and a cup of piping hot black tea accompanied it.

Focusing on his desk, you noticed there was a small glass bowl with a lone fantail goldfish swimming inside. You excitedly bent forward and tapped the bowl. He cleared his throat and gestured to the seat next to you while your face heat up in embarrassment, pulling the collar of your blouse after realising it was a little too revealing.

"So, what brings you here, y/n?" You gulped hearing the way your name sounded when he said it. You took your seat, crossing your legs and fidgeting with your clothes. You shouldn't have worn a pleated skirt and such annoying thigh high socks. Your thin blouse was also a little too loose and kept slipping off your shoulder. You noticed him watching you and tried adjusting your blouse once more.

"Yeah, L-Levi. O-okay. Uhh, I need help with my statistics, Prof—no, Levi. I am this close to failing this module and I absolutely do not want to retake this module the next semester." You looked at Levi, pleading silently with your eyes. You really couldn't afford to fail because it would only increase your workload for the next semester, and clash with your work schedule.

"P-professor Ack—"

"Call me Levi. We're not in school." You pinched your thigh, hoping you weren't dreaming. Did he just... told me to address him... by his name?

"But I'm teaching the same module next semester still," Levi crossed his arms and leaned on his chair, giving you a quizzical look. You cocked your eyebrow, momentarily distracted by how his biceps bulged under his shirt.

"Wait Profes—Levi," you looked at him with disbelief, "are you saying you wouldn't mind if I failed your statistics class?"

Levi merely shrugged, leaving his study for a brief moment. He told you to take out your notes and you obeyed, though you were still confused by what he said. Levi returned moments later with another tea cup and some biscuits. The tea wasn't plain black like what he was drinking, but it was rose—your favourite scent.

"So, what do you not know and need help with?" Levi stood by the side of your chair, leaning forward to look at your laptop screen while one hand was placed on the back of your chair and the other on the table. He was too close; you could smell the tea in his breath and his musky scent radiating from his body. You nervously toyed with your fingers, grabbing on to the hem of your skirt.

"Pro—Levi?" you looked up at him while he placed the teacup by your side. "H-how did you—"

"You always come into my class smelling like roses." Levi walked to his window and closed it, drawing the curtains as well, switching on the aircon and closing the door. The room became pitch dark before Levi switched on the lights. You had a foreboding sense as though you were being trapped with nowhere to escape.

"Hmm. Then we have a problem. You do know your assignment is due two weeks from now, and your finals are six weeks later?" Levi's breath hit your face, causing your cheeks to heat up uncontrollably under his piercing gaze. You couldn't speak up, afraid of saying something inappropriate. Levi smirked and moved away from you.

"Relax, y/n, I'm not here to punish you," Levi tapped your hands, unknowingly brushing part of your exposed thigh as well. You jumped at the contact, earning a very subtle smirk from Levi.

"Uhh, s-so, erm, first, I'm very confused by the binomial theorem that you talked about last week," you forced yourself to focus on looking for the relevant lecture slides instead of thinking about how nice your professor smelt, "no actually, I'm very confused with everything." You sighed in defeat. Levi turned the chair, making you face him. His face was too close, he was invading into your personal space. Yet, you didn't back off or move away. Instead, your eyes were glued to the light freckles you see across his porcelain skin.

"Don't worry, since you're here, we'll make full use of time to help you get back to speed. You can keep the laptop, you won't be needing it." Walking towards his bookshelves, Levi dragged out a heavy box underneath the shelves. You eagerly hurried forward to help him, accidentally brushing your fingers against his. The both of you jumped from the sudden contact, as though a spark of electricity flowed through and caused a short circuit. You yelped and quickly hurried back to your seat, Levi let out an inaudible chuckle.

"Here, do these questions first and ask me anything you're unsure of." Levi passed you a stack of worksheets and returned back to his seat opposite you, taking a sip of tea and looking a little red. You nodded and started working, the silence between you two a little awkward and suffocating.

"P—Levi," you spoke up after a while. Levi went over to your side again, once more leaning close to you to look at your paper. He had his hand on the armrest of your chair and another placed on the desk. His face was only inches away and his musky scent, although more subtle now, still got you feeling intoxicated and you wondered if he was doing this on purpose. "I-I, uh, I'm not sure how to—" as you turned to look at him, you didn't realise Levi also turned his head towards you. And just like that, your lips briefly met.

You didn't know what to do; you looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Levi was stunned as well, backing off slightly once he realised what happened. His lips are so soft...

"I'm so sorry, Levi! I-it was an acci—" instead, Levi turned your chair towards him once more and pressed his lips onto yours, pushing you back against the chair. Your eyes widened, desperately trying to push Levi away. No, he's my professor, I can't. The same thoughts repeated over and over in your head as Levi kissed you harder, grabbing your wrists preventing you from pushing away.

"You want this as well, don't you, y/n?" Levi broke the kiss and whispered against your lips, peering at you through his spectacles. There were slight wrinkles around his eyes, yet he still looked dashing as hell. He removed them, hastily throwing them on his desk without caring if it would break. Levi pushed your chair, letting it roll until it hit the wall and he advanced towards you again, trapping you between his body and his chair.

"N-no, I—"

"Lies." Levi leaned down towards you, a hungry glint flickering in his eyes. "I've seen the way you look at me during our lectures. You'd always be the first to arrive and the last to leave, no? Always trying to get my attention with your hair and your clothes." Levi stroked your cheek and you felt goosebumps crawling across your skin. Your pupils dilated, your heartbeat becoming erratic.

"I'm starting to think you're purposely failing your classes to get these private sessions with me." Levi smirked, enjoying the look of horror plastered on your face. You felt cornered, you needed to do something. Just then, a devilish thought crossed your mind.

"You're up to no good yourself, Professor," emphasising on the title, trying to get back at Levi for exposing your little tricks. "You invited me over to your place knowing I had a thing for you, hmm? Those house slippers, did you buy them just for me?" You teased, locking eyes with your professor.

"Why, are you having impure thoughts on your student as well, Professor?" You cheekily replied, feeling daring. You were pushing your luck and you knew nothing good might come out of it. There was no use denying; you did have feelings for your professor. Raw, inappropriate, and overflowing feelings.

"Tch, you're a snarky one, aren't you?" Levi growled before harshly kissing you again. Trapping you against the chair, Levi kissed you with vigour and you returned the kiss with equal enthusiasm, locking your hands behind Levi's neck to pull him closer. The kisses were sloppy and wet as your tongues intertwined, Levi moaning into the kiss as you tugged on his hair.

You were right. Levi did have impure thoughts of you the moment he saw you in his class. He noticed how you always smelt strongly of roses, reminding him of his mother. You were always the first to arrive and the last to leave. Your grades were terrible yet you were doing fine in every other class. Worse of all, you were always wearing shorts and skirts that exposed your thighs, something that constantly made Levi extremely feral and weak. He knows it's wrong to develop feelings for his student, but how can he control his own feelings when you're so young, beautiful, and irresistible?

Levi's lips broke free from yours as he went to your neck, taking a long sniff of your perfume before biting down on your skin. You clutched onto Levi's shirt, your loud panting was music to Levi's ears. Levi tugged hard on your blouse, causing a slight tear on the collar. He pulled even harder, entirely ripping the flimsy fabric off and throwing it to a corner.

"W-wait! My blouse—" your eyes flew open when you registered the ripping sound as well as how bare you suddenly felt. Levi stood up, looking down at your topless self.

"You planned this, didn't you, horny slut?" Levi held your jaw, forcing you to look at him. "Wearing such a short skirt and loose clothing to your professor's house. You're waiting to get fucked, aren't you? Answer me." The air was thick with lust and longing, your chest heaving and body sweaty.

"Y-yes, Professor." Levi released his hold on you, satisfied with your answer. Levi promptly removed his shirt and bent towards you and you licked your lips unconsciously. Levi was in his forties yet his physique was fantastic. His muscles rippled with every move and his abs were extremely well-defined. His arms were lean and muscular and you couldn't help but roam your eyes around his body.

"Good girl," Levi smiled, kissing you once more. You closed your eyes and melted into the kiss, feeling Levi's hands roaming all over your body before squeezing your thighs like a stress ball.

"Do you do this often with other students?" You teased, feeling a little playful and thrilled at the idea of hooking up with your professor. Levi laughed and shook his head.

"Mmm, Professor Ackerman," you moaned against Levi's lips, holding on to his biceps.

"I said, call me Levi." Disconnecting from your lips, Levi breathed hard on your face.

"No, just you. None of my students ever had such a huge effect on me other than you, y/n." Your heart swooned hearing his words. Pulling Levi close to you, you kissed him as if you've been starved, feeling more daring after hearing what Levi said. Sucking on his lower lip, you seated upright, slowly standing up and cupping his hard erection with one hand. Levi let out a low groan when he felt pressure on his groin, kissing you harder and slapping your ass. You smiled into the kiss, slowly slipping your hand into the waistband of Levi's sweatpants.

"I'm here to get help for my lousy statistics grades, but I think I have to help you with something else first, Professor."

A/N: I am about to shoot myself in the feet after writing this byeeeeee!!!! Stay tuned to more Professor Ackerman <3 also, certain details that appear here will be important in future Professor Ackerman drabbles hehe, so please keep a lookout!!

Tagging: @ack3rlady @roralore @imkumichan @kristinecharmm @notgoodforlife @jean-prettyboy-kirschtein @michiboo @sweet-assh0le @hannie2kay @ack3rlevi @levislovingwife @galactict3a @hauntedhousecat @sckerman @jayteacups @roralore @thesimpsstuff @ackermandick

Professor Ackerman master list | Part Two

Levi Master List | Main Master List | Join the taglist

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thefanficmonster · 4 years

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You Call It A Mess, We Call It Baking

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: Tons of fluff

Summary: A friendly argument via Discord leads to a baking session. Said baking session leads to a kitchen looking like it was the victim of a tornado. The lesson here is: don’t leave Corpse and Y/N in the kitchen together.

Requested by Anon, thank you so much for your request, hope I captured what you wanted well and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Corpse’s POV

I’ve been sitting in a Discord call with Y/N for about three years now, keeping her company as she’s editing some footage Sean sent her earlier. In the meantime, I’m reviewing the recently submitted stories by my viewers, reading some lines I find funny or downright terrifying to her.

“When I went in the kitchen to check on the cake, it was already out of the oven, a sticky note next to it on the counter that read: ‘smells nice’. My blood ran cold.“ I read the eerie sentence that is suggesting one of my most frightening scenarios - a stalker getting inside your house. I get chills just imagining what was probably going on in the sender’s head when they saw that.

“Jeez, it’s been so long since I’ve cooked something other than omelet.“ I hear Y/N reply absentmindedly, completely neglecting the fear factor of what’s going on in the story.

“Good job missing the point.” I chuckle, my eyes continuing to scan the email until my brain actually comprehends what she said, “Wait, you mean to tell me you have baked anything ever?! No offense, Y/N, but I was honestly doubting your ability to make an omelet as well. In all the years we’ve been friends I can’t remember you ever not saying ‘I hade takeout’ when I asked you what you had for dinner.”

The scoff that comes through my headphones is the most adorable thing ever. She’s one to easily take a joke and never get offended by anything, but I know how heated she can get with her sarcasm. If I’m being honest, I’m always here for it.

“There are many things you don’t know about me, Corpsy. A girl’s gotta have some aces up her sleeve.“ I can just imagine the narrowing of here eyes and the tilting of her head as she says that. She has a very specific way of expressing her thoughts. When we first met I accidentally made the comparison to one of those children’s books that have pictures, stories and small buttons for audio. That comparison has stuck with me and I look back at it very often. To fully catch her point, you don’t just listen to her. No, no, no. You focus on every change in her face and body. The way she looks away during certain parts of her speech, the way her voice plays with several different tones at once. Her posture while speaking. Just like those books - you don’t just listen to the audio, you look at the pictures and read the text.

“Well you know how much I like playing poker, why don’t you come over and throw those aces down.“ The last thing you should ever give Y/N is a challenge. She won’t only homerun it, but will never let you forget it either. When we met she was a girl with self esteem in the negatives, so seeing her brag about her achievements to me always brings me joy.

The details I’ve listed are pretty in-depth, aren’t they? That’s because I don’t want to let anything slip when it comes to her. This realization hit me early in our friendship and it was only like two years in that I finally connected the dots - this investment in her of mine was not simple nor platonic. Come to think of it, I reckon it never was.

“No way, I’m not changing out of my pajamas just to come to your house.” She laughs, once again making me picture her full body reaction to her statement.

I smirk, knowing I’m about to bring out my main weapon, “Oh come on, I’ve seen you in pajamas countless times. You can just admit you don’t wanna embarrass yourself. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

I can sense her fuming even though she’s like two miles away. “I’ll be there in 15.”

She hangs up before getting the chance to hear me lose control of the laughter I’ve been suppressing.

Man, I love this girl.

Y/N’s POV

“It’s on.“ I say as soon as the door in front of me swings open to reveal the smug smirking face of my bestfriend. The foundation of my tough, unbothered act is shaken up by the outburst of butterflies in my stomach which occurs every time I see him. I can never look at this man and not turn at least a little red in the cheeks.

It’s been long since I self-diagnosed with the malicious ‘falling for someone who would never reciprocate my feelings’ illness. I’ve been living with it for a while. What medication do I take? Dating other guys. One bad relationship after another, scolding myself that every one of them has been a desperate attempt to get him to change his gaze on me from ‘best friend’ to something more. Hell, I don’t even know how to define that ‘something more’. I once even tried to admit my feelings, but I was so vague and so incoherent that I didn’t understand myself, so how was he supposed to grasp my downright sad excuse of a confession.

“No ‘hello’, no nothing?“ He moves aside to let me in. I walk right past him with a sassy flip of my hair to mask the nervousness of being aware that his eyes were on me, “Rude.“ He murmured with an obvious smile in his tone.

He looks as cute as ever, black sweatpants and a black tee, hair messy as though he has just rolled out of bed. I can say with the upmost certainty that he’s the only one who can pull of that hairstyle.

I hide mine as I throw on the apron that’s hanging by his fridge, ready to take over his kitchen and put those aces of mine to use. I can’t help but furrow my brows when I see him enter the kitchen behind me and lean against the counter. That’s when I notice the counter is lined with all the ingredients I’ll need for the cake I had in mind.

“OK, what do we do first?“ he claps his hands together, straightening his posture as he gives me a expectant look.

It takes all my brain cells to prevent me from freezing up completely. I’m not usually like this, mind you, I’m a lot better at keeping what’s going on inside my head camouflaged. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I don’t have much time to dwell on that. If I do, he’ll pick up on it right away.

“Um, we are not gonna do anything. I will be here baking, and you will remain outside the kitchen until I’m done. If you need something, ask and I’ll bring it to you. I can’t have you sabotaging my project, impostor.” I narrow my eyes at him like he’s the most dangerous of threats. And he is, for my mental sanity.

He fakes a hurt expression, clearly fighting to the best of his ability to hide how much he’s enjoying messing with me. “We’ve known each other for five years, Y/N. Don’t you trust me?”

I lean over the counter to where we’re about two feet apart and whisper, “Not. Even. A. Little. Bit.”

He smiles, “You’re just trying to get away with making this cake by watching a YouTube tutorial. Admit it, you can’t even crack an egg properly.” His eyes are now as narrowed as mine as we stare each other down at a proximity that’s rapidly raising my body temperature and heartbeat. It’s not fair. I’m a mess around him so he automatically has the upper hand.

As expected, I give in, “You better not mess around though.”

After I force him to give me several different oaths, we start. I’m working on the batter, he’s working on the frosting. We decided to decorate it with crimson and dark purple frosting. We’re both really pick about the color shades so he’s currently struggling to get the crimson perfect.

“Let’s make it a layer cake.“ He suggests out of the blue, “Two layers, nothing crazy.“

I think it over for a moment or two before shrugging, “OK, but then you better grab a bowl and help me with the second layer. You know how to make the batter, right?”

He confirms that he does and walks out of my line of sight. I hear him open the fridge as I whisk the eggs I have cracked with the sugar.

“You want something to drink?“ He asks while rummaging through the fridge.

I decline, try to focus on the recipe that I have somehow memorized to the smallest of details. As I’m reciting the it silently to make sure I didn’t skip any steps with the batter, I feel something cold run down my back causing me to scream.

“What the fuck was that?!“ I turn around and glare at him just as the ice cube slips out from under my hoodie and falls to the floor. The fucker’s laughing whole heartedly, not giving a damn that he just gave me a mini heart attack. Mainly cause I thought it was a roach or something, and he know I hate bugs.

“You do realize how boiling red you are, right? You look like a lobster. I thought you needed something to cool you down.“

Instead of being annoyed, I do a full 180 and decide to play his game, “Yeah, I know...” I trail off, reaching my hand back towards the bowl of flour. Grabbing a a handful of the white powder I throw it at him before he can even catch on. Needless, to say, his outfit and hair aren’t so black anymore. “Ah, I knew your hair would look good with snowflakes in it, but you can never be too sure.”

“This means war, Y/N.” His smile is borderline malicious, getting me excited for what’s to come.

Him and I have always had these so called wars, but never like you’d imagine. We are silent, strategic, subtle. Neither of us knows when the other will attack until it’s too late. That’s why instead of going for a counter-attack right away, he heads to complete his mission of making the batter for the second layer.

All is quiet except the noises of the utensils clinking together every now and then. I keep a close watch on him out of the corner of my eye and I notice no sus behavior. That is until I see him take a spoonful of his batter and eat it. I whirl around at the speed of a gust of wind, eyes wide, “Do you want to fuck up your guts.” He ignores me as he takes another spoonful, bringing it close to his mouth. This time, I grab onto his arm causing the contents of the spoon to spill on my hoodie.

I roll my eyes, unbothered by the brown stain that by some miracle missed the apron and fell on my grey hoodie, “Don’t. Eat. The. Batter. Copy?“

“Paste.“ He nods, smirking with pride as he puts the spoon aside.

I sigh and return to my side of the kitchen, focusing on the next task: poring the batter into the circular baking tray which he, for some reason, has two of. He repeats the task soon after me and we put the two trays in the oven. I help him with the frosting, getting the shades close enough to what we had in mind.

After about five minutes of the crusts baking, a wonderful smell spreads throughout the kitchen. At this point, all we have to do is wait for the oven to signal that our cinnamon crust is ready to be taken out, wait for it to cool down and then frost the cake.

“It smells really good.“ He comments, turning his head to look at me.

I’m sitting atop the kitchen counter and Corpse is standing next to me. This is the only time him and I are at approximately the same height. The realization brings a thought to my mind, one that makes me feel like an evil mastermind.

“Hey, remember earlier when you said I couldn’t crack an egg properly?“ He hums affirmatively, “Well...“

The carton of eggs is within arm’s reach. I grab an egg, chip it off the side of the counter and crack it apart above his head, its contents coating his hair. “How’s that for a proper egg crack?” I ask victoriously.

He lets out a surprised sound, something between a gasp and a laugh. Shaking his head to get the yoke to fall down, he says amusedly: “I don’t know...you tell me.”

Too late for me to do anything. There’s milk all over me.

The malicious smile on his face is replicated on mine and now it’s really on. However, as we reach for the items meant to be out weapons, the oven dings.

Frosting the cake goes about as well as you expect: there’s more frosting on us than the cake itself.

“Let’s make amends, please. I’m so not looking forward to taking three showers tonight.“ I say, raising a white napkin and waving it around.

“Fair enough.“ He shrugs and we shake hands.

As I’m about to pull my hand back, he holds onto it, making me look up at him. Our eyes lock and I suddenly regain that same shakiness and vulnerability I always have around him. It never leaves me, I just manage to ignore it. The sound of my panic is muffled by the sound of my heart thumping the loudest it has ever.

Expectedly, he is the bold one who makes the first and final move. The move to end one era of us and start another. His lips touch mine and all fades. It’s just him and I. The friends who were never just friends. The cowards who suck at dealing with emotions. The fearful little kids that are afraid of rejection because we both mean so much to each other, to the point of suffering to prevent the possibility of losing one another.

We embrace who we are, finally admitting that friends is not what we are meant to remain forever.

The kiss might’ve been brief, but the meaning it carries makes it the most valuable moment of my life. One I’ll cherish forever. Something in his eyes tells me he will too. That’s all I need. That’s all we need. No words are necessary.

Suddenly, our bubble bursts as a result of his ringing phone. He lets go of one of my hands and takes his phone from the counter.

“It’s Dave”, he smiles, picking up the call and turning to get me in the camera frame. “Hey Dave, look who’s here with me.“

I wave at the camera and at the baffled face of Dave. “Hi!”

“What, in the name of God, is that mess?“ He raises both his eyebrows as his eyes scan us and the kitchen behind us.

“You call it a mess, we call it baking.“ Corpse and I look at each other and smile, blushing as red as the streak in Dave’s hair.

“Am I missing something here? Did I call at a bad time?“ He asks, still struggling to rationalize what he is seeing.

“Yeah, you actually did. I’ll call you back.“ Corpse dead-ass hangs up on him, putting his phone away before turning to me, “We have more important matters at the moment.“

He kisses me again, this time more confidently. His arms wrap around me and prep me up on the counter, insinuating that this kiss won’t be as short as the last.

#corpse husband #corpse #husband #corpsehusband #corpse husband fanficiton #corpse husband fanfic #x reader #reader #fanfiction #fanfic #corpse simp #request #requests open #romance #friends to lovers #love

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currywaifu · 4 years

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𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: that’s pretty knit 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩: rurikawa yuki/reader 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: sfw 𝐰𝐜: 1.9k words, 1 image

𝐚𝐧: yuki birthday month, yuki fic. ahaha i am very direct with my titles again. what’s new? because of the research i did, i’m probably gonna go order some knitting materials online now

Perhaps you spent too much time at the nearest arts and crafts store. For a dozen or so minutes you stood in one spot, unmoving unless someone needed to pass by you, your eyes flitting up and down, left and right as you debated over the different assortments of yarn.

You already had an inkling the different colours would overwhelm you— with so many different colours and different shades each, how could you possibly limit yourself to just one? You didn’t expect to be this troubled with choosing among different yarn weights, too. Why did the store give you 7 different choices? How were you supposed to know if choosing light yarn was better than choosing bulky yarn?

… you seriously should have done more research, but the prospect of finally having free time to visit the shop overshadowed any semblance of rationality you previously possessed.

Look at you now.

Alright, Plan A— scope out the area for the friendliest looking employee and muster up the courage to ask for help, plain and simple.

Except things don’t always go as planned.

When you hear your name come from a voice behind you, it was impossible not to figure out who it was that caught you. You’re just a little bit upset and a little bit tense because of all people to come across at this moment, it had to be Yuki? It’s not that you dislike him, rather it’s because the opposite is true that you found yourself more pressed than you should be.

It was like buying a surprise gift for someone and that exact someone seeing you buy that gift… actually, that was pretty much the situation— the only differing variable being that the gift hasn’t even been created yet.

Seriously, you just had to come across the very person you were planning on making something for?

“Yuki-kun! What are you doing here?”

He gave you a blank stare, as if waiting for you to realise how dumb your question was. Rurikawa Yuki? In a crafts store? Unless you wanted something specific, the answer should have been plenty obvious.

“Hah? I want to buy materials to make clothes, obviously,” he replied, tilting his head to gesture towards his shopping basket filled with various beads, lace, and… were those feathers? Was he just replenishing stock and were those all for one outfit? Curiosity was getting the better of you, mouth already poised to ask a follow-up question before he interrupted you.

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you?”

To any deities out there, grant you a smidge of acting prowess, or at the very least the ability to make some half-truths and get away with it.

You awkwardly let out a laugh, your eyes leaving Yuki as they dragged themselves back towards the shelves.

“I’m supposed to make a scarf for someone,” an omission of information, but technically the truth, “but I don’t know which yarn to pick?”

For a few seconds Yuki stared at you with narrowed eyes, ultimately letting out a sigh as he placed his own items on the tiled floor, facing the same direction as you.

“Any colour you want?”

Taking the opportunity to resolve one of your main problems, you quickly told him that he could choose any colour he wanted. Haha, you were so slick getting Yuki to choose the material he’d like the most. If you somehow screwed up the knitting process, at least he’d like the colour, right?

“Didn’t you do any research?” Yuki asked, sifting through the pale pink yarns to look for the appropriate weight.

“Not really,” you admitted sheepishly, “I mean, I just saw the steps were easy enough and decided to give it a try.”

“I-di-ot~” he said in a sing-song voice, but despite the nickname you knew there was underlying affection there somewhere, “one skein of super-bulky yarn would be the easiest to work with, then you probably need a crochet hook and 9 mm knitting needles too…”

You follow the green-haired boy as he moves to a different aisle, picking up the supplies you inevitably would have had trouble choosing between.

“Really, you could have just asked me, if you’re so clueless. I’d help you out.”

“No way!” you suddenly exclaimed, earning yourself front row tickets to Yuki’s look of confusion, “I can do it myself!”

You hoped your sudden outburst didn’t come off as rude, but he seemed to just push the matter away nonchalantly.

“Suddenly getting so loud, what’s with you…” he muttered, dropping the things he picked up for you atop your waiting hands, “but that’s fine. The scarf won’t be as cute as if I helped you, but maybe it’ll turn out decent at least.”

You clutched the materials to your chest, already anticipating being able to prove Yuki wrong. How would he react the moment he knew the person you were knitting something for was him?

“I’ll show it to you when I’m done!” you promised, “I need your seal of approval, after all!”

He’d probably point out any issues regardless, so you just had to make sure you did your absolute best!

Knitting took a lot more effort than you anticipated. First of all, you had to do something called a cast on around the needle? Apparently the wrap cast on was great for beginners, but you weren’t gonna lie— it did take you one whole article from some “The Queen of Yarn” blogspot and one 5 minute YouTube tutorial just to make sure you were on the right track.

One. Slip knot: loop the yarn around your fingers clockwise, the yarn attached to the ball going under the loop, slid off your fingers and slipped onto the needle.

It wasn’t that the steps were particularly difficult. Rather, it was constantly making sure you weren’t accidentally skipping any steps or areas due to not paying too much attention.

Two. Open the loop to make a stitch: hold the empty needle with your dominant hand, and the needle with the slip knot in the other. Slip the empty needle into the first loop— from front to back.

Still, it was difficult to stop your thoughts from wandering— perhaps you should have chosen to listen to some kind of tea spill or podcast or comedy routine or anything with words instead of the LoFi ChillHop live stream playing from your phone. You were going to give Yuki a scarf— then what?

Three. Wrap the yarn: go counter-clockwise, the working yarn sliding between both of the needles.

You had a crush on Yuki, plain and simple, but it’d be embarrassing to just admit it! The amount of courage you had still needed replenishing, what with the amount you used up to just go up to him and try befriending him a couple of months back. What if you confessed, and he decided not only was your scarf ugly, he wouldn’t be friends with you anymore as well?

Four. Turn the stitch: slide the dominant-hand needle from the back to the front of the other needle.

But would it be enough to just pass off the garment as a, “thank you for being my friend” gift? Especially when there was no real occasion, and the hours you put in into making him something— would he question it?

Five. Finish the stitch: slide the dominant-hand needle up so that the first loop on the other needle slides off. Move on to the next loop, do the same thing, repeating until you are out of stitches.

Well, even with all of Yuki’s bluntness, he was still kind so he’d probably still be your friend! It’d still really hurt if he rejected you though, so maybe you should put off implying anything more than platonic between you two for… a while. Maybe it was too soon?

Looking at the progress you made, you were unable to hold in a groan of defeat. The pale pink yarn against the bamboo needle looked pretty and neat; there was an issue though.

One row. You were only able to do one row so far.

Your phone clock said it was still pretty early into the afternoon. Well, a few more hours wouldn’t hurt anything except your hands, right?

A hand therapy site told you that pain brought by needlework was probably due to repetition of motion, bad posture, and or general fatigue. Not gonna lie, you probably fit into all three— the last one maybe more so than others.

How long one took to knit varied— some dedicating days, while others were able to crank out 5 scarves a day. A part of you was proud to be able to procure something presentable and wearable in one sitting.

…

You’re just choosing to omit the fact that that one sitting lasted until 3 am, but what Yuki doesn’t know? Won’t hurt him.

Thanking your singular brain cell right now that you decided to do this project over the weekend instead of during a school day— you’re unsure if you’d even be able to survive at all if you actually had to do maths and stuff the day after.

Deciding to just go with the flow, you found yourself folding the scarf as neatly as you could, gingerly placing it inside a paper bag. After all, you agreed to “have him judge” your creation today.

In all honesty, you thought you had built up the confidence to confess your crush to Yuki. If he reciprocated, good for you! If he didn’t, well, either you take it cooly or go ‘I said I liked you as a friend thing, silly!”

Standing in front of him though, his orange eyes scrutinising the pale pink scarf, made you lose your words, hesitation standing in its stead.

“Garter stitch…”

“What do you think, Yuki-kun?” you asked, peering at the green haired boy curiously as you impatiently awaited his verdict.

“I’m honestly surprised you made something nice,”

“Hey—“

“But for beginner, it’s pretty good,” he complimented, “actually, I can see myself wearing it when it gets colder—“

Even with such simple words, you felt your heart swell in happiness. Not only did he say he liked it, but he even went as far as to say he’d wear it? There were so many ways to get your gratitude across, to tell Yuki your true intentions in ‘asking for his approval’. With all of your options, you went with

“If you like it, it’s yours!”

“Hey, you…”

He looked like he didn’t know how to respond. Actually, you can relate to that because even you’re befuddled by your wording. Didn’t it make it seem like you gifted it to him as an afterthought?

“I mean, well that’s not what I meant,” you hurriedly followed up, “I wanted to give it to you from the start? I didn’t know if it’d be nice though so if you said it was ugly I would’ve hidden it from the world? You said you would wear it though so—“

“This won’t do…” Yuki replied, interrupting your impending rambling. Before you could ask him what he meant, he pulls your hand to lead you inside the dormitories.

Unbeknownst to you, pink the same shade of your... his scarf painted his cheeks. If only the weather was fit for the garment you gave, he’d be able to blame the sudden colour on the cold.

“Come on, I need to get your measurements.”

It was difficult to keep the silly grin off of your face afterwards.

want to order again?

#a3!#a3! act! addict! actors!#yuki rurikawa #a3! yuki #a3! imagines #cafe: dessert menu #rurikawa yuki #a3! x reader #yuki rurikawa x reader

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the-satellite · 3 years

Text

Hello friends and welcome to ☆Hateful Nostalgia☆. I was exposed to the mob talker mod WAY too young bc I was an unsupervised child on the internet watching mod showcases and SkyDoesMinecraft. Looking back these sucked, the stories were often bland and the designs were milk toast at best and tits out at worst. So for the sake of procrastinating on working on anything substantial I grabbed the main 6 I remembered and gussied em up. Redesigns, rewrites, better names, all that bullshit. If your interested in better photos, design notes, story details and rambling hit the basement, otherwise here's a line up you should click for better quality.

Also I wrote all this once before already but I deleted it like a dumb bitch. On the night Unus Annus was murdered in front of my eyes no less. Was a rough fuckin night.

The Creeper- Kupa. An explosive pyromaniac with a habit of making empty threats and yelling. She protects what she believes to be her territory with a suicidal passion, but if you manage to get her to cool down and soften up she's pretty sick to hand out with. Hard of hearing, has at least one bout of head trauma at all times, and deathly allergic to cats.

Because the creeper is kinda the og I wanted to reference AT2's design more than the others, but I'm p sure the only thing I actually kept was the red hair and brown gloves. Otherwise I was doing whatever. I really wanted to lean into the explody bit of creepers, so I gave her some bite and dressed her in clothes referenced from Irish railroad workers. This may also be why I keep imaging her with a very heavy Irish or Scottish accent, whichever would be most incomprehensible when angry. Every color but her skin was color picked from one of the references, with some minor alterations for makes my eyes happy reasons.

With Kupa I imagine a story line with her would largely be about her as a character and her development than like an actual adventure narrative like everyone else. She starts off ready to blow up both you and herself in a misguided attempt to defend what she sees as her's and opens up and learns not everyone is out to get her. Lots of time taken to understand her childhood and how she ended up how she is. Very simple, probably the default or tutorial run people would go through.

The Zombie- Bee. The ill husk of a missing explorer suffering from a less than conventional appetite. She wallows in her self imposed loneliness, believing herself to be an irredeemable monster doomed to hurt those around her. What she really needs is a buddy and some clue to who she used to be. Rough voiced, chronically fatigued, and prone to spontaneous combustion in sunlight.

I definitely consider this one the weakest for design sadly. I imagined Zombies as humans who went into strange caves and caverns and didn't come out for years, only to pop up as completely different people. I just tossed AT2's design. The first thing I did was make her a bit of a genderbent Steve and tinted her green bc Zombies in game are just Steve but green. Tore up her clothes, colored picked the darkest colors I could from the clothes on the in game and boom, Bee. I do vaguely regret not making her eyes pure black but I also still wanted her to be human enough to fit with the other overworld mods.

Ok so Bee actually has a basic story. When you meet her she's aggressive, but as a warning. She fears the possibility she may hurt somebody so heads for threats immediately. Going back and forth between her cave and village for a while you learn more about the situation with the missing folks who come back and Bee as a person. After a bit you pick her up off her depressed ass and start a nocturnal adventure of refinding your past, adapting to who your becoming, overcoming self destuction, and slow burn babey!!!

The Skeleton- Ulna. One of the few surviving warriors of a now destroyed kingdom and dead culture. She spends most of her time now traveling alone, hiding in trees and shooting anything see sees as a threat- which is everything- in the face with homemade arrows. Very much suffering from loss of her home and a bad case of lost purpose. A woman of few words, very antisocial, and naturally nocturnal.

I came in with the Skeleton wanting to make her seem mysterious, so my first thought was immediately a cloak and a mask, but I wanted her face to like be visible so I went with the face paint. I didn't actually know that I wanted to do under there so I went with wraps that are reminiscent of the original outfit but still not tits out bc it's so fucking easy! Gave her a quiver, color picked the cloak and face paint from the in game model and the wraps from AT2'S art. I did like. Subconsciously draw her eyes the way I do Asian characters but I didn't have anything specific in mind so like go nuts with what you think she is.

Ulna's deal is very much her lack of purpose or home and the entire thing is about finding that again. She's found sitting up in a tree during a storm pointing a bow and arrow into your face. She eventually let's you stick around until the storm is over and theres some bonding into deep night until the rain stops. You ask if she wants to come with on your little travelling sword for hire business, she says sure, sleep schedule shenanigans, backstory angst, and road trip bonding happens and she eventually decides that helping people is her new purpose and you're her new home

The Spider- Park. A young adult experiencing the world for the first time through her tribe's rite of passage. She's really just trying to figure out how to live life outside of the cave she's been stuck in her entire life and aggressively trying to be an independent adult despite not knowing anything about being an independent adult. Its projection. Blind in the daylight, naive and excitable, and taken to refusing help at her own risk.

Ok so. I don't know who looked at the spider and said "purple haired loli with puffy pants" so I once again yeeted the whole thing, only really keeping the kinda cutesy and childish bits. Spiders are a tribe of humans what live in caves unless they've broken off to live on the surface. Kids are kept inside until they hit a certain milestone, where they come up to explore at night. They're usually small and pale, but are pretty kickass when necessary. Again picked the colors off the in game model, played with the lightest gray for the skin, and bc I couldn't figure out anyway to use the stripes so they're on the patches lol.

Park's meeting is probably the funniest and most meet cute one here, in that she accidentally drops on top of you from a little cliff drop off. Cue loads of apologies and an explanation about the spider deal and being blind in light. She asks for some help getting around and bam babey friendship and emotional attachment! What follows is kinda a buddy of coming of age story with the obligatory goes home and is miserable scene. Generally it's just about being a scared young adult and having someone to fall back on and why that's important. Also crushes and young people being bad at that.

The Blaze- Amber. A demonic entity who would let the world burn and the sun die if it meant she'd get her soul back. She's known for being ruthless, taking souls through force instead of making deals like other Blazes. Keeps this forceful nature even once she's become friendly, makes you do dump shit. Territorial, eyes glow and dim with her life, and runs remarkably warm.

Amber here is the first one I actually did! I was just. Really tired that she was in a bikini. I decided early on I wanted overworld mobs to be human and everyone else was decidedly not, so Blazes are demons who gave up their souls under false pretenses to other Blazes. Because of how little clothes AT2's design wore I had essentially free reign and my thought was immediately to lean on golden knight bc of how Blazes are found protecting fortresses. The gold isn't picked from anything bc I was looser with the colors, but everything else is, and the hair is supposed to represent the smoke. Also the sticks in her hair are blaze rods bc I don't like them just floating around her.

Amber is found in the Nether obviously, protecting a fortress and immediately trying beat your ass and either incinerate you or make you give up your soul. During you prove yourself a p damn good fighter and she makes a deal to show you how Blazes exist and pursade you to give your soul up willingly. Bonding happens and she explains where the souls go and what happened to her. Insert line about how she dug in the sand for her soul until her fingers bleed bc I'm an Arcana freak lol. In general I'd just like her to learn to adapt to who she is now and learning to live life well instead of letting her anger burn her up from the inside out.

The Enderman- Violet. A confused but sweet young bit of void created by and connected to the Ender Dragon. Her relationship with reality is tenuous at best and abusive at worst, making stable existence rather difficult. She doesn't know a name, age, gender, anything about herself aside from that she likes sweaters. Communicates primarily through psychic connections, docile and sweet, and melts like a witch in water.

Violet was incredibly easy, so this may be way short. Endermen are decidedly human shaped void from the End with varying sentience. They're direct extensions of the Ender Dragon, and nobody knows how they're made or where they come from, not even they do. Adventurers who escaped The End say they seem scared of it though. Violet in particular is pretty damn new and extraordinary nonconforming, and I tried to show that with her sweater and ponytail. Once again, literally all colors picked. Definitely the simplest but one of my favs.

Violet is the sweetest meet up I think. As your traveling between villages you notice a strange enderman watching you and plant a little flower in front of her. She picks it and you hear a happy little trill come from you and a pretty voice say thank you in your head. Now you have a tall dark teleporting travel buddy! After a little bit of back and forth she tells you in some broken English that the Ender Dragon made her but she doesnt know how, and that it's bad and needs to be killed for the sake of Endermen and that's the new goal. Spoiler they're the corrupted souls of those that died fighting it, with it gone Endermen are free to exist as their own being and do whatever, hurray!

#cosmic entity's art #minecraft #mob talker mod #mc creeper #mc zombie #mc skeleton #mc spider #mc blaze #mc enderman #character design

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whumping-out-of-timee · 3 years

Text

How to have mismatched eye color in any picrew: a tutorial

*****

At the bottom I give a quick overview (but not a specific tutorial) of how you can also make various other things that are almost never available in picrews, some of these are harder than others: Other forms of Heterocromia, Inner eye ring colors, Custom scars, Custom skin tone variations (can make vitiligo, granted the picrew creator added enough skin variations), Custom hair color streaks

*****

Hate when you choose the perfect picrew, but your oc has some form of heterocromia and the picrew won’t let you show that?

Here’s a quick trick to fix it, with zero artistic talent required.

Everything we need is already in the picrew! We’re just going to use a simple layer trick to merge 2 of the same picrew

This will be user friendly for people who have no experience with digital art and will be done using a free mobile app. (Since most people don’t have computer drawing apps if they aren’t into digital art)

Needed: a picrew you like, a free digital art app (I’m going to use ibis paint X for this tutorial)

The link to the picrew I’ll be using for this. No orange eye color though, the one thing I needed lmao

Step 1:

Save two versions of the same picrew with differing eye colors in each as the only difference.

In my experience, the picrew stays built when you re-enter the link. So, just build it and save it as normal, then it will still be there and you can change the eye color before saving the second copy.

Your copies should look about like this: it’s important to keep the rest of picrew as a copy except for the eye color. The fewer differences, the easier it will be.

Step 2:

Ok, now the hardest part is over! Drawing apps can look scary if you’re not used to them, but it will be ok.

When we open IbisPaint X it will look like this:

You want to select ‘My gallery” and then hit the plus sign at the bottom left hand corner. You’ll then be given this menu:

Now this looks like a mess, butttt you’re just going to ignore it all and click import picture. You can then choose 1 of the picrew’s from your gallery. Don’t worry it doesn’t matter which you choose.

You will be prompted with this notification:

Cancel this. This will turn the work into lineart or something I’m not sure tbh. Not familiar with this app. But it will mess up our picrew. Accidentally did it? No problem! Just close the app and go back through the menu

Step 3:

So, now you have this:

We’re ready to overlap it with the other picrew we made!

I’m running out of the 10 photos per post, I’ll try to still give a visual for each step though. Hope it’s not confusing

1- First we’re going to hit the ‘layers’ symbol at the bottom right

2- here we can see the layers, this app seems to automatically make a new layer for a new picture, so don’t worry about any of this! Select the add photo button and choose your picrew with the opposite eye color of the 1st

3- Dont mess with these settings, just push the green check! We don’t want to move the picture since we’re relying on them being directly on top of each other

4- cancel the lineart thing again

5- Now we have 2 layers, each with 1 version of your picrew

6- you can just tap above this menu to close it. It should appear as though our picrew has changed eye color.

Step 4:

Now for the fun part! We’re going to erase one of the eyes on this top layer to reveal the other color underneath!

1- We’re going to switch from pen to eraser using this button in the bottom left hand corner.

2- For the best precision, we’re going to want to zoom in towards the eye that isn’t supposed to be the current color (we can zoom in by placing two fingers on the canvas and pulling them apart. Idk what this is called. Reverse piniching?) The other thing we’re going to do is make the eraser smaller by sliding the top slider to the left.

3- Now we’re ready to erase! Carefully erase over the eye and it will change color. Be careful not the erase the other eye, or it will change color as well. If you make a mistake, the undo button is towards the top of the canvas

4- all done! Just gotta save it now. Push the button in the bottom right corner

5- When the menu comes up, you want to save as a normal PNG. Now it’s in your gallery!

Step 5:

Done!

It doesn’t look edited at all! Because it’s really not, we just combined two of the same art in different colors. No one would ever guess. It still has the same dimensions and everything!

*****

Other stuff you can do with this trick:

Although some of these take a lot more careful erasing, these shouldn’t require any actual drawing. You can use these basics to experiment with this stuff as well:

- A different colored ring around the middle of the eyes: put the middle color on the bottom layer and erase around the pupil carefully in a circle with a very small eraser brush size.

- eyes that are half colored, in a line down the middle (a form of heterocromia): layer order doesn’t matter, erase half of each eye carefully, depending on which color should be where.

- a color streak through the hair: this one will require careful erasing to look good. You’ll need a picrew where the hair is entirely the color of the streak, and a picrew with the surrounding hair color. Put the color streak layer on the bottom layer. Erase the top layer in the shape of the streak you want colored. You can place it anywhere. You can do this with faded hair tips as well, but how well that turns out will depend on the color difference the creator had between similar hair colors... in other words, if dark and light brown are closer together in color value, it will look more natural when you merge them. I would recommend putting the lighter hair color layer on the bottom. When you erase, you’ll be drawing where the highlights are, functionally the same as the color streak.

- you can make uneven skin tones or vitiligo if the creator has added enough skin tone variations to the picrew: to make vitiligo you’ll make a picrew with your lightest skin tone and a picrew with your darkest skin tone. You’ll put the lightest skin tone on the bottom layer. Then you’ll erase the top layer in the pattern where skin pigment has been lost. You’ll be able to control the pattern of color loss like this, and make any pattern you want! This layer order works best for putting light patches on darker skin. If you want to darken an area you’ll put the darker layer down first and erase the top layer with lighter skin into the pattern you want. Essentially: put light down first if you want to put a light pattern on dark skin. Put dark down first if you want to put a dark pattern on light skin

-custom scars if the creator has added enough skin tone variations to the picrew: this is the same idea as skin tone variations. This time though, we need a picrew with a pink tone skin color choice, a lighter one than the character’s skin tone can also work if you want silver scars. Make a picrew with normal skin tone for the character, and a picrew with the scar color. Put the scar color picrew down first, then add the normal tone one. Now when you erase it should make scars in any pattern you want!

If you’re having trouble erasing neatly, the answer is always to zoom in on the canvas and decrease the eraser brush size! Also you can undo and redo until it looks how you want!

That’s all I can think of right now! Hope everyone has fun making those OC’s that the picrews always seem to forget. And especially anyone who’s been left out themselves!

I have on anon asks if anyone has questions/problems using this tutorial! Or any questions about how to do something similar

Feel free to add other tips to this post as well!

*****

#picrew #whump character #oc whump #oc picrew #how to edit picrews

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monomonomagines · 4 years

Note

(this is kind of a Steven Universe/Danganronpa crossover ask) can I get the V3 boys accidentally fusing with their half-gem s/o and their reaction? BTW your blog is amazing

Thanks for thinking our blog is amazing anon! It took me a few to understand what you meant by fusing with their half gem s/o because I thought it meant that the boys were gems or something possibly but decided to go with them being humans that end up fusing with s/o similar to how Connie did with Steven. I hope that's ok and that you like what I came up with but as always feel free to tell me I goofed.

Rantaro

Rantaro is fairly romantic and carefree so when you'd fuse it'd probably be when you two are just doing something small.

You two would be in the house with some light music on when he'd embrace you from behind and the two of you would start lightly swaying like in some corny movie with light laughter.

It'd all be so normal until that laughter would suddenly sound a bit different.

Since when did they stop feeling that warm embrace? Everything still felt like that tender moment from a few minutes ago, all warm and comforting but there wasn't anyone holding the other anymore.

You fused somehow with Rantaro and he couldn't even react.

Your eyes just widened in surprise or rather the both of your eyes did at the mutual feeling as he tried to speak.

It was just a simple question but it ended up coming out your now shared voice.

"Did we just...is this really happening?"

He will be one of the calmest with this experience and look at it as a new type of adventure but he'd still be very shocked. He didn't think this was possible at all.

Ryoma

Ryoma normally looks calm but as you'd get to know him more and more you'd understand that he's really a super anxious guy deep down.

He isn't the best at being super romantic or anything like that but when you said you wanted to try twirling someone he decided to humor you.

He'd never let this happen outside of closed doors so you'd be at his place or yours when he'd begrudgingly give in.

He felt so dumb for doing it but at the same time like he was comfortable and carefree like a child. It's how he felt just being around you.

He felt so comfortable that it didn't even occur to him until a few moments had passed that you two weren't separate, you had fused.

Unlike Rantaro though, Ryoma would freak out and you could hear him losing it.

"Why did this happen? You, no, I can't take this. I don't know how to do..."

Needless to say, you wouldn't stay fused long because he wouldn't be able to relax like Rantaro or be able to accept someone being able to feel everything he does.

He is very embarrassed at you knowing his feelings and wouldn't be willing to try again for a long time because of his own issues. However, that doesn't mean he never will.

Korekiyo

Like Ryoma, Kiyo isn't overly affectionate a lot of the time. He enjoys more simple touches when he's not being intimate with you but he'd always humor you when you'd want more.

There were a few times he'd be the one to wish for more from you but with his personality, he'd normally request more odd requests.

This was one of those times.

Korekiyo had read of a new ritualistic dance that was supposed to bring happiness to couples that he wanted to try out with you.

He was just head over heels with the idea and you so you couldn't help but accept. I mean how could you say no to him?

You took his outstretched hand and soon you were following behind him clumsily with your own moves when suddenly everything would stop.

He wouldn't comprehend it at first and simply think that somehow you both messed up the dance before it'd hit. His dance wasn't ruined at all you both fused! You fused and how beautiful it is.

"This is amazing."

Is the single phrase that leaves both of your lips as you gaze at your new shared vessel.

Instead of freaking out like Ryoma he will be ecstatic and want to continue to try out things you couldn't do before.

Gonta

This boy is always very loving and excitable so it wouldn't be surprising that'd he'd want to continue with his work to become a gentleman for you.

You'd actually become his trainer basically for his training.

He'd want to be able to do things like ballroom dance even so you'd have to help him with some tutorials he'd find.

It'd be a usual day filled with minor hiccups and lots of fun when the two of you would end up fusing.

At first, Gonta would've thought he just messed up but when he'd look down he'd be horribly confused.

Once he'd understand more though he'd freak out thinking this is his fault.

"Go-i'm sorry, no mean to turn us into one person. Was accident I swear it."

Him freaking out wouldn't let you two stay together for long so you'd end up falling apart but once you explain everything better he'd be super excited and would want to try again.

Kokichi

Kokichi is always up for messing around so if he pulled you into some stupid made-up dance suddenly it wouldn't be surprising.

If anything, you'd be used to his childish antics and would go along with a majority.

He counted on that but he never prepared himself to suddenly fuse together.

He wouldn't be happy to fuse since he's a bit of a control freak but he'd love if it gave him the capability to mess with people.

If you go along with him a lot this fusion will work just as well as Rantaro 's would but it'd be a huge nuisance to everyone else.

"What do you mean I stole your hair gel, Kaito? I'm, we'd never do that or is that a lie."

Kaito

Dating Kaito you'd already know he's uncomfortable with most occult stuff.

That thankfully didn't apply to you though. He somehow felt comfortable around you even before you both were dating.

It was just a normal night you two spent stargazing when he pulled you into a hug and started to pull you into a cheesy dance number under the stars when it happened.

One moment it was normal and then suddenly you had a different view of the stars then you did before.

It took Kaito probably the longest out of all these boys to realize what had happened but when he does he freaks.

If you thought Ryoma was bad just imagine Kaito flipping his absolute shit so promptly that you nearly fall apart immediately.

Afterwards though, once you explain what happened to him he'll insist he did not freak out and will beg you to let him try again.

Kiibo

I didn't know it was even possible to fuse with a robot but somehow you did it.

It was a normal day for the two of you when he asked if he could try out a dance you two saw in a romantic movie you two watched.

It was such a sweet and innocent request it was impossible to say no.

You helped show him how to place his hands on you and started to dance away when suddenly you two stopped.

Kiibo, like Gonta at first, thinks he messed up trying to apologize when he then realizes he can feel things differently.

"I'm sorry-wait is this what body heat feels like?"

He's so ecstatic at first until he then realizes that this is not normal.

Then his reaction is very much like Kaito's.

After though, he'd be a lot calmer and levelheaded so that he could listen to your explanation on what happened.

Once he's aware it is normal he's more eager than anyone else to fuse again. It was the closest he's ever felt to being human.

Shuichi

Shuichi is another anxious and self-conscious guy so he wouldn't normally pull you into any impromptu dance numbers but he's used to going along with his weird friends so it's not unlikely for him to join in if you pulled him into one.

If he were comfortable enough around you, he might be able to actually mess around and be childish like how Kiibo can be.

He'd find it nice to be able to act a little childish but it again would not be often when he would.

It would just happen to be a day he's more relaxed when you'd pull him into some crazy made-up dance laughing like a child when suddenly everything would still.

Normally he'd immediately go into a panic as soon as something goes wrong and it's not far off once he can wrap his head around what exactly did happen.

Then he'll be like Ryoma, getting so anxious that he can't stay fused with you and like Ryoma afterwards would be hesitant to try again.

He's just a nervous wreck with low confidence so he'd need a gentle push to try to fuse again.

#danganronpa #danganronpa imagines #drv3 #danganronpa killing harmony #danganronpa x reader #x reader #imagine #rantaro amami #ryoma hoshi #korekiyo shinguji #gonta gokuhara #kokichi ouma #kokichi oma #kaito momota #kiibo #K1-B0 #shuichi saihara #ask #mod toko

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cauldronoflove · 4 years

Note

three word prompt! Taakitz + sycamore, Hulu, mirror dimention

For someone with such an, ah, odd job, Kravitz usually gets home around the same time every day. It's later than most, sure, but it's still a normal in its own right, the sliding of his key into the lock as the clock ticks somewhere around seven and its companions.

The first thing he does when he gets home is pull off his coat. Before he ever even calls out to Taako or gives the cats the affection they so animatedly clamber for, he pulls his arms from the sleeves and slips it onto the wrought iron hook Magnus had had to come install because the old Fantasy 3M one couldn't hold its own against the residual smell of death and the gobs of dirt that always managed to weight down the creases of it.

What comes after the removal of the coat is simple: he calls love? toward whichever room that pinprick in his chest tells him to as he scoops up one cat and then the other, carrying them like babies in the crooks of his arms as he heads toward the bedroom to discard of his shoes and find PJ pants. Sometimes it takes a second call, but usually it takes just the one.

Today, however, it takes three. One love, two babe, three Taako? before he gets that epsom salt laugh and in the living room, Bones.

It's not even an unusual thing to hear. Taako gets home before he does usually by about an hour, depending on the day in could be more or less, and he putters around to decompress in all manner of ways. Watching TV or cooking or divining math tutorials from the academic patron god, Khan, because fuck, Krav, they don't teach it like they used to, and I gotta help Ango.

Whatever it is, it's never quiet, but as Kravitz folds his work pants up to rest them in his hamper he realizes, far too belatedly, that the house is. Well, it's silent. Not the kind of idle hum that every house seems to have, but it's absolutely silent, so much so, in fact, a pin dropping wouldn't even be heard, only swallowed by the void of their stain-resistant walls and scratch-resistant floors.

Without anymore preamble, he steps into the PJ bottoms he'd left on his nightstand that morning and heads for the living room, the cats following two paces behind--a safe distance, he notes, but not enough to look like they're purposefully trying to remain impartial.

"Ah, Taako?" he says as passes back by the foyer, "What-" it hits him without warning, the smell of ozone with a hint of orange and the sharp undercurrent of stardust. It gags him, pressing its fingers to the base of his tongue and nearly making him retch.

"Oh, fuck, it smells like mirror dimensions in here," he croaks, wiping tears away from his eyes with the soft flesh on the inside of his palm.

"Yeah, it's pretty fucking rough, isn't it?" Taako asks idly, giving him a solid wave from where he stands on small stepstool by the side of a giant cauldron that's taken up the space where their coffee table--a housewarming gift from Magnus that Kravitz is immediately concerned about the whereabouts of--usually sits.

His hair is knotted at the back of his head, suspiciously absent, in fact, are the normal strands that fall from the lazy way he restrains his hair, which would be Kravitz's first clue that something is afoot if it weren't for the stench clogging his ears. The second or third or fourth clue, he supposes it depends on who you ask, is the fact that where he's stirring a thick, brackish liquid that wafts curling, key-lime colored steam back at him, Taako has a wooden clothespin clamped over his nose.

Were it not for the war on his senses, Kravitz would have the sixth sense to be charmed by this picture. As it is, he does still find a part of himself to smile about it.

"So, what's shakin'?" Kravitz asks, still amidst trying to compose himself. Taako cracks a crooked grin across his face and wags his great stirring spoon in the mixture.

"Little'a this, little'a that, little of an old family recipe," he says, but it's noncommittal any way you spin it. "Favor for a friend."

A small, wheezy-laugh escapes Kravitz at that. "Oh-" he slips out, "thank the gods, I thought you were going to tell me that was dinner."

Taako looks up to beam dazzlingly at him, all of his teeth visible when he throws his head back to laugh. "Oh, my man, I wouldn't want this anywhere near the ole digestive tract--pretty sure it'll fuck you up like nothing else on this plane or the next."

"Only pretty sure?" Kravitz winds past the third cat that's been keeping vigil at Taako's side and slips his arms around his husband's waist--the smell isn't so overpowering once he gets used to it. Taako rests against his chest, steady stirring and steady talking.

"It's a salve. Real Play-Doh contender--fun to play with, not to eat, y'know? Gotta cook it with a spoon fashioned from a sycamore branch and make sure you stay quiet for the first twenty minutes otherwise it'll cook your voice in--whole thing, which reminds me, I accidentally cast a janky silencing spell 'cause one of the cats tripped me up, so the like, A/C unit and fridge and shit is all gonna be real quiet for the rest of the night."

And that explains it, he thinks with a smile that he presses into the crook of Taako's shoulder. Taako hums contentedly, allowing the moment to take root before he says, "You wanna put something from Hulu on while I finish this up? I don't think I can do this silent night shit anymore."

Kravitz drops a kiss to Taako's shoulder, squeezes his waist for good measure, and says, "You want to finish our episode of Warren's Corner?"

"Oh, fuck yeah I do! We're so close to getting that sweet, sweet villain reveal, I can feel it in my bones."

"You sure that's not just the fumes?" Kravitz jokes as he goes to find the remote to queue up their backlogged episode.

"Tch, says the man that thinks Jaime's on the up-and-up."

"Jaime's a good person, it's Wallace that's the traitor!" he shoots back.

Every day, around the same time, Kravitz gets home from work. He takes off his coat, calls out to his husband, pets his cats, and goes to change his clothes. Sometimes they eat dinner, sometimes they debate whther or not that character on the soap opera they've been binging is actually good or not, and sometimes this all happens while there's a large vat of potentially dangerous things stewing in a cauldron in their living room.

Every day Kravitz comes home to an adventure, and every day he falls a little more in love.

#taakitz #taz balance #taz fanfic #my fanfiction #my writing exercises #hey mtv welcome to my content

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shunkashuutou · 6 years

Text

Hack U 2018

Wow, it’s been a busy summer vacation! From August 20th to 31st, some of my classmates and I participated in “Hack U”, an annual hackathon hosted by Yahoo.

Each year, Hack U has different theme (this year’s was “Update Interaction: Call and Response”), and teams of 2 to 6 students have 10 days to create some kind of project based on the theme. Most of the participants are college students, and it’s mostly a contest for students studying programming, but the competition is open to all students from elementary school and up. As soon as our homeroom teacher told us about the Hack U, my classmate Ogura (who has the highest grades in almost every one of our classes) started putting together a team, and he invited me to join. We ended up with a team named “Banana”, made up of 5 first-year students from our class and 1 third-year student from the website engineering course. There were actually three other teams of students from my school too.

(Also, I have no idea why this contest is called “Hack U”, but the “h” and “f” sounds are a bit similar in Japanese sometimes, and there were several times when my classmates accidentally ended up calling it “f**k you” instead of “Hack U”, lol)

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Hack U is hosted by Yahoo, so when the competition started, they assigned each team a supervisor from Yahoo to help with any technical difficulties. On the evening of the first day of the competition, there was a kickoff event where we got to meet our supervisor and talk abut our plan for our project.

The event was on a very high floor of a skyscraper near Osaka station, and the room had a nice view of the city.

The event was pretty chill, and they gave us lots of free snacks.

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So what exactly did we decide to make for our project?

We decided to make a web service called “Zucchi” (short for “aizuchi”, meaning “interjections”) that would listen to you talk and give simple replies, for times when you just feel like talking out loud. Zucchi doesn’t try to give any opinions or advice, it just listens and helps you sort your thoughts out for yourself. To make it feel more friendly than just talking to a computer, we decided to include 4 characters: a female character, a male character, a cat, and a fish.

We thought it would be fun if the characters had simple animations, and one of my classmates suggested that we try making 2D Live animations. 2D Live animations stretch and move parts of a two-dimensional image to make it look three-dimensional. Unlike traditional animation, you don’t start off with a bunch of different frames, you just use one image and make the parts move.

I had never even heard of 2D Live before starting on this project, but I downloaded some free software and watched a bunch of tutorials, and by the second day of the project, I was already able to make the fish character for the website! (We ended up using free stock characters for the other three characters, to save time)

I’m so proud of how my little goldfish turned out!

You can download a simple version of the Cubism Live2D software here for free, and they have lots of tutorials and videos about how to use it, so check it out if you’re interested in learning how to make these sorts of animations.

Aside from making the goldfish, I mostly did the html and css coding for the site. My classmate Ogura taught me how to animate things with css, so now I have a head start on the sorts of things we’ll be studying in class next semester!

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On Friday of the first week, about halfway into the competition, there was an event at the Yahoo office where we could meet with our team advisor and just have some work time in the Yahoo office lounge. (and lots more free snacks!)

The Yahoo office is on the 27th floor of the Grand Front building (the first and second floors are a very expensive shopping center) near Osaka station, and they had an even better view than the place the kickoff event was at!

Apparently the Yahoo employees gather here to watch the fireworks over the river when there are summer festivals.

They also gave us a tour of the Yahoo office, which was pretty cool, but we weren’t allowed to take photos. I was really happy to see that everyone was dressed casually and that some people even had unnatural hair colors.

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Getting this website to work the way we wanted it to was a big challenge, and didn’t always go smoothly. For a while, the goldfish would suddenly start speaking in the female character’s voice if you said a certain phrase to it, lol. The photo below is of one of the stranger glitches that happened; on the left is how the female character is supposed to look, and on the right is what happened when I opened her files the wrong way!

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Friday the 31st was the presentation day!

The final event was held in a big conference hall that was pretty close to my school. One side of the room had a stage and chairs, and the other side of the room had tables for each team to use to display their project.

Here’s what my team’s table looked like!

Our nametags had a free space to write whatever we wanted (hobbies, something interesting about ourselves, etc) I ended up just drawing a goldfish, lol.

Each team gave a 3-minute presentation about their project. And when I say 3 minutes, I mean exactly 180 seconds; there was a big timer projected on the side wall to show the time, and it would chime at the halfway point and start counting down loudly when it got to 10 seconds. It was kind of scary, but it definitely kept everyone on time! I was pretty nervous, but I only had like 5 lines at the end of the presentation, and thankfully it went okay!

The whole event was livestreamed on Nico Nico Douga and YouTube, so you can watch it online! Our presentation starts at 1:14:23, the camera crew came to interview us at our table at 2:19:19, and at about 2:34:32 my classmate tells me that I’m in the camera frame and I wave at the camera, lol.

youtube

After the awards were given out (my team didn’t win anything, but the team who won first place really deserved it; their project was really cool!), they fed us pizza!

And we got some free stuff if we filled out a survey about the event. (The Banana sticker wasn’t from Yahoo, my classmate Shou made those for our team to give out to people who came to look at our website.)

Group photo with all of the participants and Yahoo staff! This photo was posted on the offical Hack U account, which is why I can show you without having to blur everyone’s faces. (I’m in the second row from the back, just to the left of the middle)

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And by now you probably want to see my team’s website for yourself!

Here’s a link!

「Zucchi」

(Be sure to use Google Chrome! And this website is unfortunately not iPhone compatible, but it works in the Google Chrome app of most Android phones)

Click the button that says “click!”, and when it turns gray, try talking to one of the characters. (Your browser will probably give you a popup asking if you want to enable microphone usage, so be sure to allow it) You have to click the button before each new sentence.

Of course, the site only has voice recognition for Japanese, so try saying something like “konnichiwa*, “tsukareta”, “yabai”, “nemui”, or *oyasumi*, if you want to hear any of the special responses for the male and female characters.

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It’s still technically summer vacation, but for the next two weeks, my school has summer group projects that the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year students all work on together. So now that I just finished one group project; it’s time for another!

#hackathon #Live2D #Japan #coding #animation #august 2018 #2018 #Hack U

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merryshrug · 6 years

Text

Watercolor Progress - Part 1

Project started 4.5.18; drawing Rachel of Rachel and Jun

I’m doing a watercolor thing! This wasn’t supposed to be such a big, long time deal, but since it’s turning out to be a complicated process, and because I’m reading the lovely Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon, I’m gonna post some progress reports everyday! Yeehaw, let’s begin.

I drew Rachel of Rachel and Jun <3 (Youtube), with a screenshot from one of their videos as reference. Here:

I made a lot of progress the day I started this: the sketch, the background (a very simple one, at that) and the base colors, working mostly on the skin. Sorry, I don’t have a pic of the colorless sketch.

The sketch was intended not to take too long, to be quite...fluid? Either way, I spent a the usual amount of time on it anyway. ^^’ It didn’t end up as faithful to the picture as I wanted it to be, but it’s ok.

This time around, I insisted on waiting for the layers to dry. Thanks to Laovaan’s very helpful two tutorials on watercolors, I was able to get the gist of what I should improve on, which includes applying too much water and overworking the paper. Overworking is extremely easy to do! I don’t quite get how you can get the skin right while having to keep your water low, and I’m using textured 300 gsm paper! However, I’ve heard that a trick to it is really waiting for the layer to dry. Either way, by washing the paper with a smallish amount of water, I painted the face with a base color that I mixed myself (see Laovaan’s skin tutorial above), added a reddish tint to the left side and made the shadows in the folds of the smile brown mixed with ultramarine. Also accidentally painted the highlight areas by accident, but I tried to cover them with a more opaque white/very light peach. Looks fine, but the different texture shows. Overall, I am proud of myself for never using black to darken colors for this one.

Maybe you can’t tell, but the paper warped a bit. I also made the accident of painting the background (a darkish color) before the hair (which is light). I also didn’t wait long enough in between, hence the bleeding.

For this part, I also used a nice tutorial by Mr. Otter Art Studio. By the way, my reference picture and videos are on my phone. Some say they prefer having physical references instead of digital, but maybe I’m used to it. Now, when it comes to the problem of it being too close to my eyes, well, erm...

You might say: “I’m too impatient, I want to keep painting right away - I can’t stand waiting!” and I would perfectly agree. I have a solution. The internet! I surfed YT while I was waiting (specifically, I watched Matt and Tom’s Park Bench <3), though I didn’t really pay attention to how much time I waited, so if you’re prone to staying on the internet for too long, I’m afraid I can’t tell you how long to wait before you should start painting again, but you should really wait as long as possible.

That’s it for today; if this seems incomplete, that’s ‘cause I’ll finish/add to this tomorrow! ‘Till then.

#merryshrug #merryshrug progress posts #rachel and jun

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captainporcelainsky · 7 years

Text

A Breakfast Mess {Ereri}

Just a little ‘drabble’ I wrote one day to break through writer’s block where Eren tries to surprise Levi with breakfast but fails miserably, and it’s adorable~

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Eren peeled his eyes open to the warm light of his bedroom. Morning sunlight shone through the curtains covering the window just above the headboard. A light smile on his lips, he immediately stretched his limbs out, welcoming consciousness easily.

He turned onto his side, finding Levi to still be deep in slumber, his face pressed into his pillow as he laid on his stomach, his back gently rising and falling with his slow, even breathing. The sight only brought a broader smile to Eren’s lips. He watched the other for only a few moments before sitting up, stretching more, and finding he needed to pee. Slowly, he eased himself onto his feet and shuffled into the bathroom, yawning along the way, to relieve himself. The awareness of his empty stomach only became apparent when he was washing his hands.

Levi was usually the cook (Eren was terrible at it, to say the least), but the brunet couldn’t help wanting to do something nice for his boyfriend on their three year anniversary, and waking him up with breakfast was a good way to start the day. How hard could it be to cook up a few scrambled eggs and fry some tater tots in a pan, anyway?

As he worked on waking himself up the rest of the way, slipping a shirt over his head and attempting to rub the sleepiness out of his eyes, he shuffled his way to the kitchen, yawning again. First and foremost, he started a pot of coffee to brew before getting to business. For good measure, he pulled up a simple YouTube tutorial on how to scramble eggs.

Looks simple, he thought, casting his phone onto the island.

He shuffled around the fridge for a moment and slid out the carton of eggs as well as a bag of tater tots from the freezer and a package of microwave bacon.

“Potatoes usually take longer,” he mumbled to himself, recalling from the times he’d observed Levi cooking. He fished out a couple of frying pans and the cooking oil before briefly reading over the instructions on the package of tots, which he then cut open and dumped a decent amount into the pan and twisted the burner into the on position.

“Crap, spatula…” he mumbled, spinning around. The spatula was easily found in a drawer and he set it on the counter beside the stove for when he needed it.

“‘Kay, now for the eggs…” He lifted the carton open to find six eggs - just the amount he needed - remaining inside. The video had shown cracking them directly in the pan, and though Levi generally cracked them into a bowl first, stirred them up, and then poured them into the pan, he figured it wouldn’t make much difference. After coating the bottom of the frying pan designated for the eggs with vegetable oil, he twisted that burner on and got to work cracking the eggs.

On his first attempt, a large chunk of shell immediately ended up in the egg-oil mixture, eliciting a curse and the immediate reaction of diving in first with bare fingers and then a hiss when his vulnerable skin met the already searing bottom of the pan. Reflexively, he yanked his hand away and shook it out. “Dammit, now I’m gonna have blisters…” Still, he sighed and kept working, deciding to treat the burns later.

By the time he’d cracked three off the eggs into the pan, only two of the yolks broken, the sizzling of the potatoes became apparent to his ears and he scrambled to stir them, noting that their undersides were already much too dark. He deemed them to be salvageable, though.

On the sixth egg, he was too eager to get it cracked and stirred (the whites were already cooking to be, well, white, making the contents of the pan half scrambled, half...whatever you call it style eggs), he hit the side of the stove too forcefully and ended up with cracked shell all over, the yolk slipping down onto the floor and the white dripping all over the place.

“Shit!” he muttered. Okay, no big deal, just clean it up…

Quickly, he went for the paper towels and kneeled down, attempting to pick up the spattered yolk and wipe down the front of the stove, and again both the potatoes and eggs were sizzling loudly. Abandoning the mess halfway through, he stood back up (typically, smacking the back of his head on the handle to the oven door) and tried stirring them both. The eggs would be alright, he thought, but most of the tots were too burned to do anything with.

It’s fine. I’ll just throw out the burned ones and add a few more.

So that he did, leaving them to cook again while turning his attention back to the eggs. Five is fine, he thought, doing his best to stir them again and disguise the already cooked whites into the scrambled, portion (that was, much to his chagrin, starting to burn on the bottom as well).

“Not so bad, though. Think I can start the bacon now.”

Eren’s eyes only skipped over the directions before he was putting the bacon on a plate, popping it in the microwave, and setting it for two minutes. In the midst of going back to the eggs, his sock managed to find part of the yolk he hadn’t finished cleaning up yet, as well as a shell that crunched under his foot.

“Oh god, gross,” he mumbled. With a grimace, he braced himself on the counter and peeled the sock off. “My new socks, too…” he sighed. “Oh well. Maybe Levi knows how to get a stain out…” He simply tossed the sock back on the island, figuring the food was too important.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he muttered to himself the second he realized the tater tots that he hadn’t thrown out were now practically burnt to a crisp while the others were only half cooked. The eggs were much the same way, not having been stirred nearly enough, and the microwave was just beeping in signaling his two minutes were up.

Irritated with the beeping, he tugged the door open and reached in, prodding the package with his burnt fingers and wincing, having forgotten about them. Still practically frozen, so he popped them in for another two minutes.

“Cheese,” he thought, and spun back to the refrigerator. Unfortunately, though, he found the compartment where the cheese was supposed to go void of the package. “Dammit, I know we just bought cheddar cheese.” He rummaged around the shelves in search and when he found it, turned to see the pan with the tater tots smoking.

Fuck, I forgot to turn the burner off…

He tossed the cheese carelessly onto the counter to turn the burner for the tots off and shoved the pan to the back of the stove, waving the smoke away and desperately hoping the smoke alarm wouldn’t go off.

It’s fine. We don’t have to have tots.

Back to the eggs, he stirred them yet again, hoping for dear life that the burned parts wouldn’t be too bad and added extra cheese to try and disguise it as best he could and in the process, accidentally spilled some of the shredded cheese onto the still-hot burner from the tater tots.

“Oh fuck…” he muttered in humiliation.

Meanwhile, down the hall and back in the bedroom, Levi was just swimming back to consciousness to the smell of burnt something. Immediately wrinkling his nose and sitting up quickly in fear that the apartment was on fire, he stood up and headed directly for the source of the smell.

The kitchen was a disaster, to say the least. Eren stood at the stove, a hopeless mess with his hair still sticking out in different directions, his shirt splattered with what Levi could only assume to be grease and egg. Egg was splattered all over the stove as well as burnt pieces of something on the stove and a half cooked, half frozen pan of tater tots. The eggs he had in the pan were half burnt and the smell of something awful was coming from the microwave. Yolk was splattered onto the floor, too, and Levi was appalled to find a dirty sock on the top of the island.

“What the hell is going on?” he gasped.

In horror and humiliation, Eren turned to find him in the doorway, his eyes wide with shock as he took in the scene around him.

“I...fucked up,” he admitted sheepishly.

“What were you doing? Making breakfast or egging your own house?”

“Making breakfast…” Eren said quietly, eyes on the floor. “I wanted to make breakfast for you. For, y’know, our anniversary...but I guess there’s a reason I never do the cooking around here…”

“Ya think?” Levi muttered, perching a hand on his hip with his thin brows slightly raised.

“I’m sorry.”

Levi sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I guess I can’t really be mad at you for being so thoughtful,” he said. “Really, it was sweet of you.”

“A-are you sure? I mean, it’s...a disaster in here.”

A mild grin found Levi’s lips. “Yeah, but it’s no big deal. You didn’t hurt yourself though, did you?”

“Oh yeah,” Eren mumbled, bringing his fingers up to inspect. “Accidentally burnt my fingers a little.”

“Lemme see,” Levi sighed, not surprised in the least. He switched the burner for the eggs off before tenderly taking Eren’s hand and inspecting his reddened fingertips. “Not too bad, but they’ll probably blister. C’mon, let’s get you bandaged up.”

A bit reluctantly, Eren followed Levi back to the bathroom where he sat atop the toilet lid and let his boyfriend treat his burns.

“How’d you burn just your fingertips, anyway?”

Eren swallowed. “I was...trying to get a shell out of the eggs in the pan…” he mumbled, barely intelligible.

“With your bare fingers?”

Eren’s nod was barely there. Levi was shaking his head, chuckling through his chest. “You’re a dork.”

“Heyy…” complained the brunet.

“Feel better?”

“Yeah. Thanks. Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

Eren followed Levi back to the kitchen. He was already going back for the paper towels to start helping clean the mess up when Levi shook his head and pointed at Eren’s usual chair at their small dining table near the balcony doors.

“Sit.” Eren sat. “Stay.” Eren frowned, but he stayed and watched Levi scurry around the kitchen, leaving order and cleanliness in his wake as he often did.

“Why the hell is the bacon in the microwave?”

“Isn’t it microwavable?”

“...not technically, no…” Levi mumbled, pulling it out and wrinkling his nose. He promptly tossed it in the trash along with the tots. “Eren, did you check the date on these eggs?”

“What? No? I thought you bought them last week?”

“I did…” Suspicious, Levi headed for the fridge. In about two seconds flat he pulled out a nearly full carton of brand new eggs. “These are the ones I bought last week. I meant to throw the other ones out. What I don’t get is how you managed to completely overlook these when they were right on the top shelf…”

Eren was already pressing his face into his hands. “Oh god, oh my god, I’m so fucking stupid…”

The raven chuckled, shutting the fridge and making his way over to his boyfriend to rub his back. “Don’t worry about it so much, babe. You tried. The effort is appreciated.”

“But how the hell didn’t I see those?” Eren groaned.

“Love, look at me.”

Frowning, Eren looked slowly up at the other, who only leaned down and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Thank you for this.”

“For a mess? Sure.”

“Stop being so mopey,” Levi chastised lightly. He pinched Eren’s cheek. “How ‘bout we make pancakes?”

“I better stay out of it,” Eren said. “Should just make a bowl of cereal or something.”

“No, you’re helping me. This is how you learn.” He took Eren by the ear and tugged gently until he stood.

“You sound like my damn mother,” he complained.

“Watch it,” Levi warned, pinching a little harder before letting go. He finished the last few things that needed to be cleaned up and shuffled out the pancake mix. “Before you say anything no, you’re not getting out of this.”

Despite Eren’s mopey attitude, with Levi at the helm, the pancakes were a success. Eren, still grumpy from his incident, ate his in silence but could feel Levi’s eyes watching him throughout the meal.

“What?” he finally mumbled, looking up to find a glint of amusement and affection in Levi’s stormy grays.

“Nothing,” the raven was quick to answer.

Eren was assigned dish duty, and once that was done, the two found themselves on the standing hammock on the balcony. Eren, being the taller of the two, was the only one with long enough legs to touch the ground and rocked them gently, slowly back and forth with Levi’s head against his shoulder, tracing nonsensical lines into the his forearm.

“So you’re really not mad I made a disaster of the kitchen?” Eren whispered.

“You’re really not over that yet?” Levi mumbled back. “No, Eren, I’m not. I told you a thousand times I appreciate the sentiment more than anything.”

“If you say s--” Eren was shut up by a hard kiss planted on his mouth.

“I don’t wanna hear anymore about it, ya brat,” Levi muttered against his mouth.

Eren chuckled, kissing him again - longer this time, deeper. “Fine. I love you.”

“I love you too, shithead.”

90 notes · View notes

eccacia · 7 years

Text

wonderful you came by [part 13]

Summary: Caitlin’s a no-nonsense science major. Barry’s the quintessential charming star athlete. When they’re paired off and forced to interact in class, Caitlin’s determined to resist his charms, but Barry’s also pretty determined to get under her skin… It all boils down to a battle between head and heart, and Caitlin’s not one to give in to her heart so easily. [College AU]

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, or read on ff.net

Rating: T

There was something that Cisco had always said to Caitlin and Felicity back in high school as the be all and end all explanation for their friendship. “Guys—uh, girls—it’s simple, really, why this works,” he’d said, grinning. “It’s because our collective level of sanity is lower than that of the normal population’s.” Over time, they’d come to accept this as they would any other scientific fact, and this ritual reaffirmation of their collective insanity had become a vital part of their friendship, just as how going to parties every weekend was a vital part of other people’s friendships.

Now, however, as Caitlin sat in front of her desk an hour after her shower, cringing away from the curling iron that Jax was holding to her hair and the make-up brush that Felicity was holding to her face, Caitlin considered Cisco’s words again and wondered whether she had unwittingly crossed over to the Zone of Sanity, leaving all her friends deep in the Zone of Collective Insanity. What else was she supposed to think when Felicity had pushed a waist-high stack of books to block the door in a surprising display of physical strength that Caitlin had never witnessed in her before? What else was she supposed to think when Jax had climbed in from the window, brandishing a curling iron and a straightening iron from the back pocket of his jeans like a cowboy brandishing guns from their holsters?

“You’re not going to like this, Cait,” Felicity had said, “but we’re doing this for your own good.”

“Think of it as an investment for your future,” Jax had added. “Like how we study all this shit in college so we have a better shot at getting jobs.”

“What’s supposed to be an investment?” Caitlin had asked, quite stupidly, because she’d already known the answer—the curling iron and straightening iron were dead giveaways. In retrospect, instead of asking that dumb question she should’ve just flung herself out the window.

“Remember, the less you resist, the sooner you can get back to working on your thesis,” Felicity had continued blithely, pulling her make-up kit from one of her drawers and setting them down on Caitlin’s desk with an ominous and final thud. It was a thud that would brook no arguments. It was a thud that announced Felicity had the last word, no questions asked.

So, there she was, trapped in her own room by her so-called friends, too stunned by their ambush to put up any more resistance than the occasional squirm or wince. On one hand, she was quite touched to have friends that cared so much about her ‘future,’ as Jax put it, no matter how twisted their care was. On the other hand, she was convinced that they were all insane. Right now she was feeling a mix of affection for and fear of them. She didn’t think those two emotions could even occur together.

It wasn’t like she would’ve put up a fight in the first place. She wasn’t vehemently opposed to having her hair and make-up done. After all, she did comb her hair and put on make-up when she had to go to interviews or conferences. (Although this was debatable—Felicity would say, “Hastily slapping on some BB cream and lip gloss don’t count as proper make-up putting,” and Caitlin would say, “I’m applying for jobs where I’ll be handling hazardous chemicals, and if those react with my make-up I could die,” and even if Caitlin usually made more sense, it still never stopped Felicity from bringing it up, just to annoy her.) So, Caitlin felt that if her friends had asked her nicely, she would have acquiesced. The conversation could have gone something like this:

“Hey, Cait, want us to do your hair and make-up for Helix?”

“I have a twenty-minute break before my next Pomodoro, so if you can do it within that time, I guess I’ll be fine with it.”

Caitlin feared that the scenario they imagined went something like this:

“Hey, Cait, want us to do your hair and make-up for Helix?”

“Are you INSANE? Do I LOOK like I have TIME for such frivolity as MAKE-UP? How DARE you even SUGGEST that I have IDLE TIME in my DAY!”

(Why she imagined that they’d imagine her in her mother’s caps-lock chat syntax, she didn’t know.)

In any case, she wasn’t about to tell them that she wouldn’t’ve put up much of a fight. She knew that what fueled them while they were gleefully planning for this ambush was the prospect of her violent resistance, so if she told them that their efforts had been unnecessary, they would be severely disheartened. Felicity, especially. She was sure that Felicity had orchestrated the entire thing.

Caitlin couldn’t believe it. Here she was, coerced into having a makeover, and yet she was being nice enough to think about how not to inadvertently hurt her coercers’ feelings. Maybe she was still in the Zone of Collective Insanity, after all.

Suddenly she shot up in her chair. Something had been bothering her since all this happened, but it wasn’t until she’d circled back to Cisco’s remark that she realized what it was.

“Where’s Cisco?”

There was a long, pregnant pause.

“Guys.”

“He’s practicing his script for Helix,” Felicity said quickly. “They got him as a last-minute emcee, since their original emcee was sick. I forgot the guy’s name. It was something weird, like… M… Mark?”

“Mark isn’t a weird name.”

“It sounds like Mark,” she said, blending the liquid foundation into her skin perhaps a little too forcefully. “Something like… Dark?”

“Darth,” Jax said.

“Darth,” Felicity confirmed.

“As in Darth Vader, Darth?” Caitlin said skeptically.

“Uh. Yeah…?”

“You guys are terrible liars.”

“You’re one to talk,” Felicity said. “Hey, Jax, is the curling iron hot enough yet? Don’t let it get too hot.”

“I think it’s good,” he said. “Alright, try not to move too much. It’s been awhile since I last used this thing.”

Caitlin narrowed her eyes at him. “Why, exactly, do you have curling and straightening irons?”

“One of my exes left them in my room. It was a bad break-up,” he said, as if that fully explained why the curling and straightening irons were still in his possession. Jax went on, while experimentally wrapping a strand of her hair around the curling iron, “Hey, don’t give me that look. I had to break up with her, man. She made me watch hair tutorials. Sure, I also made her watch football videos, but I never made her play football with me. Not even virtually.”

“So you broke up with her because she made you watch hair tutorials?”

“I broke up with her because she made me watch hair tutorials and then try them on her hair. Don’t get me wrong. I was cool with it. It was actually pretty fun sometimes. Anyway, I accidentally burned off a chunk of her hair, and she went berserk on me—”

“You accidentally burned off a chunk of her hair?”

“Yeah, but that was once in like, a hundred times,” he said defensively. “That’s a 99% success rate. That’s practically Elite-Four-level hairstyling. And I can do barrel curls like a pro.”

For the first time in the past half-hour, Felicity looked apologetic. “He volunteered for it.”

“Oh, God.”

Caitlin figured it was far too optimistic to hope for “Elite-Four-level hairstyling,” but she supposed it was reasonable enough to hope that she got out of this with every chunk of hair still firmly attached to her scalp.

. . .

When Jax was halfway done curling her hair—thankfully no casualties had occurred, although it was too soon to announce something like that or she might jinx it—Cisco climbed in through the window and caused such a commotion with all his grunting and tumbling down that Caitlin’s first instinct was to turn around to see what was going on, but having the curling iron so close to her scalp had prevented her from doing so.

“What’s all that noise?” she said instead.

“Hola, amigos!” Cisco said. Caitlin heard him dust himself off and approach the cluster around her desk-turned-vanity. “What’s up? Oh, nice work, man. Your hair looks awesome, Cait.”

“Thanks, bro. I told you I was good at this.”

“You also told us that you burned your ex’s hair off.”

“Chill, chica. It was one time,” Cisco said. “And it was one clump.”

“Thanks, bro.”

“Oh, God,” Caitlin said again.

“So!” Cisco said, clapping his hands. “Are you ready to seduce the socks of Barry Allen?”

“No.”

“She’s getting there,” Jax said at the same time. “I’ve been giving her tips.”

“Grab a seat,” Felicity said to Cisco. “We’re getting her to bat her lashes.”

“Oh, this’ll be fun,” Cisco said, pulling up a chair behind Caitlin and peeking at her through the mirror on her desk. It was such a small mirror that all she could see was her floating head and part of Jax’s torso, and now the upper half of Cisco’s face.

“Okay, so, to recap,” Jax said. “One of the principles of seduction is smiling and making frequent eye contact. This signals to the other person that you dig them.”

“I still don’t understand how eye-batting is subsumed under this principle. Eye contact requires my eyes to be open.”

Jax gave a warning tug on her hair. “Remember, your hair is in my hands. I could make you a goddess, but I could also give you a bad hair day. What’s it going to be, Caitlin? A goddess or a bad hair day?”

“That’s not fair. And I really don’t think seduction would work. Barry and I sort of, well, held hands—”

“WHAT!”

Caitlin winced as she felt a slight tug on her hair and pressure on her right eyelid, which Felicity had been applying eyeshadow primer on.

“The hell you did!”

“How is this not the first thing you told us?”

“You let him hold your hand? For real? Or was it like, air-hand-holding?”

“I think it’s reasonably real,” Caitlin said, before proceeding to give them a summary of what happened the day before, a telling made much longer by their reactions. They were all especially in awe of the bone-naming. Cisco called it “a genius flirting technique.” Jax called it “the first time I’m impressed by nerdy flirting.” Felicity called it “sooo romantic.”

“He is so into you,” Felicity concluded at the end of the story.

“I don’t get it, though. Why hasn’t admitted it yet?” Cisco said.

“Not explicitly,” Felicity said, “but how can hand-holding not be an admission? I mean, people can make out and deny that they like each other, but hand-holding?”

Jax said, “That was smart of him. If Caitlin didn’t want him to hold her hand, he’d say, I’m not holding it, I was just gonna show you something, and if she didn’t say anything, he also still gets to hold her hand.”

“Sneaky,” Cisco said.

“I would appreciate it if you don’t talk too much while curling my hair,” Caitlin said, noticing how he’d been curling a particular chunk of hair for a few seconds too long.

“Don’t worry. I can multi-task. I’m a beast at multi-tasking.”

“That’s… not something to be proud of—”

“So my guess is,” Jax continued, gesturing forcefully now, so that with every movement of his Caitlin felt a slight tug on her hair, “he’s scared of scaring you off. It’s a good thing because he likes you enough to take it slow. But that also means you gotta show him you’re ready to take it to the next level.”

“But I’m not ready to take it to the next level,” Caitlin said.

“But you’ve already held hands,” Cisco said. “You guys just did, like, the romantic equivalent of skipping a grade.”

“The ball’s in your court now,” Jax said. “Which is why you need to seduce him.”

“No,” Caitlin said, but as usual they blithely ignored her and carried on with discussion what manner of seduction she could pull off without looking like an awkward turtle. She wasn’t even an awkward human being—she was an awkward turtle.

Caitlin sighed. She was well past any point of resistance.

. . .

Caitlin had known from a young age that while she had gotten her keen scientific mind from her mother, she would never get her fashion sense.

Her mother had long been trying to get Caitlin to delight in fashion the same way she did to no avail. Still, for Caitlin’s birthday every year, she would pick out one dress for her, and the kind of dress she’d pick also depended on her mood. Usually she was in a good mood, so she sent Caitlin summery floral dresses and pleated pink dresses and geometrically-patterned dresses in such daring color combinations that it seemed like someone had crushed a box of Crayola all over them.

But, on her most recent birthday, in place of the usual assault of pattern and color, Caitlin had received a simple, long-sleeved black dress instead. Naturally, she was puzzled. It still wasn't to her taste—it sparkled, for one—but her mother only ever indulged in blacks and neutrals when she had a deadline. So right after she'd gotten the dress, she'd called her mother to ask about how her most recent paper was doing.

“Oh, darling, I don’t have any deadlines!” she’d said exuberantly. “The next one is months away. Months! Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Really?” Caitlin had replied, dubious. “But the dress you sent me—it’s just… well, black.”

“Ahhh, that. Well, I suppose I got tired of sending you dresses that you weren’t going to wear anyway,” she’d said, heaving a sigh. “Do you like it? You’ll wear this one, won’t you?”

Caitlin had held the dress at eye level and winced when the harsh fluorescent lights reflected off the sequins. “Mother, it’s too sparkly—”

“Too sparkly! Nonsense!” she’d huffed. “You should have seen the one I chose for myse—” She’d been abruptly cut off by a garbled noise in the background, and then a voice speaking through an amplifier. “Oh, sorry, darling, it’s time for me to board. I’m off to Brazil in a bit, did I tell you?”

“…Just now, actually—”

“Oh, I didn’t? Must’ve slipped my mind, silly me. Anyway, happy birthday, darling. Do wear the dress for me, I’m afraid I’m confined to wearing those dreadful pink volunteer shirts for this trip. Ciao!”

Caitlin had hung up then, still feeling puzzled. But, despite her mother’s request, she never did wear that dress.

Not until today, that is.

It turned out that Cisco had been gone for the first half-hour of her makeover because, having no make-up or hairstyling skills, he’d been tasked to pick up her dress from the dry cleaners’. How Felicity had managed to unearth it from her wardrobe without her noticing anything out of place was beyond her. Felicity was scary like that sometimes.

“It’s too sparkly,” Caitlin said, regarding herself in their murky full-length mirror. “And it’s too short. I can’t sit down without revealing my underwear to everyone. And the neckline’s too low—”

“So that’s The Dress,” Jax said, glancing up. “I see it deserves the article The.”

“Relax, Cait,” Felicity said. She had taken over her desk and was currently having her hair curled by Jax. “It’s fine. You look amazing. Barry won’t be able to take his eyes off you.”

“Because she’s a human disco ball?” Cisco said.

Felicity gave him a warning glare. “Because she’s gorgeous.”

“Her hair’s pretty dope,” Jax said.

“It is,” Caitlin had to admit. It was possibly the best part of her makeover. That, and Felicity’s smoky eyeshadow look. She now understood what Felicity meant when she said smoky eyes made her feel ‘fierce.’ Not that Caitlin would ever use ‘fierce’ to describe herself, but really, who knew that a streak of color over one’s eyelids could give one a confidence boost?

“Do you guys want to listen to my script?” Cisco said.

Caitlin tugged on the hem of her skirt as she sat on her bed. “Does it contain a lot of science puns?”

“Of course it contains a lot of science puns. What else would it contain?”

The three of them exchanged glances.

“What? What’s wrong with science puns?”

“Nothing,” Caitlin said quickly. “Let’s hear it, then.”

Two hours and two dozen bad science puns later, the four of them finally made their way to Verdant, the club a little outside the University Town owned by Oliver. The party hadn’t even officially started yet and already there were more people milling about than there were when the party was in full swing in the previous years. Cisco looked at the crowd and gulped.

“Don’t worry, man,” Jax said, clasping Cisco on the shoulder. “We’ll laugh at all your jokes.”

“I downloaded some canned laughter just in case,” Felicity added. “I can always hack the system to play it.”

“You’ll be fine,” Caitlin said. “Just don’t use the jokes we slashed off your script.”

“Can I keep the one about the favorite game of DNA—”

“No,” they said simultaneously.

“Geez. Fine, fine.” Cisco took a deep breath. “Thanks, guys. Whew. Wish me luck.”

When Cisco disappeared among people putting the final touches on the set-up, Caitlin discreetly turned her attention back to the crowd. It made her apprehensive, as well, but for a completely different reason. She already disliked crowds in general—she could never understand what was so appealing about being stranded in the midst of smelly, sweaty, gyrating bodies—but now she was even more on edge because she knew that Barry would be somewhere in that crowd.

Now, she found herself in a strange predicament. On one hand, she wanted to see him, and she wanted to be seen by him. But, on the other hand, she dreaded being seen by him, if only because she felt her appearance gave too much away. Would he be able to suspect her feelings from how she looked? Could he guess that the makeover was done with him in mind? Sure, the makeover had been “forced” on her, but she wouldn’t have given in so easily if she really didn’t want it to happen.

In retrospect, Felicity might have known that she would never have asked for a makeover even if she wanted one, so she must’ve taken it upon herself to carry it out…

Felicity suddenly grabbed her arm. “There’s Barry!”

“Who? What? Where?”

She grinned. “Just kidding.”

Caitlin huffed, trying not to reveal how much of a heart attack she had just suffered. “Not funny, Felicity.”

“Way funny, Cait. You should have seen your face. Anyway, Oliver told me he’d text me when—”

“Caitlin? Caitlin Snow, is that you?”

Both girls startled when Eliza appeared before them. She was holding a clipboard to her chest and was eyeing Caitlin with barely concealed wonder. “Okay, wow. Who are you and what have you done with Caitlin Snow?”

“She was kidnapped and stuffed into a dank basement,” Caitlin said. “What you’re seeing now is a solid holographic image.”

Eliza gave her a wry look. “Okay, fine. You’re still Caitlin. But seriously. You never dress like this. And your hair and make-up are so on point. I’m impressed.”

“Thank you,” Felicity grinned.

“You did her hair and make-up?”

“Just the make-up. Jax did her hair.”

“That explains a lot. I didn’t think Caitlin knew how to hold a curling iron.”

“She doesn’t,” Felicity agreed.

Go ahead and bond over my incompetence in feminine grooming, why don’t you, Caitlin thought, a bit nastily. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Eliza. It was just that, in that moment, having small talk with anyone was intolerable; it only exacerbated her restlessness. It seemed like the only thing that could quell it was Barry Allen’s appearance. How was it that he’d completely reduced her to this mass of irritable, nervous energy? And why, for the love of God, was he always late? She just wanted the torment to end already.

“—something that rhymes with Parry Mallen?”

Caitlin snapped back to attention, and saw that Eliza and Felicity were exchanging sly smiles.

“He’s across the room, darling,” Eliza drawled. “Near the 3D DNA displays.”

“I wasn’t looking for anyone—”

“Thank you, Eliza. You’re an angel, Eliza. Why, you’re welcome, Caitlin,” she said, looking insufferably smug. “I gotta run. Have fun, guys.”

“Great job organizing this,” Felicity said amiably. “Good luck for the rest of the night…”

Felicity then proceeded to say something about going off to find Oliver and strangling him because why hadn’t he called her, they were supposed to meet earlier, and didn’t he own the club? Weren’t club owners supposed to be, you know, early and responsible? But Caitlin couldn’t quite focus on her rambling, because she had finally spotted Barry in the crowd.

He looked good. He looked too good, as usual. He was wearing a pair of dark jeans, a charcoal grey crew-neck top, and a maroon bomber jacket thrown over it. He was ringed by small crowd. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but his face was lit with laughter—the same way it was when he was with her, she thought, feeling a stab of betrayal for a reason she couldn’t name—and he seemed like he was in the middle of telling them a story, from the way he made animated gestures. Even from afar, he was practically vibrating with energy; he held people in rapt attention with his effortless charm, and she knew very well that they couldn’t help gravitating to him any more than the planets gravitate to the sun.

Suddenly, she felt like the entire scene had taken on a sheen of unreality. She felt like an observer of her experience. The movements around her slowed; the sounds hollowed. Why would someone like him be interested in her? She was an incredibly private person, reserved and cautious and overly analytical; he was an open book, exuberant and carefree and completely trusting of people. She couldn’t charm anyone if she tried; he only had to smile at someone to beguile them. The only reason she had friends was because they got used to having her around; he made friends anywhere he went. She had a dry sense of humor on the best of days, and even then her humor was often “too smart” for most people—instead of endearing her to them, her intellect repelled them. Barry was the exact opposite: He had that uncanny knack for making anyone share his nerdy love for science; he couldn’t repel people if he tried.

And—this seemed the most important to her, the crystallization of all their opposing qualities—Barry was a looker, and she just… wasn’t. She didn’t even have the saving grace of other average-looking girls, who knew how to put on make-up and wear trendy clothes to look pretty enough for a decent Instagram post. Well, right now she did have make-up and the trendy clothes, but she was already feeling incredibly foolish in them. She felt like she was wearing a costume. She was trying to get Barry to like her by trying to be someone she wasn’t, and she was overcome by such shame that she just wanted to escape the party, to crawl out of her own skin—

But it was too late. It was already starting, and some people from her block had spotted her and were now making a beeline towards her, giving her the same look that Eliza had given her moments ago. They were going to tease her, no doubt. They were going to want explanations. It was going to be unbearable, but it was better than watching Barry from a distance, wishing-not-wishing that he would notice her.

So she tore her gaze from him and steeled herself with a deep breath. She would force herself to function, even while that strange, foreign feeling was gnawing a hole in her chest. She wasn’t going to let that, whatever it was, get the best of her.

. . .

“Goooood evening, everyone! Welcome to Helix, the nucleus of all that’s cool in school! Ah, I see you’ve followed the dress code—a lot of you are wearing genes…”

“Oh, stop grimacing,” Caitlin said to Hartley, who’d appeared beside her on the bar moments ago while her blockmates had been swarming around her. He was a crowd repellent, so they’d slowly dispersed when he’d arrived. Caitlin had merely raised a brow at him. He generally considered parties to be a mind-numbing waste of time, but it didn’t take a scientist to deduce why he was here now. “It was funny.”

“His jokes are terrible.”

“You find them endearing.”

“Don’t make me laugh, Frosty.”

“Wasn’t trying to. Cisco was.”

He downed a shot in silence. Strangely enough, his presence wasn’t quite as intolerable as that of others. Hartley, at least, didn’t say anything when he saw her, aside from his usual curt nod in lieu of a greeting. That and she didn’t have to expend energy to be nice to him, either.

“Let me introduce myself. My name’s Ramon. Cisco Ramon. Third year in Mechanical Engineering. I’m going to be your host for tonight. Before I introduce the distinguished alumni here with us, and before we can all hit the dance floor and get wasteeed—oops, sorry Dr. McGee, I mean hit the dance floor and drink responsibly, right, guys?—we’re holding the mandatory initiation rites for the freshmen, and anyone who just shifted in this year. You’ve all heard the rumors, right?”

“They still do this?” Hartley said, incredulous.

“Mmm-hmm.”

He scoffed. “How juvenile.”

“Yes, I heard someone say it—yes, our fearsome initiation rite is KARAOKE! As I like to say, karaoke is the central dogma of friendship. So without further ado, volunteer a newbie in your course! Drag them onstage if you must! First two people here beside me get two shots of liquid courage on the house—”

There was some jostling and raucous laughter towards the front, and then there he was onstage, looking bewildered and disheveled, but smiling sheepishly as his block cheered him on. Someone that Caitlin recognized as a newbie in Applied Chemistry climbed up after him, although he wasn’t received with the same level of applause as Barry.

Hartley glanced at her. She refused to meet his gaze.

“Wonderful, wonderful! Ah, but we’re not just having our usual one-on-one karaoke. No, as the DNA is double-stranded, so should our representatives have a… uh… partner strand! So before I hand you your promised shots, gentlemen, you’re going to have to choose your partners onstage. Choose well, gentlemen, choose well…”

Again, near the stage, the crowd of people Barry had emerged from began chanting. It wasn’t until the chanting had reached a certain volume that Caitlin realized what they were chanting.

“Pa-tty! Pa-tty! Pa-tty!”

The gnawing in her chest returned.

She might have imagined it, but she could have sworn that Cisco looked right at her from the front, his gaze worried and apologetic.

She had a vague recollection of Barry mentioning that name. She knew that this Patty was one of the people he could make science jokes with, and she also had a memory of a pretty blonde girl with a dimpled smile who’d come to watch one of his meets. And apparently she was so perfect for him that their entire block was shipping them.

“Alright, so Clarence has made his pick! Come up here, Daisy of Applied Chemistry! What about you, Barry? You can choose from your own course, of course, but you can also choose someone from another course—”

Barry said something into his microphone, but it seemed that it was broken.

“Sorry about that. Uh, can we have some help with Barry’s mic? Thanks. Anyway, Barry, who did you want to call up onstage?”

Caitlin felt like her tongue had stuck to the roof of her mouth. The chanting was getting louder now. She was sure it was Patty. Her suspicions from the beginning of the party had been right all along—he probably wasn’t into her. He hadn’t even sought her out the moment he arrived, whereas he seemed to be the only one in her field of vision.

She should start accepting that fact. It was unrequited. No big deal.

No big deal, she repeated hollowly.

Against her resolution for the night, she downed the shot that’d been prepared for Hartley.

“—what’s that? Can you repeat your question? …Is Caitlin Snow here?”

The din in the room fell to a hush.

Caitlin’s heart leapt to her throat.

Hartley glanced at her again, smirking over the rim of his glass.

“Yes! Yes, Caitlin Snow is definitely here!” Cisco said, swiveling around and shooting a huge grin in her direction. Barry craned his neck. “Come on up here, Caitlin of Molecular Biology! You have been summoned for a vocal-chord duel!”

When she finally registered Cisco’s words—Barry chose her! Her!—she was flooded with a relief so palpable that she sagged against the table. But then murmurs suddenly rippled through the crowd—variations of “Who the hell is Caitlin?” and “He didn’t choose Patty? I thought they were a thing!”—and the people within the vicinity that did know her gave her incredulous looks.

The relief quickly mutated into anxiety.

Sure, it was partly because Barry Allen had just called her onstage in front of a room of over a hundred people, but it was mostly because he’d called onstage for a sing-off, and she just remembered that she was tone-deaf as fuck.

. . .

As she made her way through the crowd, the din began to increase again, but there was a marked decrease in commotion near the stage, where Barry’s blockmates were. When she neared the group, she caught a glimpse of the pretty blonde girl in profile—her smile looked bravely forced, and her body language spelled disappointment—and Caitlin couldn’t help but feel partly responsible for that disappointment.

Barry threw an apologetic look to his blockmates, but once he saw her, he beamed at her. It was enough to make her feel even more self-conscious than she already was.

When she climbed up the stage, feeling exposed under the lights and without the crowd to hide her, she caught Barry’s eyes rove up her bare legs, pausing to linger at the daring neckline of her dress, and then sliding them up to her face. When his eyes finally met hers, they were a shade darker.

“You look amazing,” he said as she neared him, and then blushed furiously when the crowd burst into hooting and catcalls.

He looked confused for a moment before he realized that they had already fixed the microphone.

“Oh, sorry, I said it out loud,” he said sheepishly to the crowd, and there was a ripple of laughter before he covered the mic with a hand. He turned to look at her again, still grinning, with a blush creeping up the back of his neck. “Sorry. I thought it was still, uh, broken. You, uh. You look really amazing.”

“I heard it well enough the first time,” she said, surprised at how even her voice sounded. She was already spontaneously combusting from the inside. “I’m going to kill you, you know.”

“I know,” he said. “I figured it was worth the risk.”

“Barry. I’m tone-deaf.”

His eyebrows shot up. “For real?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. You are so going to kill me, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Can you, uh, postpone the killing until after we get off the stage?”

“Sure, if you don’t want witnesses.”

He winced. “Are you mad?” (She wasn’t, but she’d rather make him think she was mad than relieved.) “Like, you’re going to abandon me now mad?”

“Probably.”

“But we’re blood buddies.”

“Not at this moment we aren’t—”

“So yesterday we definitely were?”

“Not in any moment we aren’t.” She glared at him. “A true blood buddy wouldn’t have called me up onstage without notifying me first.”

His grin at her use of the term nearly split his face. “Sorry, it was a spur in the moment thing,” he said. In the background, Cisco was interviewing Clarence on why he’d chosen Daisy. Apparently she was a good singer. “I was trying to call you, but the signal’s weird in this place. Oliver couldn’t reach Felicity, either.”

He’d tried to call her? Caitlin felt herself mellow.

“So I figured, Hey, since I can’t find her, why not call her up onstage?”

Well, okay, not that mellow. “You could have tried looking for me in the crowd like a normal person—”

“But it takes so long, and I don’t like waiting,” he said. “It’s so much faster this way. And a lot more fun. Well, minus the fact that you’re tone-deaf.”

“And I don’t like being in front of crowds,” she said.

“Right. Minus that too.”

“That basically takes all the fun out of it.”

“But then you have fun with me,” he said, grinning. “And I think karaoke is fun, so by transitive property, you’re going to have fun.”

“That makes absolutely no sense—”

She stopped herself when Cisco suddenly called their names, his smile huge and his eyes glittering. “Now, let’s hear from Barry and Caitlin! Can we give them a round of applause?”

Caitlin felt faint when she faced the audience again. She could have sworn her legs trembled during their thunderous applause.

“So, Barry,” Cisco was saying, “what’s your relationship with Caitlin?”

At that she tore her gaze from the crowd and shot him a glare. She was going to kill this boy.

“Lab partners,” Barry said into his mic, seemingly unfazed by the way Cisco had phrased the question. “She was the first friend I made in Science & Tech when I’d shifted in.”

“I see, I see,” Cisco nodded. “Which lab?”

“Cell and Molecular Biology,” he said. “Under Dr. Wells.”

There was a collective gasp from the audience, and Barry smiled sheepishly. “I know, right? I mean, it’s pretty challenging, but I manage. Even if I’m picking up on Caitlin’s slack, I manage.”

The audience laughed, and Caitlin rolled her eyes.

“The lady doth protest!” Cisco said. “What say you to that, Caitlin?”

“All I can say is that I wasn’t the one who spilled the specimen on my lab partner, giving said partner a horrible rash afterwards.”

There was scattered laughter, and Cisco, barely able to contain his grin, said, “Oh, burn! What say you, Barry?”

“All I can say is, the beaker… suddenly… moved away from my hand—”

“Moved away from your hand? Beakers don’t move on their own—”

“Fine, the specimen inside the beaker moved the beaker—”

“The specimen was a plant—”

“Whoa, okay,” Cisco said, putting his hands up in front of them, as if to calm them down, “we have a very spirited pair over here. What do you think your chances of winning are, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest?”

“Ten.”

“Zero.”

“Zero? Seriously? That’s not even on the scale!”

“Exactly.”

“O…kay. So your final answer is?”

“Wait, can you give us a second? We have to discuss this,” Barry said, covering the mic with his hand. “Come on. I don’t like losing.”

“I don’t, either, but I. Can’t. Sing,” she said through gritted teeth. “Zero is realistic. At least we won’t have overestimated ourselves.”

“But I can sing.”

“You can sing?”

“Yeah. Sexy baritone, remember?”

She gave him a dubious look.

“Anyway, I’d say eight.”

“Five.”

“Seven.”

“Five.”

“Definitely eleven,” Barry said into the microphone. “Get ready, Clarence and Daisy. We’re going to beat you.”

“Oh, God,” Caitlin muttered. She and Cisco exchanged glances.

“Just lip sync,” Cisco whispered to her, as Clarence responded to Barry. “If you sing all that seduction training you went through will be for nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not to discourage you or anything.”

“Thanks,” she said dryly.

“Anyway, gotta get back to hosting,” he said. “Good luck. I’m not supposed to be biased but I’m gonna be so biased and cheer for you anyway.” He grinned at her, and then turned back to the crowd.

“Alright, contestants! Take your shots, and let’s get this sing-off started!”

. . .

In retrospect, she really shouldn’t have taken those shots.

She’d already taken one before they made their way to Verdant, and she’d taken another while with Hartley. By the time she’d downed the third one, she was lightheaded; by the fourth, she felt like she could conquer the world. Those last two were particularly nasty, but once she’d gulped them down, a pleasant warmth had started to spread throughout her, which made up for the weird paint-thinner taste in her mouth.

“Barry Allen!” she said into the microphone when the strains of the first song came on. “We are going to bring this place DOWN!”

Barry looked amused. “You’re not much of a drinker, are you?”

“Not much of a—psh, what are you talking about? Don’t you believe in me?”

“I do, but—”

“SUMMER LOVIN’, had me a BLAST!” she began, bobbing to the song. She felt like she was flying. She felt the music coursing through her body, the bass thrumming in time with her heartbeat. She was feeling the song. She was one with the song. They were so going to win this. “SUMMER LOVIN’, happened so FAST!”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Cisco shaking his head. He was supposed to be cheering for them! Why wasn’t he cheering for them?

“I met a girl, crazy for me,” Barry continued, grinning at her.

She smiled back at him. “Met a boy, CUTE as can BE!” He was so cute, wasn’t he? And bleeding hell, did he have an amazing voice. No wonder everyone liked him. No wonder she liked him. It was impossible not to. She can’t remember why it’d taken her so long to admit this. Why was she so uptight, anyway? She should drink more often. She’d forgotten how fun it was to drink. There was a reason she didn’t want to, of course, but reasons, shmeasons! She can’t bring herself to give a rat’s ass about shmeasons now. Especially when she could be sneaking glances at Barry’s ass. Now that gave her shmeasons a run for their money.

Now, together, they sang, “Summer days drifting away to oh, the summer nights oh well oh well oh…”

The lights streaking her vision. The music flowing through her. Barry’s smile and Barry’s eyes and the way he looked at her under these bright lights, like she was pretty and funny and a-fucking-mazing. But really. Her hair was in Elite-Four-level barrel curls and her eyeshadow game is so on point and her dress clung to her like second skin. Barry should know. He kept looking at her. He also kept looking at her legs.

She decided to tease him about it.

In the middle of the song, she said, “My eyes are up here, Mr. Allen,” and she smiled slyly as a dark shade of red crawled up his neck and his face. He spluttered an apology and avoided looking at her legs for the rest of that song, which made her kind of regret teasing him in the first place. It was nice to have her legs appreciated. And she’d just shaved them, too! They were like so silky now, like baby dolphins. She loved baby dolphins. She usually loved them more than her legs, but tonight she loved them equally.

They were on the second song now, and the audience was laughing uproariously. Clarence and that flower girl sang well but they were so boring. At least she and Barry were funny. Well, Barry knew how to sing, but he was also funny.

With the soaring of the music she spread her arms wide and surrendered herself to the blur of faces in the dark. Go ahead and laugh, she thought. We’ll give you one hell of a show.

It had gone as terribly as one would imagine it to go. Which is to say, from that point onward, Caitlin had no respectable reputation to speak of, although everyone did seem less intimidated by her. Had she been herself she would say that it was possibly the most catastrophic thing that had ever happened to her, but since she wasn’t herself yet, she just thought that she was having a lot of fun.

The alcohol was starting to wear off, though. After all, they’d been kept onstage for four more rounds, facing off against different pairs, and they’d won in the end based on audience impact. But Cisco had refused to give her extra shots as their supposed reward. He’d given her water instead. Buzzkill.

“You know,” Barry said, as they were making their way down the stage, “I find it really cute that you can’t sing at all. I’ve never met anyone so terrible at it.”

He wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her, and she leaned into him. He smelled nice. He always smelled nice. If only men could smell this nice, the world would be a better place. “You’re doing that thing again where I don’t know if you’re complimenting me or insulting me,” she said. “We should categorize that. Compliminsult? Insultiment?”

“It’s a compliment,” he said, smiling. “Careful, you might trip. Who knew you were such a lightweight?”

“I am not a lightweight. That’s ridiculous. I’m fine. I’m not even slurring.”

“You can hardly stand by yourself.” They finally reached the bottom of the stage. People were already dispersing—majority were hitting the bars, some were on the dance floor, and a select few were seen mingling with the alumni.

“I can stand fine,” she said. “I bet I can even dance fine.”

“Really.”

“Are you asking me to dance?”

“No. It was a figure of speech. Are you?”

“Guess I am now,” he said, with a sheepish shrug. “Do you want to dance?”

“Not really.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’ll let you in on a secret. My dancing’s worse than my singing.”

He laughed. “No way.”

“It’s true. I have absolutely zero coordination. The only dance moves I can properly execute are bobbing and drunken swaying.” She gave him an accusing look. “Don’t tell me you can dance, too.”

“Let’s just say that I can dance well enough for the both of us,” he said, grinning and taking her hand to lead her to the dance floor. His hand was large and warm and calloused, and he was threading his fingers through hers.

She stared for a moment at their joined hands.

This was nice. This was very nice.

He led them to the edge of the dance floor, avoiding the dense mass of writhing bodies in the middle. It was also a spot that wasn’t so close to the speakers, so while they did have to raise their voices, at least they didn’t have to yell.

“Okay, Caitlin,” he said, “a little Dancing 101: When you’re dancing with someone else, close physical contact is kind of mandatory—”

“Oh, come on. I know that.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t make fun of me.”

He flashed her a wicked grin. “Don’t make it so easy for me to.”

“Huh. That was a good comeback,” she said. They stepped apart for a moment to let a few people stumble in between them, and then she turned to face him again. “Why do you have such good comebacks all the time? It makes me feel kind of… dumb. Kind of awed, don’t get me wrong, but also kind of dumb.”

He stepped closer to her, and his hands slowly snaked around her waist. She slid her hands up his chest—fudge it all, she won’t deny it anymore, it was a very gropable chest—and settled them lightly on his shoulders. She felt him shudder against her. “Caitlin,” he said, his eyes darkening. He tilted his head down and put his mouth right over the shell of her ear, his breath hot on her sensitive skin. “You’re many things, but dumb is never one of them.”

The gritty huskiness of his voice, the way his hands tightened around her waist when he said that, sent a flood of heat to her face. She felt a familiar dryness in her throat. She wanted to look away from him, but she’d just probably end up burying her face in his very well-muscled chest, which wasn’t going to help abate this—whatever it was—at all.

“We’re not dancing to the beat,” she said instead. It was true. It did disturb her. They were the only two people swaying, and everyone else was jumping and pumping their fists in the air. She didn’t know how to dance, but even her body knew that there was something asynchronous about the thumping beat of the music and their slow, gliding movements.

He arched a brow. “And whose fault is that?”

“Well, whose fault is it that we’re dancing in the first place?” She had to move her lips closer to his ear to be heard above the bass, and his body curved around hers to hear her better. “You should have known better than to ask me to dance. I’m not in full possession of my rational faculties. This was a bad decision.”

“If you can still say things like ‘in full possession of my rational faculties,’ then you probably still have them.”

“Oh, shut up—crap—I just stepped on something—was that your foot?”

“Yeah,” he said, wincing. “It’s fine. You’ve been stepping on my feet since we started, anyway.”

“What? You should’ve said something.”

“Ow. Hey, I’m already the victim here. You really should stop hitting me when you’re annoyed.”

“Well, you should stop being annoying.”

“Huh, look at that. You still have enough rational faculty to insult me.”

“In the first place, it doesn’t take much rational faculty to insult you.”

He grinned at her.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing,” he said. One of his hands moves to clasp her hand on his shoulder, and he held it in between them. “Care for a twirl?”

“This isn’t exactly twirl-y music.”

“It’s not swaying music, either, yet here we are. You also owe me for stepping on my feet.”

“You’re blackmailing me.”

“Man, my feet are so sore now, I don’t think I’ll be able to run on my next meet—”

“Okay, fine. Fine,” Caitlin said, and he grinned again.

He stepped back from her and held her hand, giving her a mock-gallant bow. “Milady.”

Caitlin tried to hide her smile. She feigned a haughty air and dipped into a curtsy. “Milord.”

He spun her around once, and then she spun herself around for a second time. She liked the way the lights floated and blurred around her, the way her hair flared and settled on her shoulders. She closed her eyes to savor the moment. There was a refrain in the music that resembled a whirling movement, so Barry spun her around for a third time, a fourth time; and when she opened her eyes, he pulled her close to him again, hands running up the length of her arms before cupping the curve of her hips.

He touched his forehead to hers, and he was looking at her like there was nobody else in the room. “Hi.”

“Hi.” She placed her hands on his shoulders again, steadying herself. The room was still spinning.

“You okay?”

“Just a little dizzy,” she said. “Remind me next time that alcohol and dancing are never a good combination. Alcohol and dancing and this—this evil dress.” She put a hand to her back, touching the line of the zipper, and the motion had her inadvertently brushing her chest against his, but she wasn’t able to catch the way Barry’s breathing quickened, or the way he dug his fingers into her hips in an effort to steel himself. “It’s a bit tight. If I drank a drop more I wouldn’t be able to breathe. Do you think it’s too tight?”

“No,” he said, voice rough and eyes dark. “You look—amazing. But you also look amazing without i—ah, crap, that came out wrong”—in the dim light, she could barely make out the color creeping up his neck—“I mean, not without it, without it—I wasn’t imagining you naked or anything—ah, not really—it’s not like it’s a bad image, but you know—”

She tried to hide her amusement. “Barry, are you drunk?”

She could feel, rather than see, his sheepish smile. “Unfortunately not. My tolerance is legendary. It kind of sucks.” He paused. “Can I try to redeem myself?”

“Are you sure you want to?”

“Can’t get any worse, right?” he said. He put his lips again to the shell of her ear. “You look amazing in this dress”—at this his hands slid up her body and skimmed her curves, supposedly to refer to the dress, but instead Caitlin felt a sudden heat shooting down, down in her core, and just, God, what was he doing to her—“but you also look amazing even if you’re in a sweater and jeans, bullying me to get to work after my talking limit expires.”

Something swelled and fluttered inside her chest, like a hummingbird ricocheting back and forth, ready to burst through the first fissure it sees. He thought she was amazing, she thought dully, the words echoing in her mind. He thought she looked amazing even in a sweater and jeans. He thought she was amazing even if she pestered him constantly with the details of their reports and deadlines…

She couldn’t bear to look him in the eye. She was already burning up from the inside, and the way he was looking at her right now would just add fuel to that fire.

“I need to step out for a bit,” she said abruptly, taking a step back from him. “I think I need some air.”

She regretted the words almost as soon as she’d said them, because Barry’s face had fallen, and she keenly felt the loss of his warmth.

“Oh, uh, okay,” he said, still looking bewildered, but he promptly made some distance between them. His hands lingered a moment longer on her waist before falling back to his sides. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she said. “Still a little dizzy, that’s all.” This time, she suspected it had more to do with her proximity to him than the twirling or the evil dress or the vestiges of alcohol in her bloodstream. That, and the fact that if he kept up… whatever it was he was doing, she’d probably do something stupid, like kiss him. Her iron self-control was already slipping away, and she knew she couldn’t even blame it on the alcohol. Cisco had made sure of that.

“Mind if I come with you?” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. He had on that earnest half-smile, the one she couldn’t refuse even if she had been mad at him, let alone when she was feeling vulnerable, disarmed by the sincerity of his compliment. His words were still drumming in the back of her mind as insistently as the bass was thrumming through her body.

“If you want to,” she said. “You’ll miss out on the party, though.”

“Nah,” he said. “I’d miss out on a lot more if I stayed, anyway.” He grinned. “Like discovering what other talents the great Caitlin Snow is hiding.”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, but a smile was already lifting her lips, and he was already taking her hand in his and walking away from the dance floor.

. . .

After a brief discussion, they found themselves standing on the empty balcony of the second floor of Verdant, open only to those who had V.I.P. access. Barry had it by virtue of his association with Oliver, and Caitlin by virtue of her association with Felicity and her association with Oliver.

“You really are such a lightweight,” Barry teased. “When was the last time you got drunk, anyway?”

He bumped his shoulder to hers, and she thought that she immediately needed to put some distance between them, but she was lightheaded enough to be honest about her own duplicity—she wanted to be nearer to him again, not farther.

She was really starting to regret her spur-of-the-moment decision to leave the dance floor.

“A few years back,” she said, belatedly realizing that his question required an answer. “If you’re to be my friend, you’ll never ask about it.”

“That bad, huh?” he said, leaning back against the railing. “So since then this is the only time you’ve ever loosened up and had fun?”

“I don’t think parties are fun,” she said. What happened with him today, actually, was a stellar example of why parties weren’t so much fun as they were fertile ground for bad decisions, but she didn’t say that. Instead she said, “Everything’s just too noisy and crowded and sweaty. No offense. I know you’re a party veteran or something.”

“Well… not so much,” he said. “Only sort of. Close to retiring, really. My definition of fun is more like sleeping in on weekends and watching Netflix.” He smiled, but there was something behind that smile—a sliver of vulnerability that hinted this wasn’t something he normally said to other people, especially not to his circle of athlete friends—that made her soften, that briefly pulled her out of the regret and longing clotting inside of her.

“And when was the last time you had fun?” she said. “In the sleeping in and Netflix way.”

“Hmm,” he said. “I guess yesterday was the first time in a while.” He faced her too, one elbow propping him up on the rail. “When we were at the Observatory.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s not sleeping in or Netflix, but it’s close. Better, actually. Definitely one of my most memorable memories.” His expression turned puzzled. “What’s up with that look? You’re judging me, aren’t you? It’s not that bad, I really did have fun…”

It’s not that bad, I really did have fun… His last sentence echoed in her mind.

But it was bad, she found herself thinking. It was bad because he was stretching himself thin, and he was bound to burn out soon, and she was worried for him already. But it was also bad because, apparently, yesterday held as much meaning for him as it did for her. Images from their time at the Observatory flooded her mind. She could still remember the warmth of the dying sun, the colors it bled into the sky; she could still remember the cool breeze on her skin, the rustling dry grass under her feet, the way she reached for his hand and the way he’d clasped it back like it was his lifeline; she could still remember, most of all, the complete silence in her mind: it was just the sun and the wind and the grass and Barry beside her, vulnerable before her, opening himself up to her. Those moments were so singular that they seemed separate from the flow of time, like glistening crystals in its murky waters; and she knew she’d always look back on them with an ache, knowing that there was never going to be moments like those again. She’d relived those moments repeatedly that morning, before her friends came over, and she’d found herself thinking, When I’m with him, I never want the moment to end.

And this, this between them now, was another one of those moments. The night sky was flung with stars, and echoes from the music inside were still pulsing through her; she could still feel the ghost of his hands on her waist, pulling her close; his lips on her ear; his breath on her skin; his bright, bright eyes, fixed on her in the dark, like she was the only real thing in that amorphous mass of light and sound and shadowed bodies. She wanted something just like this, she thought, her mind latching on to the lyrics of the song playing; she wanted an endless array of moments like this, with him. She wanted to stand with him under all kinds of night skies, watch with him all kinds of sunsets; she wanted the banter, the aimless talks over the phone, the undercurrent of tenderness beneath it all.

She hadn’t been aware of it, but as these thoughts raced through her mind, she had drawn closer to him, as surely gravity draws all things to the earth’s center.

“It’s pretty bad,” she said, her voice quiet. She was finding it difficult to speak; the words were forced, rushed breaths from her mouth. “It’s pretty bad when your definition of fun is being with someone who can’t sing or dance and who thinks parties are lame.”

He let out a laugh. His tone was teasing but subdued. “And who’ll never admit my jokes are funny, and who thinks I talk too much and work too little.”

“Mmm,” she said. Her longing was swelling inside her, cresting like a wave; her eyes flickered to his, and she thought dimly how wrong Jax was about eye contact and seduction, because at this moment she felt like she was the one being drawn into his pull. “That person sounds awful. Wouldn’t want to be her.”

“No, she’s not awful at all,” he said. His lips lifted into a small smile. “She’s someone who listens to me, believes in me, makes me laugh…”

He trailed off, and his eyes were a piercing, brilliant green as he searched hers—they drew her in, entranced her, cast a spell over her. She couldn’t look away. Time ceased to exist. There was only that moment, stretching on to infinity.

And then something shifted in his eyes. Maybe he’d felt it, too—maybe he’d felt that pull of the moment, that teetering on the edge of a cliff, that breathless anticipation for the giddy, headlong rush of the fall.

He continued speaking, his voice low and lilting. “She’s the smartest”—cautiously, he lifted a hand, his eyes still trained on hers—“most determined”—he brought his fingers to her face, and Caitlin couldn’t breathe, not when the air between them was thrumming with anticipation—“most willful someone I know.” His touch was so light, so feather-light on her skin; her fingers tightened around the rail, but she didn’t dare speak or move; all words congealed in her throat, and her body was completely under the thrall of his touch.

“I think,” he said, his fingers brushing her cheek, lingering over the delicate upward slope of the bone, “that anyone…”—his hand moved to graze the back of her neck, his callouses rough on the soft skin there—“…would want to be her…”—his breath ghosted her lashes, and through her half-lidded gaze she could see the flecks of gold in his warm green eyes—“…and anyone…”—he was so close now, so close that she could feel the touch of each whispered word on her lips—“…would want her.”

And, in the next dizzying moment, he tilted his face down and kissed her full on the lips.

It was awkward at first. Caitlin had tiptoed up at the same time that he’d lowered to kiss her, so the result was a collision rather than a gentle touch of the lips. She had no idea what to do with her hands, so one was still white from clutching the rail, while the other hung limply on her side. She didn’t even lean in any further, so aside from Barry’s hand on the back of their neck, they weren’t really touching.

Then, only a heartbeat later, Caitlin pulled away abruptly, as if she were pulling herself out of a dream to witness it before it dissolved and receded in her unconscious.

She felt dazed and her breathing was light and shallow, but Barry was still there, holding her face in his hands, looking at her with a question in his eyes.

So it wasn’t a dream. She was fully awake, and they had just kissed.

They had just kissed.

“You have got to stop doing that,” Barry said, his voice a strangled groan, tugging her lower lip free from her teeth with a swipe of his thumb. Still dazed, she duly released it, not even realizing what she was doing. “It drives me crazy,” he said, his voice low and rough. His thumb hovered above her lip for a moment before grazing over it lightly to soothe the sting of her bite.

Her eyes flickered to his again, and the look he gave her drew her back into his thrall. She found herself leaning closer, closer, until her hands were resting tentatively on his chest, and he wasted no time in falling into her, cupping her face and wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her flush against him; and then he was kissing her again, first a cautious peck, and then a lingering one; and when she responded by knotting her hands in his shirt, wanting more but not knowing what she wanted, he traced his tongue along her lower lip in silent entreaty; on instinct she parted her lips; his tongue slid in, splitting her mouth open to him—

She gasped into the kiss, overwhelmed. With each brush of his lips against hers she felt the rush of blood in her veins, the surge of fire in her stomach; she clung to him like he was the only thing anchoring her to her body, keeping her from being swept away by this whirlpool of sensations. It was a fevered kiss, it was a breathless kiss, and he only pulled away when they were both starved for air. Even then, he rested his forehead against hers, his breath skimming her cheeks; he kissed her lightly on the forehead, on the tip of her nose, on her already swollen lips; and she basked in his kisses like a sunflower turning its face to the sun.

“…sure this isn’t going too fast?”

Caitlin blinked. Her eyes fluttered open, and Barry’s face slowly came into focus. Their foreheads were still touching.

“Too fast?” she repeated, her mind hazy.

“I, uh, guess I got a little carried away?” he said, letting out a nervous laugh. “I was thinking I’d ask you out on a proper date first, and then maybe ten more after that, and then I could probably attempt to kiss you without getting slapped…”

“Ask… me out?”

“Yeah,” he said. His smile was apprehensive. “Yeah. I… wasn’t sure when to ask. I mean, we’ve only known each other for two weeks—”

Two weeks, Caitlin repeated numbly in her mind. It’s only been two weeks—

The haze lifted. The spell shattered. The scales fell from her eyes.

She had only known Barry for two weeks, and already she wasn’t acting like herself anymore. Even Barry knew that. He’d been expecting her to slap him for kissing her, and instead she’d surrendered herself to the kiss. She’d wanted to be kissed. They might have met halfway for it, but there was no doubt that she had leaned in first, no doubt that she had encouraged him to deepen it, no doubt that she, too, had been completely carried away.

What was happening to her? How had she gone from regarding romance with cool disinterest to tumbling right into it, like a car careening off a slippery road, hurtling towards a ravine? She thought she had approached the entire thing rationally, just as she would any scientific problem, but all rationality fled her when she needed it the most. She was supposed to have this under control. She was supposed to keep herself under control—

“—and, well, two weeks isn’t a long time, and knowing you I didn’t want to rush things—”

With shaky hands, she pushed herself away from him. His brow creased. His arm fell from her waist, but he didn’t move away.

“Knowing me?” she finally said. “What does—what does that even mean?”

“I mean,” he said, making a vague gesture, “you were so closed off and hard to get—”

Panic surged inside her, constricting her airways. “So now you think I’m easy—”

“What—no, of course not—”

The words rushed out of her mouth like a flood. “—you think I’m easy because we haven’t gone on a date and because I—we—kissed—and I didn’t—I didn’t slap you—”

“No—Cait—please, listen to me”—he reached for her arm, but she shied away from his touch—“I didn’t mean it that way, I’m an idiot, I say the most stupid things when I—”

But she couldn’t listen to him anymore. Her throat was closing up. Her vision swam. She didn’t understand what was happening to her, but she did know that things were going too fast. Things were spiraling out of her control. Barry was right. They had only known each other for two weeks. They hadn’t even gone out on a date. Yet here they were, in the aftermath of a heated kiss; here she was, in the aftermath of her first kiss, already head over heels in lo—

Her blood ran cold. No. No, she wasn’t in love with him. She couldn’t be. Two weeks was nothing. This thing between them was nothing.

“I have to go,” she said, but as she turned away from him, he moved to block her path. Had she been looking at him closely, she would have seen in his eyes a panic that mirrored her own, but her eyes were firmly trained on the door.

“Cait, can we just… can we talk about this—”

“Barry. Please.” Her voice was sharp with desperation. “I have to go.”

He trailed off. Understanding seemed to dawn in his eyes.

He took a step back.

Without another glance at him, Caitlin swept past him and fled, the silence between them ringing in her ears.

#snowbarry #snowbarry fic #barry x caitlin #barry allen #caitlin snow #felicity smoak #cisco ramon #jefferson jackson #wonderful you came by #my fic

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