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lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks · 3 years

Text

Grabbing Smoke

As much time as Sam spent with her best friends, sometimes she enjoyed a little bit of time alone.

Tucker was helping his mother bake cookies for some kind of fundraiser for the hospital, and Danny was busy visiting Pandora for fighting lessons. Apparently they were using swords today.

As fun as it sounded, Sam opted to stay behind, it had been a while since she'd been down to the park to feed the ducks. She didn't get quiet moments like that very often any more.

There was an uncharacteristic skip to her gait as she walked to the park, a canvas tote bag swinging from her arm.

Living in Amity Park, and especially hanging around with Danny, gave her an eerie sense to when something was amiss. Nothing quite like Danny's ghost sense, but she'd learned to detect a particular chill to the air, a prickling at the back of her neck. It could easily be mistaken for a chilly breeze, but Sam knew better. The crunch of gravel under Sam's boots was the only sound permeating the still air, not even the trees were rustling.

She continued her walk through the park, past the wishing fountain and through a trail where the trees grew slightly more dense.

The trail opened up to a large pond, it wasn't anything especially picturesque, the reeds were a little overgrown, the ground was muddy, but there were a few simple weather worn benches by the path that looped around the water.

Sam took a seat, pulling out a bag of frozen peas. She opened it, tipped a few into her hand and tossed them into the water.

The ducks immediately sped across the pond toward her, fighting for the peas that the turtles hadn't already gotten to.

Instead of grabbing another handful, she held the bag out to the empty seat to her left, waiting for a moment before shaking the bag impatiently.

A green hand slipped into the bag, pulling out a handful of peas before tossing them into the water.

"How'd you know I was here?" Kitty asked, now sitting visibly on the other end of the bench as Sam poured out more peas for both of them.

"I have my ways." Sam smirked. "What I want to know is why you've been following me all week."

"You knew for that long and you didn't say nothin'?" Kitty huffed. "Damn, I gotta up my game."

A duck waddled up and nibbled on her boot.

"Alright alright, ya hungry little doofus." Kitty lowered a hand full of peas and cooed as the duck happily ate from her palm. "Aww these guys aren't shy at all, do you come here a lot?"

"When I can." Sam tossed a few more peas into the water for the turtles. "So why are you following me?"

Kitty sat back and pressed her lips together, thinking.

"Look it's just... I don't remember much from when I was livin', you know? It's all sorta grey and fuzzy, I can't remember what anyone looked like, except Johnny." she tossed some peas to a smaller duck at the back of the group. "But as soon as I showed up here in town and I saw your face, I thought I felt... I dunno, somethin'. Like I'd seen you before, or maybe you just reminded me of someone, but I can't remember who, it's like grabbing smoke."

She lobbed a few peas a little harder than was necessary at the water. The turtles sucked them up greedily.

"So you've just been following me hoping you might remember something else?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Kitty sighed. "But it's not working."

Sam swung her foot idly between a pair of scuffling ducks, splitting them up before tossing out some more peas.

"Maybe I'm related to someone you knew. Where did you grow up?"

Kitty frowned down at the water.

"I... I don't know." she said, deflating somewhat. "I didn't even realise I forgot that."

Sam couldn't help but feel for her, Danny had told her that ghosts would often forget things from their past, especially once they'd been dead for longer than they'd been alive. Somehow she had never really considered how terrifying that must be.

"You know..." Sam started carefully. "I could show you some old family photos. Maybe you'll recognise someone?"

Kitty looked up, eyes shining brightly.

"Really? You'd do that for me?"

"Why not?" Sam shrugged. "If you were here to cause trouble you would have done it by now."

"Aw, I never thought you'd wanna do something like that for me." said Kitty, smiling brightly. "You always seemed like such a bitch."

Sam laughed.

"If you'd spent a week being someone that wasn't Paulina, I would probably have seemed like less of a bitch."

"So you guys are big rivals or somethin'?" Kitty asked, grabbing some more peas and giggling as three ducks tried to eat from her hand at once.

"It's more that we have... conflicting ideologies. She thinks that appearances and reputation are the most important things in life, just like my parents." Sam lobbed some more peas into the water, they both watched them disappear as the turtles quickly snapped them up. "It's shallow and stupid, and I don't get why they have to push that shit on everyone. I don't care what people think, I just want to be whoever the hell I wanna be without having to fight for it all the time."

Kitty's face turned contemplative as she tapped her nails on the back of the bench.

"I think... I was like that." she said, slowly. "I wanted to feel fun and exciting, but my parents..."

She trailed off, frowning.

"My parents... I didn't like them. They didn't like me bein' the way I was, I can't really remember why."

Sam emptied out the last of the peas and scattered them over the ground, she scrunched up the empty packet and shoved it back into her tote bag.

"You know, if we went to school together we would probably have gotten along." said Sam as she stood up, gesturing toward the path. "Let's go check out those photos."

Instead of floating invisibly behind, Kitty walked by Sam's side as they headed back to her house. She idly waved at people as they drove past, grinning when someone stared a little too long and almost ran a red light.

"You know, it's nice bein' able to walk around in the day." Kitty said, skipping a little. "Wish I could do it more often."

"What's stopping you?"

"What do you think?" Kitty's lip pulled up in disgust. "Any time I show up your dumb friend sucks me up in his stupid thermos. Only reason I can walk around right now is because I got you as my get out of jail free card."

"Danny doesn't care if you just want to walk around." Sam scoffed. "He lets ghosts wander around town all the time, he only gets involved when you start breaking things."

"Uggghhh but just walking around is so boring." Kitty pouted. "I mean yeah it's nice and I like it but it gets old real quick."

"Then you'll have to get used to getting tossed back in the ghost zone. Do not pass go, do not collect $200."

"Don't you ever get sick of his goody goody attitude?" Kitty asked. "I mean you and I aren't so different right? You're all about the rebel gig, don't you ever feel like keyin' some asshole's car, or takin' a baseball bat to some mail boxes?"

"Only if they deserve it." said Sam with a smirk. "But I feel like you aren't especially picky about whose stuff you're breaking."

They approached the door to the Manson mansion, Sam hopped up the steps and stuck the key in the lock. She touched the mezuzah on the doorpost without a second thought before opening the door and standing aside to invite Kitty in.

The ghost stared up at her warily.

"I can't get past it."

"Past what?" Sam asked.

"The mezuzah, it keeps me out."

"What?" Sam frowned. "It hasn't stopped other ghosts from getting in."

"Well it stops me." Kitty insisted. "I think it's got somethin' to do with what we believed in when we were alive. I haven't got a problem with churches but when Johnny tried to ride his bike through one he couldn't get in. His mom raised him Catholic, he says he doesn't believe in any of that stuff, but I think he still does, deep down."

"So does that mean you were Jewish?" Sam asked, smiling curiously.

"I AM Jewish." Kitty crossed her arms. "Bein' a ghost hasn't changed that, it just... means that we got a few things a little wrong."

Sam thought about that for a moment, before stepping aside and gesturing toward the door again.

"Well, if you've been invited and you're not going to cause any trouble, then I don't see why you shouldn't be able to come in."

Kitty climbed the steps slowly, fingers reaching out and cautiously brushing over the mezuzah, she didn't feel anything unusual, no zap or burn or pain. She took a step through the doorway and passed the threshold without issue, no invisible force or barrier like the last time she tried to follow Sam inside.

"Well, what do you know." she said, grinning.

Sam lead her into a large, open planned kitchen and dining area, the tiles were bright white save for the specks of mud Sam's boots tracked through the room. The decor was minimalist, the atmosphere bland and sterile, she could smell some kind of citrus surface cleaner.

The back wall was all windows, leading to a patio surrounded by perfectly trimmed grass. As they approached, Sam turned, heading towards a door to their right.

The next room felt a lot more friendly, it was full of bookshelves and red tones. The lounges looked soft and inviting, a fireplace sat cold and empty against the back wall, but Kitty didn't have to try hard to imagine it roaring to life, filling the room with its warm glow.

"This is basically my Grandma's part of the house." Sam informed her, voice low. "Her bedroom is just through there, she's usually napping around this time of day so try not to make too much noise."

Kitty slipped off her jacket and laid it over the back of the lounge, already feeling at home in the cosy little room. She looked over the books as Sam fussed around some kind of large ornate chest.

"Here it is." She hefted a large photo album from the chest, carefully closing and latching it again. "Let's see if you recognise anyone in here."

Kitty sat down beside Sam as she opened up the pristine book, the outer cover was beige with the name Manson inscribed in golden cursive on the front. The first page was full of old faded photos, in greyscale or sepia tones.

"Ugh, I'm not that old." said Kitty, flicking ahead a few pages.

The pictures were colourful now, but still grainy, there was a young blonde boy in seventies style jeans leaning casually against a Chevrolet.

"Wait hold up," Kitty pointed at the boy. "Him, I feel like I've seen him before."

"That's my dad." said Sam, surprised. "His name is Jeremy, did you know him?"

Kitty hummed a little, gently tracing a finger over the picture.

"Jeremy... Jeremy, I'm not sure," she frowned. "But he definitely looks familiar."

They continued through the book, when suddenly Kitty slapped her hand down roughly on a photo of a pair of young women.

"Her! I know her! She was a mega bitch!"

"Shhh keep it down." Sam hissed.

"Sorry," Kitty pointed to the blonde girl in the photo. "That one! I don't know how I knew her, but I definitely knew her. She was a total brat."

Sam slipped the photo out of its sleeve and read the neat cursive on the back.

"This is... my Aunt Caroline, in 1985. She's my dad's sister." Sam looked up at Kitty, amused. "I can't believe you had beef with my family."

"Your family are snobs." Kitty sniffed. "Carrie was such a ditz, she thought she was sooo bitchin' because her daddy bought her a Mercedes."

"Yeah, that sounds about right." Sam grimaced. "Did you guys go to school together or something?"

"Maybe..." Kitty took the photo from Sam's hand, staring intently. "I'm pretty sure I skipped school a lot, I hated it there. It was a private school, we had to wear uniforms, barf."

"I would never have guessed you were a private school kid." Sam shook her head. "But most people would say that about me so it's not like I can judge."

"You went to private school?" Kitty asked, "How'd you end up in that Casper High dump?"

"Got myself expelled." said Sam, voice thick with pride. "Elementary, middle and high school, got kicked out of all three."

"Damn, you're good."

Sam grinned, slipping the photo back in its sleeve and continuing to the next page.

Kitty pointed to a few other photos, remarking on their familiarity, but not quite able to grasp how she knew them, the memories only flickered in her periphery.

"Wait," Kitty whispered, fingers brushing over a polaroid containing three people. "This is..."

The picture looked as though it were taken at some kind of party, a man and a woman faced the camera, each with a glass of champagne raised in their hands. The woman's other hand rested on the shoulder of a teenage girl with auburn hair, pulled into a tidy braid. She stared glumly at the camera.

"That's Katherine." Sam said, pointing to the girl. "She was my dad's cousin, but she got hit by a car when she was-"

Sam paused, looking over at Kitty's wide eyes and then back to the photo.

"Noooo way." Sam pulled the photo out of the sleeve. "Is this you?"

Kitty took the photo in trembling hands.

"I... I forgot I used to look like that." she fiddled with a lock of her green, teased hair. "I remember this party, I didn't want to go but mom and dad threatened to take away all my records and cassettes if I didn't."

Sam stared at Kitty, mouth agape.

"You're Car Crash Katherine?! My dad talks about you all the time! He always told me about the shit you used to get up to, he'd tell me that any kind of 'rebellious behaviour' was a slippery slope to 'dying on the back of some delinquent's motorcycle'." Sam put a hand on Kitty's shoulder. "You were my bad influence role model."

Kitty's red eyes shone with tears, photo still in hand, she wrapped her arms around Sam.

"This is majorly wicked! My legacy lives on! Corrupting the youth from beyond the grave!" Kitty laughed. "My parents would go totally mental."

She stopped laughing, her face turning forlorn as she drew back from Sam and stared down at the picture.

"Are they still alive?" she asked, a tremble in her voice.

"Yeah..." said Sam. "They live in a retirement home in Florida. They don't come around very often."

Kitty traced a finger over their faces.

"I wonder if they miss me." she said quietly. "Or if they were glad to be rid of the family embarrassment."

Sam didn't answer, she had wondered the same thing herself, if her parents would even care if she died. They hadn't given her a lot of reason to think they would.

She rested a sympathetic hand on Kitty's arm.

"Oh, you have a friend over bubbeleh?" a croaky voice spoke from the bedroom doorway.

Sam and Kitty both turned to see Ida Manson shuffling into the room, cleaning her glasses with her sleeve.

"Sorry Grandma, we didn't mean to be too loud." Sam apologised. "This is my... um, friend, Kitty. Kitty this is my Grandma Ida-"

"Ida?!" Kitty shot to her feet, staring in shock at the old woman. "Aunt Ida?!"

Ida squinted at Kitty, before quickly setting her glasses back on her face.

"Well as I live and breath, is that you Kathy?"

"Oh my god this is getting super weird." Sam whispered.

Kitty leapt over the ottoman to wrap Ida up in a tight hug, the old woman was surprised for a moment, but held her warmly in return.

"It's me Aunt Ida! Not really living or breathing but it's me!" Kitty laughed breathlessly.

"Oh my goodness, when all the ghosts started showing up all over town I wondered if I would ever see someone I knew." She rubbed comforting circles on Kitty's back as the ghost choked on a few sobs. "It's good to see you again Kathy."

Ida pulled away and wiped a tear from Kitty's face.

"And I'm so glad you aren't stuck wearing what your parents buried you in."

Kitty couldn't help but laugh through her tears.

"Let me guess, it was that putrid blue dress, wasn't it?"

"The dress wasn't nearly as bad as what they did to your hair." Ida snickered, patting Kitty's hand. "It had little ribbons in it and everything."

"I almost forgot you." Kitty placed her palm gently against Ida's face. "You were the only one in the family who ever loved me for being me, and I almost forgot you. I'm so sorry, I should have come to find you sooner but I just-"

"Shhhh, it's okay bubbeleh." Ida grasped her hand tight. "I think being dead is a pretty good excuse for forgetting a few things."

Sam stood beside the lounge, watching the two in shock, she wasn't entirely certain whether or not to intrude. Whatever she had been expecting to discover with Kitty today, it certainly hadn't been this.

Though in hindsight, it did explain Kitty's familiarity with Sam, people always said she had taken after her Grandma.

Ida let go of Kitty and hobbled over to the photo album still sitting on the lounge.

"Oh you don't want to look at that album." she said, as she shoved it onto the coffee table. She wandered to the other side of the room and began rummaging around in a small cupboard. "You want this one."

She pulled out a book with well worn, peeling edges. Pieces of the plastic sleeves had cracked off and crumbled away. It was old, and weatherbeaten, it was obvious that Ida had looked through it many many times.

"Here we go." she sat down in the middle of the lounge, gesturing for the two girls to come sit beside her. "These are the forbidden photos."

She opened the pages, the photos inside were entirely different from the 'official' album, there were no perfectly poised, prim and proper photos of people in nice, presentable clothes. They were all candid shots, people in the middle of eating or laughing, some were stumbling around blind drunk, a few were smoking joints. There were pictures from parties and protest rallies, in backyards and drive ins.

There was a picture of Jeremy as a young boy, grinning with one of his front teeth missing and grass in his hair.

"Only in this family would losing your baby teeth make a photo 'unsavoury'." Ida grizzled as she continued through the album. "I saved so many pictures that my husband would have thrown out otherwise."

"Ugh, Uncle Peter was such a prude, he wouldn't even let me in the house if I didn't have my shoulders covered up." Kitty rolled her eyes.

"He used to be so much more relaxed when we were young." Ida sighed. "He changed when he inherited his father's business, he forgot how to have fun."

A few pages later Kitty squealed in excitement.

"Oh my god! That's Frankie! She was my best friend, we used to do everything together!"

The Kitty in the photo looked far more like the Kitty Sam knew. Her hair was teased up, and she was wearing a crop top and a miniskirt. The other girl, Frankie, had short curled hair and a leather jacket. They each had an arm around the others' shoulder and grinned wildly.

"I love this one." Ida smiled as she pulled the picture out of the sleeve. "That was the night I gave you a lift to that concert."

"Oh that show was sooo good! I got my nose pierced there! It got so infected, Mom grounded me for a month." Kitty laughed.

"Man, and I thought I was cool for skipping school to go see Circus Gothica." Sam grinned. "I'm gonna have to come home with a tattoo next time."

"I can't believe I forgot about Frankie, I can't believe I forgot about all of this." Kitty held the photo close to her chest, a few tears running down her face. "I'm so glad it's not gone for good."

She kept the photo in hand as they looked through the rest of the album. There were many pictures of Ida, all of them with other people of all walks of life.

"Oh this was when you took us to that pride parade!" Kitty smiled. "You made Frankie so happy, and you knew a lot of the drag queens there, like a LOT."

"Grandma took me to a drag show when I was 10," said Sam. "Even took me backstage to meet them all, my parents thought we went to the theatre to see Romeo and Juliet."

"Oh I have photos from that." Ida flipped through the pages, getting closer to the end of the album. "Here we are, oh Evelyn just LOVED you."

Sam looked at the picture of Evelyn, frowning slightly.

"Oh weird, she kinda looks like Mr Lancer's sister, he keeps her photo on his desk..." Sam paused as she processed what she just said. "That's not his sister is it?"

"You probably shouldn't bring it up." said Ida gently. "Teachers can get in trouble for associating with this sort of thing."

"That's so bogus!" Kitty cried. "I really thought this kinda stuff would be better in the future!"

"It is," Ida assured her. "But we're a long way from perfect."

Ida flipped back through the album, searching for more pictures of Kitty and Frankie. There were a good few of them, each one Ida pulled out and passed over for Kitty to look at and hold onto.

"Oh woah, is that Johnny?" Sam pointed to a picture of Kitty sitting on the back of a motorcycle with a blonde boy. "He looks exactly the same, just a little less pale."

"Oh, did Johnny come back as a ghost too?" Ida asked.

"Yeah! We've been together all this time, in sickness and in death." Kitty beamed. "Mom and dad blamed him for everything I did, even if he wasn't around when I did it. They said him and Frankie were 'corrupting' me."

She rolled her eyes.

"I bet they blamed him for my death too. They'd be so mad if they knew we were still together."

"Just goes to show they had no chance of keeping you two apart." Ida said. "Not even death could do that."

Kitty held the photo tight in both hands, her shoulders began to shake slightly.

"It was my fault you know." she said with a trembling little giggle. "Funny huh? My parents always blamed him for everything, but in the end it was my fault we got hit. We were havin' a fight over somethin' stupid and I distracted him-"

Ida wrapped an arm around Kitty, patting her head comfortingly as she laid it against the old woman's shoulder.

"I think you're being too hard on yourself bubbeleh." Ida whispered gently into her hair. "It was raining, the truck that hit you was running a red light, the driver was charged for both your deaths. Even if you did distract him, you weren't the only card at play that night."

She gave Kitty a light shake.

"And don't think I didn't see the way Johnny used to drive that thing, he was reckless. I have no doubt that he wasn't paying as much attention as he should have been." She placed a kiss on the girl's forehead and squeezed her tight. "It's not fair to hold all of that responsibility on yourself, even if you both did everything right, that truck still would have run that red light, it still would have been raining. It was just pure rotten luck."

Sam had never heard a ghost talk about their death before, even Danny didn't like talking about his accident, and asking about it was incredibly taboo. Sam had been pushing her luck earlier just by mentioning the car crash.

It said a lot about Kitty's love for Ida that she chose to open up about it. Sam couldn't say she was surprised, her Grandma had always been like that. Never anything but an endless well of love and support, and the occasional kick in the pants if you needed it.

"Johnny's always had rotten luck." Kitty sniffed. "Follows him like a shadow."

"Literally." Sam snorted.

After a few more moments, Ida pulled herself away from Kitty, she got up and began rooting through the cupboards, muttering to herself.

"Aha, here it is."

She brought over an empty photo album, it was roughly the size of a small pocketbook, containing only one photo sleeve per page.

"I meant to fill this with photos for Sam to keep." Ida admitted as she shuffled back over to the girls. "But I don't think she'll mind donating it to a good cause."

She winked at Sam, who nodded back.

"Here," Ida pressed the little album into Kitty's hands. "Memories are a fickle thing, but photos are forever."

"I can't take these!" Kitty insisted, pushing the album back. "They're your memories too!"

"Oh my god you're both so old." Sam laughed, "Dad has a printer/scanner. I can make copies."

As Sam took the polaroids to her dad's office, Ida and Kitty pored over the rest of the album, Kitty picking out more photos to copy. She chose a few of Ida and Sam, and even one of Carrie.

"She was a total loser and I hated her but I don't hate remembering her, you know? I want to remember everything, even the bad stuff."

She took a photo of her parents, just one.

When Sam came back with the last batch of photos, Ida finished slipping them into the little album.

"There's still a few sleeves left." Sam pointed out, holding up her phone with a smile. "We've got room for a couple of family reunion pics."

The two girls squished up against Ida as Sam snapped as many shots as she could. Ones where they smiled, ones where they laughed, ones where they laid haphazardly across the lounge together.

Then Sam took a few candids of just Kitty and Ida, as they looked through the new album they'd just made together. Capturing Kitty laughing at something as Ida looked at her with a soft, loving smile.

Kitty clutched the album to her chest as she gave Ida a long, drawn out hug.

"Thank you so much." she said, her voice thick with gratitude. "It's like I can see my life in colour again."

She left the house with the assurance that she would always be welcome back, at any time, and a promise that she would always be looking out for her 'new favourite cousin'.

Sam flicked through the photos she took on her phone, she would have to make sure to have copies printed by the time Kitty returned to visit.

She knew Kitty coming over regularly was going to make things complicated, her apparent newfound protectiveness over Sam could potentially backfire in many spectacular ways, she was petty and troublesome when in the right mood.

But then again, so was Ida, and so was Sam.

At least she had better things to do now than beat up strangers' mail boxes, Danny was certainly going to be glad to hear that.

#lula's fanfics #danny phantom #danny phantom fanfiction #kitty #sam manson #ida manson

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spiked-tea-writing · 3 years

Text

and they were roommates?!

SapnapxFem!Reader

Summary: Imagine being in love with your roommate, couldn't be you.

Pronouns: She/her

Warning: Swearing

Word Count: 2.3k

A/n: I don’t watch or know anything, I just like these people and I had a concept. Also, he and Dream aren’t roommates in this for the sake of I can’t figure that out. Also also, my timeline is probably fucked but who cares

The dynamic in the apartment was...interesting to say the least

In the two years of living together, it had shifted a lot

In the beginning, you and Sapnap had been... less than cordial to each other

Both eighteen, fresh out of high school, off to college thinking that you knew everything.

There was lots of fighting, to say the least.

All of the “No it’s your turn to vacuum”, and “I swear to god Sapnap I will punt you halfway across the world if you eat my pineapple again”

The only reason you didn’t slit each other’s throats was that if the other person was dead, who would pay rent?

It was the summer before college started at the time, and you were working long hours minimum wage so coming]’/ home to an annoying prick caused a crap ton of conflict

After a few months of being little bitches to each other, y’all got piss drunk in the apartment and it all just sorta fell apart

Got that good drunk therapy, spilling your deepest secrets

(y’all were underage but shhh)

So by the time college started, the two of you had become actual friends and started enjoying each others company

A few months into the friendship, you encouraged him to post the video of “Minecraft, but it’s Raining Cats and Dogs” on a whim

Lmao little did you know what you had created (we’ll get to that later)

You mocked his train of thought constantly, laughing at the timing of it all.

“Ahhh yes, I am Sapnap, the genius who thought it’d be great to become a YouTuber while in my first year of college.”

He’d always just laugh and roll his eyes, playfully shoving you while stealing your chips.

The next few months were a haze of studying, work, and him.

It was truly a friendship of convenience since you guys were so busy, him starting his youtube career, and you working restaurants, then school on top of that, it was just easy to find friendship in your roommate.

Of course, he had his close friends which he spoke to over the internet, and you had your friends from back home, but as for college, it really was only him.

You guys had a fun time just hanging around the apartment, and it became so easy to be friends with him

And it WAS truly platonic (we’ll get back to that as well)

The best thing he brought to the friendship was his animals

You got on fabulously with Cash and the cats

They were all so cuddly and honestly loved you more than him lmao

You guys were just trying to get degrees and not be too stupid, was that too much to ask???

Well to a certain 2020, it was

The beginning of that year was great.

He was sorta realizing that he liked putting himself on social media, but on top of that, it seemed like a great start to a year.

February brought him to twitch, which you loved

You found it hilarious how he would just sorta play games and have people watch him live.

But you were incredibly supportive, as a friend, of course

He really liked it so, you tried to ignore the shouting at three am, and the loud anthems at night

Sure you’d give him hell in the morning, but why kill his fun?

March started great, as it was his birthday.

You got him a glittery lighter as a gag, but it was the perfect gift for a broke-ass college student

Then a certain pandemic came a-knockin’ on y’all’s door

It was a hard hit on both of you.

An executive decision was made that you two would stay put, but being away from your families was incredibly tough.

That spring was the birth of The SMP.

It brought him so much joy, which in turn made you happier.

The rest of the school year was a blur of zooms and test

Nick nearly killed you on multiple occasions when you made fun of the fact that he was learning computer science over the computer or made him help you figure out what the fuck zoom was since it was tangentially related to his major

“SAP HELP ME YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS ITS YOUR FUCKING MAJOR!!!”

“NO, IT’S- AHHHHHHHHH”

Yall got more than a handful of noise complaints shhhh

That summer was fill was spent trying to fill the time in weird ways

Note to self, he can’t cook (which you learned the hard way)

Yall spent so much time trying to cook and bake, then sweating off the calories working out with The Fitness Marshall lmao

As sucky as the situation was, that summer was so incredibly fun for the both of you, and truthfully the only arguments were about what music to blast

“Y/n I swear if I listen to Cosmicandy one more time I will drown you.”

“Well if I hear American Idiot one more time someone’s knee caps are getting harvested.”

(that argument was settled with Elton John.)

When school started up again that fall, something shifted

After a year of actual friendship, you guys were no longer just friends, and the tension was so thick it could be cut with a knife

You had watched every single one of his streams since day one, but within 2 seconds of his Love or Host, you felt the need to hurl for some peculiar reason

It was bizarre because there was no way you could ever like him, of course not.

Within the apartment, you guys suddenly got a lot more touchy, but only because it was getting cold with winter and all that jazz.

It wasn’t because yall were secretly in love, what is this, a romcom?

The number of times you guys woke up on the couch, definitely not cuddling was too many to count

You started sitting in his room while he streamed, definitely not watching him with heart eyes because of how excited he got

He always had a pot of coffee full and a 6-pack of monster in the fridge since he knew you ran on spite and caffeine, and definitely not so that he could spend more time with you in the early hours of the morning.

The laundry started getting all mixed around, resulting in just sharing any sweats, hoodies, or socks.

The same thing went for food.

No longer was anything labeled with a name, if it was in the fridge, it was fair game (unless there was a post-it because come on, yall weren’t monsters)

But no, y’all were just roommates, not dating, lets make that clear.

Feelings? We don’t know her.

This entire time, his friends have had to hear about you rip.

But they got front row seats to your relationship development

“OMG my roommate is the worst she ate all of the frozen strawberries”

“Y/n kidnapped Storm all day while she studied and I thought I lost the fucking cat asjvdk”

“I had to run down and talk to the landlord because we dropped a pot of pasta sauce all over the carpet and couldn’t get the damn stain out.”

“She is so nice in preparation for a family dinner zoom, she ran out to the local Filipino food place and pick stuff up.”

“Sorry I’m late I overslept and didn’t want to wake up Y/n.”

They weren’t stupid, and could clearly see how whipped he was.

Dream and Geroge teased him about it constantly.

“Woah, calm down Sap, you should probably tell her you love her before you propose.”

“Yeah Dream’s right, it’s kinda weird that you’re living together before ever dating.”

He always flushed and denied it with a shake of his head.

He wasn’t into you, are they crazy?

Quackity and Karl messed with him in more unorthodox ways

There are a solid number of clips where they are fake crying over how he’s cheating on them, and even more tweets to match

It only got worse when you met them accidentally.

He was chatting post-stream on a video channel with George, Dream, Karl, and Quackity, and just his luck, you came into his room.

Like of all the times you could walk in, it was the time he was with his five closest friends but I digress

“Yo I got some extra tips yesterday so I picked up some extra Red Bull if you want to do one of your weird all-nighter streams.”

“Y/n I’m on channel.”

“Oh shit sorry my b. Catch.”

All the guys heard was a thud and a groan from Sapnap as the six-pack hit him in the chest.

Dream was the one to recognize your name.

“WAIT IS THAT Y/N I WANT TO MEET THEM!”

You could hear Dream’s voice through his headphones

“Sap… who is that?”

“No one. I’ll be out in a sec to help with dinner.”

You could hear a British voice come through.

“Oh so we are no one now, huh.”

Another voice piped through.

“Common... ¿Qué intentas ocultar?”

You cut in.

“Your headset it shit my guy. I can hear everything. I’m down to talk to them.”

He let out a groan.

“Fine. But you’re gonna have to do the dishes tonight.”

“Deal. Now move.”

“What? No.”

“Fine bitch.”

You collapsed onto his lap, plucking the headphones off of him.

“Hello, Sapnap’s friends. I am Y/n. A pleasure to meet y’all. Can you hear me?”

You heard a series of laughs through the headset, and a voice came through.

“Yes, we can see you too. I’m Karl, it’s so nice to finally meet his girlfriend.”

A blush rose on both of your faces, and another voice came through.

“Yeah, we’ve heard lots about you. Plus we can’t see your face in that picture Sap sent us. I’m Quackity”

That remark stopped your embarrassment in its tracks.

“What the fuck? How do you guys know me? I’m not even his girlfriend? And what picture?”

Sapnap grabbed your arm to calm you down as another voice cut in, but his one you recognized as his friend Dream.

“Hey, it’s okay. He just talks about you a bit, and the picture I believe was of you holding like three cats with like a red bull can on your head.”

“Jesus fucking christ why do they have that photo??”

He looked guilty but chuckled.

“Because that photo is a damn masterpiece.”

Karl’s voice came back in with a giggled.

“Soooo, Y/n we’d love to hear about you. Specifically anything funny or embarrassing that you have learned by living with him.”

Sapnap let out a groan from behind you as you went off.

“WELL lemme tell y’all, he has no cooking knowledge, well I mean, now he does, but one time, about a year ago, I had I been keeping a pot of water boiling for about an hour, soft boiling eggs, cooing noodles, blanching bok choy, etc. but this fucking genius is like ‘oH tHe HaNdLe Is StIcKiNg OuT. LeMmE mOvE iT wItH mY bArE hAnD.’ Needless to say, he burnt the crap outta his hand and kept the bag of frozen blueberries on it for the entire night. It took me like a solid five seconds to actually help him because I was laughing.”

By the time you had finished that story, you had seen Nick roll his eyes like 5 five times while the rest of the guys were wheezing.

“Yeah, well remember the time you were trying to imitate Rapunzel after we had watched it over Zoom with my sister, and you swung the edge of the frying pan into our head and got a nasty bump on it? At least I moved quick enough to put some ice on it.”

“Ice? It was the damn leftover Slushy that I had been freezing.”

“True, but you got to drink it after, so it was a win-win situation.”

“Sap, I had a bump the size of a golfball coming off of my temple. There was no winning.”

“Fine, you’re just making me sound like such a shit roommate.”

“No that’s not true, you do all of the talking to the landlord, and you at least tried to muffle the noise when you stream.”

“I guess that’s true, but you do like 80% of the cleaning.”

“Yeah but only because you’re working. Plus in the past 6 months, you’ve made coffee every morning, AND made sure I was taking my meds.”

“Those things aren’t that hard and I do it to make sure you don’t die because I lo- care about you.”

“What?”

You heard Dream’s wheeze laugh and remembered that you guys were still on call.

“Smooth.”

You both went red, and Sap moved his arm around you to leave the channel.

The next few moments were complete torture, the two of you just sitting in silence.

You were wondering if he meant what he was about to say and he was scared that you had heard it.

He was the one to break the silence. (mind you you’re still sitting on his lap lmao)

“I’m sorry about that.”

You weren’t sure how to respond. Should you ask him if he meant it? Because that wouldn’t be that bad. Or just pretend it never happened. Nah that’d be hella awkward. Or-

“I love you too.”

“You what?”

Wow, okay your brain is being a little bitch rn, but fuck it. Balls to the walls baby.

“I love you, and I have for a while now. I just want you to know.”

You finally looked him in the eye, and he was grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

“Thank god. I love you, and nearly fucking told you for the first time in front of my friends accidentally. Damn, I’m smooth.”

You laughed and he smiled wider.

“Can I kiss you?”

After a quick nod he swooped in and holy hell his lips felt great. His arm wound around your waist and your hands made their way to his jaw as he pulled you closer to him.

The only thing playing in your mind was “and they were roommates”

#sapnap x reader #sapnap #sapnapxreader #sapnap fluff #sapnap fanfic #sapnap fanfiction #sapnap x you #sapnap x y/n

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slutforagoodsmut · 2 years

Text

Bruno’s Daughter

Author: In my most recent post, I made a headcanon based around my OC Antonella finding Bruno (her dad) with Mirabel in Antonio’s room

TW: Angst, daddy issues, a lot of that stuff

After the shit show dinner and proposal that night, Antonella needed a break from her hectic family. She retired to her room, deciding to organize her bookshelves to calm her nerves down. Mirabel tried explaining to her before that something was up with the encanto, but....was that really true? She’ll admit, she’s felt different the whole day like something was off.

No, it wasn’t a cold, she didn’t have a fever or feel sick.

And her powers....they were all out of whack during dinner. She couldn’t see her Abuelo at the table. She couldn’t even feel his presence. He was always there, every single night. But that night, something was wrong. She could barely feel any presence of the other spirits in her room. What was causing this to happen?

Suddenly glass shattered next to her, causing her to jump. The book Antonella pulled out accidentally knocked over one of her orbs, causing it to shatter into a gazillion pieces.

“Dios Mio!” She groaned, leaning down to pick up the shards. Making spirit orbs was already difficult for her to do, and it was her favorite one too. “I can’t seem to catch a break, can I casita?” She mumbled beneath her breath. There was a squeak. Antonella turned her head to see a small rat perched up on a shelf, sniffing around before looking at her with the most curious expression it could muster. “What are you doing here little one? Shouldn’t you be in Antonio’s room?” It cocked it’s head to the side. She smiled softly. “Here, I’ll bring you back.” Antonella held out her hands and the baby rat climbed into her palms. How in the world did it get so far from Antonio’s room? His room is all the way down the hall. Hmm, must’ve slipped out by accident and lost its way. Antonella knocked and opened the door. It’s not like her cousin was gonna hear her anyways. “Tonito? I found one of your animals--” She stopped dead in her tracks. A gust of green sand swirled around on top of the tree, the winds ferociously whipping around. “Antonio? Are you there? Hello?” She called out, pushing past the wind and holding the rat to her chest tightly. What was that thing? What was happening? She pinned herself against the tree so she didn’t blow away once she got close enough.

“ISABELA?!” Mirabel shrieked. Mirabel? What in the world?

It all stopped, the currents in the wind vanishing along with the sand turning back to normal falling back to the ground, ya’know, where sand should be. Antonella tried to quietly calm the baby rat that slipped out of her hands and climbed up the tree, frightened. “It’s okay, shh, shh, everything is alright--”

“Oh your sister, that’s great!”

That voice. She knows that voice. Looking past the tree, lo and behold, it was him. It was her papá. It was Bruno Madrigal. Mirabel growled in anger, scrunching up her hands while Bruno was holding up a green glass slab. Antonella came out of the shadows, disbelief in her green eyes. Her heart began to race, her stomach instantly growing sick.

“Papa?”

Both Mirabel and Bruno turned their heads, eyes wide. Oh….shit. He stared at his daughter, swallowing hard. “Uh…hey?” He waved at her, Mirabel looking back between the two with fear on her face.

“Nella, look, I know this looks bad, b-but Tio Bruno, he’s trying to help the familia! He showed me how to save the family and casita and the encanto!” Mirabel rambled on nervously, trying to explain to her cousin what she just saw. Antonella wasn’t listening though, her mind grew fuzzy with a million thoughts. “Once everything is fixed things will go back to normal and Luisa will have her powers back and our home will be okay and yeah I have to make up with Isabela to do that and that sorta sucks but we’re all gonna be alright!” Mirabel grabbed her hand, then wiped a tear that began to roll down her face. She didn’t even realize she started to cry. “Antonella…you….okay?”

She finally took her eyes off Bruno and looked at Mirabel. “I…I…” she stepped back, shaking her head and biting down on her trembling bottom lip. “I’m sorry, I have to go.” She turned quickly and ran down the tree, trying to wipe her eyes in case someone saw her.

“Antonella!”

“Antonella please! Wait!” Bruno called after her.

Mirabel and Bruno called after her but she refused to look back. She ran out of Antonio’s room and down the hall back to her own, slamming the door shut. How dare he just come back! Now?! Now he wants to come back?! She wasn’t even mad at Mirabel for this, how could she be? She’s just trying to help the family. Not long after, her door opened and closed shut once again.

“Antonella, I-I can explain!” Bruno followed after her as she ignored his pleads. He twisted and turned between bookshelves which seemed endless. He had forgotten how big her room was, lit with candles everywhere you looked, glowing orbs floating in the air, giant dream catchers hanging from oblivion that you could sit on while admiring the pink and blue clouds and waterfalls that fleshed out into a huge river. Just like the rest of her family, her room was unique. Bruno rushed up the marble stairs that led to her bed which floated on clouds. “Anton--”

“WHAT?!” She zipped around, tears now streaming down her angered face. Her dad jumped back, almost frightened. “WHAT DO YOU WANT?!”

“I just want to talk,” he spoke softly.

“About what? What do you want to talk about?” She tried to make her tone sharp and stern, but it was impossible right now. “Actually, I can think of something,” Antonella laughed, stepping closer. “How about we talk about you leaving me! Hm?”

Bruno’s face saddened, looking up at her. “I didn’t want to leave you--”

“That’s such a lie! You just got up and left without even caring!” Her room shook as her voice echoed throughout it. “You didn’t even say goodbye!” She wrapped her arms around herself, her body shaking as she looked away. “How do you think I felt when I couldn’t find you? I was eight years old! I looked everywhere for you and you weren’t there….” Antonella began to cry harder. “You weren’t there, and now you show up and try to fix things like that’s gonna help?” She shook her head, finally finding the courage to look at her papá. “You left me…just like mom did.”

That broke Bruno’s heart. He never thought his daughter looked at him like that. He thought he was doing a good thing, protecting his familia and most importantly his daughter. He didn’t want her to grow up with a father who made bad things happen and everyone hated her for it, she didn’t deserve that, and with Mirabel’s prophecy it…

It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

“Nella--”

“No.” Antonella cut him off. “No you aren’t allowed to use that nickname. My family is.”

“Mija…I am your family,” Bruno tried wrapping his arms around his daughter, attempting to console her. Antonella nearly let him too, before stepping out of his grip.

“No you’re not. You barely even know me.” She pushed him back, attempting to dry her tears for the second time and failing once again. “So go! Leave! I’m fine on my own!”

“Amor--!”

“I don’t need you! I never needed you!”

It felt like his throat began to close up, his anxiety building higher and higher. Bruno didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know how to make things better. Wasn’t that his job as a father? To pick her up when she fell down? To remind her that she’s brave and beautiful when she feels bad about herself? To be there for her as a shoulder to cry on and lean against when she couldn’t hold herself up?

“Just get out of my life! It’s not like you were there for most of it anyways!”

Silence. There was nothing but silence. They stared at one another, father and daughter, in agonizing silence. Bruno sucked in a breath, his eyes glazing over with tears and nodding his head. “I’ll go…” He backed away and turned his back on her. He looked like he was going to say something more, but decided not to, descending down the steps. Antonella watched her father leave, just like he had ten years ago, until she couldn’t see him anymore.

#bruno madrigal #mirabel madrigal #bruno my beloved #encanto movie #encanto #always angsty #daddy issues #fucking ouch #own character #Bruno with a kid #what a disaster

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prismatica-the-strange · 4 years

Text

Helpless (Bolin x Korra’s Adopted Sister) | Part 1

You’re only adopted if you want to be. This just gives people freedom to put their preference of origin.

This started off as a Helpless from Hamilton song fic, and you can kind of see that in the beginning, but it sorta took on a life of its own

Warnings:... None? I think

Words: 2,262

Your parents always told you the ocean sent them their second child. Korra found you on the shore one day when they were out by the water when she was 2. You were so young and nearly dead from the freezing water, but Katara healed you and Korra's parents raised you as their own.

"Where are you going?" You asked, not looking up from your book. Korra froze in her tracks.

"No where?"

"Uh-huh." You looked over the top of the book at her.

"What?" She chuckles scratching the back of her neck.

"You're going back to the arena, aren't you?" You sigh, going back to reading.

"Yeah."

"If Tenzin finds out-"

"Yeah well, Tenzin won't find out."

"Are you threatening me, Kor?" You teased, turning to the next page.

"No...." She looks around quickly, "Hey you should come with me!"

"What?" You look at her incredulously. "No-"

"Oh c'mon!" She tried.

"Kor, that's your thing." You reasoned, "My thing is fuzzy blankets and a good book."

"Just one night, please?" She pushed your book down and pouted, "I promise you'll have fun!"

You pulled my book from her hands and got up to leave. Your mistake was looking back at her squatting figure, pouting up at you.

"Ugh! Fine!" You give in, grabbing a jacket and tucking your book under your arm, "One night!"

"Yes!" She jumped in the air, pumping her fist. "Let's go!"

She grabbed your wrist and pulled you away.

"And this is where you can watch the match." Korra smiled, reaching for the handle.

"Korra! You're late," A tall boy, about your age, growled as he threw the door open.

"Sorry (Y/n) here dragged her feet the whole way and I had to get my gear on-"

"You can explain later," he snapped, pulling her along.

You followed behind and watched as the platform they stood on extended towards the play area.

"Here come fan favorites theeee "Fireee Ferretsss!" The announcer shouted and the whole building erupted in cheers.

You scoffed leaned on the rail at the edge of the room.

That's when one of Korra's teammates turned around to wave at the crowd. Your eyes met for a moment, he smiled and waved at you and your heart went boom.

The match started and the Fire Ferrets kicked major butt. Korra was definitely in her element.

*Bolin's POV*

"Yes! We won- again!" I cheered. Fist bumping Mako. I looked back at the team box and that girl was still there, smiling. Jeez, that smile could kill me.

"What'cha looking at Bolin?" Korra asked, and I froze.

"N-nothing!"

*Y/n's POV*

The other boy, who you knew was Bolin from the announcer, Looked back at you again after they won and you smiled at him. A moment later, Korra grabbed his arm and the platform started shifting back towards the team box.

"Bolin, This is my sister, (Y/n)!" She grinned widely as she pushed the poor boy towards you.

"S-sister?!" He seemed shocked before clearing his throat, taking off his helmet, and holding his hand out to you, "H-hi, I'm Bolin."

"Hi," you nearly giggled as you shook his hand. Looking into green eyes you were helpless, you had to look away before you started drowning in them.

"What's with them?" Another voice asked, and both of you realized you were still holding hands. You quickly pulled away, your face bright pink.

"Mako!" Korra growled before sighing, "Hey why don't we all go out to get some food?"

"Oh, we ate before the-"

"Great! Cause I know this great place!" Korra started pushing a red-faced Bolin toward the door, dragging you behind her.

~~~~~

The atmosphere around the table was awkward, to say the least. Before you could say anything Korra shoved you into one side of a booth and Bolin on the other.

"So uh, (Y/n)," Bolin started as Korra ordered a surplus of Sweet buns, "I-I don't think I've seen you around before."

"I spend most of my time on Airbender Island reading and... stuff." You reached for your water and went for a drink when it was knocked all over you by Korra.

"Kor!" You exclaimed, flicking water from your hair at her. "You jerk!"

You lurched forward, grabbing her drink (Also water) and dumping it on her.

"Hey!" She laughed water bending the water out of her clothes and splashing you in the face with it, making you squeal. "You asked for it!"

You were laughing when you caught Bolin watching you out of the corner of your eye, he had a dreamy smile and you felt your cheeks heat up.

"A little help please, Kor?" You asked wheezing.

"Fine," She sighed, being the water out of your hair and clothes, dumping it in a nearby mop bucket.

Mako rolled his eyes, muttering about how childish you were, and Korra stuck her tongue at him.

You chuckled, pushing the hair out of your face. You looked over at Bolin who had his elbow on the table, his cheek resting in hand. He wore a cute little smile and what you could only call heart eyes, but before you could say anything the waiter brought out your food.

There was ambient chit chat as you ate, nothing important, but you and Bolin definitely caught each other staring.

As the night wound down and you and Korra had to start home, you felt someone grasp your hand. You turned around to see a nervous Bolin.

"I had fun, it was great meeting you (Y/n)."

"Me too, Bolin." You bit your lip before kissing his cheek and hurrying to catch up with your sister, leaving him standing there with this goof smile on his face.

"Maybe we could do it again?" He called after you.

~~~~

The next few days Korra's time was monopolized with Airbender training, and you couldn't stop thinking about Bolin. Even Tenzin, with the near-impossible task of getting your sister to pay attention, could tell you were in an extremely happy state. The look on your face was something he would compare to lovestruck.

Korra was over the moon, she could see just how helplessly into him you were the moment the two of you locked eyes. Now you were twirling around as you walked around and humming happily as you read.

Mako, on the other hand, was near the end of his rope. It's been three days and Balin hadn't shut up about you.

"(Y/n) is so pretty,"

"I wonder what (Y/n)'s favorite color is?"

"Do you think (Y/n) like flowers?"

Sure, Mako was happy his brother found someone (hopefully) but he was about to start pulling his hair out.

~~~~~~

"Knock knock~" Korra poed her head into your room, "So the Ferrets and I have a match tonight and I was wondering-"

"Yes!" You jumped to your feet and Korra laughed, making you blush. "I-I mean yes, I do want to go with you."

~~~~~

"What are you doing?" Mako asked as his younger brother was fixing his hair in the mirror, again.

"Fixing my hair, duh."

"Why?"

"What if Korra brings (Y/n) again?!" He whined, "I don't wanna look stupid."

"Well then you should do something more like this," Mako launched himself at his brother and started messing with his hair.

"Ah! Mako stop!" He tried getting Mako off him and the two fell in a heap on the floor.

They froze when they heard laughing at the door.

"(Y-y/n)!" Bolin exclaimed, face turning red as the got to their feet.

"Hi to you too, Bolin," Korra teased.

"Ah! Korra! Hi!" he awkwardly waved at the two of you.

"You ready to kick butt and get to the Semifinals???" Mako asked and Bolin suddenly realized his hair was sticking in every direction.

"Are you kidding? I was born ready!" Korra replied excitedly. You took off your jacket and folded it on your lap as you sat on the bench.

"S-so (Y/n)," Bolin started, running his hand through his hair, "Do you maybe wanna-"

Suddenly a little red animal jumped into your lap and started sniffing your face.

"Uh! Pabu stop! What are you-" He stopped short when you started giggling.

"Stop! That tickles!" You laughed, carefully picking up the little creature and holding him away from your face. "Who's this?"

"His name is Pabu, he's a fire ferret," Bolin explained as Pabu wriggled out of your hands. He ran up your arm and sat on your shoulder, nuzzling your face.

"It's nice to meet you, Pabu," You smiled. Bolin watched you scratch under Pabu's chin and, by the spirits, he knew he was in love.

The words "Marry Me," fell from his lips before he could think.

"Huh?" You looked at Bolin, confused.

"Nothing! I said nothing! Oh look we're up! Talk to you later (Y/n)!" He panicked, pulling his helmet on and rushing to the moving platform.

~~~~~~~

"Marry me," Mako teased as they moved toward the main platform.

"I know! I'm such an idiot!" Bolin cried, "It just sorta slipped out! I probably sounded so stupid!"

"Nah," Korra slung her arm over his shoulders, "Knowing (Y/n), she most-likely thinks it was adorable."

"You think?" He asked hopefully.

"Come on guys, you gotta getcha, getcha, getcha heads in the game."

~~~~~~~~

"That's the Match folks! And The Fire Ferrets Advance to the semifinal round of the Pro Bending Tournament!" The man announced, "Hopefully by that time Bolin will be completely recovered."

Korra and Mako help Bolin stay on his feet on the way back to the Team box.

"Is he alright?" You asked, "That was a pretty nasty blow to the head that last round."

"He's kind of out of it right now, but after some rest and maybe an icepack, he'll be fine," Mako told you.

"Mako!" Bolin failed to whisper, "She's worried about me! Does that mean she likes me?"

You stifled a laugh, covering your mouth with your hand.

"She's laughing! Did I do something stupid?!" Bolin asked, upset.

You leaned toward Korra and whispered, "He so precious!"

"What are you talking about-"

"Bolin wait!"

Then you were on the floor, Bolin on top of you. You stared up at him in shock, his bright green eyes gleaming.

"You're even prettier up close," He said quietly before going limp.

"I think he passed out!" You wheezed as you were crushed by his weight.

~~~~~~~~~

"My head," Bolin groaned as he sat up.

"Mornin' sleeping beauty," Mako called from the other side of the apartment.

"What happened?"

"Well, we won," He handed his younger brother a glass of water. "Then you tackled (Y/n)."

"Ok, cool..." It took him a moment to process what Mako had said, "I DID WHAT?!"

"Calm down!" Mako tried to get his brother to sit down, "It wasn't really a tackle, it was more like you tripped... and landed on top of her?"

"That's not any better!" I slumped on the couch, his head in his hands. "Why can't I get anything right around her?"

~~~~~~~

A couple of days later the four of you went out to eat again.

"Hey (Y/n), how're you doing? I heard I tackled you in my confusion." Bolin asked when you guys met up at the restaurant.

"I'm fine," You chuckled, waving him off, "My wrist is almost done healing...?"

You looked at Mako who was vigorously signing for you two stop.

"Your wrist? What happened you your wrist?!" Bolin asked, panicked.

"Huh? Oh, I uh- when we fell I sprained my wrist," You showed him your wrapped wrist, "It wasn't bad though, so it's almost healed. I'm surprised Mako didn't tell you."

"I swear I didn't mean to hurt you (Y/n)," He said earnestly, pulling you into a hug, "I am so sorry!"

"It's okay Bolin, really," You tried to tell him, "I've definitely had a lot worse than a sprain. Right, Korra?"

You squinted at her, remembering the time you broke your right arm and leg because of 'Extreme Penguin sledding' something you were assured was 'perfectly safe' and 'not dangerous at all' by your big sister.

"Hey! I already said I was sorry!" She snapped, "And it's not my fault that you suck at penguin sledding!"

You felt Bolin's head buried in your shoulder and you sighed hugging him back.

"Seriously Bolin, It's alright," You gave him a squeeze, "Accidents happen."

"You're sure you're okay?" He pulled away and reached for your injured wrist before hesitating.

"Look, I'm starving, can we please sit and eat?" Korra whined, pushing you into a booth.

Bolin sat across from you looking akin to a kicked puppy. While Korra and Mako were arguing what to order you offered your wrapped wrist to Bolin. He looked a little shocked.

"You reached for it, right? I'm guessing you wanted to look it over?" You asked and he gulped before gingerly holding your wrist in his hands.

"You're sure it's not broken?" He looked up at you.

"Positive."

"Does it hurt?" He asked quietly.

"Only if I put weight in it," You shrug and his eyebrows scrunched like he was thinking about something. "You uh... You were gonna ask me something before the match the other day?"

He looked up at you with wide eyes, you'd remembered that?! He put your hand down and cleared his throat.

"Oh, that? That was, heh. That was nothing."

"Okay...?"

"He was gonna ask you out," Mako said before taking a drink of water.

"What?!"

Part: Two (Masterlist)

#bolin x reader #lok bolin #bolin #mako legend of korra #legend of Korra #x reader #Prisma-the-Pretend-Avenger #prisma the pretend avenger #Prisma Writes

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angstreign · 5 years

Text

The first thing I heard after I died was my favorite song.

I wasn't quite sure where it was coming from, and I don't think I had it in me to care for the first few minutes. It took me a while, I thought, to finally open my eyes.

I was not in the hospital. Hospitals don't have voids for ceilings.

"Hello." Someone said. "You were fast."

I sat up, a bit too sore to move quickly, and turned to face them.

I could not make out their face, and it didn't matter anyways. They wore a tshirt, jeans, and a long black robe. Casual wear. In their pocket was a phone, presumably the cause of the music. They turned it off as I stirred.

"What's your name?" They asked

I gulped for my voice, then said "Don't have one."

They hummed, then wrote something down in their notebook. When did they get a notebook?

"Age?"

I gulped again "14. Why're you-"

"Cause of death?"

I sat in silence for a little while. "Um..." gesturing to my wrist I said "Y'know"

They nodded, then sat next to me.

We stayed sitting for a while, long enough that I started to get restless.

They seemed to notice. "Ready to go?"

"Uh-" I shifted "-To where?"

"Town's just over the hill. I can explain while we walk- c'mon" they were standing now, and holding out a hand. I took it and we started to slowly amble over to the bluff to our right.

The hill did not seem too far away, but it wasn't getting any closer- least not as close as it should have been.

"You humans have a lot of ideas about death. I've heard everything from nothing to grand heavens made of gold, and this is only my third week working. And really, none of those are false. Death is what you make of it, but first you have to go here. This void, with town in the middle, and a train track going east." As they talked, I stopped looking ahead to concentrate on them.

They looked around, a bit wistful. "You can stay in town as long as you'd like, hell, some people even stay forever, and some only stay for a cup of coffee and a ticket on the train. But after you leave is when all the heaven stuff happens. Really, after you get on the train, you become this sorta..uh...soul goop that gets added to the collective soul goop that is 'heaven'."

We walked in sync, and they explained more and more about the town. Then, at long last we came to the top of the cliff.

The town was beautiful. It was in stark contrast to the deep black void around it, glistening with color and texture and patterns on every wall. It seemed to be nighttime, as all the lights were on, dotting the town with flickering stars. On the left, a long line left it, cutting through the emptiness of the void toward some unknown destination. To call it a town was an insult, from where we stood it looked bigger than Los Angeles. It was a bit different than Los Angeles though, in that some of its occupants were floating like ghosts, a couple of them nearly above us.

I spent a minute in wonder, then turned to the person next to me. "Crowded huh?"

They laughed. It sounded nice. "People have been choosin' to stay as long as people have been dyin'!"

____

After I had gotten over my soreness (they called it dead-sickness. I didn't mention the irony.) we went to get me a house. It seemed very very simple to me to simply walk in and ask for one, but that was how they did it. It took us a bit to walk there, but we didn't speak as much. I got the impression we hadn't much to talk about.

The house was quaint. Lodged in between some other people's crazy contraptions and a lava lamp store, its calm pastels felt just a little bit out of place. It was soothing and I knew that I would love it.

They handed me the keys at the door. "Just call me if you need anything, alright?"

I nodded, deciding not to tell them I didn't have any way to do that.

As I turned away from them, it felt like they dissapeared entirely, but I had gotten semi-used to strange things.

After all, I was dead. Nothing could get weirder than that.

Taking a deep breath, I put the key into the lock and twisted it.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Story courtesy of @a-local-pieceof-lettuce

There ya go!

#trigger warning #death tw #death mention #religion mention #heaven

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faunusrights · 5 years

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‘AFTER THE FALL’ - LIVEREAD III

The more I hear about the latter half of this book, the more depresso espresso I’m drinking. Let’s see how it goes, huh?

(Since there’s more chapters in the latter half than the first half, short chapters will probably get combined together for the sake of. I’m lazy.)

CHAPTERS EIGHT AND NINE

I love that Velvet’s the one who enlisted Weiss and Yang, expecting shit to go sideways. She saw these two gays on main and went ‘they look like they can party’. Was she wrong? No. Did she invite Cinder for the express purpose of drama? Yes. Can you make me stop shipping Sinnamon Bun? Also no.

Okay, this book has read my mine though!!! Ruby pitches a Beacon Battle Club where they play music as they fight, and no word of a fucking lie, that happens in Great Weiss Shark AU! I am not kidding! I had this whole story planned out! This is theft of the HIGHEST order.

“Doilies are absurd and elitist,” Yang said.

This is simultaneously the least Yang-like line and also the most Yang-like line I’ve ever heard. The duality of idiot, I suppose.

I like Fox! I really do, actually! He’s my son now. Although, the bad news is I dunno if I can replicate him in The Frapp Logs, so he’ll just have to keep dragging Coco to the ends of the earth. Same thing, right? R-right?

“Leaders can’t be the comic relief.” Fox raised his eyebrows. “Jaune.”

Is this the second time Jaune’s been dragged? I’m living for it. Also, sleepy Blake! And CFVY knowing she’s (they’re) a Faunus! And the second book behind a book! I love you, Blake.

Velvet correcting Yatsu’s ‘catnap’ joke! I wrote a ficlet about this exact thing once, so I TOLD you my Velvet’s NEARLY CANON. SHE JUST NEEDS TO EAT MORE PROTEIN IS ALL.

Onto chapter nine. God, these chapters get thinner by the second, huh?

BACK TO THE DESERT WE GO, and there’s... fog? Which is now gone! Wow! Is this a plot device? Foreshadowing? I sure hope so, because why on earth it would warrant a mention we’re just not too sure!

A sandstorm is incoming and hidden tracks are gonna get blasted away. I’m trying to figure out if this is all pathetic fallacy or if I’m reading too much into handy-dandy plot devices. Why not both?

Heart-to-heart with Coco and Yatsu... and we’re back to Yatsu giving Velvet all the hugs. Now that I’m sensing the Velv/Yats vibes, I’m extra suspicious. You stop that. Let Velvet have a fashionable GF at least if you won’t let her kiss Weiss!!!

‘[...] even the women were down to halter tops. Focus, Coco, she thought.’

Ah, lesbian as always. I’m soothed. Carmine enters the tent and Coco gets even gayer. I’m very soothed.

‘What was Jaune doing after losing a member of his team, a friend... someone he clearly cared about.’

I don’t care about what Jaune feels. Why the heck would Coco even care? There’s literally so many more people that impacts than just Jaune, lawd.

CHAPTER TEN AND ELEVEN

Back to Fox, who is honestly the shining star of this book by now. I love you, my blind and sassy son.

I love Ada and the battle mechanic she has! I’m really enjoying how Fox interacts with the world around him and using his Scroll and AI as an accessibility device. It’s neat! I didn’t expect them to go as ham on him as they did, but they did.

“Update,” Ada said. “Weapon has projectile capabilities.” “You mean it’s also a gun.”

Obligatory gun meme.

Combat stuff happens, Fox wins a fight against a confused Edward, and it turns out Gus is the one summoning Grimm and Fox just got jumped, so we slide into another flashback for chapter eleven. Lemme tell ya, this book ain’t afraid of moving fast.

“I guess you slightly oversold your ability to track the survivors,” Coco said.

Again, this is one of those lines that reads as very... callous? Kinda mean? I’ve always had Coco in my head as someone who very broadly puts her team (and their feelings) first, even if it’s rough, so lines like this make me go 🤔

Velvet falls, Yatsu panics, Coco gets up in everyone’s grill. There’s a lot to this dynamic I am not enjoying right now, and even then this seems inconsistent with the CFVY we’ve seen in the book itself. I know the author’s trying to communicate that Coco is tired and frustrated, that I get, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t how... it would really happen given her character? I dunno. ‘S weird.

Was that a fat joke I spotted there? From Coco? I need a nap. Also COCO LET VELVET DO THINGS JESUS CHRIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK ME SIDEWAYS!!!!!!!!!!

Coco has claustrophobia! I wrote her as having agoraphobia, so this is a hilarious turn of events. Also Coco has two brothers, not one: Mate and Toma.

Coco is fighting Grimm in a cave with CFVY, but still finds time to criticise Velvet in combat. Hey, maybe if you let her do things, she’d prove you wrong, dingus. And then she does! See!

Aaaaaaaand the six survivors are all dead. This was a pretty traumatic event, all told, which makes it weird that they look... less affected in the show? Still, this chapter was VERY weird for the characterisations because Coco seems especially inconsistent, alas. Anyway, onto:

CHAPTERS TWELVE AND THIRTEEN

The sandstorm is approaching and catching the wagons, which I have just realised are actually vehicles that use fuel. Mostly because that’s the First I Heard Of It.

‘Velvet noticed a pistol tucked in the back before she closed the door.’

Hi, can Chekhov please pick up his gun from aisle twelve? Thanks.

GIANT SAND TURTLE. AVATAR AANG C’MERE Y’ALL GOTTA LEARN HOW TO DEFEAT THE FIRELORD.

“You said it’s big enough to ride on?” Velvet asked.

Maybe this is why Coco dismisses Velvet so often. She only pitches the craziest ideas, which is why I love her. That said, Coco finally lets Velvet do something! It’s a miracle of man! Climb that turtle, bihh!

Yatsu calls Velvet V. I’m so used to Velv that V sounds entirely too cool for this idiot.

Everyone’s pissed again, but-- IS THAT THE SAND WORM THING FROM ARRAKIS?! What A Tweest!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nobody coulda seen THAT coming!!!!!

So let’s go to chapter thirteen, where Fox has had the shit beaten out of him behind a Denny’s. Sound about right.

So what’s-his-name-- Bertilak, whomst from now on shall be called Bert because what sorta water tribe name even is that (wow the ATLA references are on fire today). Anyway, Bert is being paid by someone else to deliver people with Stronk Semblances like summoning Grimm! Gee I Wonder Who That Might Be (I don’t actually know but I’m honestly not going to be surprised either way).

“Yeah, [Bert]’s a real bastard.” “Even I can see that,” Fox sent.

I love it. Fox really has been the highlight of this book for me.

Fox is on the ground and the referee is counting him to ten, so it’s mid-chapter-flashback time! We learn how Fox’s parents died (sinkhole) and how that became his motivation for... going to Beacon? Okay, tenuous link at best, but I’m going with it.

Carmine is full of trouble and Fox is determined to take Bert with ‘em. Let him DIE.

I’m gonna keep going since we’re not four chapters from the end, so:

CHAPTERS FOURTEEN AND FIFTEEN

Flashback time! Again! Only it’s CFVY’s POV of their return to Beacon. I wouldn’t mind this if like. We hadn’t already seen this from RWBY’s perspective in the show? People know this from my tastes in fanfic, but I’m not a huge fan of retellings of canon events, it’s soooooo boooooring. So I’m just gonna grind through this asap.

(I do like that RWBY and CFVY have all these parallels being called to. As they should.)

Okay we’re past the recap and OH LAWD I HEARD OF THIS BIT. Goodwitch is here (I love u Glynda no matter what) but yeah, I’ve heard this part is Big Oof so uh, let’s see this happen go down. Velvet is being requested to see Ozpin so /buckles down.

Velvet’s being questioned alone for the Whole Thing, and team CFVY have burst into the office demanding to know why, and Velvet’s a crying wreck! I’m still very >:I for everyone being overprotective of Velvet, c’mon, but also: Oz, can you please have tact? Just once in your life? Tact? Do you has it?

Anyway, CFVY have reconciled and we turn to chapter fifteen, in which: Yatsu.

Carmine has Gus, everyone’s on the Turtmobile, and shit’s hitting the fan. Yatsu’s going after Gus and Carmine alone, and I’m still waiting on Chekov’s Gun to Chekov its way right into someone’s butt. Unless it’s Chekov’s Red Herring.

Here comes a fight scene! I never have much to say during fight scenes, so, uh, yeah. There’s some real last-minute exposition in places, though, where it really shouldn’t be.

Eey, Carmine is telekinetic! Very powerful and also OP, gotta nerf that shit right down, Edward.

Yatsu’s very nearly defeated, Bert is back, baby, and shit’s getting real. Time for chaaaaaaaaaper sixteeeeeeeeeen.

CHAPTERS SIXTEEN AND SEVENTEEN

Today’s livereading soundtrack is Simple Things by Zero 7. The whole album, I mean. This is a fun little fact to make sure you’re still awake and aware, ‘cause I sure ain’t!

Roy Stallion of BRNZ is presumed dead, along with the whole team, so big RIP to May, who was cute and deserved better. Swear to God if ABRN are dead too I will kill a man. Two men, to be specific.

Velvet admits she never wanted to come to Vacuo, Coco promises they’ll return to reclaim Beacon in future. This reads like a protagonist’s last speech on hope and strength in friendship... and it should, as Coco gets swallowed by a worm! Straight up just down the hatch! This should be a tragic beat, but this is honestly so funny. Coco, pick better ways to die.

Anyway, we’re onto chapter seventeen. I was very kindly given this message:

And I-- OH HELL YES! HELL YES IT’S A SCHOOL DAY TIMETABLE!!!!!!!!!! THE LORE! THE CLASSES! THE NAMES! THE FACTS! THIS IS THE BEST THING IN THE ENTIRE BOOK SO FAR WHICH REALLY GOES TO SHOW I HAVE NO HOBBIES!

Is this a... flashback? Flash... forward? I’m not sure, actually. Either way, CFVY are in Beacon clearing the place of Grimm. Actually, this must be a flashback to before they went to Vacuo, I suppose, which would make sense to follow Velvet’s little admittance last chapter before Coco got swallowed like a paracetamol tablet.

Velvet waited for someone to ask her what she thought, what she wanted, by no one did.

Now I’m SAD why won’t people be NICE to VELVET just ONCE!!! God, this book really just gives her the short end of the stick every time.

Off go CFVY to Vacuo. Bye.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN AND EPILOGUE

Heremst we go.

Coco’s alive! I mean, no surprise. And full of the Joques as ever:

Coco figured sacrificing your life for a teammate was one way to be remembered as a good leader, but maybe that was just cheating.

RIP Coco and her claustrophobia! Hey, now that was good foreshadowing! That gets a whole Murphy Cookie of Approval. 🍪

Coco loses her Scroll and her hat, but Velvet swoops in to save the day! Meanwhile, Bert has been convinced that Carmine double-crossed him, so they’re battling it out! Basically, Gus cast frenzy. Finally, it works in everyone’s favour.

“I can’t believe I thought you were cute,” Coco spat.

Some lines in this book haven’t been very good. This one, on the other hand, very much is.

So Carmine goes underground and starts creating sinkholes everywhere like a weird desert gremlin, and Edward manages to block her Semblance and like. Carmine flat-out nearly suffocates herself to death. Another death I would have found both gruesome and hilarious for its irony. But Velvet uses Flynt’s trumpet to quite literally doot the sand away, and-- I’m so sorry, this line has me literally laughing to myself. She fuckin’-- doots the sand. Oh my god.

Anyway they win, catch up with Slate and the Nomad Fam, and meet team SSSN! The boys are back in town!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Things are looking good.

Epilogue time. I’m still laughing about the sand-dooting.

So, we don’t know who paid Bert and Carmine, I guess? I do believe there’s maybe a sequel or something in the works, apparently, so maybe this is part of an overarching plot type thingie. Still.

Ah, yep, Coco confirms that they’re not through with this line of investigation yet, But, Velvet wraps it up with a heart-felt, if not a little bit cheesy, segment about home being wherever CFVY is, and so the book comes to a close.

WRAP-UP

So, I’m definitely gonna have a second read-through of this without having to constantly stop and do a liveblog, but the book was... okay, I guess? I feel like this plotline wasn’t the greatest one for CFVY, and that the author doesn’t have a crazy good handle on the characters -- he’s likely more suited to original content, which is valid. It’s a good romp and we do get new lore, but as expected, I feel like CFVY would be best used in the show that conceived them in the first place. A book is nice, but I’d love to see their return in RWBY itself, especially since this book wasn’t really... long enough, I don’t think? Seriously, y’all’ve met me. I do write hundreds of thousands of words in this world and I still haven’t written everything I wanna yet! I’d also like to see more Velvet as seen in RWBY Chibi, in which was she Cool and Good, and maybe less Yatsu alongside her directly. But! It’s a book! It’s decent! It’s CFVY! For most people, it’s Good Enough. And they’re valid too.

#after the fall #after the fall spoilers #rwby #liveblog #liveread

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hysterialevi · 5 years

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When the Devil Cries pt. 25

Fanfic summary: (NO SPOILERS IN THIS STORY) After arriving in Saint Denis, Arthur ends up falling in love with a seemingly innocent pianist, only to find himself in a battle with one of the most notorious outlaws to ever emerge from America. Now, between working for Dutch and robbing money for the gang, Arthur has to also protect the man he loves as the two of them try to find their freedom.

Pairing: Arthur Morgan/Male OC

Previous chapter

This story is also on AO3

Author’s note: ***Small spoilers about Arthur’s past in this chapter!***

From Arthur’s POV

THE NEXT MORNING

Sliding the pencil across the paper, I drew a simple sketch of Eddie while he continued to sleep, his entire body submerged under the thick layers of blankets as he got some well-deserved rest. The boy looked perfectly content at the moment and didn’t have a single hint of worry clouding his expression. Instead, he simply drifted away in whatever dream was floatin’ around his head at the moment and held onto the pillow as if it was another person, squishin’ his face into the cushion.

I chuckled softly at the sight and added some details to his portrait, tryin’ to make it more than just a mess of scrawls and doodles like I normally did.

It had been a long time since I last sat down and drew something. With all the mayhem goin’ on recently, I almost forgot what it felt like to lose myself in my journal. But being back in Saint Denis, and preparing for this riverboat robbery -- it all got me itchin’ to sketch something again. And, I figured, who better to draw than the person I enjoyed being around the most?

Lightly scratching the pencil’s tip in a series of short strokes, I scribbled down Eddie’s ruffled hair and added some shadows around the sliver of sunlight runnin’ across his face, trying to make it as gentle as possible. He appeared to be in a complete state of solace right now, and I wanted to capture it as best I could. After all, I doubted it’d be a long while before he’d be this calm again, considerin’ what was coming up in the near-future...and I couldn’t deny that I was scared, too.

I mean, with the direction Dutch was headed in and the way our gang was slowly fallin’ apart, it made me question just how much longer this whole thing was actually gonna last. Civilization was storming through the country at a rate we couldn’t keep up with, and the more we ran from it, the more it seemed to close its walls around us.

We was only delaying the inevitable, s’far as I was concerned. Sooner or later, America was gonna throw us out like it did everything else, and we’d have to be ready for it. Whether we wanted to or not.

Catchin’ my attention with the soft sound of rustling, a gentle sniff reached my ears as I stopped drawing for a second and put down my journal, only to find Eddie sleepily looking back at me from the bed. His eyes were half-open just as I expected, and a lazy smile radiated on his face as he rose from slumber.

I smirked at him, placin’ the journal on my lap.

“There he is,” I teased. “Thought you was never gonna wake up.”

Eddie chuckled at that and glanced at my journal, causin’ him to raise a brow outta curiosity.

“...Are you drawing me?” He asked.

I nodded and carefully began to tear the sketch out, handing it to him.

“You mentioned Rodrick burned the other portrait. I, ah...figured I could make a replacement.”

The pianist sat up and took the sketch in his grasp, admiring it in a fond manner before beaming at me.

“Thank you, Arthur,” he said, his expression dimming with sadness. “I mean it. ...I truly thought I’d never see you again when I was stuck in that cellar with Rodrick. I know I wasn’t there for very long, but...he certainly made it feel like an eternity. I’m just glad you showed up before anything else could happen. If you hadn’t...I...I don’t even want to think about that.”

I let out a guilt-ridden sigh, starin’ at the numerous scars Rodrick had left on Eddie’s body.

“You and me both. I’m just sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”

Eddie’s sorrowful mood was quickly replaced with a sense of vengeance and he firmly shook his head in response, starin’ outside the window.

“I swear, Arthur...before all this comes to an end, I’m killing everyone in that bloody gang. Atticus, Rodrick, and anyone else who laid a finger on you or my family. They all deserve to die. They need to be wiped out.”

I suddenly thought back to what Hosea had warned me about and finally decided to bring up the subject, scootin’ my chair closer to the boy as Hosea’s final words rang in my head like a distant bell.

“...Actually, Eddie,” I said lowly, shutting my journal closed, “I’ve been meanin’ to talk to you about that.”

Eddie perked his head up, softening his tone slightly. “About what?”

I hesitated for a second and leaned forward, tryin’ to get my thoughts straight as the pianist waited for an explanation.

“I know this might sound strange at first, but...if my years as an outlaw have taught me anything, it’s that revenge...ain’t worth the sacrifice.”

The pianist gave me a puzzled look. “...I-I don’t understand. How can wanting to kill Atticus be a bad thing? Don’t you think he deserves death?”

“Of course I think he deserves death,” I replied. “But we may not be the ones to deliver it, and we’d be fools to hunt him down. I mean...just look at Dutch. He’s obsessed with takin’ revenge. It’s the only thing he lives for now. Sadie, too. Their want for revenge has consumed the both of them, and it’s turned ‘em into killers.”

I paused for a second, lookin’ at Eddie with a caring expression. “...But you ain’t no killer, Eddie. And I don’t wanna see you become one. You’re still young. You still have the potential to live a normal life, once all this is over. Atticus has already stolen your past from you. Don’t throw away your future for that bastard, too.”

The boy fell silent at that and thought to himself, clearly experiencing some sorta inner conflict now that I was sayin’ these things. He seemed to see my point and I could tell he knew where I was coming from, but there was still a reluctance to agree.

Tryin’ to make my point more understandable for him, I decided to tell Eddie a story that I hadn’t told anyone else aside from Dutch and Hosea, and took a deep breath, hoping that this would be able to change his mind.

“...Lemme put it this way,” I began, gaining the pianist’s attention. “I was once in the same position as you, Eddie. I know how temptin’ revenge is...and I’ve seen what happens if you give in to it. I lost my family too. Many years ago. Just like you did.”

That piqued his interest. “...Really?”

A mournful breath escaped me. “Yeah. I...I used to have a son, actually. His name was Isaac. He was...such a good kid. And so was his mother, I guess. Just a nineteen-year-old girl named Eliza. They was the closest thing to a real family I ever had. I wasn’t able to stay with them all the time ‘cause of my work with Dutch, but every few months or so, I’d go back home and stay with ‘em for a couple of days. Try to give Isaac some sort of father figure. And for a while, it worked. But...just like everything else, it eventually failed.”

I brought my gaze to the floor, admittedly findin’ this a lot harder to talk about than I first anticipated.

“I came back home one day...and saw two crosses outside. I knew right away what happened. I just didn’t know how. It turned out -- they was robbed. And killed. All for ten bucks.”

I swallowed out of grief and bit my lip, thinking back to that god-awful day as Eddie listened intently.

“Their deaths...” I continued, trying keep it together, “they changed somethin’ inside me. I spent so long tracking down their killers. It was all I cared about for the next few months. I didn’t care about Dutch, or Hosea, or the gang...the only thing I wanted was to find the people who had killed them, and make them pay for it.”

I repainted the killers’ faces in my mind, gesturin’ to an invisible scene as I carried on with the story.

“...One night, I found their camp while I was searching along a river bank. They were all there, huddled ‘round a campfire and sharin’ drinks. Having a good ol’ time. They almost reminded me of our gang...but that didn’t matter to me. Without saying a word, I stormed in there like an absolute madman and shot the whole lot of them. Set their stuff on fire. Did everything I could to make sure they was sufferin’ in their last moments. And I sure as shit did.”

I glanced down at my hands. “When it was over, though...I felt...strange. I remember I was sittin’ there in the middle of their camp, kneeling on the ground with bodies lying all around me and blood staining my hands. The peace I had been looking for was nowhere to be found. Instead...I just felt empty. Like I no longer had a reason to live now that my family’s killers were dead. I had sacrificed everything for these bastards, and forgotten the man I once was in the process.”

I turned back to Eddie, resting a hand on top of his.

“You’re the only person I’ve found ever since then who’s...who’s made me care again. Who’s made me feel like this ain’t a waste of time. So please, Eddie. Don’t do what I did. Don’t become the man I am. You’ll never find peace otherwise, and there ain’t no goin’ back. Can you promise me you won’t?”

The boy was quiet for a while, evidently taken aback by the story I just told him and surprised about my past while he considered everything I said. There was still a fire in his eyes that told me his desire to kill Atticus hadn’t gone anywhere -- and that it probably wouldn’t anytime soon -- but against all better judgement, Eddie eventually gave in and sighed out of defeat, agreeing to promise this one thing.

“...Okay,” he whispered vehemently. “It’s...going to take me some time to understand all this completely, but if you think this is what’s best for me...then I’ll do it. I promise.”

I nodded in approval. “Thank you, Eddie.”

Having had enough of this melancholic mood, I cleared my throat and stood up from the chair, gettin’ ready to head outside the saloon as I brought my mind back to the robbery at hand.

“Anyways,” I said, “I’ll let you get dressed. Meet me outside when you’re finished cleanin’ up, and then we’ll head back to camp and...let Dutch know what’s what.”

“Alright,” the pianist replied. “You sure we can rob this riverboat?”

I shrugged, makin’ my way out the door.

“I ain’t sure of nothin’ just yet. All I know is there’s money on that boat, and Dutch wants it. So long as he’s got his eyes on that cash, we ain’t going nowhere. The best we can do is be prepared, and keep our eyes peeled. Other than that...” I opened the door, scoffing in an amused tone, “we’ll just pray, I guess. But at this point, pfft...I doubt even God would bother savin’ us.”

#red dead redemption #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #arthur morgan #eddie ryan #arthur morgan x male oc #rdr2 fanfic #rdr2 story

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ohmytheon · 6 years

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Spellbound (1/9)

summary: Detective Uraraka is just trying to do her job and navigate her feelings for one very prickly werewolf, but in a world where myths are real, anything can happen. When she's targeted by the serial killer that she and her elven partner, Midoriya, are trying to stop, it's going to take a bit of magic to save the day.

notes: So this is my entry for Kacchako Bittersweet Week! I'm...honestly not sure where this is going. I've only finished three of the prompts so far and am literally winging it. Whatever the next prompt says takes the story to the next place. There is no plan for this and I'm probably in over my head trying to write a murder-mystery type story inside of a Modern Fantasy setting, but well, such is life. I borrowed the world I created for my sorta Izuocha fic, "The Mythical Kind". Yes, a bit cheap, but I really loved that world and felt like I could explore more of it. More characters, relationships, and tags will be added as I finish the prompts. Like I said, I have no fucking clue where this is gonna end up. Such is life.

DAY 0: AU

No amount of tea could keep her awake, which was near impossible considering all the herbs she had put in that last batch. That stuff should have been able to keep her bouncing off the walls for days, not just a measly forty-eight hours. Was she getting weaker? No, that was her tried and true recipe. She was simply that exhausted after working for almost three days straight. This case really was getting the best of her. Maybe she should’ve taken a break like Deku had suggested.

Uraraka was staring hopelessly at her computer, woeful over the old case files that she had yet to comb through, when a paper bird began to flutter around her desk. At first, she ignored it, used to the old things. Eventually, it would settle down and perch on her desk until she was ready to unfold it and read the note. However, this one had other things in mind. It quickly turned into an origami nightmare and began to actually peck at her hands.

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry, oh impatient one!” Uraraka snatched the bird out of the air between her two hands, which proved to be a mistake when it gave her a papercut on her palm, causing her to wince. It soon calmed down and when she finally opened her hands, the bird slowly unfolded itself into a creased, harmless note.

You’re going to be useless if you keep going like this. Take a damn break!

Uraraka’s eyes almost rolled out of her head. Of course the violent note was from Bakugou. Did he have to charm them to be so vicious if ignored? He probably wanted to get his point across. Looking at the red spots on her hand and the cut on her palm, it had certainly done the trick. She set the note down and leaned back in her chair, rubbing her eyes with a fist. When she stared back at her computer, its dull glow only stared right back at her. The files would still be here when she got back. Besides, she couldn’t do much without her partner here anyways.

Dragging herself out of her chair, Uraraka groaned and pressed her hands to the small of her back as she stretched. How long had she been in that chair? And how had Bakugou known that she was running herself ragged? He could have called her. It wouldn’t have had the same effect as coming to the station and sending her a very aggressive paper bird to attack her into taking a break.

After sweeping her long coat off the back of her chair, she threw it over her shoulders and slipped her arms into the sleeves. She snagged her hat off the side of her desk and plopped it on her head as she walked over to her Captain’s office and knocked on the door. “I’m heading out for the night.”

“Got anymore of that tea?” Aizawa looked about as exhausted as she felt as he set his glasses down and pinched the bridge of his nose. Maybe he hadn’t been working as long as her, but he dealt with the higher-ups and the public, which was even worse. Neither had been kind to them recently with this case in the headlines.

Uraraka smiled apologetically. “All out, I’m afraid. I don’t think it was doing much good anyway at this point.”

Aizawa sighed. “I hate when things get political. It’s so exhausting.” He waved a hand at her. “Get some rest. I would rather you be well-rested than hopped up on something.”

“It’s an herbal recipe,” Uraraka reminded him. Before he could make another smart remark, his phone rang and he answered it without hesitation. He was a stronger man than her. Every time the phone at her desk rang, she shrank away from it for a few seconds. If she heard one more tip about how it was aliens, she was going to lose it.

Witches, werewolves, trolls, dragons, orcs, vampires, elves, and more? That was regular life.

Aliens though? Absolutely absurd.

That wasn’t even counting the many calls of people proclaiming it was werewolves. She’d hung up on the last person that had started on a rant.

The ride to the left and down the elevator was quick, but Uraraka still spent half of it slumped against the wall with the side of her head pressed against the cool metal. If it went on any longer, she could probably fall asleep here and wake up about ten hours later wondering where she was. She did have something of a bad habit of falling asleep in places around her apartment that weren’t her bed. Tired as she was, she didn’t even bother lifting her head when the doors opened, despite knowing full well who would be on the other side waiting for her.

“Took you long enough,” Bakugou snarled, arms folded across his chest.

“Aw, you really do care,” Uraraka teased, although she was too sleepy to push it even further.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled as he reached into the elevator to grab her by the arm and pull her out. “Deku sent me a text asking if I could check on you. He must be out of it too because I think he meant to send it to Iida.”

Uraraka paused to blink at him before stepping outside. “And you came anyways?”

“Yeah, apparently you weren’t answering your phone,” Bakugou pointed out. That was surprising since she’d had her phone on her the whole… She fished it out of her pocket and looked down at it. Dead. Well, that answered the question of why Bakugou had sent her a murderous pigeon note. “You need to keep it charged. Shit is real dangerous right now and you’re running around with a dead phone.”

“And a wand,” Uraraka added, flicking her sleeve so that her wand slid into her hand. He scoffed, but didn’t argue the point. He knew that she could take care of herself, but he could also see the exhaustion written all over her. The thing about magic was that the stronger it was the more energy it took out of a person. Uraraka considered herself to be stronger than the average witch, at least by a hair, but fighting in this condition could knock her out cold. “You don’t need to worry about me so much. It’s not a witch hunt.”

Bakugou didn’t appreciate the pun at all, judging from the unimpressed look on his face. “I’m serious, Uraraka. You need to be more vigilant. Whatever is going on, we’re in the shit right now.”

He was right, of course, and Uraraka didn’t have to say anything for him to know that. She sighed and nodded her head before choosing her exit and stepping through the sliding glass door. There wasn’t just one entry port to the police department. There were a number of entrances across the city that a person could choose from, as long as they had a passcode. She and Deku had given Bakugou theirs just in case ages ago.

When she passed through the glass door and came out the other, Uraraka was first hit with the smell of smoke. It was a familiar scent in this area, reminding her of childhood. Growing up, her home had been permeated with the smell of whatever was being cooked in the cauldron, but the smoke from below was always there as well. This was a different kind of smoke, but she would take what she could get.

Glancing over, she caught Bakugou wrinkling his nose in distaste. It wasn’t near the full moon, but his sense of smell was heightened regardless of the day of the month. He didn’t like her neighborhood. Granted, it was fairly sketchy. On a scale of one to ten – where ten was a bunker warded to the teeth with protective spells and one was a flimsy wood shack – her neighborhood was about a four. He, Deku, and Iida had been harping on her to move, but it was easier said than done. Maybe when she got her bonus…

“You didn’t have to walk me home,” Uraraka said as they walked down a dimly lit sidewalk.

“And risk you falling asleep in an alley?” Bakugou shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Now it’s my turn to be the serious one.” Uraraka stepped ahead of him and turned on her heels so that she was facing him, stopping him cold in his tracks. “It’s not safe for you out here.”

He rolled his eyes. To get his attention, she reached out and snagged the strings of his hood, pulling it tighter around his head. He instinctively lifted his hands to make sure that the hood was covering him properly. It wouldn’t do good for his ears to show. His long green coat was able to hide his fluffy tail well enough, but the ears would be a dead giveaway. She could still remember her surprise when she’d met Bakugou for the first time. Werewolves in her part had been hunted down, but in the city, they roamed freely, if not without prejudice against them.

“I can take care of myself,” Bakugou quipped, baring his teeth in a vicious smirk. His canines gleamed dangerously under the flame of the streetlamp. Not as sharp as a vampire’s without it being the full moon, they were still capable of puncturing a man’s jugular should he be so inclined. He could kill her quite easily if he was in one of his frenzies. Even without the influence of the full moon, he had superhuman strength and many people said the bloodlust was still strong in them too.

Uraraka knew that he would never hurt her though. They might’ve gotten into some pretty heated arguments, but she had never once been afraid that he would attack her simply to hurt her.

“Even so, like you said, we’re in the shit, but especially werewolves,” Uraraka said gently, smoothing his hood down. She could feel his ears twitch underneath and pulled her hand away before he could tell her off. “I’d rather not get another call from Kirishima asking if I can bail you out. Everyone at the station thinks I’m dating a ruffian.”

Bakugou’s face flushed pink. “We’re not–”

She couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction, folding her hands behind her back and taking a few steps back. He spent so much time teasing her that it was nice to get one over him every once in a while. “I know. You’d never be interested in a cop, much less a low level witch.” He narrowed his eyes at her, but chose to say nothing as he started to follow her again. She knew that she could be stronger. Deku constantly reassured her that she was one of the strongest witches he knew, but then she’d remind him that he’d only met three witches total. “I’m still allowed to worry about you, aren’t I? Especially since you won’t let me give you that enchanted watch.”

“You know I don’t fuck with magic,” Bakugou told her.

“You fuck with me,” Uraraka shot back mockingly. He stared at her for a beat before his lips pulled up into a smirk and his red eyes glittered. This time, her face burned red and she spun back around so that he couldn’t see her face. She hadn’t meant it like that, especially after that last comment. “What I mean is: it’s me – it’s my magic – and the watch only has a protective spell on it. Okay, that’s a lie. It’s also enchanted to always have the perfect time. What’s the point of it not being functional too?”

Bakugou opened his mouth to argue with her when he suddenly stopped, his brow furrowed and his smirk turning into a frown. “Do you smell that?” Uraraka looked around and shook her head. Maybe it was a little smellier because the garbage man was late picking up the trash, but that was all she could think of. “It smells like something’s burning.”

“Something is always burning around here.” True, the scent of smoke was heavy in the air, but she didn’t think much of it. Smoke was a part of the aesthetic at this point. That was the price of living by a factory that mass-produced magical potions. They weren’t anywhere near as potent or good as home-brewed ones, but those were much harder to come by. She usually stuck to making her own since it was cheaper in the long run.

“No, it’s…” Bakugou broke into a run, leaving Uraraka in the dust.

She took off after him and shouted, “Wait!” but he was much quicker than her. Even if he didn’t have a werewolf’s unnatural speed, he would’ve beat her. She had always been a slow runner. He passed two blocks before she had even made it down one and then disappeared around the corner. “Bakugou, stop!” Her coat was flapping behind her like a cloak and slapping the back of her legs. When she rounded the corner, she ran smack into Bakugou’s back. He was so solid though that she didn’t knock him over. “What are you–?”

The rest of her question was snatched right out of her mouth as she caught sight of the scene Bakugou was staring at. A large building was on fire. Her apartment building was on fire. There were dozens of fire trucks, cop cars, and ambulances surrounding it in an attempt to put it out and help any of the victims, but it was no use. One second it was a regular fire and the next the fire burned a bright blue and grew exponentially like it was a hungry, living monster. As the flames ate every inch of the building, black smoke billowed into the sky.

When she’d said that something was always burning, she hadn’t meant her home.

“Did you leave a cauldron simmering before you left?” Bakugou asked.

“What? No!” Uraraka was almost insulted that he’d even insinuated such a thing, but he didn’t seem to be aware of what he was saying. “That’s not from some slow simmering potion gone wrong or someone leaving their crockpot or coffee maker plugged in.” She pointed an accusing finger at the burning building. “That...is magic.”

Any decent witch could’ve spotted the most subtle magic a mile away. Now that she was watching it three blocks down, she could feel it pulsing in the air, breathing life and death into her at the same time. If she had ever been tired before, she was alert and awake now, although that might have been because she’d fallen into a state beyond exhaustion. Her eyes were locked onto the red and yellow flames, taking in how alive they looked. Fire was a beast in its own and the creatures capable of it fiercer than most. Not all of them were as mild as Todoroki.

Bakugou turned to her. “Uraraka…”

Hearing her name in that wary tone made everything come crashing down on her all at once. Her apartment was gone. It was destroyed, turned to nothing but ash and soot. “I… Everything I owned was in there…” Luckily she hid her money in a safe elsewhere, but it wasn’t nearly enough along with what she had in the bank to replace all that the fire had taken from her. She had insurance, of course, but only the bare minimum that she could afford. “What am I going to do?” She wasn’t thinking properly. The alertness she felt only seconds ago began to evaporate, replaced by a bone-tired exhaustion that made her want to cry. “Where am I going to sleep?”

“Uraraka,” Bakugou repeated. She snapped out of it and glanced at him. There was a fire in his eyes that matched the intensity of the burning building. “I’m pretty sure you’ve got bigger problems that that.” She blinked thickly, her thoughts muddled at best. “If this was done by magic, I don’t think it was an accident.” He pointed at the buildings next to hers. “Look; they aren’t catching. It’s just your building. No one on the force has the ability to create a barrier like that but you. It was targeted.”

That took Uraraka back. “Targeted?”

“You’re in danger,” Bakugou growled, his hackles practically raised. “That case you’re working on? It must be a lot worse than you thought.”

Uraraka’s eyes swept from Bakugou to her apartment. Judging by the state of the first responders and the building, it had caught on fire suddenly and spread fast. As much as it pained her, she knew that it was impossible to expect that everyone had survived. How many people had died? What for? What was worth ending so many lives just to get to her? Had they thought she was home? Or had they known she wasn’t and did it as a threat to stop her? And if they had attacked her place, who wasn’t to say that they wouldn’t go after Deku, Aizawa, or anyone else on the case?

“We have to call Deku,” Uraraka decided, eyes snapping back to him.

Bakugou’s nostrils flared. “No shit.” He tugged her witch’s hat off her head and threw his arm around her, pulling her close to him and guiding him back around the corner. In her case, the signature hat she wore would give her identity away. Without it, she looked like the average civilian. She another woman on the street. Huddled so close to him, his familiar scent washed over her and the heat of his body burned through his coat. “But first we gotta get you out of here. There’s a chance whoever did this is waiting for you to show up on the scene. Best not give them the chance.”

“Where are we going?” Uraraka asked worriedly. Back to the police station? It was difficult for people to get in there.

Bakugou didn’t answer her though as he pulled out his phone and clicked on Deku’s contact. Uraraka glanced back one last time, taking in the sight of the smoke reaching into the heavens. What the hell was going on? Magic was supposed to be used for good, not this, not the crimes that she’d been investigating since transferring here into the city. It was unnatural. It was wrong. Even the dark arts wasn’t always bad, but this? Oh, this felt like a sickness and it was growing as surely as the flames.

#kacchako #kbsw #ochako uraraka #katsuki bakugou #bnha #mha #kacchako bittersweet week #aizawa shouta #izuku midoriya #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #modern fantasy #witch uraraka #werewolf bakugou #bnha fanfiction #the things of songs

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kangaroo-r00 · 6 years

Text

Restless

(A/N) Warnings for anxiety and mentions of depression.

For once the halls of the house owned by its four inhabitants was silent—there was no loud, enthusiastic shouting, no crackles or pops of magic, no frustrated hisses, defeated sighs, no laughter. The only sound in the house were the soft footsteps of the only one awake. It could've been any of them up—Jackie got home an hour or two before this time but normally was asleep by 5 am, Marvin sometimes stayed up this late if he was reading or practising for his next show, Schneep was often awake at this time working, and Chase was either woken up by nightmares or kept awake by his thoughts. This time it was the hero who was awake.

Most of the time the night of patrolling and fighting crime wore Jackie out enough that he fell asleep relatively quickly, if not when he collapsed on his bed or fell through the window, but there were occasions like tonight—where the hero's body was tired but his mind wasn't.

Jackie was a naturally restless person. He had to be doing something—anything really—or he'd go stir crazy. There were few reasons that could keep the hero up when his body was so exhausted.

Hunched over with his head cradled in his hands, he sat at the kitchen table. He kept his breathing steady as his mind threatened to collapse on itself. It had been a nightmare—a vividly terrifying one but a nightmare nonetheless. It was had to convince himself it was all a figment of his imagination when a lot of his dreams could become reality with one mistake.

After waking up, he impulsively got out of bed and checked the house, double checking everything was locked up and that everyone was soundly asleep (he did have to carry Schneep to his room though since he had fallen asleep at his desk). He didn't want to go back to sleep in fear that something bad may happen if he did. He'd never admit it but he worried—a lot. He could just hide it well. Of course he did: he worked each day on the deep web, tracking down illegal operations and fought crime on a daily basis. It wasn't just his worries that made him anxious, it was also his past actions. Like the time he set The Doll Maker to his death by giving him Lucas's room number. It was either his own life, the life of an innocent woman, or The Doll Maker's. He may have been a vile, psychotic man but Jackie hadn't wanted him dead—just locked up and unable to hurt anyone else.

His nightmares consisted of fragments of memories, his worries, and fears. Nightmares about past enemies and fights, about everything that could go wrong, about losing his friends, about failing...

His nightmares made him think about a lot of stuff really but mainly of how dangerous his job was. Sure he knows being a hero is dangerous—to himself and his friends—but it never really registers while on patrol or in the heat of a fight. It only really registered in his mind after a dangerous fight or when he was crawling back through the window—sometimes quite literally—with injuries all over his body. But just because his job was dangerous didn't mean that he was going to up and quit it. Lots of jobs were dangerous.

Especially because Anti was still at large.

There were moments where he doubted his capabilities and his decisions—he didn't have superpowers or didn't know what to do in certain situations. The time where he had been taken by The Doll Maker and nearly turned into a doll. The first time he had a gun pointed at him. The times where he hid in the bathroom or closet while being pursued for being on the deep web. When Anti nearly slit his throat wide open. The time when he had learned someone had hired an assassin to take him out. The times where he had to limp or crawl home. When he failed to save a citizen. The time where Jack had been haunted by Anti and everyone dismissed him as crazy. When Marvin had been jumped and had his face slashed up. The time where the hospital Schneep worked at had gone up in flames while he had been on his shift. The time where Chase tried to kill himself.

He'd never forget those memories. They played over and over in his head and in his nightmares, mocking him for everything he couldn't do or everyone he couldn't help.

Just because a few things... rattled him didn't mean that he'd hang up his suit. People still needed him! Just seeing the relief on people's faces when they saw him—knowing that he'd helped someone—made it all worth it. The pain, fear, uncertainty, scars... they were all so insignificant knowing he protected the citizens.

These things shouldn't bother him as much as they did; he should be expecting these kinds of things. He most certainly shouldn't even be thinking about quitting over things that happen to heroes—some to ordinary people—all the time. His friends always offered to help him—let him talk to them about his problems—and while he really wanted to take them up on their offer, he knew he couldn't. He should be able to deal with these problems on his own because he's a hero—he helps people, not the other way around.

A soft voice startled him out of his thoughts. "Jackie? Didn't you get home like two hours ago? What're you doing up?"

Jackie glanced over out of the corner of his eye to see Chase standing in the doorway to the living room. He cleared his throat. "Mmm? Yeah... I got back a while ago." He chose to ignore the last question, narrowing his eyes. "What are you doing up?"

An offended noise rose from Chase. "Hey! I asked first!"

Jackie couldn't help but huff a laugh at Chase's overdramatics. "Fine... I dunno... 'M feeling a bit restless. Sue me." A pause broken only by Chase's thoughtful hum. "What about you?"

"Woke up and needed a glass of water." He shrugged. "Don't really feel like going back to sleep." He slipped into the kitchen, passing Jackie to rummage through the cabinets. "So... why are you out here?"

Jackie frowned. "I just said I was-"

"Yeah I know," Chase cut in, pulling out a mug. He stopped. "Do you want hot chocolate?"

"Chase, it's the middle of July."

"Who gives a shit?"

Silence. "Yeah that'd be nice."

Chase pulled out another mug. "As I was saying: I know what you said. It's just that you're lying."

The hero raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?"

"Yes really." More rummaging through the cabinets. "Where the fuck did Schneep move them?" He muttered under his breath. A noise of triumph was made as Chase withdrew his hand from the cabinet with a cylinder of cocoa. "If you were restless then you'd be pacing or something—roaming the house. Or out on a walk. Not sitting at the kitchen table in the dark." He filled the mugs with milk.

Jackie hummed, not too surprised that Chase picked up on that. He always was the most observant of others' emotions. "I'm really tired," he agreed. "I'm more... mentally restless." He muttered as Chase stuck the two mugs in the microwave.

"I know the feeling."

Jackie chose not to comment on Chase's statement and instead lapsed into a comfortable bout silence as the microwave worked.

After Chase popped open the door to the microwave before it began to beep was when Jackie spoke again. "What woke you?"

The other man didn't answer until he dumped two tablespoons of cocoa into each mug. "Dreams," he replied vaguely.

"Nightmares?"

He let out a breath. "Sorta."

Jackie's eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Sort of?"

Chase sighed, struggling for words. "Just the dreams where things start off pretty good and by the end it's just eerie and soul crushing. Where they leave you feeling weird and... I dunno... off."

More silence as Chase stirred both the drinks, spoons clanking gently against porcelain. Another moment passed before Chase wandered back to the table and slid a drink in front of Jackie.

"Thanks," he muttered, wrapping his hands around the mug. The warmth the drink provided was enough to make him melt. The hot chocolate had been a good idea—the warm liquid soothed his troubled mind and made him even more tired than before.

Once he finished his drink, he stood and stretched, exhaling slowly as his spine cracked before setting his mug in the sink. "Thanks for the hot cocoa. I think I'm going to turn in now; I'm beat."

"Umm... Jackie?" Chase's voice was hushed, meek and shy. That alone was enough to make Jackie turn to face his direction. The sight of red splattered across Chase's normally pale complexion wasn't too surprising based off his softer tone.

"Yeah?"

"Can I..." he tapered off before mumbling something in a much quieter voice than before.

Jackie nearly didn't catch what he said. He blinked in surprise. The request wasn't uncommon per say but it wasn't an everyday occurrence either.

"Never... nevermind," Chase muttered dejectedly, face a much brighter red than before as he got up to put his mug in the sink alongside Jackie's.

"No no no!" Jackie said quickly. "I don't mind at all! Just wasn't expecting it."

The flustered man muttered a quiet thanks and followed Jackie to his room. Chase crawled onto the bed first, pressing himself against the wall, lying on his side to give Jackie enough room to sprawl out on his back with an arm slung over the side of the bed. Jackie tugged the blanket over their bodies and noticed Chase was abnormally tense.

"Thanks for this. Sorry if it causes you any trouble..." Chase whispered quietly, tentative to break the silence of the room. Jackie knew what Chase was implying: "Sorry I'm being a bother."

Jackie laid his hand on Chase's upper arm. "It's really no problem, sunshine. You're not being a bother; needing help falling asleep isn't something to be ashamed of. Everyone has problems falling asleep sometimes. Just because you have more problems than most doesn't mean you're being a bother asking for help."

Chase's body lost most the tension, muscles relaxing at Jackie's words. "I know... just... hard not to think that way."

The hero understood what Chase was implying to some extent. It was hard for him to pull himself out of the mindset that whenever he needed help he was bothering others. Just like it was hard for himself to pull himself out of the mindset that just because he was a hero meant that he couldn't ask for help—that being a hero didn't mean carrying everyone's and his own problems on his shoulders by himself.

Jackie didn't object when Chase scooched closer and clung to his side like a koala with separation anxiety, arms wrapped around his torso. While Jackie hated sleeping on his side (it felt like his insides were being squished together and it left him in a vulnerable position should anyone attack him while he was sleeping), he could make an exception for tonight. He rolled onto his side and wrapped Chase up in a hug, resting his chin on top of Chase's head. Though the position itself was uncomfortable, there was something... comforting... holding someone close to you while the two were in a vulnerable state such as sleeping.

"Night, Chase," Jackie mumbled, eyes closing.

"G'night, Grey," Chase responded foggily, opting to use Jackie's real name in such a private moment.

Despite Jackie finding sleeping on his side awkward and vulnerable, he slept soundly for the first time in a while. Despite Chase's intrusive thoughts about how he was being a bother, he fell asleep quickly and stayed asleep, no nightmares or any other dreams bothering him. Maybe this is just what the two needed all along.

(A/N) I'm sure we've all been kept up by our thoughts before, right? What kinds of thoughts keep you all up? Mine are either embarrassing moments or self deprecating.

Also I'd like to mention the fact that this is the second fic where Jackie's called Chase sunshine and I've never bothered to explain it lol. Essentially Jackie likes calling Chase that because he likes reminding him that he's one of the bright spots of his life. Chase is typically a rather happy, bubbly, energetic kind of guy so he kind of also coined the nickname for him since Chase tries to look on the bright side of life.

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waitingtobeimpressed · 6 years

Text

Do I Wanna Know?

Sweetpea x Reader

So I sorta had an idea to create small imagines based on songs. I'm happy to take requests and if you guys could give me any ideas that would be great.

Do I Wanna Know? by Arctic Monkeys

Have you got colour in your cheeks? Do you ever get that feelin' that you can't shift the tide That sticks around like summat's in your teeth

Ah, there's some aces up your sleeve Have you no idea that you're in deep I dreamt about you nearly every night this week

How many secrets can you keep? 'Cause there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow When I play it on repeat Until I fall asleep Spilling drinks on my settee

(Do I wanna know?) If this feeling flows both ways (Sad to see you go) Was sorta hoping that you'd stay (Baby we both know) That the nights were mainly made for saying Things that you can't say tomorrow day

Crawlin' back to you Ever thought of calling when you've had a few?

'Cause I always do Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new Now I've thought it through

Crawling back to you

So have you got the guts? Been wondering if your heart's still open and If so I wanna know what time it shuts Simmer down and pucker up I'm sorry to interrupt it's just I'm constantly On the cusp of trying to kiss you I don't know if you feel the same as I do

But we could be together if you wanted to

Crawling back to you

Ever thought of calling when you've had a few? (calling when you've had a few) 'Cause I always do ('cause I always do)

Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new Now I've thought it through

Crawling back to you, (do I wanna know?) If this feeling flows both ways (Sad to see you go) Was sorta hoping that you'd stay (Baby we both know) That the nights were mainly made for saying Things that you can't say tomorrow day

(Do I wanna know?) Too busy being yours to fall (Sad to see you go) Ever thought of calling darling? (Do I wanna know) Do you want me crawling back to you?

Sweet Pea shot awake, panting heavily, sweat-slick across his forehead. Another fucking nightmare. They wouldn't have been so bad if they were about a crazed killer or a monster chasing him through the woods, but these nightmares had actually happened, tormenting him day and night, never stopping and constantly on a loop. He sighed and looked over at the alarm clock, time reading at 03:27. Great, he thought. Now even if he did want to go the school in the morning, which he definitely did not, he would be in no shape to wake up, shower and dress without being severely late, which would draw more unwanted attention to him. A few weeks ago he couldn't have cared less what the other students at southside thought about him because the only thing he cared about was Y/N And she held the only opinion he cared about.

He could start to feel the effects of the alcohol pound against his skull, causing him to heave and curl his muscled body into the fetal position. Why am I such a fucking idiot? He thought. He hated himself for what he did. He broke the only girl he had ever loved, his best friend, his girl, Y/N. Now he was a drunken mess having a pity party all on his lonesome. Toni had been spending all of her time with Y/N, completely icing him out, he knew he deserved it though. Fang’s was the only one talking to him but only because ‘No serpent stands alone’ even if that certain serpent happens to be a complete asshat.

The familiar sound of a phone vibrating forced Pea to slowly uncurl and strain to reach the device that was on his bedside table without moving more than he had to. He guessed it would be fangs calling to make sure he was still alive, which he personally didn't know the answer to, Sweets turned the phone on and hissed as the bright light burnt his already bloodshot eyes. Once his eyes adjusted a pang of dread forced its way through his body, making his scramble out of the bed and onto his feet, instantly regretting his decision as his head starting to spin. He glanced down again to make sure his drunkenness wasn't playing cruel tricks on him. It wasn't.

2 missed calls from Y/N at 03:30

Y/N/N: Sweet Pea, Whats going on? Time: 03:32

Y/N/N: Why the Hell have you called me 12 times!? Time: 03:35

Missed call from Y/N at 03:36

Y/N/N: okay I'm worried now, I'm coming over. And I swear if you're not dead I'm going to kill you myself. Time: 03:39

Sweet peas eyes widened with shock and horror. Why was she coming here and when did I call her 12 times?. All at once it dawned on him that he must have drunk called her. A mix of emotions surged through his body, causing the wind to be knocked out of his chest. The memory of what he did still fresh in his mind from the nightmare. He collapsed onto the floor next to his bed, burying his head in his lap. He knew what was going on and he also aware that there was nothing he could do now to stop it. He was having a panic attack. He knew this because it had happened once before. the night his friendship with Y/N ended.

Y/n had walked this way to Sweets’ place close to a million times but never had she been this worried. Never. She sprinted the last long narrow piece of the path before the trailer park. The place that she spent so many of the summer night lounging around with her best friend. The place she had had her first kiss. The place she had first confessed her burning feelings. The place she had been rejected, humiliated and heartbroken. That was two weeks ago, two god damned weeks ago her life had been perfect, and now look at her. She was a mess. Smudged mascara illuminating her dark circles. Her Pale skin somehow becoming even paler, showing the constellation of blonde freckles that were scattered across the whole of her face. These freckles being the ones Sweetpea used to trace when she had fallen asleep in his arms when they were having a movie night.

Now look at her, she was broken.

Y/N ducked into the trailer park and made a B-line for his trailer. The one that was glowing feverishly due to the faint fairy lights that she had draped all around it. Why has he taken them down? When she had first put them up he said that he had hated then but she begged him to keep them, and he complied saying the only reason he was doing it was that he loved her. That obviously wasn't the case now though.

She walked up the crappy steps with more caution then she had ever done so before. Before this, she wouldn't even think twice about jumping up them and making as much noise as she possibly could, even at this time of night. She knocked on the door and waited a few minutes. Nothing.

She knocked again and still to no avail. She tried for the handle and as usual, it was unlocked, which was stupid really because with the ongoing war with the North Siders and the Ghoulies Sweetpea would be a prime target, Head of the snake and all that...

Y/N pulled open the door and the smell of cheap alcohol instantly burnt its way up her nostrils, forcing her to take a step back.

“Sweet Pea, you here?” She called out, not seeing him in the darkness of his sitting room. Not that there were any hiding places anyway. She stepped deeper into the trailer, her lungs begging her not to. How could he stand it in here?

She walked down into the long narrow passageway which leads to sweet peas bedroom, her converse clad feet rubbing against the laminated floor. She stopped dead in her tracks once she reached his door pressing her ear to it. She could hear something that was almost inaudible. It sounded like crying?

Y/N lightly pushed the door she that she had a clear view of him. He was on the floor, leaning against the thin wall. His head was resting on his knees with his long arms covering him, almost like someone was kicking the shit out of him. Like she wants to. His chest heaved erratically as his salty tears ran down his cheeks and onto his bedroom carpet. Her eyes softened once she saw how much pain he was in.

Y/N walked into the room and sat on the edge of Peas bed. Crossing her legs underneath her she reaches out for one of her hands that was covering his head. He was shaking fear and what she might say or do. His skin was ice cold even though his body felt like it was on fire. She took his trembling hand, caressing it lightly with her thumbs.

“Sweetpea, look at me,” She said softly, he shook his head and wrapped his remaining hand even tighter around himself like he was trying to hide raw, vulnerable emotions from her gaze.

Y/N dropped his heavy hand onto her lap as she scooted closer to the side, boxing his curled up body between her legs. He didn’t move his hand away, mainly due to the fact that once Y/N had repositioned herself she had grabbed it again softly and hugged it close to her body.” Sweets I can't help until you look at me, and trust me I would rather be sleeping” He thought about moving, but if he did and she saw him like this everything would change. Not even Y/N had seen him cry before, not even when his parents left. Y/N sighed, she once again let go of Sweet peas hand and reached to pull his other one off of his body. He didn't fight her, he was too tired and just didn't really care about anything anymore, he believed that he had lost that right.

Y/N place her now shaking hands on either side of his wet face slowly dragging him up to meet his gaze. His face was patchy with red blotches, his tears still freely falling. He quickly moved his hand in an effort to wipe the tears away, still refusing to look up at Y/N in her eyes. Y/N let go of his face once she was sure he wouldn't shy away from her again and trapped his large hands in her own. She tilted his head up so he no choice but to look at her. “ Its okay to feel stuff Sweetness” Y/N whispered looking at him in the eyes. “ you don't need to keep it all bottled it, you’re not a soulless monster”

Sweets choked on his tears again and Y/N stood up, using all of her strength to pull him up with her. She wrapped her arms around his waist tightly and he hugged her back.” I I-I'm sorry” he managed to stutter through the tears. He ducked his head into the crook of Y/N’s neck.” I Ca-cant do this anymore” he finally let out, hugging her even tighter.

“Well i hope you cant, because if you even think about drinking this much again its probably going to kill you” she shrugged her shoulders knowing full well that's not what he was talking about. “ now get into bed, ill be back in a sec” She stated and forced him to at least sit on his bed. She went to walk out of the room but he panicked and grabbed her hand as she walked past him.

“Please, I need to explain, please don’t leave me” Y/N smiled at him, nodding her head wiping the last of the tears that were still lingering in his brown eyes.

“Pea, I was just going to get some painkillers for you” He shook his head but instantly regretted it. The room starts to spin again. He pulled her closer to him so she was standing between his legs, pushing his head into her stomach.

He sighed, wishing he was still as drunk as he was earlier, needing the extra confidence. “ I have been in love with you since the first day of south side high when you told the ghoulies exactly where they could stick it.”

“why didn't you ever say anything, you absolute asshole,” Y/N said as she slapped him on the back.

“I thought we would change that you would hate me, that we could never go back, “ he said as he dragged her down and threw her onto the bed next to him.

“You see Sweetpea, that the whole beauty of it, I would have said I felt the same and we could have avoided with the whole ordeal...” Y/N said with bitterness lacing her words.

Sweetpea moved closer placing his head back in the crook of her neck, winding his arms around her, vowing then and there that he would never let her go again.” I'm an idiot, Y/N you should have probably known that by now.”

Y/N smiled and mimicked his actions, “yeah, probably” And for the first time ever sweets kissed her without an inch of fear of rejection, without the fear that he was going to totally fuck up the girl he has loved for years.

Sorry if it was shit but I did this all in the space of a night and I really wanted to get it finished, Again if you would like to request and song for an image I would love to hear them.

South-Side-Soul

#sweet pea #sweet pea imagine #sweet pea riverdale #sweetpea x reader #riverdale #riverdale imagines #southside serpents

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dork-empress · 7 years

Text

ringsofdragons replied to your post “Every time I see a critic of Jupiter Ascending I love it more...”

What I think I hate the most is how it and Kingsmen are arguably similarly ridiculous and kingsmen is considered good and JA isn't and I am not at all a fan of kingsmen (also I saw a person say something once somewhere that JA is a young girl's fantasy & kingsmen is a young boy's and that is why the critical reception was as it was)

This is the explanation I tend to see, given that a gazillion "chosen ones” that surround boys or men (Star Wars, Matrix, Harry Potter) become cultural staples. I’ve never actually seen the Kingsmen, so would be curious about an analysis with that.

I really would like to see an analysis between The Matrix and Jupiter Ascending given that they were both Wachowski films, one of which is considered to be a cultural icon, while the other is a laughable flop. The obvious answer is that one was starring a woman, the other a man, though I do honestly wonder if its the ONLY explanation. Which is part of why I wish Jupiter Ascending was more taken seriously by film critics so they could make that analysis.

Now, I just saw the Matrix for the first time like...last week. Which makes me feel underqualified to make that analysis myself, but apparently thats what I’m doing anyway. Both 1) starred a young person unhappy with their dreary lives who 2) are actually really really special because they were 3) reincarnated from someone ELSE who was really special and now 4) an iconic looking villain kinda representing American Corporations wants them dead so that 5) all of humanity can be physically used to further their own interests, but its okay because they get saved by 6) an anti-authority bad-ass love interest who saves their lives and bring them into awareness of the greater world around them and how they’re apart of it. 7) The person then explores a new world featuring amazing new things that are 8) visually stunning and must 9) navigate their way through interesting and diverse allies, even when 10) some of those allies betray them. 11) They must later choose between their own interests and the greater good 12) ULTIMATELY choosing greater good, though it almost seems like they won’t. 13) They fight the iconic looking villain and 14) escape the world crashing down around them at literally the last second 15) with help from the anti-authoritarian bad-ass who is definitely in love with them at this point. 16) they kinda/sorta re-join their old dreary lives, except now they know more about the world around them and 17) they fly away at the end.

Now there are some other crucial differences besides the gender. First, the visually stunning effects the matrix had were far more groundbreaking in 1999 than the cool space opera landscapes of Jupiter Ascending. Not that they WEREN’T amazing, but for instance, Guardians of the Galaxy came out just the summer before it, also featuring really cool, visually stunning space opera landscapes.

There’s also, for all the similarities, not really a Morpheus character to guide us through the world. We have several guides, including Czaine, Stinger, Kalique, Captain Diomika, Titus, and eventually, Balem Abrasax himself. And we can only trust like half of these. Now, there were other guides for Neo in the Matrix too, most notably Trinity, but Morpheus was the top guy, no question.

Finally, theres every movie’s achilles heel these days: The Franchise. Now, despite the Matrix being the one that got 2 sequels, it was clearly DESIGNED to be its own story, because like...thats what you did? Unless it got crazy popular. Jupiter Ascending was banking on the idea that it would become a franchise, and so the world is a lot BIGGER and not just cause of Outer Space, though that plays a part. The main part of The Matrix’ set-up can be outlined in pretty much one scene. Exposition for Jupiter Ascending....doesn’t ever totally stop, really. Theres all the things about Humanity’s weird colonization methods, the Abrasax family, space capitalism, space bureaucracy, space police, space angels (?), Harvesting, etc. Its a lot. Even the ending leaves a LOT up in the air. Like, in the Matrix, you can expect ‘Hey, Neo’s doing more stuff to destroy the Matrix. Cool.’ But Jupiter’s just kinda...hanging around on Earth. When there are CLEAR THREATS (The other two Abrasax siblings) just kinda...out of sight.

This is also possibly the problem with another weird-but-also-entertaining-but-also-a-critical-and-box-office-flop the recent King Arthur film. There is a LOT fucking going on in that movie, to the point it can be hard to really keep track of it all. But it was supposed to be a set-up to make like, what 6? movies. Same thing with ‘The Mummy’ starring Tom Cruise. Or so I’ve heard, anyway, never saw that one. That one probably IS going to get more movies though, because it has the weight of Universal Studios pushing it forward and not just really passionate creators.

One of my favorite analysees of Jupiter Ascending is that Kalique Abrasax actually won. While Balem was trying to destroy Jupiter, and Titus trying to manipulate her into marriage, Kalique just made friends with her. As the second oldest Abrasax, she would be Balem’s heir, and thus has probably acquired all HIS assets, and....also probably Jupiters. For now, anyway. Jupiter doesn’t use the weird harvest juice, so....she’s gonna die in like, what, 60 years? Thats nothing to Kalique. And if she doesn’t come up with a new heir, Earth goes to Kalique too.

Which leaves an interesting story of Jupiter possibly trying to get a new heir, (like a daughter or something) to inherit the Earth. OR maybe eventually leaving the Earth entirely, for a while anyway, to do some sort of rebellion against Space Capitalism to try and banish Harvesting. Either of these would have made GREAT sequels. Or maybe the Wachowskis wanted to go in a different direction. But the movie doesn’t end with it, so it kinda feels....unfinished. The movie’s a set-up meant to launch into a greater story and it just...doesn’t. Instead of Neo standing at the end in a trenchcoat and glasses, back in the Matrix but not a part of it, Jupiter has EMBRACED her old life. It’s like she’s re-set to the beginning, just with a cool new boyfriend and some neat-as-fuck roller skates. We never get to see what happens after that moment. Because we were denied out sequels due to low box-office turnout.

And yes, there is the fact that it is a movie starring a lady. And not even a story adapting or rebooting a boy’s story like Star Wars, Mad Max, Ghostbusters, or the several other sci-fi/spec fic movies of the last several years starring ladies. In a way, Jupiter Ascending was spared a lot of the girl-hating backlash of those movies, possibly due to the fact it was considered to be ‘bad.’ Also it wasn’t an adaptation. It is HARD in modern cinema to make a non-adaptation big-budget genre film, ESPECIALLY if its not starring a man. Like, I can’t think of one. Please tell me if you can, I’m honestly drawing a blank. Alien. There’s one. I need to see that too, but its a little more horror movie than I’m willing to dive into....

Another good movie to compare Jupiter Ascending to (though I’m not this is already way longer than I wanted) would be Pacific Rim, which is not considered a good movie, but not considered a bad one. It fits honestly where I think Jupiter Ascending should, where people are confused if its a really good bad movie, or a really bad good movie. Thats literally pulled straight from “Honest Trailers” I remember it verbatim. As such, its allowed to not be perfect, while still really fun to watch and is getting a sequel.

But alas. Jupiter still ascends in my heart.

#ringsofdragons #this really wasnt supposed to go this long #long post #whoops #jupiter ascending #analysis

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nemossubmarine · 7 years

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The Empress in the Golden Mask: Take #1

So, I gm’d a game today, but before that, on Wednesday the 14th I gm’d the same game, to different people! Dundunduu. In the interest of comparison let’s see what happened the first time.

First the players:

Larry Bird, a Kenku cleric, and a devout fan of the Empress.

Iaris the Calm, a tiefling bard, and a barkeep for a tavern where a lot of pro-Empress people visit.

Vander, a half-elf rogue, who is sorta pro-rebel, but mostly pro-stealing.

And Bob, the human barbarian, who builds houses for a living and is very much in favor of the rebellion.

Our four characters wake up. They have bags on their head and cobblestones beneath their backs, and they can’t remember anything that had happened after the morning.

They get up and the whole world is painted in sepia-tones, and the city seems completely empty.

They introduce themselves. Larry Bird takes the lead, being an official for the Empress, and wearing the mask marking him as such.

The others follow along just as well.

Larry notices a small creature made out of rags that is holding some glowing marbles.

When he and the others try to approach, the creature takes off.

A chase follows. Vander manages to catch the creature, but it has got friends and the friends attack.

They don’t do any damage, instead they steal memories from the characters.

Bob forgets a house he had built and a house he was supposed to build next.

Iaris forgets where he works and a debt.

The creatures take off with some of the memories, but leave Iaris’ workplace behind.

Iaris notices that he forgets when he stops holding the memory marbles, so he decides to swallow them.

Meanwhile, Larry has picked up the marbles the first rag creature had left behind and he gets a memory of being hanged by the order of the Empress.

Shaken, he refuses to give them to the others, and they return to the Square where they woke up in.

There, Larry first confides in Bob, who he thinks is a very trustworthy dude. Then Bob shares the memories with Iaris, as Larry casts a Zone of Truth on Vander.

Vander, telling the truth, says he is loyal to neither the Empress nor the rebels, and that’s enough for him to get memories as well.

Larry very much doesn’t believe that the Empress has really killed him, and says that it’s probably a rebel ploy. The others kinda nod.

For their next move, Vander suggest they get back to where the met the rags, and see where they went, as they were the only living(?) beings they met at the place.

Iaris turns out to be able to track them really well. The tracks lead them towards the cemetery hill.

Vander goes first, he tries stealth, but falls over. A male voice asks who is there.

The male voice belongs to an elven man in a cracked silver mask. Larry and Iaris recognize him as the Silver General, who belonged to the same rebellion as the Empress, but opposed her appointment as Empress, so Empress had him killed, presumably.

Larry is very rude to the General because of this.

The Silver General says that he doesn’t really remember anything about himself, or the outside world, as the rag-creatures have eaten away all of his memories long ago.

He knows that whatever place they are in, it doesn’t go beyond the city’s limits.

There is also a beast that hunts all the other visitors to the city. At least The General thinks so.

Just then, they hear the cries of the Beast.

The General says that the Beast comes from the Palace and there might be a portal of some kind in there.

Bob would like to just kill the Beast, but Larry asks his god for guidance and the answer is, no, shouldn’t do that.

Our heroes (+ the General) decide to take a long way round getting to the Palace. First Larry mimics the Beast’s cry to lure it away from the Palace, and then Iaris leads them through the city streets to the Palace.

The road leading up to the Palace and the first room they enter is filled with writhing cut-off hands.

The General’s hand is there as well, and the people know that the living hands, folklore tells, belong to murderers, so that just really proves Larry’s point.

The next room, a larger one, contains a giant scorpion. Larry and Iaris realize that the scorpion uses tremors to track its prey, so they throw in some mild tremors themselves, so they can sneak past it. Iaris and Vander help Bob and Larry.

The first room they go in has nothing of interest.

The next room however has a portal of some kind.

Larry tries to identify it, but there’s some kind of magical trap there, and it throws him off.

They decide to check the other rooms out too.

Vander pops his head through the doorway to see if the scorpion is right there, and notices a woman has entered the building, a woman in a golden mask.

He manages to convince Larry not to look as they make a stealthy run for it, but Bob temporarily forgets how to stealth and just steps out.

The woman insults him, very viciously.

The woman, of course is the Empress.

Everyone is a bit hesitant about attacking her, but she is not hesitant about attacking Bob.

Larry tries to question her, but she tells him to shut up.

Vander sneaks behind her and backstabs (or backgonks, as he doesn’t do the whole blood-letting thing) her, but gets captured by the Scorpion’s claw.

Bob rushes in now, attacking the Empress. And he is angry.

Larry starts to maybe pick a side, and starts healing.

Iaris uses a spell so frightening that it causes the Empress to teleport away, leaving our heroes few rounds of Scorpion battle.

Scorpion lets go of Vander and picks up Bob, and tries to poison him too, but Bob flexes and feels better.

The Empress gets back into the frey, shouting “how dare you” and ripping off her golden mask. She... kinda rips her face off at the same time.

Iaris and Vander are both frightened, Vander so much that he physically ages 40 years.

Bob is very unimpressed.

The Empress tells them that they will not get out of here if they kill her, and if they don’t she will hunt them down on the other side of the portal.

Larry takes a stand. He approaches the Empress and attacks her with magic.

And.... He... Kills her.

Larry is quite shocked, as that seems to be their only way out. The others are quite concerned as well.

Well. Vander does remember to loot jewels and the mask off from the Empress.

Vander, Bob and Iaris search around the castle, but don’t find much. Bob manages to get lost /twice/. First he locks himself up in the cellar. Then he falls down a well.

Larry meanwhile contacts his god, asking if there’s a possibility that they could use his magic detecting spell to get out. The answer is positive.

So they rest for the night. The Silver General stays outside and keeps watch so the rags won’t eat the others’ memories. Which is why he doesn’t remember them in the morning.

In the morning Larry locates three objects of interest: a necklace of the Empress, the golden mask, and the silver mask of the General.

He identifies them as well. The necklace is a contacting device for the Empress’ patron, a demon of some sort.

The masks had been used to create this pocket dimension, and they could use them to destroy it.

Iaris takes the necklace, as he is a tiefling, and knows this stuff. In case things went wrong.

The Silver General volunteers to try to destroy the dimension, as he has nothing to lose.

Iaris goes get his other hand so he can do that.

And he does....

There’s 50/50 chance of going home vs going somewhere else. Vander, Larry and Bob all wake up in a ditch in their bodies.

Iaris gets sent somewhere else, but he uses the necklace, contacts a demon and a contract between them goes.... super smooth, so he gets back home too.

Aftermath! Well the Empress is dead. In the Palace’s cellar the people find the Silver General, who has been slumbering for 20 years, who still doesn’t remember anything, but very vehemently doesn’t want to become an emperor or any of that stuff, thank you very much. Also, he smells strongly of vinegar.

He meets up with the other folks, and says that he’ll go away from the city.

He wants to keep both of the masks, but Iaris persuades him to give away the golden one, which he then forwards to Hell, to his new patron and bf.

Vander manages to find someone who can revert his aging.

He also gets caught with the golden jewelry he stole from the Empress, but since the Empress is dead, no one really cares that much.

Larry tries to get Bob made the next Emperor, but it doesn’t really work. He passes away from old age pretty soon afterwards, leaving behind some children.

Bob builds a home and he and Iaris and Iaris’ bf, the step-dad from Hell, take care of the chicks and Vander visits every Christmas, breaking in through the chimney.

THE END

Well, things went better than expected. :D Congrats guys, you all made it through!

#nemo roleplays #campaign tag: other #campaign tag: empress in the golden mask #long post #i dont think ive ever seen that many crit fails #but also a lot of crit successes #maybe they just threw more than usually playing kons?#idk #anyway epilogue rolls were really good :D #congrats on making ur way out alive #im v interested to see if anyone dies next time #i know it by the time i post this :P #look forward to another somewhat similar write-up #but probs not

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pywriting · 7 years

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Tide of Fate III

Two days had passed since the dinner, and still, Taliorinth found herself in constant company with others.

Two days, and she felt less and less comfortable with the company at hand.

Even still, she stayed and kept close to her sisters with the ever-remaining hope that this was the right decision, that the Oracle’s vision of the future had gone down the more favorable path. She did not want to lose anything, and so often she was told she could control her own fate, so she was. This surely had been the best way to do just that.

She told herself that time and time again.

She was doing right here. She just had to be smart about it. Had to get over small discomforts.

Small discomforts such as once more finding herself spending time with Nesrin.

Taliorinth had taken herself on a walk off to the beach, for a moment free of anyone trailing after her or herself trying to trail after another. She enjoyed the feeling of the sand beneath her bare feet, shifting and moving with each step she took. The warmth of the sun basking down on her skin. The salty wind brushing through her loose curls and cooling her down.

Her ears twitched, hearing something beyond the crashing waves along the shore and feeling the eyes that she knew were cast upon her. It was something she was still getting used to after so many years, but no longer something she was so scared of.

After the first night she had been approached by him, she had reminded herself of all the times she’d stared down worse with little care. Tried to tell herself it was just like that. Just another challenge she had to get over.

Times had changed. She had changed. They had changed.

She was no longer the woman who fled from the night they were to announce their engagement together.

Now, he was by her side yet again. His presence was intimidating in its own way, making her more uncomfortable than she’d really care for, yet she didn’t say a word. She knew better than to do such.

“Tired of chasing after your sisters yet again, Taliorinth?”

She frowned, disliking the way the man even spoke. Yet, in a short and quiet tone, she said, “I am just getting air. They are busy anyway.”

“That is what you used to tell yourself, wasn’t it. Before.”

She declined to answer him there, instead just taking longer steps along the shoreline, as if that would help her escape him. He had longer legs, and she knew it.

Before she could go too far, she suddenly felt his hand grab hold of her arm, stopping her in her tracks. She whipped around, looking at him with wide eyes as he kept such a strong hold on her arm. She looked from his hand on her and then up to his intense gaze.

“Taliorinth, stop running from me. We need to talk, and there is no better time than now to do so, and you know this. I have been patient for I know how hard these years must have been on you, but I am here now, just as you are. And here, your sisters are not looming over you, telling you what to say or do. So you will stop-”

There was suddenly a voice from her side, in a small satchel she’d been collecting things in and carrying other goods in. A rough deep voice of a man far more favored to the woman than the one that held her now.

Both of them looked to the side, and immediately she saw her opening. “I have to take that. It is important.”

Before she could even pull herself away, he suddenly tugged her closer. Grabbing onto her other arm lightly, he kept her far closer than she wished to be. She bit down the urge to simply toss him to the sand and run off, and instead was forced to listen as he said in a voice that chilled her to her core, “You will talk to me, Taliorinth.”

Gritting her teeth, she tried to pull away slightly, only finding that Nesrin tightened his own grip. She let out a breath, then saying, “Please…” She started, her voice wavering as she tried her damndest not to cause more trouble with this, “Please let me go take this. It is important!”

Nesrin frowned, clearly displeased by this response and starting to speak again. Abruptly, she spoke over him, saying, “I promise I’ll talk to you. Privately. Right after. I promise I will.”

There was a long, long moment between them that she didn’t know if he’d actually listen to her. Looking up to his gaze, she was only met with an unreadable expression that was lined with disapproval that caused her ears to actually wilt. She hated that look, yet she couldn’t escape it.

Suddenly, she was released, and he just gave her the look that she knew meant trouble. She had angered him, and as she backed away slowly, she felt a chill run down her spine. Instead of lingering there, she turned and went off, away from the shore and instead up to the slim forestline that laid at the edge of it all.

Each step she took, she knew his eyes were on her.

All the way…

… every inch…

… till she disappeared from his piercing gaze.

She was quick to hide behind a thick tree, slumping down against its rough bark and falling to it’s roots. She was a mess of emotions, half of her stating she shouldn’t be fearful and forget the past, while the other half screamed with fear and anger. She hated being that way, which made her all the more willing to speak with the man whom called her on the comm stones.

Reaching into the little pouch she carried, the glowing stone appeared and was brought close. Something in her told her to be quiet, to keep her voice low and soft, despite having snuck herself away already from that other man’s presence. As if he would just show up at any moment and steal away the time she had bought for herself.

Bringing the stone to her lips, she spoke, "Gabe?" His familiar, deep voice came quick in response, "Missed ye at the pathfinder meeting last night."

"Oh... was there one?"

"Aye," he remarked. "Missed a rather 'memorable' one at that." There was a short pause before he then asked. "Ye allowed to speak?"

She hesitated a moment, concerned about how she really must sound. How could she possibly explain to him why she was so worried about being quiet? What would he think? She didn’t want to make him worried. "Aye. I am. What was memorable 'bout it?" "Only that a few almost dropped dead from the Captain and woman driving them to exhaustion from lap running and the like." "Why'd they do that?" "Apparently, the Captain and woman weren't too happy with some 'incidents' that came up, so the whole unit was given a drill, perhaps to make them think on their actions better." "Oh... What other sorts of things did they make 'em do other than run?" "Well, climbed some stairs, swam across the bay, though some almost drowned because they couldn't fucking swim, did some pushups, and some other shit. Were exhausting, but weren't so bad." She smiled, unbeknownst to Gabriel on the other side. "That sounds kinda fun actually. Wish I could've gone... Would've definitely beaten you." A snort came in response. "Weren't a competition. Knowing ye, ye'd probably make me carry ye the whole way." She had to stifle a laugh at that, trying to keep quiet. "You'd've probably done it."

"Not likely," he scoffed in return. "Ye got ye own pair o' legs. Best ye keep using them or ye likely to end up being flabby with all the pampering ye getting." "Aye, aye…” She rolled her eyes as she spoke. Oh yes, because she was getting flabby with pampering. As if she’d just lay down and eat cakes all day. "Or heaven forbid ye dirty one o' yer fancy dresses now," he teased her.

She frowned at the thought, saying abruptly, "I ain’t gonna wear them if I’m gonna train." "Aye, but that's assuming ye ain't get caught up in drills at a meeting." "You think I’m gonna get caught in drills elsewise?" "Were hypothetical." Oh because that made so much more sense. She resisted the want to sigh at him.

"Well hypothetically speakin', I wouldn't be in a dress." "Good. 'Cause ye look unnatural as hell in one." "I think they look pretty." She tried to defend herself. She did like wearing them, feeling nice and pretty once in awhile. Just like her sisters… just like she wanted to be... "They do, aye, but you being in one be a strange sight." "Ain’t so strange. You're just not used to it." It made sense if he wasn’t. After all, most of the time he just saw her as some dirty little shipmate.

"Maybe not, but considering how dirty ye tend to get when ye be out and about and fuck who knows, be the furthest thing I be expecting ye to be wearing." She let out a soft snort, purposefully ignoring the ‘fuck’ part, "Well, I like them. Even if they aren't the best to actually do work or training or fighting in. They're pretty and they smell nice." There was some small silence before he then asked. "Ye prefer wearing them to ye usual?" He sounded so weird when he asked that sort of question. "Not really. Can't move as easy, plus I aint used to wearing them anymore. But it makes me feel...." She trailed off, staying silent afterwards. She felt mildly embarrassed just admitting how much she liked to dress up like them. "Feel what?" He asked, the obvious question that was going to come. "Nothin'." Tali shot back, trying to think of a way to get out of this conversation. "Pretty?" Then Gabe’s tone switched to something a bit more teasing. "Like an adorable lil doll?" Taliori let out a frustrated huff. Oh here it comes… She restrained herself from shutting off the communication stone right then and there. "How cute," he continued mockingly. "Are ye gonna tell me next ye be getting into them powders and lipstick and perfumes?" She just stayed dead silent. "That be what ye be enjoying now, is it?" Finally she just stated, "Aye. And lots of other stuff. Sorta." There was some brief silence before he then asked. "Like what?" "Other stuff. I dunno. I wanna hear more about what’s been happening out there anyway. Did anything else interesting happen at the meeting?" There was a skeptical silence, before he pushed on, “Well…” What else had been interesting? Oh right… “Suppose ye also did miss that woman giving me a good slap across the face.” Sacrificing some humility in order to keep her talking seemed worth it enough. Even if it meant more taunting. "Why'd she slap ye this time?" "Woman be ornery most of the time, so who knows. Must have been on her rag or something. " She snorted, "More like you were probably an ass." Gabe gave a snort in return. "Weren't doing anything any different than usual at those meetings. Didn't even say anything,"

"Meaning you were more than likely an ass." She replied in a flat tone. A scoff came. "Didn't even say a word. She just happened to pick me out the lot." Partially true.... partially not. "Did she? Did she -really-?" "Aye, o'course," he replied, not even missing a beat. "I ain't done shit." "You probably did somethin'." "Like what?" "Like what you always do." She said arrogantly. "That ain't explain shit," He grumbled something inaudible, barely picked up by the comm. Eventually though, he went on, "Were because I ain't say 'aye' to her when the others did. Didn't see a reason to." "Y'know she's technically your superior now." She paused, then with a small giggle she muttered, "Not like much has changed there, has it?" Taliori could practically feel the eye roll on this side of the stone, "Harr harr. Ye hilarious." "I am." she said proudly. "Regardless," he grumbled. "We ran, we did pushups, we swam, some complained, Captain and woman did some yelling, were about the geist of the evening. Then I went to go relax with a drink." "No woman, eh?" There was a long silence to her question. In fact, she swore she could hear a faint 'hmm' in the background, rather than an answer. "Well? Was there?" She was heavily interested in this, wondering if he’d actually found someone he tolerated enough to sleep with again. He needed to get laid, honestly. There was that faint 'hmmm' again before he finally answered. "Well," adding another long pause before continuing. "I weren't alone so... maybe there were one." She gasped excitedly, "Who!? Did ye really?! What did she look like?!" "Maybe if ye were at the meeting, ye'da met the lass," he replied with a snort. "So ye did!? Oh! Tell me!" "Hmmmm nah," he responded with a smirk in his tone. "Don't think I oughta." "oh c'mon... I wanna know!" She whined.

"Then maybe ye can wait til the next time I see ye, and then I'll tell ye all about the lass." "Aye but I wanna know -now-. Please?" "Then maybe ye ought to come back and visit soon," he replied, not budging. She whined again, "Gabe... I wanna know now. I don't know when I can come back yet..." "Why do ye say that? Ain't like ye be some kind of prisoner, are ye?"

Shit… she hadn’t meant to say something like that. "Well no. But.... I can't leave right now. It'd look real bad, and with how things've changed, I wanna make sure I can do something. I'm trying. But I wanna know!" Rather than answer her question, he pressed further, as would be expected, "What do ye mean? What are ye trying to do?" "Gabriel..." She whined again. "Tali..." his tone almost stern. "What do ye mean by that?" There was a small silence from her side, then a sigh, "Nothin'. I just wanna know, Gabe." "As do I," he responded back. "Ain't seen ye fer awhile so... I just wanna know what ye be up to." "Will you tell me if I tell you?" She tried, wondering how she could backtrack now. "Aye, but ye first." She huffed, knowing damn well he wouldn’t change his mind on that. She decidedly just went on, "I've been... I dunno, eating a lot. We go to the beach and stuff. We've had some of... uh... other people come by. People from a real long time ago... I've been trying to be on my best behavior... Making sure I can keep up and stuff with everything, since they talk about business a lot, and i'm not really good at that. Trying to be nice to everyone too, since they're so important..." She trailed off a moment, not sure how much to really tell gabe. "And that be all?" Gabriel’s tone suggesting he didn't quite believe her. "Mostly, aye." "Mostly," he repeated. "Be there something yer not telling me?" There was silence for a long moment before she said, "It doesn't really matter, nothin' you gotta worry about." "When ye say stuff like that, it gives me even more reason to worry," he shot back, followed by a sigh. "Ye ain't gotta hide anything, lil doll. Whatever it be, just be honest with me." There was another silence, then Tali let out a little sigh. "Just... I don't... know.... I don't even know much of how to say it... Just, there’s some stuff... Stuff I don't like, but that I should and I know I should. It's not right of me to not like it, and besides, after all this time, people change and all, you know?"

She hesitated again, slowly going on, "I changed... and so did they... so..."

There was a moment her words failed her, then she quickly tacked on, "Just difficult... I suppose..." There was a long silence following her answer that made her fearful he wouldn’t accept the answer. She knew he cared a lot, and his care did not extend to her family. If he caught wind of any trouble of any kind, he’d more than likely show up there.

"The way I see it, ye like what ye like and ye don't like what ye don't. Ain't no 'should' about it, no matter who be telling ye that or where ye be. Ye ain't got to like something and there be nothing wrong with that." He said with such finality.

"I just don't wanna cause a probl-" She cut off, suddenly realizing that someone was there besides her.

Unbeknownst to her, Laenetta had tracked her down and was looking at her with overbearing disappointment. Without a moment given to explain what happened on her side, the standing woman spoke, “Do you know how much you’ve worried everyone at the estate, Taliorinth? Why did you sneak off like that without telling anyone where you were going? I was told you ran off from Lord Thori’thal and rudely ignored him.”

“I’m sorry, Netta.” the younger woman said, her ears wilting down, looking almost embarrassed as she clutched the stone close to her. “I just had a call that came in, and it was just-”

She cut her off, instead going on her own, “Well, surely whatever it is won’t take you too long. You’ll be over soon, won’t you?”

Tali quick said, “Of course! I will. I promise, real soon. It’s guard business, that’s all, and i’m just checking in.” She tried to give a smile up to her intimidating sister.

Laenetta gave her a long stare and Tali fell silent. She started to move off, “We’ll expect you at home.”

Finally, when Laenetta was most certainly far away, Taliori let out a breath she had held and spoke in the stone again, quietly once more, "Gabe?" "Aye,” There was a hesitant moment before he went on, “But problem, or not, lil doll, ye gotta be true to ye’self and ye ain't gotta like what ye don't. Afterall, ye be loud enough to me when voicing what ye don't, aye?" He gave a short snort after that, though it carried with it some humor. "Aye... I am. But... it's different here. Ain’t as easy, you know? With you or the crew or any of them, it's just... you gotta be loud, ain’t ya? I mean, it's either that or you end up getting trampled and all. Here's it's... different." Second time she's said that. "It's... you know, like a game. A really big game that really smart people play. Like in the books and all, you know?" "Like court intrigue, y'mean?" he answered, though his tone was anything but happy. "Just what kinds of stuff they making ye do that ye ain't like?" She huffed, trying to play it off some and redirect the conversation quickly. "Gabe you promised to tell me." "And I'll tell when ye tell me!" "I've told you!" "Then answer my question! What are they making ye do that ye don't like?" She sighed, pausing for a long moment, then saying quietly. "It ain't that bad. Just be tolerating some people... tryin' to forget and forgive and all." There was a brief silence before the man pressed further. "Like who? what did they do?" "Just.... old acquaintances and all." If one could consider Nesrin simply an ‘acquaintance’.

"Don't have to forgive if ye don't want to. Just give em that prize winning smile that makes my coin purse lighter and curse them behind their backs. Ain't nothing wrong with that, it be the way of the court anyways."

As if it were that easy…

"Aye... but... I wanna try still. For my sisters." She spoke honestly.

"And I'm telling ye, it ain't bad if ye don't. There be some things people do that ain't worth forgiving.” "Aye, Gabe, and I understand... but the oracle said there was a choice. The time was now... and I don't wanna be makin' the wrong choice." There was a long silence to that before he responded. "Yer not planning on coming back to the crew, are ye?" There was a pang of guilt. Did he really think she’d do that? Just like the Captain did? "Gabe, no, that's not what I said. I don't..."

She hesitated before going on, "... I don't want -that- to be the decision. I don't want to abandon the crew..." A small breath was heard. A small sigh of relief. "Then... ye still deciding."

"I don't know what the decision even is, Gabe. I don't know anymore... all I know is... now is the time." A low snarl sounded from his throat, like a wild beast of some sort, "Ye ain't got to listen to the words of some damned witch, Tali. Ye fate be ye own and ye ain't have to give up either just because of some damned cards." "Gabe..." She said warningly, feeling honestly defensive of the woman and her readings now, "The oracles cards are real. They tell the truth." "Do they now?" he shot back. "So ye saying what they told me about ye engagement be real as well?" As soon as he said that, her breath pulled in.The cards had told him about Nesrin? About back then? When she was his betrothed? The fact that, by all technicalities, she truly still was? She was stunned silent for the moment, worried about all he might’ve known about it then.

"Fate be ye own, Tali. While I admit, that witches' cards can be scarily accurate sometimes, what I do know is, if there's any truth in them, what they show is a possible path among many. The choice still be yers." Slowly, swallowing down, she said, "Aye, Gabe. And I know that and I well and mean to remember it. There ain’t a bad part of me trying to do right by my sisters, and just enjoy some of the time that I get with them now, is there?" "Ain't a bad thing, no, to just want to enjoy the company of those ye care about. What is, however, is sacrificing ye own happiness fer it. Just don't want ye doing things ye ain't like just because they tell ye to, understand?" "I'm doin' 'em because I wanna, Gabe. Ain’t sacrificin' nothin' but a bit o' comfort. Times've changed, ain’t be th' same." There was a moment of silence at that before he then said. "Maybe so, and maybe times have changed, but ain't always mean gotta go along with it." There was a slight pause before he went on. "Just worry about ye is all. Haven't seen ye in a bit, and so, suppose... ye be missed."

Another pause, before he then asked. "Ye planning on coming back anytime soon?" She didn’t know the answer to such a thing, and taking in a deep breath she started slowly, "I suppose it depends. This trip isn't over yet, and I don't really wanna leave quite yet. I've been having fun and all, but I do sorta miss you all." "Keep me updated, aye? Then ye can tell me all about it as soon as ye get back. I'll even buy ye as many peach pastries as ye want." She had barely even heard him, instead, her gaze focused once more on Laenetta whom had reappeared. She looked very unhappy with her, and there was a particular look given to the stone in her hands, "I..." She paused, unsure if she should speak to Netta first or Gabe, eventually favoring the man on the stone, "Aye... I will." "A promise then." Then a short pause. "Keep ye’self well, lil doll." Laenetta’s brows rose, her arms crossed as she just waited and watched. Taliori knew her time was up with this, slowly answering Gabe, as if it would extend the chat just a bit more, "I will. I have to go, Gabe. I'll talk to you later." "Later then," he responded, and then nothing. "Bye Gabe." She said, almost sadly, knowing it would be a bit of time before she’d be able to talk to him. She made the right motion to turn the stone off, and then lowered it to her lap, looking to her sister that awaited her.

Without a word, Laenetta held out her hand, waiting.

It wasn’t a gesture to help Taliori up. No… it was for the stone. She was not the smartest, but she knew that much.

She wanted to argue against it, try and tell her she hadn’t meant to disturb anyone with a simple call, but she knew it wouldn’t make a difference. She’d done this to herself, after all. She cursed herself, thinking it would have been better to have just stayed on the beach with that man’s hand on her arm, keeping her with those intense eyes.

Slowly, she pulled the stone up from her lap, looking over it once more before she slowly handed it away to Netta, watching as she gripped it in long, beautiful fingers and tucked it away expertly in her lavished clothes.

Even as she took the stone, she didn’t leave, instead looking down to Taliorinth with a raise of her brows. “Now, you should go apologize to Lord Thori’thal and get ready for dinner. Otherwise, Vesthiriel might find out, and light knows how she’d take to hearing you ignored our very esteemed guest for your friend who just wants you to leave us early. It breaks my heart that you’d talk about that… after all we’ve been doing to make sure you’re having such a good time together with us… with your family.”

She let out a sigh, “I suppose i’ll walk back home alone.” She sounded woeful about the fact, causing Taliori’s heart to tug.

Quick as lightning, she pulled herself up and ran towards her sister, “Netta! I-”

She stopped as the other woman paused, not even looking back to her. Only a small flick of her ear gave a notice that she was paying attention.

“I’ll go home with you. And… I’ll go talk to Nesrin immediately. I don’t mean to make it seem like I don’t wanna be here, it’s just… Gabe… just likes to… to tell me about updates of what happened with the guard and all, you know?”

She let out a huff. “I suppose if you want to see it that way. Though they do take so much time away from spending more with us… especially with how much time we’ve made for all of us to spend together… as a family.”

Netta’s head lowered, and tali’s ears pinned down. Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she quickly moved forward and grabbed hold of Netta’s hand, gripping tightly and moving to stand in front of the woman.

“I’m sorry, Netta. I’ll make sure to appreciate more of the time you’ve given for this. I know how busy you both are… I’ll be better about it.” She tried to smile, getting one from her sister.

@jessipalooza @sakialyn @stormandozone @forever-afk for mentions

Tide of Fate Story Index Here

#Taliorinth Rosespear #Taliorinth #Taliori Dewblossom #Taliori #Vesthiriel #Laenetta #Nesrin #Gabriel Shadowdrake #Gabriel #tides of fate

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