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binniesthighs · 4 years

Text

two tails | reader x minho |

Three

Pairing: self insert, female reader x lee minho

Genre: strangers to lovers, neighbors to lovers, fluff

Tags: neighbors au, comfort fic, catowner!minho, catowner!reader, author!reader, bestfriend!seungmin, floristnpunk!jisung, gradstudent!jeongin, agedup!skz, slow burn, plot driven, gradual romance, lil bit of angst, strained parental relationship, explicit language, mentions of food and alcohol, mentions of previous kinda sad relationships

Word count: 5.4k (y e e h a w)

Tagging: @lauraneuuh

Chapters

P | ONE | TWO | THREE | ?

zeal noun

: eagerness and ardent interest in the pursuit of something: fervor

₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

Seungmin never liked your cooking, or at least, he’d often mumble this into his spoon while beginning his second serving. He was probably just being nice, or respectful. Your best friend of four years had never been less.

Aside from the fact the he had a 70 pound golden retriever, never had you once seen a strand of that golden hair cling to the cloth of his winter coats. In the autumn, he would drive you in his hand-me-down ‘91 Mitsubishi to the city where you would tutor the English students just so you wouldn’t have to bear the cold of the subway. In the summers he would toss soju down his throat with you, sitting on the carpet of your living room and turning his head to the side with a hand raised to hide his glass. In the spring, he would remember your birthday--several months before his--and take you to coffee shops and bookstores, then the grocery store (which he knew you hated) and would buy for you the most expensive beef he could find.

You would cook the meat for the two of you, and he would say that he liked it...even if you had charred it black on the edges.

Seungmin flicked at the little aluminum tab on his beer can while he watched you murder yet another plate of perfectly fine vegetables on your stovetop.

“At least it smells nice.” You flipped the circle of white onion.

“It does.” He returned, nonchalant, flicking the beer tab a little poink.

“You’re being uncharacteristically quiet. Too tired to complain about those dicks from the marketing team? They put you on a shitty pitch again didn’t they?”

“Every pitch is a shitty pitch there. God, you wouldn’t believe the kinds of slogans that they make me say sometimes. It’s humiliating.”

“Hey, you’re the one that took the pay raise over that job at that high school.”

“Well, you didn’t have rent staring you dead in the face and a dog that’s practically active and sentient enough to be a real child.” He slugged down a sip of his drink. “I’m a single father you know.”

“As if!” You choked out your laughter. “Since when did you turn into Hyunjin? You were never one for dramatics anyway.”

“Go get your vegetables, they’ll burn.” He nodded his head to the stove. The thing was, they were already burnt.

You salvaged what you could of the vegetables then placed them over your rice balls (not intended to be balls in the first place) and the chicken strips which had undoubtedly been seasoned just a little too much. You slid the ceramic bowl in front of him. At least it was steaming. That was a good sign.

Seungmin nodded a little in thanks, then let out a less than obvious sigh before taking his first bite.

“Spicy...but good.”

The way that his breath sounded thin made it convincing enough to you that it wasn’t just “spicy.”

He scrunched up his face in that adorably puppy-like way that you had long gotten used to.

“Really. Tell me. It isn’t the pitches. Don’t pretend like I can’t read you.”

Your best friend squeezed his eyes shut with a rather generous slug of his beer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Whaaaat?” You whined a little while opening up your own can. “Oh my god. It’s that girl from the art division. She has a boyfriend doesn’t she? Dammit.”

“No.” Your friend drew the disdain in his eyes up to you from the chicken that had made his nose start to run. He wiped at it quickly.

“I hope it’s not my mother that’s getting to you. She’s too damn nosy for her own good and twice as cocky as she should be. Don’t listen to her. What did she tell you anyway?”

Seungmin poked at his food with his fork then twisted a crispy-tipped red pepper. “Have you talked to him again?”

“--Minho?”

You shied at the memory of meeting him on his morning run two days prior. He would go out at nearly 8:00 on the dot every morning, just when the sun started to peek into the dewy pink and blue mornings.

“You should put on a sweater if you’re going to get up this early for those plants of yours. Don’t want you catching a cold.”

“Yes.” You answered your friend. A tiny ache pinged at your chest--and it wasn’t the kind that felt all twisted. “He asked me to watch the meteor shower with him this weekend. I hope I can cook something edible for him.”

Seungmin’s knee bounced, “Aren’t you at least at little suspicious of him?”

“Suspicious? Why would I be?”

“You hardly even know anything about him, or where he came from, what he does for a living--”

“--Now you’re starting to sound like my mother Seung. Relax. Besides, sometimes it doesn’t take much to feel...comfortable around a person. I mean, look at us! Soju nights started like, three weeks after we met. And I do know where he works. He works for a company that makes windows; fancy ones.”

“Windows?” He cocked a brow.

“He did say that it was kind of boring...”

“I just--” Your friend sighed out, resting anxious hands on his knees. Here he was again, being nice and respectful, like always. “--You could get hurt if you’re not careful.”

“What?”

“I’m saying, don’t get your hopes up.”

“Geez Seung...” Your voice trailed off with a different pain in your chest. This was the kind that twisted.

His expression softened, and he lent a hand to your shoulder, lingering, squeezing lightly. “Your mom...she told me to look after you...not like I do that already with you falling all over yourself and burning things...I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Hm. Thanks.”

“You’re also miserable to deal with when you’re sad. You make me blow my grocery budget with how much frickin’ ice cream and freezer tater tots you force me to get.”

“You like those tater tots too though.”

₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

Bomi purred in your lap swaddled into a little ball of white, orange, black and brown. She was napping, or rather, trying to nap with the way that her little cat-shaped eyes blinked slowly. You tried your best to soak every little moment of it up: you knew that with her, it would be fleeting. There was something supremely calming about being close to your little furball like this. After all the love that you poured over her in the form of useless cat toys and new cat food every week, this somehow made it all worth it.

You tapped lightly at your keyboard, not too harshly, just lightly enough so that you wouldn’t startle your sleeping cat. The tips of your toes were cold, but you didn’t dare to move to grab a blanket to ruin the moment. Outside, a light spring rain befell on your small cement patio. Droplets of the warm showers patted at the roof of your home softly.

Your eyes had grown tired and dry at this late hour, but the end of the chapter was near. One more time you hovered your mouse over the little notification bar, clicking at it for that one last push of motivation:

Bomi needs to quit MESSING AROUND. Blaze is right in front of her!!! Ahhhh I want them to get together soooo bad

Is Herbie okay?? Poor bb, its so cute how we would do anything for Bomi.

Bomi:

Blaze:

*now kiss*

Are we really getting to the end of Book 1??? This has been such an amazing story N/n, I always look forward to your updates <3 they make my Thursdays hehe

I can feel like something big and bad is coming...oh no...I hope that Blaze and Bomi make it through

A thankful little chuckle hummed on your lips, then you pressed enter to start a new paragraph.

“Oh Bomi,” You exhaled, “If only Blaze knew how you felt too.”

Chapter 27

...The group journeyed through the cavern with flickering white flames dancing and casting shadows on the stone walls dripping in stalactites. Bomi held on to the hilt of her sword tighter with a sense of dread creeping up her throat. Blaze looked onward, much as he had been doing these days.

His leg was wrapped in a bloodied bandage: a reminder of the battle won against the Boar in Hilgram. He had jumped in front of her as he had countless times before.

“Hello??” Blaze’s voice echoed against the long and winding chambers of the cave. In his tone he was confident, but his shoulders still shook with an uncertainty.

Herbie’s little hedgehog feet patted the damp floor, and he looked up at his Princess with fear in his soft black eyes. The little velvet banner wrapped around his body had been torn and tattered from one too many battles.

Had it been darker, Bomi wondered if she had reached out for Blaze’s hand to find in him. She shook her head with her resolve, eyes painfully shut. It was only in the darkness that she allowed herself to want for him.

₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

Today must be one of those spring-summer days.

Your warbled reflection chased after you in the blue glass of the university’s library windows. You had hoped that no one was on the other side watching you as you wrinkled up your nose to look like one of those devilish gargoyles that you had been writing of the night before. From the inside, rows and rows of books were lined up perfectly, however there were almost no students inside. It always did make you a little sad how few students would be there when you clocked in for your mandatory office hours.

Spring-summer days meant that the businesswomen on the sidewalks had exchanged with trousers with flowing skirts and little clicky ballet flats and each businessman had his tie and collar tugged down. There was a comforting warmth to the spring air that reminded you of your own college days when you and your friends--long gone now--had stayed up late to study, then would scour the buzzing streets for snacks. Things were much simplier then.

At the library’s entrance, budding tulips and geraniums of light purple hues were greeted by round bumblebees. Had the city not been as loud as it was, you could nearly hear the cicadas in the park on the east edge of the shining silver building.

You bowed slightly to the attendant at the desk who always would smile at you with adorable smiling eyes to match. She would often wear earrings of strange shapes that you had never seen before. She wore a lanyard too that had little cat paw prints decorating it; it was because of this you knew she was someone you could trust.

“Are you having a nice week?” You said to her customarily.

“Oh, I am. It’s always the same around here. My daughter will be having her baby soon! Sometimes I think that I’m more excited than she is.”

“You’ll have to tell me when that happens so I can bring her a gift, okay?”

The attendant smiled warmly, and nodded you off with a little oh, you don’t have to.

“Remember your key card this time?” She watched as you jingled around your own keys with the obsessive amount of plastic and silicon keychains.

You tsked. It seemed like nearly everyone in your life had now known how forgetful you tended to be sometimes.

“Yes. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be over there.”

Once more the two of you exchanged little bows and you made your way over to the back of the four storied library with the atrium of trees in between. There was a marble fountain encircled by the trees that had little oval shaped leaves. Two tiny birds, all black, bounced from branch to branch. It was your secret, but you had written about that fountain many times in your writing, but you were the only one who knew that it was real.

You tapped the reader to hear that familiar do-do doot along with the flash of the green lock. As always, the study room was a bit messy with eraser shavings sprinkled about and the odd dry marker laying next to the trashcan where someone had tried to toss it in, but had missed. The minute hand on the wall clock scooted right on to the 12.

“Are you busy?” That fluff on white hair peeked into your study room just like clockwork.

“For my favorite student? Do you even have to ask?”

Jeongin, the oldest and most attentive student in your class hopped in with his adorably boy-ish charm. Regardless of the fact that he was in the last year of his grad degree, it was impossible for him to look that old. You didn’t have the heart to tell him, but he technically shouldn’t have been in your class for undergrads, but you weren’t going to stop him.

“Why’d you decide to take this class anyway?” You would ask him.

He’d answer, “For fun.” with that cute little smile of his.

“I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“I just got here.” You pulled out a seat for him.

“Oh. Good. I was wondering if you could proof read my short story again. I’m having trouble with the ending. I just don’t think I understand all the way how to make it full circle like you said in lecture.”

He unzipped his leather backpack: obviously a gift from someone in his family that must have thought it would make him look his age. It didn’t. What didn’t help further was how he had adorned it with all kinds of keychains; much like your own keys. It was because of this that you knew he was someone you could trust.

His manuscript already had dozens of scribbles in his own handwriting with tons of question marks riddling the margins.

“Let me take a look.”

You skimmed the pages of the short story--one which you had already read the week prior--for all of his new edits. The notes made it a bit hard to read, but you were used to how he would make a mess of his papers now. He leaned in close to you with glossy eyes that might have even twinkled a little like a cartoon. Both of his knees bounced furiously while he watched you read, and would look from the paper, to your face, then back to the paper, then back to your face...

“Is-is it good? Better?”

Jeongin had written a love story. His first one that you had known of. It was about a boy and a girl who had met on an airplane, and had been seated together. The two of them found out that they had shared so much about their two lives without ever meeting until this very moment. They had realized they went to the same high school, worked in the same building, and were travelling for the same reason: to meet up with someone that they had once loved. It was beautiful, tragic, and in some ways, familiar.

“I think that it’s wonderful Jeongin. The edits that you made to it from last week really help with the narrative flow as well as the vertical plot. You’re really good at asking the deeper questions behind the piece like “why are they really there,” and “why is it important that they are there.” All you need to do is tie it up.”

“But howwww?” Jeongin slumped in his wheely chair. “What should I say?”

“Well...” You tapped your pen to your lip. “The ending scene is when they land at the airport right? Why don’t you have your main character say something that calls back to all of their similarities and makes it seem like they’ve known eachother all along?”

“But I don’t want it to seem like they’re going to forget eachother.”

“They won’t. You established that they’ve both found something different than what they were looking for in the first place.”

Your student’s face tangled up into concentrated knots and he puffed those thin strands of bleached white hair away from his eyes.

“I could say...‘see you at home’? Or...maybe that’s too cheesy--”

“--No it’s not! If you like it, I think that it also fits the story well. Its like, now they understand, and they’ve got something in eachother now that they hadn’t had before; also juxtaposing with your themes of travelling to make a reference to home.”

“Damn, you’re much better at this kind of stuff than I am...” Jeongin wrote down the new ending on his print out.

“Its just...what I like to do.”

“I’m glad I came.” He grinned out with his mischievous and trademark smile. “How’s your story going by the way? Almost finished?”

“Oh...”

A heat rose in your cheeks. You had decided to tell Jeongin about Princess Bomi a few weeks back, but you had neglected to tell him exactly what the story was about. That was a secret better kept to yourself.

“Its...good. I think. My readers seem to really like it.”

“Maybe you’ll let me read it someday. I bet there would be tons of other people who would like to read it too, you know, outside of the internet.”

“That’s what I’ve been told...” Hyunjin’s urgings echoed in your head. “Maybe...” Your eyes wandered to those scribblings of his. “How about we make a deal?”

“What kind of deal?”

“Once we get both of our stories sorted, lets submit them together. I’m sure people would like to read yours too.”

“Mine?!” Your adorable student’s face flushed as deeply pink as the sweater he wore. “Oh no, no no no no no.”

“I’m telling you it’s good! Its relatable, raw, well written. It never hurts to try. How about submitting it for the literary journal they do at the end of the semester?”

“You mean the one that all the arts majors read and fuckin’ eviscerate?? Hell no.”

“Hey, I could get eviscerated too by my chief editor.”

Jeongin gulped with his terrified, brown, cartoon-character glistening eyes boring holes into his manuscript.

You sang, “~Wanna go down together~?”

“A-as long as we’re going down together...I guess it’s worth a shot.”

“Alright then!!”

He made a little sound of disgust, then shoved his papers back into his much-too-old-for-him bag. “That was all I needed to ask you for. Thank you.” He bowed with respect. “I won’t be bothering you for too long today.”

“You wrote a good story Jeongin.”

“Mm. Thank you.” His smile turned into a tiny flustered line.

₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

STUPID NEW CAT FOOD. AGAIN.

In one hand, you held the crinkled up grocery list with angry doodles of your cat folded into the corners of the page. You didn’t quite know if cats had eyebrows like the ones you had drawn onto your cat’s smug face, but you were for certain that this cat must’ve had them...and they were angry.

Bomi had selfishly decided at the end of your week that she no longer liked the last brand of cat food that you had found on the shelves of the grocery store. It was the brand stored next to the one that you had nearly concussed Minho with.

You were at your wits end. There must have been something wrong with your cat--to hell with her being a picky eater. Maybe she really was just a little alien inside there. A little alien that hated cat food. The image of you sitting at your dining table across from Bomi eating two plates of people food crossed your mind. She picked up the fork with her white paw and dabbed at her mouth with a cloth napkin. The idea didn’t seem the most out of reach.

In your other hand was your phone opened to the maps app with the small blue dot leading you to the specialty pet store.

“Damn spoiled, stuck up, good for nothing, pain in my as--”

“Hey! Blossom??”

Your head whipped around so fast you cracked the bones of your neck with a startling pop. You rubbed at your neck to ease the pain.

“You okay?”

At first you figured you must have dreamt him up in your neck-induced-pain. You cursed at your overactive imagination, still just as strong as it was when you had been small.

Blaze in the flesh he was alllll the way from his battered Converse to his stupidly handsome curly hair.

You laughed out incredulously with a hand still glued to the back of your neck.

“Didn’t think that I would be seeing you around here again. Or at least, I was kind of hoping that I would.”

He marched right up to you with that same smile you had pictured on Princess Bomi’s companion countless times before. Today he wore a leather jacket over the arms that you knew were covered in all kinds of flowers and vines. It hadn’t quite hit you yet that he had said he was hoping to see you.

“Sorry if I startled you. I was just...really surprised.”

“You’re fine, it’s fine.”

You neck didn’t tell you it was fine.

“What are you doing around here?”

“Pet store.” Was all you could get out. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to you, but for someone who worked at a flower shop, he did end up smelling an awful lot like flowers. It was a sweet aroma, much like your garden.

“Ahh, I just got off.”

You walked on, also not noticing that he had started to follow you a couple steps behind.

“I realized I didn’t get your name last time.”

“Oh. It’s Y/n.”

He hummed with a smirk. “I do kinda like Blossom more.” He crammed his hands into his pants pockets with a wistful little sigh. “Pretty nickname for someone as pretty as yourself.”

“Psh. Stop.” You had said it sarcastically, but you didn’t intend for your heart to skip as harshly as it did when he had said so.

“You’ve got a pet then? Dog? Cat?”

“Cat. Just one.”

“I wish I could take care of a pet like that. Don’t think I would be too good at it though. I see myself as more of a plant person. They’re quiet, don’t do too much, and they sort of love you back in their own way.”

“How's that?”

“By growing. And flowering. Changing colors and looking good in your windowsill. Nothing too crazy.”

“I...guess I can see what you mean.”

He flicked at the black hoop pierced into his lip in the way that you certainly hadn’t forgotten; and you were one for forgetting much.

“Mind if I go in with you? I don’t have a whole lot going on.”

Jisung. You had also remembered his name. He carried Blaze with him in the way that he had that fiery glint in his eye like he knew he was getting away with something. He was brash and forward, and charming as all hell. The sunset of blood orange and cotton candy pink seemed to melt into his shoulders where he stood before you in the golden hour of the evening. A yellow carnation was tucked into the pocket of his jacket.

“You don’t have to...”

He had already made up his mind, and swung open the door to the pet shop neighboring the floral shop. You didn’t know how you had missed it.

The squawking of birds chimed with the bells hung over the shop door.

“You coming?” He held it open for you.

You sheepishly entered before him, nearly tripping on the little incline to the entrance and catching yourself three seconds before disaster.

Jisung prompted, “Lead the way.”

Normally you would have been concerned over the cleanliness of the store, but that seemed insignificant compared to the way that he looked around all in his Blaze-like wonder. He widened his eyes at the rows of fish tanks and twiddled with the little feather cat toys at the ends of the isles.

Granted, he seemed much more immersed in the kinds of aquatic plants and moss balls that they had rather than the cute bunnies and mice, but still, you couldn’t help but shy away when he caught your glances.

“Glad that I joined ya Blossom.”

₍⸍⸌̣ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

There was something about Minho that felt like a lullaby. He wore a lavender colored sweater when he arrived at your doorstep: of course it was pooling into paws at his hands as always. The collar dipped deep enough for you to see the tops of his collarbones, and they were gorgeous and curved. His eyes wrinkled a little under his wire framed glasses when he would smile: that of which would also look like the little grin of a bunny. Effortlessly his brown hair kissed his forehead.

He would speak softly and carefully, and listen to everything that you had said to him as if it was the most important thing in the world. His feet were too big for your spare pair of house slippers and he had a tiny hole in his khaki pants right by the waistline. Minho greeted Bomi with a tiny “aigoo” and she let him sweep her up into his arms where he bounced her lightly. She would never let you do that. Traitor.

“Your home is very...you.” He had complimented. You had no idea what that meant.

His lips were pink and glossy with drips of that peach soju that you had bought in the hopes that he would like it. It turned out that it was his favorite flavor.

You wanted so badly to kiss the peachy flavor off of those lips.

He had laughed a little at your array of cat-related home decor, laughing the most at your dish towels that had two fat cats on them that looked like chefs. He said that he had seen a movie once and the characters reminded him of that.

The two of you sat outside on your patio on the wire chairs that would imprint designs into the back of your legs. The air mixed with the smell of your citronella candle and the scent of the roasted duck that you had attempted to make for him. You really shouldn’t have tried to make something for the first time when it was also his first time coming over.

Maybe he was just being nice, but he had said it tasted good.

It did not taste good, but rather harshly of salt and too much rosemary.

Bomi rubbed at his legs under the table and even hiked herself up on two feet to peek into his lap. As much as it hurt to see your traitorous cat act this way, it was because of this that you knew he was someone that you could trust. Minho gave her head scratches and insisted to help you with the dishes--a mistake on his part. It took all of two minutes before you had a mishap with the detachable sink head, and soaked through his sweater.

“Maybe I just shouldn’t trust you with water then?” He chuckled while dabbing away at the fabric.

“That probably would be best.”

Minho was a lullaby in the way that he laid down next to you on that quilt you had made in a crafting class some years ago. All of the patches were disjointed the the color scheme made very little sense, but it was stull functional. He kept his hands folded to his chest with reverence. His chest rose and fell calmly, and his body heat floated over to you. His presence was something familiar and still something that you couldn’t place.

“Are you getting tired?” He asked you gently.

You lied, “No, just resting my eyes.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have had that much soju then.” He joked into the open air.

“How much longer?”

“At least thirty more minutes.”

He was so warm. Warmer than any chill of the spring night.

First you would have kissed the peachy flavor on his lips. Then you would have cuddled all up into that lavender sweater which you imagined to be even softer than cat’s fur--or rather--it looked like it could have been.

“Do you know any constellations?” Minho pointed up to the sky.

“Not really.”

“Well, that one is Ursa Major...and over there...that’s Leo. Can you see that it sort of looks like a triangle?”

“Yes.” You had said, but really you didn’t have a clue, you liked it more hearing him talk about them. “Where did you learn about constellations?”

“Long time ago. I think it was in school, but, that was so, so long ago.”

The cool grass under the quilt rustled when he had leaned back up to sit, then dragged quilt attempt #2 over your body and his.

“It was getting a little cold.” He quietly announced.

His simple action of doing just that heated up your whole body now knowing that the two of you were trapped together, inches apart.

Minho tucked his arms to prop up his head. “Thank you for cooking for me. I haven’t had someone other than my mother cook like that for me in a long while.”

“I’m sorry...I know that it was pretty inedible--”

“--And thank you for allowing me to come over too. I...realize...I don’t really know what I’m doing that well. I kind of invited myself...I hope that I’m not putting pressure on you or anything...”

“--Doing what well?” Your heart leapt into your throat.

“I just haven’t done this in a really long time.”

This.

What the hell was “this?”

“I’m not following...”

“Letting myself do something fun. Something nice and relaxing.”

You had formed a painful little “Oh.” on your lips. Your idea of this was different from his after all.

“--Something nice and relaxing with you.”

Another “Oh.” formed, but this one was a thankful one.

“Can I tell you something?” Minho’s voice was barely in a whisper.

“What is it?” You looked over at him and he was wrapped in the navy blue light of the night. You could have sworn that you could see the faintest inkling of stars in his eyes.

He looked back at you in earnest. “I’ve been...scared, too, since moving back out here.”

“W-why?”

“There was something in me that was telling me that moving out here wouldn’t fix everything, and that I would be stuck forever on those things that happened, and the things that made me unhappy.”

“Minho...what are you saying?”

“-Got my heart broken. Back then. As cliché as the sounds.” He laughed, and it even sounded a twinge embarrassed. “I ran away from it to here. I had figured that it would give me time to get it all back together again.”

“I-I’m so sorry.”

“Running is good and all when you can physically remove yourself from what’s chasing you, but some things...”

Your chest felt heavy. “I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

“You do?”

The first summer cicadas had started their nighttime chant, and their hisses ebbed and flowed like sea waves.

“I feel like...these expectations that my family has of me, my mother...I can’t ever escape them. They’re always there and burned into my head. I think of them even when I don’t want to: get a better job that “contributes”, get married, have grandkids...”

You paused with your own eyes cast up to the sky. The massive expanse seemed unfathomable.

“Why is it that we can’t ever be happy doing the things that are supposed to make us happy?”

The first meteor flew past your eyes with the speed of light, barely slow enough for you to catch it.

The second was a bit slower, and traced after it a millisecond of white spectral dust.

“Did you see that??” Without thinking, you poked once at Minho’s arm.

You couldn’t see, but he had grinned with a weak smile. “I did.”

All at once, the sky was illuminated with brilliant streaks of light and their white hot heads that would fade and dissapear just as quickly as they arrived. They tore through the sky with astonishing speed and you traced the outline of each line as fast as you could.

“There’s so many.” You wondered aloud.

Under the warmth of the haphazard blanket, fingers twisted into yours: careful and tentative, soft and curious.

Minho breathed out, “I feel pretty happy right now.”

123 notes · View notes

g0ldengubler · 4 years

Note

Can I request for one of the chapter's they have another night at Garcia's and Spencer (who's real baked) declares his love for Y/N & she tells him she feels the same? Loving this series babe!

hi hun! thank u so much for the request and the feedback. it really does mean a lot :’) i’m so sorry to disappoint but i did already have something down for how they were gonna admit their feelings for one another (which is also the chapter im currently working on hehe) but i still wrote ur request (which i’m in love with btw)! just as a one shot, though. depending on how others respond to this, i just might change it (giving credit where it’s due obviously)! again, thank you so much and i apologize. i hope u still enjoy :) also sorry for how weird the paragraphs are, i used wattpad for the word count lol

Request: YES/no

Category: fluff in an alternate chapter of nauseous

Couple: spencer/reader

CW: use of marijuana, but other than that it’s just fluff :)

Summary: it had been a couple of weeks since you and spencer were up at your cabin. since you guys got back, you hadn’t heard or seen much of him. when you go to garcia’s one night for a little get together, what will happen when spencer had a bit too much to smoke?

Word Count: 1609

✨masterlist✨

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Y/N! You're finally here!"

Garcia had invited everyone back to her apartment for another get together. It had been a couple of weeks since you took Spencer up to your cabin and after all the platonic kisses and the heavenly sex, you both hadn't reached out to each other once you got back home. That weekend left you questioning your relationship with him. Falling in love wasn't something you were used to. You never had that moment where you could just stand there, and look up at someone and think that this someone was your whole world. The one you never could get out of your head; the one where you wished for their arms around you with your head on their chest. Hearing their heart beat, the kind of beat that made you feel safe. You'd never felt these feelings before, until you met Spencer.

You walked in, giving hugs to everyone. You were shocked that Rossi and Hotch were there, and when you went to give them hugs, you apologized in advance for your behavior under the influence.

"As long as you don't show this kind of behavior at work, you don't have to worry about it." said Hotch.

"Yeah, don't worry about it kiddo," said Rossi, "you don't have to feel embarrassed around us. We're a family!"

You then saw Spencer on the couch, smoking on a blunt. You could tell he was close to being gone, as he and Morgan couldn't keep a poker face while playing. He looks up at you and smiles, but then that smile shrunk into that awkward white guy smile, looking back down at his cards.

"Hey." You said as you sat down next to him. Morgan reached over to Spencer, taking the blunt in his hand and putting up to his mouth.

"Hey." He whispers.

"How much has he had already?" you asked Morgan, looking over to him and using your thumb to point at Spencer as he passes the blunt to Garcia.

"He smoked two bowls before this blunt so...he's gonna be done for pretty soon."

"Damn," you laughed, "started the party without me, huh?"

Spencer just laughs at himself, still looking at his cards. Garcia passed the blunt to you. You took a few hits, letting the smoke fill your lungs. When you exhaled your final puff, you pass it to Emily, letting the wave of tingles fill your body, your eyes beginning to feel heavy.

You notice Emily pass the blunt over to Hotch and your jaw dropped when he took it from her fingers. After he takes a hit, he hands it over to Rossi, which made even everyone else in the room look at him them in shock.

"What?" asked Rossi, "Gideon and I smoked a lot in our day."

"And I had my fair share in college like anyone else."

We gathered ourselves before Jj finally said something. "It's just kind of hard to believe, seeing our boss and founder getting high."

"Well believe it!" Rossi joked before handing the blunt to her. Everyone giggled and chuckled before starting a new game of poker.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been about an hour and at this point everyone was slumped. You and Spencer ended up in Garcia's room with her, Emily, Jj, and Morgan, just sitting around and talking about your high epiphanies as you passed a joint around, while Hotch and Rossi stayed in the living room playing another round of poker. Everyone was pretty much gone. Hooded red eyes and coughing every so often. Garcia's giggled were contagious and it made everyone else laugh along with her.

Spencer let you lay your head down on his chest, which made that safe feeling even stronger than it did when you were at the cabin. You watched as he took the joint to his lips and inhaled. When he exhaled, he let the smoke hover in his mouth before blowing it all out. For some reason, you thought it was sexy when he smoked.

He passed the joint to you and you took more than one hit off of it. You wanted to forget this feeling you had for him because you felt like he didn't wouldn't want that. If he did, he would've tried harder. And quite frankly, it looked like he enjoyed your friends with benefits relationship more than something bigger.

As you inhaled, Spencer adjusted his position a bit, looking up to the stars that were still on her ceiling.

"Fuck, man," he says to Morgan, "I'm so in love with Y/N."

You almost choked on the smoke that was still in your throat. You thought your mind was playing tricks on you. This was a little random to be admitting feelings.

"What was that, pretty boy?" asked Morgan with a grin on his face.

Spencer didn't know why they were so shocked. But then realized what he had said just seconds ago. "Oh shit, did I say that out loud?"

"Yes you did, genius," said Garcia, "and I knEW IT!"

"Knew what?" I asked once my coughing attack calmed down.

"I knew that something more happened that night. I'm a pretty good cupid, aren't I?"

"Well I...I-I don't..." Spencer began stuttering. You couldn't hold in your giggles anymore and just burst out laughing.

"You can't take it back, boy genius." said Morgan.

"Hotch, Rossi! You both owe us five bucks each!" yelled Emily.

"Wha-you had a bet on us?"

"You bet your ass we did." said Jj.

You wanted to be mad at them, but how could you? You felt the same way about Spencer as he did for you. Maybe it was the amount of weed in your system, but you couldn't think of a reason to pretend to be mad at them. Then something came to mind.

"Hey, just because he said it, doesn't mean he speaks for me, too."

Spencer looked down at you with sad puppy eyes. "Does that mean you love me, too?"

You were quiet for a moment before taking the last hit of the joint, correctly inhaling and exhaling. You blowed the smoke into his face before putting the roach in the ashtray.

"Spence, I'm so in love with you. Just as much as your in love with me."

A smile grew on his face as he sat up, putting his arm around you. He cupped her face with his other hand and pulled your lips onto his. His actions showed that he didn't care about if the others saw. He couldn't care less of what Hotch or any of them would say. He probably forgot they were even there. In that moment as your fingers were tangled into his hair, you, too, felt like you two were the only ones in the room, like the whole world had stopped.

His lips were soft against yours, like comfortable pillows or fluffy clouds. Yours were always in rhythm with his. It was hard to break away until his tongue rubbed against your bottom lip, begging for entrance as you felt his hand leave your face and slowly move lower. You had to break away.

"Not the right time, Spence!" I giggled, trying to play off what just happened. I looked around the room. The rest of the gang never left, even Hotch and Rossi were standing in the door frame. They giggled at Spencer's actions as you both tried to fix yourselves.

"Well, I'm very happy for the both of you," said Hotch with a smile, "but we'll talk about this once this vacation is over. I won't be your boss right now."

"How could you? It's nice seeing two young lovebirds connecting like this." said Rossi.

"As long as I have you guys, and Spencer of course, work will never be a problem." I said, ruffling up his hair one more time.

You all ended up passing out at Garcia's (aside from Hotch and Rossi, as they had loved ones to go home to). You snuggled into Spencer's body on the couch, wrapping the blanket around you both. You both were too excited and happy to sleep. The feeling of someone feeling as much love for you as you did them was too much, but in a good way. The two of you started to make out again. You were going to let his tongue attack yours finally, before he spoke after each peck.

"I. Can't. Believe. You're. All. Mine." He whispered.

You smiled after the last peck before you both went back in, tongues going at it like swords. After a hot minute, you each broke away. Your head moved back to his chest, with his hand on top of yours as his other hand played with your hair.

"You want to hear something weird?" I asked.

"Sure," he said, "but nothing that comes out of your mouth is weird to me."

You smiled, playing with his fingers. "I always pictured a moment like this, even before you. Just...my head on someone's chest, hearing their heartbeat. It makes me feel safe. And with you specifically, I feel even safer than I thought I would."

Spencer kissed the top of your head in response. "God, even your mind is beautiful. How is that possible?"

"Says you, Mr.Smarty Pants. With the amount of classics you have stored in there, I'm sure it'd be like walking around a beautiful museum."

"I'm so happy I'm yours, angel."

I snuggled into him more, feeling my eyes getting heavier. "I'm happy I'm yours, too Spence."

"Goodnight, Y/N. I love you."

"I love you, too." I mumbled as we drifted off to sleep.

#spencer reid smut #spencer reid #dr spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds smut #spencer reid x reader #spencer x reader #dr reid #matthew gray gubler #fan fiction

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angelaiswriting · 3 years

Text

Undercover | Bandit x fem!reader

[video by Yogendra Singh from Pexels]

✏️ Pairing: Bandit x fem!reader

✏️ Summary: In which Dominic realizes he's fallen too hard for a woman during an undercover mission and he doesn't think he's fit to work for Rainbow anymore.

🎁 A/N: I wrote this for @kind-wolf‘s birthday but she gave me the okay to post it, so hopefully y’all will enjoy it too 💛

✏️ Warnings: slight angst, 18+ only? idk (the sex is generally only implied but there are some paragraphs in which it’s a little less implied), also a dash of fluff?

✏️ Word-count: 11,555

UNDERCOVER

There was something about early-morning runs that just calmed his nerves, even with music blasting in his ears. There was something in the way his trainers would rhythmically slap against the ground; something in the burning in his lungs, in the way the wind would blow against his face every now and then…

The British countryside expanded to infinity on his runs and it erased anything Hereford Base inevitably brought along—training sessions, mission calls, even more simulations, and then endless tests to pieces of equipment that he surely had not missed while on his last undercover mission.

He didn’t think much about it. About the mission. He always tried his best not to, although he did so unconsciously, probably more out of habit than anything else. It was never easy, to go back to a daily routine that didn’t feel yours anymore, to a routine you couldn’t recognize after having pretended to be someone else for the past six years. Some things just get to your head at some point, and going back to who you had once been feels like being reborn completely, and into someone you can’t recognize. You wake up one day, and you find yourself being forced to put on yet another mask, with the only exception that this is no mask. This is your face. Who you are. Or who you’re supposed to be, at least.

And although most likely unprofessional, this was how Dominic Brunsmeier still felt, six months after his mission had come to its end. He woke up every day and for the first, endless minutes he simply lied there, staring at a ceiling he had problems recognizing, with the reality that he was thousands of miles away from Germany hanging like Damocles’ sword above his head. His ears still subconsciously strained for the sound of two dogs’ nails ticking against the tiles of the floor to come to say good morning, and his left hand still stretched out to feel for someone who wasn’t there—who would never be there again.

That’s why running helped. It emptied his mind—and it also filled his lungs with the smell of wet grass and dirt. And although he still turned around to check behind his back every few minutes in search for furry snouts—one of the habits he had developed in the past life he had been forced to leave behind—, it was getting better, and the music in his ear pods seemed to be starting to do the trick.

Sometime later, when he got back to the Base, he was somewhat ready to be a Rainbow operator once again. At least for that day.

The truth was, he had somehow grown almost detached from anything and anyone Rainbow. He would do something, and then he’d mentally compare it to how he did it before. The way his morning coffee would taste; the way her laundry detergent would smell fresh and somehow cozy; how peaceful car trips would feel, almost as though he could lose himself into one of them for the rest of his life. Now his coffee was just Marius’s boring blend, and the detergent they used in the laundry at the base had no scent. And when he did end up tagging along on short weekend trips, there was no dog whining ecstatically in the back of the car and trying to lick his neck.

“How was your run?”

Monika was looking at him from above the file she was reading—a mission report, a test session report, he didn’t know and he also found himself not caring. That life still felt alien to him.

He shrugged. “Good.” He had somehow become a man of few words, and he had also started to realize that maybe undercover missions weren’t for him. Not anymore, at least. Maybe he had let this one get to him a bit too much, and everyone he had met had grown under his skin without him wanting so and he still did somehow feel like he had betrayed his family, sent them all to jail.

It was a stupid thought—he tried to remind himself of that every time that feeling came up, but maybe he just wasn’t cut for long undercover missions anymore. He didn’t remember when it had become difficult to tell right from wrong, but it had happened, and every time his mind stopped on that period of his life, he found himself growing homesick for a home he never had, not there.

“Just good?”

Elias was there, too. Of fucking course, he would be there. He had been keeping an eye on him for a few weeks now, and Dominic was too much of an expert not to notice. It hadn’t been a surprise to see him enter the kitchen a minute or two after he had.

“Just good,” he nodded

There was some staring, then. Dominic stared at Elias because he wanted to be left alone, and Elias stared at Dominic because he wanted to understand what the problem was, so that he could help his friend. It was all useless, though, and they both knew it: one had closed off too securely to let on anything—or let anyone in, and the other was too stubborn to just stop caring about someone he loved.

That afternoon, though, he was running some errands in town with Marius when a dog stopped right in front of him to sniff his pants. It was a lovely animal, with fur of an almost bronze-red color and a tail that never once stopped wagging.

It brought him back in time, and for a moment he stood there, frozen and rooted to the spot. He could almost still feel the rain on his skin despite that exceptionally bright sunny day. But then, the Irish setter’s owner called Bonnie, let’s go! and Dominic was back to the present day, a bag with stuff he had bought at the hardware store just on the other side of the parking lot in one hand and a bunch of keys in the other.

“Everything alright with you?” Marius asked when Dominic reached him. He had been waiting for him, leaning against the door of the truck, and he hadn’t missed the way his friend had grown rigid. It didn’t matter how much pride Dom felt at the idea of being good at hiding feelings: there was always someone that saw right through his shit. And called him out on it.

“I used to have two dogs,” he blurted out with a smile on his face before he could stop himself. They were both loading bags into the trunk of the car and he hadn’t even felt the words slip through his lips that they were already out there in the open. But the memory had hit him with the same force of a freight train, and he had found himself basking in that warm feeling that had started to blossom inside him at the memory. After all, he loved those two pests like his own kids.

He looked up, the feeling of being caught red-handed quickly seeping in, and he found that Marius had a weird look in his eyes as he watched his every move.

“You had two dogs?” his friend quoted, one hand reaching up for the back door of the car. He closed it shut, and the frown didn’t leave his face for a second. “Back during your mission, you mean?”

“Forget about it. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have said it in the first place.” It had always been custom for him to not open up about his undercovers—the person he was when he was on one wasn’t the person he was when he came back to his real life, and that’s how things had to be.

“To hell with your bullshit!”

The first five minutes in the car, however, were spent in silence.

Dominic was still cursing himself mentally for opening his damn mouth—or his memory vault, for what it mattered. It had been the first time he had mentioned anything about her since his return—his return home his friends had cheered him with six months ago, but that homely feeling still had to make an appearance. She had become taboo, and he had done so to protect her—and himself, in a way, for not having to bring her up had seemed to be the most sensible way to forget all about her, at least back then.

But now here he was, catching himself just in time before worsening his case.

“Where are those dogs now?” Marius used the excuse of a red streetlight to speak again and when Dominic looked at him from the corner of his eye, he found his friend already staring.

A shrug of his shoulders will do the trick, or that was what he hoped. Unsuccessfully.

“You’ve barely put full sentences together outside of missions since you came back from Germany. And now you mention two dogs. That you owned, apparently.”

“I didn’t own them, they weren’t mine,” he corrected.

“Whose were they, then?”

The first time Dominic sees her is on a chilly early-April morning. It’s pouring rain outside, and she’s walking two dogs with nothing to shield her from the rain but an old sweatshirt.

It’s half past five in the morning and his first thought is: What the fuck is this girl doing out here in the rain?

He almost slows down his truck when he drives past her. Probably he should be a good person and ask her if she needs a ride, but this side of town is new to him and he doesn’t want to risk anything that would have Fabian put him on his boss’ black book the month after having been fully accepted into the gang.

She’s in his rearview mirror before he has the chance to think his civilized deed through. He finds himself staring for two seconds at most—red sweatshirt, jean shorts that are a tad bit out of season now, and two happy dogs that walk on either side of her without the need for a leash. Then, he’s pulling over and stopping the truck right before the closed garage door of his new two-bedroom house. He still has to fix it—along with other things inside—but Christian has been keeping him busy with errands and whatnot, and he’s lacked the time.

He’s barely out of the vehicle when there’s barking—short, quick barks in succession coming from two different dogs, defying the sound of the rain and the otherwise silence of the early morning. When he turns around, the girl’s dogs are running across the empty street, their owner right behind them, and they’re aiming at him, tails wagging happily and tongues lolling out from open mouths.

They don’t jump up as he expected them to, but they still do take their few seconds of freedom to sniff him up. His shoes, his legs, a hand—and all the while he’s getting soaked through just as much as the girl running over with two leashes in a hand is.

“Hey, buddy,” he coos, almost involuntarily, as he presents the bigger dog with the open palm of his left hand.

It looks like a nice mutt, the fur a shade of brown streaked with white and black, and it excitedly licks his skin after a moment of indecision.

“I’m so sorry.” When he looks up, the young woman is panting, a hand on her side as the other comes up to wipe the rain from her eyes. “C’mon, Otto, come here.”

The white dog with a chocolate-colored stain on the left side of his face is quickly put on his leash, and he sits still by his owner’s feet as she pries Rex from his hand.

“I’m sorry they’ve bothered you,” she offers, and then groans when she can’t seem to attach the leash to the ring in the dog’s collar. “They’re usually well-behaved.”

“No problem,” he smiles.

Rex lunges forward one last time to get a good-bye caress on his head before he eventually chooses to behave and steps back.

“They didn’t do anything but smell me up a bit, it’s all cool.”

She smiles. He smiles. Rex barks happily and turns back to nudge Otto, and both their tails are wild whips against the soaked grass-less ground of his short driveway. Then, she’s gone.

He stares as she runs down the street, thunder finally rolling up high in the steely sky, and he smiles when he hears her laugh and call for the dogs when the rain starts pouring stronger. Then he turns, walks around the back of his truck and up to his door, and leaves the world outside.

That night Dominic sat at the desk in his room. His things had been relocated to a smaller one while he had been away on his mission and although he would have probably complained once, he found that this new accommodation somehow suited him better now. It felt much more secluded and since it was in the newly-built dorm area where his buddies didn’t reside, it felt much calmer. It didn’t give him much need to lie.

And it didn’t give his friends the chance to see that most of his stuff was still in cardboard boxes he had yet to unpack. The mere thought seemed to overwhelm him somehow and even that night, all he did was stare at them for endless minutes before eventually begrudgingly opening his laptop.

The brief and vague chat with Marius that afternoon had given him that sort of push he needed to finally pull out the hard disks and SD cards he had hidden away but that still contained all the files he had to organize. It was nothing major, of course—that kind of stuff had been transferred onto Rainbow servers the moment he had set foot onto British ground, one could say. But he still had private stuff, videos and photographs he had never thought he’d one day keep, back when he had first taken them, but then again, here he was.

Part of his brain did know that wasn’t the smart thing to do, but when he plugged in the black hard disk with that owl sticker she had slapped on it one night after tipsy sex, he found that his hand hesitated on the mouse.

He had chuckled—even now, he could still hear the sound in the otherwise quiet room. It had been at the beginning of that thing that had slowly—and then more and more quickly, like an avalanche effect of some sort—turned into a relationship. Why? he had simply asked, putting his lighter back on the nightstand when she gave it a disgusted look. And she had laughed, too, and he had stared at her sweaty skin glistening in the light of his bedside lamp, at the way her messy bangs stuck to her forehead, and he thought that fuck, what the fuck was he doing? Because I felt like it, she had answered with a shrug and he had laughed deep in his chest before pulling her back over his body.

Maybe he could keep what was in there. He did not have to look, but maybe he’d keep those files stored away in some folder-in-a-folder kind of thing, hidden away from his eyes and hopefully from his mind, until he’d forget all about them. Until he’d stop being a spineless dick, murmured a mean voice in the back of his head.

“Fuck it!” he groaned, finally opening the main folder and watching as his old laptop loaded everything.

There were some pictures he had never stored away in their respective folders, and he suddenly remembered now that it was because he loved them. Loved those two dogs piled up on each other as they slept in his armchair. And loved the way she’d scream song lyrics using an almost-empty beer bottle as a microphone.

Those were memories—and damn good memories at that! There was no reason to shy away from them. Just as a reminder, he reasoned—something to keep for a long time so that it could remind him to keep his head on his shoulders next time he’d be assigned on some other undercover mission. Something that could tell him not to fall for a chick he’d eventually have to leave behind forever. Something that could prove to him that yes, he could enjoy things while living a lie, but that no, there were things he could not bring back home.

Like Rex and Otto.

Or like Y/N.

He meets her again two weeks later, when Fabian drags him along to a club to have fun and maybe get some pussy. Dominic’s not exactly in the mood for pussy for once, still exhausted after having come back from a quick ‘business trip’ to Austria with two other guys, but he doesn’t want to be the buzzkill. He’s also not been in the city long enough, so he’d rather fly low and not risk making even the slightest doubt arise.

So he goes. He dresses up in an all-black combo of pants and shirt, and meets his friend outside one of the clubs Christian owns. The air is warm, and the night traffic buzzes behind his back as Fabian leads him all the way up to the entrance while recounting the weird-ass trip Alex had the first time he did acid. Domi laughs along in all the right points and for a split second, before Julian lets them in without a question, he finds himself thinking that it isn’t so hard after all, to pretend to be someone he’s not every time Fabian’s around. The dude is chill, five or so years younger than he but just as crazy, and there’s this tiny voice in Dominic’s head that seems to whisper to him that they could actually be great pals if the situation and the setting were different.

“What’s your poison?” his friend of sorts asks as he takes him through the place and then to a table—not right up under the stage, but a bit in the back.

“Just beer,” is his reply. He didn’t think he’d be seeing girls perform when he left his house, but now that he’s here and he gets a glimpse of a redhead beauty before she disappears offstage, he’s not exactly opposed.

Fabian’s face is contorted into a grimace of confusion before it opens up into a grin as things seem to clear up in his head. “Oh, yeah, as a warm-up, I see!”

He laughs, leaning back against the seat before he shakes his head. “One of us gotta stay sober enough to take you home when you’re shit-faced,” he bites back, subtly implying to that one time, three months after Dom had officially become a rookie, when Fabian had ridden himself into a tree on his bike. The others had made him look after and take care of the younger idiot, and he had had to swallow down his pride and cater to any and all silly needs he had been presented with and that had felt like a setback in his undercover path.

A girl hurries by then, a serving platter with drinks in hand as she flags down another waitress and mouths something over the music of the new performance, and Fabian is quick at grabbing a hold of her forearm. When she turns around, an expression on her face that makes it clear she would be more than ready to throw hands, it takes Dominic half a minute to recognize her in this new setting.

“Come back to us later, Baby,” Fabian says, his hand moving to swat at her ass before she grabs a hold of it and presses down hard enough to make him wince.

“Don’t make me kick your ass.”

Dominic turns around when she walks past him and watches as she serves drinks at a table. She’s all smiles as she replies back to something she’s being told, and steps back a little when one of the men tries to stretch a hand out and touch her.

“Is that how you act with women?” he asks when he turns back around.

His friend laughs over a text he’s sending—probably to one of the other guys they’re supposed to meet here tonight, or probably to someone else entirely—Dominic does wonder about it, just as he wonders about many things when it comes to the Club, but he voices none of his thoughts. He never does.

“It’s not what you think,” he shrugs, grinning at him before glancing at the brunette performing on stage. He stares for a long while, and Dominic has the time to study some more of the details in the snake tattoo that crawls up the side of his neck and disappears into his hair. “She’s a friend.”

“She’s still not excited about you slapping her butt, though,” the girl in question chimes in when she finally reaches their table again, her serving platter now held securely against her abdomen. “But Fabian’s— Hey!” she grins, stopping mid-sentence when she seems to recognize him from that rainy early morning of fifteen or so days ago. “You’re the new guy on the block.”

“You know each other?”

“Sorta. The boys ran up to him when we were on a walk a few days ago,” she nods, eyes trailing down to where Domi’s left the first two buttons of his shirt undone, tattoos on full display underneath, before moving back to meet his.

Fabian’s pout distracts the both of them, and when she sets her eyes on him, he’s quick at letting out a childish complaint. “You never smile at me like that.”

“Don’t be a douche.” And then, to Dominic: “I’ll pay you real money if you drag him out of here.”

“Geez, women!” Fabian scoffs. “Anyway. Nic, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is Dominic.” He watches briefly as they shake hands before continuing. “She’s off-limits, unless she’ll somehow consider you worthy enough of her and her p— I’m just kidding, Angel!” he pleads, leaning away from her hand as she slaps at his shoulder. “C’mon, be a good girl.”

“You be a good boy and I might not spit in your drink.”

Dominic’s still thinking about her sometime later, after some of the guys have joined him and his company for tonight. They’re watching girls perform, but he’s unfocused. Even the beer in his hand has been forgotten for a while now, as his gaze finds itself being attracted back to the bar—or to wherever she is at the moment.

He stares, and even blatantly so, half listening to Fabian’s words echoing in his mind, and half ignoring them. She’s close to Christian, that’s what he knows: she used to be his sister’s best friend before the girl passed away a few years after finishing high school. And, as Fabian has half-heartedly complained more than once, she’s not that friendly with gang members—if you know what I mean, Nic. Not that he’s thinking about that with her! He barely even knows her. What he does know, however, is that there’s a file, back at Rainbow, that he has to fill with pieces of information he finds out here, and he’s starting to wonder what she could know.

And sometimes—every once in a while and almost covertly—she glances back and meets his eye, and when she finds him staring, she seems to stumble over her words for a heartbeat before the smile is back on her face and she turns her attention back to whatever patron she’s tending to.

He’s back the next Friday night, and the week after that, and on the third week, it starts becoming a habit. Fabian’s with him sometimes; sometimes it’s someone else, but more often—because he starts hanging out at the club on whatever free nights he has during the week—he goes on his own. He drinks, spends money on women, and goes as far as paying for personal dances—and maybe it becomes a bit too often, because one day Christian asks him—through Alex, because Christian’s too busy with a rival gang to do it in person—and mentions something about it.

But the more he sits in there, the closer he somehow seems to get to Y/N—and the closer she seems to get to him. It’s just smiles at first; even when he goes up to the bar to order drinks, she’s always too busy to focus on him only. But then they start exchanging a few words—and in the meantime they wave at each other from opposite sides of the road they live on, when they pass by—and then a few puns, until at some point, probably three, almost four months into his habitual trips to the club, she starts actively seeking him out. And if by any chance he’s absent on one of his regular nights, he finds her politely asking whether everything’s alright on the first night he’s back.

He missed that—missed his club nights and the dancers, even the waitresses. Y/N, of course, although he always did his best not to allow his brain to bring her up. But sometimes, out of the blue, the most random things would make one of the many memories he had stored away out of sight resurface and he found himself thinking about her. It would start subconsciously—with something someone said or did, or maybe it was something he saw in the window of a shop, or in one of the girls he’d find himself dancing with when his friends dragged him along. And then, when he caught himself red-handed, it was hard to stop. His brain would fixate on a memory and the more he willed himself to shift the focus of his attention onto something—anything—else, the harder it was to actually do it.

So, he turned his strategy around. He did that when he transferred all his secreted files onto his laptop—and then onto a new one yet again, when the old thing slowed down too much for him to be able to do work-related things on it. The reasoning was, if he kept those memories where he could easily reach them, then maybe they’d lose that hue of exceptionality and he’d get so used to them that it would finally be easier to coexist with them and all they had once meant.

And the next time Marius asked, tried to pull things out of him the same way he’d done with shards of glass after that one assignment in Bosnia, Dominic found himself loosening up. With him only, no one else for the time being, but it still felt liberating. Marius would listen, and he wouldn’t try to guilt-trip him the same way Domi had done to himself. He’d listen, and chime in every now and then, and then he’d stop asking when it was clear his friend wasn’t comfortable with continuing for now.

Y/N hadn’t come up yet. He told him about the dogs, and the guys—about Fabian most of all, and Markus, the two he had bonded with the most. He talked about the club—and he won’t lie, about the women there and the ones he had ended up in bed or against a wall with, as well. Not many, but enough to make Marius tease him for a while before he eventually relented.

But then one day, when most operators had been sent off on various missions, they decided to go on a trip. They took a Jeep car, loaded it with backpacks and food and tents, and took off for a week to spend camping far from the Base.

It had been quite a long couple of months—with training and simulations and tests, and even weeks spent abroad. And meetings in Harry’s office so that the Agency could see where Dominic’s loyalty lied, and how he was doing, how he was settling back into his old routine, now almost ten months after having come back from Germany. Which he… was, in a way. Settling back into his old routine, that is—everything was normal when he was working, at least.

But opening up to his Director wasn’t the same as opening up to his friend. And probably even Harry knew, or had at least come to that conclusion, for he had relented in his questions and had given him more free time, away from his Rainbow responsibilities.

“So, you were telling me about Fabian the other day.”

Marius’s voice shook him out of his thoughts, and Dominic found himself blinking a couple of times at the pale light of the sun that still had to fully rise. He felt almost as though he had dozed off, his tongue still heavy and laced with the slumber he had been forced to wake up from at two.

“What?” he mumbled, fumbling with his seat belt when he realized his friend had parked the car and it was now time to get out.

He had been sleeping poorly the past few days, with endless thoughts incessantly mulling around in his mind and keeping him awake. Stuff about Germany, but also stuff about Rainbow—missions and briefings and that upgrade he was helping Elias come up with for his shield. It all slowed him down, left him less reactive than he had been in a while, always dozing off when he was supposed to do something else. Even his morning runs had stopped being that nice a distraction.

The cup of coffee Marius pushed into his hands was hot, almost comforting in a way, and it sent a shiver throughout his whole body as they stood there, in the low, late-March temperatures. It was supposed to get warmer as the day progressed, or so the forecasts seemed to promise, and he surely found himself hoping for that to be the case.

“You were saying about how Fabian introduced you to this Angel dude,” Jäger insisted sometime later, when they had heaved their backpacks on their backs and locked the Jeep. They’d be back in a week—or that was the plan, but they both knew that if the weather would take a turn for the worst, they’d be back much sooner, neither of them willing to deal with storms and cold temperatures when they could feel warm somewhere else.

“Angel’s not a dude,” was Dominic’s chuckle.

The sun had finally risen and its light, although still pale, filtered in through the foliage of the forest, casting shapes on the ground and on their faces alike. The temperatures had gone up a bit, but Dom was still glad he had listened to Lera’s advice and had taken off with thermal clothes on.

“Angel is— was,” he quickly corrected himself, casting a quick glance at Marius, walking by his side, “my girlfriend… I guess.”

“You guess?” His friend frowned, not even taking his eyes off of the path they were currently trekking on. They still had quite a few kilometers to go before their next stop and he had absolutely no intention of spending them in silence, not now that Dominic seemed like he had slowly regained his ability to talk and let his tongue loose, although not in everyone’s company. But progress was progress, and he didn’t want to risk and ruin it.

Dominic shrugged. “I’m not sure Y/N and I ever officially defined the relationship.”

“Y/N… Angel, you mean?”

“Yeah, we called her that most of the time. Those dogs I told you about… they were hers.”

Marius nodded. Dominic had started to introduce him to bits and pieces of his undercover life—the clubs, the gang, the dogs, the speed races at night, the way Fabian would often crash on his couch when his partying got too wild and out-of-hand, or the way Markus, three years his junior, would often trail behind him like a lost puppy. It was never a chronological recollection of events, with some kind of thread that would link them together. Sometimes he’d ask questions, making sure to remain as vague as possible when it came to enquiring about someone’s life, and Domi would reply with what came to mind.

But now… Now he had slowly started to piece all those memories together, bit by bit, and he was seeing that it was not all black and white, the way some back at the Organization would make it out to be, but more like grayscale. The good and the bad would mix together in the same bowl, and it would make it hard for anybody to draw absolutes.

“Tell me something about her.”

Dominic’s sitting in Christian’s backyard for the first time in two years and a half. It’s something new, but at the same time it feels so familiar, in a weird and convoluted way, as he’s surrounded by people he knew nothing about just three years ago. He laughs at what his friends say, and even whistles with them when the girl Fabian has shown up with leaves in a hurry after printing the fingers of her left hand across his cheek.

“You truly can’t keep them for more than a week, can you?” Christian laughs, taking a sip from his beer as he and Marcel flip the meat on the barbeque.

Fabian groans. “Always pointing out the details, gee. Anyway!”

Some bickering ensues, and Dominic sits back against the seat of his plastic chair with the rim of his beer bottle grazing his lower lip, barely containing his laughter, but still trying his best because he’s usually the one taking Fabian’s sides—even if just out of pure sarcasm. It all only settles when Franziska walks out of the house, a bowl of salad in each hand, saying something about leaving the poor child alone, what are you? Five? before Marcel pulls her into his side for a kiss.

They’re cute—it’s a weird and intrusive thought as Dominic watches, eyes glinting with a badly concealed smile, but it’s also the truth. Franziska and Marcel are like opposite sides of the same coin, but they somehow fit so well together… He’d tell Marius that, years after that day, and he’d recall the way she’d look up into her lover’s eyes with such emotion that, before Y/N came along, it would have made him feel the pangs of jealousy stab his stomach.

“Ugh, lovebirds.” Markus rolls his eyes, and when Dominic turns his head to look at him, he adds a snort and a wave of his hand.

“Kids.” Marcel shakes his head at Domi, almost as though he knows just how Markus and Fabian can get, and Dominic’s the one who’s spending the most time with them. “Always moaning about what they don’t have.”

But no one’s that serious. They all sort of envy what Marcel has, but they cherish it most of all, and although there’s often some playful mocking during gatherings, Marcel still knows they’d all jump in front of his woman without batting an eyelash if that meant keeping her safe.

There’s commotion coming from inside the house, then. The old dog that had been snoozing by Christian’s feet lifts her head, barking low in the back of her throat, still sleepy, before two dogs dash outside and she’s suddenly chasing them on her three paws, long fluffy tail wagging.

The guys cheer the new-comers and although the white one—it takes Dom a while to recognize Otto, Angel’s dog—jumps and huffs to play with Christian’s Stella, the loud and cheering voices send the other one in a frenzy. Rex runs back and forth, tail wagging as hard as a whip, tongue two meters out of his snout. And it’s such a hilarious sight that it sends Dominic laughing with his other friends as the dog almost trips Eva and that jar of cold lemonade over.

Then, when Dominic’s regained enough breath to stop the wheezing and wipe the tears from his eyes with a hand, he calls him over. “Hey, Rex! C’mere!”

He has no time to see the surprise flash across his friends’ faces, for it’s all downhill from there. Rex stops dead in his tracks, front paws down on the grass to his elbows and butt up in the air, his tail still wagging wildly—and really, he doesn’t know how he hasn’t sprained it yet, or how he hasn’t taken off like in some cartoon. His head turns here and there for half a second before his caramel eyes zero in on him. Before Dominic has the time to beg Stop!, the dog is on him: The impact sends his empty beer bottle flying backward as the chair tips back, a leg snaps, and he’s suddenly half-laying, half-sitting almost horizontally with an ecstatic Rex licking his face and his beard, barely able to keep still in his arms.

The other two dogs are quick to join them, and before Dominic can turn his head to the side and see the way Christian kisses Y/N’s cheek hello or hear the way she groans out a fuck! before she can intervene, two more wet snouts blind and sniff at him.

Sometime later, as Markus is complaining under his breath about the ladies’ ‘rabbit food’, Dominic turns towards Fabian and half-says, half-asks: “I thought she didn’t do members.”

“Huh?” Fabian looks up from where he’s stuffing his face with pork ribs and Franziska’s salad, moaning for a second about how much I love fucking onions, God. But he’s quick at looking where Domi’s quick tilt of the head is pointing.

Y/N and Christian are sitting next to each other, heads close as they discuss something before she feels them staring and sends them a quick smile.

“Oh, no. No.” Fabian coughs as he tries not to choke on his food when he picks up with what Dom’s implying—Jeez, no, shit, Angel and Christian? He laughs, still breathless, and chugs down the glass of lemonade Verena’s poured him. “Nah, she’s like a sister to him. Same for her. It was hard for a while after Mia’s death. The gang…” But he shrugs, cuts himself off and trails his gaze back down on his plate. “It was rough. And they’ve grown real close, but there’s nothing more than fraternal love between them.”

Dominic nods. “Oh, okay.”

He’s thinking nothing of her—or is he? They’ve been hanging out quite a bit these past few weeks. He’s been over at her house for a leaking sink just last Saturday afternoon, and she’s made him stay longer so that they could eat dinner together, watch the wrestling match on TV. He’s not… into her like that, he thinks—yet. Because, really, he wouldn’t mind being.

“Why?” There’s a suggestive smirk growing on his friend’s face. “You thinking of—”

But he’s cut off when Christian calls Dominic and steals his attention. No one discusses business during this kind of gatherings, but there’s a look on the man and his right hand, Marcel’s faces that just makes him think he’ll be hearing from them not long after going back home that night. He’s already made great progress on his undercover assignment, but this truly does start feeling like a step in the right direction.

When the party’s over, that night after dinner, he ends up sitting in Y/N’s car as she takes both of them home. Her dogs would be all up in his neck if it weren’t for the shield provided by the passenger’s seat, and she’s apologizing—although with a grin on her face and a tone that doesn’t make her apology come out that sincere—about their behavior.

“I just don’t understand why they like you so much,” she muses. “Rex most of all.”

He shrugs. “I didn’t even know I was that good with dogs before these two.”

Years later, he’d tell Marius Streicher how pretty she looked, with her make-up slightly smudged and the hair locks that had escaped her now messy bun. How accessible she felt—and not even in a bad way, but more like, he could reach a hand out and poke her cheek with his fingertips, or trail his index along her hairline, down the curve of her ear and touch her piercings, or even just lean back against his seat and just, look at her. How peaceful the interior of her car felt.

He’d tell Marius how Rainbow didn’t exist back then. How it was just him and the wrong waitress he had started falling for. And at the same time, how he still had this thought in the back of his mind, constantly nagging him—what if he ended up blowing up his mission in smoke?

“You’re staring,” she’s saying, smiling, eyes still on the road ahead.

“And you’re blushing.”

If there’s one thing he’s learned about her during his countless nights at the same stupid club, then it’s that she doesn’t blush. Not when his eyes are glued to her. He has stared at her much more lewdly than he’s doing now, most of all with a few drinks too many in his stomach and in his system.

She shrugs, and when she stops the car and Dominic turns back around, he notices they’ve arrived at her house. “You should come in,” she says instead, already getting out of the car and opening the back door to let the dogs out. “You don’t have to,” she adds quickly when he gets out, too. And he can’t see her face now that she’s unlocking her entrance door, but he knows she’s still blushing. “Only if you want.”

He wouldn’t tell Marius how her lips felt against his, nor how the drinks they had in her kitchen tasted when her tongue brushed against his. How she felt in his lap, one of her hands on the back of his head and the other up his shirt, against his tattooed chest. How she ground her hips down against him just right and tore a grunt from deep inside his belly and that vibrated against her lips, making her smile.

He’d tell none of that, but his friend would still understand.

What he did tell Marius, however, as they laid under the starry sky, was that, somehow, no one had felt like her again. Not his random hook-ups, the ones he was guilty of picking either because he needed a distraction or because they reminded him of Angel, and not even Katie, that kindergarten teacher Seamus had introduced to him and with whom he had hung out for a month or so. Nothing serious, and he hadn’t even exactly put effort into it, but a part of him still had tried. More for Seamus’—or even just Katie’s—sake than his own.

It was exactly Katie that Marius brought up with a yawn. And when he asked what had been wrong with her—or, well, maybe not wrong per se but more, I don’t know, brother… Amiss?—Dominic had found himself scoffing.

Katie’s not her—but he didn’t say it out loud. He didn’t say how he had fallen for the way Y/N fought in the ring, how she grimaced or grinned, the way her braids would slap against a cheek or a shoulder when her movements would be too abrupt. He’d go to her after the fights, and sometimes still sweaty and bruised, she’d straight up fuck the living sanity out of him—a hand around his throat and the other on his chest to keep her balance as they went at it on either his or her couch.

“Katie was…” He thought it over, fighting with his words and his brain’s ability to pick the right one. “Too nice.”

Y/N hadn’t been just black or just white—she was a whole spectrum of grays, ranging from one end to the other of it. Soft and kind on any day; but then also fearless and strong when she needed to be, ready to raise hell and fight God when she had to.

Dominic would have never been able to picture Katie on a ring, taking blows and also giving them back, because that wasn’t who Katie was. And although there was absolutely nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with being who you are, it just… wasn’t the same. He never found himself with his wrists tied to the headboard of Katie’s bed, with a blindfold over his eyes, almost holding his breath to see—feel—where she’d touch him next. Or how. Or even with what.

And probably that was why he couldn’t take Angel out of his mind—because he knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t be able to have her again. That she was gone, lost in a chapter of his life that he had reached the end of, and that he had left in the past. And although he did often go back to reread it, that was exactly all he could do—read, but never change a word of it.

“You still have time to add something more, though.”

He had almost dozed off to sleep, the exhaustion and exertion of that day’s worth of hiking catching up with him and his tired limbs. And it was only when Marius uttered those words that he realized he had spoken that inner monologue out loud into the darkness of the night.

The stars were blinking down at him, almost winking at his powerlessness in that situation. He wasn’t scared that she might cut his balls off and feed them to the wolves; nor that she might pull her hair back into two braids and teach him a lesson or two.

What stopped him from working was the very last voicemail she had left him, when she had called his German number for the last time. He had seen her cry—cry with laughter at some stupid joke, or sob her lungs out that one time they watched Marley and Me together, the mere idea of one day losing her dogs tearing her up from the inside out. But the way she had breathed into the phone, trying to hold back the sobs, and the way her voice had broken on every other syllable—Please, Domi, pick up. I don’t understand what’s going on, but I know you’re not with the others—it still wrecked him.

He had listened to it so many times that not only did he know every word by heart, but he could hear her voice—the way it cracked, when she’d sob, when Otto would whine in the background. And what was worse, was that he could see her with his mind’s eye—sitting in the empty tub, or on one of the stools in the kitchen, or even behind the wheel of her car. So strong and resolute… crumbling apart because all he had had to offer was a lie.

Or maybe not all—he had been honest with her. Honest the first time he had told her he loved her, and honest the last time he had professed his love. That hadn’t been a lie. The way he’d hold her at night, when she’d sleep with her head on his chest, or the way he had always been ready to pounce on way-too-daring customers at the club, or when he told her she was the light of his life—none of that had been a lie.

But everything surrounding that? His loyalty to the gang? To the guys? To Christian? His made-up past before he settled down in the city? The real reason he’d sometimes love to go on solo trips and enjoy some peace, when he was in fact meeting up with people from his real life?

“I had my chance,” he decided to say instead, closing his eyes against the night sky. He’d been out stargazing with her, once, the first time they had fucked. It had been sweet and peaceful, until it had turned hotter and messier and sweatier. If he stared up at those stars one minute longer, he knew it, he’d be back on that field, with her trapped between him and the plaid blanket, clothes strewn haphazardly all around. And that was the last thing he needed. “And I wasted it.”

He didn’t say how he wasted it by coming back, but the implicature was still out there, heavy and acrid in the otherwise fresh air of the mountains.

But there had been no backing out of it. Rainbow would have come; something would have been done anyway. At some point in his staying, things had moved too forward before his heart had been able to pick a side, and there had been nothing else he could do. He had broken her heart, but he had also broken his own, and that had been inevitable. A fate he had had zero chances escaping. They had found each other too late, and he’d probably die regretting anything about that case.

There was absolutely no going back there, but he had also started to think that his future didn’t lay in Rainbow anymore, either. It had become too much—and also too little, all at the same time. Gang life surely wasn’t for him, but he was starting to realize that his last undercover mission had ended up messing up with him a bit too much, and although it didn’t exactly interfere with the way he acted in Rainbow, it did with the vision he had of it—and of himself as part of it.

“I think I need a break from this,” he muttered into the night, eyes closed both out of tiredness and that lingering sort of embarrassment he felt any time he addressed how inadequate he now felt. “It’s almost been a year and I still haven’t been able to stop long enough to think.”

He didn’t know if Marius had turned to glance at him in the semi-darkness, before they turned off their torches to sleep, but he knew he had heard.

“What Angel? You’re a little minx,” Dominic chuckles, still out of breath, his chest burning with exhaustion every time it rises and falls. His sweaty back sticks to the leather seats of the car, and he knows the sensation she must be feeling can’t be much different.

But he doesn’t turn to look at her. His gaze is glued to her lace panties, hanging from the gear shift in the front. If he didn’t feel too boneless to lean forward and take her phone from the passenger’s seat, he’d for sure take a picture.

“Who are you calling little?” Her laugh is breathless, and when she moves around like a contortionist to sit up straight, her lips brush against the side of his neck, making his skin break out in gooseflesh and the short hair on the nape of his head tug. “I’m still taller than you with my heels on.”

Laughter rumbles deep in his chest, and he lets her pull his head back when she tugs on his hair with a hand. “Details, pretty doll.”

She doesn’t remind him how she’s kicked his butt just a couple of weeks ago during training and part of him is happy because all they’ve been using that accident as is some sort of foreplay that always ends up with her straddling him, making him tremble with the unexpected touches his blindfold always seems to heighten.

When her finger traces the underside of his cock, however, that chuckle dies on his lips and he gasps almost inaudibly in the back of his throat. Suddenly, his suit pants pulled down to mid-thigh feel constricting and he knows that if she keeps it up, he’ll be hard again soon.

“Don’t.” He didn’t intend for it to come out that way, but his prayer is soft on her lips, when she turns his head to the side to stare into his eyes. “We’re running late for the party.”

She shrugs—and he thinks that fuck, if this car didn’t feel this cramped, he’d fuck her brains out, party or no party, not even when it comes to his boss. “You made me come twice,” she replies, matter-of-factly, not at all moved by his begging or by his breath hitching in the back of his throat when her fingers move down to his balls. “I think it’s just fair I pay back the favor, no?”

His chest and neck are still flushed when he walks into the villa Christian has rented out for his New Year’s party. The initial surprise of Y/N caving in for a member has quickly subsided, and no one whistles in their direction when they see them walk in hand in hand.

They greet their friends, exchange quick hugs, and before long, they’re all drinking and chatting.

“You were late,” Christian says. The expression on his face is serious, but the left corner of his mouth is slowly twitching up into a smirk he manages to hide when he tips his head back and downs his shot.

Dominic shrugs, gaze wandering back to where Angel is catching up with Franziska and Verena, one leg crossed over the other, left bare by the slit in her dress. “Yeah,” he clears his throat, trying not to think about how her panties are still hanging from the gear shift of the car. “We had a setback.” He hesitates on that last word, for he tries to come up with something that could at least sound unassuming, but by God, the crotch of his pants feels like it’s growing tighter and he just knows kissing her won’t be the only thing he’ll be doing when the clock strikes midnight.

Christian laughs. “If my car smells like sex—”

“We rolled the windows down. We’re not animals,” he replies with a snort.

“Just… get it cleaned before you give it back.”

Y/N glances back at them then, eyes twinkling and lips still kiss-swollen and bruised under the lipstick she reapplied before getting out of the car, he’s sure. But before she can call him to her or he can walk up to her a bit stiffly of his own accord, Christian speaks again.

“We still have some time before dinner. There’s a meeting in the other room. Marcel has news on that seemingly lost package.”

Dominic turns around, brows furrowed in confusion, before his brain manages to quickly piece everything back together and he follows the other man down a corridor and into another room. He’s almost forgotten about the new cargo coming in—it’s been a feat lately, to remember he’s not actually one of them but an undercover agent trying to blow a gang up. It’s harder and harder, and he knows the lines aren’t blurred—not yet, at least—but it’s become way too easy, to lose himself in his new friendships and in the unexpected love he’s found here.

But when reality strikes back, it’s hard to distract his mind again.

Anton’s there—and while he isn’t the boss, he’s high up enough to be one of Rainbow’s main concerns. The oldest in the group, he’s rarely there, he rarely shows up. He does work behind the scenes, but that’s where he’d rather stay—away from the kids’ stupidity, or that’s how he always jokes about it.

He’s tall and strong—a whole wardrobe of a man, but Dominic’s still been promoted to be his bodyguard and he can’t help but feel a pang of something deep in his brain, and there’s this unsolicited thought bubbling up that makes him feel all sorts of ways. Maybe someone’s had some suspicions about him, and this is all a test—or this is what he thinks before Anton moves the wrong way and he’s forced to explain that the reason for that agonized groan is the extent of the injuries he’s incurred into not too long ago.

But then they’re all back for dinner, and Dominic doesn’t have time to bask in that wave of relief washing over him when he figures out there’s nothing to fear. They eat and drink and play stupid semi-drunk games, until it’s half an hour to midnight and Y/N has dragged him into a bathroom and unbuckled his belt.

It’s quick and messy, and his fingertips dig hard into the flesh of her hips as they stare into each other’s eyes in the mirror.

“I was thinking,” she hums, wrapped tight around his arm as he walks back with her at five minutes to midnight—enough time to make her come once more, or maybe twice, but Alex has promised a great pyrotechnic show and neither of them wants to miss how he almost gets himself blown up like last year.

“My thoughts are still in that bathroom and you tell me you’re thinking?” he chuckles, pressing a kiss to her cheek before he gives her hand a squeeze, almost as though he’s telling her to just continue.

“You dork,” she laughs. “But yes, I was thinking. Why don’t you move in with me?” she asks. “You’re already there most of the time, and your house is always messy and your couch not comfortable enough for…” She shrugs, trying her best to hide her smirk. “Plus, I’d really love to have you there.”

He feigns thinking about it, but when she gasps in mock shock, he pulls her in for a kiss—and that is when their friends must see and whistle. “I’d never say no to that, Angel.”

Her smile is bright and in the moment, he doesn’t even realize he doesn’t have forever with her, although that’s what he’s come to crave for.

He didn’t know how he let Marius convince him to go back to Germany and see her. He really had no clue, just as he didn’t have a clue about many things—what he’d tell her, how she might react, what he’d do after. How he’d feel after—relieved? like he’s finally had some closure? and how would things be once back in Hereford?

There were a million and one thoughts in his mind as he sat there, on his hotel bed. Harry had offered to let the organization pay for it, but Dominic would have felt too bad if he had let him. This was personal, and there was no saying if his heart still lay within Rainbow schemes. He’d probably keep in touch; he’d probably always be available for anything, really, but the more time passed, the less he thought that was still the right place for him.

Düsseldorf was still buzzing with life despite the torrential rain when he walked out into the street. Y/N—he feared too many emotions and memories would resurface if he let himself think of her as Angel—had moved from the city three years after her lifetime friends had ended up in jail, sent behind bars by none other than her lover. They wouldn’t stay inside forever—he knew how these things worked, he didn’t live a delusion.

He had called her, the day before he had booked his flight. If there was one thing he owed her, it was at least that—let her know he’d be coming… if she wanted him to, that is. If she didn’t want to meet up, then so be it: he’d go on with his life the way he had done throughout the past year and try not to regret too much stuff he had been forced to do because of his job.

But when she had picked up the phone—he had called her old number with his old number—things had felt… well, not normal, of course—he had disappeared overnight without leaving a note or a text or a simple word that could let her know what the fuck had been going on during the past six years of his life—of their life. But she had picked up the phone and she hadn’t killed him through the device, and although she had remained silent for most of the call—and he had done the same, truly, not even knowing what he wanted to tell her, for the words just wouldn’t come—she had eventually agreed to meet up.

Not at her new house, although Harry had done some digging and knew where she lived—a nice apartment in a nice part of the city, but Dominic hadn’t wanted to know where, exactly, when his Director had offered to share the knowledge. She had picked a café, a nice and cozy place he had looked up on the internet, but still popular enough that the awkwardness of their date of sorts would be easily drowned out by the other patrons’ presence.

She was scrolling through her phone when he walked in and spotted her in the far left corner. It was secluded enough to guarantee them some privacy, but still not enough to cut them off from the rest of the world. He figured it was just perfect.

“Hey,” he greeted when he walked up to the table she had picked and he tried not to sigh when he noticed she had pulled her hair back into two braids.

She looked up at him—she didn’t glare the way he had expected her to, but she also didn’t smile. “Hey.”

He sat down, and they both stared at each other until a waiter came up and Y/N called for a coffee and an orange juice before glaring the guy away.

The awkwardness of it all quickly filled the space between them, and wrapped them up like a blanket, but it wasn’t just that. She was pissed, and angry, and probably murderous, but under all that he could still see the heartbreak in her eyes.

“Well, I’m here,” she said. “Say what you wanted to say. It’s the least I deserve, I think.”

Dominic opened his mouth to speak, but then the waiter came back and he closed it again as he watched their order being placed on the table. His cup of black coffee and her glass of juice seemed to put even more distance between them and he had to resist the impulse of passing a hand over his shaved head the way he did when he was nervous.

“I’m sorry,” was what he sighed, lowering his gaze first to the table and then back out of the window and the rain-washed street outside.

She leaned forward and took a sip from the straw before crossing her arms and sitting back against the cushioned back of the booth. “That’s it? You came all the way from wherever the fuck you’ve been hiding to just say I’m sorry? No explanation whatsoever?”

Another sigh, but before he could open his mouth to speak again, she cut him off.

“Was any of that real? Was there at least a crumb of truth? I opened up to you and you just—” Her voice trembled, but whether it was out of tears or pure anger, Dominic couldn’t tell.

“It was real.” He was quick at biting back, probably a bit too aggressively than he had any right to be. “It was real,” he repeated after a moment, voice much quieter and eyes boring into hers. “I did love you.”

“Love’s too big a word for the things you’ve done.”

“It was work,” he tried to reason. “I got sent here on an undercover mission—”

“I know that. I’ve been interrogated by the ones who didn’t go in. They suspected me. Because of you. Because I had been fucking the snitch for almost five years.”

He gaped at her for a moment before sighing in defeat. “I loved you,” but he didn’t say I still do, or You’re still on my mind day in and day out, and not even I still see your panties on the gear shift of Christian’s car. “That wasn’t fake, it wasn’t part of the mission. I told myself I wouldn’t fall for you, that it would mess things up, that it wasn’t fair to you. But I still did. Every I love you I said was real. Every single one of them.”

She was silent for a minute before she scoffed and shook her head. “You’re so full of shit, Dominic.”

It was different this time. She had told him that he was full of shit many a time, always laughing, always joking, but this time those words cut deep—deep enough to rob him of his breath for a moment.

“I trusted you,” she continued then, much quieter, voice barely audible above the sound of the music and of the other people chatting. “I thought you’d be my forever. How stupid I was…”

He looked down at his cup, his throat too knotted to even stomach the idea of drinking his coffee. “That makes two of us. I thought that I—”

“Don’t you even dare—”

“That I’d have more time,” he continued unrelenting, shaking his head with closed eyes for a second before opening them and staring at her again. “That I could buy more time. I kept on hoping I’d fuck up somehow, that things would go wrong and that I wouldn’t have to complete the mission. Or that I could have the time to make you hate me before it was all over.”

“Well, I do kinda hate you now.”

“Breaking your heart was never in my plans, though.” He almost moved his hand on the table to place it over hers, but a last-minute realization made him understand that that was most definitely the worst thing he could do at the moment. And not because she could snap his wrist easily, but because he had no right to. “I really did love you. I wanted to take you back with me. I tried to tell you.”

There was a spark of recognition in her eyes, then, and he knew what memory his words had brought back. The two of them relaxing in the bathtub, her back against his chest, her damp hair tickling his neck and cheek. Come away with me, he had told her, fingers trailing up and down her arms, making her shiver. Let’s go far away, where no one can find us.

“I didn’t want it to end,” he confessed. “Any of that.”

“You built everything on a lie, Dominic.” A scoff. “If that’s even your real name, that is.”

“It is.”

It seemed to take her off guard and erased the words she had been about to say.

“My name’s Dominic Brunsmeier, not Neumann. I work for an international unit of elite agents that fight terrorism. I was assigned on this mission because we were informed Anton was doing more than simply dealing drugs. I went undercover with a Hells Angels chapter in the past, so the GSG-9 called me back for this one,” he confessed, voice flat and almost professional. He would have never thought he’d one day be making such a speech out loud, but there he was, in a busy café, in front of the woman he still had the nerve to love but who didn’t love him back anymore. “And my love for you could’ve never been a lie.”

She nodded once and turned her head to the side and to the city outside. He was trying to gauge what she might be thinking, what might be going on inside her head. But she remained unreadable and distant. “They’d kill you if they knew you’re back,” she eventually said, glancing at him from the corner of her eye, her chin still resting on the palm of her hand.

He shrugged. “I’ve been close to death too many times to be scared today. This past year…” He couldn’t tell her it had been rough; he didn’t think he had the right to when in her eyes he had gone back home. “I knew I had to see you, even if it was for the last time. I didn’t think you’d agree to meet up, but I’m glad you did.”

They were silent after that. They drank their beverages, and all without speaking a word. But then, when they paid and left, she let him accompany her home.

“I thought you’d break my bones,” he confessed with a chuckle as he stood outside her apartment complex and she picked the right key to open the building’s door.

“I thought I would, too.” She was pensive, lost in thought, and it took her a couple of minutes before she pushed the door open. “But the truth is, I probably could never.”

They stared at each other, and before he could have the time to chicken out, he said, “I know it’s too much to ask, but… We could still have time together.”

She looked at him for a moment longer before she stepped into the building and closed the door behind her back.

Later that night, as he sat on his hotel bed once again, on a phone call with Marius, he couldn’t stop thinking about the last words she told him.

Yes, we could.

Feedback is always welcome if you want to drop old me a line 💛

If you want to be tagged, hit me up! xx

#dominic brunsmeier #dominic bandit brunsmeier #rainbow six siege imagine #r6s bandit imagine #dominic brunsmeier imagine #dominic brunsmeier x oc #r6s bandit x oc #rainbow six siege fanfic

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bitchiha · 4 years

Note

I love your worksss 🥺💕💕 so I’m new in the tobirama club so can i request sfw and nsfw headcanons of him?? 🥰✌🏻

General Sfw and Nsfw Tobirama

A/N: It always scares me to right for Tobirama even tho he’s literally hot as fuck, but I feel like I won’t do his character justice. N e ways I hope I did! Love you and thanks for this request!!

Sfw

Okay so Tobirama can kind of be mean and sometimes it doesn’t look like he’s even sorry about it. But when he hurts his s/o just know he’s gonna feel guilty as fuck... Truth is, he’s not gonna tell you he’s sorry though. He’s a stubborn fuck like that. BUT, if he made you cry he will probably apologize. Aside from that he’ll just be trying to put himself back in your good books. Like by buying you gifts, being more affectionate, initiating more conversations (because lord knows you carry this fucking relationship), etc.

Hates hates hates hates hates!! If he spots an Uchiha in your general vicinity. And oh my shawty, if he sees you speaking to one? Don’t talk to him. Like fuck you, you literally just stabbed him in the back, did you know that? Did you know the pain he felt? Well looks like he’s not gonna tell you about it because he is going to pretend you don’t exist for a good week.

You’re the optimistic and idealistic one in the relationship which creates good balance, but also sucks because he’s such a downer sometimes. Like okay, one of your houseplants was half dead and you thought you had revived it, or at least began to, but when you asked Tobirama if he thought the plants health was getting better he laughed. Not even a joking laugh. It was a “stop lying to yourself” laugh. And you had to stand there like, “I- that’s so mean” while he walked away.

There’s one thing makes him 100% softer and that he absolutely loves!! and that is: if you wanna go to his office at around lunchtime and drop him off a little homemade bento. He will be crying from happiness internally. Of course he doesn’t show it, but this display of appropriate and beneficial affection makes him so proud. Loves to flex it on Hashirama, he constantly brags about you to him and the poor guy is so fed up lol. Will not hesitate to tell you if you overcooked the meat though.

He needs to be the big spoon when you cuddle. And that’s if you cuddle. Sometimes this fucker is way too conservative, like Tobirama... y’all are fucking married. You can put your arm around them. It’s not a crime. Is less reluctant to cuddling you if you read to him though. He won’t ask of course. You’ll have to ask him once you pick up on the impression that he wants you to. He likes to give you hints, like he just stares at the bookshelf longingly or he’ll start talking about how he really enjoyed the book you had read him last time. Eventually you just have to give in and pretend to be all like: WOW! this idea totally just popped into my head and I’d love it if you’d agree to it, Tobirama! Would you mind if I read to you?

He’s kinda like an excited bratty child and he will pretend to consider your offer before saying yes. The “yes” is a little rushed though and it reaffirms his true feelings. Then he gets comfortable in bed and listens to your voice as you read off the pages. After the first few paragraphs his hand will snake onto your waist and nonchalantly pull you closer. Don’t look at him when he does though because he will jut his chin away defiantly. If he had a particularly tiring day he will pass out after the first or second chapter, but the little shit will wake up if you stop reading right after he falls asleep. So you have to read a chapter more to make sure he’s fully out. It’s actually really cute because he’s usually never this intimate and his head is on your chest as he begins to snore quietly.

Okay also Tobirama is lowkey a sugar daddy. Hear me out. Like he’s not always the best with affectionate words, but he likes to give you things to make up for it. Knows your hobbies and will gift you the most top quality things for it. If you like reading? Just know he’s gonna have rows and rows of books for you. If you like painting he will make sure you have paintings from the most famous artists and top supplies.

He is also super protective of you. Like will straight up end someone’s political career if he hears one remotely questionable thing in the same sentence as your name. Like lol bye don’t talk about his significant other. Nobodies talking shit his significant other or is going to try and defile their name. Its gotten to the point where people are extra cautious so as to not say your name within a one mile radius of Tobirama.

Thoroughly enjoys showing you his new inventions. Like he will come home surprisingly more talkative then usual and he’ll finally burst and say, “Y/n, I want to show you something.” (A little too eagerly) And you’ll kind of be scared because like he’s acting kinda sus and then next thing you know he’s like “shadow clone jutsu!” And there’s two of your Tobiramas. Absolutely loves that surprised and impressed look on your face. Prepare yourself for a very long and albeit boring in-depth explanation of how he created it. Make sure you listen or else he will huff and puff. Lowkey quizzes you afterwards just to make sure you were listening.

Nsfw

Okay so I see tobirama as being traditional with sex for the most part, but he has his moments. Like if he gets worked up enough and he needs to let off some steam then he will be way more intense.

He is also fairly quiet during sex. The only times you can actually make him noisy is when he’s tired and doesn’t bother to hide his pleasure. Is not the biggest fan of dirty talk either, but if he gets jealous or you make him angry he will be calling you a needy slut or an Uchiha slut. Other than that, he will occasionally mutter praise, but pretends like he didn’t say it.

I feel like he would also get a little blushy if you’re loud for him. But just generally has a blushy face when having sex. Not cause he’s embarrassed, but it just kinda happens. Your moans gives him a major ego boost, though. But as long as it’s in the confinement’s of your home because I don’t see Tobirama ever having public sex, but if it ever happened and you started moaning he would literally throw you off him. Like he does NOT wanna get caught. Hello? He as a reputation to maintain! But as long as you’re at home and you’re begging for more with your hands in his hair he will be more than pleased.

He needs to be in charge. If you put up a fight to be the dom then he’ll get really mad and childish and he’ll make you say that he’s in charge (once he’s manhandled you underneath him.) “Say it, y/n.” And if you want to be a brat about it he’s just gonna be rougher tbh, which is why you usually piss him off lol. Like he’s literally so fucking stubborn that he won’t stop until you say it. You’ll be sore after, but you love toying with him too much to stop.

The best angry / frustrated sex is after Hashirama does something fucking stupid. Like he doesn’t listen to Tobiramas warnings about the Uchihas and does something in attempt to be buddy buddy with them. And you can tell when he’s gonna get rough because he’ll barge into the house after work grumbling and groaning. You’ll have to pop your head out from around the corner and be like, “Tobirama! How was your day?” for precaution just to make sure he is not gonna blow up. And he’s just gonna look at you and grunt out a “come here.” And next thing you know you’re getting fucked against the door to your house.

Also like lazy sex is kinda bomb as fuck with him. Like he’s had a rough day at work and you go to run him a bath and he follows you. Literally just starts undressing as he follows you to the washroom and then he starts undressing you too. Helps you into the tub first and then clambers in after you.

It starts pretty innocent. You reach forward to massage his shoulders and he leans back with his eyes shut, letting out all the pent up sighs he had been holding in from the day. Then after a while he wants more, so he’ll pull you ontop of him and you can feel his hard cock and you know what he wants. It’s these very rare times that he lets you take control. He’ll help line you up with his dick before letting you basically just ride him.

The waters hot and warm and it just feels so nice. He won’t even try and hold back his noises. His mouth lets out soft grunts and groans and even some encouragement. Just like imagine his hair wet and dampened as his head leans against the edge of the bath tub. Like his eyes alternating from squeezing shut from the pleasure to looking at you through his half lidded eyes. His hands gently help lift you up and down if needed and as you both get closer to your climaxes. You two could care a less about the water sloshing over the edge of the tub. It’s hot. Literally chefs kiss bye.

Shittiest at aftercare though. It’s just not something that he’s good at. He will run a bath for you or go to the kitchen and get you both some water, but that’s only if he feels like it.

#tobirama #tobirama senju #naruto #naruto headcanons #naruto imagines #tobirama senju x reader #tobirama x reader #naruto headcanon #tobirama headcanons #Naruto Shippuden

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blankdblank · 3 years

Text

Brother Dearest Pt 67

English Composition broke off the animated chatter of the latest slew of papers that mentioned the President’s words and then delved to new directions while you settled into the new desk off the side of the front row without an attached desk. A few days back in the former week the evident inch to the side you made to avoid squishing your belly with the L shaped attached desk that brought out one of the desks set aside for the occasional expecting mothers to begin the start of the difference of your place in classes. Beginnings of more changes that were to come while eyes could now gauge just how long you might have left and every loop of your arms around the protruding belly that occasionally you amusingly rested things on top of to find comfortable positions or angles to work with as much ease as possible.

Trig and Calculus held more room in their desks for the men usually in use of them. The latest stories on new discoveries from the new large telescopes were brought out for Astronomy and books were consulted to enforce what facts and details were necessary to understand the news fully. A sudden glance to the clock on the wall by one student when the class felt a bit long had you all scramble for gathering your things to free seats for the incoming students while you made for the next class. The empty seat for you seemed to put a lock on your Sociology class that all looked your way when you came in a few minutes late. One hushed apology and an explanation and in relief the Professor began the lesson when you took your seat after a chuckle at the distraction from the latest news from space.

Hot and humid random bouts of breezes from open windows and turning fans to the final class after having spent a good part of the last class with a spare bit of folded paper in hand to keep cool. Quick and sharp mid paragraph on an argument to answer the prompt given a shriek left your lips at the feathery body that collapsed onto your desk. Over your lips to the shiver of feathers and fix of wings your hand settled for a wide eyed stare at the now upright Barred Owl that sat atop your desk that blinked at you to the open of the classroom door revealing the twins who wide eyed found you and the reason for your shriek that called them there.

The soft squeak heard in the silent room had its head turn and named the reason why it had flown in, a small mouse was snatched up and carried back out the open window. Quietly the twins eased back out of the classroom while your Professor came over to help pick up your things that had been scattered to the floor uncertain of what to say other than to remind of how much longer he was to give the class to finish filling out the sheet. To a pat of your free hand on your belly you got back to the assignment that afterwards two people were chosen to share their answers with the rest of the lesson to follow. Another note however once class was called found you on the way back to the fake courtroom again where you flashed a grin to the students gathered there.

The TA came over at the side of the lead Professor who grinned and greeted you, “Welcome, welcome. Heard you had a mishap with an owl.”

“Oh, ya, flew in a window to chase a mouse and landed on my desk. No harm done. These cases better than the last two?”

The Ta said, “Well, Divorce Hearing and an Art Heist Trial. Hard to have as many difficulties as before, these two Lawyers do try to make difficult cases with new plot lines compared to the first two.”

You nodded and glanced to the preteen near to one of the students who was accepting a packet of his own and asked, “That kid is part of the cases too?”

The Professor nodded, “Yes, Billy’s brother to stand in as his son for the case. Usually hangs around after his class gets out so they can head home together and in a couple weeks will be out of class and have plenty of time to come and help with the Divorce Hearing if we did need a testimony from the child involved.”

“How is there the same amount of evidence for these cases as the first two? I take it there’s one for the divorce and the rest are for the heist?”

“Half and half actually,” that had you huff.

“Let me guess, I get to read another diary of the loosest men and women legally tethered together.”

The TA as you accepted the clipboard to sign the form to accept the file boxes now loaded onto a dolly by him smirked saying, “I wish we had more to offer case wise than attacks on character and morals. You must be exhausted of it after having to read the first set of evidence.”

In passing back the clipboard to the 2nd Professor who approached you replied, “We can barely go a mass without hearing the word whore, I’m not exhausted the word has lost its sting and I’m just disappointed honestly at the lack of imagination. I know children who can reduce grown men to tears if they need help on that front they could even consult Officer Browen’s boy, he could blow these cases out of the water for what they could be.”

Making the men chuckle and grin to the TA who said, “True, very true. Hopefully next year we could add in a line of teens to run these cases by. You know I can’t remember going through a week of high school without crying.” He said playfully on your joint step to the door and he asked, “You?”

“Well, I was an orphan in a Catholic School, practically disowned and I can’t remember speaking without my voice cracking until I got into the school in Canada that got us girls enrolled in Nursing courses to help the efforts.”

“They really got you in high school?” He paused and said, “I know you’re young, but how young were you?”

“Fifteen, for the Nursing courses, then um, I was sixteen when me and Eddie got sent to that base hospital. I’m 22 now, got my GED a couple years after I’d have graduated high school. So my odd timeline is a bit jumbled compared to normal education markers.”

“Wow, 22, and that’s with a Bachelor’s Degree of Medicine?”

“Science, but, same horse different hat.”

“And with babies on the way in the middle of more degree hunting. And I thought my working nights while at school was rough.”

“My dad worked in a factory to fund his try for a degree here and to save money for my schooling and my other brother Steve’s. Neither of them got to their degree but I am determined to get to the finish line.”

“Well save for more owl attacks you should get there in no time,” he joked and you chuckled to yourself and slowly took the few steps between wings he eased the dolly down the steps. Excited chatter picked up to the soft sway of the fan in your hand to try and bring up any details that could let on how much fun or how long these two cases might last.

James outside of the car smiled in opening the trunk for him and helped to load up the six cases then watched the TA hurry back while you lowered into the car to sit down out of the sun. Behind you the boxes were levitated to the library where you settled the Art Heist Evidence that your family gladly listened to the case that had one twin out of a pair that could both likely be culpable for the crime. And yet the one on trial had a sound seeming alibi merely for the hint that the lead in charge of the investigation had a grudge with him. The twin spurned his daughter years prior and contrasting the ridiculous crime itself.

With little proof they arrested him for the robbery on Mr Barnham’s mansion, one of several he owns, while he threw a costume party at another. Several priceless gold statues along with gem accented decorations were taken along with a solid ruby/ivory/ebony piano and a variety of black market paintings and marbles. Almost all of the black market pieces were returned to the museums and exhibits they were stolen from. The gem based goods are still missing. All the portraits and statues were replaced by ones modeled around cats.

Every testimony was read through before you closed the box after finishing on the alibi for the twin on trial that had you hope they pulled that up quick to have you throw the case out. Although for your luck you knew they would want to stretch it out to use as much of the information given as possible.

Emil Schmidt – Age 32, Job – Advertising, Parents well off, Met in high school. Has had several affairs then he filed for separation. Already in new relationship with latest mistress who is a co-worker. That was the Husband in the mix before you delved into the Wife and child.

Wife – Sylvia Schmidt – Age 31. Daughter of a painter, painter herself, mother is a concert pianist. Tried to file for separation before then she found out she was pregnant and had to stay with him for son’s sake. Their nine year old son was in several clubs with great grades.

The witnesses for the Husband sprawled out from bad to worse and almost had you in a fight against tears for what these pretend people were saying about this nonexistent woman. Friend who tries to say wife could be a better mom and wasn’t a good wife. Former Boss of hers in gallery to say she couldn’t keep up with employment to hint she would be unable to provide for son. A shrink he had consulted about her who hasn’t seen or spoken to her who diagnosed her as unstable. Assistant who says she demands gifts and is bad with and is after money.

Fully contrasting her witnesses that weren’t as venomous against him as his had been at her. Ex Mistress, bad breakup with hubby for younger woman, not the only one. Former Driver who says husband drinks heavily and has seen him degrade her over the years. Current Mistress of the Hubby. Tutor for son who says he’s been to both places and seen conditions son has to study in. Mom helps him but dad’s has more space for him to spread out his work.

Assets came next with little mention of anything concrete for the future of the family that furrowed your brows and had Eddie ask, “Problem with the case?”

“He has no will, no investments, doesn’t even own the house they’re fighting over,” you flipped the page, “Or the car.”

James rumbled, “That’s a terrible plan. Nine year old, what happens if he kicks it?”

Victor, “Even for the new Wife, no matter how young she is, I take it she’s younger than the current Mrs Schmidt?”

“Eleven years younger.” That had the brothers chortle and you said, “And eleven years older than their son.”

Eddie, “Now that’s shameful. One for the Mrs and two above all for the kid.” He pointed to James, “I mean you’re 117 years older than Bunny but even if there was an adult kid involved her and them wouldn’t be almost on even scales maturity wise. 9 is a short skip to teens when feelings and hormones start to rage and that Mistress just out of her teens relates more to the kid than the dad who grew up pre-Depression while she grew up after. I mean he’s old enough to have been drafted with a kid left behind and the Mistress was still in school probably running bond raises.”

Unable to help it you giggled and in Eddie’s rise to go help Teddy lift his bucket of colors that got stuck you caught James’ eye and made him ask you, “What’s funny?”

“What was your fake birth year again?”

That had him chuckle and Victor said, “You’re still half his age with the fake numbers. Bumped our years up a century.”

Norma giggled and leaned in to press a kiss to her husband’s cheek, “And you look phenomenal for your age.”

“Oh, Jeanie, I have that screenplay, or the first half of it, if you’ll check what I have for it?” She nodded and when you were helped up she joined you in the living room where you left your bag to offer her the notebook you had been writing the new draft inside to be typed up later on when it was finished properly up to par. Onto the chairs you settled and in her move to your side with use of a red pen you made note of the changes she mentioned on the pages for small things that could be expanded upon later in the new draft you would have completed by the days off.

Two more Photography Clubs and a meet up of the Paper came between you and your free Friday evening that had you with a second notebook to hold the draft for now the whole screenplay that you made note could possibly stretch the film to three hours if they cut nothing out. At your side with equally as furrowed brows Eddie typed up the second half of the screenplay while you typed up the first half on matching typewriters to get the task completed quicker. And by the time you were on the final page the doorbell sounded and with news of more casting news Stark came in and boasted to you all before with a smile he took hold of the first chunk of the screenplay he chose a chair to dig in to the more detailed layout.

“Bunny this is brilliant,” he said while Eddie took the final page he shook and laid on top of the upside down stack he stood to ease underneath your stack you added your own final page to moments prior to complete the hefty screenplay.

“I thought it might be a bit too thick actually.”

“No,” he said, “I love the extra bits, any that you’ve added. And it gives us some cushion for later to work with.”

“Well I think that’s all of it, so you won’t be held up by it.”

“I am not held up. But I can get this to the printer today and by tomorrow for the new copies of scripts to hand out. I’ll make sure you get a couple copies yourself on top of Norma’s.”

“Okay, hopefully I didn’t miss a typo in there.”

Eddie smirked and said, “There’s an x’ed out R in mine.”

Howard chuckled and said, “Doesn’t matter, the printer will skip that.”

“If anything I think Jeanie will have it memorized by the time you are filming, she’s given the drafts a few reads and given me some notes on how to fix it up.”

Jarvis beside him asked, “How do you plan to spend your day off?”

“Well Ambrose and her Husband are expecting us at the birthing class tonight. There’s only four moms in town due soon and the Nuns like even numbers, so even though they know the ins and outs they’re up for support.”

Howard said, “Didn’t you help with the three munchkins around here?”

“Ya, but still, it’s sort of expected and since I see another Doctor and not the Maternity Home here weekly they still invited me to participate in their classes. I mean three babies at once, could use all the tips I can get. And I think it’d be worth the giggle to have James mothering a doll. Him and Vic melt just tucking in Teddy’s bear in with him at nap time.”

Howard chuckled and said, “Well I hope it helps. Heard they even have meditation now for moms.”

“Just hope they don’t try to get me to lay down on the floor like they did with Gina in her last baby, I need a nest to lay down on my side and on my back is out of the question.”

Lunch was next in the absence of your guests and afterwards signaled Gina and her Husband’s arrival to escort you and James through town to the same Maternity Home where you saw the elated Nurses and Nuns there in the clinic you passed through. Beyond the mothers not so far along and those who had already given birth you felt eyes on your wide belly that was visible in the dips of your dark grey overall shorts that rested over the peach polka dot coated sleeveless blouse. Right beside you with hand on your back James strolled with a grin on his face for this next step that would hopefully help to warm you up to the change coming. Nervous slightly himself to see what the lessons were on since the last time he was expecting a child there were no prenatal classes to be had. As if Eddie and Victor’s sharing of classes had simply been wiped from his mind now that you were here. And the sight of Dr Roan who smiled widely had you smile back on the way to the side room where a quartet of mats were laid out on the floor.

“Ambrose, and Bunny,” the glasses wearing nurse with a Scottish accent said with a smile and said, “You two can get ready to settle onto your mats with daddy behind you.”

With a small grin you hushedly spoke with Ambrose and James to choose between the final two open mats where James lowered with hold of your hips to help you down to your knees. Gently to your right side you lowered to your hip after releasing the hands of the most experienced Nun who came to check on you herself after not having seen you since Teddy’s rough birth. “There you are Bunny.” Her smile spread to the sight of your tucking your legs underneath you in a slight lean forward that aided in James’ gentle stroke of your back as he settled his legs on either side of yours. “How are you feeling?”

“Good, made sure to eat first so the girls are in a good mood.”

“That is very good,” she said and moved to check on the other mothers making sure to recall to check on you later when the class was over.

The second soft speaking Nun who to the record that the Nurse with glasses turned on to set a calming mood for the beginnings of recommendations on positions, “And if you can stretch out your legs and lean back into Daddy’s chest.”

Her eyes landed on you that had you giggle and say, “I can’t stretch my legs straight out or my feet go numb when I’m upright.”

And softly she chuckled, “Best we don’t have that. Cross legged is just fine, and will help to stretch your pelvis and thighs for your babies.” Moving to stroll around the other couples while you smiled at Ambrose in her relax into her husband’s chest as James eased you back into his to take your weight and let you relax.

Talks and a few sparse jokes mingled through the guided show on breathing and close eyed guided meditation to help relax through birth until the talks of how baby shifts that a fellow young mom to be in the back was being guided through this by her mom. “This is where your down bellows sneeze on you.”

That had you giggle along with James to the Nun saying, “The mucus plug is next to arrive on you, yes.”

That had Ambrose look your way and she giggled to your point her way as you said, “I remember for your second you let out this shriek in the toilets at the market, frightened that girl Bridget to almost wet herself thinking someone had broken in.”

James hummed, “Must have been a fun story to share with you,” to her Husband who smiled and shook his head.

You giggled again as Ambrose said, “Only thing more terrifying to him than a baby coming out was knowing there’s more to it than that.”

The Nun chuckled and guided you through the next set of steps and got into a few positions to help labor along until she asked each of you how you planned to have the babies you were carrying. Ending with you of course that had you giggle and say, “Bit hard to plan mine. My Doctor has been talking about either a push birth or a possible c-section. Planning for both I suppose.”

“Are you frightened about that?”

With a shrug you said, “They’re going to have to come out one way or another. And I seem to be following the plan superbly, and that’s a quote from my Doctor who would know the best way to go after having helped my mom have me.”

The other two mothers in more in depth conversations delved into that with the arrived Nurses from the now closed clinic with Dr Roan in their group who came to lower at your side and sit on the ground with a kind smile. “We are all glad to see you here today. Are you in the third trimester mark already?”

With a nod you answered, “28 weeks tomorrow, so just on the cusp of it.”

“And your next appointment is?”

“Tomorrow,” you said and to the shift of your belly his smile widened and you said, “They love to kick and wrestle around.”

“May I?” he asked in a lift of his hands and you nodded and guided his hands to rest a palm on each baby and the third the Nun felt.

“There’s a butt here, and this one’s a head, and a back here. At least for now until they swim around on me.”

The Nun asked, “Is your tummy always this stiff?”

“Only a few hours after I eat, then I get these weird gurgling noises and it all relaxes. My Doctor said it’s just my system adjusting to the new weight and moving gasses.”

That had her grin ease out as he said, “Well you seem to be growing very well with little signs of discomfort.”

A tape measure was produced with impressed grins at the size and shared presumed weight of four and a half pounds each so far by what you had gained taken as guesses by your Doctor. All promising of good signs you could make it to the final few weeks if possible. And all seemed to be in high spirits when your sister and brother in law led you and James back home to relax again and share about the first class.

Eisenhower broke the silence of the upright courtroom, “Good Afternoon, be seated.”

He sat next in the ripple of replied, “Good Afternoon, Your Honor.” and eyed the crowd who took their seats again to the approach of Officer McTavish who passed you a sheet of paper for the open file on the desk after he read, “Good Afternoon Judge. This is case number #. The State of New York vs Lewis Patzer.”

“Thank you Officer McTavish.” Your eyes shifted over the eager students in their assigned seats on Council and the trio on trial who simply were waiting for you to ask, “Are all parties and Council present?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” both sides stated and then the Prosecution stood for the one in the paler suit to speak, “District Attorney Antonio Speltzer for the Prosecution and this is Thomas Wnters for Assistant District Attorney.”

They sat down and while the judges took note of the progress to far or procedure being followed the Defense got their turn to stand to name their three male pretend client on his feet beside him, “Vernon Dorman, Your Honor, on behalf of Lewis Patzer.”

You asked when they sat down to the General’s own check mark on his procedure notes at your right, “Are all parties ready to continue?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” the four Lawyers stated and from your notes you eyed the charges to be read off for each.

“Lewis Patzer,” you said and the student for her and for Vernon Dorman stood for the read of charges, “You are charged with Robbery and Possession of Stolen Goods, how do you plead?”

To the charges Stark’s mouth quirked up into a grin just barely in shock for what sort of trial this was and he heard his lawyer state, “Not Guilty, Your Honor.”

You nodded and made your own note of that on your notepad and stated, “The Court is ready to hear recommendations on bail now.”

For that the DA Antonio Speltzer stood and with notes in hand stated, “Your Honor the State recommends bail be withheld on each of the Defendants. Mr Peltzer is in possession of ample funds from this crime and is able to fund an escape out of the country.”

Lawyer for Mr Peltzer, Vernon Dorman stood and said, “Your Honor, my client is innocent in all of this. And was merely arrested on counts of bias on behalf of the Lead Investigator. He has no criminal history. Your Honor my client is willing to surrender his passport to remain at home through this baseless trial.”

The curious author who watched his trial come to life and wet his lips as you said, “Agreed, bail is set at $. Officer Browen please escort Mr Peltzer out to see to that.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” he said accepting the signed bail sheet you handed over to him while the Defendant and his attorney thanked you to the scoffs of the DA in mock irritation to his being freed.

Smirks spread through the audience as the trio stood and were escorted out to the nearest room in the hall outside while notes were taken of this part of the trial being covered and both sides of Council readied as one by one from the final group of 24 students the Jury questioning was carried out. Just a couple questions were asked to speed up the process out of the pre-selected groups from each side with some removed and traded for more acceptable options.

Jury – 12 people

7 male/ 5 female

3 Late 30’s and up / 9 Low 30’s -18

8 rich/ 4 blue collar

To the assignment of those Jurors those students were relieved to fill up the only Juror Pool of these final set of trials and were excused from the courtroom to be given proper instruction while you closed the case for the day and stated the date that the case would be resumed. Pleased with the first step concluded the Council all filed out to take seats and allow the Council for the second case to file in for their own turn.

Schmidt vs Schmidt

“Are both parties present and ready?”

Both on their feet the Husband’s Lawyer Samuel Felton and the Wife’s Lawyer Lee Hogue spoke together, “Yes, Your Honor.”

“Samuel Felton here today for Emil Schmidt.” And the other Lawyer spoke, “Lee Hogue on behalf of Sylvia Schmidt.”

You nodded and asked, “Have you two at least come to the agreement on who opens the case?”

Lee Hogue smirked and said, “We have, Your Honor.” While the other students sat he continued to share the background of the relationship of the duo. “Almost out of a storybook these two met, Mr Schmidt from white collar roots while my client came from a daughter of a painter and a concert pianist who over the dividing lines of an artistic family and one of a more pragmatic family bent on successful business ledgers began to date in High School. And over the years Mrs Schmidt has faithfully stood beside Mr Schmidt through numerous infidelities and social set backs while he found his footing in the Advertising world. A trial separation by my client was approached nearly a decade ago until it was confirmed she was pregnant with their child, Daniel, who is nine now. We are here today because Mr Schmidt again is in another relationship outside of the marriage and wishes to marry his mistress whom he met at his place of employment.”

“Very well,” General Eisenhower stated in the sip of water you took from the glass at your seat to wash down the scratch you felt at the back of your throat to a speck of dust in the air that wafted down from the fans above now in use after months of sitting stationary.

To the lower of the glass mention of the offered prenuptial agreement was detailed and then the points of deal breakers ended the day on a term of complete shambles to negotiations and work ahead to add in new assets gained since the date of the wedding. And the hushed murmurs and stolen glances were silenced with a welcomed gavel slam to free you all into cooler halls with notice of Friday as the next day to meet up.

Divorce outside of your case found itself in the headlines and above the picture of the moment where you and James stole a kiss after the trial. Your hand on his belly and his on yours in the toe top pose had speculation that a divorce and custody battle was underway with a wait until the baby was born for him to drop the bomb on you. Giggles and chuckled comments was the response when the headline was brought up with your grin being split wider to the jokes your favored Professors had come up with for this new development on yet another story in poor taste.

All false but it sold papers and for the addition to the piles of headlines like tear away calendars that got you closer to another week closer to Canada. Closer to the film that Norma was so eager to get started on that you had written and the home repairs that could keep the guys from hovering around you like concerned chickens ready to cuddle with the incoming babies. Dawn as well looked forward to be back near to her family who was aching to see how big Teddy and Marigold had grown and shower their grandbabies with as much love as possible to help grant ample time for you to relax and focus on your nesting phase.

Small steps would get you home again and your lives ready for this next step. Small steps like the next day where you completed another yearbook event you photographed while Portia took notes on the event for the paper. And while Victor printed the photographs for you up in the new Nursery where James found and smiled joining you in arranging small things around the trio of cribs the Brocks had lovingly made quilts and cushioned covers for the inside of them. Careful tucks and adjustments of items around the built in units the guys made for you while you were at school covering a full wall to the changing table opposite the mural coated wall the supply of diaper cloths with snaps to avoid delirious accidental stabs on pins was given their weekly refold.

Up around your back James molded and covered your belly with his hands to a press of his lips on your temple and murmured lovingly, “We’ll be ready for the girls.”

“We need gates for the steps,” that had him smirk and he hummed approvingly as you said, “Teddy nearly flipped over the pop up ones last month. Frightened Dawn half to death and Goldie and Petal will be up and around soon.”

“Okay, let’s sketch some stair gates. Me and Vic will make them while you’re at school and Dawn takes the munchkins to Mamma Brock’s.”

You nodded and to the sitting area in your room he helped you to come up with a simple solid door on a hinge with horizontal planks anchored by two vertical boards on either side with a board diagonally cut between them. Like small barn doors they would be anchored on hinges that would lock in place on the opposite banister to keep the babies from being able to clamber down the stairs without an adult to guide them. Grey and white were the chosen colors and everyone loved the designs that after supper James and Victor got to measuring the staircases for each at the tops and bottoms while you and Dawn soaked your feet.

Pt 68

All –

@sherala007, @mariannetora, @jesgisborne, @knitastically, @catthefearless, @theincaprincess, ggbbhehe4455, @lilith15000, @alishlieb,

Not nsfw(smut) - @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore

X Marvel-Cast - @himoverflowers, @theincaprincess, @changlingkhat

Brother Dearest - @thorinanddwalinsdwarrowdam, @swoopswishsward

#James Howlett x OC #Victor Creed x Norma Jeane #Eddie Brock x OC #Venom #Howard Stark #Edwin Jarvis #Mock Trials Begin #Baby Gates #Nesting Worries #maternity class

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electricshoebox · 3 years

Note

7 and 15 (for TEOTS?) 🙂💜

Aw thank you friend!

7. what is you favourite sentence/paragraph? read it to us! Well first of all thank you for asking in general and for TEOTS in particular because this would be a lot harder with A Line in the Sand lol. Secondly, I'm afraid I don't have an easy means of recording myself, and I'd kinda feel extremely self-conscious (I can babble on stream but reading my own writing feels a little weird), so I'm just going to quote. This was an angsty little thing, but I felt good about Deacon finally putting words to this.

He’s let MacCready help. Well. He’s let MacCready help to a point. He frowns as he lets the punching bag settle again while he circles it. Deacon’s let MacCready in closer than anyone else has ever gotten to be, close enough to be part of the thing Deacon cares about most. But even then, as far and as deep as that trust has carried them, there is a point where Deacon does draw a line. Because… because Deacon would give everything for the Railroad. He doesn’t know how not to. He doesn’t know how to be any other way. He doesn’t know how to give less than his life, because giving his life is the only thing that feels like giving enough. It’s the only fair trade. Barbara gave up hers just for being what she was. How could he give any less and still have it be enough?

15. describe your wip in the weirdest/most contrived way possible! Oh my god. Okay. God. "Bestselling instructional manual for spies and mercenaries who fall in love and have to figure things out from there, featuring sections such as: How to Pretend You Two Aren't Fucking When You're in Public, How to Balance Your Lover and Your Hyper-Paranoid Spy Organization When the Dislike Is Mutual, and How to Let Yourself Be Loved After All. Featuring a special new bonus section: What to Do When Your Boss Blows Up a Vertibird and Starts a War Right in Front of You."

[Fanfic Writer Ask Meme - Send me a question!]

#writing memes #ask memes #the eye of the storm #a line in the sand

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aloysiavirgata · 4 years

Text

In The Gale

Title: In The Gale

Author: Aloysia Virgata

Rating: PG

Category: MSR

Author's Notes: For @perplexistan, who asked and helped me make it better. This is shortly after settling into the Unremarkable House. I tried making sense of their legal status, but it’s simply impossible and I gave up.

Our heroes quote from Melville, Shakespeare, Sagan, Baudrillard, and (Emily) Dickens.

***

Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place And what is actual is actual only for one time And only for one place I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessed face And renounce the voice Because I cannot hope to turn again Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us And pray that I may forget These matters that with myself I too much discuss Too much explain Because I do not hope to turn again Let these words answer For what is done, not to be done again May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly But merely vans to beat the air The air which is now thoroughly small and dry Smaller and dryer than the will Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

***

She recites The Raven to herself on the drive in, lists all the state capitals in alphabetical order, and goes through the periodic table. Her body fizzes like a shaken soda, tiny anxious bubbles rising through her blood. They’ve done so much for this, called in so many favors. Mulder put his book on hold for a month, quizzing her with dog-eared notecards.

“Immediate treatment of myocardial infarction,” he’d call, and she’d say “MONA TASS.”

She feels a pang for the simplicity of the other life, the hiding one, where she just had to ring up cigarettes and herbal Viagra at gas stations.

***

She’s the new girl at the cafeteria table, awkward and alone. Mulder had prepared her a lunch like it’s the first day of school, and she stares at it, wishing for an appetite.

From the corner of her eye she sees two colleagues - an MRI tech and an obstetrician, she thinks - talking softly and glancing over. Scully thinks she hears “FBI,” and she looks up and smiles, uncertain.

They blink at her, look away.

***

Ybarra comes around the corner, gliding in his cassock like a disapproving ghost. “Dr. Scully,” he says, in his pinched voice.

She smiles thinly. “Father Ybarra.”

“Nurse Mossing was looking for the chart for Mrs. Sullivan. Imagine my surprise when I found it in Room 314 instead of Room 413. That’s a potential HIPAA violation, Dr. Scully. That’s a federal law.”

Scully curls her hand so that her nails dig into her skin. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “Father Ybarra, please forg-”

He holds up his palm. “It won’t happen again,” he says, and glides onward.

Scully closes her eyes and leans against the wall. She breathes through her nose until the ringing in her ears stops.

***

She wants to collapse into his arms and cry when she gets home, but that would be giving in. It would be letting them down.

“How’d it go?” he asks. He’s wearing basketball shorts and a Knicks shirt, a five o’clock shadow.

She smiles brightly. “It was good. Learning curve, but good. I think Father Ybarra might be a tough nut to crack, is all.”

Mulder rubs his cowlicked hair. “Put your feet up, Scully, since you won’t wear sensible shoes.”

She does, and accepts the glass of wine he holds out. “Thanks. I’ll sleep well tonight, anyway. There are miles of hallways.”

He sits next to her on the couch. “I wrote a few pages,” he says. “I deleted a bunch, but I think there was a multi-paragraph net gain.”

“I’m glad you’re able to stop focusing on my stuff now,” she says. “Both back in the saddle.”

“Go team.”

She clinks her glass against his. She drinks her wine too fast.

***

Ybarra had come in during her rounds that morning and startled her into knocking a metal bedpan onto the floor. Scully thinks the reverberations of that sound will follow her to the grave.

She’s now in the chapel, tucked into a back pew. She’s been staring at the small altar, at the stained glass windows flanking the crucifix. The Blessed Virgin smiles beatifically down at her, a wretched sinner.

Scully laces her fingers on the back of the pew in front of her and bows her head against them. “Please,” she whispers. “Please.”

***

Mulder wakes her with tea and eggs. “You haven’t been eating,” he says, brow furrowed.

She rubs her eyes, yawning. “What?”

He sits next to her on the bed, sets the plate and mug on her night table. “You just push your food around your plate, you hardly talk when you get home. What’s going on, Scully?”

She sits up, looking at his worried face. He’s sun-browned and tousled, beautiful, with a mouth that still makes her weak in the knees. “Nothing. It’s just a lot to jump back into.”

“I’m sure it is. And I still want to help you with it.” He pulls the flash cards from his pocket, touches her wrist with his other hand. “Let’s see - causes of upper zone pulmonary fibrosis?”

She looks at the ceiling, back at him. “I don’t need help.”

Mulder blinks, stung.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. You just don’t need to hover over me. You have your own things to work on. Work on your book, patch up your henhouse. ” Her voice sounds snappish to her own ears.

His changeable eyes, now mossy green, darken. He chews his bottom lip, nodding slowly. “I thought you were one of my ‘things.’ Sorry to bother you.” He rises, walks downstairs.

“Mulder,” she whispers.

The tea goes down fine. Scully tries to eat the eggs but feels bile rise in her throat. She flushes them down the toilet instead of leaving them behind, because that is love.

***

She arrives at the nurses’ station on the second floor with three dozen donuts and two cardboard boxes of coffee. She deposits them on the desk. “Good morning, Annabel,” she says.

“Anneliese,” the woman says.

Scully nods, walks away.

***

He slides his hand up her pajama top, tracing circles on her ribs, sliding his fingers around to her breasts. He kisses the back of her neck. “Scully,” he whispers, his breath warm and ticklish in her ear.

She wants to pretend to wake up, to turn towards him and lose herself in his body. She wants to tell him everything, to be held and loved and petted and reassured. She wants him to remind her that she once stared down Congress, that some backwater priest and his prickly staff should be a joke to her. She wants them to laugh together at these silly, petty people.

But she can’t, she can’t disappoint him. He’s been so proud of her.

Scully stays still, breathes evenly until his hands move away and she’s alone again.

***

Her car rattles over the driveway, through shimmering waves of heat that rise from the crisping grass. It is the kind of late July afternoon where the sun is a hazy white ball in the west, and clouds of gnats are a permanent feature of the landscape.

Scully parks, avoiding a puddle in which a peacock is standing. Mulder has recently become enamored of yard fowl. She narrows her eyes at it while opening the car door.

“Good boy, Kevin,” she calls to it, wary.

Scully picks her way over the gravel in her thin heels. The peacock mews an alarm as she approaches, but doesn’t charge. She lets herself inside, shuts the heat and sun and wildlife outside. The house smells of coffee and microwave popcorn.

She walks into Mulder’s office and finds him hunched at his desk, typing. “Hey,” she says, and drops a kiss on his head. There’s a sketch of Baphomet taped to his monitor, her worn flash cards atop a tome about Raëlism.

He turns in his chair. He puts his arms around her hips. “Hey.”

“Kevin behaved himself,” she offers.

“You two will be friends yet, you’ll see.”

She peers at the computer. “You get a lot done today?”

Mulder shrugs. “Eh, a bit. Waiting on a few emails, and I had to run that tubing to drain the sump down into the woods. Ate up most of the afternoon.”

Scully shakes her head in admiration. “I don’t know how you manage all the multitasking.”

“Well, the book helps me avoid the house, and the house helps me avoid the book. It’s a perfect system. That Ybarra guy still riding your ass?”

She chews her lip. “No,” she lies. “I think we’re okay now.”

“Good,” he says. “I’d hate to have to beat up a priest.”

***

Scully gazes at herself in the empty locker room. She looks thin and tired, and her hair is frizzing up, even pulled back like this. All her makeup has sweated off except for smudged crescents of mascara. Her bra is the color of a Band-Aid, her underwear white and sensible. Between the two is the hard white rose of her gunshot scar, like a second navel, an artifact of a second birth. It is numb when she touches it, indifferent. There are no stretch marks from William, a tale missing from the anthology of her skin. She unhooks her bra, lets it slide down to the damp floor. Scully turns to observe her body in profile. The scar is gone this way, the tattoo hidden as well, and she smooths her hands along her ribs. Her breasts seem out of place to her when they are unbound, frivolous somehow. Vestigial.

She looks away.

***

The hospital is labyrinthine, having been constructed of various additions when funds allowed. There are dead ends, pointless staircases, and a mysterious storage closet filled with old televisions. She makes little maps on notepaper.

“So where did you work before this?” an orthopedic surgeon asks her.

A diner in Wyoming.

“I was out West for a while,” she says.

***

A week in, and Mulder has made a cake to celebrate. A bouquet of Kevin’s shed tail feathers ornaments the table.

An offering, Mulder calls it, tickling her chin with one.

A week down, she thinks, and blows out the candle. She wonders when she’ll stop counting the time.

***

Shy, he gives her a chapter to read. It’s good, and she tells him so. It’s very good. She hears his voice in her head when she reads it, his passion. She loves the esoterica tucked into his gyri and sulci.

“Your prose was never this clear in your reports,” she remarks.

“Hey if you can’t blind them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”

Scully laughs. “You want to read a few medical reports?”

He looks at her, suddenly serious. “Yeah,” he says. “I would. It would be nice to hear about your day for once.”

She wonders if love is the weapon that lets them wound so casually.

***

“You’re late,” Ybarra says softly.

She doesn’t explain that she’d somehow ended up at the TV closet again, that the room numbering system in this hospital had been designed by nihilists, that the nursing student had Dermabonded her glove to a patient’s forehead.

She lowers her eyes like she did at Catholic school. She promises to do better.

***

“What’s going on?” Mulder asks her for what feels like the hundredth time. “Talk to me, Scully.”

She presses her hands to her face for a moment, drops them to her sides. “Nothing,” she says again, frustrating them both. “I’m tired. It’s a hard schedule.”

He places a throw pillow on his lap and pats it. “Come here,” he says. “Please.”

She acquiesces, curling on her side with her back to him. He runs his fingers through her hair, traces the Fibonacci spirals of her ear. She wants to relax, to melt into his touch. She indulges in a Mulderesque conspiracy theory that the hospital microdoses the water with tetanus toxin to keep everyone rigid and tense.

Scully gazes at the windows, at the hard white light of summer streaming in. The curtains are blue with an arabesque pattern, and they looked very chic in the store. She wonders now if they seem desperate in this odd little house. She thinks of Meg March, dressed up in borrowed finery at the Moffats’ ball.

***

Scully clomps up the steps to the porch and kicks her rain boots off next to the umbrella stand. It contains four umbrellas and a gnarled hickory limb that Mulder claims is going to be polished into a fine walking stick one of these days. She goes into the house and is dismayed to find it stale and stifling and dark. Dust motes waft in Brownian motion through shafts of sunlight, undirected by fans or air conditioning.

“Mulder,” she calls, and there is silence.

She twists her hair into a bun as she pads upstairs, old wood satiny under her bare feet. She pushes open the bedroom door, and the air is hot and still.

“Mulder?” She needs his help with her zipper, but there is no reply.

She wrestles herself out of her silk sheath, sticky and irritating, and lets it puddle on the floor. Her bra follows. She feels guilty, as Mulder has turned out to be a surprisingly diligent housekeeper. His office is filled with perilous stacks of home improvement books and arcane journals about lake monsters, the walls papered with clippings and blurry photographs, but he seems able to quarantine his own entropy.

She is trying to do the same.

Scully pulls on soft cotton pajama shorts, a gray tank top imbued with the compressive powers of Lycra. She uses lotion to rub away the mascara beneath her eyes. She goes downstairs and out the back door, shielding her eyes against the piercing sunlight. A mosquito whines at her ear and she pinches it out of the air.

“Still got those reflexes, kid,” Mulder says from somewhere off to her left.

She turns and sees him crouched next to the hulking green block of the transformer. “All the lights are off, and the house feels like a rainforest. I take it you’ve had an eventful day?”

He sighs. “Not really. Well, not the event I was hoping for, which is the power coming back on. There was a pretty heavy thunderstorm around one and that’s when the electricity blew.”

She sits on the bottom step, knees drawn up. She likes to watch him working, a side of him they’re both still learning about. There was never much call for home maintenance at Hegal Place, or living out of cash-only motels. “You call the power company?”

He huffs. “Yeah, they told me they had no reported outages and the power should be fine. I explained that I was trying to report an outage and that it definitely was not fine and she promised someone would be here between tomorrow and eventually.”

Scully smiles. “And that’s why you’re out here toying with death?”

“Not much else to do, really. Can’t write with the power out.” Mulder sits back on his heels and shrugs. “You, uh, have a good day?”

She hadn’t. “Yep. Starting to feel like part of the team.”

“Good. You need to get your career standards as high as your standards for men,” he says, getting to his feet.

“Oh, well, that’s an obviously unattainable bar.”

“Obviously.” He sits next to her on the step. “You wear that to work? You know I think bras are a tool of the patriarchy and you shouldn’t bother, but I’m just surprised Our Lady of Perpetual Shame takes such a liberal view.”

She laughs a little. “I figured as long as I tossed a lab coat over it, I’d look like a real doctor. It worked when I was a kid.”

“Hey, that’s what I did with my badge half the time. Listen, Scully. The house is pretty tropical. You want to bunk up in a hotel until they get the power sorted out?”

Scully thinks about the convenience it would afford. Maids and room service and maybe a pool, depending. But she is tired of hotels, even nice ones. She is tired of polite signs that remind her that the pillows and towels and hairdryers aren’t hers, the tiny toiletries an indicator of her temporary status. She is tired of living out of suitcases and dressers that made her clothes smell strange, tired of running from her own life. She wants to be home.

“Nah,” she says. “We’ll manage.”

Mulder looks surprised, but doesn’t question it. “I’ll call Lowe’s about getting a generator delivered tomorrow. We ought to have one anyway out here.”

She’d always had a vague idea that Mulder had money - it was the only explanation for his complete disinterest in it. But when they’d come back, when they’d talked to his lawyers, she'd been staggered. The Vineyard house alone explained his casual international jaunts. They can have things now, endless things, and there is something frantic in her that wants to spend the money. Bingeing chocolate bunnies after Lent.

Mulder peels his shirt off, wadding it into a limp ball. He tosses it so that it hooks over the doorknob. “Still got it,” he says. He preens.

“Does the NBA realize the tremendous talent they’re missing out on?” she asks. “Do they even know that, at this very moment, a six foot tall middle aged white man is out here flinging his clothing a distance of several feet?”

He snuggles up to her, wrapping his sweaty arms around her shoulders.

“Ugh,” she says, and pushes at him. “Mulder, you’re disgusting and it’s a thousand degrees out here.”

“Hoping that cold, cold heart of yours might cool me off.” She sniffs disdainfully, and he releases her. “Scully, how do you feel about bees?”

“We have a history, bees and I,” she observes, tapping the back of her neck.

Mulder curls his hand over the scar, kneads the muscles there. “Well, these wouldn’t be fancy bees.”

“Hmmm,” she says. “I’m not inherently opposed. Why do you want bees, Mulder?”

He shrugs. “I’m getting older, and I’ve got to consider funeral plans. The last one didn’t really go as expected, so I thought maybe I’d mellify myself this time.”

She nods. “Makes sense. I mean, of course, there’s no actual proof that mellification actually occurred, but that’s never stopped you.”

“I also like honey,” he adds. “And bees are good for the planet.”

“Honey often contains botulism spores,” she remarks. “Botulinum toxin is the most lethal toxin known, and it’s estimated that as little as 40 grams of it would be enough to kill everyone on earth.” She doesn’t say you shouldn’t give it to babies, that she sweetened her smoothies with dates and maple syrup so that -

“Well, nobody better piss off my bee army and me,” he says darkly.

“Everybody eventually pisses you off. Mulder, is that old tent in the shed still? We could sleep in that tonight.”

He shakes his head. “Heavy mildew and dry rot, so I threw it out. We could sleep out here if you want, though. We’ve got that big air mattress.”

“Let’s do that,” she says. “We can put it on the porch. Tell you what - you get stuff together, and I’ll even make dinner.” Scully doesn’t like cooking, but she wants to create order, to complete a finite task. She can be domesticated again, like a lost house cat finally returned to a hearth.

“We having eggs or peanut butter?” he asks, smirky.

“I’d hate to spoil the surprise,” she snips, and goes back into their sauna of a house.

In the kitchen, she stands in front of the open fridge, letting the delicious leftover cold soak into her skin. She’ll deal with the spoiled food later. Eggs had, actually, been her plan but it’s just too hot. The stove doesn’t work, and she doesn’t have the fortitude to turn the grill on. She finds some leftover shrimp pasta that Mulder has made, some vegetables, and assembles it all into a passable salad.

There, she thinks, pleased. I’d pay twelve bucks for that somewhere. She uses her foot to scratch a mosquito bite on her calf.

Her skin is clammy, hair stringy and damp from sweat. Maybe they should just go to a hotel after all. Perhaps she should stop ascribing symbolism to every damn thing and enjoy herself once in a while. But she thinks of packing, of driving, of unpacking and somehow it’s all too much and her eyes start to fill and her sinuses sting.

Scully pinches her wrist until it passes, feeling weak and hating the weakness in herself. It’s the heat, it’s the exhaustion, it’s the heavy mental load. She considers going outside for a dip in the pond, but suspects the water will be unpleasantly warm. Instead, she drags herself back upstairs for a cold shower.

She sits on the edge of the bed, weary, and stares at a framed picture of a sea turtle on the far wall. If she lets her eyes drift out of focus, it looks like it’s swimming. She tips her head back for a better angle, watches it float across her vision. It slips away then, into the black of the deep waters.

***

She startles awake when he touches her shoulder, gasps.

“Jesus,” Mulder says, and sits next to her. “Bad dream?”

Scully sits up, dazed. “What? No, was I asleep?”

“You’ve been out cold for over an hour, but I wanted to make sure you got some food. Water at least, it’s too hot up here.”

She blinks, confused. “I don’t remember,” she says. Peering to her right reveals night outside.

Mulder holds a hand out and she grasps it, letting him pull her to her feet. She wavers and he steadies her, arm about her shoulders.

“I just need some water,” she says, defensive.

He guides her down the stairs and out the front door onto the porch. The air outside is substantially cooler, a light breeze kissing her face. She settles into a chair, stares deep into the felty dark. She still can’t remember falling asleep.

Mulder hands her a water bottle from the little table and she rolls it between her palms, the plastic crinkling. “Hey, I thought you were setting up the air mattress out here,” she says.

“No air flow behind the wall,” he replies. “Drink that up like a good girl and I’ll show you what we’ve got.”

Scully obeys and feels better. The water tastes stale, but it’s cool and wet. “Maybe you should have my job,” she says, looking up. “Caring for live people is so much work.”

“Everybody eventually pisses me off,” he reminds her. “Come on, Doc.”

She follows him down the steps and around the side of the house. Their property is vast and feral, pocked with mole burrows and rabbit nests. The floodlights are out with the power, and the house is nearly swallowed up by the vast night. Scully glances up at the Milky Way, at the waxing moon, and marvels again at the sky they have out here. We are star stuff, she thinks.

“Moonstruck?” Mulder asks.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars.”

“As long as you can tell a hawk from a handsaw,” he says, and tugs her along.

She follows him to the back of the house and then stops, smiling. Mulder has hammered some old two-by-fours into a frame, draped the structure in white bedsheets. Inside, the air mattress is piled with sofa pillows. Outside, camping lanterns, candles, and two strands of solar lights make it into a kind of fairy circle.

“Mulder,” she says, delighted. “This is ridiculous.”

“Indian Guide saves the day,” he says.

“Your architecture badge is definitely more impressive than your fire badge,” she says, walking over to the little tent. He’s brought her salad inside, and there is a cooler packed with ice and water bottles. Cans of bug spray sit at the flap. She crawls inside, suddenly ravenous.

Mulder joins her on the mattress, which bounces in response. “Remember my water bed?”

She laughs, piling food on a plate for each of them. “What a swinging bachelor you were.”

She remembers the water bed fondly, the leather couch and the fish and the postage-stamp bathroom in his apartment. It shouldn’t hurt still, but it does. She knew herself there, her place on the map. She eats her salad, wistful for Chinese food and beer at that battered coffee table.

“Scully,” he says.

“What?”

“Scully.”

“Just middle-aged nostalgia, I suppose,” she murmurs.

He reaches out to take her hand. “You’re scarcely middle aged.”

She smiles, squeezes his fingers. “If you go by life experience, we’re both about two hundred years old.”

“Like those Galapagos tortoises. But you need to tell me what’s going on at work. You won’t disappoint me.”

It can be very disagreeable to live with a profiler.

Scully drops his hand. She bites at the fleshy part of her thumb. This is real, she thinks. This place. It is not down in any map; true places never are. She can only deflect for so long, and her armor is rusting away. “I’m afraid,” she whispers, then chances a look at his face.

His eyes are soft, searching. “Why?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know, I don’t…” Her sinuses sting again and she presses her palms hard into her eyes. “Please.”

Mulder’s hand on her back, in endless, gentle figure eights. He pulls the elastic from her hair and lets it tumble down to her shoulders. He shifts so that her back is to him, his long legs on either side of her body.

“Mulder, what -”

“Shhhh,” he says, and gathers the hair at the crown of her head. “It’s not a real sleepover if you don’t get your hair French braided.”

Scully blinks. “Since when do you know how to braid hair?”

“Little sister, absent parents. Now stop moving and talk.”

She keeps her head very steady, thinking of her own sister’s deft fingers when their mother was too busy for anything but ponytails. Mulder tugs at another little section of hair. Scully thinks she might be okay if she isn’t looking at him, if she can’t read herself in his eyes.

Moth shadows dance across the white sheet wall, drawn to the flickering candles outside. It fascinates her that they never figure out that fire burns. “I don’t know how to do this,” she says, and her voice is thick.

“To talk, or to be still?” he says in his Oxford psychologist voice.

She isn’t sure of what she means either. “Yes,” she says, with a hiccupy laugh. “Both.”

“Me too,” he says, slipping his thumb through the strands behind her ear. “I don’t know how to do this.”

She swallows hard. “I just...I’ve always had something to consume me. I had the FBI, we traveled all the time, and then we were running and I thought it was hard but it was so easy to just survive. There were no decisions. I didn’t care about, I don’t know...plates.”

He pauses in his work. “Plates?”

Scully chews at a hangnail, frustrated. “Just things, the things you buy for a house. Long term things. I did with William and then…” she trails off, her chest tight. “I feel like I’m playing a game sometimes, like improv theater. Fox and Dana Build A Home.”

“Fox and Dana?” he repeats. “Surely not.”

“Well, we’re hardly Mulder and Scully anymore, are we?” Her stomach clenches and that’s it, she sees. That’s the fear.

He finishes the braid and fastens the elastic at the end of it. “Of course we are,” he says. “We are who we are.”

She turns to him then, the whispering anxiety back with a roar. “And who is that, Mulder? I was plain old Dana Scully until I met you. And we had this life, this strange and wonderful and terrible life where I was Scully because I was your partner and now that’s over. It’s all nothing.” She’s crying openly now, quietly, and it feels cleansing.

“You’re still my partner,” he says, and his eyes are shining too.

She wipes her nose with a paper napkin. “Am I? At what? I go to work and see patients but I forgot there’s no closure with the living. People get sick and get better and get sick again. It doesn’t end. And this house, the power is always going to go out and the chickens will always be hungry and -“ she stops, feeling hysterical.

“You don’t have to work,” he says softly. “The settlement from the FBI, my inheritance…”

She shakes her head. “You know I have to work.”

He sighs, rubs her knee. “I know you do. But it doesn’t have to be this. It doesn’t have to drain you.”

He’s right, of course he’s right, but he’s also so terribly wrong that she wonders if he knows her at all. She has to be a doctor for her father, for William. For him. She has to see something through. Scully smooths her hand over the back of her head, feeling the even ridges of the braid. Mulder is so competent with everything he does, so easy with himself. He’ll get his damned bees and become some kind of honey magnate in no time.

“People at the hospital, they ask me what I did before. And I don’t know how to answer. How can I possibly answer that question? I just say I was with the government, but that isn’t really the answer, is it?”

Mulder shrugs. He’s never felt the need to explain himself to people. “It’s true.”

Scully stretches out on her stomach across the mattress, chin on the pillows, watching the moths again. They tumble like acrobats, untethered in the thick air. “There’s this number called Graham’s number, used in Ramsey Theory, which is, well, nevermind. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, it was in the Guinness Book for being the largest specific number used in a proof at the time. And Mulder, this number is so big that writing out all the digits would exceed the bounds of the known universe.”

“Nobody likes a math nerd, Scully.”

She rolls onto her back to glare at him. “Yes they do, they give them Nobel prizes. Anyway. A whole new notation system, Knuth Notation, had to be developed to express these massive numbers. Graham’s Number, Tree(3), et cetera. And I feel like that at times. That there’s this endless amount of vital, inexpressible information inside of me that is so essential but that I have no way to share.”

She blinks a few times, spent by this unburdening.

Mulder stretches out next to her, propped on his side. “You can express it to me,” he says, massaging her temple with his thumb.

Scully closes her eyes. “I feel like a ghost sometimes. How do you do it, Mulder? How do you just keep moving forward without getting lost?”

He sighs. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but you have a tendency to compile people into perfect specimens, then measure yourself against that imaginary standard. It’s the precession of simulacra.”

She looks at him, indignant, then realizes he could be right. “Well,” she says. “It’s possible. But Mulder, is that such a bad thing, to want to hold myself to the highest goals?”

He tugs her onto her side so that she’s facing him, nearly nose to nose. Her lips feel tingly. “Yes,” he says, stroking her hair. “When the goal isn’t attainable. And when it puts everyone else on pedestals where we’re ill equipped to balance. And when it puts you in a constant state of frustration and anxiety. No one is perfect. Not even you.”

“I don’t want to be perfect,” she lies. “And I don’t need you to be either.” That part is true, at least.

He laughs in reply. “Apropos of being Galapagos tortoises, Charles Darwin once said ‘I am very poorly today, and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.’”

“He rode the tortoises,” Scully says, calming. “I can’t defend his methodology.”

“See? You’re better than Charles Darwin.” He kisses her forehead.

“Well,” she says. “Well.”

“Scully, look. You’re not alone here, feeling at sea. I went to the feed store and some guy picked a fight, shoved me pretty hard with his shoulder. And this reflexive part of my brain wanted to grab my badge, stick it in his face, and put him against the wall for assaulting a federal agent. But I ignored it and bought the chicken feed and just headed out. And I felt like, is this who I am now? Some pushover with yard birds and home improvement books?”

“You made a little fast and loose with your authority sometimes,” she says, thinking of Roche. She curves her palm against his cheek, thumbs the fine ridge of his zygomatic bone.

He bumps her nose with his. “You broke into a secret morgue.”

“You made me.” She sniffles, laughs a little. “The good old days.”

“These can be the good days too,” he says. “They can, if we work at it.” He traces her mouth with his finger.

“Okay,” she says. Hope stirs in her, a thing with feathers. “Partners?”

“Partners.”

He kisses her, in their small tent, in their ring of light.

#xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #my fic #iwtb

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silverkoushi · 4 years

Text

haikyuu!! headcanons

⇢ scenario: how you’d spend the holidays with them!! pt.2 | read pt. 1 here! ⇢ feat. : tsukki (karasuno), bokuto (fukurodani) & kuroo (nekoma) x gn!reader ⇢ wc & warnings: 3.3k, slightly suggestive for kuroo

ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ not @ me having the phattest crush on kuroo as you can probably tell here... dear god that man is something edit: omo for some reason the paragraphs got messed up n i just checked it after hours of posting... i fixed it now so hopefully it makes more sense ahh my apologies!! ><

tsukishima kei

୨୧ ˻˳˯ₑ*॰¨̮ idk about you but i think tsukki secretly enjoys the holidays? like he’d think the music is overbearing, the movies are disgustingly cliche, and the amount of people gathering in places is one of his worst nightmares— those aren’t the things that he looks forward to. i think tsukki loves winter, maybe because i see him as a softie who collects sweaters, hoodies, and sweatpants that keep him comfy and cozy during cold nights and chilly mornings! WITH THAT BEING SAID, tsukki dies inside when he sees you wearing any of those following outfits of his. he might get annoyed at first that you don’t ask because he was planning on wearing them that day, but when you show up at his dorm clad in his night blue sweater with a little moon stitched on the side, there are no words coming out of his mouth. he will try to look menacing, eyes in a deadpan expression but you know he’s lying, and just stare at him with a doe-like face and put his hands in yours, swinging it back and forth as you drag him out of his room and into the snowy field. you don’t even think twice about getting matching sweaters because the boy will hate you for the rest of his life, but at least you got him to wear a reindeer headband for 2 seconds in the photobooth!! most of the time, you basically just bring him to anywhere you want to go. you guys look at the humongous christmas tree they placed in the center of the plaza, and you ask someone walking by if you can get a picture of the two of you in front of him. this way, tsukki can’t complain and will be semi-forced to pose with you hehe. you thought he’d just be standing there, arms to his side with a nonchalant expression but you actually feel him put his arm around your waist and lean his head down on top of yours.

you can’t help the cheeky smile show on your face as you tiptoe just enough to reach his cheek, and once the guy said, “ok one more!” you steal a kiss on the side of tsukki’s small smile. “hey, what was—” “thanks, mister!! happy holidays!!” you avoid his stare, and get your phone back from the guy as you scroll through the pics he took (thank god only a few were blurry). tsukki keeps glaring at you, and you understand he’s not big into pda but uh, he started it with holding you close to him like that >:( “what?? you look so cute here, though!!” you whine to him, hoping he doesn’t ask that you delete it :( tsukki gives it a once over, a warm feeling creeping on his cheeks as he studies the picture: damn, is he whipped for you. he dismisses the overreaction on his part (for once), and takes your hand in his once more, asking where it is you wanted to go next. you’re surprised he left it like that, but you’re taking advantage of this situation and drag him to more festive stuff around the plaza <3

with your parents spending the holidays abroad and working overtime, tsukki’s mom invited you to their place instead and you’re!! more than happy and oh so grateful!! tsukki doesn’t show it but he’s actually extremely nervous,, what if you don’t like his family?? what if his brother is too annoying for you, what if this isn’t the kind of in-laws you were expecting— wait, he’s thinking too far ahead and you’re looking at him with raised eyebrows. quick! he turns away from your gaze, biting his lip at getting caught with his overthinking. “tsukki, you okay?” you ask gently, looping your arm around his as you guys near his house. “yeah…” he responds lamely, and you’re not sure if he wanted you at his house for the holidays or what… but you shake the negativity away and tell yourself that this is an opportunity to show your own personality to his family!! you’re greeted by a boisterous even taller guy at the door, and his also really tall mom waving at you from the kitchen, finishing up the grand dinner. “mom and i thought you were just pretending about your relationship, tsukki~” akiteru nudges him, and you chuckle at your boyfriend’s helpless look on his face, as if telling you this is what i dealt with during my childhood. but the holiday celebration with his family went super smooth!! his mom cooked amazing homemade dishes, and tsukki was actually smiling and laughing along the poor jokes akiteru made, it was so endearing to watch. you asked to help with the clean up as tsukki and his brother play volleyball outside in the cold.

“i’m so glad he has you,” his mom comforts you, and you nod your head in thanks while you wipe the plates clean. “i’ve never seen him so… cheerful like this, you know?” what a heartwarming thing to say :(( and yet you thought he was just finally letting loose because he’s at home!! his mom turns in early that eve of christmas, and his brother goes out to have a nightly beer sesh with his hometown friends before christmas morning tomorrow. you and tsukki are left alone in his room as you marvel at the many dinosaur related merch, posters, and even stuffies he has in his childhood room!! “don’t say it,” he threatens you lightly, even though you’ve been well-aware of his fascination for the species. a little tired from the trip earlier and ngl you’re both full from the food, you lay down on the floor, pillows supporting your sleepy heads as tsukki shares the other side of his earphones. you listen to calming, lofi music for the night and at some point, he finds your fingers in his again. “thank you for having me, tsukki,” you whisper with a yawn, remembering the night days ago where you cried into his shoulder about missing your own family during this season. tsukki doesn’t respond as he hears your light snoring, and instead turns his body towards you as he caresses the side of your face, smiling at the beauty before him. “you’re always welcome here, dummy. you’ll always have me.”

bokuto koutarou

୨୧ ˻˳˯ₑ*॰¨̮ oof!! so many holiday parties!! gift giving exchanges!! dancing and singing, drinking and having the time of your lives! of course, bokuto asks first and foremost if you’re okay going to all of these celebrations with him as he has gathered a lot of friends from different majors, clubs, and such. you didn’t expect to come with him to all of them, tbh, but since he seems so excited to bring you along you found yourself nodding along! OOPS, what a wild ride it was to meet friends you didn’t even know he had. first, bokuto asked you to help him find some gifts for the exchange parties and you comply— you love thinking up presents for diff kinds of people! “would akaashi want this?” he points at a set of compression socks for sports “you’d want that more, bo” “oh oh!! how about this for kuroo?!” he leads you to the beauty section, hairspray littering the aisle “i think that’s more of an insult than a gift…” he’ll pout at his failure to think of the best gifts for his friends, but you cling to him with your linked arms and tell him not to worry— you kinda figured the kind of people his best friends are, so you suggest things off the bat: film roll for akaashi the photography minor, a mug with a pun-ny chem joke for kuroo, and a new case for kenma’s switch lite!! “wah! you know them better than i do,” he exclaims, eyes shining in excitement as you bring the gifts and other extra stuff to his apartment to help him wrap them. with this, bokuto came up with an idea to wrap the presents in the most creative way possible, and you just stare at him in awe as he tries to disguise the mug as.. a gingerbread man?? you don’t even know how he did it! as you tape up the finishing touches with the others, you eye a small gift wrapped box on the island counter along with a card next to it, all glittery and a name scribbled on top that you can’t make out where you were seated.

“hey, bo, who’s that for?” you point at the suspecting box, and almost immediately bokuto body slams you on the ground, obstructing your view of the gift. “bokuto i can’t breathe—” you wheeze, laughing at the way he scrambles to get up from the position but his feet slips against the unused wrapping paper on the floor. “sorry, sorry i just— STOP LOOKING” he pleads, caging you with his arms either side your figure. the both of you pause, realizing the predicament you’re in until bokuto unleashes a sly smirk, eyes pointed at you with a mischievous glint. you know that look, so you start wiggling out of his way until he plops down on you again (mind you, he’s MANY inches taller than you and his built...whew, but that’s part of the problem right now!!) and blows raspberries on your neck, the audacity!! “tell me,” he whispers against your ear after a while, voice suddenly low in tone and your senses perk up. “have you been naughty or nice recently?” he continues hoarsely, and it doesn’t take long until you burst out laughing at his attempt of being flirty right now. he finally releases you, feigns hurt from your reaction but he knows what a goofball he is.

anyway, you put all the gifts in the car and head to the many parties he was invited to!! and honestly, you enjoyed yourself albeit it got really tiring to show up with much enthusiasm compared to the last. but bokuto on the other hand never runs out of energy for some reason!! he’s still winning the games, singing his heart out with his friends, and trying all the foods in the potluck, even shamelessly!! feeding you too! it’s embarrassing >< but in a way your heart swells with the thought of bokuto being very openly proud of his relationship with you, and how his friends seem to like you as well! pictures were taken, holiday spirits and gifts were exchanged and finally, he’s free for the night <3 you’ve been waiting for the right moment to give him your personal gift to your boyf (it’s an edited picture of the two of you at one of his winning games!! you can’t draw for sht but you are the best at adding lil stickers and cute petnames all around the photo hehe) you had it inserted in a picture frame too so the gift was relatively medium sized and rectangular. when you crash at his place, you ready yourself to give it to him, having second thoughts with how corny it must seem like… as you psych yourself up on the couch, you feel his arms suddenly wrap themselves around you as he starts peppering your neck with lazy kisses. your chest tightens, eyes closed at the warmth of his lips on your skin but— you can’t get distracted!! “bo, i have something for you—” “i saved the best gift for last—” o, you say it at the same time and so you look at each other with blank stares, and then laugh at your awkwardness!!

he lets you go first, your nerves slowly dissipating at the excited gleam in his irises, he’s so cute!! as he unwraps it, he hitches a breath, looks at you then the picture and you again and— let’s say your face was just full on bokuto territory only ;-) as much as you were enjoying his attention all on you, his gift wasn’t opened yet!! bokuto went from confident to shy mode again, hiding his face with only one eye peeking out to watch you…. for some reason, since it was a tiny box you blurted out, “don’t tell me it’s a ring, bo.” as a joke but bokuto suddenly freezes at your words. and you had to stop unboxing to make sure he doesn’t go all pale on you, but also??? was he really???? GOING TO???-- “DID YOU WANT ME TO GET YOU A RING?? I CAN RETURN THE EARRINGS TODAY, I THINK I STILL HAVE THE RECEIPT—” “bo, it’s okay!!! omg no T_T” you take his hands off his face to look at him lovingly, a kiss on his pouty lips as you reassure him his presence is all that you can ever want, but whatever it was he gave you, you’ll cherish just the same!! so finally, once you take the lid off the box you see an adorable pair of owl earrings!! it’s so cute and it reminds you of him and thats probably why he got that for you :’)))) “i also wrote you a letter but please read it when i’m asleep or something…” aww shy bokuto!! >< you never thought you’d see the day :’)

kuroo tetsurou

୨୧ ˻˳˯ₑ*॰¨̮ man.. i just know this guy wouldn’t want to let leave… the bed… with him… on christmas day. imagine something like having to stay until he can for his duties at work which ended up til late christmas eve :( you were looking forward to spending time with him back at his hometown since you don’t necessarily celebrate the specific holiday, but being with tetsurou for almost a year now and knowing he does— you wanted it to be special and memorable for him! he felt really bad making you stay at his apartment until he finishes up work, really zooming through all the documents and stuff he needed to complete just so he can spend at least a few hours of christmas eve with you. when he got home, his heart dropped to his stomach at the sight of you falling asleep on the couch, right next to the lit up christmas tree you two decorated a week ago (thats how busy he has been! you opted to fix the tree yourself, but tetsu insisted on doing it together since it’s your first holiday with him!). your favorite blanket was wrapped around you but your feet were dangling midway with no socks on and he just >:( had to carry you to bed and tuck you in— all of you!!

he changes to a sweater and pjs before readying himself to carry you against his chest. his own body is exhausted from working non-stop, but he doesn’t let it get to him as he passes by the hallway and plops you gently on your side of the bed. you stir groggily, eyes refusing to open but you notice your surroundings are different. the room is dimly lit but the figure walking around the place isn’t amiss; with his hair sticking up and his wide shoulders, you know it’s your tired boyfriend finally home for the holidays. you smile, still sleep-induced but you try to reach over for him. “tetsu… come to bed, please,” you mumble but he hears you, and his back is against you but he smiles at your half-awake tone. “i’ll be right there,” he lets you know softly, and true to his word you feel the dip in the mattress with his warmth slowly exuding onto your own body, his hands easily finding themselves over you. you wiggle into his grasp, head against his chest and hands holding onto his waist. he feels warm, he feels like home, and you press a kiss where his neck meets his collarbones. “mm, merry christm…” you mutter, losing consciousness but he doesn’t mind. he lets you snore your way into dreamland, watching your eyelashes tickle the surface of your skin, lips partly open as you breathe in and out. suddenly, his tense muscles relax with your presence oh so close to you, and he sleeps soundly after a few minutes of admiring your face.

as the sunlight filters thru the windows, kuroo wakes up first but knowing it’s his day off (finally), he relaxes into the bed and just observes the tiny details of your face, same as the night before but with some of the brightly shining rays of the sun hitting the right spots— you’re breathtaking to him. he feels you stir in his embrace so he pretends to snore because he knows you like to get up as soon as you feel awake. “tetsu…” you mumble, popping out your head from his grasp to peer your eyes at him pretending to not hear you. “you’re a lousy liar, i know you’re up,” you tell him, rubbing your nose against him as a form of an eskimo kiss. it takes so much out of his restraint to bite his lip in pure love for you, so he gives in and kisses you on the lips.

you are taken aback for a split second until you comply to his request, and you spend your first christmas morning with him in bed just like that <3 he still asks if you guys can spend the whole day just tangled into each other’s embrace but you lecture him playfully, knowing that he had a christmas party to attend to in the afternoon with his closest friends (bokuto, akaashi, kenma, and others) and you have a lovely dinner planned in the evening. he wiggles his eyebrows, fingertips tracing the exposed skin on your chest, “what if we skip all of that and i just have you for dinner instead?” “KUROO TETSUROU IT IS TOO EARLY FOR YOU TO SAY THAT RIGHT NOW—” you swear to god, it is his teasing and malicious intent that will kill you one day. but the blush on your face doesn’t go unnoticed, and yet kuroo complies with your light nagging, getting up and getting ready for the day. you’re happy that he finally has the day off, and being with his friends during the party truly lightened up his mood. afterwards, he then asks where you got a reservation during the busiest time of the year, and you just winked at him and zipped your mouth.

since you ate a bit at the party, you knew you had some time to finish prepping the food you had prepared the night before, it all just needed to bake or be cooked on the pan. and bec of his exhaustion last night, he didn’t even open the fridge at all so there were zero suspicious at your surprise dinner. urging him to take a long, hot bath, he drags you with him. “you seriously want me to take a bath by myself?” he says in shock horror, and normally you would join him hah but you tell him that your parents are calling, just wanting to say hello. a little sad, kuroo nods in understanding and so he goes about his way while you cook the food with haste. he likes to take his time in there but you know you won’t finish beforehand, so once he’s out of the bathroom, you immediately go right in front of him to hide the view of the kitchen. you played yourself, seeing kuroo only in his bathrobe with his chest exposed, you slap him right at the center to ignore the sensation in the pit of your stomach. “what?? what’d i do???” “existing right in front of me like that!!” kuroo laughs at your embarrassment, but kisses you on the forehead nonetheless. he ignores the obvious smell of pasta and chicken in the apartment, ignores the messy apron you forgot to take off because he thinks you really wanted to surprise him. so he goes to the room to change, thinking about how lucky he is to have you in his life. the rest of the night ends up with the both of you having a romantic dinner in the dining room, talking about everything you already know about each other—but it never feels repetitive. he always feels so renewed with you, falling in love every day.

#haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu au #tsukishima kei imagines #tsukishima kei scenarios #kuroo tetsuro imagines #kuroo tetsuro scenarios #bokuto imagines #bokuto scenarios #tsukishima au #bokuto au #kuroo tetsuro au #haikyuu headcanons #tsukki:hc #bokuto:hc #kuroo:hc #hqf.jiae

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violetsystems · 3 years

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#personal

I did not get to see the Fortnite extravaganza last night due to an encryption error on their servers. It was more something to stay out of trouble than anything. I did place number one earlier for the first time ever after a year of playing. But this is probably mostly due to the performance of the machine I've built and upgraded over time. I've learned to understand in almost everything when it is not about me. Being an optimist in a hopeless situation trains you to look on the bright side. The bright side these days is that home on the inside is mostly private. I did have to fight off a wasp that flew down the venting in my bathroom before the broadcast. It's an old house I tell myself. Then I decide to leave my apartment and wait for the bus to go to the Home Depot. Maybe I wanted to build a real fort? I really just wanted to get some bug spray and some more fly tape to deal with a problem myself. But waiting for the bus is a whole other problem these days. Especially when everybody seems to want to make your public appearance an excuse to chip away at your ego. I finished watching the Snowden movie last night. It was great timing. The quote about the Nuremberg trials is too real. How they tried the regular people next. The ones just doing their jobs. The other quote was something about pressure points. I have been under extreme pressure lately without much guidance or semblance of civil rights. I've complained about this weekly on a blog for years only to realize nobody really cares or understands the level of what I put up with. This sort of desensitizes you after awhile. You begin to accept that American society is just the way it is. Mostly because it is still run by rich white men who have figured out layers upon layers of gaslighting. I caught a small part of the Ronan Farrow documentary on HBO where he was being followed by Weinstein because of his work. He had interviewed a private eye who worked for a company called Blackcube. This private security company hired local detectives to get around issues with jurisdictions. The PI eventually turned to the FBI because he was disturbed about the work he was doing to the free press in America. The FBI asked his business then hung up on him. This is how it came to be that Ronan Farrow interviewed his surveillance. The gaslighting never goes away. There are so many reasons for people to watch you. So many special interests. So many mobs. Gangs. Powerful organizations. Snowden really buries the hatchet. What if the government you trust doesn't represent you anymore? What if it's caught doing the same bad things over and over like an abusive spouse? What can you do when the state department holds the key to your entire identity? If this sounds like the plot of a Bond film, it is more or less what I live from day to day. So it's better for me to lay low and keep focusing on crypto mining than write the play by play nobody would believe.

I write to make sense of something that is beyond broken. In that, it can be a little exhausting for everything to sort of work but not follow through. My passport delayed in the mail. A wasp crawling in from the attic into my bathroom as I get ready for a stream. Stores mysteriously closed and locked when I walk around the corner to get distilled water. Friends who text suspiciously a year later asking how I'm doing after they took my job. A thermostat that is set for 73 that on a good day reads 78. A cracked floor I'm afraid to say anything about for fear of the rent going up. A gang of neighbors who watch my every move but say nothing. A city full of gangs that assault me passively aggressively on the train on my way for groceries. I fear sometimes if I cry uncle that it would cut off the good parts. The secret communication and narratives that I have protected for the good of all things I care about. It's like the world says "if you can be free to do that, you've gotta let us be the judge." And after watching how the NSA and government literally tracks every literal thing you do, how can we call any of this freedom? It's a sales pitch I get it. Freedom to live in debt and be all that you can be. I don't live that way anymore at all. But I don't live much when I'm expected to stay in my home for over a year and pretend that the hidden plan will work out in my favor. I have no life to speak of other than my cat, a blog and some weird unstated agreement that gets hijacked, manipulated, intimidated, and pressured. You'd have to wonder who applies the pressure. If I had to put a finger back on it, it's a sad reality. It's not just the government. It's everyone. It's greed. It's selfishness. It is mediocre people scared of not being in control of anything you say or do that might upset the fragility of the lie this country is built upon. It's the sober reality that America is going off a cliff with nothing to show for it except a smile strained so fake it's starting to scare me. Nobody listens. Everyone points the blame. Everyone deflects. And I just sit here alone to some extent. No new friends other than the ones I write to from week to week. I do consider this space safe enough to say that. And yet I wonder how much anyone reads them. Do the people who follow me every time I walk out the door read these as deeply? Their reading comprehension must be garbage. What do I have to say to make it stop? What magic words do I have to say to reverse this invisibility? You were right? I'd rather stay invisible. This neighborhood walks around in trucker hats with crowns spelling out cocaine in bold italic as if it's the constitution. I'm supposed to lay low and realize the laws of the jungle. No opportunity. No jobs. No freedom. No justice. And a wasp flying around in my bathroom.

Will I be ok? My net income hasn't really changed since last fall. I'm sure this year will be a fun tax year. But it is the first time I own my own business with books to balance and spreadsheets to toggle. My health insurance works but the drama behind it is worse for wear. I'm more scared I might be hunted and murdered because someone is jealous of me than the fear of going broke. And even then for fear of it being used as a "CIA pressure point" I just shrug it off like a model on a catwalk. This experience for me is worse than hell. It's a silent wall of shame and coercion that makes this country feel like Nazi Germany. All the while the bully keeps telling you this is for the best. It's so much worse in other countries according to them. And if you speak up or rock the boat, they will find you. This is America 2021. A country that can't look itself in the mirror or read a paragraph or two to understand it has failed people like me. It just waits for us to die. To lay low in an epidemic of pure vapidity. It's no wonder I invest whatever I have overseas and in the future. I do believe there's no way to survive this alone. And yet I do believe that people pushing their way into my life year after year with nothing to show for it is worse. If we were being real about it, my resolve broke over a week ago. I submitted an anonymous tip to the FBI. I know I probably shouldn't write about it here. For fear of more retaliation. I'm more afraid of being stung by a wasp in the bathtub than a city I've suffered through for decades. But on the real, when enough is enough and there is no reply what can you rely on anymore? Yourself. I don't have a whistle to blow. I don't have an opinion that matters. And that is the lie about America. That any of this really means anything. That talking about it and explaining it succinctly on the internet changes anything when diabolic men still control everything. When women live in fear more than men can imagine. Fear of being harassed. Fear of losing control over their own body. Fear of competing for a livable wage. Fear of not being free in a country claiming to be the center of the universe. I don't know any other fight left to fight. As a man I see nothing but wrong, lies, evil and pain. Nobody looks in the mirror. Nobody starts to change things in themselves first. Nobody except me. Yeah, I'm laying low. It's 2021. The patriarchy is everywhere. They've learned to talk over you again with the same old double speak. What are you going to do about it? Here's an idea. Ready? Okay, $19 Fortnite card, who wants it? And yes, I'm giving it away. Remember; share, share share. And trolls, don't get blocked!" <3 Tim

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threelivesthreeworlds · 4 years

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@mcheang said : First off, I wouldn’t say Jiheng was abandoned by the demon clan so much as she abandoned them when she left them to pick up the pieces of the botched wedding. She knew she would be exiled and chose to run away anyway. Second, it was never really stated that Dong Hua would stop visiting her after he was married. He would still have to check on the poisoned daughter of his trusted general and make sure she survived.

The admins always think of a few quotes to go in each essay as textual evidence, and admittedly with these next few quotes the previous essay would’ve likely been more complete - we just don’t want to overload our audience with paragraphs and paragraphs of text. So, let’s consider this the Ji Heng Essay, Pt. 2, feat. some Interesting Narrative Foils / Parallels, because I think we don’t actively recognize how similar Ji Heng can be to our leads, and I think sometimes we have to directly look at that and to look within ourselves to figure out why we let our favorite characters off, but we go hard on Ji Heng forever. You’ll have to bear with me - this carries a lot of extra analysis of the text per point addressed, but I believe a somewhat more thorough exploration is required.

TW SUICIDE MENTION, TW DUB CON MENTION, TW GASLIGHTING, for mention of certain canon events, proceed with caution

TO THE FIRST POINT, we have to address, in further detail, what happened after Ji Heng ran away from the wedding. When Xiao Yan tells Feng Jiu about the story Ji Heng told him of what’s happened since they went their separate ways, he does say that she stayed away from the demon clan of her own accord:

Feng Jiu massaged her shoulder, and looked a touch confused: "What does that have to do with Princess JI Heng?"

Xiao Yan was even more confused. "Did I never tell you, that when Ji Heng ran away with that little guard Minsu, they eloped to Fanyin Valley?" He scratched his scalp, the face as beautiful as autumn flowers under the moon touched with a tint of red: "Actually, I only found out half a year ago. All this time, Ji Heng's true love Minsu was a girl who was dressed as a man, and she liked her brother. After she figured that out, Ji Heng couldn't deal with the shock and fought with Minsu, and they separated, but she felt that she was too embarrassed to return to the demon clan, and so she stayed in Fanyin Valley to be the court musician."

However - later, at the end of the book when Chonglin goes to ask the Red Demon Clan about Ji Heng and where she is, he gets this answer:

When Chonglin went to meet with the Red Demon Clan, Lord Xuyang said that after the incident three hundred years ago when his sister ran away with Minsu, the Red Demon Clan had already banished her, and Ji Heng had no contact with the Red Demon Clan since then. Their clan could not tell where she was now.

If anything, then, I think it would be considered a mutual abandonment. For, drastically different reasons, I might add. Ji Heng’s reasons for staying away from home appear to be pride - that she ran away with someone who ended up not being in love with her, who ended up to be lying to her this whole time. That she’s become “pitiful,” because she didn’t follow through on the marriage her brother arranged for her even if she didn’t want it, and now she’s unhappy. Put yourself in her shoes for a minute - and because Admin Ro is both Asian the queen of analogies, imagine that you’ve decided against everyone’s wishes in your family that you were going to be an actor. They all told you you’re going to starve, and, what do you know, they were right. You are in fact out of work and poor. Would you go home, to a chorus of I-told-you-so? To a chorus of people more pleased that they’re right about you than they are willing to support your dream and what you want to do with your life?

Along that vein, her brother’s motivations for banishing her are likely more political. He arranged Ji Heng’s marriage to Donghua because he wanted the political ties to Heavenly Realm. And, in the aftermath of the elopement, in all likelihood he’s trying to disown Ji Heng as fast as possible to avoid it being a reflection on him / his clan, so they don’t get into trouble with either Donghua Dijun (who, by all means should’ve been humiliated by this turn of events) or Jiu Chong Heaven. He does not support his sister’s decision, and in fact, does not want to even be seen supporting his sister’s decision.

Now, food for thought, okay - take a moment and compare that to Feng Jiu, who’s had a very similar narrative. When Feng Jiu goes after someone she loves, going so far as to become a maid, pretend to be a fox, and, basically lose all face for Qingqiu, and he turns out not to have loved her and he turns out to hurt her, what happens? She goes home, to friends and family that do love her. That do support her and have shown support for her, all this time. She has a family who’s waiting for her to go home, who’ll be shields for her, as Zhe Yan says, who she trusts because they’ve always been there for her, over political obligation sometimes. The Bai Family “help their family, not the one that’s in the right.” And let’s take a look at what happens when Feng Jiu runs away from a wedding okay - she blows Cang Yi’s whole palace apart, and yes, she gets punished for this but it’s no more drastic than, likely, being locked in the cave or being spanked. Her family doesn’t disown her because she lost face or because she made a political blunder.

The fact that fandom in general holds these two women to very different standards in this very similar event despite them both being just women who’re trying to run away from a political marriage they don’t want - is concerning. But that fact notwithstanding - from just these two different environments, it’s not hard to see why, in the face of certain decisions, Ji Heng and Feng Jiu make different choices. Now, as a person, I firmly believe no matter what your situation is you make your own choices. So, it’s still on them, as to what choices they make when faced with yet again, a similar situation: not being loved by the person they love. But, with any amount of compassion, you can see, very clearly, why it’s more likely and easier for Ji Heng to make the bad choice. She hasn’t had a particularly large amount of strong relationships in her past, familial or otherwise, that shows her what a good, healthy, strong relationship is like. There is no reference point.

One might argue that Donghua’s just the same, since he has had no real parents and he isn’t close to his foster family. Well, that’s just it - out of this void, where his close relationships are supposed to be, Donghua doesn’t do any better either. In fact, he screws up just as much. Now, I can’t weigh “threatening to kill yourself unless your crush divorces his wife” and “lying to your crush and changing their memories so that they forget everything bad you’ve ever done and sleeping with her using a whole different identity” against each other on a scale of, which is worse. Because they’re both bad, and it’s both toxic in a relationship - but, it seems as though the fandom in general judges them differently as well.

With Donghua, we seem to be more capable of admitting that the things he does are mistakes. We seem to be more capable of saying “it’s because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, it’s because he hasn’t had any experience, it’s because of xyz.” We seem to be capable of understanding that his flaws are flaws, but that Donghua is not a fundamentally evil character and these flaws don’t fundamentally define who he is. We seem to be capable of liking him and forgiving him for his flaws overall. Whereas, with Ji Heng, the general trend I and Admin Lins have seen is to dislike her, even though these two characters screw up the same amount, and, I mean, for similar reasons and to a similar scale.

And while I’m not saying people can’t dislike the characters they dislike - I think we have to to evaluate ourselves and ask ourselves the question - why is it that we are capable of forgiving Donghua for what he does, but we aren’t capable of forgiving Ji Heng? Why is it that we would rather assume that Donghua is a good person and that he isn’t making these decisions because he is bad, but we aren’t capable of the same assumptions for Ji Heng?

One of Donghua’s major flaws is carelessness - and that lead us TO THE SECOND POINT. When Donghua leaves the valley with Feng Jiu, Ji Heng catches up and asks to be taken with them. His response implies that Ji Heng’s condition was not really a concern to him at that moment:

A flash of surprise entered Ji Heng's eyes, but her gaze was full of hope as it directed toward Dijun. Donghua said coolly: "Living in Fanyin Valley will control the Quishui poison. If you live here for three thousand years, the poison will fade away by itself."

And also gives a response that leaves even Feng Jiu saying he’s cold:

Donghua suddenly said: "Your father asked me to take care of you before he feathered...but, I have never liked to care for someone who has designs on me."

Ji Heng's face was suddenly pale, and after a long while, she said sadly: "Yes, I understand."

At the edge of the lake, Feng Jiu stared at the surface of it. Dijun wet a handkerchief and gave it to her. Feng Jiu took it and pressed it to her face for a while, and waited for the cold to sink into her skin, and finally woke up entirely to say: "Thank goodness when I was maid at your palace, you didn't have the chance to know me. If you met me then, you would've said to me what you said to Ji Heng today, right?" And said, tentatively, "You were a little cold, when you said that."

Now, I can’t tell you for sure whether or not Donghua meant exactly to make good on it - but the implications are all there. Telling her the poison is no longer a concern and she should just stay in the Valley while he presumably leaves, and when he talks about her father, doesn’t that sound like a threat? It certainly probably would have, to Ji Heng: “I know you like me, now stop, or I’ll never come back.” That’s what that sounds like. Now, both admins on this blog have anxiety, and, if you look at Ji Heng and how she was literally ready to kill herself at the end of the book, it’s not hard to conjecture that she probably has some mental illness. Piecing that together with what we previously discussed, it’s not hard to infer that she likely has some anxiety surrounding abandonment.

In her mind, that might very well translate to a straightforward, he’s leaving and never coming back. One might say “why doesn’t she just stop liking him then” but that’s an unreasonable thing to expect...honestly, no one can just turn their emotions off like that, we know this, right? We can’t expect that of a person, so we can’t expect that of a character or that character would no longer be authentically human. Furthermore, if you look at the actions Donghua took in the Valley before he and Feng Jiu ever got together, I think you can see where Ji Heng’s mind might take that even more drastically. The second Feng Jiu showed up in the Valley and this coincided with Donghua’s visit, what does Donghua do? He makes her cook for him, he goes to live with her, he straight up puts up a ward to block them both from the rest of the world. He basically declares to the whole world that, “the only thing I care about here is Feng Jiu.”

Bear in mind, he visits Ji Heng every ten years and is the only thing close to a friend she has in the Valley before Xiao Yan shows up. Ji Heng has been cooking for and living with Donghua every ten year interval he has shown up. To be suddenly and quite completely shut out and removed by this person she thought was her friend, that she had feelings for, even if they were only on her part as far as she knew, is hurtful. It’s like Donghua is saying “I like Feng Jiu, and so I don’t care about you or what you do anymore.”

Now, that’s not Feng Jiu’s fault, and it’s not Donghua’s fault. He’s free to do that, of course, and people change and they outgrow each other and they leave. But - to a person who’s been left by a lot of people, doesn’t it make sense for Ji Heng to react drastically? Doesn’t it make sense for her to see that Donghua is getting married to Feng Jiu and further extrapolate from his previous actions that he’s unlikely to visit again? Think of it if it happened to you - if your best / only friend, one that you care about a lot and are extremely invested in, left you because they found a new friend, can you truly say that you wouldn’t harbor a single bitter thought for that new friend? Can you say in those circumstances, every time, you would make the right choice?

IN CONCLUSION, all this, and the previous essay, is not to say that what Ji Heng does throughout the narrative isn’t bad. It is bad, and it is messy, and it does hurt people. These are explanations and not excuses for her behavior. I and Admin Lins will both agree that of the two of us, I am definitely the harder one on Ji Heng. I get my little bursts of rage when I get to certain areas in the novel that, yes, I can’t soothe over even knowing everything that I know. However, I do think - that a part of evaluating reads and the flaws of each character is trying to understand them. I think I have enough faith in Tang Qi that I believe she wouldn’t put a flat antagonist character in a novel to be “evil” for evil’s sake - and therefore, when I go through my read and I see the hints of dimension, I can say, I see it and it’s there.

In the end, sure, it’s about what everyone wants to believe. You can see that evidence and interpret it however you want. That’s how art and subjectivity and reads work - no one read is completely right. No one read is completely objective. If someone looked at all of this and thought “nah, bull, Ji Heng did all of it because she’s just an awful person,” I guess there’s nothing to stop them. But in literature, where every character is a reflection of a living, breathing, relatable person, the admins on this blog are more inclined toward a middle read. That not everyone is completely good and that not everyone is completely bad. That people make bad decisions because of their pasts, because of their circumstances, because of their mental illnesses, but that it does not make them, over all, a bad person forever.

I think if I can extend my compassion to Donghua and Feng Jiu, who have screwed up all over the place throughout this novel, and say, “I understand why you did this, you’re stupid, but I love you anyway” then I can extend that very same compassion to Ji Heng. And I think, if I can say “It’s ok, give them time, they can do better” about the main characters, then Ji Heng also deserves that very same hope. People are flawed. People make mistakes. People can regret it and get better.

#mcheang #eternal love of dream #three lives three worlds the pillow book #ji heng #admin ro posts #((sorry if you were hoping to get admin lins))#((but it's easier for me since I can just translate the text citations directly))#((the admins usually are of the same opinion with slight variations so i hope I did the topic justice))#((haha this got very long))

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journeysintowebcomics · 4 years

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Worm Liveblog #122

UPDATE 122: Kill the Endbringers

Last time Dinah had been taken to a hospital, and there was a very good chance Skitter would get everyone in trouble by letting her desires and ‘I know what’s good for you’ attitude cloud her judgment. Thankfully, she realized that before it was too late! Now what? Let’s find out.

Well looks like Dinah is convinced she won’t be accepted back into her home. Wow, the chapter has barely started and things are looking pretty rough already. Reminder Dinah is young. This kind of thoughts must hurt, wow. Skitter, trying to smooth things over, promises she will be received with arms wide open. Welcome home, Dinah!

“They will want you. Just wait,” I said. “They’ll welcome you with open arms, and there won’t even be a hint of fear.”

Oh dear. Don’t make promises that are out of your control, Skitter. Seriously, if this doesn’t go like she is saying it will...that’s going to scar Dinah so badly, and completely break her trust on Skitter. This is not good at all. I hope Dinah’s fears aren’t rooted in reality, I really do.

She even is worried because she looks pretty bad, consequences of Coil’s mistreatment and also the drugs. She thinks it’ll remind her family she has powers and freaks people out with predictions. Hmmmm...with some luck seeing her so...um, emaciated may invoke feelings of pity, perhaps some guilt if they’re aware Dinah feels so out of place. I almost would suggest she takes a look at the odds she will be welcomed back, but...but I fear they may not be favorable. Oh, geez...ignorance is bliss?

I’m not even human anymore.”

“You’re definitely human, Dinah.”

“Then why do they call us parahumans? Doesn’t the ‘para’ part mean half? Paraplegic, only half your body works. Parahuman, half human.”

Hmm...is that really what ‘para’ means? I mean, paranormal sure doesn’t mean it’s half normal, it’s way above that. Paragliding is...um, it sure isn’t half gliding. Parasite doesn’t mean half a site, it’s all about adding an intruder into a body. The conclusion I’m getting is that ‘para’ is not really a reliable prefix. Thank you for coming to my linguistic discussion, was it too noticeable I have no idea what I’m talking about?

The next paragraph is Skitter making the point I was making, that ‘para’ doesn’t really mean ‘half’. She even brings up the word ‘paranormal’, like I did! Aaah, same wavelength! And she finishes her argument by saying her parents can’t judge her for stuff she didn’t choose. To that Iiii will have to disagree. They certainly could. They shouldn’t, but they could. Nothing to do but hope they don’t. I wonder if perhaps Skitter will get to talk to them before they see Dinah? I’m not entirely sure it’d be a good idea or not, but...perhaps she should consider that. Maybe.

The reason why Skitter is so aware of things like prefixes and semantics is because her mom used to be an English teacher. She has continued paying attention to that sort of things as a way to remember her. Honestly that’s pretty sweet of her. It’s...it must be nice to have something to remember your deceased loved ones by, like that. I’m glad. Speaking of family! She also mentions how she has a father, and how he is, well, not someone she has seen for a while because she puts him in danger.

As expected, the effects of Dinah’s withdrawal happen pretty quickly. Dinah is already heaving, with Skitter holding her hair. Damn, I hope she’ll be okay – but she says she won’t, the painkillers didn’t help at all. Afterwards, she says once again there’s no way her parents will accept her. You know, from how many times she’s saying it, I’m starting to fear she’s right. I want to think they will, but...with how much she has repeated it...I fear she’ll do something that’ll force the futures where they don’t accept her.

“And even if they do take me, it’ll be weird, because they can’t ignore my power now. They pretended I didn’t have one. Pretended I was an ordinary kid. Pretended the headaches didn’t mean anything, like they pretended the heart disease wasn’t a thing.”

“Heart disease? You?”

Dinah shook her head. “Not me.”

She didn’t elaborate. Related to her trigger event?

Oh. There’s that too. It’s going to be impossible to pretend things are fine and back to normal when Dinah was kidnapped because of her powers. I mean, measures will have to be taken so something like that doesn’t happen again, right? That’s got to include some sort of tinker technology, or guards, or something. Also, they’re a former mayor’s family. That could be used as a cover story of sorts for any noticeable security measures.

Reassuring Dinah this is the drug withdrawal talking, Skitter gets a comb and tries to make her look more presentable, so at least the parents don’t have a first sight of a young, haggard girl in the middle of the throes of withdrawal. Golly, I get shivers just from thinking about how Dinah will look. She’s feverish, she’s sweating like crazy...this won’t be pretty at all, obviously. But surely Dinah’s parents would look past all that and take her back, right? At least because seeing her like that will make them worry. Right?

...right?

Dinah asks Skitter to go knock on the door and bring her parents out. It’s time to face the music, let’s see how this particular subplot ends. Crossing fingers for a positive result! Skitter goes to the entrance and rings the bell, it doesn’t work. Instead she knocks on the door and lets a pair of flies go inside, she finds Dinah’s parents. The father takes a frying pan and gets ready, in case it’s an attack.

...

Skitter still has her costume on, doesn’t she? Cripes, what a thing to find when you open the door. No wonder the father closed the door right away! Damn! Still, I’d like to think that, if villains were to attack a residence, they wouldn’t be politely knocking on the door. Not that this fact is going to make the dad lower his guard, is it.

Of course, their first reaction is to think Skitter is trying to extort them – a reasonable thought, given she’s a villain and the first thing she says is that she has their daughter! Well, she said she brought Dinah, but still. Skitter hurries to make things clear, and doesn’t mince any words. Better that way, probably. Better for them to be aware of what Dinah is going through, than seeing her sorry state and then fall into more despair. I mean, the blow will be hard, but it’s...easier when you’re aware of what’s coming, no?

...

Gosh, that must be a nightmare for any parent.

“She has abilities, then?” the dad asked.

Oh. They didn’t know? If they didn’t, then that really adds to Dinah’s fears, then. Would they accept her, even though she has a power? Honestly, I had interpreted it all as the parents trying hard to pretend she didn’t, but...there’s really no point to feign ignorance here. Even if Skitter is a villain, she already has Dinah in her clutches.

Even though Dinah is still afraid, she accepts Skitter’s help and steps out of the car, being brought towards her family. Contrary to what Dinah was predicting – and much to my relief – her parents don’t hesitate to approach. The mother immediately hugs her, the father comes behind just a second later, which I’m sure was more out of caution towards Skitter than because of anything from Dinah. There we go! A family reunited, and there doesn’t seem to be even a bit of trouble brewing. Times will be hard for them, given Dinah’s withdrawal, but I’m sure they’ll be fine. I hope.

The father even thanks Skitter! Which she tries not to acknowledge. The guilt of having been indirectly responsible for the kidnapping in the first place, you see. There’s also something else, something that’s somewhat selfish, but perfectly understandable, in my opinion:

I wasn’t sure I felt good about that. I’d gotten this far by making the most out of every resource I had available, and by being smart about things. This was throwing away a resource, tying my own hands. The decision felt dumb, even as I knew it was the right thing to do.

I know, right? It’d have been so tempting to try to convince Dinah to stay and give advice about how to fight the end of the world. Dinah herself saw that in the cards, so to say. If Dinah hadn’t said it, I think Skitter would have kept her, justifying that with how it was to prevent the end of the world. She’d have promised herself that she’d return Dinah once the end of the world was averted, even if that took two years, no? I don’t know what the rest of the Undersiders would have said, but I doubt they’d have tried to return Dinah to the family. All in all, Skitter has done the right thing, even though it may feel dumb right now.

With nothing else to do there, Skitter asks the driver to get going. She also finds two pieces of paper, probably left by Dinah. I hope they’re not meant to be private, because Skitter will have to ask someone else to read those for her. Perhaps they’re little predictions about odds? Possibly about the end of the world?

Scene cut!

Heeeere’s the team! The team and also Ballistic, who isn’t part of the Undersiders, but personally I’m not discarding he may join in some manner. The situation kind of demands it. Parian is also here.

I turned to Parian. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Tattletale got in touch. I… I apparently missed a lot.”

“You’re up for this?”

“No. But I want to know what’s going on, in case it affects my territory.”

Oh dear! I’m pretty sure it involves the entirety of Brockton Bay. Welcome to the Noelle situation, Parian, we’re very screwed right now. There’s only one hour and forty minutes until dawn, and then it’s showtime. Probably.

There’s been one sighting of Noelle. What’s she doing, I really have to wonder. Is she just wandering around aimlessly? Either way, Parian makes a wiener dog for everyone to ride, which is simply hilarious. Here comes the cavalry, riding a wiener dog! Hah! Awesome.

“This is so lame,” Imp said. “How are you supposed to build a decent rep if you’re caught riding a wiener dog?”

Aw, come on, Imp, it’s great! Don’t be like that.

There’s some nice banter that ends in Imp having to settle for the plush wiener dog, while Skitter rides on Bentley with Heckpuppy. Along the way, Tattletale asks if everyone is okay with she taking charge, and they all ask Ballistic for an assessment of how dangerous Noelle is. Give the deets, pal!

“It’s why I’m here. Consider Noelle a triple threat,” he said. “She’s strong, she’s got nothing to hold her back, now, and she’s smart.”

She’s a natural tactician, he says. I’m going to have to doubt that a little, not because I doubt Noelle isn’t smart, or able to come up with plans. I’m doubting it because, well, she was in a gaming team. That’s completely different to something like this. Skills usable there may not transfer to other things. Still, it’d be bad to underestimate Noelle. It has been said a lot about how she’s very dangerous, I’m sure she’ll be a genuine threat.

Whooops, Ballistic is sitting out of the fight. So is Parian, but that one isn’t really terribly surprising, Parian has nothing to do with any of this beyond protecting her territory. The reason why Ballistic is sitting out is because he’s sure Noelle will use him against them somehow. That’s...a reasonable concern, really. It can happen.

...is Skitter seriously underestimating Noelle right now? Come on, you can’t be serious. Ballistic says the reason why Noelle was fooled with all the lies she was told was because she trusted Trickster blindly. Even though he got her into this situation in the first place, technically? I guess that, although she blamed him, she saw him as the only one who could help her. He being the only one visiting her must also be a factor, I’m sure.

“He became team leader more because he’s fast at thinking on his feet than because he’s good at making the right call. He took it on himself to make a whole lot of wrong calls. I let a lot of that slide because he used to be a friend. And maybe because they weren’t blatantly wrong. Just a little wrong, a little disagreeable. But at some point every call was a disagreeable call and every word out of his mouth became a white lie. He started lying to us for what he saw as our own good. Not Noelle with her delicate state, but us.”

I read earlier Noelle was good at being intuitive and making moves because she read the situation well. This paragraph here makes it sound like they named Francis the team leader because he was the closest they got in terms of skill.

Speaking of Trickster! He may make things much worse, or he may be of help, depending on if he’ll help them or not. Personally I think he won’t help. Tattletale just said his focus would always be on Noelle and himself. No way he’s going to do a thing if it’ll hurt Noelle, even if it’s to save Brockton Bay. What does he care, if this isn’t even his world?

There’s some briefing about what Noelle can do, I don’t really see anything we don’t already know. What’s important to remark here, at least the way Ballistic says it, is that they have to get this all done before Noelle makes clones. Parian tries to say those clones are people, Ballistic quite reasonably says they’re not. And yeah, they’re not. The way those Cody clones were acting...yeah, I doubt they could be considered people. Oh boy, there’ll totally be some clones going on, right? I bet some if not all of the Undersiders will have to face clones of themselves.

As a general rule I still don’t like clones, but...honestly, the way Worm is doing it, it seems like it could be interesting to read! Neato!

The regeneration will be somewhat troublesome, especially since it’ll make it much harder to kill her. Skitter right away says she doesn’t want to do that unless there’s no other choice. Hum.

Ballistic turned my way, and he had a funny tone in his voice as he asked, “How do you think you’re going to handle this?”

“Containment,” I said. “If I get enough spiders together, I could try to surround her in web.”

Hum. You know, I’m not sure containing her will be a terribly good idea. She has gotten stronger; the kind of long-term containment she’d need would have to be carefully planned in order to work. She can’t just be shunted into the Birdcage, after all! And anything can happen in the time it takes to finish a vault or something to contain her. It’s way too dangerous, way too risky. I’m not sure it’s worth it. I hate to admit it, but...maybe lethal force has to be considered? Because Noelle is pretty close to being too dangerous to not subdue lethally anytime soon.

I mean, personally I think it’s not impossible the characters will figure a way to defeat Noelle without killing her, but...given the situation...I admit lethal force is more and more like a necessity here. Oh well! Skitter has been really resourceful in the past, it’s not really impossible she’ll figure something out!

Still, Tattletale accuses Ballistic of having no consideration towards Noelle because he’s suggesting to kill her, and needless to say, Ballistic didn’t like that at all. Geez, Tattletale. That could have been handled waaaay more tactfully. I can’t blame Ballistic for deciding to leave right away, he doesn’t even wait for the sausage dog to stop moving before he gets off. Welp! There gooooo all the chances of Ballistic joining the Undersiders. No way it’s happening now, or at least it’s much less likely.

Then again...maybe I’m being too callous about Noelle? I just think she is a huge danger, given everything that’s been shown. It’s always possible I’m just taking it waaaay too callously. After all, it’s way easier to make these calls when they’re fictional characters in a story.

In what’s another possibly bad move, they try to convince Parian to fight. She refuses, asking what she can do to protect her territory. She’s not interested in dealing with Noelle.

“I really don’t think we have a choice. You fought Leviathan,” I said.

Parian shook her head, “I almost wish I didn’t. I only did it because I promised myself when I was a kid, when I first learned about the Endbringers, that I would fight them if I ever got powers. That’s why I did it, because I didn’t want to betray the kid version of myself.”

“Wouldn’t your child-self want you to do this?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But I didn’t make any promises to myself about this.”

Honestly I can’t blame her for not wanting to get involved in that. Leviathan is an Endbringer who threatens to destroy so much of the world. Its name makes everyone tremble in fear. Noelle is...well, for now, she is more of a domestic affair for the Undersiders. I don’t discard the possibility Parian will have to fight at some point, but right now? I think it’s fair she doesn’t join the fight.

Not really any time to discuss it further, because they encounter the heroes. They’re right over there. Hi! Guys, there’s a pseudoEndbringer about to destroy the city! It’s another day in Brockton Bay – and I’m so making that the slogan for Worm: It’s Another Day in Brockton Bay.

Miss Militia is here, and her immediate reaction is to aim at them with a rifle. How welcoming. There’s some wreckage here, and Miss Militia wants to know if the Undersiders had anything to do with it. Skitter very truthfully replies they were indirectly responsible, which...is that really the best thing to be saying?

...maybe, because it’d be coming out at some point, anyway.

Miss Militia’s reasoning is that there are reports that fit with what the Undersiders have done in the past, and a hero has been kidnapped. Huh. Noelle is already making her move, it seems! How screwed are we?

“Vista,” I finished Miss Militia’s thought. “You’re talking about Vista.”

Huh. That so? That’s one versatile combatant out of the fight, indeed. I remember Skitter had mentioned earlier that they should ask the heroes’ help so they could bring containment foam and also have Vista use her powers to help. That’s going to throw a wrench into Skitter’s hopes for containment. Right now, though, the priority is explaining to the heroes they didn’t do this...directly, and that Noelle is a huge threat. That shouldn’t be hard to convince, right? I hope, at least. Time to take a look!

...or not. It’s an interlude. Well, I guess that was a time for a cliffhanger, but it certainly wasn’t what I wanted to read, I admit. I wanted more of the current situation. I hope this interlude will be worthwhile, because...yeah, I wish I could skip it to continue with the story. But hey, let’s tackle it. Onwards!

Kevin Norton, hm...the name doesn’t sound familiar. Then again, it’s likely it has been a while since I read it, so it’s not impossible I just don’t remember him. Hell, it’s possible a Norton was already shown and this is a relative. Who could this man be? He has a dog, too.

“I’ve saved millions of lives. Billions.”

Another hand signal bidding another small woof of agreement.

He’s making some hefty claims, too. I won’t be surprised if he’s telling the truth, though. A lot can happen in Worm. Who knows, maybe he singlehandedly prevented a widespread tragedy, by foreseeing it or something. Who knows.

Nobody’s paying Kevin Norton any heed. Some parts of his clothing are pretty much falling apart. Kevin talks to the dog he’s with, saying he’s not getting much money and calling himself ‘the most powerful man in the world’ when asking for money. There’s not really much success here, so instead he decides to give the vital backstory info for the reader’s benefit. Just who are you, Mr. Kevin Norton?

Seems like he was in this area ages ago, and so much has changed since then. Kevin reminisces, remembering people who treated him well, and hopes they’re okay. Meanwhile, he gets some comfort for himself by saying he has a lot of responsibilities and he hasn’t shirked them – in fact, he makes it sound like the mere thought of having left them aside is the worst thing that could ever happen.

Also, he’s very alone. Nobody to support him, it seems. As if the world wants to make things a little worse for him, it starts raining.

Seems to me Kevin has regrets. There sure is a lot of talk about courage and cowardice here. Perhaps it’s related to he being the most powerful man in the world, according to himself? Maybe if he had been a little braver, he wouldn’t be in that position – like being the most powerful man in the world ruined his life. It’s one of those ironic things so popular in fiction, no? I wonder what’d be Mr. Wildbow’s take on it.

A woman gives Kevin ten pounds. So this is England, most likely. Quite a distance from Brockton Bay. Kevin braces himself for the judgmental scolding people who give him a lot of money usually give, and the woman doesn’t do anything like that. Instead, she makes conversation, praising the dog and asking why it’s called Duke. Kevin brings up once again he’s the most powerful man in the world. Boy, he’s fixated on that.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Hm?” he perked up, withdrawing his hand.

“You had a look on your face.”

“Just wondering when the last time I had contact with another person was. Might have been a few years ago. Pastor gave me a hug as I left his shelter.”

“That sounds so lonely, Kevin. Years without human contact?”

“Not so lonely. I’ve got one friend,” he said, scratching Duke’s head.

Lisette nodded.

“But you shouldn’t forget. The little stuff. Even a handshake? That’s something special. Meaningful. Value it, even if you get it every day.”

A lonely existence with many, many years without contact. Meaningful contact that wasn’t, say, the brush of fingertips when giving money. Makes me wonder what kind of life Kevin used to have before. So much melancholy in his tone, that’s for sure.

Kevin asks the woman – Lisette, is her name – to walk with him while he talks about himself. While the woman comes with him after some hesitation, she keeps her distance because hey, no harm in being cautious. Kevin starts talking. The beginning of his problems happened when he got into a relationship with a woman who in the end wasn’t really the right one for him, but he doesn’t blame her for his trouble. In the end, Kevin realized he’s gay. Still, that wasn’t the cause for the destruction of his relationship, anyway. It turned abusive in pretty much all ways possible, and Kevin left after a while. Since then he’s been living on the streets.

The place he has taken Lisette to is where he slept first. A bit of nostalgia there – I guess...we all look to our beginnings, huh.

Lisette is asked to hold Duke’s leash for a moment while Kevin got to the water’s edge, splashing some on his face. The situation takes a turn for the unexpected when suddenly there’s a golden man floating there. Huh. Parahuman, no doubt. Duke seems a bit...hm, ears flat against the head is a sign of apprehension, right? And Lisette is speechless.

You know, unless something changed very drastically in Worm and I don’t recall/didn’t notice, there’s only one golden guy floating around untouched by debris and dirt. Is this Scion? Did Scion just...appear out of nowhere to hang out here?

“Hello old friend,” Kevin said.

The only answer was the pouring rain. The golden man didn’t speak.

“Wondered if I would see you here,” Kevin continued. “Been a long time. I’d nearly convinced myself I’d imagined you. That old dog over there, he wasn’t even born when I left, and he’s on his last legs now. Twelve years old.”

Apparently he did, and it’s not the first time. Kevin had met him before, in this same place. Probably after leaving that abusive woman. Kevin nonchalantly returns to Lisette, and reveals Scion wasn’t ever that guy’s name. An alias, really, like all parahumans have.

This here is the reason why Kevin is the most powerful man in the world. Oh, please give more details! I’m actually intrigued by that. What’s up?

So, looks like I was right in that he met Scion shortly after he fled, encountering him and finding out Scion is sad – even if golden man’s face never changes, he’s sad in the inside, and has always been. Kevin hadn’t liked that and went to shout at him for being more miserable than Kevin was back then. Since Kevin wasn’t instantly vaporized with a laser beam back then, I guess Scion didn’t take offense to that.

In a fit of frustration, Kevin shouted at Scion why doesn’t he go and help someone. Why doesn’t he do something useful with his powers like save people or something. I guess he didn’t use to do that before, hm. And so, since then, Scion has been the hero everyone knows...because that’s all Scion has, it seems. He’s empty, according to Kevin. Saving people is...pretty much all he has. So that’s why Kevin says he has saved billions – he gave Scion the push to go be a hero, and therefore countless lives have been saved. Good thing it was Kevin who found him, then. If Scion was as easily influenced as Kevin is making it sound, then someone coming and telling him ‘hey, go commit crimes’ could have happened too, and things would be so much different right now. Maybe there’s an alternate universe fanfic with such a premise, it could be interesting to write and/or read.

According to Kevin, Scion understands, he just...doesn’t say a thing or react much or even does anything. He marches to the beat of his own drum, except when Kevin gets his hands in the way and makes him stop the beat for a second.

“It’s almost like he’s autistic,” Lisette said.

“How’s that?” Kevin asked.

“Too connected,” Lisette said. “Too much in the way of stimuli, drowning everything out.”

“Enhanced hearing, hearing the whole city at once?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he senses things we don’t,” she said. “The most powerful person in the world, and looking at him now, he’s like a child.”

Huh. Interesting thought. I wonder if that’s what’s going on. Sensing too much at once, and willfully having to cut the connections to things – or perhaps even unconsciously as some sort of protection mechanism for his psyche. Could be, no? If so, it’s a bit of a miracle Kevin got through to him at all. Hmmm...lucky, that was.

“Why? Why avoid him?”

Kevin didn’t take his eyes off the golden man. “He scares me. He chose me to listen to, of all people. I’m the most powerful person in the world, just because of that. Because I can tell the strongest, most capable man in the world what to do.”

Hmmmm...yeah, that sounds like it can be kind of unnerving. Scion is...a mystery. His origins are unknown, all that’s known is his actions, and those are thanks to Kevin. Kevin’s nudging is what has built Scion, pretty much.

At this point I just have to wonder if maybe there’s something up with Kevin and he doesn’t know it. I mean...there’s always the possibility Kevin is being deceitful in some way, but...I don’t know, something about him seems kind of sincere. I don’t think he’s hiding something. Why is Scion listening to him, of all people? There has to be a reason, no?

Still, that’s...such a scary thought. Because since Scion doesn’t even give any indication what he’s thinking, or how he’s interpreting things, if Kevin says a wrong word some bad stuff could happen, and I think Kevin is well aware of that. Honestly, anyone would be terrified. I know I would.

It seems Scion returned every once in a while just to listen to Kevin talk. Kevin just...tended to oblige, not really minding it much, until one night Kevin said something. Something that somehow got a reaction from Scion, and given how it was established he doesn’t bother reacting to anything, that’s very significant. Kevin doesn’t say what it is, but later Scion said it and the entire world latched onto it. That scared Kevin to no end. Okay, what was it? No way this intermission won’t say it! With all that’s been said about it, Mr. Wildbow just has to, no? I want to know!

“What did you say, if the word wasn’t Scion?” Lisette asked.

Ah, I see. So, I don’t really remember the details about Scion’s one and only word, but I faintly recall it was, well, ‘Scion’, and that’s why they’re calling him that. It seems Kevin said something and Scion latched onto it, but it actually was a word similar to that one.

Shenanigans ensue when it’s revealed it was actually Xion, because Kevin is a huge Kingdom Hearts fan and wanted to share some theories he had been building.

Okay, no, hah! Just joking. That’s just what came to mind when trying to think of something similar to ‘Scion’. I got nothing, I admit. Can’t think of a word.

“Only realized later. Was talking about home, religion and family. Talking about a memory from my childhood. Don’t even remember it that well, now. But the word he paid attention to was Zion.”

“That’s Hebrew, isn’t it?”

I went to search ‘Zion’ in Google, of course. The first result is Zion, a reggaeton singer, but unless Scion here is about to bust out some urban rhythm, that can’t be it. The next result sounds more like it:

Zion (Hebrew: צִיּוֹן‎ Ṣîyōn, LXX Σιών, also variously transliterated Sion, Tzion, Tsion, Tsiyyon) is a placename in the Hebrew Bible used as a synonym for Jerusalem as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole (see Names of Jerusalem).

That’s from Wikipedia, of course. So, as I see it, maybe it can be a hint about an origin. Nothing indicates Scion popped up into existence twenty years ago or whenever Scion first appeared floating in the air, maybe he has existed for way longer than that and heard that word before. Could be a hint about origins? Hm...

The other possibility is that it’s not so much something related to him, instead it’s something he’s familiar with. Or maybe he’s searching for it. I don’t know. Something’s up with that word, that’s all that’s plainly obvious. Doesn’t seem Kevin here has any ideas, either.

The reason why Kevin came here was to talk to Scion, and make a request. Seems that Kevin once told Scion to go fight the Endbringers, but he fears he wasn’t specific enough, that maybe he should have said to kill them so they couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. That because of that, Scion just...wasn’t bothering to try all he could to kill them, and that because of his bad choice of words, a lot of people have died. Boy that’s terrifying. It’s pretty much what I had said earlier. Part of me almost hopes this doesn’t work, if only so Kevin doesn’t blame himself for all the death and destruction.

Kevin is close to death. He came here to get his affairs in order, which he’s doing by telling Scion that about the Endbringers, and also by telling him to come to Lisette here if he ever needs anything.

Kevin sighed. “I’m here to get my affairs in order, and you’re most important after Duke. I want you to keep doing what you were doing. Help people. Try to communicate with the good guys more. I told you to do that before and you didn’t listen, but you should. And if there’s a problem, if you need someone to listen to, someone to visit from time to time, look for this young lady. Lisette. Because she’s good people. She’s a better person than I am. Braver. Has to be braver, if she’s stopping to talk to a homeless motherfucker like me, following him someplace.”

Wow. That’s got to be pretty awful for Lisette. Here, Lisette, you deal with the superpowered guy who doesn’t even give any indication he wants to listen to you. Honestly, it’s a bit of a curse, given how much grief that brought Kevin, and how Lisette, who is privy to why exactly it made Kevin so antsy, will have to undergo it too. It sucks for her, honestly. Goodness gracious.

I’m not sure if Scion will come to her or not, but...what’s done is done, no? Guess she...well...will have to deal with it, if he does come. I know it’s not like Kevin could have asked her permission because really, who’d say yes? But still, wow, that’s rough for Lisette.

Of course, Lisette seems kind of panicked about this. With good reason!

Kevin didn’t turn around or stop walking as he raised his voice to respond over the sound of the pouring rain. “Good deal, isn’t it? Ten pounds to become the most powerful person in the world.”

Methinks she may be regretting giving those ten pounds, honestly. That’s pretty rough.

That’s where the interlude ends. I see the tags here, where the character names usually are written, only has ‘Scion’. I guess that means Lisette won’t appear anymore, which is...understandable, honestly. What are the odds she goes to hang out in Brockton Bay for no reason at all? As I see it, it’s possible she’ll appear in a future interlude, but that’s it. I hope she’ll be okay, even if she was given this burden to deal with.

So, the intermission was...it was interesting. Somehow, although half of the time I’m annoyed by intermissions, Mr. Wildbow always manages to deliver. I can’t remember an interlude I ended dissatisfied with. I guess next time the story continues! But for now, this update is over.

#worm #worm liveblog #liveblog #webserial liveblog #webserial

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