#and random stuff that wafts into my brain

[parttimesarah]

Shout out to @thekingofinfinitespace 🎉🥳🍾

I love all 1000 of you nerdy, thirsty, lovely idiots!!

[nightingale-prompts]

Danny adopts himself

It's a common joke in Gotham that Bruce Wayne will adopt any black-haired and blue-eyed traumatized boy he finds. So much so that even he leans into it. But he was completely shocked when Damian confronts him about having a new brother that he did not want.

Bruce could barely get a word in when the rest of the family arrived upset that they weren't told about getting another sibling after Damian texted the family group chat (for once).

Damian had encountered a boy around Drake's age moving stuff into what was an empty room. The room was now furnished top to bottom with glowing green lights, tapestries of stars, random artifacts, several telescopes, and model rockets.

He knew the moment he saw the black hair and blue eyes that his father had taken in another ward.

Apparently Bruce was the last the know about his new "son" who was currently rearranging furniture and asking to helf Alfred with dinner.

Said dinner was an uncomfortable as Bruce was grilled by his kids on his addiction to adoption. Simultaneously they tried to get to know the new addition to the family.

It was easy to see that Damian didn't like Danny but it was equally easy to see that Danny could cow the boy like a border collie on a lamb. When Damian thew a dagger the teen caught it with one hand as it passed his face and then slid it across the table back to Damian.

"Try again. " Danny said "And this time don't aim to miss on purpose. If you want me dead you need to do better."

Damian put the knife away and huffed.

Tim and Danny hit it off almost instantly. The way they were able to bounce their thoughts back and forth made Tim believe that he found an equal.

Danny was able to understand Cassie immediately with just look in eachothers eyes like he was reading her mind but not in a creepy way.

Jason of course noticed the strange energy in the air around the kid. It was soothing. Like lavender wafting in the air. Well lavender for everyone else for him it was like opium. His eyes felt heavy like he had eaten a handful of poppy seeds. At the same time he felt full, like he had eating a full meal after starving for a week.

Whatever it is Damian was feeling it too. The demon looked even more his age as he rubbed his eyes and yawned. The crease in his brow gone.

Duke on the other hand was more on edge as his eyes flickered towards Danny before looking away. He had something he wanted to ask about the glowing boy but since no one can see it or just isn't saying anything he will keep quiet for now.

Next was Barbara who teased the new kid.

"So how do you like your new family? Ready to be the new robin?" She asked.

"Im robin." Damian mumbled groggily.

The others were waiting for Damian to finally fall asleep and glared at one another in a challenge to be the one to pick up Damian and put him to bed. Dick was winning.

Speaking of Dick, as expected he was off the wall excited to learn more about his new little brother. He wanted the full story as to why Bruce took him in. He could almost certainly guess it was because of a tragic situation and Dick was already ready to handle it as the greatest big brother ever and he wasn't sharing the title no matter what Barbara said. Even if she was Stephanie's favorite.

Bruce cleared his throat and the table went silent. "So, Danny. Where exactly did you come from? Why are you here? And how did you know who I am?"

Everyone went white. Did they all just risk their identities believing that Danny was a new Robin? Why didn't Bruce say something? Not even a signal for the protocol they would use.

Danny frowned looking a bit hurt.

"What do you mean, Bruce? You said you owed me. You said you'd give me anything I wanted if saved your son. I even helped you get back home when you got lost in time." Danny huffed feeling betrayed.

The table went silent.

Bruce made a few calculations in his brain before something must have come to mind. "I lost my memory for a bit so I need a bit of proof."

Danny placed a batarang on the table. The batarang had an engraving on it in a code that only Bruce knew.

"You told me to show this to Alfred when I came. We had a deal, Bruce. You promised me whatever I wanted." Danny huffed clearly insulted.

Just like Danny had said the code was the one Bruce had made. However this code wasn't a promise to grant a favor but to welcome someone new to the family. Past Bruce must have had plans to take the boy in but told Danny something else to lure him here.

Bruce recognized that everyone was right and he has a problem now that he's looking at it like this.

[zarvasace]

The disability au is my comfort food

glad you like it! :) take this random bit I wrote this morning

Potions

Gen, Wild's the only character. Not really a story, just a scene. 871 words. AO3 link here!

Wild's scars are giving him a bit of trouble. (disability AU but technically semi-canon too?)

---

Formulas and possibilities move through Wild's head in a complex synchronized dance. He's had most of these thoughts before, he has them every time he sits in front of his potion cauldron, but he particularly values them tonight. It's a warm evening, with insects buzzing through the calm rows of Legend's garden beyond the clear dirt spot where Wild's set up. A few small clouds scrub across the sky. It's late enough that only a few voices are still awake inside the house, drifting in through the open back door. 

Wild shifts his weight, feeling the coarse dirt beneath his toes, and reaches forward with his metal spoon to stir his potion-in-progress. The metal is a little tarnished and eaten away from bad potion batches, but it's still functional, and Wild is definitely in the habit of using things until they're truly worn out. 

The pinch of the dirt on Wild's feet distracts him a little from the reason he's out here making potions rather than inside making cocoa or something: his scars itch. 

It's not exactly unusual. His scars give him a lot of trouble on occasion. They'll get stiff, restricting his range of movement, or they'll feel like they're tightening. The itching is Wild's least-favorite part, though. He usually manages his weird scar side effects just fine with salves he makes from recipes he'd learned from various medicine men and women across his Hyrule. The most common two he uses are warm lavender to manage the stiffness, and cool honey to manage the itching. He ran out of the cool honey stuff this morning. 

Wild digs his toes into the dirt and wafts some of the potion vapor toward his face. The smell reminds him of bone-deep chills, cracking ice, and honey candy. It's going well, he thinks. 

It's honestly a bit funny how his potion-making habits have changed. On his adventure, and for a while afterwards, he'd been one hundred percent stocked up on potions and salves, all of time. He made extra when he got bored, experimenting with ingredients and processes. He enjoyed the time he spent sitting next to fires, cooking food for later and trying new things. 

Wild still enjoys it, of course. There's a kind of tranquility that comes when his only concern is what's in the cauldron, or what's going to be in it. But now he has more to make than just food or elixirs for himself. He's learned about new ingredients, new recipes… or, rather, old ingredients and recipes. He's pretty sure he's on the end of the timeline somewhere, not that they know for sure. He likes the new purpose that his time by the cauldron has, he just… gets less of it. And with so much more to make, he forgets about the basics sometimes. 

So, right now is sort of uncomfortable. Wild pokes the concoction with his spoon, judges it done, and stands to pull the cauldron off the fire. Every movement shifts his undershirt against his skin, simultaneously making the itching better and worse. He winces to himself. 

As the salve cools, Wild pokes through his slate to try and distract his brain just a little bit more. He should probably stock up on butter next time they find a full market… he's been going through it like crazy. They could always use more healing and magic potions. Maybe he can get some of those ingredients ready. They take a long time to make, which is why he buys them, but he prefers to make his own, they're more potent with his modified recipes. 

Wild does his very, very best to ignore the way his scars itch, but part of his mind is always focused on it. His hip, ribs, under his left arm… then up his neck and his jaw. His ear has been ringing softly since this morning. Wild starts to cut up some ginger for the potions, but the repetitive movements of his left arm really aren't helping. It's maddening. 

In the end, he barely waits for the salve to cool enough to slather it onto his face. Hey, the skin's already burned. The soft honey immediately cools the itching, which is great. He shucks off his shirt right there in Legend and Ravio's backyard to dab the salve on everywhere else he needs it. It's a little sticky, but it's nice, overall. The breeze touches it and makes him shiver. 

Wild's shoulders ache a little from how tense he's been, trying to not itch hard enough to break skin. Seriously, someone should be really proud of how well he's done. Zelda probably would be. She has more than a few scars of her own from that century, and she at least sort of understands how it is. He makes a note to tell her. 

Hm… he'd been making healing potions… but he's running low on his warm lavender lotion, too. He knows that Legend appreciates it when he shares, though he'd never admit it. 

Mind made up, Wild cleans out his potion cauldron with a bit of soap and the pump, then puts some fire chu jelly to sizzling. It's a lovely night for potion brewing, and he's not going to waste it. 

[racingliners]

hello and lots of writing questions right back at you...! 2, 6, 18, 22, 27 & 29 <3

*rubs hands together* yeah let's go off about shit!

2. Do you read/reread your own fics?

Yes, I absolutely do. Mainly because I write stuff that I want to read, so I will 100% go back to chapters or works when enough time has past that I can actually enjoy reading it without thinking about grammar or pacing or anything like that (keeping the editing hat off is difficult though, has to be said).

And while undertaking The Great LITFL Re-Write Project, I've been reading that back through as I work on each chapter just to make sure there's enough of a connection between the two works.

6. Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?

Again, yes! Some more then others due to recency bias and the fact I have so many bookmarks and my autism brain means I have the 'out of sight, out of mind' problem where I just forget about stuff. What I re-read can depend on what mood I'm in, or if something just wafts into my head out of the blue and then I instantly have to pull it up and read it to satisfy the itch.

My recent favourite re-reads are 'tomorrow is a place' which is quite possibly my absolute favourite Star Trek Picard fic, 'Solar Flare' by Tianvette - a truly fantastic work but 100% read through the tags before reading, 'Elevator' by BigBlueLemon which was recced to me and I'm so glad because I enjoy reading it every single time (it's just! so! soft!!!!!!), and 'Saltwater and Gasoline' by Kaytheologie for Reasons™️

18. What’s one of your favourite lines you’ve written in a fic?

Going for a deep dive into my archive and pick this from 'Where You Go, I Follow', because it comes back into my head now and again a very surprising amount (and I'm always on my Team Seb bullshit)

“Oh by the way, Seb finally asked me to prom!” As Antti grinned at his colleague, Sebastian strongly contemplated kicking Antti under the table while Britta just laughed.

22. Do you know how your fic will end before you start writing?

I like to have a rough idea in my mind, since I can get quite easily overwhelmed, especially by a big multi-chapter project. Sometimes I'll come up with the ending first (like the parallels in 'I'll Be Okay, Someday' which also acts as the motivation to write. But for longer works I'll have everything laid out in my chapter outline doc, and go from there.

27. Is there a fic you were nervous to post/share? Why?

my ongoing re-write of Life In The Fast Lane, because it had been so long since I'd written and finished the rpf version and I wasn't sure how people would take to the re-write being an original work (and while feedback has been about as minimal as expected, what I have had back has been really lovely!)

I was pretty nervous about posting I'll Be Okay, Someday as well because I hadn't written f1 rpf in years, hence why it's still listed as Anonymous 😅

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

Diving back into LITFL for this one! This snippet was written before I'd swapped Spa out for Istanbul on my season calendar (mainly due to somewhat recent events I just found it too difficult a prospect for me to write about races at Spa, hence the switch).

I edited this snippet to make it fit for the Turkey 2023 chapter, but here it is in it's original form.

It was the kind of wind that chilled you right to the bone no matter how many layers of clothing you wore. Yet Vanessa, Sophie and her engineers tried their best to brace themselves against the erratic gusts as they exited the pitlane and approached Eau Rouge. Even now, in what was Sophie’s umpteenth visit to the track, the sight of it still filled her with awe. “Now, oh sh-” Chris went to speak, but ended up pulling his team branded beanie hat further down his head with one hand, with the other trying to keep his notebook shut as he was hit by another icy cold gust. “I know you were here last year in F2. But, you’re still going to notice a huge difference in the amount of horsepower you’ll have going up here” Chris glanced at Eau Rouge, then looked right into Sophie’s eyes. “I know you’ll want to be a bonkers racing driver and go up here full throttle. But if you do, you’ll crash. So please take it easy for your first few laps in practice tomorrow, okay?” Despite the sternness in Chris’ voice, Sophie knew by now that it had nothing to do with her race engineer’s trust that she was able to do her job properly. It came from the unspoken part of Chris’ job description, the part where he had a sizeable chunk of responsibility to keep his driver safe. “I will try especially hard to be careful tomorrow. I promise” Chris huffed and affectionately rolled his eyes before he stuffed his hands in his coat pockets, hunched his shoulders almost all the way up to his ears, and continued on walking up Eau Rouge and Radillon with his already chilled colleagues. They had some shelter thanks to the colossal pine trees that ran alongside the Kemmel straight, but the rest of the track walk left everyone once again exposed to the frozen gusts of wind. At least, they all knew each other well enough by now to not bother hiding how cold they all were. “I texted Richard, he’ll have teas and coffees waiting for us when we get back” At that, Vanessa suddenly became everyone’s favourite Hintsa employee as they neared the Bus Stop chicane at the end of the lap.

fan fic writers asks

[sergeantnarwhalwrites]

Cravings

This is definitely an 18+ story. Content warnings: Murder, cannabalism, gore, sex mention kinda. A short story I wrote this evening. My dash was filled with cute stuff and here I go with this. XD My brain works in weird ways. Let me know if I should add a tag list for my random stuff like this. 

_______

She drooled as her eyes lazily watched the rushing players chase after the soccer ball. 

She swallowed hard gnawing absentmindedly on her inner cheek. Completely unbothered by the sting that arose from her teeth aggravating past wounds from doing the same.

She had a craving. An intense one. It rippled through her body, stubbornly persisting. She swallowed hard once more before trailing her tongue along the sweat of her upper lip. 

Her friend returned handing her one of the classic cherry ice in her hands. The dumb polar bear on the packaging having a better time than they had to be having. 

“Figured you might want something cold to eat. It’s killer out here.” 

She happily took the overpriced ice and suckled on it giving a silent affirmation. She hadn’t wanted to worry her friend and maybe it would prove as a distraction for her expectant mouth. 

Her eyes drifted back to the conditioning soccer players, unamused and unsatisfied. She dared not to notify her friend of this fact either. 

The time seemed to crawl along there as their coach finally blew all of the air out of their lungs and into the whistle dangling from their fat neck. The coach released the whistle allowing it to hit their chest unbothered. 

Her friend grinned, glad they would be out of the unforgiving heat soon. 

She grinned herself glad her cravings would soon be sated and far less bothersome.

Her friend placed a cool kiss on her temple and rushed off to leap into the arms of one of the players on the newly turfed field. 

She calmly approached a man who stood just as tall as her and took his hand. She placed a kiss on the back of his unwashed hand, her grin brightening at the taste of salt that graced her tongue. She humored the man, knowing she’d get what she wanted all too soon. 

The time passed by pleasantly fast now. The hours come along like minutes, the woman’s mood brightening significantly as they had resided in the woman’s own home. 

Her impatience grew as a bad movie droned on in the background. One of the kinds that weren’t so bad they were funny, it was just garbage. She coughed a little as she walked over to the kitchen trash hovering over it as she began to heave. She gagged and heaved as she vomited up the red ice from earlier, painting the trash’s contents red. 

The odor of bile and artificial cherry wafted past her nose as she hacked up the distasteful treat. 

He quickly came to comfort her holding back her luscious locks of dark hair, gently patting her back with his other hand.

“Did you drink any water? Maybe you’re dehydrated. I have some Powerade in your fridge you can drink.” 

He tried to apply reason to the situation. It was unclear if it was to calm the worries within himself or an attempt to hush the humiliation he thought I may have experienced.

“No.” She croaked, cringing at the taste in her mouth, “I had other things on my mind.”

She casually slid one of the drawers open, grabbing an item inconspicuously. She used her opposite hand to turn on the faucet, placing her mouth beneath the rushing water. She slurped loudly and spat into the sink in an attempt to wash the foul flavor of cherry bile from her tongue. 

He pouted softly as he spoke. 

“That’s not very good for you. Are you feeling a little better at least?”

She laughed gleefully and took another mouthful of water holding it there. She left the faucet running as she lifted her head from the sink spitting the water in his face. 

“Yeah but a little vomit isn’t the reason why.” 

Her mouth watered as water dribbled from her chin. She gripped the object in her hand, which happened to be a meat tenderizer, bashing it into the disoriented man’s skull. 

He fell to his butt with a disgruntled noise, collapsing pitifully as he attempted to put space between them. His eyes squeezed tight throughout the ordeal as the lukewarm tapwater warmed from her mouth burned his eyes. 

“What the fuck? What the fuck!” 

She drooled now seeing the blood flowing from his skull, matting his hair. The putrid taste in her mouth was overcome by the reminisced flavor of flesh and blood she was willing to murder for. That she had been craving. 

She took advantage of the disoriented man, tugging at her first weapon of choice that had clattered to the ground beside him. She grinned and rolled her wrists as she swung the meat tenderizer with uncanny precision. Making sure to take one fluid step forward as she followed through with another swing, that left the weapon embedded in the man’s thick skull. 

She was desperate. She had wanted this for weeks, trying to fight her own nature. She gazed down at the man who laid unconscious, tauntingly close to death. His breaths left his mouth laboriously, sending an excited twinge through her bones. 

She considered making his last moments easier. This meant quicker food access anyway. Unbothered she fished through the next drawer removing a gun that had done nothing more than take up space until now. Quickly removing the safety she fired two shots through the man ending his meager life. 

She practically shook in excitement grabbing the arm the man had jokingly referred to as his wanking arm and pressing her foot hard to his shoulder. She yanked desperately at his arm until a wet pop sound sounded through the room. She grinned as she then took on the same task for his other arm. 

She tore through the man’s band shirt as she began to lick up the blood slowly crawling down his neck. She hummed and huffed in pleasure, her breath hot against the dead man’s neck. She hazily grabbed a knife as she licked her blood-stained lips. 

With the knife, coincidentally sharpened the night before, she began to make slices into the man’s arms. She was far too ready to consume the man raw. Loudly slurped up blood trails before skinking her teeth into the freshly carved slice of Chad with a pleasured groan. 

She continued to gnaw at the man’s flesh, shoving the remnants of that slice into her mouth. She chewed with an open mouth using tap water to assist it in eagerly sliding down her throat. She turned the faucet off with bloodied hands and looked into the blood pooling on her tiled floors, 

She fell to her knees dragging her tongue across the puddle of blood. She panted and grunted as she lapped it up. Her breath making small ripples in the liquid slowly spreading across the kitchen floor. 

She should’ve known better to fight her cravings. Only idiots like her fight their cravings. She will always fall back to her old ways. Because beasts like her never change.

[heauxplesslydevoted]

Silent Treatment (Ethan x MC)

Summary: Naomi decides that if Ethan isn’t going to treat her like a valued member of the team, she’ll teach him a little lesson.

Based on chapter 1, some spoilers for chapter 2, and my own speculation, so read at your own risk.

I highkey hate this but I’m posting it anyway

~v~

Naomi is quiet. No, she is unusually quiet. Ethan has seen her get silent when it’s time to buckle down and focus on a task, or if something is weighing heavily on her, but at this point he knows her well enough to know it’s neither of those. She’s withdrawn, and he doesn’t understand why.

Her presence is hard to miss, the young resident has enough charm and charisma in her pinky finger to dazzle an entire room. And she’s never this quiet. Naomi demands to be heard at all times. With unapologetic vivacity. With her hands. Eyes sparkling when she gets an idea, or fiery when she needs to dig her toes into something and fight. Nothing about Naomi Valentine is ever subdued, so why the hell is she so silent?

She didn’t speak much during the last few team meetings. He and Harper have led all of the conversations, bouncing ideas back and forth, building off of each other’s ideas. Occasionally, Naomi would offer input, merely to agree or disagree with a theory, before going back into her shell.

It’s even bleeding into their personal life. For the better part of the past 3 months, she’s stayed with him, the two of them holed up in his apartment in the Back Bay, but now she’s opting to stay at her own place. It’s been going on a few days now, this random despondence, and Ethan isn’t a fan of it. He’d take it a step further and say it's driving him crazy. This isn’t the woman he’s known for the past two years, even at her lowest was she never this reclusive.

As he walks down the halls of Edenbrook, he spots Naomi, her personality back to what it once was. She’s with Ines at a vending machine, and Naomi wastes no time animatedly talking to the now attending about a fun date she went on with her girlfriend.

Heart hammering wildly in his chest, Ethan swallows thickly as he listens to her talk. He’s missed the sound of her voice, the affectionate way her strong accent curls around her ‘r’s’ and dramatically elongates her ‘o’s’. It becomes clear that she’s willing to talk, just not to him. Ethan doesn’t like that idea at all, but it’s the only one that makes sense. And if that’s the case, he needs to get to the bottom of things and remedy the situation.

“Naomi, can we talk please?” He asks once Ines is no longer in their presence.

He doesn’t miss the way she bristles upon hearing his voice. But Naomi nods anyway. “Sure, what’s wrong?”

“Can we talk in the office?”

The walk back to the seventh floor is marked with awkward silence as Naomi refuses to initiate conversation with him. The more time ticks on, the more anxiety settles in Ethan’s chest. What’s going on with her that she refuses to divulge?

The office is unoccupied when they arrive, as Harper has already gone home for the evening. Naomi stands by the door, opting not to settle into a seat or even move further into the room. Everything about her body language reads that she’s poised and ready to strike at any given moment. He frowns. She’s never been this defensive against him, at least when they’re not in the middle of an argument. “What’s going on?”

“Are you okay?”

The question catches Naomi off guard. She blinks slowly before shrugging in nonchalance. “I’m fine, Ethan.”

“You’re fine? Really?”

“Is there a reason why I shouldn’t be fine?”

“Not really, but you haven’t been acting like yourself recently.”

Because you’ve been quieter than a church mouse for the past few days. You don’t talk during meetings, you’re silent when we interact with the patients, it’s like you’ve completely tuned out.”

With the way he’s been acting, Naomi is almost shocked that he even realized what she’s been doing. Wow, so maybe the great Ethan Ramsey hasn’t lost his attention to detail.

“Oh, so you’ve actually noticed?”

“I’m a diagnostician, I notice everything,” Ethan deadpans. He can feel the sarcasm wafting off of her. “What, was this an intentional act for my attention?”

“Intentional, yes. But for your attention? Not necessarily,” Naomi answers.

His eyes narrow at her, his gaze near piercing. She’s playing some sort of childish game with him, first with not speaking and now with the vague half answers. “Okay, so walk me through your thought process. Why has the cat stolen your tongue?”

“I decided that if my input wasn’t going to be valued during team discussions, I might as well not speak at all.”

Ethan gapes at her, confused. Where did that come from? “Naomi, what on earth are you talking about? When have I ever not valued your input?”

“I’m talking about the fact that for the past two cases, I’ve stood on the sidelines while you’ve either cut me off mid-sentence to talk over me, or ignore my presence altogether. I might as well blend into the wall.”

“That’s not–”

Naomi doesn’t give him the chance to refute.  “Please spare me the attempt at arguing. Last week, Harper’s first day on the team, you literally had to circle back to me because you cut me off while I was speaking. And now, we’re working on a case, and you and Harper aren’t even taking this patient seriously! I’ve had to redirect the conversation and tell you guys to focus, because you two were too busy acting like bosom buddies, sharing anecdotes about hangovers, and stupid flamenco lessons, and dates you went on in the past, which is not only inappropriate and disrespectful to the patient’s time, it’s disrespectful to me.”

“So either you are completely oblivious, which I find hard to believe for someone as astute as you are, or you have no respect for me, not just as your colleague, but as the woman you claim to be in a relationship with,” Naomi continues. The floodgates have been opened and now that she’s started, she can’t stop herself. “And maybe it’s the latter, because I set that standard. I’ve let you go days, weeks, months without speaking to me with zero consequence, I’ve let you shut me out and slam doors in my face, make snide comments last year when we were treating Leland, I’ve let you have carte blanche over the pace of this relationship. I’ve always just been here and allowed your shitty social graces and piss poor communication skills to rule, and time and time again, you’ve gone unscathed, but now I’m just really tired of it.”

For the first time in a long, Ethan doesn’t have a clue what to say, and as always, Naomi is the woman who puts him in this position.

“Naomi, you can’t possibly think that I think so little of you.”

He can tell by the way her eyes darken that he put his entire foot in his mouth just now. The warning bells go off in his brain, and he scrambles to think of how he can correct this latest blunder.

Naomi bites down on her lip, and she’s actually shocked her mouth isn’t instantly flooded with the metallic taste of blood. She’s getting Punk’d obviously. The office is bugged, and Ashton Kutcher is going to jump out and announce his presence soon. That has to be it. Ethan has to be pranking her, because there’s no way a 38 year old man could ever be so dense, right? Surely his response to her grievances isn’t to dismiss her claims.

“You know what? You’re being obtuse, and we clearly aren’t getting anywhere, so I’m going to cut this conversation off now.”

She refuses to look like the psycho in this scenario and breathe any more life into this argument, and she’s not about to plead her case any further like she’s the one in the wrong.

Ethan’s eyes soften, and he takes a step forward, arms outstretched to touch, soothe whatever hurts he’s heaped upon her, but Naomi sidesteps, moving out of his reach.

If he wasn’t nervous at the start of this conversation, he is now. If the physical act of Naomi blatantly refusing to touch him wasn’t clear enough, the metaphorical chasm between the two of the just widened by a few yards as well. A chill races up and down the length of his spine.

“Naomi, I’m sorry,” Ethan says gently. “I…” His words taper off and he pauses, struggling for what he wants to say next. This has never been his strong point, being vulnerable.

And Naomi doesn’t offer him a lifeline. She’s not going to give him an out or assuage him of anything he’s currently feeling like she usually does. She’s laid out all of her cards, and things are in Ethan’s court at this point. Like always. 

“I’m going home,” she announces. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

~v~

The sun is barely out when Naomi shows up for work in the morning. Most of the hospital is still, the last of the night shift heading out as she’s on her way in. She heads towards the residents’ lounge, wanting to put her things away before checking in on her patients and having a team meeting.

As soon as she opens her locker, she spots a gorgeous bouquet of red roses wrapped in newspaper invading the space. There’s no note attached to the bouquet, and she spared a quick glance around the room to see if anyone else is there. The lounge is empty, save for another resident in the corner, sleeping.

Naomi takes the bouquet out of her locker, careful not to smash the petals and holds it up to her nose, inhaling deeply. 

Deciding to not put more thought into where they came from, Naomi simply cradles the bouquet in the crook of one of her arms, stuffs her bag into her locker, and continues on with her morning routine.

She’s passing by the nurses’ station on the 7th floor when someone catches her attention. “Oh Dr. Valentine! You have a special delivery.”

Her steps slow down as she approaches the front desk where Sarah, one of her favorite RNs is stationed. Sarah steps aside, revealing an even larger bouquet of roses, these ones white.

“Where did these come from?” Naomi asks.

“They were delivered about half an hour ago,” Sarah replies with a wink. “No note, though. I won’t let Dr. Ramsey know that you have a secret admirer.”

And that’s when it clicks into place. Memories of her fight with Ethan come flooding back, and it becomes clear that he’s the one gifting her these flowers. Before she even realizes she’s doing it, her eyes roll. If he thinks a couple of bouquets of roses are a good enough apology, he can think again.

Naomi plucks a white rose right from the center of the bouquet and hands it to Sarah. “For you.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“I insist,” Naomi says. “Happy Friday, Sarah.”

“Thank you, Dr. Valentine!”

Seeing the smile on the senior nurse’s face is almost enough to cleanse Naomi of the annoyance she feels towards Ethan in this moment. After exchanging a few more pleasantries, Naomi manages to scoop up this new batch of flowers – they’re in a vase, to which she adds her red ones – and finishes her trek to the office.

She isn’t expecting it to be covered in bunches of bright yellow sunflowers.

Their communal desk is covered in them, along with Ethan’s personal desk and the couch. “What on earth was he thinking?”

“I was thinking that sunflowers are your favorite flower,” Ethan answers, and Naomi jumps, startled at his voice. She whips around and sees him standing in the doorway. “And so I got up well before the sun was shining, went to the Boston Flower Exchange and bought every single one I could get my hands on.”

“And the roses?”

“White is supposed to be symbolic of new beginnings and forgiveness,” Ethan explains. “And you simply can’t go wrong with red.”

“If you think buying me flowers is going to cut it, you must not know me well,” Naomi says. Him buying her things doesn’t impress her, no matter how much she jokes about his money.

“No, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.” Ethan takes a cautious step into the room, shutting the door behind him. A sleepless night without her beside him forced Ethan to do a lot of thinking about how he wanted this conversation to go. A peace offering is always a good start. “And it got you to talk to me.”

Naomi scoffs and sets her flowers down. “Barely.”

“I’m sorry,” Ethan says. “I’m an idiot, and an asshole.”

“It’s good that we can agree on something.”

Okay, it’s clear that she is not going to give him any leeway. “You were absolutely right to call me out on my behavior towards you.”

“Why did you do it?” Naomi asks.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Ethan says simply. “I got so caught up in having Harper on the team, and it’s easy to slip back into old habits without even realizing.”

“It wasn’t a simple one time thing. It was more than once that you and Harper completely forgot I was even there. And I like Harper, I don’t think I could respect her more than I already do, and I have a very healthy sense of self esteem, but even the toughest person on earth wouldn’t like being in my shoes, on the outside looking in while you and your ex reminisce on old dates and inside stories. Ethan, you couldn’t handle a modicum of the shit I have willingly put up with in order to be with you.”

His stomach knots up at the thought of an ex-boyfriend of Naomi’s coming into his personal space, sharing personal jokes with her, ignoring him, and monopolizing her time. If the thought of it had him this twisted, he can’t believe he’s been putting her through that reality.

“You were right to call me out on my bad communication skills. I am terrible at relationships. I’m not using it as an excuse, it’s just the truth. But I’ve gotten complacent, which is unacceptable.” Ethan takes another step towards Naomi, and when she doesn’t instantly recoil, he takes it as a sign to get even closer. “The last thing I ever want to do is stifle your voice, or make you feel invisible. Naomi, you are...invaluable. To this hospital, to this team, to me, and I am so sorry that there was ever a time where I made you feel like you weren’t. You are the most important person in my life, and what we have is something I’ve never had with anyone else.”

“Okay, so start acting like it,” Naomi challenges. “I’m your equal and I demand every bit of respect you have to offer. Anything less than that cannot be tolerated anymore, personally or professionally.”

Ethan nods emphatically at her words. “Of course.”

“I mean it.”

“You have my word, Naomi. I’ll never let it happen again.” He closes the gap between them and cups her face in his hand. “Just please...never give me the silent treatment again. Yell from the rooftops, argue with me, I don’t care, but I can’t take not hearing your voice.”

“You needed to be taught a lesson,” Naomi says simply.

“I learned my lesson, and I hated it,” Ethan confesses, his lips dangerously close to hers. Naomi doesn’t budge, not even an inch. She’s terribly stubborn, even at the end of a fight. “It was torture.”

“Good.” Deciding to put him out of his misery, Naomi tilts her head up and captures Ethan in a kiss. He doesn’t waste a single second returning it. His free hand wraps around the small of her back, pulling her in closer. How did he go this long without touching her?

He doesn’t know how long they’ve been kissing, but he finally breaks apart from her long enough to bury his face in her neck, allowing her scent and soft skin to soothe any of his fraught nerves. She smells like home.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?” Ethan asks.

“The jury is still out on that one.”

“You’re going to make me work for this, aren’t you?”

“Are you up for the challenge?”

Ethan untangles himself from their embrace and takes a step back, so he’s able to look Naomi in the eyes. He takes her hand and presses a soft kiss into her palm. “For you? I’ll do just about anything.”

~v~

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[batsandbugs]

Help (I Need Somebody) Help

AN:Hey everyone! Hope you’re doing well, here’s chapter two of my wrong number daminette AU. I had a lot of fun with this, enjoy!

Chapter 2

Damian held back an unimpressed sigh when two goons rushed him. Their stances were off balance, and he could smell the stench of alcohol wafting off of them.  A low sweep to their legs had both tumbling to the ground. If he had a dime for every lowbrow thug who thought they had a chance at beating him, he’d be richer than his father twice over.

It wasn’t his fault the brain lacking buffoons hadn’t figured out they had a snowball’s chance in hell to beat him in the seven years he lived here. Damian certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell them different now. He needed some sort of stress relief after Alfred banned swearing in the house.

He flipped another grunt over his shoulders, an audible crack of a broken bone soon followed.

His mask hid a glint of amusement that was surely gleaming in his eyes, but he kept his face an annoyed scowl. The last thing he needed was word getting back to his father for finding pleasure in the suffering of others. Even if the whole reason they were out tonight, punching up a contingent of near brain-dead loons, was to stop a sex trafficking ring. It was times like this where he seriously considered the validity of his father’s no-killing rule; surely some scum wouldn’t be missed.

He whipped around to punch another man, nearly a foot taller than him and thrice as wide, across the face. Blood spurted from the thug’s nose as the behemoth fell to the ground. Good. Damian jumped back and flipped himself over to roundhouse kick another goon. Another satisfying crack, and the last of them had finally fallen to his superior skills.

Easy.

He waited for the warm glow of satisfaction after a fight well fought, but all he received was the familiar rush of adrenaline and the delicious burn of his muscles tensing for another go.

Unfortunately, all too easy.

Damian didn’t sigh, he was too disciplined for that, but the low-level grumbling in his mind, and the displeased sneer were all too indicative of his problem.

He was utterly unchallenged.

It wasn’t that he enjoyed getting beat to hell and back. He wasn’t a masochist (although, the same could not be said for the rest of his family, if anyone asked him (which, of course, they didn’t)). It was just… after three years with the Titans, constantly stretching to prove himself, pushing his abilities to keep up with those endowed with advantages he simply didn’t have, Gotham felt… lacking in comparison.

And with the Titans all but formally disbanded, Gotham was all he had.

Well… that wasn’t entirely true. He could follow Cyborg and Blue Beetle and join the Justice League. He had enough blackmail material on all the core members needed to vote him in if his father protested. It would be a welcome change; higher level threats and off world missions, if only there wasn’t the pesky problem of dealing with other heroes.

He would be the first to admit that in his younger teenage years his anti-socialness was a bit… problematic, but he’d grown past that. Socializing with the Titans had been difficult at first, but by the end he could say he was more than an acquaintance with them – even if he wouldn’t go so far as to call all of them friends. But even if he had gotten used to them, it still took three years. At least in Gotham his potential partners were all known quantities. Even if he disliked half of them on his good days.

“Robin, do you read?” called his father on the comms. He shook away his distracting maudlin thoughts.

He raised a hand to his comm. “All clear southside Batman, making my way to the roof.”

“Negative, Hood is already there. Red Robin needs help releasing the captives – cops will be here in fifteen.”

Damian bit back an irritated sigh. “I’ll be of more use-”

“Robin, that’s an order.”

The words wrapped around him, restricting in their resoluteness. He glared down at the unconscious thug and gave a swift kick to the side resulting in an incoherent groan. Gritting his teeth, he muttered, “Yes, Batman.”

His comm feed dropped off.

The resulting string of swear words he uttered in Arabic would have cost him two hundred dollars in the swear jar. Damian just didn’t give enough of a fuck to bring himself to care.

-0o0-

Damian didn’t slam his bedroom door shut, but it was a close thing.

Between avoiding his father, deflecting the inane chatter of his siblings, and dealing with the GCPD, all of whom were either corrupt, uncaring, or ridiculously overworked, he had been ready stab someone, repeatedly, consequences be damned.

And that discounted dealing with the inconsolable sobbing women they rescued from the shipping containers. The sight of dozens of girls packed together like cargo, most of them his age, if not younger, would be enough to throw even the most experienced off their game.

Damian lived through some truly horrid things growing up in the League. He killed a grown man before he lost his first baby tooth. Suffered through endless hours of training with painful consequences upon any sign of failure. He had been beaten, starved, tortured, and pushed to the extremes of what a child could endure, but the utter horror and disgust he was faced with tonight, well…

At least the suffering he’d endured had a point.

Rubbing a towel through his still damp hair, he collapsed on top of his bed with an exhausted groan. The shower did little in relaxing his tensed muscles, his bed a welcome retreat after being on his feet for hours. Reaching out blindly he grabbed his phone off his bedside table. Going to bed would be the better choice, but it was Saturday, so he didn’t really give a damn.

His phone flicked on and he was taken aback by the notification awaiting him.

40 unread messages

He raised an eyebrow. That was odd. Not completely impossible, but odd. He did have acquaintances who would text him, Jon and Garfield came to mind, but it would be one or two messages at the most. Maybe a missed call if it was something extremely important.

He unlocked his phone.

Tapping on his messaging app, he saw that the messages all came from an unknown number.

That raised even more concerns, considering anyone who had this number were people he should already have programed into his contacts.

This put Damian’s suspicions on high alert.

Cautiously tapping on the text stream, he began reading.

        - As long as you’re not an evil villain running around in a purple suit or a bitchy Italian transfer student I figure you won’t care about what I have to say

         - I haven’t slept in two days. My brain is buzzing. And between my insomnia and four years of repressed anger generated by existing in the same city as an emotional terrorist who uses magical butterflies to turn distressed people into monsters, I might come off a bit incoherent

Before Damian could stop it, a small laugh of amusement passed his lips. This person was either really high, or entirely serious.

His finger hovered over the delete button. This had nothing to do with him. The person admitted they were texting a random number to blow off steam. He should just let it go and get some sleep.

But despite the long drive home, the debriefing, and a shower, the adrenaline hadn’t left his system yet. And the sight of those women in the container wasn’t going to leave his brain for a while. Sleep wouldn’t be coming for a long time yet. Whoever this was, sounded, if not entirely sane, at least somewhat amusing.

Looking back on it, Damian didn’t know what the influencing factor that made him read further. It could have been amusement, or curiosity. It could have been sleep deprivation. It could have been the promise of distraction. It could all of those or none of those, or any combination thereof.

Or it could have been luck.

Pulling up the knitted blanket from the end of his bed, he settled in against his covers, and began to read.

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[yurtletheturtlehenderson]

COSMIC - S3:E4; Chapter Four, The Sauna Test - [Pt. 3]

A Will Byers x Reader Series

𝘔𝘪𝘬𝘦, 𝘓𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘵 𝘌𝘭, 𝘔𝘢𝘹 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘠/𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘍𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘙𝘰𝘣𝘪𝘯, 𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘬 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘓𝘺𝘯𝘹.

📝: ERICAAA!!! FRICKIN FINALLY!! Less important note, but when writing about Y/n, El and Max, I wrote "the three friends" and autocorrect literally changed "friends" to "fruits". Yelmax confirmed 💀

||𝟑𝐑𝐃 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐕||

"It is fascinating what twenty bucks will get you at the County Recorder's Office," Robin reports, unfurling what looked to be a familiar layout on the break room table. "Starcourt Mall. The complete blueprints."

"Not bad," Dustin smirks from her left.

"So this is us," she points to a familiar-looking room before gesturing across the map. "Scoops, and this is where we wanna get."

"Yeah, I don't really see a way in," Steve mumbles from his seat at the table.

"There's not. If,"

She rips away a layer of the blueprint, revealing a vastly complicated map of air ducts, pipelines, and detailing that made up Starcourt.

"you're talking exclusively about doors."

Dustin looks at her with excitement growing in his eyes. "Air ducts!"

"Exactly," she smirks, making her way to the whiteboard to retrieve the magic marker. "Turns out, this secret room needs air just like any old room and these air ducts lead all the way" she circles the secret room in question, drawing one, interrupted line right back to, "here."

Dustin and Steve finally tear their eyes away from the map and follow Robin's mischievous eye. All the way to the air duct tucked away in the far corner of the Scoops Ahoy break room.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

To their surprise, a screwdriver had been harder to find than a ladder but soon enough Steve had managed to reach the air vent and unscrew it from the wall. But as he stood here now, peering down into the vent he quickly realized they were now facing yet another obstacle.

"Flath'ligh'?" Steve asked, finally removing the screwdriver from his mouth and shaping it for the small torchlight Dustin had waiting. "Thank you,"

The flashlight turns on with a tiny click and a soft yellow light bounces down the narrow metal tunnel, enunciation the frown on Steve's face.

"Yeah, I don't know man, I don't know if you can fit in here, it's like... super tight."

"I'll fit," Dustin smirks. "Trust me. No collarbones, remember?"

"Uh, excuse me?" Robin asks.

Steve jumps down from the ladder, turning to Robin as Dustin begins the climb and gives her a nod.

"Oh, he's uh, he's got so disease," he frowns thoughtfully, racking his brain as he tries to recall the word. "It's chrydo... um... something, yeah I don't know. He's missing bones and stuff, he can bend like Gumbo."

"You mean... Gumby?"

"I'm pretty sure it's Gumbo," he snorts.

"Just shut up and push me!" Comes Dustin's muffled voice from the vents.

By now he had wormed himself halfway in, his bottom half sticking out of the wall and still propped up on the latter while they had been talking.

"Okay,"  Steve huffed, motioning knowingly to the kid's feet and turned away from Robin.

She watched with a tired, lazily bemused expression as Steve grabbed a less than sturdy hold of the kid's feet and attempted to push.

"Not my feet, dumbass, push my ass!"

"Uh, what?"

"TOUCH MY BUTT! I DON'T CARE!" Came Dustin's impatient scream from the walls.

With a heavy grimace, Steve hesitantly began pushing against Dustin's rear end and his muffled anger grew louder.

"I'm pushing!" Steve argued.

"PUSH HARDER!" Dustin shrieks as he attempts to inch further into the metal vents. "You're playing with my legs!"

"I'm not playing, I have terrible footing!"

"Come on!"

Steve finally makes it to the top of the latter, Dustin's legs bunched together over his shoulders and locked under his arm as their voice continued to shout over one another.

"I'm gonna just shove you, ready?"

"Just shove me?"

"One, two..."

"Shit!"

"That work?"

"One more time,"

Robin rolls her eyes, finally turning away when she hears the sudden rapid chimes of the customer bell out front and all too familiar patron.

"Ahoy, sailors! All hands on deck!"

Through the partition window, Robin meets eyes with none other than Erica Sinclair who flashes her an exaggerated salute and rings the bell knowingly.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Laughter and joyful screams filled the chlorine-soaked air, the smell of the pool lingering with sunblock was strong enough it wafted all the way to the parking lot where the majority of the Party now stood at the Hawkins pool. It looked quite different than it had the day before when Y/n, Max, and El had last been, but the tension weighing down the atmosphere seemed just as heavy and ever-present.

The storm had of course long since lifted, and the sun was now beating down heavily on their backs as they took shelter behind a Rust Red AMC Hornet, all eyes across the lot on the occupant in the lifeguard chair.

Billy.

He was squished underneath the bright red beach umbrella, hidden underneath a baseball cap, thick shades, a long-sleeved sweater, and a white beach towel draped over his legs where they poked out into the sun. He was completely covered.

"I don't know," Max begins, peering through the group's binoculars. "He looks pretty normal to me,"

"Normal?" Lucas scoffs. "How many times have you seen him with a shirt on?"

Y/n smiles weakly from where she stands in between him and Will. Max lowers the binoculars, conceding a wince.

"I mean, it's a little weird,"

"More than a little," Mike nods. "He was in a tub with ice. The Mind Flayer likes it cold. Plus everything El saw—"

"But he's lounging at the pool," Max argues, doubtfully. "Which is like, the least Mind Flayer thing ever,"

"Not necessarily," Will says, pulling everyone's attention. "The Mind Flayer likes to hide. He only used me when he needed me. It's like... like you're dormant. And then, when he needs you,"

All eyes return to Billy.

"...you're activated."

Y/n gulps, shifting on her feet from where she had previously stood rooted to the spot. Ever since that dreaded Halloween night the previous year, nothing seemed to have been the same. The Mind Flayer had set his sights on Will, and in turn, her. Slowly but surely, he had infected all of their lives as he had the town of Hawkins; spreading his rot and poison, and his hate. She could still feel it sometimes; the pain of Will's nails raking into her face and leaving behind the faded scar that had already long since disappeared.

Her eyes dart back through the fence at the suspicious-looking lifeguard and her insides twisted further into a sickening knot. The thought of the Mind Flayer's possible return was enough to drain the color from her face and leave a chill in the humid, sticky summer air. Her mind was running rapid with fear but the sound of Max's voice was enough to return her to earth.

"Okay, so we just..." she shrugs, looking back over towards her brother. "wait until he gets activated."

"No," Mike says with the shake of his head. "What if he hurts someone?"

"Or kills someone?" Will counters, and the Wheeler boy nods.

"We can't take that chance. We need to find out if he's the host,"

"Well, how do we do that?" Lucas asks.

The Party falls silent. The weight of the air growing heavier and heavier as it dawns on them. And one by one, each pair of eyes trickle over to the only present Henderson sibling in the Party. Her head is hung, propped-up against the hood and when she senses the eyes on her she straightens, breathing a sigh. But Will was already shaking his head.

"What? No, no way," he says to Mike and the others, Y/n already turning to him. "No, Y/n, I don't think it's a good idea,"

"I don't like it either," Y/n fretted. "but it's our best chance. The Mind Flayer hates me, and I can push his limits. It's the fastest way."

"And if, by some random chance, Billy isn't the host?" Will countered gently. "He'd find out about you,"

Y/n didn't have a reply for that. Truthfully, she didn't know whether to be relieved or angered he had cornered her. She just stood there, frowning at the concrete sidewalk biting her lip thoughtfully. She tried to think of a way to use her abilities subtly, but all her experience with heat came from seismic blasts or concentrated bursts from her hands. If she attempted that on Billy, he would surely know it.

"There's gotta be another way," Mike cuts in. "I mean, a safe way that doesn't risk you getting hurt or discovered."

Y/n and Will - even El - shoot him a funny look and he shifts under the sudden attention, guiltily.

"What about the sauna?" Lucas says, lighting up.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, it's perfect!" He grins, stepping out from around the car and motioning for Will and Mike. "Come on,"

Seemingly catching onto Lucas's idea, Mike wastes no time in following. And Will hesitantly steps away, sending Y/n and his friends an apologetic shrug.

"Where are you going?" El called after them, exasperated.

"Sorry! Boys only!" Mike throws over his shoulder.

Max scowls after them. "Seriously?!"

"Just trust us!" Lucas cries.

"We'll be back," Will shrugs again. "... I guess."

The three friends sigh, throwing less than impressed looks at the retreating boys. Privately, Y/n wondered if Mike stood any chance of harm just from her glaring at him in this moment. She hadn't shared these feelings with anyone, but since reuniting with Will something had been troubled Ling him and he wouldn't say what. She could spot it right away, the shift in demeanor but she knew it was something different from the return of the Mind Flayer somehow. And she believed it had something to do with Mike.

He was acting differently around him. He had been for some time now, as she had with Max and even El but this was different. Something had happened, and because Will was, well, Will, he was clearly trying to put aside for the sake of everyone's safety. Y/n couldn't really blame him there, but she wished he would open up to her. Tell her what was wrong.

And she wished more than anything she could fix whatever Mike had clearly broken.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"All we gotta do is wait until the pool closes and everyone leaves," Lucas begins, guiding his friends through the first layer of the men's locker rooms. "And then get him from here..."

He steps forward, quickly ripping open the secondary door. The three boys scurry inside, and Lucas's friends quickly seem to catch on to his plan and a small smile grows on Will's face.

"And get him into here," Lucas eagerly rips open the sauna door, expecting to see nothing but steam but his luck had run out.

Five sweaty adult men in towels sat packed in the sauna like sardines, scowls on their faces for the three party members who interrupted their steam. "Hey! Shut the door!"

-"Come on, kid!"

-"Shut it!"

Lucas finally broke from his stupor and slammed the door shut, shuddering.

"I think I just threw up in my mouth,"

Will nodded with a grimace, but shook it off when his eyes landed on the wall beside the door.

"The controls!"

Mike's still bulging, haunted eyes finally broke away from their zoning out and jumped to the wall where Will was pointing. His face lit up.

"We can control from the outside, it's perfect!"

"Do you think it'll get hot enough?" Will asks, feeling more and more relieved by the second. "Like, "Y/n" hot?"

His friends immediately stopped, looking to him with a deadpan expression. Will scoffed at them. "You know what I mean" he snarked, not in the mood though he was trying to ignore the hint of a blush creeping up on his skin.

"Nevermind that," Lucas says. "Look right, here, 220 degrees. That's definitely enough."

"Okay, so we just need to figure out how to get him into here," Will nods towards the sauna door.

"Precisely."

"Then we lock him in," Mike says.

Lucas nods. "-heat him up,"

And Will manages another somewhat relieved smile. "-and no matter what happens, we'll know for sure."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Erica descends from the latter, the flashlight in her hands flicking off with a loud click as she strides up to the break room table where her recruits stood waiting. The group had taken a calculated risk I confiding in the young girl, but she was smart and demanded the information and why they needed to know if she could fit into the air duct in the back room. So here they stood, waiting with anxious breath for her verdict.

"Yeah, I don't know," she says, propping herself up on the edge of the table rather unimpressed.

"You don't know if you can fit?" Dustin asks.

"Oh, I can fit. I just don't know if I want to,"

"Are you claustrophobic?" Robin tries.

Amused, Erica gives the young woman a pitiful laugh. "I don't have phobias."

"Okay, well," Steve begins with a shrug. "What's the problem?"

"The problem is I still haven't heard what's in this for Erica,"

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Steve slides another banana boat ice cream float across the table, joining the already plentiful dairy banquet laid out for the Sinclair girl. She merely gave it a single, disinterested glance and slid it back.

"More fudge please,"

Nobody said anything. And Steve just stared back at the table with tired, glazed-over eyes before Erica sent him a dismissive wave.

"Go on,"

He gave a sigh, and left the booth with the Banana boat in hand, and retreated to the counter. Robin took that as her cue and pulled out the marked-up blueprints she had at her side.

"Alright, you see this?" She points from the circle marked Scoops Ahoy and trail connecting over the flipped map. "This is the route you're gonna take. Then we just wait until the last delivery goes out tonight then you knock out the grate. Jump down. Open the door."

"Then you find out what's in those boxes?" She asks.

"Exactly,"

"And you say this guard is armed?"

"Yes," Dustin quickly nods. "But he won't be there,"

"And booby traps?"

"Booby traps?" Robin echoed.

"Lazers, spikes in the wall,"

Robin couldn't help but give a small laugh, but Erica was all too serious. She turned to the two with a serious look.

"You know what this half-baked plan of yours sounds like to me? Child endangerment."

"We'll be in radio contact with you the whole time-"

"Uh! Uh! Uh!" Erica stops her. "Child. Endangerment."

Robin sighs, ignoring the knot wanting to twist in her stomach. She knew she was right, and Robin supposed she just didn't want to admit to herself what they were asking not only of themselves but the young girl.

"Erica?" Dustin began. "Hi, uh... We think these Russians want to do harm to our country. Great harm. Don't you love your country?"

"You can't spell America without Erica," she shrugs, taking a long and loud sip from her complimentary Scoops Shake.

Dustin just blinks at her response and concedes with a nod. "Uh... yeah. Oddly, that's uh... weirdly true, so... so! Don't do this for us! Do it for your country. Do it for your fellow man. Do this for America, Erica."

Erica, who had been slurping her drink through her straw throughout his entire speech, finally finished it off and shivered, sending him a smirk. "Ooh! I just got the chills."

Dustin smiled proudly.

"Oh, yeah," she quickly corrects, her smile falling. "From this float. Not your speech."

His smile falls right off his face.

"You know what I love most about this country?" Erica began. "Capitalism. Do you know what capitalism is?"

Both Robin and Dustin mumble a 'yeah'.

"It means this is a free market system, which means people get paid for their services depending on how valuable their contributions are. And this seems to me that my ability to fit into that little vent is very, very valuable to you all. So-"

Robin and Dustin share a worried look.

"-you want my help? This U.S.S. Butterscotch better be the first of many. And I'm talking free ice cream for life,"

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[pokeexehasstoppedworking]

Love Doesn’t Do Encores Ch10 Battle Gym Leader Nessa

(Will have a reference to Pokemon Twilight Wings Series.)

You slept well that night. The hotel wasn't too far from the Hulbury stadium so it wasn't a very long walk from where you four left the light house and stationed yourselves for the night. Not before dishing out the rations between the four of you. You were a lot lower on food than you thought and surprised you hadn't noticed earlier. A month's walk drained almost all of the food you had aside from a few packets of dried fruits. Thank goodness for restocking. The next morning wasn't anything too different. Gloria and Hop of course wanted to stop by the stadium and get one of them that spot to battle Nessa before another trainer took it. Huh. You wonder how the battle between her and Bede went the other day? Victor mentioned wanting to go back towards the Hulbury Aquarium and offered for you to come with them but you had other plans for the day.

"Hey, Y/n. Since Glory and Hop's going to be busy all day considering would you like to come with me to the aquarium?, Victor offered after the two of you had dug through your rations for breakfast. Your Sobble tiredly yawning on your shoulder rubbing at his eyes.

You shook your head. "No thanks. I actually wanted to check out that market down by the docks. I heard they sell all kinds of trinkets and stuff and it's been a while since I was able to go somewhere by myself and have some me time."

He nodded in understanding before smiling. "Alright then. You guys know where I'll be if you change your minds."

The two of you parted ways outside the hotel before you headed back up the road towards the docks. Already in the morning the place was all a buzz with ship horns blaring off in the distance and a few people walking around. It was a nice day with the salty smell of the ocean, the gently breeze, not being too hot but nice and warm, etc. It was a very nice day that filled your tired body with a happy feeling as you inhaled deeply. The small market place was past the restaurant and just across the docks past the convenience store you had visited the other day for supplies. It wasn't really big. There was only about five stalls set up alongside a concrete wall with one or two picnic tables a little bit a ways from them. A few people were already there looking at the stalls or sitting at the tables to eat or just to sit. Walking over you strolled up to the first stall that sold a few random things like flowers, dishes, and a couple clothes hanging up. The man handling it was talking up some of the flower pots but you weren't too interested in those so shortly after moved on. The other four were a fruit stand, someone selling records, another one selling random objects, but the last one had you notice something. Sweet smells of perfumes and spices wafted from it the closer you gotten to it. And it didn't take too long for you to find out why. A young lady was there surrounded by a bunch of incense. She smiled as you stopped to admire all the sweet smells and gave a greeting.

"Get a whiff of that fragrance! Doesn't it smell sweet?," she asked holding out some sweet smelling sticks that smelt of lilacs, "How about some incense for you, Girl? Good for meditation, yoga, relaxing, or just making a room smell nice. And it all natural so it's safe for pokemon too and helps them destress....As long as they don't eat it. Non edible."

"Destress huh?,'' you pondered looking at your sobble who seemed more interested in staring at the food stand with hungry eyes despite just eating breakfast a while ago. Considering how spooked this lil guy could be, it might be a good idea. "....What scents to you have exactly?"

You ended up using the twenty dollar bill you had saved forever now to buy some of the sea and rose scented incense and then later one or two apples at the fruit stand since your sobble kept jumping on your shoulder and chirping in it's directed until you finally did so. All of it costing almost half your money leaving you from twenty dollars to twelve dollars and some change. You found yourself wondering over until you sat down at one of the picnic tables so your sobble could sit and eat and give your poor shoulders a break from carrying it all the time. Granted Sobble wasn't really that heavy, about half the weight of a small cat, but it was nice to be able to stretch your shoulders and neck out without worrying about accidentally knocking him off. Lazily you watched it make happy noises as it greedily ate as if you didn't already give it a big breakfast about an hour ago. It was still pretty early in the morning so it you really hadn't anything to do other than just sit here and watch your sobble. But it was refreshing. With a sigh you closed your eyes and slowly put your head down on the table. The only problem with having a bunch of free time is that your brain slowly fills itself with thoughts you might not want. Like now. You had been gone for what must've been a little over a month now. How worried was your mom? She must've been worrying herself sick if you were gone for this long without any notice or clues or anything. And(tho you were HIGHLY doubtful now-) if this all IS some kind of dream universe it was certainly the longest one you ever experienced. Not only that, but you were SURELY not going to be able to start college just like you wanted. You'd have to wait another year just to start it and that's only if considering you'd be able to go home after this whole journey has finished. It was the only way you could think of that you could go back, once this is over. If it'll ever be-

"I can NOT believe this!," an angry woman's voice piped up. Startled you jumped up and blinked light rushing back into your vision.

"Calm down, Ness. Don't make a big scene in public." ....That voice sounded familiar.

"I AM calm. I'm just restocking my incense before I head back!" Now that you think about it, that angry voice sounded familiar too.

Blinking you turned around to look behind you, and your eyes widened at what you saw. Two ladies were at the incense stand with their backs towards you, one with bright orange hair and a coat you recognized and the other wore a black cap and shirt.

"First he said I should stop modeling and now he's breathing down my neck because I just happened to lose to his endorsed challenger!,'' Cap Lady growled out as she waved her hand. "I mean yeah, usually I'm busy so I cut back to one challenger a day! That doesn't mean I lost my touch as a gym leader!" She paused as the lady manning the stall held out a small paper bag of incense to her similar to the one you had. "Oh..Thank you. It just drives me up a wall just thinking about it!"

"Then don't think about it," Orange hair replied patting her friend on the back, "It'll only stress you out before your other gym match today."

Cap Lady sighed. "You're right, Sonia...As usual. It just ticks me off knowing he's in town just to see you too no less and buddy up with the crowd!! It makes me angry!"

"Sonia?"

The orange haired woman turned to you immediately as you stared back, her friend turning too and that's when you recognized the other woman too. She smiled. "Hey, Y/n! Fancy meeting you here! Haven't seen you in a while." She fully turned to you now and walked over her friend following.

You casually waved where you sat and gave a tired smile. "Yeah. Honestly wasn't expecting to see you here either. What are you doing here?"

She gestured to none other than Nessa next to her. "I was chatting with an old friend before she needed to go. Since you're here I assume Gloria can only be here as well."

You nodded. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure she's at the stadium right now." Your gaze slowly shifted over to nessa as you spoke and you waved again. "Hello again. Nice weather you guys have here."

Nessa smiled. "Yeah. It's usually warm and sunny here all year round being the coast and all. You should visit the beach if you ever get the chance."

You shrugged. "I might. I mean I guess my sobble could use the chance to swim."

"Well, that all depends. Is your sobble a freshwater or saltwater sobble?"

"There's a difference?"

"Hey wait a minute!" Both of you turned to Sonia who was looking between the two of you with a confused look on her face. "You two know each other?"

"Sort of. She helped me out with some stuff yesterday, I didn't even know she was the gym leader until someone told me," you explained with a shrug, "I just appreciate anyone who helps carry groceries."

"Oh. I see. What are you doing here if Gloria is I assume at the stadium?," she asked.

You gestured to your sobble as it spat out an apple seed. "Someone wanted more food. I'm telling you he's worse than a kid hyped up on sugar once he sees the stuff." Both of you jumped at a ....snort? Blinking you looked at Nessa and noticed her holding her mouth and chuckling.

"I-I'm so sorry," she giggled out, "That's just the funniest thing that I've heard all day while stressing out. U-U-Usually people don't say that about s-s-sobble care."

You blinked. "Oh yeah?"

Sonia nodded as Nessa's giggles slowly fizzled out. "Usually sobbles are....how do you say it?...Massive cry babies that'll cry at the tiniest things like a baby would. It happened ALL the time with my Granny gave a trainer their first pokemon." She groaned closing her eyes as if the memory gave her instant annoyance and headaches. "They don't get an extra snack? BOOM! Crying! They trip the littlest, I mean tiniest bit. Crying! You're too busy to pet them? Crying! Forget playtime? CRYING! And don't get me started on the amount of times I had to buy Sobble Eye Drops for all the stinging and headaches. It's like walking on eggshells until they evolve into a drizzile! It's why a bunch of trainers rather chose scorbunny or grookey than a sobble." She pointed towards yours who had finished eating and began crawling it's way over to you. "In fact, the sobble Granny gave Leon for the trainers he endorsed was the pokemon who stayed in our care the longest. She must've had it for at least since it hatched and was given to her. It was such a little wimp clinging to her all the time...I never really had mush patience for them."

You jolted when something tugged on your arm, calming yourself once you noticed it was just your pokemon. "...Really?"

With a frown Nessa sighed. "She's right. Sobbles are much better suited for older more patient people. They aren't exactly really popular pokemon among starting trainers who are eager to start their journey. Most end up for adoption to pokemon centers or abandoned to the wild because the person decides it's not worth it to have their eyes burning after every battle or basically raise what could essentially be a child in their eyes." Her eyes suddenly narrowed. "I remember once Raihan came all the way to Hulbury just to give me a sobble someone carelessly discarded at his gym after they lost. The poor thing was so confused and scared. It was a miracle I found someone who loved it. Much more than the thoughtless trainer who never gave it a second thought. Pokemon aren't just toys you can give away or leave lying around after you decided you outgrew them."

"THAT'S AWFUL!!,'' you shouted feeling an anger grow in you as one hand instinctly came up to grab your sobble who chirped in confusion at your actions, both women giving you looks of surprise at your shout. How could anyone DO such a horrible thing!? That's like the equivilant of someone getting a brand new puppy and then not wanting to deal with the work and attention that goes into it and then straight up abandoning it to the streets in your world!! "How could anyone do such a thing?! That's like...So not ok!"

"Well....That is very true. Its not ok. But it seems to be you and your sobble have a very special connection," Nessa said gesturing towards your sobble making Sonia take a double take at you as well.

"Huh. Now that you mention it he does looked rather relaxed. He usually never looked so comfortable before Granny gave him to Leon."

"Really?,'' you asked, "He seemed pretty ok so far. Cried like...only one time but that might be cuz he was pushed over by these rockstar wannabes."

To that the ladies seemed lightly surprised. "Really now? Well then you must have lots of patience then. Sobbles usually tend to work better with people who have lots of patience or a motherly personality."

"And considering you mentioned never having a pokemon before I'm kinda impressed too. You must be a natural babysitter!," Sonia joked. You huffed and rolled your eyes at her joke. Yeah. You sure felt like one sometimes during your journey so far.

"Oh, Scales!" You blinked backed towards Nessa as she now held up her phone to her face with a frown before looking back towards you and Sonia. "Hey. Sorry but I have to bounce. I have to stop by home then head to the gym really quick if I'm going to make it to that match on time." Turning with a smile she waved. "I'll see you later Sonia. It was nice seeing you again too, Miss. good luck with that sobble of yours."

As she walked away, the both of you waved as you watched her go before Sonia turned back to you. "Hey. If you're not really busy, would you like to come to the docks with me?" She held up a small clear plastic bag with, what looked like to you at least, dog kibble with a smile. "There's always a small school of chinchou everyone likes to feed there. I always like to visit whenever I come to Hulbury."

You paused considering her words for a moment. It would be nice to have more time with another person around your age before you had to go back for a bit and they wouldn't be expecting you for a while. So it should be fine. With a shrug you stood up. "Sure! I don't think I've ever seen a chinchou anyways."

Smiling she gestured for you to follow. "C'mon. We're pretty close anyways. I think you'd really like them."

She was right. The small market area was right across from the docks anyways, so it took less than five minutes to reach the docks. You followed her onto the pathways on the water and looked over the edge. The crystal blue water acting like a mirror letting you see your reflection and your sobble's as it blinked big innocent eyes at the water. You nearly bumped into her when she stopped and already had the bag open with her hand inside rummaging around until she pulled out a small handful of the kibble. With a toss they all went into the clear water sending small ripples as they floated and bobbed on the mirror water. That was until almost instantly bubbles appeared from under them and in a flurry of lightbulb antennas and blue skin tons of tiny little creatures swam to the surface and the floating kibble was devoured by the pokemon. You blinked as you watched them swim around. There must've been around ten of them all swimming about here. You blinked as the bag was suddenly held out to you with a smile from Sonia.

"Do you wanna feed them a little? This pokemon food is specifically made for water type pokemons' tastes," she offered.

"Yeah! Thanks!" You happily took some from her and a small blue hand tried to reach out for it too as you pulled away and gave your sobble a look. It stared at you for a moment before chirping and grabbing your nose. "*sigh* Fine." With a sigh and roll of your eyes, you silently held one piece of the kibble up to him and watched as he grabbed it from you and popped it into his mouth. Before tossing more kibble at the peeping lanturn fish like pokemon still swimming around. As before they began devouring it. "They sure are hungry huh?"

"Always are," Sonia replied tossing some more kibble to them. "It's a really popular thing to do around here if you aren't visiting the stadium or Aquarium or eating at the famous cafe up the road. Since there's a battle later today with Nessa I suspect that's why it's so vacant."

You smiled. "Yeah. I just hope everything goes well for them later today. Hop and her seemed pretty excited to go battling Nessa."

Sonia nodded. "I can't blame them. When Leon and I were they're age we were excited over battling the gym leaders too." She smiled at some distant long memory. "In fact, it seemed like it was just yesterday I was right here feeding some Chinchou and then Leon came out of no where and fell in the water! S-Said he d-d-didn't even know how he got there looking for the stadium." She giggled and you couldn't help but smile back.

"Oh. Is that anything like the time I heard he somehow ended up on top of a barn?" Sonia snorted. "Or the time he went out to catch a train and somehow ended up back in front of his house?"

"That happened?"

You nodded. "Oh yeah. He ended up waiting for me to thank me for the two's Slumbering Weild field trip after it happened. I have no idea how."

She chuckled. "Neither do I. Lee's always had a bad sense of direction just like his Da-" She froze. The once smile and cheery attitude replaced by a look of mild panic before she coughed and tossed some more kibble towards the chinchou. "Hey. Look at how cute they are today. They look like such healthy wild chinchou. Don't you think?"

It was her attempting to deflect away from what she already said. You knew that and personally you wouldn't really bother looking into it as 1. It was really none of your business and you hated budding into someone else's business and 2. you didn't feel up to making Sonia more uncomfortable than she already looked...But you couldn't help yourself since this was the second time this has happened. ...That's right. She did a similar thing at the Opening Ceremony when she asked you not to mention what she said to anyone. By now you had completely forgotten about that moment with everything that's been going on and at the time just brushed it off having more important things to worry about. But now....You looked at her and by the look in her eyes she knew what you were about to ask.

"That's right. I spent a few days between their houses and I saw their families. And I met their mothers. And Hop's grandparents." You fully turned to her with a raised brow. "And Hop's older brother. And Gloria's brother. But not have I ever once seen any of their dads nor had they even mentioned them. So that's begging the question of where's the missing link then isn't it?"

There was a pregnant silence between the two of you as you stared at her expectantly and Sonia stared back down at the water, seemingly trying to process the situation she found herself in. The only sounds was the boat horns from the docks, and the splashing around and noises of the chinchou as they still begged for more of the kibble Sonia held. And after more silence your expression softened and a guilty feeling bubbled up. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to ask. Even if you were traveling with them it was none of your business really. So you went to apologize.

With a sigh, Sonia finally seemed to find her words and turned to you with a sad but serious look. "I...understand if you're concerned or curious. I'd be too all things considering. But I really CANT tell you anything since it's not my place to say....By now you obviously noticed they just..aren't there and let's leave it as that."

You nodded. "Hey. I'm..I-I'm sorry. I know it's none of my business. I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."

She shook her head. "No. To be honest you wouldn't be the first one to ask that question to Leon or anyone else and you probably won't be the last. But if you could do us both a solid and not tell anyone about this it'd be great."

"Believe me, I was about to ask you the same thing." You smiled. "Trust me. I won't tell us a soul."

"Thank you, Y/n. I'm glad you understand."

"Hey. Of course!"

So.....No fathers in the picture huh? A strange feeling settled into your guts that was something akin to feeling extremely guilty. And a....strange feeling of familiarity of it all for your own reasons...Then the reality hit you. In a memory of what happened back at the inn back in Motostoke. In the very slip up Sonia had made before that you had passed off until now-

"And thanks for taggin' along with the kids this far. I know we're practically strangers but there's just....I don't know....really good aura about you. I'm sure Lee appreciates it too. He's always so worried about Hop. He practically raised him after all-" All of a sudden it was like a switch flipped off in her mind and her happy smile went to a sudden shocked face. "Oh no. I didn't mean to mention that. Please forget I even said that."

You had pretty much pieced it together right after remembering that. For some reason, in one way or another, Hop and the twins had no fathers and Leon as Sonia said must've practically filled the role in which a father figure would fill. This would sum up a lot of the things you've bared witness too. Hop and Gloria's infatuation with Leon(especially on Hop's end), they're desire to climb their way up the ranks and make him proud-..Heck. Leon's behavior know that you think about it could've been summed up as brotherly...or fatherly. Sponsoring two (although it was VERY clear he was full on ready to just endorse Victor as well no questions asked if he hadn't made the choice of not competing in the Gym Challenge) kids for the challenge which as you came to know wasn't typical of a Galar Champion, buying you and them all those supplies and stuff, and with what Sonia said just set that fact in concrete. And....While that did make you feel guilty and sad for them...At the end of the day it really was none of your business. Any moment or day now you could wake up back home and none of this would have mattered, and you shouldn't really butt in between their business. Especially since you weren't planning on staying in the long run. Plus...you were trying NOT to uproot the game's progress as much as possible or no more than you might've already had done if at all with your actions. You might've not remembered how the game went entirely but you knew you were on the right track. For now at least. You continued to make small talk with Sonia about how her research was going and your trip over before deciding it was best to part ways there and bid her farewell before heading back towards the stadium. Nessa mentioned leaving to make sure she arrived on time. You wondered if Gloria was battling her right now?...Well you soon found out the answer to that question.

when you were just making your way up to the resturaunt your stomach grumbled. Making you wince a bit. Huh. Guess you were out for longer than you thought if you got hungry. Glancing up to the cafe you wondered how much a simple meal would cost? It was supposed to be famous for their food after all. With a shrug you decided on entering and seeing if they had anything your measly twelve dollars could buy. Fancy was the first word that came to mind when you entered through the double doors and a bell rung off. A woman at a front desk was the first thing to greet you along with some kind of pokemon you didn't recognize. It seemed the theme of the whole place was blue and white, giant tables lined the area with table setting and napkins fancily folded into boat like shapes, a MASSIVE window looking over the stadium, and a bar like area near the far right walls with another pair of double doors you assumed lead to the kitchen. The only other people there besides you and the lady was a man behind the bar counter who was talking on the phone with someone.

The woman smiled at you. "Greetings and welcome to the Hulbury Seafood Restaurant!" She greeted with a bow. "Do you happen to have a reservation or would like to make one?"

"Uh-..." You shook your head. Oh man. Was this one of those places where you HAD to make a reservation in order to eat? "Not exactly. I just heard your food was pretty good."

The woman still smiled. "Oh. Well then I'd be more than happy to seat you by the-"

"AHH!" Both of you jumped when a thud rang out which turned out to be the man in the chef hat slamming down the phone he was previously talking to.

"Chef, what on earth is the matter?," the woman asked.

The chef pointed to the phone scowl on his face. "My delivery boy just called. Apparently he's caught a cold and can't make it today! Out of all the days I need him most." The old man grabbed at his grey hair. "I have all these orders and no one to take them. The Chairman could show up any minute for his reservation but instead he's going to be present with angry customers calling for their orders and our reputation as Hulbury's greatest restaurant will be tarnished!!"

"Well...I could run out and deliver a few," the woman suggested.

"And leave your post!? OH no no no! That'd look even more bad if no one was here to greet them in while I cook!" He slumped forward. "This is an utter disaster! What am I to do?"

You looked between the two of them before slowly holding up your hand. "Um...If you'd like, I'd like to help."

Immediately the chef snapped his head up and blinked at you. Before a suspicious look came over his face as he looked you over. "You, Young Lady? You would please help us deliver some food?"

You nodded. "I mean..Yeah. It looks like you guys are pretty.." You gave a glance at the empty place. "-busy at the moment and I'd like to help."

After looking you up and down a few more moments the chef sighed before shrugging. "Why not? I have nothing else to lose in this moment anyhow." He reached under a counter and beckoned you to come over to which you complied before placing a small take out box onto the counter. "Thank you. I truly appreciate it. Tell you what. If you manage to deliver all the take out orders then I'll prepare you my famous 'Lucky Egg' dish as thanks. How does that sound?"

You mouth watered just thinking about free food. This just might be your lucky day after all. You nodded with a smile and took the box from him. "Sure! Sounds fair enough. Where do I deliver this one?"

He paused for a moment...before he rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh uh. Well as for where to deliver the food.....Sorry. We've been so stressed out for the Chairman's visit I forgot to ask for an address." You stared at him. .....WHAT!? "B-But I heard a clickity clack sound from the phone when I took the first order. Maybe that's a clue as to where to go?"

..........You sighed. "Yeah..Don't worry about it. I'll figure it out somehow."

"That's the spirit! Come back as soon as you're done delivering that one! And hurry please. Oh! And here. Take this notepad with you. They'll have to sign off on it so I can send the bill."

You had no idea what you had gotten yourself into this time. With a groan you exited the restaurant and spotted a peculiar sight to behold. There was Gloria standing just outside the restaurant as you approuched with her back to you and you soon saw what she was staring at. A little ways from her standing in the middle of the road was HIM. Mareep Head-..Er. I mean Bede who looked bored and in front of him was....It was her. The same woman from your dream and the Opening Ceremony as well. And in front of her was...No. It COULDN'T be!! In front of them was a group of about six to eight people, but with that group was none other than the CHAIRMAN himself!!...Tho he looked a little different than the other times you've seen him. You didn't expect to see Nessa outside of her gym leader suit, but you hadn't been caught too much off guard. The chairman however was a different story. Instead of that professional slim fitting suit he wore a baseball cap, slip on white shoes, sunglasses, .....a sweater that showed how chubby he was actually under his suit, and blue shorts with white polka dots to top it all off. You could only star at the man...Was this-....This COULDN'T have been the same professional high standing man that ran the whole Galar Region! He looked like someone's Dad on a lazy day. ...You chuckled which startled Gloria into giving a yelp and whipping around to see you and the box you held.

"Holy Magikarp, Y/n! You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"Sorry....Hey. What are you doing all the way over here? I thought you were having a battle today."

She sighed. "We got hungry just waiting for Nessa so Hop suggested I go grab us something while he holds our place. What are you doing?" She noticed the box you held and pointed at it. "And what's that?"

"Long story short is that I agreed to be the fill in delivery boy for a bit." You nodded past her towards the group. "Hey uh...Gloria, is that who I think it is?"

She turned around and with a huff she crossed her arms and frowned. "Yeah. The Cottonee so full of himself he needs a garden hose to wash the ego from his brain!"

".....Uh..Actually I was talking about the chairman over there, but I guess Bede's here too yes."

"Oh...Well yeah. It's weird just walking around the corner and seeing him right that. Like..what the bloody heck are those shorts?"

"Y'know I was thinking the same thing." You two continued to watch in bewilderment as the chairman smiled and spoke with the small group of people, before the woman suddenly stepped in front of him as he was about to shake another person's hand.

She held up a hand. "Our sincerest apologies," she spoke with a calm and professional tone, "The chairman is quite busy at the moment. Everyone please disperse. Please leave now."

The crowd murmered but eventually slowly parted ways, one woman saying. "Ok. See you later, Chairman."

"Oh h-hey! No need to rush off! I can still do autographs!," the chairman called after them raising a hand, "I'll even give you my pokemon league card!" To your surprise no one really paid attention and kept walking besides you and Gloria...And you rose a brow. With a sigh he turned back to the woman. "we need the support of our fans to keep doing what we're doing. Chasing them off like that. Aren't you being a little too harsh, Oleana?"

"Fans are very important of course," the woman, who must've been Oleana explained, "That's why you need to keep doing your work for their sake."

"I promise to do everything in my power to assist you too, Chairman!," Bede butted in proud of himself. Huh. Maybe Gloria had a point.

The chairman gave him a look for a moment before raising a brow. "Oh. And you were?"

Maybe it was just your imagination most likely, but you could've sworn you saw Bede frown for a moment before he answered, "Bede, Sir."

"AH! That's right! Bede! I daresay I'm impressed how fair you've come since I gave you that pokemon all those years ago. Will you be the one to win the Gym Challenge? Or perhaps it will be one of the Trainers endorsed by the Champion."

"I will prove your faith in me was well placed, Chairman," Bede assured, "I won't lose to anyone. Anyway speaking of which, I'll be on my way now." He turned and began walking away, but completely froze upon seeing you and Gloria..Well more Gloria than you as the two of them made eye contact...And he suddenly pointed. "YOU!?"

"Hey Mareep Head. How's your Hatenna?"

"WHY YOU-....YOU- ..LITTLE-"

"AH! You!" Bede practically jumped out of his skin as the chairman was quick to push past him and walk up to Gloria with a smile, Oleana right behind him. Gloria practically just stood and stared as he approuched and you rose an eye brow. "Your name was...." He thought for a moment before pointing to her. "Gloria right? We were just talking about you!" Your brow rose more. That was a complete and utter lie. They were standing right there entire time in front of you but you shrugged it off as an awkward ice breaker.

.....Gloria exchanged a look with you before pointing at herself. "....Me?"

he nodded. "Yes! I admit I'm curious about Leon's reasons for endorsing you. Ah! I just had a good idea, as I tend to do!" Brag much? "You're going to face Gym Leader Nessa soon, yes?"

"Um...Y-Yeah. I was on my way back to the stadium actually-"

"Well if you get a gym badge from her I'll hold a celebration! I'd like to get to know you a little better after all." He smiled and you felt ....odd about it all.

"Um..Y-Yeah..I guess so??"

"Chairman, we should really be going if you want to keep that dinner reservation," Oleana stated.

The chairman nodded to her before turning back to Gloria. "Alright. Please do your best, for the sake of Galar's future."

"I Uh...Y-YES SIR!!" Gloria gave her best smile under the situation.

With a smile and nod he turned and walked past her and you not sparing you a glance and you followed him with your gaze brow raised...You weren't sure, but you had a funny feeling about him and it wasn't a good funny. When you turned back around you nearly jumped the box in surprise. The woman-!! Oleana was standing right in front of Gloria so close her shadow was literally blocking the sunlight from her. The poor girl frozen under the woman's studying gaze.

"The Chairman will be heading to this town's seafood restaurant." She stated monotonely, "Win the gym badge and join him there at once. Do not keep him waiting. Am I clear, Young Lady?" Gloria didn't say anything..and you looked at her. Eyes shooting to the size of plates. She was more frozen than a glacier. ...All that came out of her was a small squeak noise making the woman's eyes narrow. "Perhaps I wasn't clear. Do not keep the chairman waiting. Head to the seafood restaurant. The Captain's Table. Do you need me to repeat myself once more, Child? Or do you understand-"

"Too skinny."

Gloria jumped having probably completely forgotten you were there for a moment as she snapped to you and Oleana followed her piercing gaze to meet your glare. ....She slowly blinked. "I beg your pardon, Miss?"

"I said you're too skinny for that," you explained as they both stared at her.

Her brow flicked up as she studied you. "And I happen to be too thin for what purpose, Ma'am?"

"Well you're certainly not fat enough to be throwing your weight around not to notice you're being a jerk," you explained raising a brow back, "Obviously she heard you with how close you are. Maybe she'd answer if you weren't so close making her feel uncomfortable like that."

They both stared at you stunned. Gloria jaw dropped and Oleana had the same face but her eyes much more widened as she stared at you. It was so quiet you could've heard a pin drop as you joined this little three way stare down. HECK. It felt like an entire hour just staring at her before her face slowly contorted back to her original bored/professional looking one and she took a step back, spooking Gloria in process as the poor girl blinked.

"Do you happen to know who I am, Miss?," she asked like you should already know this.

"Somebody who's heels makes them so tall their head's in the clouds obviously."

This time her brows furrowed, her mouth frowned, and you noticed the way her hands gripped each other. As if she was physically holding back her anger. But before she could reply a chuckle seemed to interrupt you. Blinking you turned around only to find that the Chairman guy was looking right at you. Raising a brow and humming. You rose a brow and frowned right back.

....He waved a hand off. "Oleana, you're right. We'll be late for that reservation. Give the young trainer my League card and let's be on our way."

It's amazing how fast her aura and face changed at a moment's dime. "Of course. So you will not forget the Chairman's face, I will give you one of his League Cards." She suddenly held something out to Gloria who blinked but after a moment took it. "Chairman Rose is the kind of man who gets downhearted if he doesn't take care of things he needs to right away. Go to the seafood restaurant as soon as possible so as to not keep the chairman waiting." She glanced back to you and your eyes narrowed more. "...Good luck in your battle." With that she stepped around Gloria who followed her as she went and so did you with your frown. And after the Chairman gave another look to you, also turned and walked away.

....You sighed and turned back to Gloria, only to blink when she was staring right back at you. "....Uh...H-Hey. Are you ok there? You looked spooked." Shaking. Your eyes widened noticing her hands shaking. "WHOA! Hey! Are you ok!? She didn't scare you too bad did she?"

"Y-Y-Y/n..," She stuttered. Her hands slowly clenched into fists. "T-T-That..was..." Her face snapped up to you in a smile. "AWESOME!! SERIOUSLY!! Like! Yeah she gave off major scare vibes I swear she's worse than a gengar in the darkest room! My heart was pounding so fast! Then you were all well slayin' 'ere like a beast!!...Omg." She looked down for a moment realization settling in. "....My traveling partner talked BACK to the Chairman's right hand!! What's he going to think when I show up!? I mean it was amazing to watch don't get me wrong. But STILL!!''

"Hey, hey, hey!!" You caught her attention by grabbing her shoulder making her blink at your face. "Hey. Look at me." Once you knew you had her full attention you smiled. "That woman was making you feel scared, and that's not ok. So I did what I had to do. If anything I'll get in trouble. Besides, Im a girl standing on the sidewalk holding a delivery box. They'd probably think I was just a stranger going to delivery a pizza or something. Right now you should just worry about your gym battle."

It was like a record scratch went off in her mind as she suddenly paused, face going blank for a moment before her hands suddenly snatched the top of her head. "AH!! MY GYM BATTLE!! I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT THAT!! BUT THE CHAIRMAN SAID IF I WIN TO SEE HIM!! IF!! IF!! WHAT IF I DON'T WIN!? OMG!! CAN I STILL MEET WITH HIM IF I DON'T-"

You shook her with the hand still on her shoulder. "Gloria! Get a grip on yourself! Of course you're going to win!'' You smiled. "If you could beat Milo you can beat Nessa too! And if you lose it's fine. I'm sure he'll understand, you can't let all of that overthinking stop you ok? Be more confident in yourself, and if you lose..." You shrugged. "Then it's ok. You can always try again tomorrow or any other day. You are going to be ok....Ok?"

She stared at you for a long moment before taking a deep breath and sighing. A determined look now plastered on her face. "You're right! I'm just overthinking this! I just need to remain calm and everything's going to be fine!"

You smiled. "That's the spirit...Hey. Isn't it gonna start like..right now?"

"GAH! Y-You're right! I gotta go!" With a wave she quickly turned on her heel and ran off towards the stadium. "Thanks, Y/n! You're the best!"

You sighed before shaking your head watching her go. Well...glad that went well at least, she was a brave girl so she should be ok..But then why did you still feel eyes on you? As you turned your f/c eyes met purple ones and Bede jumped having noticed you spotted him. With a jerk of his head the other way, he quickly sped walked away from you in the opposite direction leaving you lightly confused. But you shrugged it off. Right now you had bigger fish to fry like getting this fish you were currently holding to the person who ordered it. Who ever it was. That was the thing you had to figure out as you stood there in the middle of the sidewalk staring at the box in your hands like someone staring off into space. Good gosh the guy couldn't think to ask for an address? What were you supposed to do with a click clack sound? That could mean anything....Well what kind of click clack sounds were loud enough to be heard over a phone. ....Your head turned towards the train station back towards the stadium. Didn't trains usually make a noise like that? A train would certainly be loud enough to hear over a phone. With a shrug you started off down towards the train station and right up to the first house right by it since there was two. Knocked and waited patiently as footsteps approuched.

The first one was answered by a middle aged looking man and you smiled. "Hey! Uh...Did you order seafood?"

"No. I don't like fish."

"Oh..Sorry about tha-" You flinched as the door was slammed back shut in front of your face..before you frowned. "Well he was pretty rude wasn't he?" Your sobble chirped in agreement. "Couldn't have said it better myself," you mumbled as you turned away from the door and away from the first house to go to the second. The Stadium not too far away roaring alive now with cheers. Must be Hop or Gloria having a battle with Nessa. Shame you couldn't attend but you were a bit busy right now. Walking up to the second home, you knocked on the door and waited. After a moment footsteps approuched and a sweet elderly woman answered. You smiled. "Hey! Good afternoon! Did someone here order some seafood?"

To your delight, she smiled. "Oh, are you the one delivering my food?" She happily reached out and took the box from you. "Thank you for your trouble! This restaurant's dishes are full of seafood and it's so delicious if I say so myself. They are pretty well known after all."

"Your welcome! ..Oh wait!" You reached into your pocket to quickly pull out your notebook. "I need you to-''

"Oh of course! Your tip. "

"Actually I-" You blinked when a small bag of what looked like small jaw breakers was placed into your hand tied off by a cute little red ribbon.

"I've already paid the restaurant over the phone, so I'll give you candy as a tip. There's nothing like sweets to go along with a beautiful day. You have a nice day now."

You blinked looking at the small bag. "Hey wait! I need you-" The door closed leaving you staring at it. "..to sign this. *sigh*" You held up the overly cute bag and your sobble gave it a curious look over. "Well, it's not money but it's better than nothing I guess. Wouldn't you say?"

Your trip back to the restaurant wasn't anything unusual, still faintly hearing the cheers from the gym on your way there. The only thing that was a little strange was a small group of three or four people standing outside the place trying to peep into the windows. Your brow rose but you shrugged it off and just stepped inside seeing the same woman as before.

"Sorry. We're closed at the mome-..OH! It's you young lady,'' she greeted.

"Back again?!" You looked over towards the chef and he smiled seeing you. "Excellent! I wanted to ask you to deliver some food again. Is that ok? I suspect that the package was delivered?"

....You held up the bag of candy. "Yeah. Sorry I couldn't get her to sign it. But she tipped me in candy."

"Oh. That must've been Mrs. Wesley. Don't worry about her, she has a habit of doing that." Again he reached under the counter and brought up another box. "But right now I need you to deliver this next one as soon as possible!'' You walked over and he held it out to you before slightly nodding over towards the right. You glanced over and your eyes widened seeing the chairman and Oleana looking out of the window over the stadium, not seeming to notice you thankfully. "Since the Chairman's here we're doing our best to try and not upset the atmosphere. Since you're taking care of this for us it's really taking one less thing off our shoulders to worry about."

You sighed with a smile before taking the second box from him. The fresh smell of fish and chips wafting from it making your mouth water. "Hey. It's no problem. Where do I take this one?"

He paused. "Well....I uh...Haha. D-Didn't quite get the address for this one either?" You stared. "...B-but I don't know if this helps, but I think I heard a pokemon cry over the phone this time. Like....Swiirl...Or something like that."

"....I'll...figure it out I'm sure."

Figure it out indeed! How in the HECK were you just supposed to deliver a dang food order based off a pokemon's cry?? Whelp! There was only one way to solve this! ...Visit all the houses here until you came across the right one. So that's exactly what you did. You already delivered to the lady up by the train station and the guy next to her rudely stated he didn't so that was two houses you could cross off your list. So there you went starting from one end of the long, LONG street of houses one after another smiling and asking if they ordered a take out. Every. Single. One. Said. No. Or just didn't answer at all, and to be honest you were feeling justifiably annoyed at this point. What was the POINT of having someone deliver food if you didn't know where to send them!? It must've taken you at least fifthteen minutes of walking and asking until you FINALLY caught a break coming to the very last house on the block before the road split off between the train station and stadium. You knocked and waited patiently as footsteps approuched, and you smiled when a blonde man who looked to be in his early thirties opened the door.

"Hey. Sorry to bother you, but did you order some seafood takeout?"

"Oh, I can smell the ocean. You're from the restaurant aren't you?" You nodded and held the box up to him as he took it with a hum. "Ah! I'm starving! I've been drooling while waiting for the food! Than you for delivering the food!"

"Oh hey. Before you go." You held up the notepad. "Could you please sign for this?"

"Oh sure thing. Wait right here." He turned and walked back inside leaving you standing there able to see the inside of the home as the man handed off the food to two little girls who looked so much alike that they must've been twins. A pink pokemon looking like cotton candy swirling around them. "Stacy, Lacy. Food's here. And this time don't let Pinkie eat my share of it." You stood there awkwardly until he finally came back grabbing the note pad. "Sorry about that. You know how kids can be."

"Heh. Yeah. Sorry if it took so long. Had to go the long way around to get here."

"Well you get energy from food. If you need energy you should eat balanced meals." He handed you back the notepad with a smile. "Thanks again!''

With a sigh you turned on your heel and began trudging off back towards the restaurant. Your stomach rumbled again and by this point you were seriously wondering if this was even worth any free food for? If you had half a mind you would've just quite, returned the notepad, and then just go back to the hotel to just eat some of your rations or order the cheapest thing on the room service menu. But then again, you already promised to help and free food does sound better than spending your remanding money. Plus their food was supposed to be really good. So..You made the choice to go back to the very cafe you came from and waltzed back through the doors and up to the counter this time. The chef seemed very pleased to have you back as he had already placed the last box on the counter he explained. Only one more? Oh THANK goodness. You weren't sure how much of this mumbo jumbo you could handle. You took the last box from him not sparing a glance over your shoulder in the chairman's way.

"As for the address-"

"Let me guess. You forgot?"

"Actually. No. I remembered to ask." Your eyes widened. Was this finally gonna be easy? "Unfortunately I have no idea where it is.".....WHAT?! "The customer told me to look for a green roof, but I wonder if there is such a house in Hulbury. I've certainly never seen a house like this before but Im sure you're smart enough to figure it out like the other two!"

".......Right."

Of course it wasn't going to be that easy. It never was going to be easy for you was it? It seemed simple enough tho. Just look for a house with a green roof and that should be it right? Except..none of the houses you had asked previously had ordered anything and the ones that did couldn't have possibly ordered a second time in such short notice right after getting the first. Oh well. Green roof. That's all you had to go on......and the amount of time you had spent walking up and down these streets looking for any building with a green roof was exhausting. NONE of the homes here had green roofs and when you checked the few buildings around here that weren't homes (like the light house and pokemon center-) discovered surprise, surprise. No green roof either. Oh you hoped whoever ordered this didn't live outside Hulbury. Not having any luck where you currently were, you decided to go ahead and go back down to the docks where you first went that morning. You didn't remember seeing any buildings there but it wouldn't hurt to cover all bases before giving up. Your body ended up wondering back to the market place you were once in...And you were about ready to give up. There wasn't anything around here with a green-

"HEY! Young Lady with the sobble on your shoulder!," a male voice shouted. Blinking, you turned around to one of the stalls. the one with the green and white top. A man with brown hair waved at you. "You're delivering food?" You nodded. "Well hey! I'm the one who ordered it!" He was!?...You glanced towards the striped roof of his stall.....Oh. A green roof. Whelp! Might as well get this over with. he smiled wider as you approuched. "You got here earlier than I expected! It was easy to spot the green roof wasn't it?"

No. Not really. In fact it would've been a LOT easier if he just said he was in a stall in this marketplace but instead you forced a smile and handed him the box and notepad. "Please sign here."

He gladly signed it. "The tail curry of this restaurant has a unique flavor. I love it! Say hi to the manager for me!"

You quickly grabbed the notebook. "Have a nice day!" And then you quickly retreated. A groan leaving your tired body as you dragged yourself back the way you came for a second time that day. By the time you had gotten back close to the restaurant you were sore, tired, but most of all you were hungry! OH! The food had better be worth it or else you were going straight back to the hotel to-

"Y/N!!" Hey. You knew that voice! Sure enough Gloria was waving her arm at you with a smile as you proceeded to walk towards her. Despite wanting time to yourself today you were absolutely glad to see her. "What are you doing by the docks?"

"Finishing my role as a replacement delivery boy," you answered when you got close enough and pointed at her white uniform. "Why are you still wearing your gym challenge uniform?"

"Oh uh.." She sheepishly smiled with a chuckle. "It's a long story. On the bright side I managed to defeat Nessa! LOOK!" A flash of bronze went in your face and you blinked before leaning back. A badge with some kind of blue water pattern shown before you. No doubt the water gum badge. "Feast yer eyes! I thought I was a gonna when I lost the second round, but I managed to pull a turn around and win enough rounds to pass! Ain't it great?!"

You smiled. "Hey! That is great! I'm so happy for you! But where's Hop? I thought he was with you."

"He stayed behind to set up his own battle with Nessa tomorrow. Don't worry. He already knows where I am. Said he'll meet back up with us when we're done having dinner with the Chairman."

"...We?"

"Oh.." She slowly lowered her had back down to her side. "I just...thought you'd be coming too since you were there with me when he invited me.I-...I just thought since y'know...B-But that's fine! I won't force ya to come with me. Yer probably tired from running around all day anyways."

You paused. Yes, you were tired but you were heading back inside the restaurant anyways. And if Oleana was there...You smiled. "Hey! I'd love to come!"

Her eyes lit up. "REALLY!?"

"Yeah. I gotta go in to let 'em know I'm done delivering all these confusing orders anyways." You turned and nodded towards the doors. "C'mon. Let's go eat and see what he wants. Ok?"

With a smile of relief she nodded and the two of you went up towards the doors and went inside. The woman from before was there and upon seeing the both of you greeted you both with a smile. "Welcome to the Hulbury Seafood Resturaunt. Unfortunately we're not accepting any reservations or walk ins today but if you'd like to schedule one for a later or order take out you're more than welcome-....Oh! It's you again, Young Lady."

"Uh. Yeah." You held out the notepad. "Actually I was promised free food if I delivered everything and we were both invited to eat with the Chairman over there."

"Oh." She glanced to Gloria who looked nervous, seeming to realize she was a trainer. "Yes. I recall he said something about an extra guest trainer with his party today. Chairman Rose comes here incognito, but the word always gets out when he's here." She grabbed the notepad from you. "You both may go ahead to the Captain's Table in the back. I'll notify the chef you completed your tasks."

With a thanks you both took off towards the back where you saw the Chairman, Oleana, and..HEY! It was Sonia. Relief flooding in seeing another familiar face. This might be more tolerable then...Maybe you should take this time to apologize? You glanced to Gloria who still looked nervous. If this was someone very high up and important it wouldn't hurt to swallow your pride and just apologize, if nothing else but to keep the peace and show you're willing to be the bigger person. After all you don't want to cause trouble. The first to notice you two was the chairman himself as he turned his head from Sonia to you two and smiled.

"Ah! If it isn't the young trainer I met earlier today," he greeted with a smile and raised brow, "If you're here then I suppose it's safe to say you won against Nessa?"

You didn't miss her gulp before forcing a smile. "Uh..Y-Yeah. Piece of cake!"

He nodded. "I'm so glad! Gloria, come. Let's celebrate your recent victory! On me!" ...You felt eyes on you and you turned from the Chairman's face to Oleana's who was staring right at you. ...You frowned back at her- "And I believe I've seen you before as well, Young Lady." You blinked back to the Chairman's face as he was looking at you too now with a raised brow. ...AH CRAP!! "You were the lady back there who gave my assistant quite a 'roasting' as the young kinds call it nowadays."

...You blinked. Forcing up a smile. Here we go. "Uh. hehe. Yeah. Actually I wanted to apologize to you.." You gave Oleana a glance. "-and her for that. I just thought things were getting a bit scary back there."

To your surprise he chuckled it off with a wave. "Not at all. In all honestly Oleana can be quite intimidating to others. It's one of the reasons she's so good at her job. But there's no hard feelings. Right Oleana?"

The woman next to him inhaled before breathing it back out. "Of course, Sir. Apologies accepted and all's forgiven."

"Excellent! I don't suppose you know Sonia here? She's a wonderful person to have on the research team."

"Yeah. We do actually. Hi, Sonia."

"Oh. Were you invited too?," she asked surprised.

Before you could reply the chairman interrupted you. "You two know each other? That's great! Come now." He gestured to the table directly behind him. "Please be seated." And the three of you followed him and did so after you and Gloria exchanged a glance. She still looked nervous. The order of which you sat was Gloria sat across from the Chairman, Sonia next to Gloria, and you next to the Chairman. Naturally you would've preferred to sit next to either one of the other girls but you weren't about to let Gloria sit right next to a guy you had a funny feeling over. Strangely enough Oleana didn't seem like she was eating with you four and instead opted to stand silently next to the Chairman. How odd. You watched as he oh so casually picked the napkin off his own plate. Hmm...Guess he's been here more than once. "Now that we're all together. Gloria was it? Tell us how did your battle go?"

She shrugged. "Oh. Um. I-It was pretty good. Very thrilling. It was really nice to get ta meet Nessa. She's very nice." Sonia smiled at her.

"That's all very good. If you're as talented as Leon mentioned you then you should have no problem defeating the other gym leaders."

"Well I wouldn't say that. I-It was really hard to beat her. She's a tough gym leader."

"Hey. What were you talking about with Sonia?," you asked successfully steering the topic off Gloria for the moment as the Chairman smiled.

"Oh nothing really worth talking about. How her trip was so far studying around with the legends and the Geoglph in Turffield. The theory is that the two are somehow connected but I digress. AH! Our food has arrived." You looked over to what he was gesturing at and perked up at the lady from before who greeted you carrying two plates. One obviously being some kind of fish as it was placed before the chairman who happily accepted. "Ah! My usual. You always remember." And you were surprised when the other plate was sat in front of you. It was curry, smelt sweet, and had an egg smack dab in the middle of it. "Oh. It looks like you're a regular here too I presume."

"The chef asked me to give you his 'Lucky Egg' dish as a token of his appreciation, Miss," she explained, "I hope you're ok with sweet boiled egg curry. Are the rest of you ready to order?"

"Go ahead ladies. It's on me today."

"Mm. Just a salad. I'm not very hungry today."

"...I mean. The tropical curry sounds good," Gloria guessed.

You were too busy studying the dish in front of you to notice the lady leave. Instead staring at the massive egg just sitting in the middle of the darn plate. ...You weren't up to eating something that might've been a pokemon egg no matter how much your stomach rumbled at the sight and your mouth watered at the smell. Luckily it seemed like you had a back up plan because your sobble was crawling down your arm already on his way towards your food. You extended your hand to allow the small pokemon to sit on the table next to you and without really thinking grabbed the egg off your plate and held it out to it. He smiled and happily accepted your gift with a loud chirp before grabbing it and you watched as it bit it nearly in half with one bite. Goodness. Guess you weren't the only one hungry.

"Hulbury is a seafood town. Naturally if one is going to eat here the obvious choice is the local cuisine," the chairman said already digging in, "Everything on the menu is delicious. Oh, Sonia. By the way how is Professor Magnolia getting on? I'm quite indebted to her you know. She was the one who figured out how to unleash the power of Wishing Stars and use that power to dynamax pokemon. We would never have been able to create dynamax bands without her."

Sonia sighed. "*sigh* She was saying that there's still so much we don't know about dynamaxing. It's causing her some worry. She even made me take a power spot detector with me when I started traveling."

"A power spot detector?," he asked interested, "That's the device that allowed me to discover power spots. Locations that emit galar particles and allow pokemon to dynamax. I don't like hearing that Professor Magnolia is worried though. If only there was something I could do." You glanced at him again out the corner of your eye and rose a brow. Why were you getting a weird feeling in your gut from this guy?

Sonia shrugged. "Unless you can suddenly provide more intel on the phenominon then I'm afraid there isn't much, Sir."

He hummed.".....Sonia. It may be good for you to visit the vault in Hammerlocke. I believe the key to unlocking the secrets of the dynamax phenomenon lies in the history preserved there."

Sonia blinked. "Oh. You really think so?"

"We usually study history based on what was left on it from the past. Although mostly legends at this point you know they always say that every legend has truth to it. Who knows? It might even help tie in with the lengend you've been studying currently. Oleana can arrange a meeting I'm sure. Can't you?"

"Understood, Sir," Oleana replied monotonly, "I will arrange a meeting with Ms. Sonia."

"Very good. See? Nothing to worry yourself over about. Now shall we dig in?"

The rest of that dinner get together was a blur. Honestly you were too busy stuffing your face to talk but you didn't mind. You only watched and listened to the small talk. Gloria and Sonia's food arrived a short while after and by this point they were mostly done eating as well. His other questions didn't seem too out of the ordinary. Asking how their day was? How they were enjoying the challenge so far? Talking about some of his recent appointments involving some kind of arrangement with a Prince from the Pasio Region?? You weren't sure. But the sun was starting to set soon.

"So then I figured the best way to solve the matter was to set up individual warnings for the two of them and move one to a different department under Oleana. *sigh* Both are hard workers so it'd be a shame to just fire one or both. Don't you agree Oleana?"

"Yes, Sir. However I believe it is about time we get going, Chairman."

"Hm?" He looked at her. "But I've hardly had a chance to speak with Gloria." You rose a brow. You had literally been sitting her an entire hour.

"With all do respect, Sir. It's getting rather late. I'm sure the young lady is quite tired from her day."

...He sighed. "It's regrettable but I guess it can't be helped. If something needs to get done there's no time like the present after all!" He slowly stood from his seat as the three of you watched and smiled. "Truly though I'm glad to have had a chance to speak with you ladies today. So sorry if we couldn't have spent more time together. In any case I bid you farewell."

"OH! Uh..G-Good bye, M-Mr. Chairman. Sir."

You remained silent as the two left. Narrowed eyes watching as they went...Something about those two just felt...Off. Like it didn't sit right in your gut, but you had no idea why? Was there some kind of plot in the game with those two you couldn't remember?...Hm. In any case you were glad they were gone now so you and Gloria could rela- Your head perked up with at a sigh as Sonia rubbed her face.

"Hey. You good there?"

"Does he think he's doing me a favor? He's right that the vault would be a good place to look for the legends but..." She paused suddenly looking up and noticing the two of you staring at her confused. "UH!...Nevermind! You got the water badge right? Defeating Nessa is no easy feat!"

"Uh..Yeah. What are-"

"Nessa's a good friend! Perhaps I should drop in on her!," her chair screeched as she stood up all of a sudden giving a nervous smile, "Ahaha! Yes! She'll be so happy to see me! Until next time, Gym Challenger! Nice seeing you again, Y/n!"

Both of you stared as Sonia quickly sped walked away from you two and then out of the restaurant as if she was escaping something...

Gloria blinked. "What the world just happened?"

"Believe me I have learnt in this point of my life to just go with things. C'mon. It's free food. Let's finish eating and meet the others back at the hotel."

[magalidragon]

Anger Management | fic teaser

a/n: I am loving kickboxing lately and naturally the most random of things inspire me...like an enemies to lovers smutfic where Dany punches Jon on accident. I have NOT punched anyone in the face in my workouts but I did punch a handsy pervert kid when I was in middle school. Anyway, this fic will have SMUT, an angry Dany, mysterious snarky Jon, Dadvos, and BFF Missandei who has butterflies on her gloves. Also weird Rhaegar makes an appearance. I love that weirdo. 😂

"Ready?"

"Ready," Dany said, jumping up and down in place, patting her fists together. She grinned at Davos. "So? Who am I kicking the shit out of?"

He sighed. "So much for teaching you to channel your anger, to control your emotions."

"Everyone always wants women to control their emotions, but men can get away with anything."

"I am not touching that one."

It was true. Not that her eldest brother had any emotions, but if Rhaegar got angry in court it was "passionate" and if she got angry in court it was "shrill." Although Dany did have to admit, spending every other day in Davos's gym for about an hour and a half was really helping with her anger, frustration, and general stress levels. She discovered she was sleeping better, eating better, and even Rhaegar commented on her "distinct calm" in the partner meeting that morning.

It was because she knew that tonight she'd be able to actually mess with someone else. She liked kickboxing. Missandei preferred to just stay punching the bag and then let Grey try to teach her some of the staff-work, but Dany was eager to try out her moves with someone else. It was the competitive streak inside of her, coming from growing up with one brother as her sort-of father and the other as an annoying twit who pulled on her braids and terrorized her. She always had to outshine them.

Now she wanted to outshine this. She had mastered the punching bag, now she wanted to try with someone else. Even if it wasn't quite 'boxing.' Davos said as much as she thought she wanted to truly 'box', there was no way he was going to risk it. "I'm not delicate!" she'd shouted.

"Oh I know you aren't, I'm scared for the men."

Today, she'd carved out exactly ninety minutes to get through this before she had to be back at work to go over briefs and prepare her statement for Rakharo's hearing the following day. She'd managed to get it reverted back to juvenile court, which infuriated Tyrion, but it made her day. She'd be before the juvenile court judge, all of whom she knew and they were mostly softies who believed in second chances, as they should. Plus, the juvenile prosecutors were usually fresh out of law school and she could walk all over them.

Missandei was still waiting on their source at the courthouse to tell them who the judge would be. Dany hoped it was Brienne Tarth. They were going up against Edd Tollet as the prosecutor and as a former juvie himself, he tended to always give benefit of the doubt. It would be Rakharo's day in court and she was looking forward to winning and getting him free. Then straight into a relative's home and back to school, learning from his mistakes.

She climbed up into the ring, bouncing around in place, liking the feel of it. It was fun. "You have a trampoline? I could do this all day," she commented, hopping around.

"I’m sure the lads would like that."

Dany glanced at some young rugby players from the high school who were doing weight training, their mouths on the floor as she jumped. She glanced at her chest; she didn't have a huge one, but it wasn’t bad. The sports bra was keeping her in place, but boys, ugh. She rolled her eyes, knocking fists together. "Okay, get in here old man."

"I have to help Gendry, he's got a bunch of new kids coming in for the session of Faceless training."

"We're teaching children how to move like assassins? That sounds dangerous."

Davos's eyebrows lifted, agreeing. "Don't I know it. He never should have recruited at the playground, tons of parents want their kids to be involved, but I don't know what they think." He smirked. "You'll be training with one of my favorites today. Jonny boy!"

Dany wondered who Jonny was, she didn't recognize the name. She glanced over and saw movement from the back office, shocked at the sight of the hot man she'd taken to calling 'White Wolf' because she noticed that there was a white wolf on his black boxing gloves and he sometimes wore a black t-shirt with a white wolf head on the front, no other insignia. Missandei wasn't giving up info if she knew him, Grey was silent as ever, and most of the time he wasn't in the gym at the same time as her. When he was, he was busy and so was she, their paths never crossing.

He was kind of mythical, she'd decided, preferring to look at him from afar. He might ruin the illusion if she heard him speak more or learned that he was a pig like her previous two serious boyfriends.

"Jonny?" she echoed.

"Just Jon," he said, accent rough. It was like Arya's, Gendry's girlfriend, who was from the North. He climbed into the ring. He wore a t-shirt over black sweats, feet bare, and his hands were bare too.

"We bare knuckling it?" she asked. That seemed a little crazy.

"Don't do that stuff here, this isn't the 1800s."

Jon picked up two pads from the corner, slipping them over his hands. He held them up, smirking. "Let's see how you do with someone moving your target."

"What?"

"Gotta walk before you can run, lass."

She wrinkled her nose. Fine. She shrugged, rolling her head on her neck. Today's outfit was an all red ensemble, her braids hanging down her back from their elaborate up-do at her crown. "Let's do this then."

Jon smiled; he had a nice smile, she'd give him that too. It was entirely unfair how attractive he was. Probably has an empty skull, all the brains knocked out from boxing, she figured. She noted that he had a couple scars on his face; he had some more on his chest too, when she caught him without a shirt. He also had a tattoo along his shoulder and onto his chest. More wolves and what she thought might have been red leaves of some sort. There was a tattoo on his inner wrist, which she caught sight of now, standing close to him.

Duty

She darted her gaze to his other wrist. There was another word there. Love. She nodded to them. "Your fists are named love and duty?"

"Something like that." He smiled again, flash of white against his dark beard. His curls were half-back from his face in a knot. He also had gray eyes. They looked practically black in the dim light around them. An air conditioner vent blasted down on them, sending a chill through Dany's spine.

Or perhaps it was the wafting scent of spearmint, faintest cigarette ash, and...woodsy pine? She wasn't sure, coming from the man she now stood about a foot in front of. He was built, but not obscenely so, not like her ex-boyfriend Drogo, who spent more time preening before the mirror inspecting his muscles than using them. Her lips twitched, lifting her fists. "What do you got White Wolf?"

Davos heard that, whistling low under his breath. "My, my Jonny, she truly has your number."

Just Jon smirked, holding up the pads, squaring off. "Let's go Dragon Queen."

She flung out her fist, connecting so hard with his right pad that he stepped back, eyes widening, surprised. She grinned.

"Dracarys."

[hellfirenacht]

The Convention Fic Chapter 3

First Chapter

Note: This is where it starts to get a little spicy. 

Friday (Afternoon)

You woke up a few short hours later. The alarm you set blasted a song that you had hoped would get you pumped up and ready to get out of bed, but instead just sent a jolt through your body followed by a moment of annoyance as you reached out from under the covers and groped the nightstand looking for your phone. You hit the snooze button and attempted to get a few more moments of sleep, but it seemed that every time you closed your eyes the alarm would start up again. 

Giving up, you managed to drag yourself out of bed and glance at the clock. It was a little past noon, a bit late for your liking but you knew that this weekend you would have to conform your sleep schedule to a completely unpredictable man. From there you set yourself into your morning routine; a quick shower, teeth, hair, make-up (allowing yourself to go a little more daring than usual, it being a convention and all), and pulling on your outfit for the day. 

“I’m up.” you typed out. “Headed down soon.” 

 “ILL MEET U IN THE LOBBY!!” was the reply a few minutes later. 

You reached into your suitcase and pulled out a notebook and an old but sturdy backpack. The Notebook was a plain spiral notebook with the words “CON SURVIVAL GUIDE” written in Sharpie on the front. It was in here that you had written down everything you needed for the weekend- from Beej’s schedule, to panels you wanted to catch, to general facts that would help you survive such a hectic weekend. 

The first page had a list of everything you needed to bring with you on the con floor and you went through and packed the backpack carefully. Bottled water, wallet, sturdy folder, the convention schedule pamphlet, portable charging station for your phone, and extra batteries (pre-charged) for Beej’s camera. 

It may have been a bit overkill, but better than sorry. 

After double checking that you had your phone, room key, and badge you were finally ready to head down to the lobby of the hotel, where your dear friend was waiting for you. 

As soon as you stepped off the elevator he was right by your side and shoving something in your face. Still tired, it took a moment for you to register what was going on when he spoke. 

“I got you coffee!” he said proudly. “And a bagel!” 

The small bag and cup he was holding was suddenly in your hands, and it took another moment to register what to do with the items before the sweet smell wafting from the cup alerted your three functioning brain cells. You looked at the cup and took a long drink. Holy shit, how did he nail your coffee order so perfectly? 

You looked him dead in the eyes. “I love you.” you blurted out before you could stop yourself. “Thank you!” you added quickly, trying to play off the first part. 

He smirked, but his eyes made it clear that he was very proud of himself. “So you drop your pants when I walk you home and you declare your love when I get you coffee. Damn, I’m just too sexy aren’t I?” he laughed. 

“The sexiest.” you agreed, taking another sip of coffee. “But really, thank you. I needed this.” 

“Well you know, I did keep you up all night.” he said with his eyebrows wiggling. You just laughed. 

“Oh baby, you know it.” 

“Excuse you,” he said leaning in close, making your half-dead brain fritz out momentarily. “I’m not Baby. I’m Daddy.” 

Your body suddenly felt very warm, starting from your cheeks and moving all the way down to the pit of your stomach. Hey now, that wasn’t fair. It was way too early and you were way too tired for him to be making comments like that. Oh no, he was smirking at you and clearly pleased with this reaction. No. There was no way you were going to allow your crush to flirt with you and have the satisfaction of knowing what it did do to you. 

“Papa, please.” you said in a monotone voice. “Father do not be mad that I disobeyed. Pater, I will be an obedient child.”

Beej doubled over laughing at your retort, as if it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

“Oh man, that was good!” he laughed. “Reminds me when I played that one game that had a confessional-” 

“And everyone in the chat kept saying stuff like ‘Daddy I was a bad girl, please forgive me?’”

“-And everyone would say that instead of ‘Forgive me, Father for I have sinned’!” 

You were both laughing now as you headed to the convention hall, flashing your badges at staff as you passed through a few checkpoints. As you started to become more alert, you found yourself feeling more at ease. You had worried that meeting up with him again would make you feel more nervous about what had happened last night, but standing next to him and laughing about inside jokes made all your fears melt away. 

By the time your coffee was finished and your bagel was safely in your stomach, the two of you found yourselves back on the lowest level of the convention hall. The room seemed so much larger in the day, now that the dealers room and artist ally were open. Around you, nerds of all shapes and sizes were buzzing around booths and taking pictures and chatting excitedly. Through the chaos though, there seemed to be a rhythm and flow to the hall as you and Beej stopped to take it all in. 

“Man, this place is huge!” Beej said, gawking at all the people and taking your hand. “Better hold this for safety.” 

You didn’t resist or pull away, allowing his hand to grasp yours. Even in a warmer room, his hands felt cool against yours, and knowing that he wasn’t going to just disappear into the crowd made you feel safe and secure. 

“So, artist ally or dealers hall first?” you asked. 

“Artist ally!” he said happily. “I got to see a few booths last night before you showed up, but now that I have more time I wanna see everything!” 

And so off the two of you went, weaving through the crowds of people towards the side of the room that held all of the artists. Never once did his hand let go of yours except to occasionally take a picture of or with another cosplayer. 

“So what’s with the backpack, doll?” he asked. “You plan on going on a hike?”

“It’s just my con bag.” you shrugged. “It’s got everything I need for the day so that I don’t need to go back to the hotel room too often.” 

“Nerd.” he teased in a playful way. 

“As your official handler I believe it’s my job to be a nerd right now.” you replied. 

“Oh? You got something in there that can shut me up?” he asked, giving you a look that was way too intense to just be playful banter. Why was this happening? You wanted to say something back, something equally as intense, it was on the tip of your tongue before you pulled it back in. This wasn’t the time, and you weren’t even sure what was really going through his mind when he said these things. Besides, what if you were just looking too far into this and this was just more playful banter? It wasn’t exactly like he didn’t say things like this all the time on stream or in chats to all his fans. 

“Yeah, I got a bottle of holy water in there.” you joked. “Figured that if you started really acting like a demon then I’d spray you like a cat with it.”

The intense look on his face disappeared and he was laughing again, allowing you to relax for the moment. He sure did like to keep you on your toes, didn’t he? It wasn’t a secret that Beej was a huge flirt, but you couldn’t help but wonder what he’d think if he knew what he did to you. How your heart skipped every time he paid attention to you, or how it sent a thrill up your spine every time his hand found yours, or how your brain stopped when he said he was going to take you on a-

Oh. Shit. He said something about a date yesterday and then ran away, didn’t he? 

The two of you were casually wandering from booth to booth when that realization hit you. Beej was happily looking at a booth filled with dead looking plushies, looking way more excited than you would have expected. 

“Hey Beej-” you started, but he suddenly turned to you with a smile. 

“Hey Doll, I’m gonna need to ask you a favor and go to literally any other booth right now.” he said. 

“What?”

“Shoo!” His arms were around you suddenly, picking you up by your torso, walking away a few steps, and dropping you by a random booth. 

“You stay there for a bit, mk?” he said before hurrying back to the plushie booth, leaving you confused and alone for the moment. For someone who had been acting so clingy, he sure was pushy. 

Staying close to the booth where Beej was, you poked around some other booths admiring the different crafts from each person. It really was amazing the kinds of art that the nerd community came up with; from burnt wood portraits of famous anime stills, to resin charms and decoden accessories, to prints, to buttons. Everything clearly had a lot of love put into it, each artist having a passion for what they did and the fandoms they were in. 

A hand fell on your shoulder and you turned to see Beej back with a huge smile on his face. “Ready to continue, doll?” he asked. 

“Sure.” you said, taking his hand again. “So are you gonna tell me why you suddenly abandoned me on the side of the road?”

“It’s a surprise!” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Beej, with you I’m always worried about it.” you replied with a slight laugh. 

The conversation continued across the artist ally and well into the dealers hall. The next few hours  were filled with checking out different booths, shoving weird Japanese candy into your faces and just chatting. At one point the two of you wondered outside to grab some lunch from the food trucks that had been set up, but then you both ended up back in the lowest level of the convention hall.

“Focus.. Focus... dammit I hate my phone. FOCUS. Oh, there it is.” you said, pointing your camera at your friend who was sitting on the floor at the edge of the giant room. In one hand he held a bottle of ramune and his other was raised and ready to strike. 

“WHATS UP NERDS!” yelled Beej. “So apparently there’s a soda in Japan that you have to beat up before drinking it. I don’t know about you guys but that sounds exactly like my kind of energy! Babes, count me down!”

“Three... two... two and a-”

SMACK

“ONE” he cackled, before bringing the soda up to taste it. “YUP. That’s strawberry flavored soda! But I got to slap it around before tasting it, which is a favorite pastime of mine”  he winked at the camera. 

“Aaaaand now you’re de-monitized.” you laughed. 

“Small price to pay for comedy, toots.” he said, standing up and taking another sip. 

You stopped recording and put your phone away. “How you manage to make a living off this with all the bullshit you pull, I’ll never understand. And don’t say-”

“I don’t need to make a living- I’m dead!” you both finished together; him with a shit eating grin and you sighing and rolling your eyes. 

“I get by.” he shrugged. “I don’t have many bills to pay and since Lydia set up that Patreon it’s been easy.” 

The two of you wondered back into the dealers hall, by now it was late afternoon and there was a noticeable dip in the crowd as congoers started to leave for dinner. By no means was it empty, but it was a little easier to get around. Looking at your phone, you noticed that the dealers hall would only be open for another hour and a half. 

“Ohh, hey doll let’s check out that booth!” Beej said with sudden enthusiasm in his voice. He led you towards a booth that you were surprised that you missed the first time around. In the middleof the dealers hall was a large leather working booth, covered in corsets, battle armor, masks, and journals. 

He let go of your hand as he started poking around the booth, and you drifted over towards the journals and pouches. On the inside you were swooning over how beautiful everything was, and the smell of leather made you feel warm. Picking up a few journals, you thumbed threw them and examined the price carefully. You had spent a lot of money to get here, but your budget DID allow you some money for these kinds of things. 

You found yourself holding onto a thick journal, the simple cover had a strap wrapped around it to keep it closed. You were in love. 

“It’s refillable.” One of the men running the booth hinted. “You can take the cover and move it to another journal if you fill it up.”

“I... I want this.” you said, holding it close and imagining everything you could fill it with. 

Within a few moments, you were happily placing the journal in your backpack. It was then that Beej called you over. 

“Come here doll, I wanna see something.” he said, his voice was sweet but his eyes and smile hinted at something a little more dangerous. 

You walked towards him and the woman that he was talking to. She was tall and covered in leather, her eyeliner sharp and her lips bright red. 

You suddenly felt a little warm under the gaze of the two very attractive people looking at you. But her soft, friendly smile felt reassuring. 

“Your friend wanted a demonstration of these.” she said, holding up a thick pair of leather wrist cuffs. “May I?”

Oh. 

Oh.

Your cheeks quickly flushed the same color as her lipstick but you still nodded and held out your hands for her to attach them. The leather was thick and sturdy, but the inside was lined with a very soft fur. You didn’t hate the feeling. 

Then she clasped the two together and started with her sales pitch. How the leather was sourced, how sturdy it was, how it came with a lifetime guarentee, the different ways you could use the cuffs to tie a partner up (they were also very good ankle cuffs!). With every new piece of information she was jerking your hands around, locking and unlocking you in different ways, and explaining everything in detail. It was all surprisingly professional, considering what she was talking about. Not once did you feel uncomfortable (a little embarrassed maybe, but not uncomfortable). 

Then she brought out the leash, explaining that how to attach the leash to the cuffs, and the safe way to use a collar and leash. She ended her explanation by telling the two of you if you bought the set (cuffs, collar, and leash), there would be a discount for buying at the con instead of online. 

When you were finally free of the cuffs, Beej was snickering at you and you were thinking about all the ways you would get him back for this little stunt. Then he did something that shouldn’t have surprised you as much as it did. 

He pulled out a credit card and purchased a set on the spot. If your cheeks were hot before, you were nearly having a heat stroke now. The wink the Beej sent your way did not help either, sending a shiver down your spine. 

Was.. was he actually planning on using this on you?

No, no, no way. Nope. You were not going to entertain that thought. Yes he was flirting with you hard, and yeah you were flirting with him back, and yeah he had used the word date and yeah you very much would not mind the idea of wearing those cuffs in private-

You were learning quite a lot about yourself this weekend. 

The sleek black and white leather set was carefully tucked into a bag and the booth owners thanked you both for the purchase. Beej took your warm hand and he started leading you out of the dealers hall for the day. By now it was a little past six, and the dealers hall would be closing soon. 

“Well I don’t know about you, but that was a lot of fun!” he said, giving you his shit eating grin. 

“I’m surprised you actually bought a set.” you replied, trying to play off how flustered you were about what happened. 

“Well she was so convincing and you were so cute wearing those cuffs, how could I resist?” he fired back. God, this man was going to actually be the death of you this weekend. 

Once you two were back on the main floor of the convention center he pulled you to the side and looked at you. “I got you something.” he said. 

“Do I get to keep one of the cuffs?” you asked with a sheepish smile, still trying to play everything off. 

“Not quite.” he replied and reached into another bag that he’d been carrying around. He pulled out a small stuffed animal- something that you recognized from a booth this morning. It was a small striped animal, covered in fake blood, with an eyeball missing, and some bone sticking out. A dead hyena plushie. It was oddly fitting. 

“Beej,” you gasped quietly. “Beej, he’s adorable!” you took the plush from him and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you so much...!”

His smile grew wide and he was starting to squirm. “There’s something else. I uh...” he dove his hands into his pockets and pulled out two pieces of very crumpled up paper. “I want to go on a date with you tonight.” he said and shoved the two pieces of paper in your hands as well. 

MOMO CON PRESENTS: NIGHT AT THE AQUARIUM! ADMIT 1 + AFTER PARTY

“Beej...!” you gasped and looked up at him. “Beej, I thought this was sold out...!”

“Yeah well, perks of being a guest.” he replied. “So uh... do you want to do this as a date?” He was staring at you intensely and you realized just how serious he was. The words caught in your throat for a moment before-

“I’d love to!” you smiled wide at him. “I gotta drop some stuff in my room but yes! Yes I’d love to go on a date with you!” 

His smile was a mile wide as he picked you up and spun you around like he had done the previous evening. “Hell yes! I’m going on a date with the hottest nerd here!” he whooped and laughed. 

“Oh my god, Beej.” you couldn’t stop smiling though, your heart racing. “Come on, let’s go back to my room so I can get ready.” 

And off the two of you went, both of you smiling like idiots as you realize that this was actually happening. Maybe you wouldn’t kill him for that stunt after all. 

Maybe.

Next Chapter

[swlbarnes]

Soul - Jack Kline x Reader

Summary: Castiel always insists that it is impossible for humans to perceive the physical form of a soul. After spending time with Jack, you swear Cas is wrong.

Pairing: Jack Kline x Reader, Father figure!Castiel x Reader

Word count: 8.1k

Warnings: canon typical violence, light torture, some slight angst, fluff, danger to reader, danger to characters, blood, fatherly castiel (is that a warning? idk), basically there’s some good stuff and some bad stuff, but overall it’s fluff! slight canon divergence, vague early season 14 spoiler, but the main Jack plot in season 14 doesn’t apply here

A/N: I had this idea like FOREVER ago bc of that shot of jack asleep in the back of the impala (gif below), and i just got around to writing it bc school is garbage (pls stay in school). Hope it’s alright! Feedback is always greatly appreciated!

gif creator here, give them love!

Soul /sōl/ noun - the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life.

You often found yourself asking Castiel the most random of questions about the universe. What was the beginning of the world like? What did the Bible completely get wrong? How have things changed over time in Heaven? Who thought the platypus was a good idea?

Most of all, though, your questions seemed to focus on one thing: souls. You were absolutely enamored by the subject. Something about them felt so incredibly intriguing, and after having seen the change in Sam Winchester when he happened to lose his soul, you wanted all the information you could get. Having an angel friend to answer your questions was exactly what you needed.

“Cas,” you spoke his name softly, intent on not destroying the peacefully quiet nature of the bunker’s library at 4 o’clock in the morning. The pair of you were up researching for a hunt after you found yourself unable to fall asleep. You insisted that instead of having Cas use his grace to help you sleep, that you could use your time to get some work done. The seraph reluctantly agreed.

“Yes?” He hummed in acknowledgement. His eyes lifted from his book in front of him just slightly to meet your gaze.

“What does a soul look like?”

Castiel let out a quiet chuckle, leaning back in his seat and pushing the book away just enough to show that you had his attention. A small smile quirked at the corners of his mouth at the question. This was far from your first time asking it. You questioned him relentlessly about every topic you could think of, but no matter what, you always came back around to the same question. What does a soul really look like?

And every time he gave the same answer: “They look like light.”

Sometimes you took this at face value, just glad to hear him say it again, but sometimes, like this particular night, you needed to hear more. You gave him a nod of encouragement, urging him to continue speaking. He took in a breath and cast his eyes over the room momentarily. His hands clasped together in his lap, and the small, relaxed smile remained on his face. He loved answering your questions and you could tell. There was always a childlike excitement to you when he would offer you a new piece of information. You would take his words and hold them close to you, eager to commit them to memory. You knew secrets of the universe that other people could never even dream of knowing. It felt nice to take you under his literal and metaphorical wing to teach you the things you wanted to know.

“Souls tend to shine differently depending on the person. You can tell so much about someone based on their soul alone. This is why demons are so easy to spot: their souls are so twisted that they become something so much different than the purity of a human soul,” he elaborated, his eyes trailing over the swirls of the wood grain on the table top.

You leaned forward slightly. “But surely not all human souls are so… pure,” you pointed out. He nodded.

“You’re correct. Many human souls find themselves being twisted in their life on earth as well, but never to the extent of a demon’s, of course.”

“But demons manifest themselves as black smoke. So, does that mean that the purity of a soul is based on how bright it is?” You continued to pester. You trailed your nails along the edge of the table subconsciously.

Castiel shook his head side to side. “No, not at all. It’s less of it being one rule for all and more of just a… feeling. Much like you are often able to tell the intentions of a fellow human with a glance, souls are much the same. Some souls are dim, but that does not mean that they aren’t beautifully pure,” he informed you. His voice remained level and patient, as it always did when you started a line of questions. You smiled at his tone. You were always grateful for the care he took in these situations. He never made you feel bad for your questions or your lack of knowledge, something you wished that your old school teachers had taken lessons in.

Your gaze travelled down to the pages of the lore book still open in front of you. The old weathered paper was yellowed and tattered with time. The top right corner of the page you were on was creased from someone who knows how long ago that dog-eared their spot in the text. You fought the urge to grimace at the foul treatment given to the book and focused instead on posing your next question. “What does… my soul look like?”

This was another familiar question, but still, Cas humored you. He trailed his eyes over your face with a thoughtful expression before he opened his mouth to reply. “Your soul is… complex. It shines bright, and has a slight, dare I say, twinkle to it. Like a star.” He paused to cast you a proud, fatherly smile. “You’re the team’s North Star, forever helping to guide us home.”

You cast your eyes downward, hoping the way your hair came down around your face was enough to hide your reddened cheeks and meek smile. You reached a hand up to trail a finger along the edges of your book. The worn leather of the binding was soft beneath your fingertips, and the scent of old pages wafted around you like a blanket in the serenity of the library. “I wish I could see souls,” you commented in passing, your voice heavy with exhaustion.

Cas was quick to recognize the wobble of your form and the half closed position of your heavy eyelids. He stood from his seat and made his way around the table, placing a hand on your shoulder and coaxing you upright. “Humans can’t see souls, and I promise that if there was a way for you to do so, you would be the first person I would tell.” With that, he led you down the maze-like halls of the bunker and into your bed. He brought the covers up to your chin, giving a light chuckle as he heard your soft snores before he was even able to shut the door behind him.

-

A year or so had passed since that night. Things finally settled down, and for once you could feel at peace. The bunker now consisted of the two Winchester boys, your fallen angel mentor, an ex-trickster archangel, and the son of Lucifer himself. Things were… good. There was just one thing…

Castiel had lied to you.

He had told you that humans could not see souls. That humans were incapable of comprehending the visual aspects of a soul. And you swear to every higher power you know, he lied to you. He must have. It was the only explanation.

These thoughts paraded around your mind, your brain’s mess of emotions a swift contrast to the atmosphere of the Impala you were sat in the back seat therein. Your eyes fixated on the nephilim sat by your side. Jack’s body leaned limp against the car door, his hand placed with his palm against the window to act as a barrier between his cheek and the icy glass. The sun was setting just on the other side of his window. The sky was streaked with endless shades of pinks, yellows, and oranges, spreading out in wisps that curled lazily around the surrounding landscape. Your ears were filled with the soft guitar riff of Dean’s favorite Led Zeppelin cassette. The scent surrounding you was that of old leather, whiskey, gun powder, and a swirling mixture of both Sam and Dean’s favorite colognes - in other words, it smelled like home.

You fixed your attention on Jack’s form. Your gaze swept over him, taking in every detail you possibly could. You noticed the way the tips of his fingers twitched in his dreaming state. You noticed the slight part of his lips as he let out soft, even breaths. You noticed each little freckle that dotted his skin. You noticed the way that his favorite red jacket was tugged up to tuck into his neck, as you knew he loved how the fluffy fabric felt comforting against his skin. You noticed it all.

Most of all, you noticed the way the light of the sunset behind him framed his form. The remaining rays trickled in through the car window, casting a gentle glow around his silhouette. The orange tendrils of light curled along his hair and tinted his dark brown curls a lighter, more fiery blonde color. The slant of his cheekbones was far more distinct in this lighting. The shadows of his face were dark and impressive, but somehow his features maintained his tender nature. In fact, you swore you could make out the shape of a halo at the crown of his hair. Everything about him and the way the sunset curved around him felt so celestial, so strong. Yet still he retained an air of care and love about him. He just looked so… Jack. And it was incredible.

-

“What do you mean you’re scared of the dark?” Dean asked in a teasing tone. An annoyed scowl formed in your lips and your arms wound around your own torso as you sought out as much comfort as you could get.

“Oh, shove it Winchester. We’re all scared of something. You wouldn’t be so cocky if we were in an airplane right now,” you shot back. You tried your best to hide the shake in the back of your throat, but you knew by the eldest brother’s deep chuckle that you hadn’t done as well as you had hoped.

“That’s because a plane crash will kill ya, and you just have to go down without a fight. Seriously, you’re a hunter, how are you afraid of the dark?”

You shuffled around from your place in one of the plush couches of the library. The darkness surrounding you curled its claws around your neck and began to squeeze, but you just shook your head in an attempt to fight it off. “I know what’s in the dark. I think we have more reason to hate the dark than anyone else does,” you insisted. You could practically see the stupid smirk on his face, and you wanted nothing more than to punch it right off.

Your knees tugged themselves up against your chest so you could wind your arms around them. Gazing into the endless darkness was unsettling no matter what, but to make things worse, you didn’t know what was really in the bunker. The last time something got out, the Wicked Witch tried to destroy Oz, and you weren’t too keen on fighting both your fear of the dark and another old fairy tale on the same day. Nope. Definitely not. You were much more comfortable sitting right where you were on the couch with your back pressed against the wall and your feet up off the ground so nothing could grab you from somewhere in the emptiness.

The sounds of shuffling coming from the winding corridors caused you to jump in fright. “Wh-who’s there?” You stuttered out, turning your head from one side to the other as if you could see who - or what - was making their way over to you.

Around the corner, the flame of a lit candle made itself visible, the light it emitted casting a soft golden glow over the surrounding few feet. “Dean? (Y/N)?” The soft, familiar voice of the nephilim called as he rounded the corner, candle in hand. Your heart jumped at the sight.

“Jack!” You cried out gratefully. You instantly flung yourself off of the couch, the balls of your feet barely hitting the floor with each step before you leaped forward again, all the way up until you made it to the man. You ducked underneath the candle and wrapped your arms around his waist, tugging him close to you in search of comfort.

The air in his lungs was exhaled with a huff upon impact. He raised the candle above his head to ensure the flame wouldn’t catch on your hair or clothing before he wrapped his free arm around your shoulders in a comforting - yet confused - manner. “Are you alright?” Jack asked with an edge of worry in his tone. You nodded against his chest.

“Yeah, yeah I’m good. Just… don’t like the dark. And Dean is mean to me.” Your accusation brought forth a cry of offense from Dean, which in turn caused you to chuckle into the material of Jack’s shirt, which you were still clinging to as if your life depended on it. Jack looked up to Dean in an ever-so-serious accusatory manner.

“Sam is working on getting the power back on still. He said he’s almost got it, but I should come check on you in case you were worried,” the nephilim explained, turning his gaze to you once again. You cast him a small smile and took a step back.

You coughed to clear your throat from the awkward silence that followed, much to Dean’s amusement. He indicated this with a rather unflattering snort that you would have demolished him for in other circumstances. Instead of tearing into the older hunter, you peered upwards at the man in front of you. “Well, thank you for coming to make sure we were alright. I don’t know how much more of Dean’s teasing I can take, especially when it’s too dark for me to even take a swing at him.”

A smile bloomed on Jack’s lips, and your expression brightened to match. He lowered the candle again, now that you were a safe distance away. You instantly found yourself mesmerized by the way the shadows shifted across his skin, accentuating the hills and valleys of his face in different ways based on where the flame sat.

The soft orange glow flickered in his irises. The light was just bright enough to illuminate his face, chest, and shoulders, but the rest of his body seemed to fade into the darkness all around you. A few strands of chestnut hair were still visible, and the light brought forth more details of his natural highlights than you had previously noticed. Overall, he looked warm and safe, and you found yourself shuffling to remain close to him with each movement. You would later insist to Dean that this behavior was a result of you wishing to remain close to the light, but deep down you knew what the true source of your comfort really was.

-

“They’ll never find you, y’know,” the young janitor insisted as he strolled leisurely around the empty space. Well, to be fair, this wasn’t really the janitor. The real man was likely off in some remote location with a slit throat like all the other poor vics you had come across in the coroner’s office on this particular case. No, this man was the shapeshifter you and the team had been hunting for the past week.

You weren’t entirely sure how you had gotten caught. Your plan was foolproof, at least it was all the way up until it wasn’t. Perhaps it really was never the best idea for the whole team to split up and have each of you going off on your own, but there were simply too many possible hotspots the shifter could have shown up to and not enough hunters to adequately cover them all. You were all hoping to figure out who the latest face claim was tonight, and had no intentions of moving in on the creature. Apparently it had far different plans.

All you could remember was an ear ringing thud against the back of your head before you woke up tied against one of the rickety support beams in an old abandoned warehouse close by where you had been conducting your personal search mission. An hour and a half had already passed, and you found yourself running low on snarky quips to fire back. The backhanded commentary about the cliched locale ran out of steam about thirty minutes ago, and he really wasn’t giving you much else to work off of.

This had clearly worn you down, and you wanted nothing more than to get back to the motel room, shower off the blood and dirt clinging to your skin, and collapse into bed. Of course, your idiotic friends would have to actually find you and save you before that could happen.

“If you were really that confident in them not finding me, then you wouldn’t feel the need to constantly remind me how hopeless it is,” you pointed out, shrugging nonchalantly. “But, whatever, that’s just psychology or whatever. I’m sure the world renowned Winchesters will be completely fooled by you, some random back alley shifter with a thing for the dramatics.”

The noise that ripped from the man’s throat could only be described as a growl; it was a bit too human to be an animal, but just animalistic enough to not feel human either. All in all, it was utterly unsettling, and you found your feet shuffling around in discomfort. “Shut up,” he snarled. His lip curled upwards to bare his teeth, an act that seemed out of place when the pearly whites being revealed were the dull, omnivorous ones of a human being. You quirked a brow in question.

The shifter twirled the knife in his hand as he made his way over to where you stood. The cool metal of the blade was chilling against the skin of your neck, and you pressed your back into the wooden beam behind you in an attempt to retreat from his threat. “For someone about to die, you sure do talk a lot,” he hissed. You winced against the scent of tobacco and cheap liquor clinging to his breath.

“Well,” you muttered, mustering a smirk despite yourself. “For an evil mastermind who wants to kill me, you sure are taking your precious time.” Perhaps goading a mentally unstable form changing monster into killing you wasn’t the best course of action, but it was the only comeback your brain could think of as you felt the kiss of his knife against your bared throat.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m just letting you simmer for a while,” the shifter hummed. He raised the knife to brush a lock of hair from your eyes before trailing it down the side of your face. Your fists clenched from their place tied behind your back. “That fear in your eyes, the fear you’re trying to hide from me, it’s… thrilling. You act so high and mighty, you act like you’re the one in control here, but all it would take is one… little…” The knife in his hand trailed down the column of your throat and paused just over your heart, where he pressed down the flat of the blade just enough that the edges dug into your skin. “Slip.” On that word, he flicked his wrist, drawing a line of scarlet blood along your chest. You hissed out in pain.

“Oh, screw you, man,” you muttered through clenched teeth. He gave a dark chuckle and ran his knife through the stream of blood trickling down your skin.

He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, a bang sounded from behind him. “Jack, wait!” Sam Winchester’s gruff voice called. The old, dilapidated door of the warehouse opened and slammed against the wall, revealing the young nephilim’s fuming form in the doorway.

“Jack!” You cried out in desperation. His gaze flickered over you momentarily, scanning your injuries and growing darker and darker with each new one he found. At the sight of the knife still being held against your chest, Jack’s eyes went alight.

“Stop!” He shouted, throwing his hand out in front of him and sending golden beams of his grace towards your attacker, who went flying far from gracefully across the empty room. His body slammed into one of the support beams, causing the wood to crack and splinter.

Sam and Dean came barreling into the warehouse after Jack, guns and knives at the ready. Sam wasted no time before rushing towards you, slicing through the rope around your wrists with his blade and catching you in his arms when your legs collapsed beneath you. You sighed and settled into his grasp, turning your eyes to Jack’s squared shoulders as he made his way to the crumpled form of the shifter.

Dean stepped forward to help the nephilim, but with a wave of Sam’s hand, he held his place and watched from afar instead. Jack’s entire body seemed to glow with his grace, his eyes a brilliantly bright gold unlike anything you had ever seen from the man. His jaw was set in determination as he reached a hand down and gripped the shifter’s shirt collar. He dragged the struggling man a few feet to the wall, where he slammed him against the ramshackled wooden planks.

“You should never have touched them,” he spat menacingly. Golden irises swept over the shifter’s body in disgust. The veins in Jack’s arm took up his signature glow as well, the light travelling up to his hand, where it seemed to sizzle against the shifter’s skin. An ear splitting cry ripped from the man’s throat, his legs thrashing wildly in an attempt to escape, but Jack made no move to let go. He simply tightened his grip and continued on. The shadow of two large wings spanned out along the wall, each wing easily seeming to be at least twice as large as Jack himself. They flared out in a way one could only describe as threatening, and for the first time in your life, you could understand the fear others seemed to have when they spoke of Jack Kline. The golden glow emanating from his being sent the hairs along your arms and at the back of your neck standing on end. Never had you seen Jack so… frightening. You tended to spend most of your time around the man cooing over his soft spoken nature and kind smiles. Seeing the full extent of the nephilim’s powers felt like being thrown into a bath of ice water. This truly was a being of immense strength and unimaginable power, and that fact was being thrown in your face quite suddenly.

“Jack!” You called out, voice wavering slightly in fright of the sight of such a cool and collected man in a state like this. He froze at the sound of your voice and turned his eyes to you. His grip loosened ever so slightly and his face fell as he realized what was wrong. He blinked away what he could of his anger and shifted his hand to the man’s forehead, sending one last blast of his grace to smite the shifter on the spot. The body crumpled to the floor, burnt out eyes gazing into nothing.

Jack turned on his heel and made it over to you in a few long strides. His hands reached out and he took you from Sam without a second thought. The golden glow in Jack’s eyes still had not disappeared entirely as he scanned over your injuries. His brow furrowed in unease at the sight of the various bruises and cuts marring your skin. Slowly, he raised a hand up to your cheek and pressed his palm against you. His grace flooded over your body, surrounding you in a warmth and comfort that felt so utterly Jack. Your injuries burned briefly as the grace touched them, but the discomfort was gone as quickly as it came.

At some point during the exchange, it seemed that your eyes had closed on their own volition. You allowed them to open once more, and they locked on to the fading light surrounding Jack’s pupils. Neither of you said a word, you just pulled him towards you and buried your face in his chest.

-

You tugged your jacket closer to your body against the chill of the late night winds. The tell tale splash of yet another rock being tossed incorrectly into the lake could be heard clearly as it echoed through the trees. A chuckle escaped your lips, an the nephilim by the shoreline pouted in response.

“I just don’t get it!” He complained, hanging his head low as he shuffled over to you. Your smile practically split your face at this point.

“Jack, it’s all about the technique. Plus, you have to get the right kind of rock. Make sure the rock is flat. Like…” Your eyes scanned over the rocks all around your feet until you found one that suited your needs. “This one!” You plucked it out of the mess and held it up to Jack for him to inspect. He turned it over in his fingers, brushing over the rock’s surface and giving an understanding nod.

“Okay,” he hummed in acknowledgement. “What next?”

You reached down and grabbed another similar rock that would suit your needs before standing upright once more. “Next, you want to crouch down a little, get yourself closer to the surface of the water, you know?” You do so as you speak, and Jack slowly moves to follow. “Turn to the side…” He shuffled so his side is facing the water. “Now, from here, you need to throw the rock as close to matching the surface of the water as you can, throw it kinda sideways, and flick your wrist.” With a quick flick of your wrist, the rock skids over the water and hops one, two, three times before it finally drops beneath the surface entirely.

You stood to your full height and turned around to face Jack, who had his arm wound back in preparation and a look of utter determination in his eyes. A small smile graced your lips at the sight. The light of the full moon illuminated his features in a soft, innocent glow. This setting felt so much different from the usual yellow tinted bulbs back in the bunker. The natural white light conveyed a sense of purity you had yet to see of him, but once it has been seen, the image will surely never leave you. His hair was pushed back to ensure there would be no distractions during such an important moment. Your gaze followed his arm as he flicked his wrist forward, sending the rock hurtling along the water. The ripples of the stone against the surface distorted his reflection, and you felt a small sense of pride when you saw how it bounced up and hit the water again with a splash.

“I did it!” He cried in victory, jumping up with a look of sheer joy.

You smiled back and nodded, trying your best to match his excitement. This proved to be an easy task, as anything pertaining to Jack and his happiness brought you joy. “You did! That was great, Jack!” You praised. He took a step towards you and pulled you close to him, wrapping his arms around you in a grateful embrace. Just like that day in the warehouse, you found yourself easing into his arms without a second thought. You slumped against him and pressed your face into his neck, glad to simply bathe in his presence and nothing more. The light of the moon cascaded down upon the pair of you, casting a line of white over the surface of the water. You trailed your eyes down the path of moonlight until your gaze rested on the still rippling reflection of your embrace. A smile settled itself on your lips, and you allowed your eyes to flutter shut.

-

He wasn’t supposed to run off. He was supposed to stay with the group. Where did he go? Why did he run off? Why did he run off?

Your panicked gaze scanned over your wooded surroundings in hopes of spotting the familiar nephilim, but it was to no avail. This hunt was lasting longer than it was supposed to. The last rays of the day were disappearing and the streams of sunlight that once ran through the treetops were quickly being replaced by a shroud of dark night sky.

A scream of his name bubbled up in your throat, and it took everything in you to force it back down and continue your quiet search. You could hardly even hear the shuffling of the rest of the team around you over the pounding of your heart in your ears. You tightened your grip on the handle of your gun, hovering your pointer finger over the trigger in case of an emergency. The bullets loaded into the gun wouldn’t do much good against the wendigo lurking somewhere in those woods, but you held on to the hope that you would be able to distract the thing long enough to molotov the son of a bitch.

“I just don’t understand why he would go off on his own like that,” you muttered aloud, voice audibly shaking with unease. Dean let out a sigh.

“You know how the kid has been lately. He hasn’t felt the same since he came back without his mojo. He’s probably trying to prove he’s still valuable to the team,” the older hunter explained. He kept his voice as quiet as possible so as not to disturb the bloodthirsty monster hiding in the shadows, but even at such a low volume his baritone seemed to echo endlessly through the trees. You winced at the idea of the wendigo perched atop one of the many branches looming overhead, simply listening to your conversation and waiting for the right time to strike.

You let out a frustrated huff. “He doesn’t have to prove a thing. We all know he’s a valuable asset to the team. Plus, he’s family.”

From the corner of your eye, you saw Sam nod his head, his chin length hair swaying with his movements. “Of course we know that, but I don’t think he’s trying to prove it to us. He’s doing this to prove it to himself.”

Your heart constricted at that. Jack didn’t believe he was capable without his powers, and now he was risking his life to make a point to himself. You swallowed the rising lump in your throat and blinked away the sting of would-be tears. This wasn’t the time to get emotional.

Your search seemed fruitless, and soon enough you found yourself unable to see past a few feet in the darkened woods. Castiel’s eyes shone a bright blue, the only light you could make out in the otherwise almost pitch black night. The moon provided little comfort from its place shrouded behind the tops of the trees. A chilling wind swept through the forest floor, sending an unnerving chill down your spine.

“Can you see anything, Cas?” You asked the angel, whose eyes flickered back and forth across the landscape. He furrowed his brow in frustration.

“I can’t find any signs of Jack’s presence. No trail of footprints, no broken branches, nothing to indicate where he might have gone.”

This answer was unhelpful, but exactly what you expected. Jack might be practically human now, but he isn’t a fool. He knows how to cover his tracks like the best of them. Castiel continued to examine the terrain, being the only one of the four of you who could still manage to see. Meanwhile, you followed close behind and tuned your ears in to listen for anything suspicious. It didn’t go over your head that there was still a ravenous wendigo prowling around, and three blinded hunters would surely be a tempting meal to the beast. If it wasn’t stalking Jack, then you had no doubts that its eyes were on you. To be entirely honest, you weren’t sure which option made your stomach turn more.

You had just taken another step forward when you heard the scream. Jack’s voice. Undeniably, that was Jack’s voice. “Help!” He sobbed, the piercing sound bouncing off the trees. “Please help me!”

It took less than a second for you to turn and dash in the direction of the disturbance. The cries of your friends behind you, begging you to stop were drowned out in favor of pushing all of your energy forward. A hand made a grab for your jacket. You yanked the material away in one smooth motion.

Once a set of fingers wrapped around your elbow and pulled backwards, that was when the world came flooding back to your senses. Your body tumbled to the cold dirt floor. Your limbs scrambled to right yourself and continue on, but you were ultimately stopped by a pair of arms curling around your waist and lifting you up and away.

“Sam, let go of me!” You pleaded as you continued to thrash in his hold. His grip only tightened. “Sam, please! I need to save him!”

“I can’t let you do that!” His voice sounded pained, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care at that point.

“Why not?” You hissed through your teeth. Frustrations were mounting and anger bubbled up deep within your chest. “We can’t just leave him! He’s gonna die, I can’t lose him! We can’t lose him!”

“God, this is like trying to keep Jack from barging into that warehouse to save them all over again,” Dean muttered. His hands worked to keep you still, and your legs worked double time to kick him away. “Dammit, stop that!”

“No! Let me go!”

“(Y/N), have you forgotten what we’re hunting in the first place?” Castiel butted in. “This is a wendigo, their mimicry of human voices is perfect. We can’t trust anything we hear!” His tone begged you to understand. It told you how upset the situation made him as well. The amount of pain he felt from being unable to save the boy he sees as a son was clearly audible. And it made you even angrier.

“Sam, I’m sorry about this.”

A pause. “Wait, what?”

Without another word, you threw your elbow back to meet his chin. His hold on you released instantly, and as soon as your feet touched the ground, you were off. You could no longer hear their shouts. You couldn’t hear the pounding of your feet against the leaves and branches littered beneath your boots. You couldn’t hear your heaving breaths. All that registered in your mind was the pumping of the blood in your ears and the memories of Jack’s cry for help. Maybe it was the wendigo, but if it was, then it knew Jack. And now you had no doubt in your mind that it planned to go after Jack first. Maybe you were running straight into the monster’s trap, but if there was even the slightest chance that you could kill this thing before it set a claw on Jack Kline, you were going to take it.

Your search brought you to the mouth of a cave. All you could make out was the rock’s shape around a gaping, pitch black hole. Carefully, you tucked your gun in the waistband of your pants and replaced it with your lighter in one hand and your homemade molotov bottle in the other. In a few quick flicks the lighter sparked to life. Upon waving the flame over the ground outside the cave, a few old splotches of blood became very apparent, and your hunter instincts kicked into overdrive. This was the wendigo’s lair. There was no doubt about that.

You took silent steps into the cave. The humid air held the unmistakable scent of rotten flesh and the metallic tang of blood, new and old. You swallowed down the bile that threatened to creep up your throat and continued on. The shake that previously overtook your hands was long gone now, replaced by the deadly, steady accuracy of your rage.

Your venture took you deeper and deeper into the cavern. The farther in you got, the heavier the stench became in your nose, and it took all you had not to gag on each breath. The air was stale and the ground was just damp enough to utter a soft squish each time your boots sunk into the dirt. The cave took a sharp turn, and you pressed your back against the wall before swinging out around the corner with your lighter and bottle outstretched and at the ready. What you saw, however, wasn’t the wendigo, but a clearly winded Jack Kline pressed against the wall where the cave hits a dead end.

His eyes met yours and instantly you saw the fear filling his body. “No, you shouldn’t be here!” He cried out, struggling to his feet with one hand planted firmly on the rock wall.

Your jaw clenched at the sight of crimson staining his left pant leg, the denim clearly torn where the wendigo must have slashed at him to immobilize him. “Where is it?” You growled out. Jack opened his mouth to reply, but stopped short when the sound of skittering claws rang from behind you. You turned around in just enough time to see the beast swipe a hand at you. It sent you flying into the far wall of the space. Your grip on the bottle and lighter tightened as your back slammed against the stone. Pain exploded in your side, and only once you felt the blood soaking into your shirt did you realize it was coming from the large gash along your torso.

The wendigo let out a ferocious snarl as it stalked towards Jack, seeming ready for a meal now that it had stocked up on a new victim to keep for later. Blood trickled down your neck from where the back of your head had connected with the wall, and the pounding sensation sent your vision swirling and fading in and out. You couldn’t see much, but from what you made out of the creature raising its claws to strike Jack down, you were ready to jump into action.

One flick of the lighter seemed to be enough this time, and you barely gave the cloth enough time to catch the fire before you screamed out, “Duck!” and hurled both objects, molotov and lighter combined, in the direction of the monster. Jack dived towards you to the best of his ability with an injured leg. The molotov connected with the wendigo’s calf, the glass shattering and allowing the fire to spread to consume its entire frame.

You closed your eyes against the sudden light and turned to face Jack, who now sat next to you against the wall. Your hand reached out to instinctively cover Jack’s face from the flames, only to find that he, too, had turned to face you. You kept your hand in place on the side of his head. Your fingers curled into his hair and your palm pressed against his cheek in an effort to ground yourself.

Slowly, you opened your eyes to take in Jack’s features. The flickering orange flames illuminated his tousled mop of waves. With the fire placed where it was, only one side of the boy’s face was visible, but from what you could see, his skin was blotched with a layer of dirt. Some patches of skin were also coated in the telltale crimson of blood, while others were tinted a deep purple with an oncoming bruise. A distinct line ran down from his eye to curve around his chin, the path his tears continued to take along his cheek. His eyes fluttered open, a red tint surrounding the blue of his iris. The orange glow of the fire flickered in his glassy pupils. His eyes were wide and his pupils were blown like a frightened animal. His bottom lip pouted out, only adding to the image of a scared little boy being built in your mind.

His frame shook so heavily that you could see the shadow behind him quivering as well. He was scared - no, he was terrified. He was beaten, bruised, clawed, and thrown around, but all you could see was that he was alive. And in a moment of absolute clarity and overwhelming relief, you did the only thing you could think to do. You placed your palms against his cheeks and pulled him towards you into a kiss. He let out a gasp against your lips, but melted into the kiss only a moment later. He shuffled as close to you as he possibly could. His hands clutched desperately at your shirt and tugged every so often as if he wanted you even closer. Your hands drifted to the back of his head and your fingers curled through his hair. You gripped at the roots with just enough force to remind him that you were there, and you weren’t going anywhere.

By the time you both broke away from each other, Sam, Dean, and Castiel were stood over the flaming wendigo. The brothers’ chests heaved with the exertion of their run, and each of the three men wore expressions of mixed relief and understanding. Your cheeks flushed at the sight of the bruise forming on Sam’s chin. Dean let out a huff and shook his head to remind you that you would be getting a lecture for what you had done, but kept his speaking tone soft and clear of judgement for the time being.

“Come on, lovebirds. Let’s get you two patched up.”

-

You lounged lazily across the couch in what Dean had deemed his “Dean cave.” You had mentioned your favorite movie the other day in passing, and Jack had seemed quite interested in the subject, having never seen the film before. When Sam and Dean went out on a local salt and burn with just the pair of them, you decided that would be the perfect chance for you to introduce the ex-nephilim to your world. After mentioning the idea to Castiel and wondering if he had seen it before, he told you that he knew about it from the information Metatron gave him, but held no personal memories or thoughts on the subject. He seemed glad to join yourself and Jack on your movie night, and you were more than prepared to have a nice, calm night with your favorite celestial beings.

The room was dark except for the soft glow of the DVD’s menu screen on the flat screen Dean had splurged on a few weeks prior. You were grateful that you no longer had to crowd around someone’s laptop for movie nights, and the dedicated room for relaxation was a necessary add in to the bunker after everything you all had to deal with. You fiddled with the remote in one hand, your arm spread out towards the TV as it hung off the couch.

Castiel sat upright in one of the comfy old recliners placed on either side of the couch. His hands rested on his knees and a soft smile settled on his lips. His cobalt gaze swept over you in amusement and a bit of wonder. “(Y/N),” he addressed into the silent air. As usual in these situations, he kept his tone soft.

You looked up at him, your vision of him upside down from your position. “What’s up, Cas?”

“I was just wondering,” he began, fiddling with his thumbs. “We haven’t had a talk in a while.”

You paused a moment to think. “We have, Cas. We usually have a talk at least once a week. We had one a couple days ago, right?” You reminded him. Your brows were furrowed in confusion. Castiel gave a quick nod.

“Yes, I suppose, but I more so meant we haven’t had a talk about a specific subject in quite a while.” His rephrasing cleared up little in your mind, but from the look in his eyes, he was expecting you to come to some sort of understanding.

Your eyes wandered the room as you continued to rack your brain for a clue. “Do I get any hints? Am I allowed to phone a friend?” You joked casually.

Now it was Cas’s turn to furrow his brows. His gave his signature head tilt as he spoke. “I… don’t see how calling a colleague might help in this situation, but…” He trailed off and shook his head in dismissal. “What I mean is, you seem to have lost interest in the lore on human souls. I simply find it peculiar how you have stopped asking about wishing to see them and wondering what they look like so suddenly. I hope you know that you are not bothering me when you ask things like that.” His tone held an apologetic edge to it, as if afraid that he had seemed to disinterested and had scared you off of the subject. A smile found its way onto your face at the thought. Castiel, angel of the lord, worried he made you feel bad about your interests and curiosity.

“No, Cas, I know. You’re always very patient with me during our talks, and I really appreciate that. It’s just… I don’t know. I guess I kinda… understand it now?” You tried to clear things up, but it came out sounding more like a question than an answer.

“How so?”

You gave a vague shrug. You dropped the remote onto your stomach and picked absentmindedly at your nails, trying to hide the crimson blush creeping up your cheeks in the low light available. Around anyone else you would be certain that they could not see such a thing, but you knew better with Castiel. His vision that night in the woods was proof enough that he could see in the dark without issue. “I guess I just… I understand how you can just… tell what someone is like through something as simple as a light. I understand that feeling of looking at something and understanding how it’s feeling. I used to think that a light couldn’t possibly be enough, that a soul can’t be made up of something so simple, but I guess I figured out how complex it can really be. Complex, but still… really beautiful. And good. And pure. And sure, maybe sometimes it’s a little scary, but at the end of the day, it stands for power and beauty and life, and that’s pretty amazing.” You trailed off of your tangent with a cough. Your cheeks were on fire, and you could practically feel Cas’s gaze burning holes in your head. “Or, like, something like that. I guess. Whatever, it’s not important.”

The angel opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment Jack opened the door with a bowl of freshly popped popcorn in hand and a bright smile on his face. He raised the bowl in celebration. “I didn’t burn it this time!” He cheered in victory. You grinned.

“That’s great, Jack! Now get over here, and let’s get this movie started.” You raised your head up just enough so he could sit down before dropping it back down onto his lap. He placed the bowl on the coffee table to free up his hands so he could begin running them through your hair.

You wouldn’t notice the way Castiel’s gaze lingered on you both for the better portion of the movie. You wouldn’t notice the way he picked out each little social cue Dean had taught him about romance all those years ago. You wouldn’t notice the pleased smile that would tug at the corners of his lips when he realized that this was real. But you would notice the way Jack’s face would change with each twist of the plot. You would notice the way the dull light from the TV cast a perfectly cut shadow to define his jawline. You would notice how different he looked in the different color palettes present in different scenes. You would notice how the shadows across his face danced and shifted each time he would lean down to plant a random kiss on your lips, cheek, or forehead. You would always notice these things, because that was Jack Kline’s soul. Every little flicker of the light across his skin, every shadow along the curves of his body, every glint in his eyes, everything you saw was a part of who he is. And in your eyes, who he is is the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen.

[nais-nook]

Sawyer - Pt 1

(Hey there! You may be liking/reblogging something without links to new pieces I may have written for this character, just letting you know in case you’re interested in reading more!)

Hey, I’m not dead, but uni is dragging my ass to hell and back. Anyhow, here's Sawyer, who belongs to the lovely @yandere-flower​. He looks like this, and I drew a reference for his tattoos here since I don’t describe them much. I think I might make this story a little more interactive - as in you can make choices and it’ll change the outcome, but I’ll see what you all think before I try something like that!

~***~

Part 2, Part 3

Summary: Who knew helping a random stranger would lead to you being dragged into unsavoury business?

Pairing: Male x Female Reader.

Words:4458.

Warnings: Mentions of death, Swearing, Suggestive themes (because it’s Sawyer, but it’s still pretty mild). 

Normally, navigating through the twists and turns of the barely lit roads was a cinch. You knew your area like the back of your hand - what buses were the best to take, which seats on those buses had the most room, which roads were off-limits lest you wanted to get mugged. 

Yet today felt different. Weird.

The air felt thicker. The shadows were gloomier. The lights seemed to flicker.

Every breath you took was held a little longer than usual and every small sound made you tense up. You stuffed your hands deeper into your pockets, even pushing off your hood so you could see better. Just in case.

You turned the corner, spotting the familiar graffitied wall and almost sagged in relief. A couple of alleyways and one more corner, then you would have been in the safety of your home. You picked up the pace. Would have made it too, if you hadn’t heard the muffled groan echo from the alleyway just shy of the corner you were supposed to turn.

Just keep walking, you urged yourself, your footsteps already faltering at the sound of yet another moan. Don’t get involved in things you can’t handle.

And despite every nerve in your body screaming at you to ignore whatever it was, you turned back and called into the darkness.

“Hey!” Your grip on your phone was vice-like. “Is, uh, is anyone there?”

“Don’t worry about it, just go.”

The sudden voice startled you. It sounded masculine and croaky, like a thirsty man. Immediately you fumbled with your phone to switch on the flashlight. When it flicked to life it revealed the owner of the voice.

Lying in the filth of the alleyway was a man draped in a dark jacket. You would have been able to at least guess his age if it weren’t for the blood caking his face and clothes. A swamp of murky red. Whoever he was, you could tell he had been here for a while.

“Are you okay?” You inched closer, hands up and voice soothing as you picked your way past broken glass and cigarette butts. Kneeling in the grime you methodically checked his pulse and breathing. “Listen, I’m going to call an ambulance. You’ll be at a hospital soon, alright?”

“No. No, no, no. Don’t - don’t do that. I can’t go to a hospital.”

“What do you mean you can’t go to a hospital?” You peeled off his jacket, already surveying for anything that required your immediate attention. He hissed at your touch, then cursed loudly when you propped up against an abandoned skip.

“Listen, if I get sent to a hospital, fuck,” his grip on you was stronger than you expected for someone in such a state, “if I get sent to a hospital, I will definitely die. Trust me on that.”

“The hospital is where you go when you’re hurt, and I’m not sure if you’re completely aware of the fact that you’ve been hurt, but you have. Badly.” You applied pressure to the angry gash you found on his forehead. With your free hand you unlocked your phone, paying no mind to his protests. 

You remained calm and collected. Thankfully, this sort of stuff didn’t bother you much anymore. Not like it did at the beginning of your training. 

“What, you’re telling me you don’t get a little rowdy when you’re invited to an alleyway party?” He chuckled dryly, coughed, then groaned.

“I can’t say I have. I would also suggest not moving until help arrives. If you don’t you might -” you hesitated. Telling someone they might die if they didn’t listen wasn’t really something you were supposed to say.

“I might what? Die?”

“I didn’t -”

“I know that.” He closed his eyes, tilting his head up towards the sky. His hand hung off your wrist, as if it would stop you from calling the emergency services. “Please don’t call an ambulance. It’ll make more trouble than it’s worth, for both of us.”

Your fingers ached from the grip on your phone. His blood was slick between your fingertips. You knew he needed help. He wouldn’t last long without it.

With the smell of booze and sweat and trash filling your lungs, you made your decision.

***

“I should have just sent him to a hospital,” you scolded yourself as you flipped the final piece of French toast in the pan. “He could have acquired brain injury, or internal bleeding or something.”

The sizzle of the toast was your only response. You nodded, “You’re right, I am stupid. This is what I get for listening to him. What if someone has reported him as missing?”

You nudged the toast onto the already piled plate, then leaned in uncomfortably close and stared at it. The warmth of the food wafted over your face. “Can you even do that? I’m sure you have to wait a few days before you report someone as missing.”

The next few minutes of you preparing a cup of tea went the exact same way. You interrogated the kettle, tea bags, the sugar and then the milk. Unfortunately, none of them held the answers that you so desperately seeked.

After arranging the drink, plate and a couple of pieces of fruit on a tray you made your way up to the guest room housing your newest patient. You stood in front of the cream door, balancing the tray on your hip as you muttered, “I swear to god, if he’s dead, I'm going to scream.” 

The knock resonated in the hall, yet there was no response. 

“Hey, you awake in there?”

Nothing.

You cracked open the door, the light from the hallway spilling in, and peeked through the opening. There the man lay, in the exact same position you put him in last night. Gritting your teeth, you nudged the door open, hoping with all your heart you could just slip in and out. Your hopes were shattered when he sat up, all whilst wincing.

“Morning.” His voice still sounded a little hoarse. Better, but not quite.

“Hi,” you responded absentmindedly, paying more attention to what revealed itself as the blankets fell away.

At the very least he was clean - that you made sure of. The dull ache in your lower back served as a reminder of the effort it took to strip him to his boxers and scrub him clean. However, you weren’t really paying much attention to him last night. Not while you were so desperately trying to make sure he didn’t die. Yet here, bathing in the light from the hallway, you had to admit - he looked awful.

Handsome, but awful. With white hair and a face that made him look like a prince from a children's book. The only thing that would break the illusion of him appearing in the happily ever after of a princess being the piercings and tattoos adorning him.

That and the bruising. All over his neck and collar bone. Stretching across his stomach and side, like someone had tried to knock the wind out of him. He had scars too, though small and none were due to the state you found him in last night.

“Admiring me, are you?” The man cracked a smile. It still managed to look dazzling regardless of the purple and reds smothering his jaw and the slight swelling of his face.

“No, actually.” You pressed your lips together. “Just assessing how badly you’ve been hurt.”

“What can I say, I bruise like a peach.” He quickly ran his tongue over a canine, and you could have sworn you saw the flash of a tongue piercing. “Taste like one too, if you ever fancy giving me a try.”

“I - what?” Your face twisted in confusion as you tried to process what he had just said. 

“You heard me.”

“See, I don’t know if this is how you genuinely act, or if this is you being out of it, so I’m not gonna react at all. Deal?”

“Fine by me.” He shuffled, harshly blowing air out of his nose before inclining his head towards you. “That for me?”

You suddenly remembered the tray you were holding and set it down on the drawers next to the bed. “Yeah, here you go.”

“Aw, you care.”

“No offence, but who saves someone just to starve them?”

“A sadist.” He huffed stretching ever so slowly over to the tray.

“Do I look like a sadist to you?”

His attention flicked to you for a second before focusing on the tray again. “You could be. You'd be surprised what looks can cover up.”

“If I’m a sadist you’re a masochist.”

“What makes you say that?” He winced as his fingers grazed the edge of the tray.

You swept a hand in front of you, knowing full well that he would understand you were talking about the position he was in - clearly pained and yet still stretching out. 

“Okay, you got me there. Can I have the tray now?”

“You aren't allergic or lactose intolerant or anything? I didn't get to ask last night before you practically passed out on me and I forgot to even consider it when I was making you food.”

“Nah, you're good.”

You nodded, gently positioning the tray in his lap before skirting around the bed to pry open the curtain. “The light not hurting you or anything?”

“If it was hurting me, you'd know by now.” He held up the plate, his hands trembling, you noted. “Want some?”

“I’m fine, it’s for you.”

He raised a brow, tilting the plate this way and that, as he teased you. “You didn’t poison it did you? Is that why you’re refusing to take one?”

“Oh, I definitely poisoned it,” you joked, arms crossed as you leaned against the window. “A little Snow White situation.”

He gasped playfully and batted his dark lashes at you. “Will I get a kiss?”

“If you get one of your buddies to come ‘round, sure.” 

He shrugged, gave you a massive grin and brought the cup of tea to his lips carefully. “I’d rather not. But anyway, thank you for the breakfast. Even if I do end up dead.”

“No worries.”

You perched on the window sill and stretched your arms above your head, the movement bringing temporary relief to your back. Your patient observed every move you made with big brown eyes.

“Name’s Sawyer by the way,” he said around a mouth full of toast, and you had to give him a withering look.

“I’m (Y/n). Please swallow your food before you speak, I don’t think performing the Heimlich manoeuvre on you with those bruises will be a good idea.”

One big gulp later he was smiling from ear to ear, something cheeky hidden behind it. “(Y/n), huh? Nice name for an even nicer face.”

“Thank you, I guess?”

“(Y/n), I have a question for you.” 

“Okay?”

“I am naked.”

“...That’s - that’s not a question, you know that right?” 

… Maybe he wasn’t going to walk away from this as unscathed as you originally thought.

“The question was going to be why.”

“Not sure if you noticed but you’ve been cleaned up - your clothes have been fixed and washed too, thanks to me.” You patted your bicep and gave him what you hoped was a friendly, not tired smile. Sure, you weren’t a body builder in the slightest, but you were able to lug around people much bigger than yourself, Sawyer being a prime example of that.

“I mean, yeah, that makes sense, but-”

“Besides, you aren’t even fully naked, I left your boxers… on…” Your eyes widened in horror as Sawyer set the tray aside to peek under the blankets. “Please tell me you can feel the lower half of your body.”

“I mean, it’s warm?”

“Sawyer, this is serious, tell me you can feel the lower half of your body.” You had made it to the bedpost when he slid a hand underneath the blankets and nodded, an apologetic look plastered onto his face.

“Nope, yeah, I still have feeling down there, sorry.” His demeanour changed almost instantly as he wiggled his brows at you. “Seeing as you're here now, wanna cop a feel?”

“No! Are you normally like this? Should I be concerned?”

He completely ignored your question. “You know I’m pretty surprised you didn’t take my boxers off.”

You scrubbed your face in an attempt to quell your irritation, then placed your hands on your hips and sighed. “And why would I need to do that?”

“Oh, c’mon, you weren’t even the least bit curious?”

“I’ve seen so many naked bodies, nothing is interesting anymore.”

“Wow, look at you, pulling in people,” he whistled low and smooth before giving you a wolfish grin. 

“It’s because I’m a nurse, Sawyer, no other reason. Or at least I will be soon,” you sighed, slumped onto the edge of the bed.

“A nurse, huh? Fancy. I know a doctor, and a psychiatrist, but not a nurse. Makes sense though, you were super calm and collected when you found me in the alley. Probably deal with a lot of cases like this.”

“Yeah, but I don’t usually bring patients home. You done eating?”

“Yup, thanks.”

“Alrighty,” you mumbled, allowing him to snatch a tangerine from the tray before you took it off him, “how you feeling?”

“I’ve got a headache that hurts like a bitch and my body is stiffer than a hormonal boys dick.”

“Medicine it is then. I’ll be back. Don’t die.” Your glare didn't have much of an effect on him as he just leaned back and chuckled stiffly.

You dumped the tray in the kitchen, promising to get to the dishes later, then rummaged around the medicine cupboard. When you’d found the painkillers, you grabbed a glass of water and picked up Sawyer’s clothes which you’d tossed over a radiator last night.

“Ah,” you breathed in the smell of the conditioner, the warmth of the clothes pleasantly seeping into your skin, “I’m so smart.”

What you had found once you had gotten back to the guest room intrigued you. Sawyer hadn’t moved, but his attention definitely had. The pale blue sheets were crinkled under his clenched fingers, the way a mourning woman would a handkerchief. Golden flowers that were cast upon his skin by the sunlight pouring through the net curtains wavered in the breeze. The vulnerability of his expression was so raw, it astonished you. The rap of your knuckles against the door melted all of it away, and in its place was the lopsided grin you had gotten so used to in such a small amount of time.

You couldn’t complain. Joking and flirting may have made up his walls, but professional friendliness made up yours.

“Here, they’re warm,” you murmured, laying the jeans on the bed and gently draping the shirt over his shoulders. 

“Shit, this smells good.” Sawyer practically melted back into the bed, draping the shirt over his face.

“It’s called conditioner,” you laughed, placing the glass of water down on the drawers.

“Hey, (Y/n), where’s my jacket at?”

“It’s downstairs, I’ll get it for you after you’re dressed.”

“Nah, nah, I don’t need the jacket, just want what’s inside the pockets,” he pulled off the shirt and crinkled his nose, looking childishly innocent, oddly enough, “that’s assuming they didn’t mug me when they dragged to the alley way to rough me up.”

Ah, so that’s what happened. “You talking about the cigarettes or your phone?”

“They didn’t rob me? What a miracle. Good thing too, I think I might need a cigarette right now.”

“Not in my damn house you ain’t.”

“Thank y- wait. Why?” 

“I don’t really like the idea of getting lung cancer thanks.” You pulled out a packet of tablets and popped a few into his outstretched hand.

“Not even one?”

“You even attempt to smoke something in my house I’ll throw you out with the cigarettes, do you understand?” Your hard stare seemed to sink in this time around.

“You know,” his eyes flicked up and down your body, if only for a second, “you’re kinda hot when you get all authoritative like that.”

“Do you understand?”

“Yes Ma’am.” The words were spoken slowly, paired with hooded eyes that forced you to suppress the shiver that threatened to run down your spine.

“Take these, I’m kicking you out after.”

“Wait, I thought I was only getting kicked out if I smoked?”

“You can stay until lunch, I’ll feed you, but after that you’re out.” You handed him the glass. Sawyer swallowed the painkillers with no hesitation, chugging the entire glass down in one go.

“I can’t leave.”

“Not on your own. I get that you’re hurting and all but I’m sure someone can come pick you up. A family member, maybe a friend?”

“I’m not joking,” he placed a hand on your forearm, touch gentle but deathly serious, “I can’t be seen leaving your house.” 

“And why is that?” The warmth of his fingers was fleeting as you pulled away. There was a strange heaviness Sawyers solemnity brought, and you didn’t much appreciate it.

“You still haven’t figured it out yet?” He tilted his head, though his expression didn’t change in its intensity.

“Figured out what?”

A hum from him, then a smile and the weirdness in the room dissipated. Sawyer turned, slowly, fists clenched and breath shaking as he did so. And then he waited, his back on display. You couldn’t stop the knitting of your brows when you saw the bruising again - you’d seen worse, much worse, but it still felt like a punch to the gut knowing just how fragile the human body could be.

“You see it yet?”

“How damaged you are?” you asked gently.

“Nope. Look again.”

“Sawyer, I don’t -” 

Suddenly everything clicked into place.

“Judging by that reaction you saw it, right?”

You folded your arms, trying to stop them from shaking. It didn’t help.

“What, you not gonna answer me?” He turned to face you again, and from the way his lips were drawn tight you could tell he was trying to control whatever he was feeling at that moment. “No offence but I thought nurses were supposed to be smart, how the hell did you miss it?”

“Okay, you know what, I was more concerned with making sure you didn’t die to admire your tattoos,” you snapped, paying little attention to Sawyer himself but what you had just seen.

Nestled right between his shoulder blades, almost completely blended into the bruises was a tattoo of a snake, its head resting on the nape of Sawyer’s neck. It was a beautiful, even tasteful tattoo; however, the implications were bad enough to send your mind spiralling.

“You okay?” Your head snapped in his direction, the sickly feeling still making its way through your body. Sawyer had pulled the covers away, one foot on the ground as if he was going to get out of bed.

“Just… stay over there. I’m still processing this.”

He nodded, made no move as you ran over everything you knew about the gangs in the area. 

Kidnappings. The circulation of drugs. Theft in the dead of night. Riots over territory. 

You couldn’t care less about the actions themselves, no, what really made your blood boil was the sheer number of people who ended up as collateral damage. You had personally tended to some of those people who were at the mercy of death, watched as the light faded from their eyes and their loved ones wept. It always stuck with you. Made your skin crawl when you walked past some of the wards.

How easily it could have been you.

“Vipers, right? I don’t know how many gangs are in this area, but I know they’re one of the main ones.”

“Yeah, Vipers.”

You laughed. It held no humour. “That’s why you didn’t want to go to the hospital. Scared you’d get arrested for murder or something?”

“Excuse me,” his lips twisted to the side, “I haven’t murdered anyone.”

“Then why were you avoiding the hospital?”

“The Vipers have people in different places, but we ain’t the only ones. If I wound up at a hospital, I can absolutely fucking guarantee you I would have been kidnapped, or one of the doctors would have offed me. I don’t think you realise that there are groups other than the one I’m in. Even if you don’t do anything you could still be a target.”

“Sawyer -”

“I’m not telling you to believe me, but at the very least I hope you take my thanks sincerely. I mean it. You could have ignored me and sent me on my way, but you didn’t. You even brought me to your house. Thank you.”

You ran your hands through your hair, the tension seeping away the more you looked at him. He seemed to be serious, and surprisingly that sincerity was putting you at ease. “Fine, that’s the hospital thing out the way, why can’t you leave my house?”

“It’s day,” he spoke slowly, like he was saying the most obvious thing in the world.

“Okay, so your eyes work, congratulations. What does that mean?”

“If anyone saw me leaving your house, not only would I be in for shit, you would probably end up on someone’s watch list. Whether that ends in a friendly chat, or you being wiped off the face of the earth is up to the person holding that list.”

“So, what do we do now.”

You felt tired. Oh, so tired.

“We wait until night rolls around, and then I go. Or rather, people come to pick me up because there is no way I’m leaving this bed without some serious help,” Sawyer grimaced, “I’m just glad I haven’t had to sneeze yet. I think I would die if that happened.”

“That’s assuming you aren’t already on your way to dying. I may have stitched your head up and fixed you as best as I could, but I don’t have any medical equipment like the stuff at the hospital. For all I know you could be bleeding internally as we speak.”

His face paled a tad at that. “Well, uh… Am I?”

“Not that I can tell, but like I said.”

You stood there awkwardly for a minute, not knowing where to look or put your hands. He hadn't done anything to you - hadn’t raised his voice, hadn’t threatened you, he listened when you gave instructions. And you most certainly were happy to help him before you figured out, rather belatedly, that he was part of a gang. Warily, you sat down on the edge of the bed, noting how pleased Sawyer looked when you did so.

“Look, I’m sorry, I just - I don’t know how to feel about all of this.”

“I get it,” he raised his pierced brow, “but don’t go around accusing me of things either.”

You barley nodded before you lay back, closing your eyes and letting the sunlight warm your face. You enjoyed the quiet for a moment. The whisper of the blankets as you pulled your legs up and the low hum of cars outside. A peek at Sawyer let you know he was also lounging, arms behind his head and eyes closed too. The painkillers most certainly hadn’t kicked in, so you knew he must have been in immense pain, and even when they did start working, it probably wouldn’t help much. Yet he looked so peaceful there, the flowery light making his hair glow like a halo. 

He looked like he belonged there.

Despite your reluctance to disturb him, you had to ask, “So, who you calling? To pick you up, I mean.”

“Oh yeah,” his eyes fluttered open, “friends.”

“Friends? Like actual friends or people from your gang friends?”

“Why can’t they be people from the gang and friends at the same time?”

You shrugged, then sucked in a quick breath when you recalled the state of his phone. “I hope you’re not planning on using your phone.”

“They stole my phone?!” He shot up in bed, the action followed by a pained shout and a few choice swear words you'd rather not hear in that order ever again. 

“No, no, down,” you pushed his shoulders until he was lying flat. Sawyer just stared at your hands until you lifted them from his skin, the contact feeling a little weird and awkward, “ah, sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“You're warm,” he smiled, and it was so soft and genuine you had to take a moment to remember what you were doing. 

“You know you're going to have to start actually answering my questions, Sawyer. They are kind of important for your health.”

“I'm fine. So, what happened to my phone?”

“It wasn’t stolen, it's just - you know what it might be best you didn't know.” Just remembering the way the screen was hanging onto the case by a couple of wires was enough to give you anxiety. 

“Fuck me, man, phones are expensive.”

“Here.” You fished your phone out of your hoodie pocket, untangling it from the headphones, then handed it to Sawyer. 

He looked vaguely bewildered as he reached out for it. “You sure?”

“Not like you can run away with it, not in that state.”

While Sawyer was pressing digits your eyes kept flicking between your hands and the one resting in his lap. The phone looked so small in his grip, despite being the perfect size for you. Sawyer caught you staring. 

He held out his hand, wiggling his fingers and teasing in a singsong voice, “If you wanna hold my hand, all you have to do is ask.”

You refused politely, folding your hands in your lap as he shrugged. Somebody must have picked up on the other side because his face perked up almost immediately, and then dropped when whoever it was started yelling. 

“I’m just gonna leave now,” you whispered, patting his blanket-covered leg. 

“You aren't even going to stay for moral support?” He pouted, then rolled his eyes when the yelling on the phone picked up again. “No, not you, shut up for a second.”

“Whoever is on the other side sounds terrifying, and you're just about all the excitement I can take at the moment, so no thank you.”

“Fine,” he sighed, then got back to his call with a sour face, “dude, can you stop shouting at me for one second, for fucks sake.”

Even when the door clicked shut you could still hear his frustrated argument on the phone.  

“I think I’ll give him ten minutes…”

[saltandburn-ilovesamwinchester]

Break Down Here

"I'd sure hate to break down here,

Nothin' up ahead or in the rear view mirror.

Out in the middle of nowhere, knowin'.

I'm in trouble if these wheels stop rollin'.

So, God help me, keep me movin' somehow.

Don't let me start wishin' I was with him now.

I made it this far without cryin' a single tear.

I'd sure hate to break down here."

You sat up straighter behind the wheel of your '69 Camero. The slim road was winding down to nothing but trees and wild animals, and as night was falling you hoped there was at least one motel around the next corner. The last sign you passed was three miles back and worry had started to scatter through your brain.

Rain had started drizzling and your gas tank was on its way to empty. You pulled into a little curb and stared at the building before you. The grey cement had aged from 50 years or more which made it look like something out of a horror film. There was a door at the very bottom, large enough to lead to a garage you had assumed.

Looking into the back seat for your raincoat and umbrella, you gathered the courage to walk to the front door. You took your time walking to the door, your feet walking in front of the other.

Swaying back and forth on your two feet you decided to knock. You took one last nervous glance at your cherry red car sitting by the greenest trees you had ever seen and back to the door where two tall men where staring you down.

The tall stranger with shaggy hair, dressed in a black v-neck and jeans, was holding a stack of papers so old they were forming into different colors. His height was the first thing you noticed. He was so tall he nearly had to duck before walking in the door. Definitely not the type you wanted to run into late at night in the woods somewhere.

Although the frame of his body was huge and he towered over you, his face held delicate features. "Hi, is there anything I can help you with," his voice was smooth and formal, like he had been a lawyer at some point. "I'm Sam, this is my brother Dean," he pointed over his right shoulder at the man behind him.

The man on his heels was just a head shorter, with short cropped hair and eyes that were as dark as the bottom of evergreen trees. He was simply in grey sweats and an old Zeppelin tshirt, and he was holding a messy plate with a small bite of pie left around the edge. He was easily caught off guard when he noticed the car behind you. "Whoa, is that yours," his excitement spread into a breathtaking smile.

You turned to meet his gaze and followed it to your car and back to him. Glancing one more time at him and his, what you agreed was his younger brother, you began. "Hi, I'm Y/N. Uh, I hate stopping at this random moment but a store clerk, miles back, told me there was an old hotel around the corner and my gas tank is almost empty..." you cut your explanation short when a small smile spread on Sam's lips.

"I'm sorry," he sighed. "A lot of people confuse this place for something else. It's just a big home." Sam seemed so easy to talk to. You had only been there a total of five minutes and it felt like the two of you were lost in conversation about the old building they called home while glancing down at your sneakers that was beginning to flood with rain water. "Hey, if you want to come in for the night I'm sure Dean wouldn't mind," he stopped to look at his brother admiring the new wheels that had just rolled in.

"Of course," Dean yelled from behind the car before walking up beside you. "Then, in the morning we can take my ride and go and get you some fuel." His smile was friendly and comforting. "Come on, Sammy. Let's show Y/N her room for the night," he said to his little brother and stepped past him through the open door.

“Mi casa es tu casa,” Dean held his arms out and welcomed as you stepped over the threshold to the gigantic house.

You followed Dean down the long staircase with Sam following close behind you, and stared in wonder at the huge room you were standing in. “I know, right,” Sam smiled when he saw your face light up. “Do you like to read, Y/N,” he asked and raised his eyebrows.

“Yea, actually. I have a box back in the car full of old books,” you laughed and felt your cheeks burning from the small smile Sam and his brother wore. “What? Don’t tell me you have a library too,” you giggled and looked between the two guys.

“Show her,” Dean looked at his brother before winking at you.

It was your turn to follow in Sam’s footsteps, walking past a large table with a map on the counter top. “What is this place,” you whispered and looked at Dean, not shocked to see him staring at you.

“We call it our war room,” Dean said. “It looks like someone who had served in a war or some sort would have lived here before us,” he shrugged his shoulders. “You should have seen all the other stuff we found when we came upon this place.”

“Hence the name,” you cracked a smile and Sam and Dean laughed. “Oh wow,” you sighed when you stopped in a room with two large wooden tables lined in the middle and books shelves on either side full of dusty books. The lights in the room gave a small glow and a warm and cozy place to find peace.

“Beautiful, isn’t it,” Sam asked when you ran your fingertips along one of the book shelves. “It’s like everything is worn down and outdated, but so new to you.”

Dean watched his baby brother show you around the library while he tidied up the papers that occupied one of the tables. No way, was he ready for you to see their research papers for the new case in town. “Sam,” Dean cleared his throat and the two of turned to face him. “Maybe Y/N would like to settle in and then we could cook dinner,” he suggested and nodded yes.

...

Later that night you layed in one of the extra beds the Winchester’s had to offer. Your body and mind sat in that comfortable, lazy state after eating one of Dean’s bacon cheeseburgers. “Man, could he cook,” you thought.

You picked up a book you found in library and turned the first page. That’s when Sam knocked on the open door. “How’s the book,” he smiled and stood in the doorway.

“I literally just picked it up to read,” you laughed and placed it back on the nightstand. You sat up against the wooden headboard and tapped the bed, welcoming him to sit. He smiled, finally finding the opportunity to ask questions that had been on his mind since you arrived.

Sam made his way to the foot of the bed and the mattress dipped when he sat across from you. “Y/N, can I ask you something,” he said and looked from his hands that were on his knees to your eyes that were watching him. You smiled and waited for him to ask his question. “Out of all the places you could have ended in, why Kansas?”

“I.. I don’t know, Sam,” you sighed, feeling defeated. “I knew I was in a place I didn’t want to stay in. I just knew I had to leave if I was going to be happy again.”

Somewhere behind Sam’s eyes he knew what you were feeling. He had asked himself a long time ago when he would settle down, who he would settle down with. “I understand,” he smiled after a long silence. “I guess for people like us, it just takes longer to find out.”

The two of you talked for an hour before both of you were a yawing mess. “I guess I should let you sleep if you are going to be on the road all day tomorrow,” Sam sighed and stood from the bed. “Y/N, I want you to know that you can stop by any time. Dean and I would like to see you again.”

You nodded once and wished Sam a good night, watching him leave the room. Rolling to face the opposite wall, you tucked the blankets in around yourself.

...

“And this bird you can not change,” you and Dean sang along to the radio as the Impala pulled into a gas station the next morning.

“So where do you go from here,” Dean asked while the gas can was filling up. “Any family around here?”

You shrugged and shook your head, “Not really. I’m not sure what I’ll do. I just know I have to keep moving right now.” Leaning against the car, or ‘Baby’ you come to know her as, you shielded your eyes from the bright sun to finding Dean’s eyes staring back at you.

“I understand,” Dean nodded and put the nozzle back on the can. “For a while it was like that for me and Sammy.”

“And then,” you asked, wondering how long it would take you to settle down. You and Dean slid back into the car, the gas can in the trunk.

Baby roared to life as you pulled away from the store. “And then,” Dean said, “We came across the bunker and it was too good to pass up.” Dean glanced at you to see if you were understanding. “It just felt right.”

Dean focused on the road in front of him and you sat beside him, fiddling your thumbs and reliving the last conversation. “It just felt right.” That’s what Dean said. Well, what if things won’t ever feel right for you?

You stored your thoughts in the back of your head as Baby stopped in front of the bunker. Thank God your things were still inside because you were not ready to say goodbye. Goodbye to the that amazing library where Sam showed you first generation books. Goodbye to that lovely kitchen where Dean fixed those awesome burgers. Dean told you to go ahead and go inside while he filled your car up and you listened.

Your feet hit the threshold of the bunker for what would feel like the last time and you turned the knob, walking in. “Hey,” Sam welcomed from the bottom of the stairs. “I thought I heard you two pull in.

“Yea,” you exhaled. “I was just coming to get my bag and I was going to get on the road. Dean’s filling up my car.” You watched the younger Winchester’s expression, knowing this would be the last time he would see you.

...

Your eyes fixed on the blacktop ahead of you and your hands tightened around the wheel. Sam and Dean, you thought. The nooks and crannies of the bunker, the smell of food cooking and wafting throughout the large house, and the sight of Sam and Dean reading their old, dusty books came back in a flood of memory. You could still smell Sam and Dean when you embraced them for the first time, making you wonder, will there be a next time?

… … …

So, I’ve had this thing hidden away for a while now. All mistakes are mine. I hope y’all like it. Let me know what you think. ❤️

@waywardbaby @imperiusimpala @leatherandapplepies @idreamofplaid @plaid-lover-bay25 @waywardnerd67 @maddiepants @sammyimpala-67 @oldfreakything @idabbleincrazy @tumbler-tidbits @shatteredabby @destielhoneybee @cosicas-cuquis @heycasbutt @flamencodiva @coffee-obsessed-writer @thoughtslikeaminefield

[evak-elu-nicotino]

A Gio & Marti friendship fic - part I

Okay, so I needed to write a Gio & Marti fanfiction because their friendship is iconic, and I wanted to do something pre-canon.

I hope you’ll like it ! Please let me know what you think of it !

And I’ll never be grateful enough to my wonderful beta-reader, @unfinishedbusinessss. Thank you so much girl, you’re a gem, truly !

Thank you for reading !

Fandom : SKAM Italia

Relationships : Giovanni Garau & Martino Rametta

Words : 4646

Chapter : 1/? 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24143155/chapters/58132195

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I. My life is changing and I’m so lost

Martino Rametta just turned ten when his parents started fighting all the time. He was worried. Staying up quite late at night whenever he heard them screaming in the kitchen, oblivious to the fact that their own son had a whole day at a new school to worry about. Marti slipped through the door to his bedroom and stood in the hallway, eyes tearing up. He hated the fights between his parents. He hated hearing them screaming insults at each other. Fighting about stuff he knew nothing about, hearing words he couldn’t possibly understand. He was ten, for God’s sake. His parents were supposed to comfort him at night when he was having nightmares. Comfort him about changing schools right before junior high, not fight about a woman named Paola. He didn’t know anyone named Paola, and he had a feeling that this Paola wasn’t good news. Either for him, or for his parents.

Martino already heard the word divorce several times at this point in his life, in other discussions, other contexts. He knew what it meant, and he was scared. His dad meant everything to him, and his mom’s hugs were the best. Honestly, he couldn’t possibly comprehend how much a change this big in his life could mean. He laid in bed that night, eyes wide open, silently praying, even though he never believed in God. His parents never took him to church, even though he heard several times that they both grew up in religious families. But since his four grandparents died before he was born, he actually never entered a church in his life.

Elisabetta and Giancarlo Rametta were the only family he had, since neither of them had siblings, and neither did Martino. His parents were his whole world, and seeing them fight like that wasn’t reassuring at all. Martino wasn’t a confident child. Growing up, his parents told him all the right things: he was smart, beautiful, he could do whatever he wanted if he put his mind to it. Martino wasn’t lazy per se: he was just an almost-teenager who wanted nothing more than to play calcio with the kids in his neighborhood, whenever they invited him to join them. So for now, his mind was set on football, comic books, and reading. He was rather a quiet kid. Not really shy, but not really the type of kid you’d describe at exuberant and outgoing. He kept to himself, that’s all. He had a rather large imagination and could spend hours in his bedroom, sometimes drawing (rather badly, in his own words), sometimes just daydreaming, staring out the window. He grew up not having too many friends, and that was really fine with him. He honestly didn’t need a lot in his life, because he had the safety of a loving family and a few friends he could count on. That was more than enough to him.

Giovanni Garau was his best friend. They met on the first day of preschool, exchanged a few words, played football during recess, and that was that. They had been the closest friends could be ever since and honestly he couldn’t quite picture his life without Gio in it. And the fact that they managed to convince both set of parents to change schools a year before going to junior high was a fact he couldn’t possibly wrap his head around. Last year, Martino grew several inches. He got taller than any of the other kids in his class, but not really a classy kind of tall. He was the lanky kid that almost everyone started making fun of. And on top of that, Martino had brownish-red hair. Not the kind of in-your-face red hair, but still. He had freckles from a very early age, freckles that weren’t only on his face, but on his thighs, back, shoulders and neck as well. So yeah, being the tall, lanky redhead kid with freckles wasn’t exactly the most fun thing to live through.

As always though, Gio had his back. He was the one who talked to his parents and told them that Marti was having a tough time at school, kids making fun of him all the time, stealing his lunch, his homework, sometimes even his shoes whenever he was in PE class. At first, honestly Marti’s parents didn’t really take him seriously, but Marti, who was listening from the his own bedroom, door ajar, soon realized that his parents had his best interests at heart, and so did Gio. He talked to them for almost half an hour and when they finally said, “Okay Giovanni, I promise you we will think about it, thank you for telling us.” Martino almost couldn’t believe it. His best friend came back to his room, smiling like a madman. He looked so smug Marti almost wanted to smack his arm, but he was so grateful to him. He got up and hugged him hard. “Let me go Marti, you’re suffocating me,” Gio laughed, crinkled eyes and a smile tugging at his lips. “Seriously, if they say yes, I owe you big time. Those guys just...” Martino didn’t finish his sentence. Gio sat down on the bed and patted the sheet next to him. Marti sat on the bed, head hung low. “Hey, Martino, whatever happens, even if we don’t change schools, I’m always gonna be there for you, don’t you worry. I’ll be by your side day and night if need be. You should know that by now, nothing’s gonna stop me from protecting you.” He had such a serious look on his face. Marti had no other choice than to believe him. Thank God for Giovanni Garau.

II. Being a teenager : where’s the handbook ?

On his twelfth birthday, Martino wakes up to the smell of coffee wafting from the kitchen, and his mother bustling around, moving pots and pans from one side to another. He enters the room yawning, scratching his hair which sticks in every direction. His mom smiles up at him, and kisses him fondly on the cheek. “Happy birthday honey, I hope you’re gonna have an amazing day! Auguri!” He smiles up at her. The divorce didn’t go smoothly, but his dad behaved like a complete jackass. Martino is a little mad at him, to be honest. And most days, his mother is crying in her bedroom and the worst thing is: he can hear her, and there’s nothing he can do about it. So he huddles up into his bedsheets pulling up the blanket above his head, putting his earphones on, and falls asleep listening to some random songs. Being twelve isn’t exactly easy for Martino. Gio is starting to really show interest in girls and Martino just isn’t interested. He really can’t see the point of them: long hair, frilly clothes and pink shoes, sometimes lip gloss or even worse, lipstick. But he sees Gio’s gaze lighting up whenever he sees one, trying to chat them up, strike up a conversation, manage to get a laugh or two out of them. Just being his charming self, and sure, having baby blue eyes doesn’t hurt.

The girls, to be fair, seem quite interested to Martino as well. One or two of them actually talked to him once or twice and Marti’s gotta admit, he kinda understands what Gio sees in them. Some of them are pretty. But at the end of the day, Martino’s better off reading or listening to music. Or better yet, talking to Gio for hours and hours on end. He doesn’t mind that his best friend doesn’t have a girlfriend, to be honest, because when he will, he just knows that everything will be different. He’s not ready yet for their friendship to change. So he clings on to Gio like he’s his rock, which he kinda is.

One morning, Martino’s waiting for his best friend in front of his house, checking his watch every now and then. He frowns upon seeing that it’s already past 8:30 and Gio’s nowhere in sight. He knocks on the door, only to have his mom tell him that he already left for school. And then she adds, with a smile tugging at her lips, the sentence that’s gonna make Marti sad for the whole day. “He was with a brunette. I think her name is Laura, or something like that. Didn’t he tell you?” Marti smiles, nods, and wishes Mamma Garau a good day, before turning on his heel, on the verge of tears. How could Gio have stood him up like that? And more importantly, what was he doing with that girl from their class... Laura? He shows up at school, puts down his bag next to his chair, anger boiling inside of him. He bites the inside of his cheek as the teacher gets up in front of the class and starts the lesson of the day. Ignoring Gio’s repeated whispers to his right, Martino tries to concentrate on whatever la Prof. Marca is saying. But for whatever reason, his ears are ringing, and his cheeks are flush. His hands are somewhat shaking and he knows he has a right to be angry at his best friend for standing him up for some girl he barely knows. Although, deep down inside, Martino has a feeling this isn’t the typical reaction you have when a close friend of the same gender gets a crush on a girl. His stomach drops a little, and he shakes his head, trying to think about something else. Anything else but the fact that the feeling he recognizes in his gut is called... Jealousy. Martino wakes in the middle of the night, drenched in his own sweat, and he frowns, disgusted by his own smell. He gets up, changes pajamas, puts on deodorant, and even takes the time to actually change his sheets. He focuses on the tasks, meticulously. His brain is reeling, heart beating so fast he was actually scared of having a panic attack. He has to forget the dream he just had, nothing makes sense. He goes into the bathroom, glances up at the clock. 4:17AM. And he has a big English test tomorrow. He needs to get some sleep before heading to school, or his mother will let him know how she’s furious with him for getting a bad grade. A grade he knows he’ll get if he doesn’t go back to sleep as soon as possible.

He turns off the lights and lies in his bed, eyes wide open, willing sleep to just come and take him peacefully. Half an hour later, Martino’s brain gone to places he just hates so much. He’s in the middle crisis of self-loathing, when he can’t take it anymore. He gets up, and slips into the bathroom, taking a glass of water, trying to think about something else. Honestly, anything else would be better than this torture.

Marti knows that generally speaking, teenage years are the toughest to get through. Sometimes identity and sexuality crisis can happen. It can be the time of your life when you start to figure out... stuff. But he really can’t wrap his head around the fact that he just had this dream. A dream that makes him recoil every time he thinks about it. God, what did he do in a previous life to deserve such a karma... Honestly?! At 6:30AM, when he finally gives up and decides that he won’t get back to sleep before his alarm goes off, he gets up again and prepares himself some breakfast. He’s in the middle of his second piece of toast when he hears his mom gets up as well. She enters the kitchen and makes a beeline for the coffee machine. Marti would gladly do the same, if only he was allowed to drink coffee. His mom has decided that twelve years old isn’t old enough and that it could mess with his still developing brain and body. She looks over to her son, smiles, then notices the dark circles under his eyes. She puts down her coffee mug and sits across from him, worry written all over her face. “Everything alright honey? You look like you haven’t slept at all...” Martino sighs, and runs a hand over his own face. “No Mamma, don’t worry, I just had a...nightmare, and woke up drenched in sweat. Couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards. Nothing to worry about.” His mom looks worried though. He tries to smile reassuringly, but fails miserably. He’s not really feeling up to going to school today, but he really doesn’t have a choice.

He puts his brave face on, gets up, brushes his teeth, puts on his favorite shirt, and grabs his backpack before giving his mom a kiss on the cheek. “Bye Mamma, have a good day, and please stop worrying. Okay?” She bites her lip, and Marti smiles at her. “Hey don’t worry, I’ll sleep better tonight, that’s all! Nothing to worry about! It’s not the end of the world. Stop worrying and go to work, you’re gonna be late,” he says, before closing the door of their flat behind him. He takes a deep breath and exhales shakily, eyes closed. No time to dwell on his dream from last night, which is still in the back of his mind.

Goddammit, this day is gonna be a long one.

III. Don’t ask me that

Martino’s fourteenth birthday was celebrated a few weeks ago, when his mother drops the topic he certainly didn’t expect in the middle of his carbonara pasta. He made it from scratch, since his mom lost her interest for anything cooking related a few months after his dad left. Martino’s actually quite good at it and his carbonara tastes amazing. He’s enjoying it, when he hears Mamma Rametta clearing her throat, which is NEVER a good sign. Generally it means that she’s getting ready to talk about a delicate subject. He lifts an eyebrow, curious as to what topic she wants to discuss. “Martino, you know, fourteen is an important age. What I mean by that, is that a lot of young people nowadays...” She interrupts herself, clearly not at ease discussing the subject. Marti looks like a deer in headlights; he’s frozen in his seat. He takes a deep breath and braces himself for what’s about to come at him. “You need to protect yourself, honey,” his mom finally says, and he groans from embarrassment. “Mom, please, can we PLEASE not have this discussion?! I beg you!” he says through gritted teeth, closing his eyes. God, this is the worst time to talk about this. He’s already dealing with the million disturbing thoughts he’s having about...well, girls, and the fact that apparently they’re just not that appealing to him. He’s afraid to dwell on that thought, so he just buries himself into drawing and reading. That’s a good enough solution to his problem for now. It works... for now, at least. She shakes her head, the wrinkles around her eyes crease a little more. She looks serious now. “Martino, girls and boys your age are generally very... enthusiastic and go quite far sometimes...without using condoms, or any idea of what they’re doing. So I want you to be prepared, and to never do something you’re not ready for.” “Oh my God Mamma, really? Are we really having this conversation now, in the middle of dinner? Dinner that I made from scratch?” “Martino, come on. You’re not giving me much to go on here.” “No, because I don’t want to! This is my private life you’re hinting at and I’m not discussing it with you.” He pushes back his plate on the table, and inhales deeply. No need to get worked up over this kind of conversation, he thinks to himself, she’s just looking out for him. He knows that, deep down, but he really doesn’t want to think about it. Any of it. Girls, sex, nothing. It’s not like he has a girlfriend anyway. Gio is much more advanced in that area, he noticed. He has had a girlfriend for a few months now, that brunette, Laura. Sure, she’s nice enough, pretty and funny, but what is it with girls exactly? He just can’t see what the big deal is, honestly!

In front of him, Elisabetta Rametta lifts an eyebrow, and just smiles at him, before putting her hand on his. “Is there anyone you like at school?” Martino gets up so fast his head starts to spin a little. He would run away from the kitchen, but the flat is not that big and he has nowhere else to go. “Please stop Mamma, te l’ho già detto, I already told you, I’m not discussing it with you.” She smiles knowingly, and it annoys the crap out of him. “Oh so you like someone, don’t you?” That’s it. He’s had enough of this nonsense. He storms out of the kitchen, leaving dishes, plates, glasses, cutlery, everything on the table, and just stomps into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. Thank God his dad actually put a lock on his door, so he’s able to just put his headphones on and ignore his mom trying to talk some sense into him through the door. He puts on music, volume up, and just lays on his bed, eyes shut. God, he wishes he could be anywhere else right now.

IV. Crumbling down

Martino’s fifteen and he’s struggling like hell. Gio’s drifting further and further from him with every day that passes. He’s madly in love with Laura and Marti hates it with every fiber of his being. Terrified to uncover what it could possibly mean, he spends most of his time daydreaming. He avoids his best friend at all costs, which isn’t really hard. Laura and Gio spend all their time together anyway. They seem to be kissing every time Martino looks at them, and it makes him want to throw up so bad. At home, Martino’s mom dropped the subject of sex, and he is relieved to no end. He found a pack of condoms on his bedside table one day after school, with a note folded and taped to it. He opened it to find a somewhat endearing speech from Mamma Rametta, saying how much she understands that talking about it can be difficult, but that she’s here if he needs to talk. And that in the meantime, he needs to look after himself and to use condoms if he wants to have sex with someone. Marti sits on his bed, staring at the piece of paper, puzzled. He notices how his mom didn’t use the term girlfriend or girl, in her note. He might be reading too much into it, but the weight in his chest lifts a little.

Truth is, Martino Rametta has the biggest problem of all time. Last month, he stumbled upon an article which made his breath catch in his chest, and his heart skip a beat. His mom left a newspaper on the table, right before heading to work. It was Saturday, 13th of March. He remembers the date oh so clearly. His eyes fixed on the bold letters of the title: “Italians progressively changing their mind on same-sex marriage: a change incoming?” To his horror, Martino felt tears well up in his eyes, and he closed the paper forcefully. He hated this stupid newspaper, hated Italians, hated himself. He didn’t want to deal with it, with any of it. He just wanted his life to stay the same. He wanted to have a girlfriend, to be straight, to be normal. He wanted to fade into the crowd, not stand out because he was different than his classmates. He didn’t want to really address that question, the one that had been buried in the back of his mind for several months now. It all started in the locker room. They were on their way out of the PE class. Marti sat down on the bench, still catching his breath from all extra running laps they had to do. Only Gio and himself, just because Boccia decided that they were talking too much during class. Everyone had already left, of course By the time they reached the changing room, Gio scoffed dramatically, “Boccia is really a stronzo, making us run all these extra laps! Seriously, who the fuck does he think he is?” Marti chuckled. “The gym teacher, maybe?” he jokes lightly, removing his socks before they get all wet. The floor is disgusting as fuck. The other guys probably got out of the showers still dripping wet. They made a mess and didn’t bother to clean up after themselves. Marti gets up from the bench and his foot starts slipping. He screams, arms waggling, trying to steady himself, but to no avail. An arm slips around his middle, and puts him upright. Martino blushes a deep red when he realizes that Gio is squeezed against him, torso against his back, thighs against thighs, his warm hand right above his boxers. He can feel him everywhere and it’s too much, all off a sudden. Fuck fuck fuck!

“Thanks mate,” he mutters under his breath. He curses internally, almost runs to the showers, eager to drop his boiling thoughts under the water. “Everything okay Marti?” he hears Gio’s voice behind him before he steps into the shower stall. He closes his eyes, back to him. “Yeah,” he croaks, “almost fell and can’t seem to catch my breath! Talk about being in bad shape,” he laughs, trying to drown his shame and guilt. Stepping under the water and cries silently under the shower. He knows he’s known for quite some time now. He just knows that he’s attracted to guys. He just knows. The way he ignore girls and focuses on boys isn’t just a phase. Tries so hard to feel something for girls. Tries to get excited at the prospect of spending some time alone with one of them. But no matter how hard he tries, it’s still not working. Nobody has touched him before Gio. It’s not even a romantic gesture. Gio just caught him before he fell face first on the changing room floor, which could be a metaphor for his whole life, at this point. Gio is being an amazing best friend and Marti’s here, thinking about him that way. He can’t do this. He has no right to. He has no right to imagine Gio in his arms, in his bed, trying to kiss him senseless. Oh, he definitely can’t go there while showering next to his best friend. Naked best friend, his brain not so helpfully supplies. He groans into the crook of his elbow and closes his eyes again. He has to do something, anything, to try and prevent this from happening. He can’t be gay, right?

V. Please send help.

Martino is sitting on his couch, frowning at his biology textbook. His brain hurts, his legs hurt because he played calcio for several hours with the neighbors. His heart hurts because he now has a huge crush on his best friend, and everything sucks, really. Plus, he really hates biology. And he needs help. He grabs his phone, texts Gio, and drops his textbook next to him before closing his eyes. The flat is quiet, his mom has picked up a few extra hours at work and Martino’s grateful for the time he can spend alone. He needs it more than ever these days. His behavior has changed, slowly. He’s falling into patterns he hates, like lying about anything and everything. He’s hiding and he hates it, but for now that’s all he can do, really. Self-loathing has become his best friend; sadly replacing Gio. Gio who is supportive as ever, being the best friend Martino doesn’t deserve. Every time Marti shows up late at school, Gio is at the entrance, waiting for him with a smile tugging at his lips, as if nothing has changed. As if Martino doesn’t blush whenever he thinks about Giovanni. As if he doesn’t want to kiss his best friend as long as he can. As if Martino isn’t betraying their friendship. Marti sighs again, and picks up his phone. A text from Gio. He freezes when he reads it. “I’m on my way, I need to talk to you.” Martino closes his eyes and fights through a panic attack. 

Gio knows, he knows. 

He’s coming here to yell at him, to insult him, to call him names and to ask him to never talk to him again. Oh God, this is the end, Marti thinks, full-on panicking now. He gets up, wants to scream into a pillow, wants to run away from here. He wants to hide and die in a corner, where no one can find him. He doesn’t deserve a friend like Giovanni Garau, and now Gio knows it too. Marti cries into his own shirt, because he doesn’t know what else to do. He hates himself with a passion, and he wishes he could vanish into thin air. A knock on the door, and before Martino can even answer, Gio opens it and finds his best friend sobbing on the couch. “Hey, Marti,” he runs towards the redhead, who’s crying like a child. “Please, don’t hate me,” he says, swallowing his guilt and grief. “Please, don’t leave me.” Gio flops down on the couch next to him and hugs him without saying anything. What the hell happened to his best friend? Who made him this miserable? “Martino, talk to me. You can’t go on like this, you have to talk to someone, or else you’re gonna have a breakdown. I’m here, I’m your best friend, talk to me mate!” Gio whispers against his best friend’s shoulder. “I think I have a problem,”Marti whispered back, eyes still closed, trying to calm down. He doesn’t want to talk about it, not really, but he feels like he doesn’t have a choice. It’s either this or he’s gonna end up crazy.

Life sucks right now, and maybe he shouldn’t do this, maybe he should keep to himself, but the words fall out of his lips before he can even help it. “Gio... I think I don’t like girls.” A beat. Marti looks up at his best friend, who’s still snuggled up against him, body entirely turned towards him, and he can feel him smile against his shoulder. “Okay,” Gio says slowly, his eyes sincere, and full of affection. “Why do you say you have a problem then?” Martino feels tears welling up, and he swallows against the lump in his throat. A weight is lifted off his chest, and he feels like he can breathe again. “Gio, come on. You know as well as I do that it’s gonna be painful. And hard. And people are gonna hate me. And call me names.” Before he can even finish his sentence, Giovanni stands up, looking angry. “Like hell they will, Marti! Do you think I won’t be there for you? Do you think I’d leave you once I knew that you were gay?” Marti recoils. He hates that word. It embodies hate and fear, and he’s scared of it, more than he’s willing to admit. “Don’t say that,” Gio says, softly. He flops back down on the couch next to Martino, and grabs his shoulder. “Don’t think for a second there that I’m gonna leave you alone to fight this through. What kind of a friend do you think I am?” Marti smiles through his tears. He’s exhausted, all of a sudden. Coming out for the first time of his life, to Giovanni Garau, his best friend, was definitely the right choice.

[plothooksinc]

9, 12

Do you prefer to write AUs, canon divergence, or canon-compliant fic?

...this is kind of hilarious, because when I first discovered fanfiction was A Thing, one of those things that many people did and not something that I had somehow invented on my living room floor in my first apartment at 17, I devoured a lot of it but I turned up my nose at anything that wasn’t canon-compliant, because I didn’t see the point to it.  Why the heck do I want to read about these characters in high school or these characters as vampires or what the heck ever when I fell in love with the canon and wanted to see extensions to it?  I didn’t understand the draw. I mean, I still won’t read high school and vampire AUs, so maybe they’re bad examples.  (And there are exceptions.)  My first slew of fanfics were definitely canon-compliant, and I definitely have a soft spot for reading stuff that can slot into canon with only a few rough edges at most.  But around 2006, for some reason my traitorous brain went “Hey, what if you wrote those samurai but like... in Tokyo 2029 cyberpunk” and my creative drive went fuck yeah!  And suddenly, AU was what I lived and breathed for a while, and Zaibatsu Project became this giant of a thing.  And then when I fell into the FFVII fandom and devoured that whole, I cast around for stories people hadn’t written yet and came up with the plotline for Misconduct, which is a Zack-lives canon divergence, and...

The three stories in three separate fandoms I am most known for are Underdark (canon-compliant), Zaibatsu Project (AU), and Misconduct (canon-divergence).  The only other plot I had for a FFVII fic was also canon-divergent, Rurouni Kenshin and its many, many stories I want to write are all canon-complaint or ridiculously wild AUs, and everything I write for TMNT is canon compliant.  This is the long roundabout way of saying... 

...I don’t think I have a preference, not any more.  Some fandoms lend themselves really well to different styles of fic, so it more comes down to the fandom and what random idea or crack wafted past my brain at a particular time, and possibly how the stars aligned that day.  They’re all good fic styles, Brent. Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to?  

Much shorter to answer!  I don’t tend to think in terms of tropes I really want to write, but my writing is obviously full of them... uh hmm.  Nothing really comes to mind at all!  Mainly if I really want to write a particular kind of theme/trope, I already have and all I really need to do is finish the damn thing.

Thank you for the questions ♥

Questions are here.