#and the translation sounds pretty good but I checked some pages not the whole book it'll be boring

[buttercupshands]

rewatched Kurogiri's holiday story from ultra impact (not related to sketch at all)

(but it did inspire me)

on another note

finally!!

[pavaal]

Persona 4: Kiri no Amnesia (Summary)

I said I would do it, so here it is! I bought the Persona 4 spinoff light novel a couple of days ago, ran through it, and decided to write a summary since I don't feel confident enough to translate the whole thing page by page. For those who don't know, Kiri no Amnesia is a light novel set shortly after Yukiko's dungeon, covering an accidental trip into the TV World with just Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko. It was written in order to expand on the Shadows of the first two victims, Mayumi Yamano and Saki Konishi. It's not not canon, considering how it resolves in the end, but at worst I think it's some good insight for people who wanted to see more of Saki, like me.

There are no major spoilers for people who have played at least the first couple hours of Persona 4.

With that in mind...

The first part of the book is pretty slow and uninteresting. It basically functions as a recap of things up to this point, with the main trio (for this book: Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko) doing some training after school without Yu. This was before any supplementary material named him, so he's just referred to as "the transfer student" or "leader" in the narrative, and he's also absent for pretty much the entire novel due to certain developments.

Yosuke angsts about Saki a bit, but he tries to keep it to himself and puts on a bright smile so as to not worry the others. I found this part, and other parts like it pretty sweet, because Chie is really attentive to him when he gets in these moods. Being novelized means that a lot of the wacky anime hijinks are toned down, and so there's a surprising amount of very sincere bonding between the trio that we don't get to see in other P4 media.

When they leave for the day, Yukiko and Chie are the first to go, while Yosuke hangs back. Reflecting on a discussion about how they need to use the same TV to enter the same place, Yosuke gets lost in thought about how Saki must have been lost and afraid when she was thrown in. He's shaken out of his reverie by the sound of someone crying from one of the other TVs, but although he's curious about it, he stops himself before doing anything stupid.

The next day, the group meets up again to train, but Yu is late and sends a text saying to wait up. Then there's some filler about them hanging out, eating, bonding, etc, but Yu texts again saying he's later than he thought and to go on without him. Initially, they don't want to, but they do go over to the TVs where Yosuke once again hears the weird voice—which he doesn't mention to Chie or Yukiko, but he's distracted enough that they comment on it. He then asks them to cover him while he just checks inside, but of course he can't see anything without the glasses. He starts to get back out of the TV, but of course at that very moment, a wayward child shoves him in and Yukiko and Chie naturally follow.

They end up in what we will term Magatsu-Inaba, but to them it's just Inaba inside the TV. Shadow Inaba? Whatever. Everyone gets mad at Yosuke for being stupid, he apologizes, but he figures that they can just walk back to the entrance since they all know how to navigate Inaba. (Teddie can't reach them through the fog.) The problem is that they quickly discover the landscape is covered in black holes, blocking the easiest path back. They decide to take a detour to a nearby park, which Yosuke says he didn't know about, but there's someone already there when they arrive. Sitting on the swings alone is... Saki Konishi. (!!!!)

Yosuke understandably freaks out, and his first reaction is a mixture of shock and anger, since his initial assumption is that this is the Shadow that killed Saki. However, when he confronts her, she doesn't know anything, and I mean anything. She doesn't know who or what she is, and she doesn't even know what Shadows are. Yosuke has trouble being angry with her after that, and the trio has a quick meeting to acknowledge that she probably is a Shadow, and Saki's Shadow for that matter, but things are different because she doesn't seem malicious. Up to now, the human-like Shadows they've encountered have known TOO well what they are, but this girl doesn't know anything.

Putting two and two together, they come to the conclusion that there are holes in the landscape because "Saki" doesn't remember anything, and if they can get her to remember, then they'll probably be able to get back. This means traveling with her, which everyone makes their peace with. (Yosuke in particular says that he can't ignore someone who looks like Saki, despite everything.)The first roadblock they run into is that Yosuke can't call her Saki because she may nevertheless be the Shadow that killed her. Considering her condition, they decide to call her Amnesia.

They do some traveling, a Shadow shows up but it's way too strong and they bolt. When they find a place to rest, they sit for a little while and try to jog Amnesia's memory. Yosuke is clearly struggling with Amnesia's existence when she looks so much like Saki, so Chie intervenes and they have a little back and forth where Yosuke says something mildly funny and Yukiko explodes in laughter. Yosuke apologizes to Amnesia for Yukiko interrupting their important conversation, but she wistfully says it's okay, and she's jealous of people who can laugh. Yosuke is conflicted: he wants to help "Saki," but this is likely "Saki's Shadow."

He muses on his friendship with Chie and Yukiko for a little while, quietly grateful for them because they were the first people to welcome him and make him feel actually wanted in Inaba, and then Yukiko finally calms down. They decide to take a snack break with some supplies they had from the real world, so the trio+Amnesia split Yosuke's several Dr. Salt NEOs. After some discussion about how weird the flavor is, Amnesia mentions... she can't taste it! The trio calls an emergency secret meeting about how weird it is that someone can't taste Dr. Salt NEO, so Amnesia is absolutely a Shadow, but they can't do anything about it right now.

Incidentally, when Yosuke opens his, he accidentally sprays it all over Chie and Yukiko. Although they try to use their Personas to clean up, this will be important later.

Some other stuff happens, and Yosuke muses on the differences between Amnesia and Saki. Amnesia is much more self-deprecating and pessimistic than Saki he knows, and Yosuke knows from Saki's brother that she was a "good sister," so Amnesia just seems particularly sad. He tells her that she might not be the Shadow that killed Saki after all...

Amnesia's eyes suddenly glow bright yellow, and she starts muttering "I... killed... I killed... I..." over and over to herself. Although the trio prepares for a fight, Amnesia suddenly snaps out of it and seems to have forgotten what even happened. Weird!

They try to keep moving forward after that, but Chie and Yukiko complain about being sticky and they decide to reroute to Amagi Inn, since they're not making any progress with Amnesia anyway. Chie and Yukiko are excited, Yosuke cannot believe they're actually going to go to the hot springs in the TV World, and Amnesia is just trying not to be a nuisance.

The girls all take a bath while Yosuke stands guard, and shockingly, there's nothing particularly perverted about this scene. Amnesia and Yosuke have a little moment where, after Yosuke insists that Amnesia take a bath too so she can relax and try to recall something, she calls him kind and he gets flustered. After she, too, joins Chie and Yukiko, Yosuke worries that he's starting to see Amnesia and Saki as one in the same. He wonders what the difference is between a human and a Shadow with no malice, but he decides that's not a question he can answer.

In the meantime, Chie has a moment where it says she's gazing at Amnesia "with the gleam of an old man in her eyes" and comments to Yukiko how pretty Saki/Amnesia is, so she understands why Yosuke was in love with her. She fills Yukiko in on Yosuke's crush on Saki and really brings the mood down, but it's a nice moment where they acknowledge that Yosuke is really in pain and he's working harder than any of them to solve the case. Chie also raises the hopeful possibility that Amnesia is the real Saki, and the body they found was her Shadow.

After a bit, they move on to lighthearted girl talk and Yosuke tries not to pop a boner outside from listening to them (Yukiko asks Chie to "open her body") while waiting for them to finish.

Amnesia leaves first, and in a thoughtful mood, Yosuke asks what Amnesia would do if she could leave the TV World. She says she wouldn't leave. Although she doesn't remember anything, she feels like being here is a punishment she must serve for a sin she doesn't recall. Yosuke says she's strong for carrying that burden, but she says it's the opposite—she feels like she's probably running away from something.

Yosuke is about to hit her with the ultra smooth line of "if you have to run, run to me," but then he's suddenly interrupted by a Teddie Transmission warning them of a huge Shadow in the area. Yosuke panics because Chie and Yukiko are still in the bath and Amnesia can't fight, but he says he'll buy time while Chie and Yukiko get informed and dressed.

The Shadow speaks to him from a black hole that has appeared, and he notes that the voice is familiar, but he can't place it immediately. It asks him if Amnesia is important to him, and although he hesitates, he ultimately answers yes—to which the Shadow cheerfully promises that she'll kill Amnesia and drop her to the depths of hell.

Yosuke says he's not going to lose "her" again, and the Shadow gets angry, telling him that he's stupid for placing anyone else above himself. "You use whatever you can, you take whoever you can, even if that means you have to have an affair! Are you stupid?!" The Shadow is particularly hostile to the girls once they all rejoin, saying that she'll let Yosuke run away while she kills the others.

The Shadow is obviously super overpowered, and honestly there was a lot of fighting description here that I didn't care about so I skimmed it, but the critical part of this whole fight scene is that the Shadow is about to get a KO on Yosuke—but he suddenly hears Amnesia call "Hana-chan!" and feels a chain wrap around his arm to pull him out of the way in time. They manage to escape with some effort, but in the process, the Shadow destroys the Amagi Inn, to which Yukiko vows revenge.

Yosuke later compliments Amnesia on her chain moves, and Amnesia suddenly hears a voice within her saying that she prayed to forget this power. Her mind goes blank, and she can no longer remember what they were talking about. She's shocked to hear that she apparently did something in that fight.

There's a little bit of a drag here where they boringly make it to Shadow Junes and boringly hang out, but suddenly Yukiko and Chie feel incredibly faint. Yosuke summons Jiraiya to Dia them, but it doesn't seem to have any affect. Amnesia gets the feeling that she can do something, and so she folds her hands and, unbeknownst to her, casts Posumudi... because the Shadow onsen poisoned them! Duh!!

But the same thing happens again where she forgets what she just did, which by now, is something very bizarre that none of them are sure how to handle. They're afraid to push it after her short-circuiting earlier, and the trio acknowledges that trying to force her to remember might result in her going crazy... you know, like a Shadow. Yosuke once again privately muses on the nature of a Shadow, thinking, “If she looks like Senpai, talks like Senpai, and acts like Senpai, who cares if she’s a Shadow? …is a crazy thing to think, isn’t it? But I…”

At this point, to him, "Saki" and "Amnesia" are the same person.

Anywho, a little more of this and the Shadow from before shows up with yet another hole, and this time they recognize it as Mayumi Yamano's Shadow, and realize the holes are from her and not a result of Amnesia's memory loss. She transforms into Iwanaga(-hime), and in what may be a series first, Yukiko actually recognizes the legend. She says that after she got Konohanasakuya, she did some research, and Iwanaga came up as part of the story. She gives them a quick rundown, which is that Iwanaga and Konohanasakuya were sisters who were offered to a man for marriage, but Iwanaga was rejected because of her appearance. Chie comments on how rude it is to judge people on appearances and glares at Yosuke, who gets defensive.

I once again skimmed over the battle stuff because it truly is boring to read, but if you really need to know, Iwanaga is made of stone. Her schtick is that she feels like she's the most important person in the world and she doesn't care who she has to hurt to get what she wants. She loathes Misuzu Hiiragi and feels as if she was unjustly punished, since she doesn't see what's so bad about falling in love with a married man. Although even her Shadow seems to have truly loved Namatame, she really hates women and constantly refers to the girls as dumb brats. She calls Yosuke "little boy."

Anyway, things are looking bad. Yosuke tries to reason with her, saying that although she/Mayumi Yamano is guilty, she doesn't have to live her life full of this resentment. This does not work, despite Yosuke's best efforts, and she really starts to beat the hell out of Yosuke. More things happen, everyone does some cool moves, so on and so forth. Yosuke knocks Amnesia out of the way of an attack, but in doing so, he falls into one of the holes. Although he manages to catch himself on the edge, he's slipping and there's too much space for anyone to come save him. I liked this part, so I directly translated it.

“So this is it, huh?” An image of his “partner” appeared in his mind—the boy who helped them all awaken the power of Persona. “Sorry… I guess I’ll have to leave the rest to you.” Yosuke’s eyes naturally fell to Amnesia, who was gazing at him in horror. He gave her a smile as if to say “don’t worry.” “Satonaka and Amagi will keep you safe. They’re good people, so you’ll be fine.” His smile conveyed all this without words. —“He’s going to disappear.” Amnesia heard a voice from within her. “Will you taste the same regret you did when you killed me?” It was her voice. It was the voice of Saki Konishi. Amnesia was the embodiment of Saki’s latent desires—a Shadow. Saki’s desires had been calm, so Amnesia was not full of the same anger that characterized so many other Shadows. But a Shadow was a Shadow. Destruction was their nature. When the fog clears, that destruction manifests. And on such a day, Amnesia had killed Saki. Unable to bear this sin, Amnesia had erased her own memories. Every Shadow has a unique power from its individual identity. And the power given to Amnesia, borne of Saki Konishi, was called “Oblivion.” Saki Konishi had wanted to run away from everything that was keeping her trapped, to forget all her pain.

So, obviously, Amnesia is able to call on her powers after this, and she uses her chains to save Yosuke from the hole. Now that she's "awake," she's able to help in the fight, and she tells Yosuke that she can erase memories. They come up with a plan to erase Iwanaga's memories so that they can defeat her and/or get away, whichever comes first, but Amnesia needs to be able to touch her. Everyone comes together for their epic battle, and once again, a part I liked.

Yosuke was full of confidence [as he prepared to face Iwanaga]. Saki’s voice observed this from within. “Hana-chan always had this unreliable air about him… but I guess boys grow up fast when you’re not looking.”

Although Amnesia manages to touch Iwanaga and unsettle her, her power isn't strong enough and she just sends Iwanaga into a mindless berserk state. Amnesia realizes that there's only one thing left to do, and although she didn't want to show anyone this form, she realizes there's no choice.

Her body is consumed by black flames, and once again, here's a little translation.

Her body grew twice as large, and a black lace shawl covered her face. She wore a long, jet-black dress with lace gloves up to her elbow: clothes that one would wear to mourn the dead. The skin that was visible between sections of black was as pale as snow, and the chains that had previously only extended from her arms wrapped around her body several times, as if binding herself. She had the appearance of a human, but she was not: she was a Shadow, and her golden eyes gleamed from beneath the lace shawl.

Seeing this, Yosuke is briefly pained by the undeniable realization that this is the Shadow that killed Saki, but if Saki had just known about Personas, if she had known to accept her true self, then she wouldn't have died.

With Amnesia's magnified power, they all manage to defeat Iwanaga, and with her death, the holes clear from the landscape and Teddie is finally able to properly contact them. Amnesia changes back to her "human" form, ashamed, but the trio is openly supportive and grateful to her for helping them. Knowing that they'll be headed home soon, everyone encourages Amnesia to come with them. Amnesia thinks that she shouldn't, but in Yosuke's mind "a Shadow that could become a Persona" is no different from a human.

She agrees to walk with them, at least, and as Yosuke glances back at her conflicted expression, he thinks, "I hope you can smile someday, even if it's not for me."

Moving on to the final chapter, everyone reunites with Teddie, and they come up with the great idea for Amnesia to stay with Teddie. That way, they'll be able to keep each other company, and Teddie will be able to teach Amnesia about being a Shadow-but-not so that she can understand herself better. Feeling optimistic, everyone happily says their goodbyes. Yosuke waves to her and grins, telling her "See you tomorrow, Senpai!" before going back to the other side.

In the TV World, Teddie and Amnesia discuss the less positive reality. Amnesia is going to disappear, since the person she came from is dead. It's possible for her to live a little longer if she doesn't use her powers, but ultimately, no matter what she does, she doesn't have long left. Amnesia says that it's not a problem... because she's going to use her oblivion powers to erase herself. She saw how heartbroken Yosuke was about Saki's death, and she doesn't want to do that to him again. So, she considers it the kindest thing she can do for the people who were so kind to her to quietly and secretly disappear. Teddie protests, of course, but as he's tearfully insisting for her to stay... he suddenly stops, and wonders what he was just talking to himself about. He feels sad for some reason, but maybe he's just lonely because Sensei and the others haven't visited yet?

He hopes they come back soon.

On the other side, Yosuke and the others are actually at the moment just before Yosuke falls in, and everything is fine. Yu contacts them telling them he's on his way, so they go to the roof. Yosuke realizes, however, that he feels strangely sad, and his chest hurts like he's lost something. Chie asks why he looks like he's about to cry, to which Yosuke actually does start to cry. Yu arrives at the same moment, and Yosuke hurriedly turns away so Yu can't see him shedding any tears.

Yu apologizes for being so late, and explains that he lost track of time helping a sick cat near his house. Yosuke, still sniffling, demands what's more important—them or a cat?! But when Yu turns thoughtful, Yosuke realizes that that's the type of person Yu is. He helps anyone, no matter who they are. He turns back to Yu and tells him that it's okay, because he wouldn't be Yosuke's partner if he didn't stop to help a cat, and then Chie and Yukiko make fun of him for having a runny nose.

Yosuke thinks to himself he's so glad that he has these people as his friends, but he can't help but feel he forgot something important as they leave. From the TV, he thinks he hears someone whisper "yes, you did, but please don't try to remember," but he writes it off as his imagination.

The End.

Despite this being a way longer summary than I set out to write, I did leave out a lot of small, non-plot-important details. If you love P4 and you can read Japanese, it's probably worth it! Yukiko and Chie are especially good in it and have lots of great friendship moments with each other and with Yosuke as well. I was really surprised by Yosuke and Yukiko's friendship, in fact, since I feel like the game and especially the spinoffs have kind of given the impression that Yukiko doesn't like him very much? But she respects his conviction here, and they're a great team. It was really cool to see how the three of them interact without Yu, and it gave a lot of insight into what their friendship might have looked like before he showed up.

Overall, I was really satisfied with this and I kind of regret that there weren't more novels like this. I thought Saki's Shadow was cool, and it was really interesting to see Mayumi manifest with such viciousness. Chie even comments that it's hard to feel bad for her!

Like I said, there is some other minor stuff I left out for ease of reading, so if you have any questions about stuff, feel free to ask!

[jgukmilk]

he won’t know 03 (m) final

➔ summary: after weeks of hiding from the world, your friend, Mina, finally convinces you to crawl out of your cave and join her at a friday-frat party. You definitely didn’t think you’d end up with the person you had spent several weeks trying to avoid. 

➔ pairing: Jungkook X Reader

➔ genre: cheating!au, smut, angst if you squint, much deserved fluff fucking finally

➔ warnings: mention of sexual assault, unprotected sex, soft sex because i’m a whore for that shit, jungoo is the one crying in this part, jungoo being a soft idiot nothing out of the ordinary, fingering, oral (f. and m. receiving), handjob, fingering, mild dirty talk, cervix kisses :), cum eating, throat fucking•_•, runny mascara because it’s chef’s kiss, soft dom jungoo, a really lame biology pick up line at the end that i am pathetically proud of, that’s it..? it’s unedited btw :P

➔ wordcount: 8.3k

➔ a/n: this was a bitch to finish but holy fuck. hope you enjoy ;) feedback is always appreciated !

part 1, part 2, part 3 final.

It had officially been seventeen and-a-half days since Jungkook came to visit you at your dorm, only to end up in you crying your eyes out in front of him and shove him out of your room.

Mina came home later that night and questioned your tear-stained cheeks. Did you tell her? No, of course not. You brushed it off and convinced her that you were having a hard time with the breakup with Jaehyun, that everything was still so fresh, and you simply just needed time. Though that was as far from the truth as it could possibly be, she believed you regardless which you were thankful for.

You didn’t miss Jaehyun, not one bit. You hadn’t seen him after your last encounter, and you thanked your stars daily. To be honest you weren’t given a chance to run into that asshole since you had reduced your time spent outside of the dorm.

Your schedule pretty much consisted of wake up, go to your classes, come back to the dorm, study, eat, sleep, repeat. It sounded like one of those shabby T-shirt every twelve-year-old would wear back in middle school and show it off for being ‘quirky’.

You weren’t complaining, you preferred things this way, for now at least. Though you couldn’t deny that you missed your friends, but you needed some time alone and you knew that, so to distract yourself from missing your friends, what better way to do so than studying till the ass-crack of dawn on a Friday night.

Fridays were the only day of the week you could spend peacefully unbothered. Every other day would consist of countless texts and calls from your friends asking about your whereabouts and why they almost never saw you around campus anymore.

To which you told them you were busy studying and thanked them for checking in on you. It wasn’t a complete lie, you were, in fact, busy studying. They never saw you because, you were always on your desk burying your face between the pages of a textbook. What you didn’t tell them was that you were so far ahead with the curriculum that you could go a whole two weeks without even touching any of your books and you wouldn’t be behind.

You never realized how much you had read ahead until a few days ago when your biology professor had only begun to teach you about DNA replication, transcription and translation. You had already covered half of it. 

Your professor always did say that the unspoken rule of studies was to always read ahead. Though you didn’t think he meant to this certain extent.

You hadn’t felt academic stress in a while due to your habit of studying so much, and you were happy about it of course, but holy fuck, you were so bored, and it was starting to get to you.

“Y/N!” perfect timing for your best friend to break you out of your thoughts. Mina happily pranced through your shared dorm room and over to you, “Mina” you said back, smiling, although not in the same enthusiasm, meh – A for effort. 

“Oh my god, you’re actually awake,” she said, placing herself on her bed while remaining eye contact with you.

“Well yeah, I have some topics I still need to cover before I go to bed,” Lies. You certainly didn’t have any topics you needed to cover. You would’ve gone to bed if you knew Mina was coming back to the dorm so early. It was Friday night after all, which meant that Mina was out partying with the rest of the guys. Not today, apparently.

“Isn’t there a party today?” you asked, flipping through the pages of the book in front of you, pretending to read through the paragraphs that seemed like nothing more than dull words.

“Well… yeah, but, I figured I’d rather spend my night with you – you know, since it’s... it’s been a while,” you immediately stopped fiddling with the paper, “oh,” was all you could say. “I-I mean, if you wanna study, you totally can! I don’t want to interrupt or – or anything.” You shook your head, “no, no… uhm, I could use a break anyway.” Her face relaxed.

“So… how’ve you been?” you looked around the room, “I’m okay, just studying, nothing else really,” you reassured her “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” she said, barely above a whisper, however you could still make out the melancholic tone hidden behind her voice.

“yeah… I’m sorry, I’m just – “

“studying? Yeah that seems to be your entire world lately.” She cut you off, her voice a little louder than it was previously. You opened your mouth to respond but – “Y/N c’mon, I know I haven’t necessarily been with you physically lately, but I’m not oblivious. Our exams are in a couple of months and you’re studying as if they’re tomorrow.” She explained all in one breath, “the curriculum this semester isn’t even that content-heavy, even the professors told us we could take it easy.”

“where are you going with this?” you asked in a weak voice. She seemed to have you all figured out. You truly underestimated how well your best friend understood you. “I just want to know why? Why are you avoiding your friends… why are you avoiding me?”

And then it came back. Everything you had been trying to avoid for the past two weeks came back. Jaehyun, the cheating, the assault, Jungkook. You began to feel your eyes stinging, subconsciously you averted them towards the ceiling. “Y/N, there’s something you’re not telling me. I want to help, please let me help.”

You made your way towards the bed, seating yourself next to her, “is this about Jaehyun? Do you miss hi–“

“No, God no I don’t, I’m so happy he’s out of my life,” she looked at you perplexed. And so, you told her. You told her absolutely everything, all the way from Jaehyun trying to touch you when you were trying to explain yourself to him, to the conversation you had with Jungkook in your dorm room several days ago.

“I’m gonna kill him,” you swiftly reached for her hand as you saw her attempt to rush out of your shared dorm, “no! I… It’s over now, he’s out of my life, there’s no reason to go look for him.”

“Of course there is! Why didn’t you–!” She yelled, however quickly stopped herself to calm down. “Why didn’t you tell anyone? He’s getting away with this when he deserves to rot in hell.” It wasn’t that simple. You never wanted to see him again, and telling any form of authority about what had happened certainly meant you were going to cross paths with him often.

Plus, it wasn’t even likely that they would’ve believed you, after all it was your word against his. There was no physical evidence of what he had done. You had your ripped clothes but you threw those away the day after the incident, you never wanted to look at them again and be reminded of this crap.

Then you had the bruises on your wrist, but Jaehyun could easily say that you guys had been into some sort of bdsm to make them believe him. They were also healed now, so there was no evidence at all to secure your side.

“I don’t want to constantly be reminded of what he did, I just want to move forward. Please, you can’t tell anyone.” Your voice cracked at the end, in which Mina reached out to hold your hand. “I don’t want anyone to know,” you cried.

“I’m so sorry, bug,” Mina rubbed your back empathetically, in a subtle attempt to calm you down. Though Mina tried her best to not scream at the top of her lungs, spitting out every profanity to curse Jaehyun. This wasn’t about her, and she knew that very well.

All she could do was comfort you and listen to everything you had bottled up for weeks. “You know what you need?” she smiled at you gently. You sniffled, rubbing your red, tear-stained cheeks, “what?”

“You need fresh air, to doll up and feel good! We all miss you so much Y/N, I don’t want you to spend another Friday night in here alone by yourself.” You raised an eyebrow, silently urging her to continue, “Wooyoung’s parent are out of town for the weekend so he’s hosting are party.”

“And?”

“And we’re going!” she clapped excitingly, “no Mina I–“ she held both your hands tightly, puppy eyes were presented right in front of you, “pleaseeee, just for an hour, you can leave after that if you don’t like it.” 

You thought about it for a moment. You did deserve a break, you needed to get out of the dorm anyway, have some fun with your friends, maybe even get a bit of well-deserved alcohol in your system.

“Fuck it, let’s do i–“

“YES! Okay, okay I know exactly what you’re wearing.” She rushed over to her closet, rummaging through fabric after fabric while you silently watched behind her, seated on your own bed. “Put this on right now,” You didn’t get a good look at the clothing item she threw at you, all you knew was that the fabric was quite tiny. It was a beautiful dark navy and black fabric that was smooth to the touch.

It was a woolen, striped bodycon dress. True to its name – it looked very tight. You looked at her perplexed, “that’s me being nice. My other option was throwing you my skirt that would barely cover your juicy ass.” You rolled your eyes, but smiled nonetheless, “fine, what shoes with?” she pointed at your black high-top converse that were placed neatly by the door. Alright, black converse it was.

–

“Y/N?” was the first thing you heard when walking through the door, entering the crowd of drunks. Before you stood your friends, the friends you had missed oh so much. Jimin was the first to run to you, lifting you off the ground to swing you around, “Y/N!” He laughed excitingly. Right behind him stood Seokjin, “Okay, I’ve had too much to drink guys I’m starting see Y/N,” you couldn’t help but laugh, “Hi Jin.”

One by one, they each gave you a heartwarming hug. Wow, you missed them, and you didn’t even realize, “about time you got out of the damn dorm,” Taehyung complained, you playfully slapped his shoulder. “You don’t get to say shit, you rot in your own dorm just as much as I do when you don’t have classes,” smiling, he scoffed, “I have altered my ways, about time you did too,” you shook your head.

You hadn’t noticed that an hour had already passed by, and you didn’t want to leave one bit. Your night was just getting started. Looking around you spotted all your friends, all but two. Neither had you seen the entire party: Yoongi and Jungkook.

“Jin!” you loudly spoke through the banging music, “yeah?!” he replied, “have you seen Yoongi?” you cupped your mouth in attempt to speak as clearly as possible, “What?! No thank you! I don’t wan’t Oolong tea. There’s booze why would I want tea?!” You rubbed your face, dragging Jin’s ear closer to your mouth, “Have you seen Yoongi?”

“OW, Jesus woman.” He rubbed his ear, “He should be in the kitchen,” you thanked him, and apologetically smiled for almost ripping his ear off.

You skipped your way through the heavy crowd of drunk youth. Some of which even looked younger than that. A string of ‘sorry’ and ‘excuse me’ was heard from you as you pushed your way to the kitchen.

“Yoongi?” he turned around, seeing you. He eyed the drink in his hand that resembled the color of piss, “I’ve had too much,” the bottom of the cup now faced the ceiling, the remainder of the liquid spilling down the edge of the cup and down the sink.

“Okay, you guys really have to stop doing that,” you laughed.

“Y/N? What are you doing here?” The mint-haired boy asked in a monotone, your smile faltered.

“I’m happy to see you too?” your voice was skeptical. He seemed annoyed, which frankly, you didn’t understand. You hadn’t seen the man in well over two weeks, no way had he found a reason to be mad at you unless you had happened to eat the last lamb skewer in his dream. He always did love his lamb skewers.

“’M sorry, my head’s spinning,” instantly your suspicion was replaced with worry. You quickly made your way to the sink and filled a glass with cold water and handed it to him, which he gratefully accepted. “How’ve you been?”

You sighed, “you want the rainbow-sprinkled version or the one that was dragged through the mud, shat and pissed on,” he couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I’ll take the piss-stained version, thank you.” He placed the red, water filled plastic cup next to him on the kitchen counter.

“Rough couple of weeks. I’m doing better though, so that’s something.” You shrugged your shoulders. Yoongi listened carefully, gently tilting his head to the side anticipating for you to keep going, however you didn’t, that was all you were going to say. Yoongi wasn’t stupid, clearly something had happened to make you disappear for weeks, but whatever it was it had to remain unknown for him – he wasn’t going to push you to talk to him.

“And where’s Jaehyun been through all of this?” he speculated.

“Uhm, we broke up,” you tried to laugh it off. His brows raised in surprise.

“Oh, well, I’m sorry–“ your hands swung in front of you to shake them. To Yoongi, you had most likely looked like you were sad from the breakup, understandably so. Afterall that is the typical reaction to a breakup, isn’t it?

“Don’t be! My god, no. It could – I’m not –“ you closed your eyes, sighing gently, “It was for the best.”

-

“I’m not going, Tae,” Jungkook pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and index finger, attempting to rub the non-existing headache out of his temples.

“Come on, Jungkook. It’s been a hot minute since you’ve partied with all of us,” a hot minute, was putting it lightly. Jungkook was currently in his own shared dorm with Taehyung, with a black DualShock controller seated in his lap – enjoying a game of overwatch shortly before Taehyung had dialed his number. Several empty packets of ramen placed randomly across the room. 

Different flavors of course. Variety was important.

“Can’t. ‘m busy.” Though Jungkook couldn’t see it, he was sure Taehyung had rolled his eyes through the other line. “Busy my ass,” Taehyung sighed, “you do this every week.”

“I wouldn’t have to do this every week if you would just stop asking,” Jungkook spat back, with a little more attitude than he had intended. “Jungshi,” the older friend started, “you can’t let this bother you forever,” he knew. Fuck, no one knew better than Jungkook that he couldn’t spend the rest of eternity sulking over this. Over you.

But no one knew how Jungkook was feeling either, every living fiber of his felt either conflicted or guilty. He couldn’t help but think that what had happened to you, was partially his fault – no, it was entirely his fault. Whatever Jaehyun had done was because of Jungkook.

Your words circled back and forth in his mind, day and night. Whenever he closed his eyes all he could see was your tear-stained orbs looking at him with so much hurt and hatred. Telling him to leave and that you never wanted to see him again.

All he wanted to do was talk to you, to know how you were feeling. Were you okay? Were you not? Jungkook had to make peace with the fact that he might in fact never get any answer for any of his questions. All he wanted was to see you, just for one small, useless moment.

He hadn’t seen you since that day. Frankly, it seemed like you had completely vanished from the face of the earth, even the guys hadn’t seen you. He managed to get a hold of Mina a few times, briefly asking of your whereabouts. She always tried her best to console and reassure him that you were okay, you were just always busy lately.

Busy.

You were always busy. Jungkook wasn’t stupid, he knew exactly what it meant: you were escaping.

Busy.

Oh, how Jungkook had grown to hate that word. How very hypocritical of him, he was mentally scolding you for using the lame excuse of being ‘busy’, all while doing the exact same behind the screen of his phone to his best friend.

“I just need time, hyung.” Jungkook tried to justify. “Time?” Taehyung scoffed, “You’ve had two weeks. I’m sorry Guk, but I’m not gonna sit around while I watch you completely lose yourself.” The younger slid further down the chair, staring blankly at the bright screen displaying the home-screen of his favorite video game.

“She’s here.”

Silence…

You… you were there? He could see you. Jungkook had a chance to see you. “Good to know,” was all he could say. “And you don’t give a rat’s ass?” Of course, he did, but he couldn’t because, “she doesn’t want to see me, hyung. If I show up, I’ll ruin her night. She isn’t hiding from the world anymore.”

“You can’t be sure– “

“Yes, I can,” Jungkook closed his eyes, a small exhale moved past his lips, “I can’t ruin this. Please don’t make me ruin this for her.” His voice was barely above a whisper. He felt weak. He couldn’t describe the growing urge he felt to rush over to whatever party you were at, just to see you. But he couldn’t be selfish. Not again.

Last time he acted selfishly he hurt you. He lost you. He wasn’t sure how it could get any worse – after all, you were out of his life, but Jungkook wasn’t willing to be daring, not if it meant it would hurt you again.

“Fine,” an extended beep was heard from the small speaker of the phone. Completely defeated, Jungkook gently threw his phone back onto his bed. Leaning back in his chair he faced the ceiling. He couldn’t seem to get himself to play another game, so shutting everything down, he went to get himself ready for bed.

Diving under the cool, fluffy sheets didn’t seem to be enough for Jungkook to knock out, which was odd. Jungkook could easily fall asleep anywhere on anything. One time he even managed to fall into a deep sleep after downing two 500ml Monster energy drinks. He had planned to pull an all-nighter with some of his online friends for a good few games of Valorant, the best way to do so was to shove an insanely unhealthy amount of energy drinks down the hatch.

He didn’t expect it to be so easy to fall asleep right away – he didn’t even remember walking over to his bed before dropping dead. But this, this was just frustrating.

He tossed and turned for what felt like hours, until when he finally felt his eyelids become heavy, a key was heard jiggling in the lock of the door. It must’ve taken Jungkook longer to fall asleep than he had anticipated if Taehyung had already decided to leave the party; that boy wouldn’t leave a party unless bits of the morning sunlight was peeking through the windows of the house of the host.

The door finally opened. Jungkook squinted his eyes, adjusting to the new light shining through the door frame. A black silhouette walked pasted the door. It wasn’t until Jungkook’s blurry vision had cleared up that he noticed a feminine like figure standing at the door. Not just anybody, no.

You. In fact.

Jungkook felt his heart begin to tie knots. He was dreaming for sure; there was no way you could just appear in his dorm of all dorms. But there you were, in the flesh. You gently clasped the bundle of keys in your palm, preventing them from making any further noise, taking soft strides through the room – you probably thought he was asleep.  

You quietly made your way over to Taehyung’s bed, opening the drawer of his nightstand. Jungkook’s eyes monitoring your every move went completely unnoticed by you. The poor boy was in awe, it was like you were an angel that had descended from heaven and blessed him with your presence. Frankly, in Jungkook’s eyes, you were an angel.

You let a small aha slip past your lips, in your hands was a turquoise polaroid camera. You neared the delicate camera to your face, making sure it was the right item through the darkness, and indeed it was.

About to make your way out of the dorm, your head turned slightly; in the direction of the boy that was currently sweating his balls off and his heart pounding like crazy. Fuck, did you see him looking at you? You must’ve, you wouldn’t look at him otherwise. Could you hear his heart beating through his ribcage? That has to be it, after all it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

He hurriedly closed his eyes, praying to the lord above that for once in Jungkook’s cursed life, the spirits would work in his favor. God, if you do this for me, I won’t fart on Taehyung’s head pillow anymore.

You slowly made your way over to Jungkook’s bed, with each step you took he felt a new set of sweat gather in his warm palms. He couldn’t feel anything, all he heard was the shuffle of his blanket. The blanket that was supposed to be on him.

While Jungkook had gone unnoticed to you, the absence of his soft, grey blanket on his body had been completely disregarded. He had tossed so much in his unreachable sleep that he had kicked his blanket right off of him.

Not only did Jungkook feel his body overcome in warmth, but his heart also danced at the thought of you going out of your way to cover him in his blanket. Your kindness really was out of this world.

No matter how many times someone had hurt you, you never failed to leave the ways of resentment and treat people with kindness. You were truly too kind for your own good. That was one of your qualities that Jungkook was most fond of, the world didn’t deserve you. it didn’t deserve an angel.

You on the other hand, were completely oblivious to the fact that the man in front of you was wide awake. You crouched down by the side of his bed, you really should get going, you weren’t supposed to linger for so long.

Your eyes trailed the sleeping beauty on the bed. He looked so peaceful, his long eyelashes resting on the top of his cheek, a few of the hairs grazing the scar on right side of the skin. His dark hair was sprawled over his forehead. His lips were sealed, but slightly pouty, they looked so soft. 

You couldn’t make much of his face, the only source of light being the moon light throw the window.

You hand moved on its own. Fingers trailing to the strands of the dark hair, moving the silky locks out of his face.

You wish things had been different between you. You’d be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t miss Jungkook, which is the exact lie you had been telling yourself for weeks. Even though he was right in front of you, you missed him. No, fuck. You couldn’t miss him, even though you wanted things to be different, they never could be.

You snapped out of your daze, removing your hands from his face, you stood up and turned your heel.

“Don’t leave.” You flinched, a small holy shit, was heard from you. Turning back around, you saw Jungkook in the exact same position you had left him in, the only difference was that his eyes were now open. The warm orbs you were completely dazed by were now looking at you.

You had to leave, but you couldn’t, your feet grew minds of their own, obediently staying in place.

Jungkook sat up from his bed, never breaking eye contact with you. He was now seated at the edge of his bed, hands on either side of his thighs, tightly clenching on the sheets beneath him in order to prevent himself from reaching out after you.

There was no exchange of words, you were both lost in each other’s gazes. You were clutching your jacket tightly, looking like a dear caught in head lights. You took a step backwards, gathering every ounce of power you had in your body to try and get out of there. You just couldn’t stay.

“Please,” his voice sounded broken. There it was again – the expression on his face you had never learned to read. His eyelids were droopy, eyebrows relaxed yet slightly furrowed.

He rose from his bed, testing the waters. He examined your reaction before moving any further. When he saw you standing completely still, he took a step forward; you didn’t move, so he took yet another step. That’s when you started to back away, you didn’t look scared or alarmed, so he continued.

This kept going until the back of your thighs met a desk you had failed to notice was there in the first place. You have got to start paying more attention to your surroundings.

Jungkook was now in front of you, eyes looking at yours, searching for any sign of uncertainty. But all he saw was sadness and hurt. His heart clenched in discomfort, because partially – if not all – of the hurt in your eyes was because of him.

He wanted to pour his heart out to you, tell you he was sorry for being an asshole. Tell you he would cut his heart into pieces and hand it to you one by one if that’s what it took to make you happy.

But he wanted to be cautious, he didn’t want to scare you off. So instead, he carefully, carefully, lifted his hand up to your face. The knuckle of his middle finger grazed the side of your cheek. You didn’t flinch.

He extended his fingers to hold your cheek in his palm, his thumb ever so slightly caressing the flush skin. It wasn’t until you leaned into his touch that he felt how warm you were. He could barely make out the light tint of a rosy color on your cheeks. Must’ve been from the booze you’ve ingested at the party, he thought.

Unbeknownst to him, you had barely had enough alcohol to call yourself tipsy.

Deep in your own thoughts, you felt Jungkook’s other hand slip around your waist, the fingers on your cheek descended down to accompany his other hand.

He was hugging you. His face was buried right in the crook of your neck, arms securely wrapped around your frame, fearing for his dear life that you were going to let go of him. His fragile soul couldn’t take it if you did.

You, however, couldn’t bring yourself to hug him back, not until you felt the skin on your shoulder grow wet. “I’m so sorry,” he breathed, barely above a whisper – audible to your ear, nonetheless.

He pulled away, his hands resting on your sides lamely. His eyes were glossy, the tip of his nose red, and a few tears had trailed down his cheeks, leaving stains of the salty water. “I’m – It’s my fault, all of it, I know I don’t deserve it but please forgive me.” he sniffled, “I know you hate me, and you have every right to – “

“I don’t hate you,” for the first time that night, you spoke to him. Your voice instantly sedated the distress in Jungkook. You wiped the tears streaming down his face with your cold thumb, which only caused more to fall. “You should… It’s all my fault.”

Although that had been your exact theory for the past weeks, you couldn’t bring yourself to believe that the statement was true anymore. You continuously blamed Jungkook for everything that had happened to you, but that wasn’t fair, you realized that now.

Because if Jungkook really was at fault, then so were you. After all, it takes two to tango.

“It’s not,” you tried to soothe the tremendous guilt you could recognize behind his doe eyes, it was the exact same guilt you had felt when you returned from the weekend at the summerhouse. The same guilt that had eaten every bit of your fiber. Blaming yourself for days for having cheated on your now ex-boyfriend who turned out to be the biggest piece of shit to walk the earth.

“You didn’t force me to do anything,” you admitted, “but that fucker – “ Jaehyun, Jungkook hissed.

“Anything that came after the summerhouse wasn’t your fault. Jaehyun showed me who he really was – an asshole in disguise,” at the mention of what you had been through, Jungkook’s grip on your sides tightened slightly. You knew he was blaming himself for what Jaehyun had done.

It wasn’t anyone but Jaehyun’s fault.

You cupped his face in both your hands, smiling softly, “please stop blaming yourself for something you had no control over.” You spoke to him, but also to yourself.

For the longest time you thought it was your fault, that if you hadn’t slept with Jungkook, that you and Jaehyun would still be happy and he would never had touched you like he did.

You and Jaehyun hadn’t been happy for a while, and if he hadn’t snapped you would’ve continued to date A-level garbage.

It took you some time to realize that it was never your fault, and it most certainly wasn’t Jungkook’s fault. Your stomach dropped at the thought of him blaming himself so mercilessly.  

He sniffled harder at your words, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorr–“

The kiss was soft. You could tell he completely froze against your lips. Your hands were still on his cheeks; the feel of the occasional tear grazed the skin of your fingers. It didn’t take long for him to melt completely against the plush of your warm lips.

His arms moved back around your waist, pulling you against him until you were flush against his chest. You pulled away. He followed you, refusing that’d be the end of your kiss. His pleading lips captured yours in a second kiss.

You wrapped your arms around his neck in an attempt to deepen the kiss, not having much room to move them any place else when Jungkook was pressing himself so hard against you.

“I missed you,” he breathed between the kiss “so much.” Fuck, if only he knew how much you had missed him, “I couldn’t bare not having you around me.” You hummed against his mouth, hoping he understood that you reciprocated.

You felt his warm tongue scrape against your top lip, pleading to have a taste of yours. You complied easily. Opening your mouth for him to explore the heavenly wonder that was your mouth.

You had kissed Jungkook before, but this felt different, it was softer, much more gentle. The gliding of his tongue against yours felt new, but so right.

You soon came to the agreement that kissing Jungkook was one of your favorite things to do. The slow dance of your lips increased the beating of your heart, you were sure he could feel it knock against his chest.

He lifted your body, as if you were a feather and seated you on the desk behind you, standing right between your legs. His hands resting on either thigh, gently caressing the bare flesh.

Your lips suddenly felt cold, opening your eyes you found Jungkook’s brown orbs staring right at you. Worry began to creep its way up your spine. “What’s wrong?”

“Do… Do you want me to stop?”

He was being careful. Careful not to cross any boundaries. He couldn’t fuck up again, not this time. You smiled at him. Taking his hand in yours, you placed a peck at the top of his palm, “not at all.”

Jungkook swears his heart melted then and there; the softness in your eyes, the relaxed tone of your voice, there was no hesitation. You felt safe, which was everything Jungkook ever wanted.

He leaned back in, you closed your eyes, puckering up thinking he was going in for another kiss. You felt a pair of soft bud-like lips at the side of your jaw, “beautiful,” he whispered to himself. He kissed the top of your covered shoulder.

You leaned back slightly, both hands steady behind you to support you weight. Jungkook leaned forward, following you, refusing that any sort of distance was between you.

Even though you had given him the ok, you could feel Jungkook was slightly hesitant in his moves, which was nothing like the Jungkook you had in front of you almost an entire month ago. He was so confident and cocky, yet now, he seemed unsure.

He was afraid of touching you and screwing up everything.

“I won’t leave this time,” you whispered, moving your head so that you were now looking at him, “I’m not gonna run away.” You took his hand in yours, guiding them towards your tits. Jungkook watched in awe as his hand completely engulfed your breast.

You let go of his hand when you felt him begin to fondle with the perky tit. He moved back to your neck, but instead of small affectionate kisses, he now began to place open-mouthed kisses at the expanse of your neck. You tilted your head to the side, allowing him more space; you felt the corners of his lips curl slightly.

You gasped at the feeling of his tongue gliding over the skin, slapping your hand over your mouth. While one of his hands were busy with your chest, the other removed the hand from your face, “don’t, you sound so pretty.”

The fingers that were once wrapped around your hand moved down your torso, grazing the apex of your thigh. With his mouth still busy on your neck, he hoisted the length of your stripped dress (that was actually Mina’s), just enough to expose most of your legs, but not enough to reveal the fabric of your underwear.

The pad of his cold fingers slithered over the black textile experimentally. Carefully brushing over your clothed clit, you whimpered. You sounded downright touch deprived.

The lustful boy in front of you began sucking on your neck, all while cupping your clothed cunt without warning. “Fuck,” You jumped at the overwhelming touch.

“So sensitive” he mumbled, “aren’t you, angel,” you hummed at the rightfully missed affectionate name. You gripped his shoulders when you felt him massage a little harsher at your mound. Your underwear was beginning to stick to your folds embarrassingly fast.

Jungkook curled a finger around the section of fabric that was directly against your pussy. Providing access for his hand to touch your warmth without removing your underwear. A muffled, high pitched moan of his name rolled off your tongue at his slender finger sliding into your velvety walls.

You were already so wet, and you were sure he noticed how embarrassed you were about it, with the way you were discreetly trying to close your legs.

He used his other hand to keep your legs apart. “Don’t be shy,” he soothed, “I love this pretty” he scraped his finger against the spongy spot, “pretty pussy.”

“Jungkook, please,” you whined, it only caused Jungkook to chuckle whole-heartedly at your neediness, “what is it, baby?” he pressed his thumb against your clit, gently tapping at it. You shuttered.

“I, fuck, I–“ your thighs began to tense, “tell me,” he urged. You were trying your best, but every sentence you were attempted to formulate was instantly thrown out the window the second Jungkook added another finger into your cunt.

His fingers were scraping at your walls, pumping into you or scissoring. The dangerous combination of all of the above, and his thumb rubbing meaningless patterns on your nub had you seeing stars.

Too focused on his magical fingers, you overlooked the small detail of Jungkook now sitting between your thighs, kneeling. He rubbed your thigh soothingly.

Deciding to help you out, Jungkook wrapped his fingers around the lame excuse of your panties, dragging the pathetic fabric down your legs. You were now completely exposed.

Jungkook eyes you between your legs, shamelessly. “Pretty girl,” he wooed. He pulled his fingers out of you, you whined at the empty feeling.

He brought his soaked fingers up to his tongue, slowly licking them clean, all while maintaining eye contact with you. Telling yourself you could cum from the sight alone was in no way an understatement.

“Mmm, good, so fucking good.” He purred against his fingers. “Bet it would taste even better from here,” teasingly, he slid his finger up your soaked slit, punctuating his sentence, “wouldn’t it, angel?” You quivered at his words. “is that what you want?” yes. “your words, pretty girl.”  

“Yes – Yes, please. Please eat me out,” without further ado, Jungkook wasted no time placing a much-deserved kiss on your swollen bud. You moaned in relief, throwing your head back at the feeling of Jungkook’s lips circling your clit.

You bucked your hips at the feeling of his tongue sloppily gliding against your folds. Your fingers found themselves tangled in Jungkook’s dark and messy locks. He praised you.

Small grunts and low moans were felt against your warm cunt, “such a pretty pussy,” he mumbled to himself against you. You clenched around nothing at the compliment.

“Feels so good,” you cooed, “yeah?” small licks turned into long laps, “yeah – fuck, don’t stop.” Stopping was the furthest thing from Jungkook’s mind.

You felt knots beginning to tie at the pit of your stomach, Jungkook could easily feel you were about to burst. The constant tugging of his hair and the pulsating cunt was all he needed, to know he was doing his job right.

“I love seeing you so needy for me,” at this point, you’re chanting his name shamelessly. It isn’t until Jungkook adds a finger lamely circling your clit that you feel you’re about to snap. The familiar ache between your legs became almost unbearable, you threw your head back and shut your eyes.

“Eyes on me when you cum,” you obliged. Bending your head forward to watch Jungkook eat your cunt as if he hadn’t eaten in days. The view was the most sinful yet the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. His brows are furrowed, he murmured against your warmth. You occasionally saw the tip of his nose, and when you did it was absolutely soaked in your arousal.

“Oh my fuck– Jungkook.”

It’s only when Jungkook uttered his next sentence that you felt the knot in your stomach unravel. “Fuck, baby, I could eat you out for the rest of my life,” you’re breaking apart.

Your hips surge forward, pathetically grinding on Jungkook’s face — he lets you. Helping you ride out your high, he slowly laps his tongue over your spasming pussy. He’s watching your every move, “delicious,” he smiled innocently as if his mouth wasn’t completely covered in your cum.

He stood up once again, licked his lips clean in the process and you swore you just felt something trail down your thigh. Once he was at eye-level with you, you looked down and saw the tent that has formed in his sweatpants.

Naturally, you go to grab his cock. Not wanting to waste time, you wrapped your fingers around it over the material. He visibly shuttered at the feeling, and it wasn’t until then that you realized you hadn’t touched Jungkook – at all. Not even back at the summer house.

Here you were, complaining over how selfish Jaehyun used to be whenever you two were having sex, saying he never touched you properly or showed any ounce of effort.

You weren’t any different. So far, Jungkook had only been the giver, and you had been a spoiled pillow princess.

Trailing your eyes back up to Jungkook, you watched him carefully as you curled a finger around the waistband of his sweatpants and boxers simultaneously, dragging the unnecessary material down his legs.

His cock sprung up, hitting his stomach. The tip was red and hot, several drops of precum dripped down the angry shaft. He was impossibly hard and you began to feel guilt overcome you for having been so selfish with pleasure. Determined to make it up to him, you placed all five tips of your fingers at the very apex of his cock, sliding down until your palm comes in contact with the tip.

The prettiest whine you’d ever heard rolled off of Jungkook’s lips, he watched you attentively, “y-you don’t have to–“ you shushed him, “I want to.”

You twist your wrist and positioned your fingers around his dick. Using your thumb to spread the precum, you lightly brush his frenulum in which he grunts, “fuck, babyyy,” unintentionally thrusting up into your hand.

You squeezed harder and began to pump his cock. The surprising rotation of your wrist was enough to have him slap both hands on either side of the desk, completely trapping you.

“Faster,” he pleads, “go faster,” and you do. His head drops down to your shoulder. He tried to distract himself by sucking another bruise onto the skin of your neck, but it was completely hopeless with the pace your hand was pumping.

Rhythmically, he was subtly thrusting his hips into your hand, matching the pace. He couldn’t wait to fuck you, so for the time being, he had to fuck your hand. And God, it felt so good it was almost pathetic how much a handjob could rile him up.

You felt his hips stutter, and now it was his turn to chant your name. You placed a soothing kiss on the expanse of his shoulder, “Mmm gonna – haah, shit,” You hurriedly pushed him back gently and dropped to your knees. “What are you – Fuck!”

Most of his length is now shoved down as much as your gag reflex allows, and it isn’t until you have Jungkook’s cock halfway down your throat that you realize how fucking impressive his size is. The thought of having him stretch you out with his girth is enough to make you wet all over again.

Jungkook can’t resist collecting your strands of hair up into a ponytail and piston into your mouth, “s-sorry, I’m sorry,” strings of apologies are heard throughout the room, along with the sound of you choking. Your eyes begin to sting, fresh tears falling down the side of your cheek. He continues to fuck your throat, and contrary to his belief, you fucking love it.

You steady yourself by grabbing the sides of his thighs. Echoes of Jungkook’s moans and heavy sighs fill the room, alongside the sound of his cock continuously thrusting down your throat.

“so pretty, you’re s-so fucking pretty like this,” you hum at his praise, “like the feeling of my cock down your throat, huh? Dirty girl, fuck,” at this point your mascara had completely stained your cheeks.

The sight of your brows furrowed, eyes filled with tears, mascara-stained cheeks, and the absolute cherry on top: Jungkook repeatedly plunging his impossibly hard cock down your sore throat, was all it took for him to blow his load.

You’ve never heard such a moan come from Jungkook, it sounded broken and you’re certain it’s the most beautiful thing you’ll ever hear in your life. You felt the warm, white liquid coat the walls of your cheeks and throat and you made sure to swallow every single drop.

You’re stopped from licking his dick clean when Jungkook pulls you back up to meet him at eye level. He lifts you up to sit at the desk again, hands on either side of you, he looks you dead in the eye, “I want to fuck you,” he says bluntly.

Your eyes widen slightly at his directness. Confused, you look down at his dick and holy fuck – he was still incredibly hard. Seriously, this boy had some serious stamina. You assumed his extraordinary stamina must’ve developed all those years in the gym.

You felt tiny under his gaze, you meet his eyes, nonetheless.

“Come here and fuck me then.” You felt bold when a shaky breath left his mouth. He hoisted both your legs up to his waist, causing you to lean back slightly, both your hands were forced to sit behind you once again to prevent yourself from falling backwards.

Without another word, Jungkook sealed the distance between your lips with a sweet kiss.

“Ohmygod–” was all you were able to say when his cock slowly disappeared inside of you, your walls of warmth hugging his length. Once again, you had underestimated just how big Jungkook actually was. He snaked a hand to meet the small of your back to steady himself before he finally began to pull himself out, leaving his tip, only to push back in.

You whined at the delicious stretch. Setting a fixed pace, Jungkook repeatedly thrusted into you, while his lips were busy on yours. You wrapped both arms around his neck, tangling your fingers in the hairs of his nape. “Mmm fuck,” he moaned deliciously against your lips.

“Feels good?” he asked, parting your lips with a soft chu. You nodded; your eyelids lazily drooped over your orbs; eyebrows scrunched together at the feeling of his tip kissing your cervix. He felt so good.

“Say it,” he rasped, “tell me how good it feels,” his thrusts grew harder, “tell me how good I’m fucking this pretty pussy. My pussy,” his pussy, yes, it was his.

You cried at the claim. “It feels so good Guk – fuck I love when you fuck me like this.”

He pounded harder, as if he was trying to punctuate something. Both your breaths quickened, equally as eager to chase your own high as you were each other’s. Pushing his chests flush against yours, he leaned his forehead against yours, neither of you broke eye contact.

“L-love you,” he cried. “I love you.”

It felt as if all the air in your lungs was punched out of you, you couldn’t pinpoint whether it was Jungkook’s hips thrusting into yours unforgivingly, or if it was the fact that the boy you basically watched grow up happened to be the same person you’ve liked since middle-school, standing in front of you, telling you he loves you.  

You lied to yourself, you genuinely thought whatever strong feeling you felt for Jungkook had died down, that you had truly moved on. You even got a boyfriend and all that.

But it wasn’t until you heard Jungkook utter those three words that you realized they never went away, no – you had hidden those feelings away in a box and chained several chains around it to keep them suppressed.

You loved him too, of course you did. You never stopped loving him for fucks sake. It pains you to think about how much crap both of you were put through for you to realize this.

“I love you.”

12-year-old Y/N was applauding and smiling like crazy; you finally said it. The love you had carried for Jungkook in your poor overwhelmed heart was finally spilled all over the table.

Jungkook’s hips stuttered at your reciprocating words. He hadn’t expected you to say it back, but for the love of all that is holy; he loved hearing you say it, it sounded so pretty coming from you. “Say it again,” he was now smiling, and you couldn’t help but smile back at him.

His eyes were glowing, so of course you had to say it again, “I love you. Fuck – I always have.”

“Again.”

“Jeon Jungkook,” completely out of breath, you caressed the side of his cheek, watching as his eyes teared up once again. He only fastened his pace, if that was even humanly possible. Lovingly, you ran your thumb across the scar that laid right on his cheek, “I am in love with you.”

That being said – Jungkook exploded, with you following right after him. You were holding on to each other for dear life, with slow pumps to help ride out your highs. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head, at your final clench.

Small strings of I love you’s were heard from Jungkook who was breathlessly panting into your neck. He kissed your temple, guiding a small string of hair behind your ear.

“You know,” he started, “I’ve been in love with you since freshman year of high school,” he smiled adoringly at you, “the first day we had a biology class, I saw you slip a note into my locker that read ‘if I could be a nitrogen base, I’d be adenine so I could be paired with U.’ and there was a small purple bellflower taped to the corner of the paper. You’ve had my heart ever since that day.”

Your eyes widened, physically cringing at yourself in your teenage years, “I can’t believe you knew it was me, and really? That’s what it took for you to like me back?” You giggled, “you can’t blame me, you were, and still are, extremely adorable.” He shrugged his shoulders. You gently pushed his shoulders, feeling your face turn red at the reminder of your rather sappy biology pick up line.

“Well, I’ve loved you since middle school. I win this one, Jeon.”

-

Saturday 02:57AM

“What’s taking so long, Y/N should be back by now,” Jin winced, eyeing the small watch on his wrist.

Taehyung and Mina looked at each other, “do you think it worked?” Mina questioned, a beaming smile plastered across her face, “yup,” Taehyung crossed his arms proudly. “Operation tell-Y/N-to-get-polaroid-camera-because-Taehyung’s-too-drunk-for-his-own-good-so-that-she-could-be-trapped-in-the-same-room-as-Jungkook-and-make-up… Was a success!”

-

taglist: @selinashere @jjenjen @ladyartemesia @emsuzz @iamjiminsfloor @silvlyjmhwa

[janiedean]

First off, I'm a HUGE fan of I'll be the frosting to your cupcake, one of the first fics I reread and a comfort fic staple of mine from the on.

Having said that, I recently learned English isnt your first language, and I'm shook. How do you write in such a flowy ample vocabulary precise english? Are you half British or sth? Have you live outside of Italy? What's your secret? What are your tips, please help a sister in need!

first of all thank you so much you're too kind ;v; and I'm really happy that it's been... ALMOST TEN YEARS and it still holds up ;v;

that said hahaha well I'M VERY HAPPY I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY MASTERED THE POWER OF NOT MAKING IT KNOWN ENGLISH IS NOT MY MOTHER TONGUE MUAHAHAH but in all seriousness:

no I'm not half british, my aunt was a high school english teacher but that was it and she definitely didn't speak english to me growing up beyond giving me the basics

no I haven't lived outside Italy just been on vacation in english speaking places so those two guesses aren't correct but

take into account that I'm 33 and I started learning english srsly when I was like twelve and I started writing in english when I was.... nineteen going on twenty so the way I write now is because I pretty much wrote in english nonstop since then, obviously whatever I wrote in 2007 had a worse vocabular/wasn't as good as it is now so count that a lot of that is practice

now basically i know it'll sound like ARE YOU SERIOUS but: I learned first translating songs by hand which meant I spent two years with a vocabulary translating bruce springsteen's and bon jovi's opera omnia that I had booklets for (YES THE INTERNET WAS ON 56K I HAD THE DAMNED LYRIC BOOKLETS RIP) and that.. I mean it didn't give me the widest vocab ever but it got me started, and then I jumped the bridge and started reading in english at.... eh I was 15 but like I got into stephen king, read a few of his books in italian, then got one I already had in italian in english for kicks and realized it... was better not translated so I swallowed the whole OH GOD I WON'T UNDERSTAND 1/5TH OF THE WORDS thing and went for it and like I can 100% assure you that if you get through the dark tower's second book and the indecent level of nyc slang in it you won't ever go back

(then being a masochist I went straight for steinbeck and if you manage the grapes of wrath at the level I was you're good X°D)

now like... that shows because every single time I take english tests like HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE WORDS/WHAT IS YOUR WORDING CHOICE/WHAT DOES YOUR WRITING SOUND LIKE I without fail get as results that I pronounce like someone from new jersey/pennsylvania and I use words like someone from maine and that I read like king which... LIKE I LEARNED 95% OF MY ENGLISH on all of that so that makes sense

now the thing is after king I basically went like okay if that writer's english or writes in english I'm not checking the translations so basically I've read in english for twenty years and like... if you want to write you have to read and like I swear that when I was in high school I didn't need to open grammar books beyond the basics or actually study english at all bc having actually read stuff I like... having seen the word/expressions used on paper meant I knew how to use them so there was that but like the point is that if you read a lot your vocabulary automatically gets wider and if you see how published people you like write that helps you too because it gives you the background, makes you see how people break the rules etc

with this I mean... like you know everyone is like YOU HAVE TO WRITE SHORT SENTENCES IN ENGLISH UNLESS YOU'RE A CLASSICAL AUTHOR OR YOU'RE WRONG? okay like I always struggled with it bc I tend to be long-winded, then one day I ran into michael chabon who not only has the kind of refined vocab I can only dream of, but he also has no issue dropping six-lines long sentences (or a 12 pages stream of consciousness of a parrot without a dot bless him) and he won a pulitzer prize and while I am certainly not michael chabon and I can only dream of being 10% as good when it comes to that mix of craft, if he can do that then who stops me from six-lines sentences? yeah, no one XD

and I mean like... just to say one re how you re-elaborate things, the whole thing I do with using parentheses on another new line to say how characters are feeling or switch pov for a moment etc etc is a thing I absolutely lifted from king bc when I read him doing it I decided it was genius, but like at some point I started doubling or tripling the parentheses if I wanted to show what someone was thinking superficially and subconsciously which is a thing king doesn't do but at some point it happened and I liked it so I did it, and that's like the only conscious example I can give you but like you develop your style also based on what you like reading and what comes easy to you but that's things you find out through practice and again... if you like specific writers most likely it'll show up in your writing but that's fine everyone has their role models

also like... I personally don't gaf if supposed english tradition says I can't do something I'd do writing in italian ie abusing semicolons and long-winded sentences, like... if you're good at specific thing that your language allows and english doesn't don't gaf and write it in english anyway who cares

tldr the tips are: read a lot in english, consume a lot of media in english, practice a lot because you get better/get the hand of it with time (again if you read my lost fanfic on lj written in 2008-2011 it's nowhere near the same level as what I write now but not even the stuff I wrote in my spn days is at the level I am now etc), read a lot also in your own language or in any other you know, write as much as you can, if you feel like you're copying your favorite writer don't gaf and go ahead anyway at some point you'll sound like you and not like whoever your fave writer is and be constant because again 50% is reading a lot and 50% is practice, I know it sounds like the discovery of hot water but I swear I managed that without living anywhere else and only reading/writing/talking to people on the internet so... it does work X°D

<3

[pparkerpoetry]

Face Reality (Part 3)

Title: The Void Becoming His Best Friend (you tried to stop a god? i’m still here)

Summary: Tommy searches for a way to get to Ranboo. Ranboo isn't having fun. Things that have been done here are permanent, there's no escaping what happened, and Ranboo can't help but feel like there's no hope.

Will Tommy reach him in time to prove otherwise?

WARNING: SUICIDAL THOUGHTS

Part 1 Part 4

Masterlist

It was a while later, and three of the four people were awake and thinking. 

“Tommy, I get that you want hope and that you’re optimistic, but really? ‘Oh, we just gotta waltz up to the enderman and give it the old chat’ really, Tommy?” Techno asked, unhappy that his slumber had been interrupted while Tubbo got to rest.

“But we could find him! You’ve got so many books here, surely one of them is on enderman language.” Tommy argued. “What’re you gonna do, just abandon Ranboo?”

There was silence in the cottage. It was deafening.

“What the… no! I don’t get why you’re so content to just leave it alone, how do you sleep at night?” Tommy exploded. “How do you sleep at night knowing that somewhere, Ranboo is all alone, just like I was? I know what he’s gone through, you don’t. You only know riches and pride. So how about once, just once, you get off your pedestal and get your head out of your ass to help me find my friend?”

“Tommy-” Phil tried to interject.

“No, you don’t get to interrupt me. You two only wanted to use him- not even Tubbo is completely innocent, he used some pretty questionable methods to try to restore his memory- but at least he had good intentions! You just wanted to use him as what, a secret weapon to help you get your way?”

Silence fell again, until Techno heaved a heavy sigh.

“Fine, Tommy. I’m sure that at least the villagers have a book that might help. Just… don’t get your hopes up. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not going to get hurt, because I’m not going to stop until Ranboo is home.” Tommy retorted, getting up to begin his work.

In the following days, Tubbo left for Snowchester, for he had other priorities. He wished he could stay, but he wasn’t sure he completely trusted his room mates yet. He’d visit soon, but ultimately, he wasn’t part of the second search.

Technoblade did help Tommy in finding books and scriptures that might help him, but he didn’t have spare time other than that. He had pets to tend to, farms to harvest, journeys to travel. He’d be there for the major parts of the research, but ultimately, he wasn’t part of the second search. 

Phil helped in his own way. He kept the food plentiful and warm, he made sure the woodpile outside was always ready to fuel the fire, he made sure that in the late nights where Tommy had stayed up, he found his way to bed. He made sure that Tommy was well taken care of, but ultimately, he wasn’t part of the second search.

Tommy dove into his quest to bring Ranboo back. He travelled to a multitude of villages, he ransacked Techno’s library, he wouldn’t sleep until he had finished that page- that chapter- the whole book. He wouldn’t eat until he’d found one more hint, he wouldn’t rest. Tommy was doing everything in his power to succeed. He was the second search.

It seemed like ages to Tommy, by the time he found a reasonable script of text that would help him learn the language, but maybe that was because he pulled one-nighters more than he slept through the starry skies. 

The book itself was small and unassuming, and to be honest, he had almost passed it by without bothering to check. But, in the end, he was glad that he did check it, because the purple cover and black binding held all of the answers that he had been looking for. 

The pages were old and crackled as Tommy flipped through them, he was almost scared that they’d dissolve right in his hands. The handwriting was beautifully curved, and it seemed to give off glowing purple particles every few minutes. He looked through it quickly, and he grinned, because there on the pages, was a way to communicate to the only way to find his friend.

It took him weeks to figure out how to make the guttural chirps and various noises, and he knew it would take even longer to learn it fluently, so he figured it was best to just translate as he went. So, on a bright, sunny day, Tommy went outside in the snow. There was no one around, they were all off in their places, he didn’t know where. He only knew where the enderman was.

It was old now, that lanky creature, since it was already a considerable age when it had reached the overworld. It’s vibrant skin had faded to a dull grey, and its warbling cries were hoarse. It pried its eyes open as Tommy approached, and its gaze lazily shifted to the book that he held. The look in its eyes was almost one of… recognition. 

“Hello?” Tommy tested, unsure of how this would work. He wasn’t sure if he trusted the writing yet.

The enderman let out a similar sound to the trill that he had tried, so he supposed it was fine. Was this working?

Tommy flipped through the book he held, finding the words he wanted to say. It was slow, but it was working. “Where… boy… go?” Not the greatest grammatically, but it got his point across.

The enderman let out a huff of air, settling down in its boat. It was silent for a moment before looking back at Tommy. “Hybrid?”

Once he found the word that he thought the enderman had said, he nodded frantically. “Where?”

There was now a sad look in the enderman’s eyes, but the way its teeth were bared almost made it seem like it was smiling. What was going on?

“Where?” Tommy asked again, more aggressively this time.

A soft crooning came out of the enderman. It held emotion, it held regret, it held everything that Tommy never would have thought endermen would feel. It took longer to find the translation now. When he did, he wasn’t sure if it was a clear answer.

“Called home?” He repeated.

The enderman nodded. “The boy was called home.”

“Where is home?” Tommy asked. Ranboo had a home other than here? Where was it?

“The End.” 

Tommy scrunched up his eyebrows. The end? “End of what?”

“Home.”

No matter how much Tommy tried, the enderman kept repeating those two phrases. Home. The end. He never answered where home was, never answered what it was the end of. Was it the end of their home, Ranboo returning? Tommy didn’t know.

He got up to leave after a few hours of trying, tired of listening to the same words over and over again. As he stood, the enderman said one last thing.

“Find him. Hurry.”

The voice was so genuine, so worried, that Tommy just nodded and didn’t bother telling the enderman that he was going as fast as he could.

_____________

That night at dinner, Tommy brought up what he had heard. Techno and Phil were just as well off as he was- confused and angry because of it.

“Tell me it again?” Techno asked.

“The boy was called home, the end, home. It kept repeating that, like some weirdo.” Tommy scoffed.

“Pass the salt,” Phil said, before continuing. “Ranboo went home, but as far as we know he doesn't have another home here, right?” He got confirmation, so he rushed to finish. “Well, Ranboo’s a hybrid, so what I’m trying to say is… what if he went back home, but to the endermen? There’s gotta be a place where they all exist, right? We just gotta figure out how to get there.”

They thought about that for a moment.

“Yeah, but that still doesn’t explain the end thing. The end of a story? I don’t get it.” Tommy said, frustrated.

Techno chucked. “You don’t get a lot of things, Tommy.” He let out an indignant noise when he was smacked by a dark grey wing. “Phil, aren’t you going to tell him to stop it?”

Phil laughed. “Tommy, don’t hit your brother.”

Tommy stopped, but he couldn’t help but think that Phil hadn’t done anything when Techno was trying to kill him way back when, in L’manberg. He shook his head as if that would help clear it. Those times had passed, at least he had a family. That was more than Ranboo could say.

Unless the endermen were his family. Maybe he wouldn’t even want to come back. Maybe this was all useless.

____________

When Tommy tried to research a home for the endermen, he came up with nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. To the world around him, endermen just popped into existence when they wanted to, but he knew something was wrong. He needed answers.

So Tommy did something he hadn’t done in a long time. Not since right after Ranboo went missing and they didn’t even realize it. He put on his boots, he put on a determined look and he picked up his communicator. 

“Hey, Sam. Mind heading to the prison? I fancy a visit to that green-looking bitch.”

It was no less ominous than the last time he had been there, and you could tell that no one had visited in a while. After a long wait, when he finally got through the lava, he saw Dream. 

He looked significantly worse than last time, but Tommy didn’t feel any sympathy. He got what he deserved.

“Hey, Tommy.” Dream drawled, sitting on the floor in the corner. 

Tommy nodded. “Hey Dream. Listen, I need some information. I need to know where the home of the endermen is. I figured you might know.”

“It’s gonna cost you, Tommy. I-”

“I’m not going to call for your release, so you can just forget that right now.”

Dream laughed. “I’m not stupid. I know that I’m stuck here until I can figure out how to escape. I was gonna say, if you want this information, I’m not going to revive Wilbur. This kind of information is valuable, I need to make sure you really want it.”

Tommy inhaled quickly, and looked away, shoving his hands in his pockets. He didn’t like how his eyes filled with tears at the mention of his older brother. He didn’t like how even then, in that moment, Dream still had power over him, trying to scrabble for even the slightest bit of hold on him.

“Think it over, Tommy. This isn’t a rushed decision.”

Tommy glared at the man, but his brain rushed with thoughts. The most prominent? 

Wilbur was gone. He didn’t want to come back. One of his brothers was too far gone to be helped, but there was still one that he had the power to save. He couldn’t do both.

“Just give me the information, Dream, and I’ll leave you alone again.”

“You’re doing all of this for Ranboo? Are you sure he’s worth it?”

Tommy rolled his eyes to hide his insecurity and didn't bother asking how Dream knew. “Shut it, Dream. I’m not going to give up on him like everyone else. So give me that information, and we’ll see what other purposes we can have for you besides rotting in hell.”

_____________

Dream ended up writing out some stuff in one of the many books that he had, and Tommy left him with a middle finger in the air and a smile on his face.

“You all set?” Awesamdude had asked, and for once, Tommy was able to say, truthfully, that he had never been better.

______________

He was back at the cottage, sitting at the dining room table, the simple leather book open to the lazy scrawl of Dream’s writing. There wasn’t much, for even Dream had his things that he didn’t know, but there was enough that surely they’ll be able to find the enderman home. Tommy scanned the book and-

“That motherfucker.” 

Phil looked over. “What?”

“You wanna know what the home of the endermen is called? Huh, Phil? You wanna know? Jesus.” Tommy raged.

Techno popped into the room. “Well, I want to know. What is it?”

“The End.” Tommy said, running a hand over his face. “I can’t believe it. I was all ‘the end of what’ when it was a name the whole time? Man.”

Techno laughed, but Phil didn’t. He had some questions. “Well, does it say how to get there, or are we just as well off as we were?”

Tommy squinted at the words on the page. “It says there’s a portal that we have to put eye of enders on. I’d always wondered what those things were for. Huh. Oh, here we go. The portal can be found in a fortress, uhh… there’s a lot of rooms in a fortress, so we need to find the portal one.”

Technoblade stopped laughing. “Does it say what the portal looks like?”

“A circle of sand-like yellow bricks that have some sort of blue substance on it? That doesn’t make sense.” Tommy muttered to himself, but Techno just groaned. 

“I am such an idiot.” At a look from Tommy, he elaborated. “Tommy, we’ve been using the portal as a table this whole time.” 

________________

After another week of preparation, they all stood around the portal. 

Well, not everyone, because the room was pretty small, but there were a few people there. Phil and Techno were there, Tubbo was there. Tommy was there. Fundy wasn’t, and Niki wasn’t, but there were people there. They were all geared up and ready to go, all prepared to go fetch Ranboo back. 

They had eyes of ender. 

They just had to be placed.

Tommy wasn’t sure if he was ready, because he’d spent months on this. Years, if you count the first search. He had grown, in those years. He was still Tommyinnit, legendary fighter. He was still immature sometimes, he still swore, he still had fun. But yeah, he had changed. He wasn’t innocent or naive anymore. Was he ever? His laughs weren’t so carefree, his smiles weren’t so sincere, his eyes didn’t shine with the mischief that they used to. He had grown, and he was ready for this. He placed the enders into the portal.

Nothing happened.

“What?” Tommy asked. “What? No, no, no, no, Dream said this would work. It has to work. This is the only way to get there- this has to work.” His breathing quickened and he grabbed the book, flipping it over and searching the words again. “Yeah- it’s supposed to work-”

Phil sighed. “I don’t know, Tommy. Maybe it’s just a regular table. Maybe it’s not a portal.”

Techno was silent, but he nodded. 

Tubbo didn’t say anything. 

Tommy didn’t know which one was worse.

His wings circled his body as he fell to sit on the ground, knees pulled up against his chest. “It was supposed to work.” Tommy’s voice cracked, and he didn’t have the energy to groan at it. “Why didn’t it work?”

There was silence. He knew they’d be leaving soon. 

Before they could, though, there was a soft gust of wind. They all turned to the doorway of the room, where a shadow stood. 

“Who are you?” Techno asked, raising his axe.

“Calm down, Blood god.” The being sneered. “I’m not here for you.” The being drifted over to where Tommy sat and gave out a quiet cluck. “Aw, the scripts really haven’t been kind to you, have they? No matter. Do you want to go through the portal?”

“Yeah.” Tommy’s response was too small-sounding for his liking.

The deity looked at the room, and hummed. “I can’t let all four of you through, and two of you couldn’t even travel through the End without those handy wings… But, I only promised Ranboo that I’d let someone through if they truly were looking for him.” The piercing gaze turned to Phil. “So you can understand why you can’t go through either. Only Tommy can go through, and that is final.”

“How do you know my name?” Tommy asked, dragging himself to his feet. 

“Oh, Tommy.” The deity laughed, waving its hand and doing away with the portal, only to wave it again and the portal was back, only this time the middle of it was taken up by a black expanse, scattered with stars. “You’ve been trying to kill a god, but you were looking in the wrong places. Sure, you locked up a wannabe, but I’m still here. Go through the portal, Tommy. It’ll be open as long as it takes you, but don’t expect to be in my good graces again. You’ve lived life on a thin line, Tommyinnit. Eventually, you’re going to fall.”

Tommy hesitated, but he was given a harsh push and he fell through the portal, screaming.

_______________

His back hit the ground and the air left his lungs, leaving him gasping. When he rolled over, he noticed that what he was standing on was definitely not dirt. Because, last time he checked, dirt was not yellow.

Was it snow?

He got up onto his feet and stretched his wings, turning in a slow circle. There was no land in sight, in any direction, and he certainly did not know where to go for sure. He had a hunch, but his hunches were barely right.

He ended up deciding to just pick a direction to fly in, and hope he encountered a city to ask for a route to Ranboo or something, and he wasn’t going to question why his method succeeded. 

It just didn’t work out exactly how he thought it would,  but it worked.

When he landed in the city, the endermen avoided his gaze. He’d never seen so many in one spot, and he’d never seen any so mad. It looked like a relatively new settlement, but he plucked up the courage to speak to one.

“Hello?”

One glared at the space between his eyes. “What, Human?”

“Where is hybrid boy?” Tommy asked, hoping they got what he was trying to say, hoping desperately that this was a city that knew Ranboo. 

He got a response, but it wasn’t a positive one. It was a hiss, a scream, a yell of such pure and unfiltered anger and disgust that Tommy took a full step backwards. The enderman pointed in a direction. “Kill him if you want to. We have no use for him. Now go, before we kill you.”

Tommy didn’t understand the entirety of the words, but he got the gist of it. Kill? Why would they think he wanted to kill Ranboo? Why did they hate him so much?

He ran to the edge of the floating island he was on and leaped, letting his wings carry him. He traveled for ages, but eventually, another island came into sight. Only, instead of a heavily populated city, all that was left was ruins.

_______________

Ranboo didn’t do much on the first few days after he was abandoned for the… third? Time. The only thing that kept him going was the fact that his animals needed tending to. It was the only thing that kept him alive, that kept him from finding the void more appealing than it already was. They’d be all alone, no one would find them.

No one deserved to be alone.

He stopped writing in his memory book. It hurt too much, to pick up that pen and have to face all that had happened, but he couldn’t burn it. It hurt too much, to flip through the pages that he had been so happy in, still alone but happy. He thought maybe, if he didn’t remember it happening, it wouldn’t have. TIme would go in reverse. He wasn’t stuck here. Surely, someone would come for him. Why was he here again? He didn’t remember.

He didn’t want to remember.

After a week, he got angry. He had internalized his pain for so long, maybe he deserved an opportunity to let it out. So he did. He let it all out, he screamed as he let his true height show, as his body was surrounded with floating purple particles. He didn’t remember what happened, but he blacked out and when he woke up, the city was destroyed. It was only when he opened his eyes that he realized what had stopped him. One of his parrots had been caught in the crossfire.

Wasn’t everyone?

The parrot got buried. It took work, but he couldn’t just toss the body in the void. 

He started talking to himself. “What if I act as enderman-like as possible? Will they come back?” 

“What if I punish myself? Will they come back?”

“What if I make myself worth it? Will they come back?.”

Eventually, it got worse. 

“Please, I’ll do anything, I want to go back. I made a mistake, they didn’t care for me but maybe if I come back, they will. Maybe if I lose the part of me that they wanted to use, they’ll see me as someone to care for.”

Who was he kidding. They’d always use him.

Ranboo started crying more. It always hurt, but sometimes he liked it. Sometimes the dull pain was a nice reminder that he wasn’t dead, yet. He fell asleep at night crying, and would wake up with a headache. He’d shake and scream, he’d panic and have his breath speed up, but he made it through it.

At some point, he couldn’t remember when, he stopped crying. He couldn’t feel the pain anymore. The stinging had faded. He didn’t cry at night (was it night? The sky just stared endlessly at him. He didn’t remember what time it was.) anymore. He stayed awake most of the time. When he did cry, it still didn’t hurt. It took him a while, but he got the courage to look into the water bucket he had brought with him. He wished he didn’t. His face was covered in ugly red and maroon scars, deep and aching. They’d never heal. This was something he���d have to live with forever. Maybe forever wouldn’t last that long.

He started dipping his hands into the water instead of crying. It burned more.

It seemed like months passed before he got used to his whole situation. Sure, he still pondered on what could have been done differently. What if he never left his shack? L’manberg? The End, the first time? He couldn’t tell where the mistakes and bad decisions began.

He could feel himself adapt. 

His hearing was more sensitive, for without the constant buzz of endermen, the End was dead quiet. Maybe that wasn’t the best metaphor, though. 

His eyesight was better, but it was different. He wasn’t sure how to describe it. Dull? Maybe it came from staring into the void. 

He did keep talking, but only spoke in the human dialect when the voice of Dream came to visit him. It wasn’t that often, but it kept him company. He never got that closure that everyone told him he needed. Most other times he used the endermen warbles that he had been shunned for forgetting, hoping that it might bring them back.

DId he want them back?

Time passed. He wasn’t sure if it was slowly or not, because he couldn’t tell time at all. He measured time by when his pets died, first the other parrot, then one cat, then his dog, then Enderchest. Enderpearl was the last to go, of old age or lack of food. He guessed nothing but endermen could survive in the End. Was he part of that?

He already felt half-dead. What was the difference? 

He knew time had passed. He was no fool, he knew it left him behind like everyone else. He lived in his ruins alone, and he learned to tolerate it. No one used him. There was no one to use him, and no one to use him against, but he glossed over the details.

What if things had gone differently?

He couldn’t think like that. They never would go differently. He was stuck here, and maybe he’d learn to love it.

The void was becoming his best friend. 

Days went by in a steady routine of the same thing over and over again, a haze that he could never be broken out of. At least, that’s what he always thought. 

Until he woke up one day and heard something for the first time since he’d last felt pain from the water on his hands and had screamed. He didn’t know what it was, but as it got closer, his ears hurt more and more. He decided to curl up in his house until it was gone.

It didn’t go away. It got worse.

It stopped for a second, then it got way worse but- was that- no, it couldn’t be. Was that- was that- English?

“Ranboo? Ranboo, are you here?”

He whimpered, and the noise paused, replaced with the sound of feet hitting the ground. A shadow came across the doorway, though the room was already dark. 

“Ranboo?”

He put his hands over his ears, and he heard a soft ‘oh’.

The voice spoke soft nothings, comforting words that he hadn’t heard in so long. It was a while before he felt like he could open his eyes. When he did, he gave a quiet screech of surprise.

“Tommy?”

The blond smiled. “Hey, buddy.”

Tommy was almost an adult, or was already one, either way he was old enough that his eyes told weary stories of his battles but young enough that his bones still had spirit. 

“Are you real? There’s no way you’re real- you’re fake, you’ve got to be, you came after all this time?”

Tommy’s grin faltered. “I can’t understand you that well. You wanna talk in a language we’re both fluent in?”

Ranboo almost laughed, because that was such a Tommy thing to say, but instead, he felt tears welling in his eyes. He sniffled a little bit, and suddenly he was being hugged- and surely, it shouldn’t have been so nice, but it had been so long since he had last had one that he cried, and he hadn’t cried for such a long time, but it felt good to feel something again. It felt good to just be held, because it felt so good to be comforted and cared for. 

Ranboo didn’t notice when Tommy brought him outside, but it was brought to his attention when Tommy said something about it, in better lighting.

“Oh, Ranboo, what happened to you?”

Ranboo didn’t respond, he was burrowed too far into a hug, and the gentle touches on his scars were more comforting than painful.

“Ranboo, I know you haven’t seen me in a while, but we gotta go back. Phil, Tubbo and Tech are all waiting for you.”

He barely registered it, but he noticed the fond nickname that Technoblade had been given, and suddenly he felt guilty for intruding on the probable whole family. “I don’t want to get in the way of your true family.” He said sleepily.

As he drifted off into the first peaceful sleep since before he found this hell, safe in Tommy’s arms, he heard one last thing.

“Aw, but you are my true family, big man.”

[hunterxloser]

sneak preview

It was probably around the age of fifteen that Kite met Pariston Hill for the first time. Ging-san had brought Kite with him to the Hunter Association headquarters lobby, given him a brief list of orders (don’t get into trouble, don’t go anywhere, don’t talk to Pariston Hill about your nen training, don’t get into a fight, don’t steal from anyone) and turned to go. “I’m hungry,” Kite said. “We’ll go out for dinner afterward,” Ging-san said as he walked away. “Somewhere nice. I won’t be long, just wait for me here.” So Kite sat down in one of the blue plastic chairs and picked at the armrest and ran through the rules in his head. He had a granola bar in an inner pocket of his coat, but he was saving it for an emergency. He looked around. The big white lobby was empty, except for him. Even the front desk was unmanned. The shimmering chandelier above him - far above, as the ceiling must have extended almost three stories - cast the whole space into brilliant light. A table beside him had magazines on it: a financial thing of some kind, several news and gossip pieces, and - paydirt! - a nature magazine. Its cover featured a photo of a bear catching a fish, the droplets of frozen water shining in the long-dead light in which the photo had been taken, the bear’s jaws immobilized in an eternal snarl. Kite picked up the magazine and flipped through it, looking at the pictures. Then he flipped through it again and painstakingly read all the headlines. Then he flipped through it upside down. The article that seemed the most interesting was something about bats. Kite tried to read it but there were too many words he didn’t know and the little letters started giving him a headache. His stomach rumbled. He ripped the pages out of the magazine and folded them up carefully in his pocket to read later. He squirmed in the chair and looked around. There was a clock behind the front desk, but he didn’t know what time he had arrived so he didn’t know how long it had been. Kite got up and walked over to the front desk. It was one of those two-tiered desks that they sometimes had in hotels, a narrow, taller level on the customer side and a lower level for the worker. The customer side had a cup of pens with the Hunter Association logo on them, and a glass fishbowl half full of pink and green mints, each individually wrapped in plastic. Kite glanced around. He knew enough to recognize free items when he saw them, but sometimes people didn’t like it when he took the items that were free for others. But no one was around. Kite helped himself to a pen and took a big handful of mints and put it in his coat pocket. Then he took another handful of mints and went back to his chair and sat down and started eating them. He wanted to check what was behind the desk, on the worker side, but that was rarely acceptable behaviour and he didn’t want anyone to get mad at him. And even if there was food back there, Ging-san had said they would go out for dinner afterward. So Kite didn’t need to steal any food that might conceivably have been hidden behind a reception desk. He told himself. The mints were pretty good, but after he finished eating them he just felt hungrier and a little queasy. He dropped the wrappers in the trash can and looked at the clock. He couldn’t remember what the time had been when he had last looked at it. Now it was 3:50 p.m. A woman with dark purple hair walked through the lobby, her heels clicking on the tile, and disappeared through another door. Kite picked up the nature magazine again and tried a second time to read it. Many of the stories had little boxes with writing in them, separate from the main text. Kite picked the first box in an article on Nightingales in Azia. (He knew what nightingales were from the book on birds, Azia from Ging-san’s geography lessons.) He got out his new pen and underlined all the words he didn’t recognize at first glance, and then read the box, omitting the underlined words. He got, The _ _ nightingale is one of the least commonly _ birds in the southern _ of the Asian continent. Its _ feathers and _ _ allow it easy _ among the _ trees, but each year hundreds of _ bird watchers flock to _ in hopes of catching a _ of this _ bird. Beside the box was a photo of a green bird, nearly invisible amongst green leaves. Kite read his version of the text box again and thought about it. “This bird is rare to see in Azia,” he translated aloud. “Its feathers are green so it can hide in the trees. But each year hundreds of... bird watchers want to catch it. Want to catch its...” He tried to sound out the missing word. “Want to catch its... g-l-i-m-p-s-e.” Not so complicated, really. He didn’t know why they had to use so many extra words. He also didn’t know what the point of sounding out words was if he didn’t know what they meant anyway, but at least it was easier to do without Ging-san sighing impatiently at him. He looked at the clock. It was 4:37. Finding a boring page in the magazine, he took out the pen again and wrote his name in the margin. kite He wrote it again, with a capital letter. Kite He wrote it in all caps, with an exclamation mark. KITE! Then he wrote, Kite is the studint of Ging-san. Then he wrote, Kite = hunter. He rifled in his safest inner pocket and pulled out the granola bar and his Hunter license. He put the granola bar back and looked at the license, turning it over and over in his hands for the thousandth time. Its edges were so clean and hard. It didn’t have his name on it. He thought about trying to write his name on it with the pen, but that might be vandalism. He tucked the license away and shifted in the chair and sighed. He looked at the clock. 4:44. A door at the far end of the lobby opened and a man walked in. His suit was teal, and shimmered like the fish on the cover of the wildlife magazine. His hair was blond. He made a beeline for Kite, smiling all the while. Kite sat up stiffly as the man approached, every muscle tense and ready to run. But this man didn’t seem like a threat, based on both his demeanour and what Kite could perceive of his aura. “Hello,” the man said, stopping right in front of him. “Kite?” Kite said nothing. “Kite,” the man said with a brilliant smile, stooping down a little to be at the same height that Kite was, sitting, “I’m Pariston Hill. A friend of Ging’s. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He held out a hand. His nails were perfectly manicured, shiny round ovals. A friend of Ging’s. Kite shook his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he echoed. His voice sounded thin and slightly hoarse. “My, how polite. What a delightful young person you are.” Pariston’s smile didn’t flicker. “Will you come with me to my office?” he asked. “I’d like to get to know you over tea and snacks.” “Yes,” Kite said quickly. “That sounds very nice.” It would be okay as long as he didn’t discuss his training. Pariston laughed and clapped his hands, straightening up. The light danced on his suit as he moved. “Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “Follow me!”

[break-slash]

Puzzleship JP & KR Fancomic Recommendation List

UPDATE (19-12-2020): Added two more artists and two more titles on the Japanese lists!

I don’t consider myself as someone very tidy and organized, but I just like making lists of the things I love, somehow. Hence this post. I haven’t been in the fandom for long but I thought I’d share some of my favorites primarily from two sites: pixiv and postype. Most of the postype ones are behind paywall, and I will mark them differently.

Some of my favorites come from the same artists, so I’ll also link their pixiv profile on top of my favorite work of them.

(I actually bookmarked a lot and picking them isn’t an easy task, so I will update this step by step. If you see only a link of an artist, that’s the reason, but I can guarantee you will love their works! Feel free to recommend me yours through reblogs or DM as well!)

Japanese

Artist: CYHGM

She is a Chinese and is more active on Weibo (she posted tons of puzzleship there, but my Mandarin is beyond rusty so I could only cry in despair lmao), but she has two fancomics that I absolutely adore of. Those two mentioned fancomics are:

The Past and The Future. You can check my translation for this one here. It tells about Atem who gets transported to 3000 years later before his coronation, and that’s where he met post-canon!Yugi. Just... everything about this comic is so wonderful. I teared up at the last page, not gonna lie ;_;

The Pharaoh and The Fairy: An Ancient Egypt-slash-fantasy AU featuring the S0/TOEI casts. The fairy Yugi was saved by Atem, and it’s an obligatory for fairies to grant their savior’s wishes. However, Atem doesn’t exactly have something he wants of, and this confuses Yugi on how he should repay him back. Pure undiluted sugar, and fairy!Yugi is just so cute.

Artist: Fushitas

Arguably one of the most popular Puzzleship fanartists in the JP fandom (look at their number of followers on Twitter, man), but maybe it’s also due to the fact they were in AoT fandom too. They’re mostly active on Twitter, and if you also watch Zexal, they draw tons of Yuma-centric pairings too. They have released lots of books, and their prices on the reseller sites are... well, let’s just say, unbelievable. Just to show how famous they are. 

From everlasting to everlasting: Set after DSOD. A mysterious figure appears in front of Atem, claiming to be his queen. Everyone in the after life somehow acknowledges this person, which makes him even more confused because he’s the only one unaware of this. On the living realm, Yugi who is on the way to his home got hit by a truck (isekai much??) and when he woke up, he suddenly plays the role of Atem’s queen. I’ve always adored Fushitas’ drawing, and this is no exception. The story is pretty simple, but is still good! The ending of this comic is everything I’ve always wanted from the canon lol. 

The King’s Guest: Ancient Egypt AU. The councils are starting to get worried because Atem shows no interest in marrying someone, so Shimon opens up a “chance” sort of for civilians to become “someone for the Pharaoh to talk with”. The civilian Yugi takes this chance right off the bat, and stuff happens? This one is just so sweet and the misunderstanding later in the story kinda cracks me up. I really love the way they build the two’s chemistry in here.

Artist: usi 

They only draw two puzzleship fancomics, but both are so good and explores the themes I’ve loved from the pairing.

The Lotus’ Devil: Set post-canon with a flashback. It tells about Yugi’s regret in the past where he wanted to show Atem a small pool supposed to be full of lotus flower only to arrive seeing them not blooming. Fast forward to the post-canon, he found out that there’s actually a monster residing on that pool. I really, really loved the ending scene of this one.

Who’s The Detestable, Fortunate Guy Here: I think this is set sometime in the canon story, although the exact timing is unclear. It’s a short comic of Yugi asking Atem to pretend to be his date and go on a “dating practice”. A very pleasant hurt-and-comfort kind of story, and who doesn’t love a story of them dating anyways? :”D

Artist: Houzuki Anzu

She doesn’t draw much YGO, but she has some Arc-V and 5D’s fanarts too if you watch the series! 

Hourglass: Sets after the Memory World arc. Yugi keeps hearing a strange sound inside his mind, and he finds out there’s a huge hourglass standing there, guarded by the will of Millenium Puzzle. Apparently, the hourglass is linked to Atem’s remaining time in the living realm? Anyways, the ending of this comic might look like a cliffhanger, but I personally think it isn’t. I love the theme this comic picks to explore and the way it is presented.

Present: Same setting with Hourglass, but this one focuses more on Atem sorting out his feelings about the Ceremonial Duel and what he has learned from Yugi in general. It’s a very nice extra detail that the canon slightly lacks of, and I just love... bittersweet stuff in general haha.

Artist: Chiriko

Are you the type who wants puzzleship to be full of happiness and fluff and nothing else? Well, she has a number of comics to fill that need! I actually love all of her works, but if I have to pick, these two are my favorite:

...Don’t Ever Leave Me Again: A short story about Yugi having a nightmare of where he was stuck in the fire accident at Otogi’s store. Well... this isn’t a fluff sort of, but it’s... a happy ending still? /shot

[Untitled]: A dialogue-less comic, but this is the sort of post-canon what-if that I really, really like. Atem stroking Yugi’s face while sleeping is just... so soft man....

Artist: Komori Nea

Their art style was one of those that’s very noticeable and has a certain charm on it. They are pretty active on Twitter, and even draws puzzle comics once in a while that haven’t been uploaded to pixiv (which is why I recommend you to check their twitter gallery too haha)

The Soul Stays Awake: Post!DSOD. Atem comes back from afterlife in hoping that Yugi would be as happy as he is, but months after, Atem’s existence still hasn’t been registered on Yugi’s life just yet. Another post!DSOD take that I like which involves the fear of another farewell and uncertainty, but this is a good hurt-and-comfort. I swear, it’ll hurt you just... for a while. :”)

The Attack’s Aim: Set during the canon series. A short comic mostly portraying Yugi’s hidden strength but also the tenacity of duelist that is not only targeted toward the opponent, but also to Atem, without the person actually noticing it. The last page of this one is so... soft and gentle I had to put it into this list.

Artist: caf

Often draw with S0/TOEI style, characters and characterization in mind. Their coloring in illustrations is so soft, plus artists who specialize in S0/TOEI style can’t be found so easily. Their comic style is not a manga-like one and they write the dialogues with handwriting, but if you can read hiragana and write and understand how kanji works (so you can write it on translation machine), their comics are easy to understand!

magenta: S0/TOEI AU where Yugi and Atem are two separate person. A short comic of Yugi lying under the rain as Atem searches for his whereabouts. I really love the way they portray the rain and the atmosphere surrounding the scene. Or maybe I’m just biased with rains in general, ahahaha.

Yuugi and Mao’s Stay Home: Same AU as above. Our two boys has to face the same shit we do IRL in this comic, which is quarantine. Atem offers to cook something for Yugi since he can’t eat outside. You love seeing Yugi eating stuff? This is a perfect comic for y’all. 

Artist: Kkyut

Artist: Kayu(i)

Others:

Gemini: As Atem comes back to the living world, Yugi faces the dilemma of having being separated by “his other self” physically and mentally. A short comic, but the lines the artist used are so... beautiful. Like, the way they describe Yugi’s loneliness?? Just hits the park so much. 

Until The Hourglass Runs Out: Set after the Memory World Arc. As their farewell day goes closer, Yugi decides to give Atem a full control of his body at school so he could spend his time with Jounouchi and the gang more. However, things don’t go as smooth as Yugi had expected. If you like that little teeny weeny pain before the Ceremonial Duel, this comic perfectly suits the taste. 

see you sometime: Post-canon. Mahaad offers Atem a chance to meet Yugi in the living realm one more time, but with several conditions. Firstly, he could only stay for a day at maximum. Secondly, Yugi won’t be able to remember who he spent his time with after Atem hangs out with him. Thirdly, Yugi will not be able to “recognize” this Atem; he will only be registered in Yugi’s mind as a new classmate. A bittersweet comic in whole, but seeing the two having fun like a normal teenager would just makes me grin.

After The Rain: A dialogue-less comic, so everyone would be able to read this right away. A short comic of the two, but still very cute and wholesome!

The Tropics of Horus: Post!DSOD, Atem has to chase Kisara who lingers around Kaiba’s soul and he needs Yugi’s help to bring Kisara back to afterlife, but he has his own ulterior motive. This manga is so dialogue-heavy and might be hard to dissect especially if you don’t understand JP grammar and context, but the time spent trying to understand the meaning behind every words will be worth it. That much I guarantee. Just... everything about this comic, and how Atem’s “ulterior motive” connects to our boys’ adventure in canon series are so well planned. You can also purchase the R18 version in a form of the book here (toranoana)

Christmas Day: S0/TOEI puzzleship hint (dark puzzle???). There’s something in store for Yugi in Christmas, but this one might surprise Yugi a lot. It’s not that the prompt of “Atem gets separated from Yugi temporarily” is uncommon, but it is still a sweet one and makes you smile throughout the pages. 

Korean

All titles mentioned here are not free unless mentioned otherwise. Also I don’t understand Korean except being able to read Yugi and Atem’s name, so my story interpretation might be wrong. If you understand Korean, I’d really love for you input! ;_; 

You can check out on how to buy comics from postype here

Yugi’s 2020 Birthday Anthology: Rain and After End

This is an anthology consisting of four titles, but they share the same (or similar) setting where Atem is reincarnated, but he doesn’t remember his past (or has not yet, depending on how the story portrays it). Some are age-gap (adult!Yugi and high school student!Atem), so you might want to consider that if it’s not your cup of tea.

To Like Someone is to...: Age-gap setting. Mostly tells about how Yugi deals with his feeling as the reincarnated Atem in front of him turns out to have a feeling on him. I like how the story’s conclusion is that Yugi will sort it out slowly while also teasing Atem how he’s “too early” to date Yugi w.

In A Circle: A story about how the two met through an online chess game. Iirc Yugi works in a game company and Atem is sort of a famous e-sports player in this setting. There’s a lot of dialogue in this one and the app sometimes can’t process them very well, but I liked what I can understand from it! not very convincing is it haha i’m sorry i shouldn’t have done this

Familiarity: Age-gap setting, where Yugi becomes Atem’s caretaker. The comic mostly focuses on how Atem notices how kind (or too kind) Yugi is sometimes, but there are times where he feels distant. The plot where Atem gets into a fight with the other kid in his school because the kid mocks Yugi, and how Yugi just... accepts it even when Atem doesn’t want to say his reason of punching the kid is just.... god... I love this kind of age-gap setting like this I guess ;_;

Touchdown: Age-gap setting, but Atem is older in here (university student). The two goes to Atem’s university festival and they think about their own feeling when they got separated. On their way to drop Atem off, he confesses to Yugi, but Yugi is still unsure on his overlapping feeling between the reincarnated Atem and the Atem he knows. Make sure you play Motohiro Hata’s Rain and Aimer’s After Rain during the car scene to make the “rain” mood works even better :”)

Others:

Try For Point: A continuation of Touchdown, where Atem (like, the one from the past) visits Yugi in his dream and helps Yugi in sorting out is his feeling toward his reincarnated self. Atem’s advice is so sweet and there’s one certain line from this comic that I remember very deeply - there’s a part where he says, “If you don’t pull out the card, you won’t know what card it is, right?” to help Yugi clearing out his hesitancy ;w; at this point, I curse myself for not being able to understand Korean

[steve0discusses]

The Fullmetal Alchemist Live Action Movie Part 7: More Philosopher Stones than their PC Farm Can Possibly Render

So last we left off, a bunch of weird stuff was happening. Mustang just set Envy on fire, Lust and Gluttony kind of walked up from stage left, and Ed and Hawkeye just broke out of bougie jail and barged through a chain link fence on some Jeep. Good thing Mustang is here to explain it all to us:

(FYI I am so bad at spelling homunculus. I don’t even know which way is real anymore.)

What is incredible about this movie is just how much everyone else already knows, while Ed knows freaking nothing. Also, if you know about homunculi, then you know about sorcerer stones, and you’d know about...most of the things in Fullmetal Alchemist. Assuming that Mustang, who can look at a homunculus tattoo and be like “yep that’s a homunculus” doesn’t know anything else is kind of a big leap.

This actor had fun. I legitimately enjoy the actor who plays Mustang, I really do.

Anyway, we do get a little bit more explanation at this point by going back to the part where Hughes dies and just...showing it a second time but with this extra  reveal:

(see Hughes die yet again under the cut because this movie did it not just once but twice)

It’s at this point that Hughes turns to the phone and in his dying breath is like “It’s lab 5, go to the old POW camp, at lab 5” but not only did I think that the person on the line was the general (Because Hughes originally said it was the general) apparently now the person on the line is...Mustang? And that’s why Mustang knew about lab 5?

Like it’s...it’s just kind of confusing. I know this plot because I’ve seen the anime, but if you have not seen the anime beforehand or read the books, you’d be so freakin up a creek right now about why we saw this scene twice, and why it was completely different both times.

To make things even more confusing, that whole Tucker side plot is so random, that not even our baddies know what is going on with that whole Tucker side plot.

Anyway we have to give Gluttony and Envy have to do something in order to make their presence make sense. Honestly Gluttony just needs to have a single line in this movie.

Just everything is that same shiny neutral Phong. Look at all that Phong. Like other parts of this movie are passable, this was just so hilariously overlooked.

And like I dunno if this was a teeth harness or not but damn. Damn that looks stupid from the back, hahaha. He kind of lumbers slowly after these 9 dudes (same extras we’ve seen everywhere else, ps—this is still just the same guys) and it’s not all that scary because like...they can easily outrun him. The only way you can die to Gluttony is if you trip and then take a nap for a little bit.

Mustang gets hurt and it’s kind of funny how they shot it. It was actually rough to cap because they have to do so many tricks to not show us exactly what is happening, so they rely on sounds, on zooming in on people’s shocked expressions, because they Do Not Have The Budget to do more than this.

I don’t remember if this happened in the anime, too. Like from this point forward everything is kind of like “can you spot the source material?” because it’s just become so jumbled at this point.

Ed, who as you can imagine is a bundle of emotions by default, suddenly gets really protective of his mean Dad although like...we’ve barely made Mustang seem like a Father. Hell, we’ve barely made Ed seem like a kid. Why would he get weird and conflicted now?

Just the awkward teenage energy that only occasionally stems off of Ed is very unpredictable.

This is a full grown man.

Finally, we make it to Lab Number Five, the correct one this time. It’s got an alchemy circle…

It’s got a ceiling full of...zombie corpses, if you squint real good because I have to shrink all these images (Yes, they fit in the zombie corpses, but could not fit in the North or Father or Ling Yao or like anything Armstrong) It’s got everything that we need to put that nail into that Fullmetal Alchemist coffin, but ran out of time to fully explain or do.

It’s even got Al!

Yep, this is happening now, this part of the show. Ed is just having a WILD TIME trying to keep up with it and so are we.

So apparently Shou could just turn Al “off” this whole time. This explains why Al was just chilling under a blanket for 36 hours, but like...doesn’t really explain how Shou can do this or why he is bothering to do it right now.

But we need Shou because...well someone has to tell Ed what the plot is and what he should be doing at this very moment.

(Winry is here too)

So, with the threat of Winry getting shot in the head, Shou Tucker demands that Ed make it impossible to do any magic, because magic is very expensive and hard to animate. I could be wrong...but I’m pretty sure he also took off his right arm in the show at some point nearish to the end...I think? Forgive me, everything before 2020 is kind of a haze in my memory.

PS him ripping his hand off with all these sparks everywhere gave me serious Star Wars prequel vibes that I can’t explain. Something about the CGI, something about this contrived mess was like “Ah, I’ve felt this insanity before...long ago in a simpler time” and it was kind of nostalgic for me.

GOL LOOK AT THAT.

This Mickey Mouse glove just hot chilling on that sparking end. Hahaha I love it so much!

Shou just...delivers one of the most important reveals, sending Ed on a bit of a spirit journey because the stones he’s wanted for so long are actually very bad.

As you can imagine, because Ed likes to freak out, he has a big ass freak out, to top all freak outs. This actor spent like sooo much of his time just screaming at the ground. Which, I mean this is a shonen, so that checks out.

I’m just letting you know in case you decide to watch this movie and you have some epilepsy issues--skip this part. Just skip it. I don’t personally have it, but like...they went kind of extra in this part.

Now unlike the show, this movie has like...no apology for Dr Marcoh. Freakin stabbed him through the chest and was like “I don’t care if it means we can’t have the original FMA ending I freakin hate this guy” and you know...good on you, movie. Dr Marcoh was a really bad person. Thank you for not even attempting to justify this godawful man.

This crazy ass fanfiction movie.

Anyway, Shou directs Ed to look 10 feet up to get the rest of that juicy content. That Juicy FMA DLC that was within eye distance this entire time but youknow...cropped offscreen so it just didn’t exist.

Can’t believe this wasn’t the FIRST THING you’d notice when coming into this room, since Ed has been hardwired for red stones for like 10+ years. But youknow.

Anyways, we’re getting a ton of visual elements from FMA, just checking off that check list here in the last 1/3 of the movie. But wait, it gets weirder.

What I love about this is that Shou tells us all of this stuff because I guess Ed asked for Philosopher stones once, and even Shou is like...heyyy I figured it out! But like...hell would anyone even want to do this though?

Because that’s what happens when you have Shou freakin Tucker reveal the big master plan when he is not the big master. Like this explains nothing about Father, about Ed’s Dad, about the homunculi, about the corpses in the ceiling, like there’s just no explanation, other than just –“hey! Look at this atrocity I found just now!”

There is actually a horror element to that, where you don’t need to explain everything if you’re doing horror. If this were a horror movie, this would probably...be fine. You could have a fully explained movie by just saying “they turned POW camp people into rocks and now the zombies are here!” and that would be fine.

But it’s just...that isn’t this movie. I had so many expectations. And honestly...I expected way too much from 1.5 hours of content.

So Shou pulls a gun on Ed, which makes sense. Ed is lookin to make stones, and if stones are made out of people—then it’s time to kill Ed. First thing that make sense in this movie, but I don’t know if it makes sense coming from Shou freakin Tucker who made it seem like he just wanted to kill Ed because Ed got him arrested that one time.

It may have been just the translation on my end but like...Shou’s reason for pulling a gun out here was a little nonsense. But Shou himself is already a little nonsense anyway.

So we say goodbye, for the last time, being honest—he’s fully dead—he’s not coming back—to Shou Freakin Tucker. You were a mess Shou. I won’t miss you.

And if I forgot that this guy comes back, I fully apologize ahead of time, but I am 99% positive that I remembered that this guy never comes back.

(He might come back.)

And then Lust is like “Hakuro why did you do that? Like what are you even doing???”

And everyone else is like “Oh, the General. Of course. Why didn’t I uhhh….see that coming?”

Because they had to condense a whole bunch of corrupt Generals for this movie into one character, and so I guess Hakuro took it for the team?

Also these guys are here.

Just every single person standing in this room is pretty confused, as you can imagine. No one really expects to open up Volume 2 of FMA and it’s accidentally printed the last page of the entire series.

Anyway, that’s all for this 15 minutes (It was actually a little short 15 because there was ton of caps) I’m very tired because I did this workout routine with bro that was like 300 squats and I don’t know what day it is. I wrote “update blog” in my bullet journal (because it’s January, so I’m bullet journaling) so I’m just gonna do that because I want to use this green sparkly jelly pen and cross off all of today. Mm. Satisfying.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/fma/chrono

[thirstythylacine]

Stress Relief

Alright. This damn band and fandom has got the best of me finally.

Haven't written in over 10 years. Definitely never written smut before.

I've given in! There are pages and pages of smut notes in my journals, phone, and computer so I guess this is my new hobby in quarantine.

Relatively unedited so apologies there. 

Yell at me here, or yell at me on AO3 under the same name. 

Also I have a very limited knowledge of how the hell this cursed site works despite being on it for most of its existence. So if there's shit I didn't tag correct here let me know.

Also Tumblr apparently hates making the italicized bits appear here so I’ll reblog this in a sec with the AO3 link if you, like me, really like seeing the emphasis :)

I am otherwise too lazy currently to figure it out or fix it and I’m already reposting this since Tumblr also apparently hates outside links! Thanks Hell Site. 

STRESS RELIEF

He’s been working on this project for a week straight and as usual it’s cutting into personal hours. Though that doesn’t faze him, scribbling notes in the margin of this current translation and completely forgetting to call for dinner. It’s 10:30 at night and I’ve brought him ever meal today as well as coffee multiple times. At this point it’s half just so I can make sure he’s still awake and breathing.

His dinner looks untouched and he’s got ink on his cheek. I don’t even think he noticed me come in until I was right behind his chair with my hands on his shoulders. He only startles a bit and I lean forward to peek at his progress. “You’ve gotten far today” I note, “Though dinner was over two hours ago you know.”

He sighs sitting back against me. “I know Tesoro, I know. This one is just.....very difficult. And she wants it earlier than the rest.” He drops the pen and stretches his fingers. “If I can get this one to her before Friday I think we can have a few days off finally.”

It would be a relief for us both to have a few days off. He squirms as I press at the knots in his shoulder.

"I will literally stand guard outside this office to fend people off if it will help. I was starting to think I might have to tie you up somewhere to keep you from coming into the office this weekend.” He breathes in sharply once and there's a moment of stillness before he’s laughing quietly. Interesting.

I’m solidly around the front side of his desk before I notice the flush on his face. Double interesting.

The last paper in front of him has been moved aside in favor of the dinner plate. He’s frowning at it. The dish isn’t one that would be particularly appetizing cold. “I think......perhaps a trip to the kitchen might serve us better?” I offer. “You can find something better than that and I can find something for desert. I think Papa mentioned there was pie tonight.”

Pie makes a good dinner.” He says with a quirk of the eyebrow. Problem solved.

———

“Hey!” I gasp as his teeth scrape down my neck. “Hey, I told you, none of that tonight. I have a ton of important meetings tomorrow. You know, the kind with people from Outside This Church whom I need to view me as respectable, buddy.” He isn't looking at me but growls a little against my skin.

I tangle my hands in his hair and tug sharply back to meet his wild eyes with mine. “No biting.” “You’re gonna have to save those hickeys for tomorrow, Cardinal...”

He’s adorably huffy about it but also doesn’t falter as he ruts against me. His hips grind sharply into my thighs, pressing me hard down into the cushions of his couch. His arms have me caged in below him and he rests his forehead against mine with a low moan.

At some point we’ll have to decide if we’re moving to a bed, or at least stopping long enough to take off literally any clothing instead of writhing on the furniture like teenagers. It’s so good this way though.

I came by to drop off the last few papers for him to finish and somehow convinced him they could be done in the morning. I meant to also convince him to come have another late dinner in the kitchens but he's in a mood and I can't complain. Having him over me, desperate and needy is better than any drug. I busy myself with the buttons on his jacket and shirt, impatient to get my hands into his chest hair. He hums as I run my fingers through it, and lower. His mouth is at my ear, his nose in my hair. I tug at his belt as he arches over me.

“We should go go to bed” he whispers “we should go to bed so I can fuck you into the weekend. I want to wrap you around me and make you cum until you can’t remember your name”. The words coming out of his mouth are getting deep and breathy. That voice.

Even his perfectly normal, reasonable Latin lectures make me want to get on my knees for him. I'm pretty certain the whole class feels that way. Technically, I know I’m not the only one he sleeps with either but recently I seem to have lucked out.

“You can’t” I growl back as he presses me down. “As much as I’d love to have you buried in me from now until Sunday, you still have 'homework' for tomorrow and I.... I can’t bag out of my important meetings. Sister will literally have me murdered if I leave her alone with those delegates.”

He moans low and deep grabbing at my thigh to pull me further under him, tighter against him. We press back and forth rocking against each other and making out. He’s driving against me over and over in a way that will have me undone very shortly. I have to bury my face in his shoulder to keep my whimpers quiet. Office hours are over but the door isn’t locked and Ghouls have a way of showing up when shit is about to get good.

I'm starting to lose it. “Please, Copia, please, pleaseplease” I beg. He grinds into me slower and slower pressing closer and longer and I think I could die from needing to cum. His breath is in my ear choppy and hot. Little wines, murmurs spilling from his mouth as he gets closer to the edge.

My body arcs up against him, my hands trapped against his chest as an orgasm washes over me. Head thrown back into the cushion I cry out when he sucks at the skin at my collar. I’m gasping as I come down. And then I realize.

Yanking my hands from between us to grab at his head. “COPIA, Satanus! What the fuck did I just say!” He’s a bit of a mess this close to an orgasm and only whines at me when I scold him. His rhythm is getting lost now and though I'm mildly pissed about the bite, I don’t think there’s a better time to test my new interesting theory than now.

I wind the fingers of my left hand tight into his hair and grab harshly at his hips with my right. “Bite me again and see what happens Cardinal. Don’t make me tie you down next time.”

He comes hard. Face buried in my collarbone despite my hard grip on his hair. He’s arched so hard into me I think I’ll be feeling it well into next week. We collapse slowly into the couch. It’s hot and sweaty not to mention the utter mess he's just made. Whatever. He must own 20 pairs of those black pants anyways.

I stroke his hair and laugh softly into it as he tries to regain some steadiness of breath. “Well then, Cardinal.” I arch my eyebrow at him and he's absolutely blushing. He won't quite make eye contact and I can't keep this crooked smirk off my face. He buries his face back against me and grumbles “Maybe time for a real dinner, Tesoro?” as the office door opens. A silver face peeks through, checking the desk and then turning to see us tangled on the couch. “Oh! Sorry, boss. Just, uh, making sure the, uh, lights were off in here. Yeah.” “But um, never mind if you’re still in here working!” The voice fades as the face retreats quickly.

Copia makes a tired sound. “Ghouls.”

———

The free weekend has been axed.

Delegates from the Unitarian Church apparently liked our pitch enough that they decided to hang around for a few days and view the abbey in it’s working state. On the one hand it’s great. Not completely bonkers church allies would be incredibly helpful to us. But I'm mentally tapped out from the socializing. Copia too, has been dragged into the fray. Unlike our Third Papa he can be counted on to treat our guest well without shamelessly flirting with each and every one of them. Unitarian Universalists might not immediately kick a bunch of Satanists out of church club but they still probably view married couples as a little less fair game than Terzo does.

They leave just in time for us to jump right in on the next round of translations. Some books from our archives can only be opened for a few nights a year or a decade. Some can only be opened for a few hours at a time, or only in the perfect humidity, or only by a woman, or a ghoul, or Papa. It’s a particular kind of puzzle game to schedule the translations of these texts. Plus very few people can translate them at all let alone as quickly as the Cardinal.

Imperator schedules, I ferry book and papers. He translates. I return books and papers and organize translations by type and date so we can digitize them later. It’s part of the push to get this church into a modern century. Making an effort to have other church allies is as well. Nihil is totally against it even though his sons are all for it. Or maybe that’s because his sons are all for it.

Everyone is tired. Everyone is busy. The congregation is much bigger than it used to be but still there isn't a lot of down time. We've got a horde of siblings at our disposal to help with all the cleaning, data entry, filing, etc. but someone still needs to steer the ship.

It turns out that managing people is a pain in the ass and regretfully I'm good at it.

Thankfully I still end up spending most of my day filing and organizing piles. It's boring but methodical and leaves me with enough brain space to let my mind rest or wander as it chooses.

I'm deep into sorting notes from the early 30's so we can see if anything matches up with books from that era but my mind has wandered back to the Cardinal's ass in his red pants.

He stepped away from the monstrous paper pile for coffee this morning but two moments later was back leaning across the front of his desk to scribble a note in the margins of whatever he's trying to decipher. It's a very nice ass.

It's been over a week since we've been able to do anything more than snag a kiss between meals, sleep, and work. It's fine, except that it really, really isn't. Stress relief is important. And doing it myself is currently feeling a little subpar when the alternative is so incredibly attractive.

Also. There's this whole other aspect of him that I really want to get another glimpse of. We have been mostly on equal footing or he's been in charge since we've been seeing each other, but I know that's not all there is. Not just because of the way he blushes when I boss him around but also because of that dinner months ago where a wine drunk Terzo whispered in my ear all sorts of things about how delightful and versatile a bed partner Copia is.

I think I want to know all the ways to make him whimper and beg.

Unbeknownst to him, Thursday night we're going to catch a break. Imperator is headed out of town with a few of the Emeritus family for some swearing in of a little sect or two a few cities over. Copia and I have been excused to finish up one really time sensitive book and they're going to be gone for two whole days.

Of course, I know that the book is finished already. He did the last bit around 2am and I just couldn't bring myself tell her in case she decided to dump another stack on us as she walked out the door. Two days isn't enough for a real vacation but it's definitely enough for a little rest and stress relief.

______

I feel like I'm laying a trap. Getting us out of work, convincing him to come back to his rooms to change for dinner.

There's a tiny unmarked bottle of lube tucked on the hallway table next to the Baphomet statue where he hangs his keys. Normally he never looks at that table, just drops his keys across it, puts his hat on Baphomet's head, and comes to collapse on the couch or bed.

There he is though, looking at the bottle curiously, fingers starting to unbutton the top of his jacket unconsciously as his brow creases. I have to move fast. I walk up and my hands take over for his. Unbuttoning the jacket and pushing it back over his shoulders but not taking it off of him. I push at his chest gently until he steps back all the way against the heavy wood door.

"Tesoro, I... " He looks down at my face as I'm unbuttoning his shirt. My hands work downwards and I see as he completely forgets about the bottle. "Hello there" he says with a smile and slides his hands into my hair to turn my face up towards him. I get an arched eyebrow, a little half smile, and then, a little hitched breath as I tug open his belt.

I lean in to rub my nose under his jaw and breathe him in. His arms come up to pull me close and I can feel the rumble in his chest. We stand for a moment in peace, enjoying the closeness before I tug his hands down to lay flat against the door. "Keep them there, alright?" I whisper in his ear.

He breathes out an unsteady yes while I lay kisses down his neck. His trousers are undone and he hums through his teeth as I take him out and stroke him. Lightly over and over. Teasing gently. His head is back with eyes closed which is perfect.

When I ease my lube slick hand down his dick his whole body jolts and his eyes fly open to stare at me. "Oh! Ohhh...." Hands tight against the door his hips push forward into my hand and he screws his eyes closed again as I stroke him a second time.

"F...uck. Oh. Fuck. Tesoro..." he whimpers and the sound strikes deeply hot at the center of me.

I keep my touch firm but slow. A steady torcherous pace. I wonder how long I can keep him here. Trapped between my body and the door, gasping and moaning as I tease him higher and higher.

I want to talk to him but I'm a little afraid this will end too soon if I do so I settle for brushing my lips across his, across his face, against his sideburns until he's begging. "Tesoro, pleeease. PPlease. Ah. Ah. Oh, lord, Tesoro. I need....ah, please."

His face is plastered to my neck and I dig my free hand into his hair to hold him there. He hasn't moved his hands an inch though I see them tremble and grasp.

"You're doing so well, yeah?" I whisper. "You sounds so good like this. I love it. I love hearing how badly you need this." I can feel his knees knock a little as I speak to him. "I've been thinking about this for weeks. Making you come undone for me like this. Did you think I hadn't noticed how pink you get when I tell you what to do?"

"Ah, Satanus. Por favor...." he wines. "por favor....." His hips are trying to press forward, but I've got him tight against the door. I up the pace of my strokes until he can hardly speak. Low gasps and whimpers escape him as I bring him higher.

"Are you close love? I need you to tell me when you're close. I want you to tell me when you’re going to cum." That pulls a little wail from him and he gasps, crushing his face deeper into my neck. "Oh, Santanus. Oh, Lucifer. "

"You gonna beg me, sweetheart?" I husk in his ear. "Come on. Say please?"

He doesn't manage it, curling tight over my body as he comes. His arms forget the door to crush me against him. Fingers grip my back and shoulder so hard it almost hurts and I can hear his breath stop completely for a moment. I let him hold me, pressing myself tight up against him, toes to head.

It hardly feels like he is going to stand on his own so I just clean him up with a conveniently located cloth and pepper his face with little kisses. I brush the damp hairs back from his brow and when he lifts his eyes to mine he still flushes a even brighter red.

I must look entirely too pleased with myself because he quickly closes them again and lets his head fall back against the door with a solid "thunk."

"Fuck", he breathes, "I...ah, just.....Fuck."

I am pleased with myself. Humming softly I tuck him back into his trousers and pull the edges of his collar down so I can kiss him long and hard before patting his chest and moving away back into his rooms. He doesn't follow me and I look back to see him still leaning against the door staring.

"Dinner?" I ask with a bright innocent smile.

He growls with narrowed eyes and launches himself into the room. Shrieking with laughter I race to the other side of his couch. "Come here..." he murmurs. And when I don't move he crooks a finger at me. "Topolino. Come on. Come. Here. "

It's so goddamn hot. I want to.

But.

"Make me." It's impossible to keep a grin off my face knowing that the whole wing of this abbey is definitely going to hear about when he catches me. I have the advantage of steady feet, but his eyes are dark and his smile dangerous.

I am super, super fucked.

[vore-scientist]

Cookie Jar (M/f platonic safe/soft sfw vore)

A Tale of the Mystic Woods

Sophia see’s an opportunity to prank her half-giant wizard, by getting him to eat her. Also some Gardening! (sadly no actual cookies or jars feature in this story)

Princess Sophia and Yonah the Wizard are my OCs, they are both adults, and part of my Mystic Woods series. I commissioned art for this chapter! So that’s in there too!

Warnings: While this story is all about safe, soft, willing, silliness there are uhhhh some really strange references/discussion about fa.tal. None occurs. King Ben just is a bit... creepy and uncaring. 

----

“So, what’s the plan for today?”

The Princess Sophia asked as she and her half-giant wizard ate breakfast. Toast with a citrus marmalade and eggs scrambled with spinach, onions, and mushrooms. They always had eggs. Yonah was a really amazing cook, and eggs were his favorite food. Well. Second favorite food. Sophia had to admit, the wizard made the best eggs she’d ever had, and she grew up with royal cooks! Yonah took one more giant mouthful of his own portion of eggs, and a drink of water flavored with a few slices of magic melon, before answering. 

“Not much,” he took another bite. Clearly not in a hurry. “Was thinking we could garden this morning, then I’ve got some translations to complete. Maybe there will be time for a dusk patrol.”

No way. 

Sophia’s forkful of egg was frozen halfway to her mouth. 

There was no way he had forgotten. Right? Someone so smart organized and all. It wasn’t possible Not in her wildest dreams. 

“That’s it? Nothing else?” she risked jogging his memory just to be sure.

Yonah was looking at her funny, so she finished her bite of food to keep a straight face. 

“Nope. That’s it. Unless… Is there something you wanted to do?” He asked. 

She took such a big drink of water she nearly choked. 

“Ah- um.” 

“I could try to put together a lesson, but I didn't plan on one today. Im still waiting on a few potion ingredients, which should be here soon.” 

“The plan sounds good!” She said, her voice squeaking a bit. 

He’d definitely forgotten. And if Sophia was a good friend she would have told him. Thankfully Sophia wasn’t a good friend. She was a great friend. His Best Friend. And as the best friend to an evil giant wizard she got an evil idea. All she had to do was not raise suspicion. 

“Ok…” Yonah didn’t sound convinced. “Would you like me to clear your dishes?”

Sophia nodded and placed them delicately unto his palm, but finishing her water first. Then she zipped off, climbing down the ladder attached to the table, sprinting to the staircase, and leaping down the stairs to the bedroom. By the time Yonah caught up to her she was in her gardening outfit. Waiting for him, on top of his dresser, upon which was her magic wardrobe. 

“What’s the rush princess?” Yonah said with a smile as he took his time changing into a sturdy button up and overalls that matched Sophia’s. “I don’t have any plants that will get up and walk away if we don’t water them.”

He adjusted the shoulder straps on his overalls and held out a hand to Sophia. She scampered across his arm and dropped into his front pocket. 

“Ok then,” he said, smiling as he got out his sandals, gloves, and straw-wizard’s hat. 

“I’m just excited to garden!” Sophia said. 

“Glad to hear it,” he gently pat the pocket over his midsection to jostle the princess, and then with a finger ruffled her hair. Or tried, since it was in it’s pretty-permanently tight braid. He did nearly knock off her tiara but she held it in place. Then she held onto the lip of the pocket as Yonah went up the stairs, and she bounced happily. 

She had to hold on tighter when he leapt from the tower window. That was never not exhilarating  and so frightening she screeched like a banshee as, with an earth-shaking THUD, Yonah landed in the garden. 

“Out you come from there!” Yonah said cheerfully as he plucked Sophia out of the pocket and set her on the edge of a flower bed. 

Then from a side pocket he took out a pouch of power that he dipped a finger into. He dabbed a bit of the powder and recited a spell in giant. With a puff of grey smoke Yonah now stood 7.5ft. About a third his original height. 

There was a lot to do as it turned out. A lot of beds had weeds! Those damn seeds must just manifest out of thin air. The pair spent an entire hour weeding the flower beds. A few weeds happened to be spell ingredients, which Sophia Then wondered why they were considered weeds. 

Regardless she attacked them with extreme ferociousness, getting right to their roots. Which was good because the roots of this particular weed were what they wanted. They were placed in a bag to be dried out over a magical smoke that night. 

They didn’t take a break. Not really. When moving onto the Apple trees and other fruits the pair took random small breaks to sample the ripening bounty, but worked steadily to trim branches and check for sickness and fungus. 

Some fungus was of course wanted! Yonah had recently planted a patch of moaning bamboo that was bred to be vulnerable to infection by void fungus; used to make magical ink to enchant scrolls and book pages. It was a slow growing bamboo but it was finally large enough that if infected would produce a decent amount of magic ink, enough to make the investment in the bamboo worth the money. 

Sophia took a tuning fork and tapped the green-yellow rods. No void fungus to be found. But cuttings of the bamboo were taken. When the current batch caught the bug they would have healthy ones to replace them. Void Fungus was not kind to it’s hosts. Thankfully it wasn’t harmful to animals or people. 

She started to worry that, after all this work, Yonah would insist they have lunch, and she would have to tell him. 

And then she nearly ruined it by cheering when he suggested he get a little translating done before lunch. He was just feeling very motivated for some reason. She didn’t mind waiting a little to eat right?

“Don’t mind at all! In fact, you wanna eat me?” she couldn’t risk waiting any longer or it would be too late. She tried not to look at the clock. 

It wasn’t really a silence, since Yonah continued to gather supplies around the room, until he stopped listening to himself and processed Sophia’s words. Then he stood up, holding a bunch of scrolls, looking at her as if he may have imagined her talking at all.  

“You haven’t had lunch yet, so you must be hungry,” she added. /don’t push it too much he’ll get suspicious!/ “and watching you translate is boring.”

But then she heard his stomach growl and his cheeks grew red. “I- yeah!” he came over to the desk. His face was still a bit flushed but he was smiling as he leaned over, arms folded and he put his head eye level with Sophia. “A pre-lunch snack is exactly what I need!” 

He reached out a hand to poke her, which tickled. “And I couldn’t refuse my favorite snack.”

Without hesitation Sophia got out her vial of glass paste and applied a small dab to her forehead and recited the words. Yonah closed his eyes as there was an explosion of sparkling purple dust. He felt the heavy glass form of the princess sit on his arm. He stood back up, taking the princess with him, keeping her at his face. He opened his mouth in a wide smile that revealed large white fangs glittering with drool and anticipation. She took hold of his bottom teeth, hoisting herself inside. It was a tight fit, which always made her wonder how he managed to eat people larger than herself. And she was petit. 

Air wooshed by her as he took a deep breath and tipped his head back so that she slid to his throat. With perfect timing he swallowed. Once. Twice. Three times. 

The princess’s feet passed over his lips, and he kept swallowing. It hurt considerably. Stretching his throat and putting pressure on his windpipe, but it was worth it. With a strong gulp she was down past his airways and he could breathe again. He could already feel her hands in his stomach, soon joined by the rest of her. Filling him up so nicely, he smiled and sighed. 

“Mr HaEsh?”

It was like his blood turned to ice and then instantly into steam; the pressure threatening to make him explode.  

He remembered. 

Dare he open his eyes? He had to. It was too late now. 

Yonah HaEsh looked down at the magic mirror on his desk. But instead of his reflection framed by the fancy gold filigree, the King of the Mystic Woods looked back at him, arms crossed. It was like the entire damn forest was looking at him. And the forest didn’t exactly have feelings like normal people. 

/Had he seen?/

“Ah- Y-Your Majesty-” 

Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. Because at that moment Sophia started laughing hysterically, with her whole body. Normally that would feel GREAT; now it was distracting at best, visible and audible to her father at worst. Her father who spoke over the stuttering giant. 

[art by @pythonpie​ @art_python on twitter]

“We had a meeting today, or did you forget?” The King’s expression. Well it wasn’t neutral but it wasn’t full of vengeful rage, which it surely would have if he had seen his daughter get swallowed whole. It still wasn’t happy. 

“No-I mean yes- I mean no, Your Majesty.”

“Then where, Mr. HaEsh, is my daughter?” The King’s emerald green eyes pulsed and narrowed, his face hardening like petrified wood. 

Yonah resisted putting a hand to his stomach to try and cover up Sophia’s movement, or get her to stop! Her laughter was penetrating his brain! But that would be too obvious. 

“The princess! She!” Yonah realized he had a bit of drool running down his chin, but he dare not wipe it away. “Is asleep.”

“In the afternoon?” asked The King, raising an eyebrow, “Surely she didn’t forget the meeting?”

Yonah gritted his teeth as Sophia screeched inside him. 

He hissed out “No sire, she did not.”

“Speak up Mr. HaEsh,” the King Ordered. 

“Ah- well, I don’t know, she was very tired after working so hard in the garden I thought she deserved a nap,” and he thought he deserved a freaking medal for coming up with that excuse and saying it as convincingly as possible with a princess thrashing in his belly. 

“I don’t appreciate her sleep schedule being dysregulated this way,” said The King, his voice rising enough to make Yonah’s skin crawl. 

It was so eerie, and so absolutely horrifying to see The King get mad in the mirror, while outside the trees rustled with the rhythm of Ben’s words, his breaths, his huffs, and his grunts. Yonah swore the vines around his tower were constricting, causing the stone to crack a bit. Could Ben collapse the tower just like that?

“I didn’t mean-” but once again The King spoke. 

“And,” the king pointed at him. Though it wasn’t exactly precise through the mirror it was clearly at his stoamch very full of struggling human, “Who was that you were eating?”

“Sire?” Yonah didn’t think he could really hide it. 

“Don’t play dumb with me, wizard,” The King spat, “When the mirrors resolved I saw feet disappearing down your massive throat. And they’re still alive by the look of-”

“A thief!” Yonah said a bit too quickly, “It was, is, a thief!”

Now he felt comfortable enough to rub at his stomach, “Tasty too, your majesty,” he smiled a big embarrassed grin, “In the excitement of the chase I forgot it was nearly time for our call.”

The King didn’t look convinced and Yonah felt his heart sink. 

“A thief? In the middle of the day?”

“Yes Sire! That happens, not common but not-” was he gesticulating too much? Was he gesticulating to little? Should he just stop using his hands?

“And that doesn’t sound like screaming, it sounds more like laughter.”

/Oh GODS he could hear it!/ Yonah’s heart lifted but only so it could start racing 

“Nope! Not laughter” Yonah poked his middle and Sophia obliged by screaming a little less happily, “It’s terror! Because I ate them! And I am very scary. Just like you hired me to be!”

“Very well, I suppose you should go wake Sophia,” The King examined his fingernails. Thanks to the mirror enhancing the King’s size, Yonah could see they were painted with black runes. What for? Yonah couldn’t think about that right now. 

“And the thief?”

The king looked up, “Oh right, the thief.” the king eye’d Yonah’s middle like one would a disappointing servant  “Are they not dead yet?” Sophia had stopped laughing so hard, guess Ben couldn’t hear it now. 

“N-No sire,” Yonah poked his middle again and was relieved when Sophia moved sharply and screamed at like she really was in danger. 

“Not in the mood for a free meal today?” Ben asked, completely serious. “Less money out of my pocket. It costs a lot to... feed you.” There was a weird tick in Ben’s right cheek. Like he had been about to mention the fact that Yonah gives adventurers gold when he lets them live, which was most of the time, and that money was technically King Ben’s, even if most of it was deducted from Yonah’s salary. 

“Not with you watching, my liege,” Yonah said, trying to sound like he cared as little for the thieves’ lives as Ben did. 

“It’s not as if I can see whatever horrorshow is going on in there,” he said. 

With Sophia being the one in there, that was the last thing Yonah wanted to think about.  

“Fine, spit them out.” 

Gods those gem-like eyes were so bright yet so hollow. Yonah wouldn’t be surprised if Ben COULD see though mere barriers like flesh, but also was thankful he couldn’t.

Yonah bowed, unable to enjoy Sophia being squished inside him.

“Where are you going?” Ben said as Yonah turned to the stairwell. 

“To- spit out the thief and wake-”

“You cannot do that here? I’ve seen it before”

He had. Once. When interrogating a prisoner of war, Ben supervised Yonah swallowing, threatening, and spitting up fairy. That had been a feat. Fairies were larger than humans. Even thinking about it briefly made his throat sore. 

Yonah’s face turned so red it was like a tomato. If he spat Sophia out that would be it. In the moment he could not fathom what Ben might do to him if Sophia slid out of his mouth. Could he somehow cast a disguise spell on her? No Ben would see the cast. 

Thankfully Ben heaved a huge sigh, “I don’t see why you’re so self-conscious, go ahead.” He waved him off and Yonah disappeared down the trap door. 

---

PERFECT TIMING! 

Sophia couldn’t see what had gone on outside, but as Yonah stiffened, everything around her going tense, the pulse around her accelerating and his quavering voice say “Your majesty,” she knew she had done it. 

While she had wanted to try and hear what her father was saying she could not help but burst into laughter as soon as she imagined the look on Yonah’s face. Probably guilty, smiling, bewilderment. Oh she wished she could see! But if she could have done that, this would be a very different prank. 

It wasn’t hard to guess her father’s words based on Yonah’s responses. 

Deciding to help her poor giant she switched from laughter to just yelling when Yonah poked at her and insisted the sound coming from his middle was terror. That should be pretty convincing, though it was hard to sound scared when riding the high of such a brilliant prank. 

Eventually she calmed down to hear her father. She loved her dad. She really did. But 30 years ruling two kingdoms; 30 years being joined magically to The Mystic Woods, a mind as far from human as one could get, he tended to be a bit heartless. Ben’s body, mind, and spirit were part of a vast ecosystem that had things living and dying in it every day. So why would random adventurers dying, even eaten by one of his employees, be of much concern to him? 

Still, she felt proud of Yonah for managing to get away to “wake her up” and “spit out the thief”. She did not resist when Yonah threw up into his bathroom sink. 

“That was ! A dirty trick!” 

He coughed out a bit more fluid and did not bother to aim away from Sophia. He didn’t speak again until he regained his breath. By then Sophia had washed and dried off, and returned to flesh of her own accord. She sat on the towel and looked at him with big innocent brown eyes. 

Ok not innocent, but definitely not guilty or regretful. He reached out to grab her but she grabbed him back, wrapping her arms around his fingers. He wriggled his fingers and she laughed, not at him, but with him. He did pull her to the edge of the counter and kissed her side. She tried to get away from his scratchy facial hair but failed. 

“How long were you planning that?” he asked, his chin in her lab. 

“Since this morning,” she said, shoving him away.  

He obliged but left one arm on the counter for her to climb across to his shoulder. She lay into his hair. The dark curls so fluffy and soft. 

“Couldn’t believe my luck. Something like our monthly meetings slipping through that big wizard brain of yours!” She scratched his head, making one side of his hair stick up funny. Then she sat down and he put on his hat. 

“Let’s not keep my father-” she paused. 

“The King-” Yonah smiled. 

She laughed “Let’s not keep him waiting.”

Ben had not moved a muscle as far as Yonah could tell, when he sat at his desk and tried to smile without conveying that he had in fact, not eaten a thief, but the king’s daughter. Sophia scrawled down from his shoulder and leapt onto the desk. 

“Hi dad!” she said. 

“Hello Sophia”

And no, it wasn’t really comforting to see kind emotions in the face of The Mystical Majesty, if anything it made him more eerie. He was capable of human feelings, or at least he remembered what they were enough to mimic them. 

It never really bothered Yonah before but. He barely noticed. Oh sure Ben unnerved him greatly. Yet he hadn’t registered just how detached The King was. 

Not until he had figured out that Sophia was already chosen as the next Mystic King. Would she slowly turn into an unfeeling vessel for the forest? Would he lose her? He was to train her, prepare her to be King. Maybe that meant she could avoid this fate. 

Shit Ben was asking him a question! 

Shit Sophia was answering for him!

“-unconscious when they came out. We put washed them off and put them in a box.”

Ben was back to his normal, detached irritation. But there was a flicker of amusement. Still not comforting. 

“You woke her before spitting the thief up?”

He had to nod; Sophia was in charge of the narrative now. 

“Cutting it a bit close weren’t we?”

/why did he care? Ben was just fine with letting this hypothetical thief die while they had a not-so-pleasant chat/

“No sir, fainted from fright. Happens all the time. They were kicking and screaming until-”

“I don’t actually want the details Mr HaEsh.” 

Yonah wasn’t so sure about that. King Ben seemed to have some morbid fascinations. Maybe when one’s mind is so expanded you need some really extreme diversions to peak your interest. 

With so much time wasted the talk was very brief. Ben was actually legitimately pleased with Sophia’s progress. In the last month she’d met with several insular communities in the woods. One in particular was hardly more than a rumor. The fact that she’d made contact was a significant achievement. Not that she knew why, but she was glad to go on about the new spell she’d learned, none the wiser about her growing connection to The Woods. 

Still, Yonah didn’t breathe easy until Ben’s face faded from the mirror. 

Sophia sighed and turned to look up at him. 

“Im going to get you back for this,” he said, “especially since you were this close” he held his thumb and pointer finger about an inch apart, “To Ben seeing you eaten. He saw you feet.”

“Ah!” She finally looked guilty, “Well- I couldn’t resist”

No. She wouldn’t be Sophia if she’d done anything else. He even suspected that his mirror had delayed establishing the link and made a mental note to be kinder to it. 

“-if you want to eat me again.”

Yonah scooped her up, cradling her in his arms. “You’ve certainly earned the honor of being my dessert tonight,” he cooed. “And I’d better get some belly rubs. But that doesn’t count as payback.”

“You’re going to eat me now too?”

He chuckled and shook his head, “No. We should have actual lunch; like we normally do after talking with your father-”

“The King!” she declared, standing up unsteady and pulling herself onto his shoulder. 

He laughed so hard she almost fell back into his arms.  

And they went downstairs. 

[FIN] if you liked PLEASE REBLOG!

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¿Cómo se dice ‘I’m in Deep Sh*t’?

Summary: Due to unforeseen circumstances (and a bit of procrastination), Peter runs out of time to prepare for his Spanish presentation and ends up faking sick to buy himself some more.

He just wasn’t really counting on Tony being the one to pick him up from school.

Word count: 2,997

Genre: humor, fluff, whump

Link to read on Ao3

A/N: Based on a prompt from @coconutknightshade! 

Apparently it takes a village to write a story lol—thanks to @xxx-cat-xxx, @sallyidss, @fandomsficsandfeels, & @seek-rest for beta-reading and ideas, and @lunannex for Spanish help!

“What if I just like… fake my death?” Peter suggests as he hands his mentor a different sized wrench. “They can’t mark me down for not doing it if I’m dead, right?”

Tony, who is currently bent over their latest project (replacing the timing belt in May’s car), snorts. “As someone who’s been officially presumed dead more than once, can’t say I recommend it. Way too much paperwork.”

Peter sighs. “Can we stage a kidnapping then?” he says hopefully. “Or an alien abduction?”

Tony rolls his eyes. “It’s a four-minute speech, not the end of the world—though I have some experience with that too.” He holds out a hand. “Half inch ratchet.”

“A four-minute speech in Spanish,” Peter emphasizes, passing him the requested tool. “Which is a language I don’t speak.”

“Hence why you’re in Spanish class,” Tony counters. “With all the other kids who can’t speak Spanish.”

“But it’s also like ten percent of my grade,” Peter goes on as his mentor loosens the timing belt and removes it from the engine before handing it to Peter to set aside. “And I have to talk about what I do in a typical week, and it’s not like I can say I go patrolling or come over to the compound, so I’m gonna have to make stuff up—”

Tony interrupts, “Yo veo mucha televisión,” he says sagely.

“—and then what if I get up there and forget everything and just sound stupid?” Peter continues his rant. He groans and passes Tony the replacement belt. “Maybe I should just conveniently get the flu on Wednesday.”

Looking up from the engine, Tony raises an eyebrow at him. “Are you really this stressed about it? Because if you need to focus on school, I could just finish this up myself.”

Peter sighs again and runs a hand through his hair—he hadn’t meant to complain this much, he’d just kind of gotten on a roll after Tony asked him how school was going. “No, no… I wanted to come over—really. And I’ve got three more days to work on it, it’s just like… ugh. I should have taken German instead.”

Tony huffs out a short laugh. “Pretty sure they have to speak in German class too.”

“Yeah but MJ’s not in German…” Peter mutters under his breath.

“What was that?” Tony asks, elbow deep in the engine block.

Peter expels a breath. “Nothing, it’s fine,” he says a bit more audibly, trying to convince himself as much as his mentor. So what if the most observant and shrewd person in his year also happens to be in his Spanish class?

(And so what if he might have a bit of a crush on her?)

Tony chuckles. “You’ll do great, kid,” he assures. “Just make sure you practice.”

Peter forces a smile. “Right, yeah, of course.”

X

Practicing, however, turns out to be easier said than done.

With finals fast approaching, it’s crunch time for all of Peter’s classes. Whatever spare moments he has over the weekend are spent finishing up his Animal Farm essay for the English summative and cramming for his geometry test Monday morning. The upcoming Spanish presentation hangs over his head, but it’s more annoying than anything else. He figures it should be fairly simple to actually bullshit something and translate it if he just sits down and does it (which, ironically, somehow makes it easier to push off).

He’s intending to work on it Monday evening, but a winter storm hits that afternoon, dumping eight inches of snow and ice on the city. Peter spends most of his patrol assisting with minor traffic accidents and helping stranded motorists scrape ice from their vehicles or shovel cars out of parking spaces. By the time he gets home late that night, he’s too exhausted to do much more than sit on the couch with May and drink cocoa while she watches Grey’s Anatomy reruns.

Oh well. He’s still got time.

Peter tries to make good use of his study hall on Tuesday, but the period ends up being kind of a wash. He spends half the time attempting to come up with something to say that is both interesting enough to make him seem not totally lame while still believable enough to fool MJ, and the other half messing around on his phone and trying to recall the name of the annoying song stuck in his head.

(It was ‘Goodbye’ by The Spice Girls.)

He’s intending to finish the presentation Tuesday evening after he gets home, but then Ned throws an unexpected monkey wrench into his plans just before the final bell rings.

“So I gotta be there early for warm ups, but my mom will pick you up around six, okay?” he tells Peter as they pack up their book bags.

Peter frowns, confused. “...Pick me up?”

Ned tilts his head. “Unless May can give you a ride after all? But I thought you said she was working tonight, right?”

All of a sudden it clicks—tonight is Ned’s first band concert. He’d taken up percussion a few months back in an effort to beef up his extracurriculars for his college applications. Peter agreed to go to the performance weeks ago.

“Oh right right right,” Peter quickly covers. “Six is great. I’ll see her then!”

Ned beams. “Awesome! My sister and her boyfriend are coming too, so we might go out to celebrate afterwards!”

“Yeah, awesome!” Peter agrees, forcing a grin. “That should be really fun.”

(Oh yeah, he’s screwed.)

X

The concert was cool. Ned hit that triangle with all the required enthusiasm whenever his parts came up, and Peter flashed him loads of encouraging thumbs-ups from the audience. When it was over, they all went out to Denny’s for some mediocre late-night pancakes and the usual Leeds family banter. All in all, a pretty fun night.

When Peter gets home a little after ten, he opens his Spanish doc in one tab and promptly falls into a YouTube hole in another while looking for background music. He’s still grinning when he closes out of his fifth vine compilation video in a row until he checks the time a second later and the grin dissolves. It’s 12:03 a.m.

Oops.

Study hall Wednesday morning will be his saving grace, he’s sure.

X

So, of course, a fight has to break out right outside of the library.

It’s not too bad—the two instigating students are hauled away by security with a couple bloody noses and black eyes, and a few other kids are taken down to the office for questioning. Peter was far enough removed from the action that he doesn’t have to come along, but the whole debacle eats up all but the last ten minutes of the period so when the bell finally rings, he’s got precisely five words written down:

Hola, me llamo Peter Parker.

(Suddenly all those jokes about faking his own death are starting to sound a lot more appealing.)

Or if not my death, he thinks as he trudges down the hall in the direction of his Spanish classroom, cold dread pooling in his gut, then at least…

He stops walking, glancing sideways into the brightly lit office just off the hall. The elderly nurse is sitting at her desk, glasses half-way down her nose as she reads a paperback novel with the picture of a Christmasy log cabin on the cover.

No. He can’t. He doesn’t lie.

...Unless…

No. May’s at work. She’d have to leave early to come and pick him up.

Okay, but it’s not like you do this often, his brain counters. Hell, you came to school with a concussion and two cracked ribs last month and didn’t say a word about it. May can take one for the team just this once.

Peter slips into the bathroom across the hall and waits there until the bell rings to signal the end of passing period, and then an additional five minutes on top of that to add some credibility to his act. He splashes a bit of cold water on his forehead and around his neck, and then works himself up with some heavy breathing before exiting the bathroom.

Folding his arms over his stomach, Peter moves shakily across the hall back toward the nurse’s office, making an effort to look as unwell as possible. A passing student eyes him suspiciously and gives him a wide berth, so he figures he must be doing something right.

Steeling himself with a shuddery breath, he steps into the office.

“Hall pass?” the nurse asks without looking up from her book.

“Um, no, I don’t have one, uh…” Peter’s heart is fluttering in his chest. “I just… I’m not feeling good.”

Eyes still on the page, the nurse silently taps a finger to a sign on the wall just behind her desk which reads: PASSES REQUIRED FOR ALL STUDENTS.

Peter swallows hard. C’mon, Parker—commit. “Right, but, uh, I came from the bathroom.” He hugs himself a little tighter and looks down. “My stomach really hurts. I was throwing up and, uh… stuff,” he concludes, deciding that in this case, less is more.

The nurse’s expression softens. She lowers her novel and gets to her feet with a small sigh. “Well, there is a bug going around,” she concedes, gesturing for him to sit down on the cot in the back of her office.

Peter keeps his responses vague when she requests more specific information on his symptoms, mostly offering shrugs or short, mumbled answers. She checks his temperature and seems slightly suspicious at his lack of fever, but he makes up for it by getting up suddenly and darting into the nurse’s bathroom.

When he emerges—exactly seven minutes and two new levels of Candy Crush later—Peter makes sure to keep his eyes averted from the nurse’s gaze and his movements slow and a little unsteady, one hand hovering over his stomach. She gives him a bottle of Gatorade and a couple of crackers and tells him to lie down until May comes to pick him up.

“I got ahold of her,” the nurse informs, sounding more sympathetic now. She slides a small garbage bin beside the cot. “She says she’s just finishing something up at work and then she’ll be right over.”

“Thank you,” Peter mutters tiredly. He doesn’t even have to act for that part—between the stress of his upcoming finals and his last couple of late nights, he really is exhausted and he has a bit of a headache. It makes him feel just the slightest bit better about pulling May away from her shift that there’s at least something physically wrong with him, even if it isn’t what he’s claiming.

Under the thin fleece blanket the nurse gives him, Peter manages to drift off to sleep.

X

But it turns out, today is just really not his day.

“No fever yet, but sometimes with these kinds of bugs that doesn’t come until later,” Peter overhears the nurse explaining in a low voice. He’s lying curled up on the cot, face toward the wall. “If that happens, just remember that he needs to be fever-free for 24 hours before returning to school.”

“Oh, I have a feeling that won’t be a problem,” a familiar voice that definitely does not belong to Aunt May replies.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter’s eyes snap open fully and he sits up in a hurry.

Tony and the nurse are standing together beside her desk, chatting quietly. Tony turns to look at Peter, face straight but eyebrows raised in amusement. “Oh would you look at that—he lives,” he remarks. “Feeling any better, Pete?”

Immediately, Peter wraps an arm around his stomach and does his best to look ill. “Uh, no, not really... but, um wh-what are you doing here?”

“The hospital is a little short-staffed today and your aunt was having trouble finding someone to cover her shift,” Tony explains, keeping his expression perfectly neutral. “She called to ask if I minded picking you up. You know”—his eyes narrow—“since you’re so sick.”

(Peter gulps. He’s starting to wonder if maybe he’ll be sick after all.)

“So of course, I told her I would,” Tony goes on. “I mean, if you’re feeling this bad, we could hardly just leave you here...”

Peter has to force himself to meet Tony’s gaze. “Right. Um, thank you. That’s super nice of you.”

“Well, you know me, Tony Super-Nice Stark,” his mentor says with a small chuckle as he steps closer to the bed.

“Now, with stomach bugs, the biggest concern is going to be dehydration,” the nurse continues. “So you’re going to want to push fluids, especially if he’s having di—”

“Fluids, got it,” Peter cuts her off, feeling his cheeks heat up. He gets to his feet and starts moving toward the door, but Tony halts him by grabbing his arm.

“Hey, hey, slow down, kid,” Tony tuts at him. “You were just looking like you might pass out a minute ago.” He presses his palm to Peter’s forehead and glances over to the nurse, eyebrows pinched together in the semblance of concern. “He’s kinda flushed, right? Maybe we should check his temperature again.”

“It’s fine,” Peter mutters, barely managing to suppress an eye-roll. “I think I just need to go home and sleep.”

“Sleep is probably the best thing for him,” the nurse agrees, nodding. “But going back to dehydration, if at any point it’s been more than five hours since he’s last urinated—”

“Mr. Stark, c’mon…” Peter whines quietly, nudging the man toward the door.

Tony holds up a finger to shush him—there’s a twinkle in his eyes that’s honestly driving Peter mad. “Hang on, kiddo. This is all very important information. In fact”—he pulls out his phone and opens the notes app—“let me just write this down. So you said if he hasn’t peed in five hours…?”

The nurse goes on to happily share her wealth of knowledge regarding stomach viruses with his mentor. Tony nods along to her advice, looking genuinely interested the entire time, occasionally interrupting to ask pertinent questions. Meanwhile, Peter just stands there, quietly dying a little inside.

Finally, she concludes her little spiel and Tony thanks her politely, then asks, “You wouldn’t happen to have a bin or bag or something we could take with us, would you? I just got the car detailed recently—hate for that to go to waste.”

Peter lets out another low groan. “Mr. Stark…”

“Ah, I have just the thing!” the nurse says. She bustles over behind her desk and produces a plastic sand pail with assorted Paw Patrol characters on it. “I get these from the dollar store,” she informs. “They don’t look like they hold too much but you’d be surprised!”

Tony grins. “That’s perfect. Thank you so much, Alice.” Looking to Peter, he asks, “Need the bathroom before we leave?”

Rolling his eyes at his mentor, Peter takes the bucket from the nurse with a muttered “thanks” and strides directly out the door.

X

Tony doesn’t say anything for the entire walk to the car, but Peter’s mind is happy to fill the silence with dread and anxious thoughts as he imagines all the various ways his mentor might chew him out about this. Stupid Spanish presentation—he should have just winged it after all.

The moment that both he and Tony are seated in the vehicle and the car doors are shut behind them, Peter sets the bucket down on the floor and covers his face with a groan.

“Alright, let’s get it over with,” he mutters into his hands. “Lay it on me.”

“Just to clarify,” Tony begins, sounding a bit more serious. “You’re not actually sick, right? This was just to get out of your presentation?”

“Yeah, I dunno...” Peter admits, feeling defeated. “I was planning to work on it—I swear. Just, well, there was all this stuff due for my other classes, and then the snowstorm, and all these commitments just kept coming up, and I just kinda... ran out of time. Figured if I got sent home I could buy myself an extra day or two.” He sighs deeply, lowering his hands to look up at his mentor. “Are you gonna tell May?”

Tony huffs out a short laugh. “Honestly? I think you’ve suffered enough.”

Peter blinks at him, surprised. “Wait, seriously?”

“You listened to a school nurse describe the BRAT diet for three whole minutes,” Tony says with a snort. “I don’t think any lecture May or I could give would top that.”

“God,” Peter groans, running a hand over his face. “If I hear the word ‘binding’ used one more time…”

“But,” Tony says, holding up a stern finger as he starts the car. “As soon as we get back to your place, we’re finishing up that presentation in time for your miraculous recovery tomorrow, got it?”

“We?” Peter raises an eyebrow at him. “Do you even speak Spanish?”

Tony waves a hand dismissively. “I know French and Italian—close enough. More importantly, I am fluent in the language of bullshit, kid. I once convinced an entire board of investors that not adding a clock feature to the new Starkphone prototype was a philosophical statement about the ‘futility of time as a construct’ rather than an embarrassing oversight caused by deadline crunches, no sleep, and more caffeine flowing through my veins than red blood cells.”

“And how did that go?” Peter asks.

“Sold twelve thousand shares that day. And I got to meet the Dalai Lama.”

Peter just snorts.

“Oh, and there was this other time,” Tony goes on wryly, “when I helped my intern play hooky to get out of a school presentation by convincing the nurse he had the shits.”

Peter leans back against the seat with a heavy sigh. “I’m never doing this again, Mr. Stark,” he mumbles.

X

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☁ Drifting Away (Giotto) #08

📑 Table of Contents | ◂Previous

Author’s Note: Okay! I want to clear up a few things c: First off, this is the last chapter that my younger self wrote (I think I was like 16?). Now, in these past eight chapters, I’m sure you’ve come across things that seemed impossible for the time period, and I will do my best to stick to the year 1870 as best as I can from here on out! I hope you will go easy on me~

Rather than using google translate, I now have a wonderful friend willing to help me with the Italian translations (@kiralushia​) who also has this wonderful comic that you should definitely go check out! She has also been so supportive and is the main reason I want to finish this story!

I have decided to keep the flip cell phones for plot purposes and Salmon’s laptop (the story behind this is that they brought the technology from the future along with the necessary components in order to use them in the past). I hope you can overlook this plot hole for the sake of the story!

Finally, I want to state that I have NOT read the manga (yet). I wanted to get this final chapter posted first and now I am going to go and read the proper arc within the manga in order to learn more about the first generation so I can do them proper justice within this story. Thank you so much for reading!

━━━━━━༻🌧️༺━━━━━━

☁ Cafe ✗ Guardian ✗ Confrontation ☁

You and Zakun had been walking for a good hour or so and, to be completely honest, you weren’t too sure he had a destination in mind. You were starting to think that he was just walking for the sake of it. After ten more minutes passed, you began to get annoyed.

“Oi! How the hell are we supposed to find this guy, anyway?”

“We search.” Another stoic response. Did this guy even have any emotion? Maybe he should have been the cloud guardian.

“Obviously, but we can’t just walk around blindly, ya know. You have to have some sort of plan or idea or something.”

“No.”

You facepalmed, sighing deeply as you begrudgingly followed after him. It seemed kind of hopeless, just walking around aimlessly. How would you even know if you had the right person? You were pretty sure that you didn’t have time to waste but, whenever you looked at Zakun, he looked totally relaxed. Then again, he’d probably be that way even if the world were about to end.

“Okay, how do we know we got the right guy? Just go around slipping the ring onto people’s fingers until we find one it doesn’t reject?”

He sent you a ‘get real’ look over his shoulder and you scowled. “When you first got the ring, it started resonating in sync with your own, giusto?”

You nodded.

“I knew you had gotten a hold of the ring because mine did the same. When you got close to me, they started resonating again, this time glowing brighter. The same thing will happen, only brighter than the first two times, when we get close to the bearer of the ring,” he paused, glancing over at you as you fell in step beside him. “It will act as a compass. The closer we get, the brighter it will become. The further we get, the less it will glow, until it eventually goes out, like now.” He motioned towards the ring on his finger.

You hummed thoughtfully, grabbing his hand and sliding the ring from his finger. You had seen the Gardiano rings before, but never actually paid attention to its detail. The shank of the ring was the body of a dragon, cloud gray in color and the same width as the Vongola rings. On top was the head of the dragon, the same color as the body. It’s mouth was open wide and inside was the Gardiano family’s crest. Its color was the respective multi-colored hue of the fire guardian and the eyes were the same color.

It truly was a badass looking ring.

Zakun slid the ring back on his finger without a word.

“What if they aren’t in Italy?”

“Then we have a problem.”

You stared at him blankly.

He returned the look. “Salmon says the probability of the barer being in Italy is seventy-five percent.”

“That still leaves a twenty-five percent chance that our guy is somewhere else in the world.”

“Are you always so negative?” He questioned, glancing at you.

“No,” you scowled. “I was just being honest.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly closed it and stopped walking. Digging into his jacket pocket, he produced a cell phone which he then flipped open and pressed to his ear. “Hello?… Not yet… Are you sure?… Fine.”

You raised an eyebrow as he snapped it shut. Honestly, you had never witnessed such a short phone call before.

“Rorian says we should split up,” he paused, holding out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

“Uh, sure,” you pulled the cell phone from your pocket and sat it in his open palm. His fingers pressed into the keys, entering his contact information into the device, along with a couple of the other members, just in case.

“We can cover more ground this way. If you find him, or get lost again, call me. Salmon will call you if I find him.” He turned in the opposite direction and started to walk away.

With a shrug, you continued on your way, your mind running wild with various thoughts. “If I were a missing fire guardian, where the hell would I be? Hmm.”

━━━━━━༻🌧️༺━━━━━━

When the sun finally began to rise, you decided it was time to take a break. Fortunately, you came to that decision in front of a bookstore. Opening the door, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and pristine, new books filled your nostrils and it was such a wonderful combination. The bookstore was small, but offered quite a selection of books.

On the right side of the store, in the corner, was a small cafe where you could read and drink coffee or even have something sweet to snack on. The whole atmosphere was calm and quiet, the perfect place to relax. You knew that Zakun would probably be mad, but you were exhausted and needed a few minutes to rest and regain some of your energy. After all the searching you had done, surely a five minute break wouldn’t hurt.

You sighed as you fell into the wooden chair near the corner, arms folded on the small round table with your head on top. The cold wood felt nice against your skin and that, mixed with the sound of pages being turned and coffee being poured, lulled you to sleep. You hadn’t even realized how tired you felt, but it was no surprise since you had been walking since nearly four in the morning and it was now just after eight at night.

You slept soundly with no strange dreams or interruptions which was rare for you since finding yourself thrown into the past and your body was soaking it up.

At least until a burning against your lower chest and stomach jolted you from your peaceful nap. A small groan passed your lips as your eyes slid open. It took a few minutes to realize that your shirt was glowing – or rather, what was underneath it.

You blinked in surprise, pulling at the collar of your shirt so you could see the ring, which was glowing pretty brightly. Looking around, there were only four people around you.

The woman wiping off the counters. A dark-skinned male reading his newspaper. A pale-skinned man reading a Josh Grisham novel. And another male that had just walked in, briefcase in one hand and a newspaper tucked under his arm.

As he walked closer, the warmth and glow of the ring increased, almost to a painful degree and, by the time he took a seat at the table beside your own, it was almost unbearable. His hair was sandy brown and slightly spiky, but slicked back away from his forehead, and his eyes were a moonlight silver. On his forehead was a crescent moon shaped scar and he was dressed in a navy blue suit.

‘What should I do? I know Zakun said to call him… but what if he doesn’t make it in time?’ You stood up, hiding the glowing rings as best as you could, before approaching his table. He was scribbling away onto a thick pad of paper, which had been removed from his briefcase. “Excuse me?”

He glanced up at you, his expression nothing short of serious. “Do you mind if I sit here?”

The man’s slim brow rose and he glanced around the cafe, which was practically empty, before looking back at the paper and shrugging. Without a sound, you took a seat across from him, fiddling with your fingers that were flat on top of the black table. Now, what in the hell were you supposed to say?

‘Hey! Just thought I’d let you know that I’m part of the mafia and I need your help to save the first generation of my family! Oh yeah, I’m from the future, too! That should go over well,’ you glanced up at him.

His eyes were scanning the page, his hand flying across the page at a nearly inhuman pace. You wondered what he was writing, but you couldn’t understand the language.

“Mind if I ask you something?”

He glanced up at you, paused for a moment and nodded before returning to his work.

“Do you… believe that the mafia exists?”

His hand paused, the tip of the pen hovering above the page, but he didn’t look up at you this time. When he spoke, his voice was deep. “A foolish question.”

You scowled, clenching your fist against the table. ‘Be nice, Y/N. Remember that you need this guy, so just be nice.’ “You believe, then?”

“Italy is known for their mafioso.” His voice was monotone, not a single speck of emotion within. Damn, he might just be colder than Zakun.

“Right. So I guess it’s safe to tell you that I’m part of the mafia, then.”

The man’s hand froze and his eyes narrowed into a glare at you before he gathered up the papers and placed them back into his briefcase, standing up. “I don’t know what game you’re playing at, but I refuse to believe that a mere child is in the mafia. Do take your games elsewhere.”

You sat frozen in your chair, blinking a few times as the words sunk in. You then shot up from your chair and growled out, “I’m not a child!” but it didn’t matter, because the man was already gone. With a groan, you fell back into the chair. ‘Now what am I supposed to do? Rory-chan is so gonna kill me.’

“Mi scusi?”

You looked up to see the female worker from before. She smiled softly, placing an espresso in front of you. “Oh, uhh… thank you.”

Realizing that you spoke English, she switched to using it, a thick accent present but her words easily understandable. “No problem. You looked like you needed it,” she smiled brightly, tilting her head to the side and causing her blonde bangs to fall across her closed eyes. “So tell me, did you know that guy?”

“No,” you sighed, leaning back in the chair with your hand clasped loosely over the base of the drink. “I need to, though.”

“You’re not like a spia, how you say, a stalker are you?”

“No. I have better things to do than stalk some guy.” You rolled your eyes. “Especially not someone as rude as him!”

She giggled. “Alright then! I can give you some information on him. Though I don’t know much, I know a little.”

“And you’d tell me, just like that?” You quirked a brow at her. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch!” She smiled, nodding her head. “It seems kinda important that you get through to him, but I’m warning you, he’s a tough costumer!” She giggled again. “His name is Holland and he’s a twenty-three year old owner of some shop on the other side of town. He’s all business – never smiles, never laughs, never even shows any emotion unless it’s annoyance! He’s so stuffy!” She pouted, folding her arms over her chest as she took the seat he had previously occupied.

“What kind of shop is it?”

“Hmm, I believe it’s a book shop, but I am not certain.”

“Do you know the name? Or an address.”

“Un attimo,” she held up her finger before standing up and heading over to the counter, where she grabbed a thin strip of paper. She pulled the fountain pen from the ink bottle, gliding it across the page before returning it and heading back to you, setting the paper onto the paper. “Careful not to smear the ink.”

You glanced at the address written there and had no clue where the hell it was, but you could just ask someone on the street and hope they knew English. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?

“I’ve tried so many times to be nice to him,” she continued. “But he’s just so mean! He comes in here every morning around nine o’clock, reads a few pages from his paper, and then spends close to two hours scribbling away. I thought, maybe, since he comes in everyday, I’d try and be nice, but half the time, he does not even respond! Che maleducato, you know?”

“Y-Yeah…” No, you really didn’t know, but you cleared your throat, shifting in your seat. “So, everyday, then?”

She nodded again. “It was actually pretty surprising, though! Usually he just ignores everyone that talks to him or whatever, but he didn’t ignore you! He actually let you sit with him and he actually talked to you in that deep sexy voice of his, I can not believe it! Maybe it’s because you’re so young,” she put her finger to her bottom lip, which slightly jutted forward as she pouted. “But I’m young, too, you know?”

Again, no, you did not know, but you pretended you did. “Uhh, right… weird…” You dug into your pocket to pull out some money for the drink only to freeze as you came to a realization – you only had yen on you, and you were pretty sure that they didn’t accept that in Italy.

Sensing your rising distress, the girl crossed her legs and waved you off with a friendly smile. “Non preoccuparti, it is on the house. I’m Sandra, by the way, Sandra Moretti. I’m half-American and I struggled learning the language when I came here as a child, but do not worry, you will pick it up soon!”

Normally people didn’t give that much information to someone they just met, which worried you a bit, but you let it go. “Cool, thank you.”

“Sure thing! See you around~”

You chuckled nervously as you stood up, keeping your eyes on her as you headed for the door. As soon as your back hit the glass, you bolted from the store and down the street. Sure, she seemed nice enough, but you knew from experience that coming across people that friendly and willing to give away information to a complete stranger were usually pretty dangerous. Still, you got some useful information from her.

Just then, the phone started to buzz within your pocket and you fished it out, flipping it open without so much as second thought. You instantly came to regret this decision, having to pull the phone back in order to keep your hearing in tact.

“Why didn’t you call?!” came Rorian’s angered voice. You could hear three voices in the background, probably trying to calm him down. “Zakun called thirty minutes ago and said you found the first generation fire guardian!“

“Er, yeah… about that…” you cleared your throat, leaning back against the brick wall. Night had fallen, the streets barely lit up by the pale street lamps scattered too far apart from each other. It was silent in the city, something you weren’t used to. “I did find him… kind of.”

“‘Kind of’? What in the hell does that mean?“

“Calm down, Rorian!” cried a voice that I did not recognize.

“Give me the phone, will you?” Rorian’s cries faded into the background as Sylvian took over, his voice soft and warm. “Hello, Y/N sweetheart. Don’t mind Rory. He’s a bit moody tonight.“

“I told you not to call me that!” was Rorian’s muffled reply.

“I hear you found the first-generation guardian of fire. Is this correct?” Sylvian inquired. It sounded like he had left the room, because the background of the call suddenly became silent.

“Yeah, I’m sorry Syl. I should have called Zakun, but I didn’t want to risk him not getting there in time. I had ’em, too.” You sighed, closing your eyes and leaning your head back against the wall. If you weren’t mentally kicking yourself before, you certainly were now.

“Don’t worry about it, you simply followed your instincts and did what you believed was best.” He paused. “Did you get any information on him? What did he look like?“

“I talked to a girl that worked there. She said his name is Holland, twenty-three years old, and he owns a bookstore on the other side of town. I got the address. He also visits the same cafe every morning around nine.”

“Then we still have a chance. Good work, sweetheart.” His warm smile could be heard within his tone. “Do you remember how to get back to the hideout?“

“I think I can manage.” You responded, but the truth was that you probably couldn’t and would end up just wandering around aimlessly for a while. That was fine, though, because you figured the others would be pretty angry for letting Holland get away, even Sylvian, despite how calm he sounded on the phone.

“Alright. I’ll call Zakun and tell him to return, as well.“

The line went dead and you heaved a tired sigh, flipping the phone shut before sliding it back into your pocket. Back in your own era, you had often made mistakes because you were, in Reborn’s words, brash and reckless, acting before thinking – a lot like Gokudera, but much worse. You often screwed things up and got yourself hurt because of it, but Tsuna was never mad at you.

No matter how badly you screwed up, Tsuna always forgave you, even for your most stupid of moments. The others… not so much. Gokudera would always get pissed off at you for causing trouble for the Juudaime, despite the fact that he causes just as much trouble. Yamamoto usually just shrugged it off, and Reborn and Bianchi would often give you the silent treatment for a week.

You know how when parents get angry at their kids and the kids feel like shit because of it? Well, when someone you care about is disappointed in you, it makes you feel even lower than that, like the scum of the earth.

Now, you may not have known these guys long enough to be considered close with them, but they did feel kind of like family and you were also already feeling pretty low because you had betrayed one of the two people you swore you would never betray – Giotto.

‘And after he stuck up for me. And Asari and Knuckle… I wonder what’s going through their minds. Wait… I take that back. I don’t wanna know…’

━━━━━━༻🌧️༺━━━━━━

Three hours later, you found yourself standing in the kitchen of the old abandoned house, staring at the knife. You had never actually tried this, but it should still work. Igniting the flame on your ring, you gripped the handle, letting it engulf the knife. Seconds later, a click was heard and the hole appeared on the fridge. You inserted the ring and the circle of flames appeared, the door swinging open.

You walked down the same dimly lit hallway, taking small, slow steps because you still weren’t looking forward to facing the others, but it had to be done. Better sooner than later, right?

You finally came to a stop in front of the door bearing the Gardiano Family’s crest. Taking a deep breath, you pushed the door open and slipped into the brightly lit room, a fairly large change from the almost pitch black hallways that led up to it. The hushed whispers of the group stopped as they all turned to look at you, a thick silence falling over the room.

You shifted from one foot to the other, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze as you attempted to swallow down your increasing nerves. ‘Man, this sucks. I feel like a kid about to be scolded.’

“So you have finally returned,” Rorian didn’t sound angry like he had earlier on the phone, but the annoyance was still quite present. Guess that’s better than seething rage, though.

“Did you get lost?” Salmon questioned, glancing up from his laptop.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I did.” You rubbed the back of your leg with your foot, forcing a smile. Your hesitation to return was not a fact that they needed to know – or maybe that was just your damned pride getting in the way.

━━━━━━༻🌧️༺━━━━━━

▸Next

[gloomshrike]

Rovhathel

Raharen dismounted his gryphon by the lake, prompting him to drink up. 

“It’s going to be a quick turnaround. I promise you can rest once we’re back in the city.”

The gryphon bowed his head and drank deeply from the lake, as Raharen moved towards Quel’danil lodge. Please still be here, he thought to himself, as he briskly jogged into the highvale settlement. 

“AHA! I knew that were Thorondir flyin’ inta the lodge, an’ no even a hello to be found, ye bastard!”

Raharen halted his gait and turned around just in time to be jump-headbutted by a heavily tattooed dwarf. The half-elf recoiled, and rubbed his forehead, and the dwarf gave a hearty laugh.

“Holy hell,” Raharen replied, still rubbing his head and looking down at the dwarf, “Taknark Featherbeard. It really is the end of the fucking world.”

Taknark roared with laughter. He was tattooed from head to waist, and likely beyond, were his delicates not covered with a chainmail war-kilt. He wore two stone maces at his side, and his braided, fire-red beard was nearly as long as his height. He straightened out his mohawk where the headbutt had disheveled it. 

“Raharen. Have nae seen hide nor hair o ya in some time. I missed ya somethin’ sore, ya know.”

Raharen sighed. “I’ve missed you too. Every time I’ve meant to visit the Peak I’ve just been caught up in something. Glad to see time refuses to change you.” He smiled.

Taknark’s face sterned for a moment. “Ne’er mind that, now. Ya been ta the capital?”

Raharen nodded, his face solemn again. “I just flew from there. And Icecrown before that.”

Taknark huffed. “Aye, tis true then. I been meanin’ to go ta Ironforge ta check in but the Peak’s in a right state. Been ordered ta keep watch o’er the Hinterlands, from there ta Stormfeather.”

“It’s a sound plan. We have no idea how bad this is going to get, or how far it’ll stretch. I’m actually here to pick up my old armor, and tabard, if the armory still has it. I’ll then be returning to Stormwind to mount a defense.”

Taknark spat on the ground. “Pah. Highvale elves would ne’er throw somethin’ like that away. I’d come with ya ta tease the smithy, but there’s someone else in there ya might want ta talk to. Where’s yer bird? I’m gonna go make sure ya have nae been feedin’ him crap the last few years.”

Raharen gave Taknark a puzzled look. “He’s at the lake to the east, running distance.”

The dwarf nodded. “Aye. See ya before ya go, then.” He trotted off back to his own gryphon, and flew off in the lake’s direction. Raharen turned back towards the lodge and walked inside, taking a look around, until he found what Taknark had been talking about. At a table outside, glass of wine in hand, was a high elf in casual silks, with his feet propped up on the opposite chair, reading a book.

“Redridge finally kicked you out?” Raharen asked, and the high elf looked at him over the brim of his book.

“No, but there are ghouls there now.” The man replied dryly.

“Not going to help beat them back?” Raharen asked, knowing the answer.

Gloomshrike took his feet off of the other chair and motioned for his son to sit down. “Nope. I came straight to the lodge, filled a cup of wine, and I’m going to wait for this whole thing to blow over.”

Raharen took a small book out from his pack and put it on the table. “It’s not going to blow over.”

Gloomshrike raised an eyebrow and motioned to the seat again. “Then you’ve got plenty of time to chat?” He took notice of the book and his eyes widened. “Ahh, you finished it! Well, what’d you think?”

Raharen looked around the lodge. “It was good. A lot of floral imagery, you should mix it up a little for the next one. Where’s the smith?”

Gloomshrike scoffed. “No idea. And you’re worse than Tysten. Flowers are pretty, why wouldn’t I write about them?” 

Raharen shrugged. “I don’t know. And you haven’t seen the smith all day? Is the armory open?”

Gloomshrike rolled his eyes, “Maybe. I don’t know what your hurry is. Just sit for a second and have a chat.”

Raharen furrowed his brow. “I have to get back to Stormwind. I don’t have time to chat.”

Gloomshrike stood up and hummed, moving towards the armory as Raharen followed. “I thought you gave up the grandiose causes after the Third War.”

Raharen gave an irritated sound. “Yeah, well, I might have to fight it again.”

Gloomshrike sighed, and the pair moved in silence towards the armory doors. The lodge was tense, and guards were leaving the armory with freshly sharpened weapons.

“Don’t fret.” Gloomshrike said, nonchalantly. “Everyone’s preparing for the worst. We’re close to the plaguelands.”

“I’m not fretting.” Raharen replied. “You’re not easy to kill.”

Gloomshrike feigned a pout. “Not a single worry? For the well-being of your old man? What if I were to perish in a horrific night raid?”

Raharen gave an irritated look. “Then come back to Stormwind with me, and I’ll keep you safe.”

Gloomshrike laughed, the leftover wine in his glass sloshing around with the motion. “That’s funny in so many ways. You really should write.”

The pair reached the armory, and Gloomshrike gave a knowing nod to the overworked smith. He moved to a section in the far back left corner and motioned to a large, dusty trunk. “There you go, kiddo.”

Raharen rushed over and popped the trunk open, removing pieces of silversteel plate from the trunk, as Gloomshrike walked off. The armor pieces were of elven make, and high quality. On the shoulders, the same symbol of a gryphon which adorned Raharen’s waistcloth had been carefully carved into the metal. Raharen pulled off the aging, dented brass armor he had been wearing and placed it in the trunk, and set to work equipping the old, now new, armaments.

Gloomshrike walked back from the cupboard holding a long item, wrapped in an embroidered cloth, and as Raharen finished fastening the last clasps on his armor, offered it to him.

Raharen regarded the item with wide, cautious eyes. “You… you kept it?” He asked.

Gloomshrike nodded. “Your mother had this commissioned when you enlisted with the crusade. I wouldn’t part with it. I’m not sure I ever forgave you for doing so, either.”

Raharen tugged the cloth off of the broadsword. Its handle was treated and wrapped leather, dyed a dull blue as it led to the hilt, which was white gold carved into the silhouette of a bird. The same gold adorned the pommel in the form of a large counterweight. The metal was inlaid with blue stone, where it flexed against its sheath. Raharen grabbed the handle, and pulled it from the scabbard.

Thin, gold lines ran from the blue, up to the point of the blade. Inside these lines was the thickest, heaviest part of the blade, and extending outside of them were the two sharp edges. The lines formed a triangular setting just beneath the point of the blade, where a single sapphire sat.

“Rovhathel.” Raharen barely uttered the word, almost simply mouthing it. 

“Wingblade.” Gloomshrike echoed Raharen with the name’s translation. “Still suits you.”

Raharen returned the blade to its sheath and strapped it onto his back. “Thank you.”

Gloomshrike let out a single chuckle. “It never should have left you. Well, if you can’t sit for a drink and a chat, you’d best get going. I’ll meet you outside.”

Raharen nodded and left the armory. Gloomshrike closed the trunk and walked back over to the cupboard, where an elven bow hung above a leather quiver. His eyes lingered for a moment, and he shut the door.

Raharen waited patiently as Gloomshrike left the armory, his glass now empty. “So then, what should I write about this time if it’s not flowers, Lord Critic?”

Raharen offered a soft smile. “A lot of things are pretty. Write about history, or the human spirit or something.”

“Boring.” Gloomshrike shook his head, then met Raharen’s gaze again. “Don’t die.”

Raharen nodded. “I don’t plan on it.”

The pair walked back to Gloomshrike’s seat, which he took once more. “The world’s getting nastier by the minute, Raharen. I hope you can save it this time.” He said dryly, filling another glass.

Raharen’s eyes drifted off to the ground. “Take care of yourself, Dad.” And he walked out of the lodge.

Taknark was waiting just down the hill, with Thorondir and Gwaihir behind him. “O, now there’s the ol’ crusader I hunted ghouls with, eh?”

Raharen chuckled, and hung his bags from Thorondir’s saddle again. “Well, hopefully I leave some for you.”

Taknark gave a serious nod. “I’ll be out there meself before ya know. Stay. Alive. Y’hear?”

Raharen kneeled down to the dwarf’s height, and they headbutted again. “Be safe, Taknark. I’ll listen for the thunder.”

Taknark grinned, and Raharen mounted his gryphon and flew off south again.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Raharen flew over the mountains that preceded the Thandol Span, he heard a deafening screech from above. He turned his head to see a young frostwyrm bearing down on him. He yanked his reins, and Thorondir dove towards the mountain as the skeletal wyrm gave chase. He pulled the reins again and his gryphon swooped, halting their descent and carrying them upwards. As the frostwyrm spread its wings to slow its own fall, Raharen hurled a spear of crackling Light, severing its left wing at the joint. The wyrm roared, and breathed a torrent of cold, necrotic magic at him. Thorondir avoided the attack, and dove towards the frostwyrm. Raharen dismounted as they flew over the dragon’s hard landing, and pulled Rovhathel from its sheath. The blade hummed to life at his touch, and Raharen brought it down on the construct’s neck.

The wyrm unleashed an eldritch screech as its head struggled to stay attached, and Raharen’s hands glowed as he poured a beam of fiery Light into the creature. The screeching stopped, and the rest of its twice-killed corpse began to fall apart into ash. 

That’ll take care of the rust. Raharen mused, as he caught his breath, mounted up again and continued his flight.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gloomshrike tapped his chin, staring down at the blank page of the book in front of him.

The human spirit. The human spirit? Human spirits… spirits… He amused himself with the wordplay as he poured another glass of wine. He kicked his feet back and watched the clear skies over Quel’danil.

His eyes widened, and he took his feet off of the chair, and snatched up his quill.

In sickened, stagnant waters still

In darkness even Death forbade

Is life and light and unwavered will

On winged beast and winged blade

[storyweaverofgondor]

Looking for a new book to read

I have been having some trouble finding any books i like recently so i thought I’d put this out there. These are entirely my personal opinions about what i enjoy and are not intended to offend. Be aware they are very strong opinions. There is no time limit on this. I am always interested in checking out new books. Please help a girl out!

Update: I only know how to read English. so keep that in mind. I don’t mind translations tho!

Things i like:

Size matters not. but i do like them long. I’m a fast reader so 100 pages doesn’t usually last that long.

Series or single book. all are good.

Intended age range doesn’t matter. good stories are not age restrictive.

I don’t care how old the book is. it could be 500 years old or more. I don’t mind! :)

Preferred genre: Fantasy Adventure. am also interested in Supernatural, Sci-fi and Action.

I also adore “Falling into another world” stories.

I like hero type protagonists. i actually want to like the people I’m supposed to root for.

I like found family stories and stories that features strong friendships

LGBTQ+ is fine. I haven’t read a lot of it but I’d like to.

I don’t mind if the character breaks the law as long as they are still a good person (I.e. Aladdin, Leverage or Robin Hood)

I don’t really care about the gender of the main characters. i don’t need them to be the same gender as me to enjoy them.

I don’t really care about the race of the main characters. real human types or fantasy/sci-fi species, I’m cool with any of them.

I enjoy a good bit of karma.

I don’t mind whump. I’m a whump fiend!

Things I’m iffy on (A.k.a I don’t hate them but I’m very picky.):

Horror is iffy. I enjoyed Dracula and the Resident Evil books but i don’t like being scared or paranoid.

Mystery is iffy since i am very picky and they tend to suffer from what i call the Jessica Fletcher Curse (If you are curious about what this dm me for an annoyed rant about this aggravating trope)

Historical fantasy isn’t really my thing. Most of them spend a chapter just talking about the clothes or rigidly stick to historical events without actually establishing a plot. This does not include “Period Stories” however which involve a story that takes place during a particular time. those i am willing to give a try.

I don’t mind Tragdies but i don’t want them to be depressing.

I’m not overly found of military protagonists. They tend to fall into the slot of “This person is in the military. that makes them a hero.” which . . . I’m sorry. But being on the side of the law does not make you a good person and breaking it doesn’t make you evil. This just doesn’t vibe with me.

I am not particularly interested in modern day/settings. I live in a “modern setting”. unless something really cool and fantastical happens why would i want to read about it?

I am not to fond of political drama. A little intrigue is fun and adds a bit of spice and depth. but i don’t like politics in real life and would rather not see it in my stories.

I can enjoy books with a conservation undertone but I’m really picky and would prefer a light hand instead of a heavy one.

I don’t mind morally gray characters but i do still want them to be likeable (i.e. Jack Sparrow, Catwoman)

I don’t mind cursing but I am not a fan of serious cursing. Maximum one serious curse word in the heat of battle or like character just panickedly repeating a serious curse word over and over while everything is falling apart is fine. Drat, darn and heck don’t really resonate as curse words for me so i’m fine with those being said however much someone likes.

Things i don’t like (I get a bit ranty here. sorry about that):

I strongly dislike “This Character is gay and they are made up of Gay Characteristics” type characters. but that stems mostly from my dislike of “This Character is in love and we aren’t going to develop them beyond that. Here’s a bunch of mushy moments.” type characters. Being in love - or in lust as is the most common type of relationship - is not a personality trait in my opinion.

I dislike Romance. In a fairy tale setting or mixed in as a subplot is fine. but i strongly dislike American Romantic Comedies or anything else with a strong focus on romance since i tend to find them unbearably bland and the relationships are often unspeakably shallow.

I dislike stories involving racism or injustice or any other social inequality motivated story. It makes me very upset when i see this in real life and since books are my escape from reality i prefer not to read stories about it.

I dislike preachy books. Like Fern Gully; it’s a very pretty movie. But it was just too preachy for me to enjoy.

I dislike books that strongly feature detailed sexy times or describe private parts. not my thing. XP

I dislike talking books. If it spends a whole chapter with people just talking and it doesn’t move the plot forward or involves some deliciously clever banter? I’ll never bother to finish the book.

I dislike books that at any point mention “one’s place”. It really makes me grit my teeth.

I hate awkward or embarrassing moments or humiliation. nothing turns me off of a story quicker.

Nothing like Game of Thrones. Fantasy setting and Dragons? Yes! Everything else? No, thank you!

If it sounds like it could be a Hallmark movie get it away from me! Hallmark Movies are the devil! *Hisses like a cat* EVIL!EVIL!EVIL-LEE!

I welcome any and all suggestions! :D

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 244: Have You Read This Book

Previously on BnHA: Deku visited his mom on New Year’s Eve and was all “here’s a new letter from my ever-expanding fanclub of adorable preschoolers whom I saved from trauma” and Inko was all, “I’M SO PROUD OF YOU IZUKU I FEEL LIKE I DON’T HAVE TO PROTECT YOU ANYMORE” because she doesn’t watch the news at all or keep track of ominous plot developments I guess. The next morning, a.k.a. New Year’s Fucking Day, while other kids their age visited shrines or sat at home watching TV, Izuku, Shouto, and Katsuki were bussed off to go be child soldiers at Endeavor’s hero agency. Katsuki was all “HEY ENDEAVOR YOU’RE KIND OF A DICK,” and Endeavor was all “SHOUTO IS THIS VULGAR AND PUGNACIOUS YOUTH REALLY YOUR FRIEND” and Shouto was all “TOO LATE DAD, YOU SAID!!” and Endeavor hmmphed and booked it out of there and the kids all followed him and there was this old dude with a beard floating around screaming about END TIMES!! and Hawks was there and, what?? Seriously does anyone actually know what’s going on?

Today on BnHA: Endeavor chases down the old man (who may in fact be an actual prophet, though? Horikoshi what games are you playing) and sets him on fire and tackles him and it’s all very violent. Hawks then appears out of nowhere and breaks up BakuDeku’s tag team effort all “SAVE IT FOR THE MOVIE YOU TWO!” and is then all “hi Shouto” and “hi, you must be Midoriya, Tokoyami told me all about you, I wanted to work with you too, BUT -- [stares off angstily into the distance].” Then, because I forgot that Hawks never shuts up, he’s all, “Hey Endeavor have you ever heard of this book, ‘Paranormal Liberation Front’? Don’t let the really dumb-sounding title put you off, it’s actually a rousing tale full of hidden clues about all the bullshit I’m actually up to. I highlighted the relevant portions if you can’t be assed to read it, well anyways, Hail Hydra.” “Well that was a strange conversation,” Endeavor thinks to himself as he stares uncomprehendingly into the void. Sob someone please help them why are they so bad at this oh god.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, and added a few ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.)

so thanks to that little stunt Horikoshi pulled two weeks ago, our chances of finding out Bakugou’s hero name any time within the next dozen chapters are slimmer than ever. probably he’ll reveal it at the end of the arc instead. it’s like he doesn’t even care about the databook. whatever I’ll have plenty of time to sulk more about it after I get to readin’

anyway the title of the new chapter is “Recommendation”, so... actually that does sound fairly promising, though? am I just eternally doomed to get my hopes up? is this referring to Shouto pestering his dad to take on his two best friends as fellow interns? what’s going on here

anyway so we’re opening with this

I love that it’s the two supposed goody-two-shoes kids who are actually being vocal about blatantly disregarding Endeavor’s orders. Shouto is just not having it to begin with, whereas Deku at least is trying to rationalize his own reckless behavior. Katsuki meanwhile is too focused on doing this fancy kick move to switch his suitcase from his left hand to his right to bother talking right now. reminds me of him playing with the soccer ball as a youngling

also the fact that his case is number 17 and Deku’s is number 18. have I talked about this before? I think I have but it was with some other numbered thing. anyways love the symbolism of him trying to stay one step ahead of him and Deku always being right on his heels. or maybe I’m reading too much into it but anyways rivals, yay

damn Endeavor is really determined to get ahead of them though

uh oh Horikoshi how much action did you pack into this chapter. starting to run out of time to finish all your panels again huh. you had a whole extra week! how fucking insane is this arc going to be holy shit

anyways Endeavor way to leave your brand new interns behind minutes after meeting them for the first time smdh. this is exactly how it went down with Hawks and Tokoyami

okay so like, I know a flash fire is an actual thing, but for a second I started wondering if in this kind of context (with him speeding off), it might also be a reference to the DC hero. then I remembered that the name of Endeavor’s technique is different in Japanese and the pun probably doesn’t translate. ah well

anyways dude is fast. but I wouldn’t count the kids out yet, they’re all pretty fast too!

so now we’re back downtown with Old Man Doom And Gloom, and oddly enough it seems that this isn’t actually an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence?

fucking quirk society. you guys are just so desensitized to the most bizarre fucking things. but I guess we in the 21st century are hardly ones to talk ourselves sigh

anyway now he’s being a bit more extra than usual and they’re starting to worry

?? the fuck is that? that sure as hell isn’t Hawks or Endeavor lmao. IF IT’S SLIDIN’ GO I SWEAR TO GOD

or wait, is it still the old man talking? should I actually be paying attention to his ramblings, my bad

is that a fucking Spirit Bomb

(ETA: in truth this is the most badass attack name that has ever existed or will ever exist and I should give it its proper due actually.)

so now I guess he’s hurtling it at them??

...hold up one sec

“revelations from the universe, I have received. flee, flee good citizens. the Dark Lord’s lips curl into a wicked crescent” -- holy shit, this all tracks?? IS THIS DOOMSDAY CRACKPOT MOTHERFUCKER ACTUALLY RIGHT ON THE FUCKING MONEY HOLY SHIT. ARE YOU A WITCH GOOD SIR. DID YOU WRITE A BOOK OF HIGHLY ACCURATE AND DEVASTATINGLY WITTY PROPHECIES BY ANY CHANCE

“the end is nigh! the wicked stars are conspiring against us! we must stop them! the earth is on the verge of being engulfed by darkness! flee, my fellow citizens! I am the one who shall destroy this source of darkness! be revealed! servants of the dark lord, come forth!”

okay listen. if he’s aiming this fucking thing at Hawks, though, after a speech like that? fuck it, I’m a believer. I’m sorry old man, I wrote you off without a second thought and here you are being the only one who’s actually like “HELLO!!!? PEOPLE!!!? THE LEAGUE OF VILLAINS!!?! THEY HAVE AN ARMY!!? AND NOUMUS!??! FUUUUUUUUCK”

and I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but those are some legit-ass universe revelations. fucking even talks about the “Dark Lord” specifically only describing his lips. because he doesn’t have anything else to describe nowadays, face-wise. shit that is spooky

anyway so that sure was unexpected. let’s see what shenanigans Master Roshi here is gonna get himself into next

did my boy just get fucking flashfired. jesus Endeavor show some fucking mercy

...

someone want to explain to this man the concept of a proportionate response? anyone? ...

fucking Todorokis I swear to god. if they weren’t all so good at being amazing superheroes, they could easily fall back on a career of being dramatic bitches for hire instead

anyways when did Endeavor change his clothes. this dude was wearing a turtleneck and slacks thirty seconds ago. did he literally just burn them off. how. what. fucking plot holes left and right

lol imagine if like on the next page the interns finally catch up and they’re like holding his fucking jacket and looking peeved

-- holy fucking shit, Endeavor

not cool, dude!! what the fuck. this isn’t a fucking Noumu for fuck’s sake THAT IS A HUMAN PERSON

(ETA: I guess he ended up being okay, but shit, for a moment it looked like we were going full blown Raiders of the Lost Ark over here. anyways the moral of this story is that Endeavor is terrifying, fuck.)

so now of course Nostradamus is trying to get the fuck out of there, because if he sticks around Endeavor apparently has no qualms about burning him alive. fuck me Endeavor, I’m still rooting for your redemption arc my dude, but tbh if Dabi happens to pop up out of nowhere here looking for some revenge I’m not gonna say no to it right now. quit burning people alive!!

so now 12/21/2012 is zooming down an alley and Endeavor is zooming after him and telling some extra with a sword to stay and lead the evacuation

oh??

Endeavor have you flown yourself right into a trap?

oh my god what the fuck is this

it’s like Dabi VS the Liberation Army all over again. fucking check all these motherfuckers who apparently want to get themselves deep fried. this one guy really thinks he’s going to clock the Number One with a piece of fucking PVC pipe

LMAOOOOO

LOOKS LIKE WE GOT OURSELVES A RUCKUS, BOYS! you better believe I have the Powerpuff Girls theme song playing in my head right now

-- !!!

HAWKS!! I WAS STARTING TO WONDER IF YOU REALLY WERE THERE TOO OR IF THE PANELS IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER WERE DELIBERATELY MISLEADING

LOOOOOOL

pour one out for these poor sobs who somehow got themselves caught up in an accidental pincer attack between the dynamic fucking duo and fucking Angry Bird here. where the fuck is Shouto btw. or is he the one that got stuck carrying Endeavor’s jacket

loool look at Hawks out here making friends

SURPRISE BITCH

oh my god though you guys look at this??

HELLO SURPRISE NEW FAVORITE SERIES OF PANELS, CAN I JUST TAKE A MOMENT TO LOVE ON YOU A BIT HERE, BECAUSE

1. Bakugou and Deku IN PERFECT SYNC, not even thinking about it. just effortless. that was an amazing tag team thing you guys had going on before SOMEONE stepped in and ruined it all omg. do you want me to talk to Hawks for you. I’ve been meaning to discuss some other things with him anyway so it’s not like it’d be going out of my way. can you believe this fucking pigeon blocked my number. WHERE IS JEANIST YOU BASTARD

anyways 2. “I thought Endeavor might have been in a tough spot” that’s a funny way of saying “I was lonely and missed my angry arson dad”! and fucking look at this ridiculous bantering between them. “did it look like I was in a tough spot?” I FUCKING CAN’T YOU GUYS PLEASE STOP

and 3. Shouto just watching. is he impressed by his dad? or just trying to figure out whether Hawks is his dad’s adopted son or boyfriend. I’m pretty sure it’s the former, Shouto, but I don’t blame you for being confused, Hawks just has that kind of energy with everyone

oh my god

somebody arrest this man. I can’t fucking deal with your cheeky fucking face Hawks

is Skeptic getting all of this?? are they sitting there with bowls of popcorn back at the League of Pliff HQ trying to figure out whether Endeavor and Hawks are dating

...and shit, I just realized the League officially knows now that the disaster trio is interning with the number one. so that’s fucking great. not that it would have been a secret for long, but still, things are officially starting to get real. in hindsight, after the Kamino arc we had a nice long stretch of chapters in which Deku, Kacchan, and Shouto were not in immediate danger from the main fucking villains, so that was nice while it lasted I guess. those days will soon be behind us

ahhhklkljkl

fucking shit Hawks could you be any more ominous. oh my god this arc really is going to kill me

so now we’re cutting away to somewhere. Pliff?

-- oh, nope, still in the same place, we just fast-forwarded to the part where the police came to haul all the bad guys away

and now the manga is being all clever and foreshadowing-y and would you look at this

BUT IS HE TALKING ABOUT ENDEAVOR, OR HAWKS omg. or hell, he could even be talking about Deku. or AFO even though he’s not actually there. point is, you know he’s not actually wrong. but what is he actually trying to tell us ahhhhhh Servant of the Stars please reveal your secrets

(ETA: in all seriousness you guys, I’m fully down for counting this as a prophecy. it’s already canon that future-seeing quirks are a thing, so. the only problem is that this is some Game of Thrones-level ambiguity as far as who he’s actually talking about. it seriously could be anyone. anyways at least we’ve got some shiny new theory material to play around with here so that’s nice.)

LMAO

HAWKS YOU BASTARD, JUST LIKE THAT I’VE FORGIVEN YOU FOR THE FUCKING JEANOCIDE

how does every single person Deku meets not greet him this way?? I sure as hell would. “well if it isn’t the kid who just. fuckin blew up his own hands on live television, multiple times. salutations”

anyways where’s Katsuki, the boy whose previous hero mentor you murdered in cold blood but he doesn’t actually know that yet. when are we gonna start in on that?

Hawks says he’s heard about Deku from Tokoyami. and he even says he would have liked to work with Deku too, wow. that’s high praise

ffffff here it comes, THAT GOOD HAWKS ANGST. WE WERE WAITING FOR THIS BUT IT’S STILL BRUTAL GAH

is this entire arc just going to consist of Hawks saying cryptic things with double meanings known only to him and then glancing sideways at the camera all broodingly omg

AH, THERE HE IS

Katsuki’s natural instinct to dislike 100% of newcomers on sight might work out to his advantage here. Hawks’s maxed-out Charisma stats VS Katsuki’s middling Perception stats which nonetheless have a tendency to land high whenever he performs an ability check! I might need to back off from this metaphor though before it becomes really obvious that I don’t actually play D&D

lol

omg Endeavor can’t a guy just drop in on his grumpy pal out of the blue to make sure he’s doing okay without having some sort of ulterior motive? why are you so sure that Hawks showing up means that plot must be happening. because you’re not wrong, is the thing. but he’s probably just being standoffish for show

holy shit and now Hawks is just pulling out the Liberation Army’s book just like that?? IS HE ALLOWED TO DO THAT

(ETA: “let’s see, what’s a subtle way I can try and clue Endeavor in on the fact that I’ve become an undercover agent in the Paranormal Villain League of Liberation Front Armies. ... ...shit I’m not good at this.”)

and since when was this book called “Paranormal Liberation Front”?? did they change the title to match the new name?

and what’s Hawks’s game here, though? is he going to play it as though he’s secretly investigating Pliff? you know, like he actually is doing? is this some kind of hiding in plain sight thing or what

guys. is Hawks just... actually really bad at being a secret agent. omg

so he’s all “DESTRO’S IDEALS ARE EVERYTHING WE COULD ASK FOR” and lol what. fucking look at Endeavor’s face though

this motherfucker could use a boost of his own wisdom stats, fff

(ETA: swear to god he’s two seconds away from a Katsuki-style “hah?!”)

oh my god

fucking fuck me. he better have highlighted a really obvious section of that book, because otherwise I’m not gonna hold out hope for this message getting across at all. at least we know what that “recommendation” title was referring to now I guess

(ETA: Endeavor: [reading the highlighted section backwards] “‘‘it’s fun to smoke marijuana’!? what in the --”)

loooool

the fate of the world now rests upon Endeavor’s abilities to See Underneath The Underneath and somehow decipher that when Hawks says, “ENDEAVOR I CHASED YOU DOWN IN ORDER TO GIVE YOU A COPY OF THIS BOOK THE VILLAINS WROTE, I THINK IT’S REALLY KEEN AND YOU SHOULD CHECK IT OUT”, what he’s really saying is, “ENDEAVOR I NEED YOU TO INVESTIGATE THIS SUSPICIOUS ‘LIBERATION FRONT’ THAT’S BEEN COINCIDENTALLY GATHERING A LOT OF ATTENTION SINCE THAT SHADY INCIDENT IN DEIKA CITY WHERE ‘TWENTY GUYS' BASICALLY DESTROYED AN ENTIRE TOWN. IF YOU’RE TOO DENSE TO PICK UP ON ANY OF THAT, I HIGHLIGHTED THE RELEVANT PORTION OF THE BOOK SO HOPEFULLY EVEN AN OBLIVIOUS DUMBBELL LIKE YOU CAN FIGURE IT OUT.” jesus christ

at least Endeavor now has some nerdy interns who fucking love to read. hell, Deku has probably already read the book. please help this dumb jock to understand his bird son’s coded message, Deku-Wan Kenobi, you’re our only hope

and that’s the end of the chapter! except that I heard there was a new poster for Heroes Rising that was released as well! how come it wasn’t included here now I have to go hunt it down

son of a bitch is this really the best quality that’s available? damn

well all right. not really much going on here that’s a big revelation or anything, aside from the surprise inclusion of Hawks in the upper right hand corner. did we know he was going to be in this? and like, even if the anime does make it as far as his debut in season 4, will it have reached that point by the time the movie premieres in December? glad I caught up beforehand if they’re gonna start spoiling things like this

so that’s all she wrote for this week! databook is due out next week so that should be fun! we’re finally going to get Hawks’s real name from what I understand. so I can start yelling at him using his full name like a disappointed mom. I have a feeling that’s going to come in handy a lot during this arc. go to your room young man

(ETA: and just watch it be the Japanese equivalent of “Judas McMurder” or some shit. smh. y’all. we stan a shady bitch.)

[volturialice]

and thou art distant in Humanity

welcome to an edbella thing feat. vampire!bella and human!edward and a bookstore. it’s @cullen-collective‘s birthday request! title from Isabella, or the Pot of Basil by John Keats. 

rating: gen 

pairings: bella swan/edward cullen

length: 1.4k words 

part 1/2 

        Bella has never minded being alone. It’s being alone among other people she can’t seem to handle.

   This time it was Emmett’s fault, of course. Things often are. Sometimes Bella wonders whether the whole bear incident was as entirely unprovoked as her brother claims, because his ability to attract trouble is every bit as formidable as her own.

   Usually, it’s fine. It’s not as if you can get into too much trouble as an immortal, indestructible vampire. At least Emmett has just enough sense not to cross the Volturi or pick a fight with another coven. And he has Rose to keep him in line.

    And content as she is with solitude, sometimes Bella wonders what that would be like. She loves her family, but it would be nice to have someone who was all hers. Someone to hunt with, talk with, share with, spend eternity with. The usual stuff.

    And yes, all right, someone to have sex with. It’s awkward, having to sequester herself in the library all night every night until the others zip downstairs at dawn, all giggly and handsy or mellow and blissed out. Bella’s library is probably the most well-stocked and beautiful one in the country, but sometimes it feels more like a self-imposed prison than an escape. Still, she makes the best of it. Lonely cell or cozy burrow, it’s her space.

    Which is why it feels like such an affront when Emmett trespasses. Most of the time, Bella doesn’t mind being the perfect victim for his pranks—just stuffy enough to get offended, just cool enough to forgive. But Emmett can’t always tell when he crosses a line. Bella hides hurt feelings so well that probably no one can, except maybe Jasper. She doesn’t know why it’s so hard to admit when she’s been hurt—maybe some buried thing from her human life, an enduring desire to please everyone all the time, to never be a burden. That sounds about right for a girl from 1918.

    So she doesn’t say anything to Emmett about the ruined copy of Little Women. What would be the point? It’s not as if she can’t replace it. They’re billionaires, for crying out loud. She swallows back the little twinge of grief, the voice that protests, Renée bought me that book in 1909, a birthday present, we read it aloud to each other on summer evenings by the open window—and accepts the post-it note Alice hands her, with the address of the closest used bookstore—Masen’s Books—in elegant, looping scrawl.

    Bella should check it out, anyway. It’s always the first place she goes whenever they move to a new town. A way of getting her bearings. She loves the old-book smells, the quiet shuffling of feet and pages, the way the towering shelves seem to swallow up sound and make her feel like the only person on Earth—insulated, small, safe. Most of all she loves the link to the past, the tangible history in her hands when she picks up an old volume that someone else might have loved, once.

    Masen’s Books is about as close as Bella will ever get to being in heaven. Its two labyrinthine stories are divided into careful subsections, so many genres and special interests competing for attention that Bella almost doesn’t know where to start. She finds Little Women immediately—not a 1909 edition, but 1929 isn’t too bad, and at least it’s a sturdy copy, with its simple teal-blue binding in pretty good condition for something nearly as old as she is.

    But why stop there? There’s so much to look at. Anthologies and literary criticism, philosophy and religion, books in a host of other languages—French, Spanish, German, Vietnamese—and even a section of antique travel guides. Esme would love the Baedekers.

    She’s flipping through an Icelandic translation of Pride and Prejudice when she hears the human approach. Even after all these years of living the charade, Bella still has to remind herself not to look up until it’s appropriate, until she hears his polite cough.

    It’s a boy, probably somewhere in his late teens or early twenties, with glasses and an untidy mop of bronze hair. Bella watches his green eyes widen as he takes in her appearance. So much for dressing down and blending in today.

    “Um. Pardon me, miss, but I just wanted to let you know that we closed five minutes ago,” he stammers. Bella bites back her smile. He’s blushing. It’s kind of cute. (She ignores the stirrings of thirst low in her throat.)

    “I’m sorry—I lost track of time.” She explains. A quick scan with her senses tells her she’s the only customer left—how embarrassing. This poor kid probably wants to lock up and go home, and here she is, head in the clouds, forcing him to stay late.

    “It’s fine,” insists the boy. “I don’t mean to rush you. I just didn’t want you to be alarmed that the door is locked.”

    “No, no, I won’t keep you any longer. I’ll just pay for these, if that’s okay,” says Bella, feeling the odd urge to blush herself. Is he always so accommodating, or is he making an exception for the pretty stranger?

    “Of course. It’s, um, right over here.”

    Bella follows him to the register, the one area of the shop she hasn’t explored yet. Now she sees her folly—she should have started here. There’s a great glass-encased shelf behind the cash wrap, locked, full of what look like the oldest and best-preserved volumes in the store. All the special, exceptional books must be here—a store this meticulously curated is bound to have some signed copies, a few first editions. Just looking at the ornate spines and gilded pages sends a shiver of greedy excitement down Bella’s spine. She’ll have to come back sometime for a closer examination.

    The human boy rings up her purchase. Bella likes the way he packs her books into the bag—gingerly, as though each one is a rare exotic fruit he and mustn’t allow them to bruise. He slides a bright green flier into the cover of Little Women.

    “Your shop is beautiful,” offers Bella as she hands him her credit card.

    “Oh, thanks.” He fumbles the credit card swipe, tries again. “It’s my parents’ shop, really,” he admits, eyes downcast as if it’s crucial that he watch the machine print her receipt. His eyelashes are the same red-bronze color as his hair. “I just help out Tuesday through Friday, and run some of the programs.”

    “Programs?”

    “Book clubs, mainly. They’re all listed on the flier.” He tucks Bella’s receipt into the bag. “I’m Edward Masen, by the way.”

    “Bella Cullen,” says Bella. She bites her lip and holds in a wince as she takes his proffered hand. It’s always a little disappointing to watch humans flinch from her cold skin.

    But Edward doesn’t flinch. “Is that short for Isabella?” he asks, passing her the bag of books.

    “Yes,” says Bella, letting her arm sag as if it’s heavy. “But no one’s called me that in a century.” She grins at her little joke, and though Edward can’t possibly understand what’s so funny, he smiles crookedly back.

    When Bella gets home and opens Little Women, the flier almost falls out. It’s such a lurid shade of neon that she has to stop herself from comparing it to the calm, sea-glass hue of Edward’s eyes. What a strange, errant thought.

    The list includes a study group and four different book clubs. Bella’s eyes are drawn to the last one:

New this fall!

Come read and discuss Romantic poetry

Thursday evenings from 6-8

BYO refreshments

    She thinks of the well-worn copy of Keats’  Realms of Gold, and Other Works that has never left the end table in her bed-less bedroom, and of the time she tried to discuss it with Carlisle and was interrupted by Emmett and Jasper crashing through two walls and a dining table. It’s a stark contrast with the memory of Edward, handling each of her books with fastidious care.

    Maybe it would be nice to have a reason to leave the house once in a while (the high school charade definitely doesn’t count.) And maybe it would be nice to hear some new people’s opinions. Maybe a book club is exactly what she needs.